Speaker 1: This is a studio both and production.
Speaker 2: You gotta be more curious about the cashes and stuff
now too. You know how many cashes are there in Washington, Washington.
Speaker 3: United States, Canada.
Speaker 4: Idea with cashes is to have something everywhere wherever.
Speaker 3: You might never know when you're gonna fil the need.
Speaker 5: I'm not.
Speaker 2: Tight, stay home kind of guy.
Speaker 6: So there's a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Well a dozen't no, jees is nothing that won't be
that hard. Yeah, we got that. I'm many in Washington.
One relative? How about the least one in Washington at
least one.
Speaker 3: Is there one that's not relative that we could look for.
Speaker 7: No, they're all relative, really relevant to I.
Speaker 2: Know you said there's one in Washington relevant to stuff
we may be talking about in the future.
Speaker 6: But yeah, well they're all relevant.
Speaker 2: That's what you have them for, right right.
Speaker 1: This is true crime bullshit. I'm your host, Josh Hallmark,
and this is a serialized story of Israel Keys.
Speaker 6: I think we already talked about this, but even that,
you were never questioned by law enforcement about why you were.
Speaker 2: Ever at any of these places or anything.
Speaker 3: Well, like I said, casually by law enforcement, like they
would see you at a trailhead and just right small
talk with you, right, yeah, where you hear to fish
or you hear the eye, those kind of things, right,
like you see your fishing license, right, And I usually
had everything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I always had all that stuff.
Speaker 2: I honestly a lot of times.
Speaker 8: That's what I wasn't.
Speaker 6: Doing, Like, yeah, first far back, because.
Speaker 4: I can remember it, you know, that's where I get
a lot of the ideas, either fishing or out hunting.
Speaker 9: And thinking of them, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Stalk them through the woods and see somebody in the
woods they don't see you.
Speaker 6: Sit there and watch them for a while.
Speaker 7: And I can remember doing that sometime I was like
thirteen or fourteen years old, thinking you.
Speaker 3: Could just or just the fact that you're able to
watch them and they don't know you're watching them.
Speaker 6: Right, And then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, I just that's always.
Speaker 4: That was always the most comfortable scenario for me, because
it's win win situation.
Speaker 7: I'm not hunting or fishing, and if the opportunity comes up,
then take it.
Speaker 6: If it doesn't, it's not like it's.
Speaker 1: You're out anything. When I first started looking into the
case of Stephen Michael Mason, who went by Mike, there
wasn't a lot of information about him or his disappearance
available online or in the media. Then, about two weeks
after I connected him and Keys to the same VFW
and SQUIM, I finally received the case files from Clllam County,
and the overwhelming feeling I had while reviewing those files
was one of surprise. I was surprised this case didn't
get much media attention. It's incredibly complex and, for lack
of a much better word, fascinating, and when looked at
through the lens of Israel Keys, even more so. In
a lot of ways, Keys and Mike Mason were very similar,
and the timeline of Mason's disappearance is as murky as
the timeline of Keyes himself, particularly that particular week, Mike
Mason disappeared at the confluence of two rivers while camping
at what local police described as a secret campground used
almost exclusively by vets and survivalists, approximately one mile from
where Keys was known to have gone shooting, an off
map unofficial shooting range known mostly to local vets and survivalists.
Like Keys, Mike was a veteran and survivalist, and he
used caches a lot, although for far less nefarious purposes
than Keys, Mike was well acquainted with the woods surrounding
Squim and Port Angelus, and by all accounts, spent a
significant amount of time in them, camping, hiking, hunting, fishing,
gold panning, and cashing. The fifty two year old was
originally from eastern Washington, like Keys, but he and his wife, Berwin,
relocated to Squim at some point in either the late
nineties or early oughts. Also, like Keys, by all accounts,
Mike and Berwin had a tumultuous relationship that was fueled
by alcohol. Everyone interviewed referred to both of them as alcoholics,
and those interviews paint a clear picture of a lifestyle
which centered mostly around the VFW, where Mike worked as
a handyman, and where both he and Berwyn spent a
significant amount of time drinking, and that leads us to
one of the biggest issues with the timeline and details
surrounding this case. Almost everyone involved had been drinking, and
of the six major witnesses, no one ever saw Mike
at the same time. Each witness account occurs during a
different period during the four days Mike was last seen.
The second issue is that it's unclear when exactly Mike disappeared.
