Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the unexplained death of Jack Wheeler. Robin,
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up and what we
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode?
Speaker 2: Well, this case was featured on the second season of
Speaker 2: Unsolved Mysteries that came out about four years ago. Jack
Speaker 2: Wheeler was sixty six years old, had a very distinguished
Speaker 2: career in Washington, d c. He had worked through three
Speaker 2: presidential administrations and he had all helped establish the Vietnam
Speaker 2: Veterans Memorial. But he also had struggles with depression and
Speaker 2: polar disorder, which he tried to control with medication. But
Speaker 2: shortly before New Year's Even twenty ten, he had been
Speaker 2: spending holidays with his family, but then decided to make
Speaker 2: an impromptu trip to Washington to continue working. But then,
Speaker 2: without telling anyone, he decided to go to Wilmington, Delaware,
Speaker 2: where he owned a second home. He had been having
Speaker 2: an obsessive argument over the construction of a house located
Speaker 2: across the street, and a neighbor wound up calling the
Speaker 2: fire department because they saw smoke there, but instead it
Speaker 2: turned out that someone had thrown smoke bombs trying to
Speaker 2: destroy the ye location, and they found Jack Wheeler's cell
Speaker 2: phone and they would eventually look inside his house and
Speaker 2: it appeared to have been broken into, but it appeared
Speaker 2: that Jack himself had caused the meths and possibly staged
Speaker 2: the burglary, and over the course of the next two days,
Speaker 2: he would be seen wandering around Wilmington, Delaware. He would
Speaker 2: be captured on security camera. He would interact with a
Speaker 2: lot of witnesses and they would say that he seemed
Speaker 2: very disoriented, that he was asking people for rides and
Speaker 2: going to locations he had no connection to, and his
Speaker 2: appearance would get gradually worse, and he was last seen
Speaker 2: heading towards the town of Newark, Delaware before he disappeared,
Speaker 2: and the morning of December the thirty first, twenty ten,
Speaker 2: they found his body in a landfill. His death was
Speaker 2: initially ruled to be a homicide due to blunt force
Speaker 2: trauma because he had a lot of injuries that were
Speaker 2: consistent with a beating, but they would gradually find out
Speaker 2: that he had somehow wound up inside a dumpster, so
Speaker 2: it was kind of ambiguous where his injuries caused. With
Speaker 2: an encounter with another person who severely beat him and
Speaker 2: put him in the dumpster, or the injuries caused by
Speaker 2: the trash compactor, and the medical examiner mistook these injuries
Speaker 2: for some sort of homicide. But of course, because Jack
Speaker 2: worked with the government, there have been a lot of
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories that someone was falling around and had him
Speaker 2: killed because of work he was doing. But it's also
Speaker 2: possible that there was no homicide at all, that his
Speaker 2: death was just a tragic accident, that he had gone
Speaker 2: off his medication, was having a manic episode because of
Speaker 2: his bipolar disorder, and then crawled into the dumpster before
Speaker 2: he died. But officially this is still considered to be
Speaker 2: a homicide that the exact circumstances of Jack's death are
Speaker 2: still unknown. So at our last episode, we discussed the
Speaker 2: skepticism that arose from the presentation of Jack Wheeler's case
Speaker 2: on the Unsolved Mysteries episode and whether or not they
Speaker 2: were fudging the facts in order to fit a narrative
Speaker 2: and add more mystery to the story. I think another
Speaker 2: thing which may have helped influence people's interpretation of this
Speaker 2: case is the release of the controversial true crime documentary
Speaker 2: series Crime Scene The Vanishing at The Cecil Hotel, which
Speaker 2: came out on Netflix in February of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: It chronicled the twenty thirteen death of twenty one year
Speaker 2: old Elisa Lamb, whose body was found inside a water
Speaker 2: tank on top of the roof of the Cecil Hotel
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles. The case attained a lot of notoriety
Speaker 2: in the true crime world because of the release of
Speaker 2: some security camera footage which showed a Lisa behaving erratically
Speaker 2: inside a hotel elevator shortly before her death, and once
Speaker 2: this video went viral, there were an endless amount of
Speaker 2: theories about what happened to her. Well. Much like Jack Wheeler,
Speaker 2: Alisa's struggled with bipolar disorder, and you can make a
Speaker 2: number of parallels between these two cases since they both
Speaker 2: involved victims displaying erratic behavior on camera before they wound
Speaker 2: up dead under odd circumstances. Now, even though I had
Speaker 2: received numerous requests to cover it on the Trail when Cold,
Speaker 2: I pretty much decided that I would never do an
Speaker 2: episode about the Elisa land case, as I always believed
Speaker 2: that Elisa blinded into the water tank on her own
Speaker 2: accord and her death was nothing more than a tragic
Speaker 2: accident brought on by a mental health crisis. Unlike many
Speaker 2: other cases of this ILK, Alisa's family shied away from
Speaker 2: the spotlight and did not seem to think that any
Speaker 2: foul play occurred. So, in spite of all the endless
Speaker 2: speculation about her death online, I really did not think
Speaker 2: that a crime took place. I know that a number
Speaker 2: of people were not happy when it was announced that
Speaker 2: Netflix would be releasing a documentary series about this case,
Speaker 2: and felt they were needlessly exploiting the situation. But after
Speaker 2: the first three episodes focused on all the wild conspiracy
Speaker 2: theories surrounding Elisa's death and innocent people who were falsely
Speaker 2: accused of murdering her, the final episode ultimately did reach
Speaker 2: the conclusion that Alisa likely climbed into the water tank
Speaker 2: on her own, was suffering through a manic episode, and drowned.
Speaker 2: So you might be asking, if I was reluctant to
Speaker 2: do an episode about Alisa Lamb, then why are we
Speaker 2: doing one about Jack Wheeler. Well, the key difference between
Speaker 2: the two cases is that Jack's death was officially ruled
Speaker 2: to be a homicide