All that's known is Mike and Berwin went camping on
June twentieth, got into an argument, and Berwyn left. Several
witnesses saw Mike at the campgrounds over the next few days,
and then people just stopped seeing him and he never
came home. The third issue is Mike's caches, for which
he was prolific, So Mike's possessions were found hidden throughout
the surrounding woods, with no clarity on what was placed
with intention or when it was placed. There's also the
issue of a significant amount of unsubstantiated hearsay, mostly amongst
people who knew Mike in Eastern Washington and Mike's drinking
buddies at the VFW. And then there's the issue that
one of the witnesses is now dead. So I'll be
focusing on the five witness statements. Two of those witnesses
were a couple, and the timeline that local law enforcement
built using those statements, a timeline which in my opinion,
is flawed, and we'll break that down too. Local law
enforcement interviewed seven eye witnesses who saw or believe they
saw Mike at the campground he disappeared from. During the
week of his disappearance. They used those six witness statements,
along with a seventh statement from a woman who worked
at the VFW, to create a timeline. Unfortunately, the most
critical witness, Mike's wife, Berwin, was drunk when she last
saw Mike, when she reported a missing and when she
was first interviewed by police. This is the timeline law
enforcement built. On June twentieth of two thousand six, Mike
and Berwind drove fifteen miles from their home in Squim
to the National Forest Dungeness two Forks campground on Fire
Service Road twenty eight eighty for a planned overnight camping
trip to celebrate Berwin's birthday. Reportedly, Mike had camped in
the same area the week prior. The pair arrived at
the campground at around noon. Over the course of the
next hour, they drank beer and champagne while setting up
their camp site, and over that period the two began
to argue. According to Berwin, she was moving too slowly,
which was frustrating Mike, and the frustration on both sides
eventually boiled over. The argument got so bad that at
some point between twelve forty five and four forty five,
depending on when you ask, Berwin, Mike stormed off into
the woods, and Berwin made her way to the highway
and hitchhiked back to town, eventually making her way to
the vf W. On June twenty first, a mutual friend
of the couple, Tom, who lived several miles from the
campgrounds and knew the Masons through the vf W, reported
that around five a m Mike dropped off Berwin's purse
and his truck for Berwin to pick up. Tom then
drove Mike, who planned a camp for several more days,
back to the campground. While at the campground, Mike took
Tom to a more isolated campsite, where he retrieved two
buried guns and several caches of food. Tom left the
campground shortly thereafter, reporting that he last saw Mike walking
back into the woods from the campsite with one of
his cased guns, a double barrel twenty caliber shotgun propped
over his shoulder. Later that same day, at around three
or four pm, Mike met and spoke with a couple
the Loots, who had set up camp nearby. Oddly, he
introduced himself as Mike Kennedy. Kennedy is Berwin's maiden name.
The Loots reported that they had returned from a hike
at around three pm and discovered that someone had rifled
through their camp, stealing a camp chair and spilling beer
all over their tent and sleeping bags. About thirty minutes
after discovering the theft, Mike introduced himself and reported that
he'd just discovered that someone broke a vent window on
his truck in what appeared to be an attempt at burglary.
He said he'd seen an orange pickup truck hastily leaving
the area and assumed that that was the perpetrator of
both crimes. And two things need to be pointed out. First,
according to Tom, Mike had already dropped his truck off
at his house earlier that morning. And Second, in a
later interview, unprompted, Tom says that the truck drop off
occurred on the twenty second, not the twenty first. On
June twenty third, at around eight a m an acquaintance
of Mike's, Jerry, visited him at the campground. Jerry and
Mike also knew each other through the vf W. According
to Jerry, he and Mike shared a beer and Mike
talked mostly about going gold panning at the river and
how cold the previous night had been. Jerry offered to
give Mike a ride back into town, but Mike declined
and said that some guy was going to pick him
up from the campsite at around nine a m. And
that was the last confirmed sighting of Mike. On June
twenty eighth, eight days after Mike and Berwin first set
up camp, Berwin and Mike's father separately reported him missing
at eight twenty a m. And nine thirty five p m. Respectively.
They each reported that he failed to return home from
a camping trip and that he had fishing gear, firearms,
camping gear, and food stored in the area of the
camp site. That same day, Mike's parents and son made
the three hundred twenty mile trek from Pasco, Washington to
Squim to help look for Mike. On June twenty ninth,
Klalam County Search and Rescue conducted a two day search
of the area, which included assistance from the Coast Guard
and Mike's friends and family. That search recovered most of
Mike's personal belongings, along with multiple caches of food and clothing,
but found no trace of Mike or his two guns.
The most ominous recovery was a pile of wet clothing
and personal articles belonged to Mike found along the banks
of the Dungeness River. Oddly enough, there was a final,
unconfirmed sighting of Mike at the campgrounds on June thirtieth,
in the midst of the two day search. On June thirtieth,
a local woman named Christel reported seeing Mike at a
bridge near the entrance of the campgrounds. She recognized him
as both a repeat customer at the outpost where she
worked and from his picture in several local newspaper articles
detailing the search and rescue efforts. What's so strange about
this sighting is that Christel was aware Mike was missing,
but didn't report the sighting until July fourteenth, especially considering
law enforcement returned to the campground with Mike's friend Tom
on July first, while Cristel was still camping on site.
Tom accompanied deputies to the campground that morning to show
them where Mike had set up camp following Berwin's departure.
The new camp site was located along an overgrown footpath
approximately one tenth of a mile west of his original campsite.
About thirty yards further down the footpath, a deputy located
a blue denim jacket covered with pine needles in the
adjacent woods. Beneath it, they uncovered what appeared to be
one of Mike's food caches, a cache that clearly hadn't
been touched for weeks. At the campsite, they found a
lean to fabricated with sapling branches, a small fire pit,
and a food can hidden in a tree. There were
no other signs of any recent camping in the area.
As I mentioned previously, during the search of the area
surrounding the campground, some of Mike's wet clothing and belongings
were found along the river bank. Specifically, a dark green
plaid wool jacket was found laying on a rock along
the river's edge downstream from the campground. Inside the jacket's pockets,
investigators found a belt buckle with the name Don Mason
on it. Don is Mike's father, a bag of cigarette tobacco,
a cigarette hand rolling machine, miscellaneous fishing gear, a pair
of sunglasses, a small white sock, a razor, two live
twenty gage shotgun shells, seventeen live twenty two caliber rounds,
a two thousand five fishing license issued to a man
named Troy, and a piece of paper with the name
and phone number of a man named Randy, along with
handwritten directions to an undetermined location. And it was that
jacket and these items that would simultaneously lead investigators to
key witnesses and further shroud Mike's disappearance in Mystery True
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The first official police interview took place on June twenty
ninth at eight thirty pm, when deputies arrived at a
mutual friend of the Mason's Viney Money's house, where Berwin
had been staying following Mike's disappearance. According to the interviewing deputy,
Berwin appeared to be extremely intoxicated and at a hard
time walking or even balancing while standing up. Her eyes
were bloodshot and watery, her breath smelled of alcohol, and
her speech was slurred. Berwin was interviewed in the driveway
of Vinet's home off Kitchen Dick Road. Mike's truck was
parked in the driveway, and deputy noted that it was
full of camping gear, the windshield was cracked, and a
side vent window had been broken. Berwin told investigators that
she and Mike had been married off and on for
twenty eight years. She said they married in nineteen eighty two,
divorced in eighty three, remarried in ninety seven, and had
been separated for the past two weeks. She said that
she last saw Mike on June twentieth at around twelve
forty five, when he walked away from her while setting
up their camp site. She said it was a campground
they had been to numerous times before. She said that
essentially from the time they arrived, they were arguing, but
she couldn't remember what exactly they were arguing about, other
than Mike being frustrated with how slowly she was moving
and setting up camp. She said that Mike had a
temper from hell, but stressed that he wasn't suicidal. She
said Mike walked away from her very upset during the argument.
He was carrying a lawn chair and a shotgun at
the time. She told deputies that Mike had gone gold
panning at that particular campsite three different times in the
past two months. She said that the last time she
saw Mike, he was wearing a heavy camouflaged jacket, blue jeans,
hiking boots, and a red and black flannel shirt. Berwin
expressed concern that Mike didn't know the river well, despite
having gone gold panning and fishing there previously. She also
said that the longest her husband had ever stayed at
the river was five days. She told investigators that Mike
had locked his keys in his truck, so she walked
up the road from the campground to get a ride.
Following the argument, she said a man drove her from
nearby the campground to the highway, where her brother picked
her up and drove her to the VFW in Squim.
She stayed at the VFW until around six thirty, when
she got a ride home from her friend Vinet. In
that same interview, Berwin contradicted herself, saying that on the twentieth,
at around four thirty p m. She returned to the
campsite and that's when she broke the window of Mike's
truck in an attempt to get his keys out. When
asked about her contradicting stories, Berwin just stared, looking confused
at the deputy to reiterate she was so drunk during
this interview that she couldn't stand up street. She told
deputies that their friend Tom was the last person to
see Mike. In a follow up call on July first,
Berwin told officers that she broke the vent window on
Mike's truck before leaving the campground. She said that after
breaking the window, she still couldn't get into the truck,
so she started walking home and made it several miles
before getting a ride from the passerby. She said she
went to Tom's house the following day, which would have been Wednesday,
June twenty first, to pick up the truck and her purse.
After picking up the truck, she drove back to the campsite,
but didn't see Mike. Whihile at the campsite, she saw
a couple of camp chairs that she couldn't identify, but
thought might have been chairs that she had borrowed from
her mother, so she took those with her when she left.
She then returned to the campground a final time on
June twenty eighth to look for Mike, but couldn't find him,
and a second call the following day, Berwin told officers
that a frequent patron at the VFW named Jerry told
her that he ran into Mike at the campground on Friday,
June twenty third and had a beer with him, which
would make Jerry the last person to have seen Mike
and not Tom. During this call, Berwin also remembered that
Mike had been making bracelets for several family members while
at the campsite. No such bracelets were ever recovered from
the campgrounds, the woods, the cach's or Mike's truck. Later,
when shown photos of the green jacket found along the river,
Berwin didn't recognize the jacket, but did Reckon recognized the
belt buckle. She told investigators that the package of tobacco
and the cigarette rolling device did not belong to Mike.
Mike only smoked camel lights and Marlborough cigarettes. When shown
a piece of paper with Randy's phone number on it,
she said she recognized it, then grabbed the paper from
the deputy's hand and tried to put it in her pocket.
The deputy retrieved the paper from her and concluded the interview.
It's believed that in both follow up calls and during
this meeting, Berwin was also drunk. On June thirtieth, Between
Berwin's initial statement on Kitchen Dick Road and her follow
up calls with investigators, an officer interviewed Tom. Tom initially
told the officer that Mike arrived at his house on Wednesday,
June twenty first, at around five thirty a m. He
would later correct himself to say that this occurred on Thursday,
June twenty second, at five thirty am. He said that
he immediately noticed Mike's truck's passenger sidevent window had been broken.
Mike told Tom that he and Berwin had been camping
and gotten into an argument, and that Berwin left the area.
Mike asked if he could leave his truck at Tom's
along with Berwin's purse for her to pick up at
some point later that day. Tom agreed, and the two
had a couple cups of coffee before Tom drove Mike
back to the campsite, where Mike said he planned to
stay out in the woods for a few more days.
Upon arriving at the Mason's campsite, Mike took Tom to
the second campsite, deeper in the woods, where they'd later
find the food caches and the lean to. While there,
Mike retrieved his cashed shotgun, which Tom last saw him
walking off into the woods carrying. Tom reported that Mike
was wearing a heavy dark jacket, blue jeans, a baseball cap,
and dark tennis shoes, and that he didn't appear to
be in bad spirits despite the fight with Berwin, and asked,
he said that he didn't believe Mike would do anything
to hurt himself. Tom said he returned to the campsite
twice to check on Mike. He couldn't find Mike nor
most of his camping supplies on either trip. All that
remained was some food and a phishing pole, and on
his second trip out he took the fishing pole with
him for safe keeping. Tom told the officer that Mike
had many food caches hidden throughout the woods, and later
that night, Tom accompanied deputies back to the campground in
an effort to find Mike's second campsite, but they couldn't
locate it due to it being in such a densely
wooded area and because of the darkness of the night's search.
On July seventh, the Lutes, the couple who camped near
Mike the week he disappeared, submitted a written statement to investigators.
It reads as follows. The event below is what we
the Lutes, remember about meeting a man who called himself
Mike Kennedy at the Two Forks campground on the afternoon
of June twenty first, two thousand and six. At approximately
three pm. On the afternoon of June twentieth, we arrived
at the Two Forks campground at approximately four thirty pm.
We set up camp at Site number four. For the
next two nights, we were sleeping in a tent and
camping out of our car. We first noticed the late
model Bronco truck parked in an adjacent site, but didn't
see anyone or a camp The truck was parked there
all night, but early the next morning the Bronco had
been moved across the bridge and on to the other
side of the river from the campground. We noticed it
parked there that morning as we left for the day.
We spent the day driving on the back roads and
drove to the Tubulcane trailhead. We returned to our camp
at about four pm to find our tent had been
rifled through and our personal bag searched. One backpack containing
two green rain suits and one small Coleman camp chair
were stolen. Fresh beer had been spilled on the bed
and some clothing, and at the point we entered the tent,
the beer was still quite wet, as if it had
just happened. We immediately looked around the campground and saw
we were the only ones there. About half an hour later,
a man calling himself Mike Kennedy walked into our camp.
He asked if we saw anyone around because his Bronco
had been broken into. He then said he had seen
two guys in an older orange pickup truck driving away
as he was walking up to his truck. It was
right after that when he realized they might have broken
his windshield and his passenger wing window in an attempt
to break in. We must have talked for over an
hour about different things. He said he was back there prospecting,
and that during the day he was looking for conks
on old dead trees because the river was running so high.
He said he had a camp set up in the
woods between the river and the road, and that he
was moving the Bronco around to avoid the ten dollars
per day camping fee. He said he could not drive
the Otto because air lights came on, even though it
would run. He said he called a friend who lived
on Jimmy cum Lately Road to come help him. All
the time we were talking to him, he was looking
back at the road as if he was expecting his
friend to come and didn't want to miss him. We
never did see the friend, and after a while he
went back to the Bronco. About half an hour later,
we walked over the bridge to the Bronco and Mike
was there. We looked at his broken windows and glass
on the ground that Mike suggested was from another car
that had been broken into. Mike mentioned that he thought
the person that broke in might have known him, because
someone knew where to look to find his gun. He
was worried about leaving his truck there, and we said
he could park it in our site that night, as
we would be there until ten The next morning. He
moved his Broncho over to our site and parked it
and left. The next morning. We got up at around
eight a m. And the Bronco was gone. About an
hour later, Mike came by the camp and said he
moved the truck to the top of the hill because
a car hauler was coming to get it. We talked
for about twenty minutes while we were breaking up camp,
and then he left. We then returned to our home
in Dungeoness. We left two forks at around nine am
on Thursday, June twenty second. Here are two photos taken
without Mike's knowledge. Both were taken at about seven pm
on Wednesday, June twenty first. The first of the two
photos is a backshot of Mike sitting in the Lut's campsite.
In it, he's wearing a dark colored baseball cap and
a red and black plaid shirt. The second photo is
of Mike's campsite that he built deep in the woods,
which includes the lean to he built out of sapling branches,
the campfire, and two camp chairs. Draped over one of
the camp chairs as a solid dark teal jacket, which
the Lute's note was a jacket he was wearing the
last time they saw him on Thursday morning, and it
should be noted that the man from when Jimmy cum
Lately rowed that Mike told the Lutes was coming to
pick him up was most likely Tom, who lived on
Jimmy cum Lately Road. On July thirteenth, at three p m,
deputies located and interviewed Jerry, the VFW regular who, according
to Berwin, shared a beer with Mike at the campground
on June twenty third. Jerry informed the deputy that he
last saw Mike on Friday, June twenty third, when he
ran into him at the Two Forks campground while scouting
out the area for good fishing spots. He said he
visited with Mason at the campground at around eight am,
Mike told him that some guy was coming to get him.
At around nine am that same day, when he saw Mike,
Mike was wearing a heavier coat, but he wasn't initially
able to provide a more detailed description of the coat.
Jerry told the deputy that when he had gone up
to look at the river a few beers with him,
Mike offered to buy one off of him, but Jerry
declined his payment and gave him the beer for free.
He recalled telling Mike about a fishing hole near an
old log jam about three miles up river. Mike told
him he had been doing some gold panning, which Jerry
thought was strange because the river was running pretty fast.
When he saw Mike that morning, he noticed a rifle
leaning against a tree, a backpack, and sleeping bags. Jerry
said that he knew Mike through the VFW, but didn't
know him that well. He told the deputy that he
knew Mike to be a moody person. While speaking further
with Jerry about the coat Mike was wearing, Jerry described
it as a wool jacket or coat with some green
in it. He said that Mike usually wore a Levi's jacket.
Jerry knew that Mike must have been having trouble at
home or else he wouldn't have been in the woods alone.
He said that Mike didn't mention fishing to him, He
just discussed gold panning, and he told the deputies that
he heard about a week after he visited with Mason
at the campground that Mason was seen at the Tubulcane trailhead.
He said he heard this from someone at the VFW,
but couldn't recall who. It's unclear in the case files,
how but investigators eventually determined that the person who allegedly
saw Mike at the campground a week after Jerry was
a woman named Cristel, who worked at an outpost to
block away from the VFW. Police located and interviewed Crystal
on July fourteenth. Cristel stated that she believed she saw
Mike at the campground on the weekend before fourth of
July while she was camping there. She stated that she
arrived at the campground at around five pm on Friday,
June thirtieth, and that a man resembling Mike was sitting
on the bridge near the campground's entrance. She stated that
she saw two camp chairs set up in the camping
site just before the bridge, which she believed belonged to Mike.
She stated that she and her husband arrived at the
campground separately, and that her husband zeb arrived before she did,
but she doesn't believe Zeb ever encountered Mike while there.
She recalled that at the time, the man she believed
to be Mike was wearing a black and white flannel coat,
a baseball cap, and jeans. She stated that Mike appeared
pretty intoxicated. Cristel said that a lot of weird stuff
happened at the campground that weekend. She had seen a
couple of fights break out and that forest service had
to eventually come up to break one up. She didn't
know who was involved in the fights. She also stated
that her husband's wallet disappeared while they were camping. Cristel
told police that she recognized Mike as both a regular
customer at the outpost as well as from his photos
in the newspapers. Those are the five versions of events
that influenced local law enforcement. It's timeline, and as you
may have noticed, there are some major discrepancies amongst those stories,
and those discrepancies cent her mostly around Mike's broncho and
several camping chairs to review. Berwin says she last saw
Mike at around twelve forty five p m on June twentieth,
when she stormed out of the campground. She walked and
hitchhiked to the v f W, where she stayed until
around six thirty p m. When she got a ride
home from Vinay. But then, in the same statement, she
says that she returned to the campsite at approximately four
thirty p m on June twentieth and broke in a
Mike's truck in an attempt to get his keys, and finally,
she says, she picked up Mike's truck from Tom on
June twenty first and drove back to the campsite, but
didn't see Mike. While at the camp site, she saw
a couple of camp chairs that she couldn't identify but
thought might have been chairs that belonged to her mother,
so she took them when she left. Tom says Mike
dropped his broncho off at his house on June twenty
second at around five thirty a m. Not the twenty first,
when Berwin reportedly picked it up from him, and that
when Mike dropped the truck off, Its windshield was cracked,
and the passenger side vent window was broken. The Lutes
say when they first encountered Mike at around three p m.
On the twenty first, their camp had just been broken into,
with a camp chair being stolen, and Mike's truck had
also just been broken into. They reported that Mike's truck
remained in the area until the early morning hours of
the twenty second, and that when they left on the
morning of the twenty third, Mike's second camp was still standing,
which included two camping chairs. Jerry says when he ran
into Mike on the twenty third, there were no camping
chairs at his secondary camping location. And then there's Crystal statement,
which has a lot of issues. Cristel alleges she saw
Mike on June thirtieth and that both camp chairs were present. However,
on the thirtieth, Search and Rescue, the Coast Guard, and
Mike's friends and family were searching the campground all day
and no one else, including Cristel's husband, saw Mike there
that day or at any point following Jerry's visit with
him on the twenty third. Christel also says she recognized
Mike from his pictures in the news, yet didn't report
the sighting for two weeks when the police approached her.
I don't quite know what to make of crystal statements,
but I do have a very hard time believing that
she saw him casually hanging out at the entrance to
the campground on the same day that close to fifty
people and a helicopter were searching the area for him,
and a search of this magnitude seems like something that
might stick out in someone's mind. But I do have
a theory regarding the discrepancies amongst the other witness's statements.
Berwin tells investigators that she hitch hyped to the VFW
on the twentieth, then got a ride home from Viney,
which Venet corroborated. More on that in a minute. So
with corroboration that Berwin was at the VFW, as well
as her having no reliable method to return to the
campsite that afternoon, it seems unlikely that Berwin returned to
the campsite and broke into the truck on the twentieth.
It also seems unlikely that Berwin retrieved the car on
the twenty first from Tom. Both Tom and the Lutes
gave fairly detailed accounts that seemed to indicate Mike took
the car to Tom's on the morning of the twenty second,
at which point the windows had already been broken. In fact,
the windows appear to have been smashed on the twenty
second in conjunction with the Lute's camp site being ransacked
and their camp chair stolen. And while Berwin claimed she
took two camp chairs on her second visit out to
the campground, the one thing that remains consistent across all
interviews is that Mike's camp chairs stayed with him the
whole time. So here's the timeline I've built in short order.
On six twenty, Berwin and Mike arrive at the campground
at noon, immediately begin drinking and subsequently fighting, and Berwin
leaves at some point between twelve forty five and four thirty,
at which point Mike begins moving their campsite to the
more remote location in the woods. When the Lutes first
arrive around four that day, they don't see any campers nearby,
and their campsite was the closest to Mike and Berwin's.
On six twenty one, Berwin somehow gets back to the
campground and attempts to get the truck. At this point,
two things have changed since she drunkenly left. Mike has
relocated into the woods, and the LUTs have arrived in
set up camp near the initial campsite. Berwin says she
sees camp chairs that she doesn't immediately recognize but assumes
are her parents and takes them. The LUTs report a
stolen camp chair and beer spilled on their belongings. It
seems likely to me that Berwin mistook the LUTs campsite
as Mike's went through it, spilled beer everywhere, and absconded
with their camp chair. She then tries to break into
the Broncho by breaking the passenger side vent window, but
fails to gain access and leaves. On six twenty two,
Mike drops the truck and Berwin's purse off with Tom
before returning to the campground. He then sees the Lutes
off as they end their camping trip. On six twenty three,
Jerry runs into Mike at the campground and Mike tells
him that some guy is coming to pick him up
at nine, and that's the last confirmed sighting of Mike
before Crystal alleges to see him a week later during
the search of the campground. The most compelling piece of
evidence in Mike's disappearance was the wet jacket found on
the river bank, which contained someone else's fishing license, items
belonging to Mike, a man named Randy's phone number, and
directions to an undetermined location, live shotgun rounds, a cigarette
rolling machine, tobacco live rounds to a twenty two caliber handgun,
and a piece of paper with the following names written
in Mike's handwriting, Mohammed Ali, Joe Namath, and Tony Stewart.
Now I've deliberately said the jacket and not Mike's jacket,
because no one interviewed recognizes the jacket as Mike's. Police
were able to track down and interview both Randy and Troy,
the man the fishing license was issued to. On July seventh,
deputies contacted Randy, who confirmed that he knew Mike and
had last spoken to him about a month prior. When
Mike asked him if he knew where he could get
a pack mule, Randy put him in touch with someone
who was selling a pack mule, and the directions found
in the jacket pocket were directions to that man's house.
On July fourteen, two thousand and six, at eight twenty
eight am police interview Troy. Troy stated that he last
saw Mike at the VFW prior to his camping trip.
He also confirmed that it wouldn't be out of the
ordinary for Mike to have his fishing license since the
two frequently fished together, and further investigation found that Mike's
fishing license had expired in two thousand four, so it's
possible that Troy let Mike use his while he was
fishing alone. The final formal interview conducted was on March
first of two thousand seven with the Nay Money, the
mutual friend of Berwin and Mike's, who worked at the VFW.
Money stated that she thought about Mike every day. She
said that about two weeks before he disappeared, she took
him up to Tufk's campground. She said that he was
upset and took most of his clothing and guns out
into the woods. She said that she was worried about him,
but he told her that she didn't need to. She
said that he was gone for twenty four hours on
that particular trip and that when he returned everything was fine.
She said that Mike and Berwin were in the process
of separating when Money took him to the river that day.
She also mirrored other statements in saying that Berwin and
Mike were both alcoholics. She then specified that Mike could
quit drinking whenever he wanted to, but Berwin could not.
She would essentially just drink until she became incapacitated. She
told officers that on the weekend she dropped Mike off
in the woods. He told her that he didn't want
to stick around and watch Berwin drink herself to death.
Viney also told police that at some point between her
dropping him off in the woods and his eventual disappearance,
Mike spent a night at her house following a fight
with Berwin, and she confirmed that Berwin stayed with her
after Mike disappeared. She arrived on June twenty first, the
day after their fight, and was visibly upset about the fight.
When Mike went missing. Viney asked Berwin if she pushed
Mike into the river or did anything to hurt him, and,
according to Vinay, Berwin said that if she was going
to kill Mike, she would have done it twenty five
years ago. Money said that she was upset that so
many of Mike's so called friends from the v f
W never went to help look for him. She said
that she didn't expect that he was alive and presumed
he was either eaten by a bear or fell into
the river. Her biggest concern was that neither his guns
nor his remains had been found, but that his belt
buckle was. She said that he never took that belt
buckle off. Money also discussed her concerns about Berwin. She
said that she eventually asked Berwin to move out of
her house because her drinking was so excessive. She said
that shortly after Mike's disappe appearance, Berwin began seeing two
different men. She said that for the last four months,
Berwin had been drinking more than usual, and she figured
it was either a guilty conscience or the realization that
she'd probably never see Mike again. Keyes's timeline during the
week of Mason's disappearance is at a minimum, incredibly suspicious.
On Thursday, June twenty second, the day Mike dropped his
truck off with Tom before returning to the campground, Keyes
was gone all day he later told friends that he
was picking up an ATV in Richfield, Oregon, And as
we've discussed at length, there's no record of Keyes ever
having owning, buying, transporting, or even borrowing an ATV, and Richfield,
Oregon isn't a real place, So all we know about
his whereabouts that day is that no one saw him
all day, he didn't go to work, and his explanation
for his absence was a lie. On Friday, June twenty third,
the day of Mike's last confirmed sighting, at around eight
a m by, Jerry Keyes was again absent from work
and out of sight all day. According to interviews with
his friend A. On the night of the twenty third,
he arrived at a bonfire pretty late in the evening,
and A noted that he was noticeably quiet and distant
for most of the night. At one point, he attempted
to brand himself with a metal rod, but A and
their friends intervened. She said he was in a strange
days throughout the entire incident. She told investigators that this
was the only time she'd ever seen Keys exhibit behavior
that was really odd, and that in hindsight, it was unnerving.
Speaker 7: Washington was a lot easier in a lot of ways,
because once I lived out in the Bay, I knew
all of Washington pretty.
Speaker 2: Well, and except I was so isolated out there.
Speaker 7: Once you drive past Port Angelis, it's like you're in
a new world.
Speaker 1: Anyway, So what's that whole part.
Speaker 8: There's a whole set of mountains right there, right that
separates in the bay.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the Olympic well there the Olympic Grange is.
Speaker 6: There's mountains everywhere out there.
Speaker 3: But you don't really have to go over any mountain.
Speaker 6: Passes or anything to go to Seattle.
Speaker 7: But right right, no, not to get but there is
that apartment or oh yeah in this area, Yeah, there's
Once I.
Speaker 6: Had the boat, it was uh.
Speaker 7: By then, I was pretty much coasting on my job,
so I would take off for long weekends, you know.
Speaker 8: My accountability was.
Speaker 1: On June twenty fourth, a Keys and their friends took
Keys's bay Liner boat out to Lake Ozette. It's the
last reported use of the boat. While there, the back
motor blew a rod and they ended up stranded on
the lake for several hours. A is pretty certain this
was the last time the bay Liner took to water,
and that Keys never attempted to fix it before eventually
hauling it to Dave's house prior to his move to
Alaska eight months later. It appears sometimes shortly following Mike's disappearance,
Keys left town. There's a gap in his time line
starting on June twenty fifth and ending on July tenth,
when he either rents or returns a Hurtz rental car
at an unknown location, Then on July eleventh, based on
financial records, he's in Port Angelus pretty much all day.
And while there is no direct evidence placing Keys in
the area when Mason disappeared, nor actual evidence that Keys
knew or was acquainted with Mason, there are certainly a
lot of coincidences at play here beyond what we know
about Keys's m O at this stage of his murders.
Let's start with the obvious. The vf W Keyes was
a member of the VFW that Mike worked at, was
a member of, and spent a majority of his time in.
In fact, both Mike and Berwin's lives were pretty much
rooted in that VFW, and according to every VFW member interviewed,
not only was it common knowledge that Mike and occasionally
Berwin camped, cashed food, and guns, fished and goldpand in
that campground often. It was also common knowledge that Mike
was there alone the week you went missing. Everyone who
encountered him in the woods was an active member and
frequent visitor at the VFW. Keys and Mike also had
a lot in common. They were both handymen, they were
both survivalists, they were both avid outdoorsmen. They both cached,
and they both grew up in eastern Washington and moved
to the peninsula right around the same time. It's highly
likely their paths crossed multiple times at the VFW and
possibly beyond, and that takes us to the location Mike
disappeared from. Two Forks Campground. Two Forks Campground has been
described by both police and locals as a secret campground
used by vets and survivalists, of which Keys was both.
It's located approximately one mile upstream from where Keys went shooting.
And then there's the mo and statements made by Keys
about his murders. Keys abducted people from campgrounds, trailheads, fishing areas,
and specifically from federal land in Washington State. Two Forks
Campground is on federal land, and.
Speaker 3: Keep in mind the federal nexus that I talked about
in the National Park.
Speaker 6: I have to do some research on that.
Speaker 8: We could do that.
Speaker 2: Just give me, give me a couple of lakes Washington
is I don't even remember.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know all the places I went, and
I know that they are all public areas, but I
don't know which ones were state, which.
Speaker 8: Ones were federal. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I never really paid that much attention.
Speaker 5: You seem adamant that there's no possible federal nexus to
the Washington cases, and I'm just shocked because knowing the
peninsula like we do, there's so much federal land out there.
Special was the national forest, national parks, and you know,
my understanding then would be that nothing's happened on those
type of lands.
Speaker 6: I would be correct an understanding that, or no, I
just didn't.
Speaker 8: I didn't know that would.
Speaker 5: Qualify as a federal crime.
Speaker 3: If it's a national park or.
Speaker 5: National park or national forest, we could have jurisdiction on
a felony.
Speaker 4: So see this, all this stuff is the legal details,
all the cold new to me.
Speaker 8: But that's good.
Speaker 4: No, but that's possibility, okay.
Speaker 1: And then there's that Key's ideal victims were of smaller stature.
Mike Mason was five foot six and one hundred and
forty pounds. Keys targeted couples. Mike was originally there with Berwin,
and after Berwin left, a second older couple was camping nearby.
Most of Keyes's guns, specifically those were stolen from his victims.
All of Mike's belongings were recovered except for his guns.
Speaker 6: So what would your motivation be going in?
Speaker 3: What would you be looking for?
Speaker 1: What would you.
Speaker 6: Burglaries?
Speaker 3: I usually used jewelry and guns, small guns, smallish So
some of that are some of the guns that you
still have in places?
Speaker 6: Those guns? Or did you always get.
Speaker 8: Rid of those?
Speaker 3: M m.
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 6: I didn't get rid of them because I was.
Speaker 3: Worried about them getting uh tracked.
Speaker 2: So so you keep them, but you don't keep them
with you so that you're not caught with them.
Speaker 3: So you might have him in a cash somewhere and
then use.
Speaker 4: Them when you got you to limitations, like five or
seven years.
Speaker 1: Or something like that.
Speaker 8: I don't know, so you wait, I.
Speaker 2: Can't tell whether that's suppsed top beak joking you get
charged with that, or whether.
Speaker 3: So you hide him for the statue of limitations period
before you use it.
Speaker 6: Thinks it a lot less likely that I get tracked.
Speaker 1: And then there's the boat. Keyes killed at least two
people on his boat, one of which he admitted was
on Lake Crescent, forty miles from where Mike disappeared, and
it seems the FBI had suspicions about both Lake's Quinault
and Beaver one hundred and fifty and seventy miles from
the campground, respectively. During the search of Keyes's boat, he
told investigators there would likely be blood and or bone
frag in or around the motor, but he wouldn't specify why.
The day after Mike's last confirmed sighting, the motor in
Keys's boat abruptly broke, and rather than repairing it, he
never used it again and eventually abandoned it. And then
there's the Port Angelis cash. Keyes tells the FBI that
this cash is relevant to a Washington state crime. He
also alludes to it being buried on federal land. But
has always been suspicious to me about this particular cash, though,
is that Keys couldn't remember where it was, which I
call bullshit on Keyes was able by memory or with
the help of Google Maps, to direct the FBI to
caches in Essex, Vermont, Blake Falls Reservoir, and Eagle River, Alaska,
all in just a matter of several hours. Yet he
couldn't remember where this cash was buried. This cash, which
was admittedly relevant to crimes, He didn't want to discuss
this cash, which was buried in an area he lived
in for six years, And that to me means a
couple of things. The cash was in an area relative
to one of his crimes, and or the cash contained
evidence from one of his crimes. And to remind you,
keyes was looking for someone who disappeared the week of
June twentieth. The name is forty four. Includes Daniel Barter,
who disappeared on June eighteenth, nineteen fifty nine, Kristin Motaferi,
who disappeared on June twenty third, nineteen ninety seven, and
Lindsay Baum, who disappeared on June twenty sixth, two thousand
and nine. Berwin Mason moved back to eastern Washington about
six months after Mike disappeared. She was mostly co operative
with police throughout the entire investigation. On several occasions, she
urged the press to continue reporting on Mike's disappearance. She
maintained a relationship with Mike's mother. In fact, it was
Mike's mom who eventually urged Berwin to pursue a new relationship,
saying it was time she moved on. And while everyone
interviewed expressed some level of suspicion surrounding Berwin's extramarital activities
and alcohol abuse, they all fall short of blaming her
for Mike's disappearance, and that includes even her biggest critics.
Berwin died in twenty eighteen. Mike's remaining family still actively
engage with local law enforcement and hold them to account
in continuing in their search efforts for Mike's remains. Neither
Mike's guns nor the bracelets he was allegedly making for
family members wherever recovered. While the jacket found along the
river containing his belongings was wet, its contents were not,
so it doesn't appear that that jacket ever went into
the river. No one in Mike's life has ever been
able to make sense of the three names scrawled on
a piece of paper found inside the jacket. Mike never
purchased a pack mule from Randy's friend, and there's been
no clear explanation about why Mike would have lied to
the loots or used a fake name with them. However,
background searches show that Mike used several aliases, including Marlon Francis.
Items seized from Key's Anchorage home and the Blake Falls
Reservoir cash included a twenty two caliber handgun, a twenty
double barrel shotgun, and a handmade beaded bracelet and loose beads.
It's unclear if any have ever been traced back to
Mike or anyone else. For that matter, I have not
heard back from law enforcement since reporting the Keys of
f w connection.
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Speaker 9: Even mine.
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Speaker 8: Some day.
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Speaker 8: Some day.
Speaker 9: The wattle Rode sing Beanie only.
Speaker 1: One on the hill.
Speaker 8: To school.
Speaker 1: The count.
Speaker 8: School still to school, Stoo School still to full.
Speaker 9: Me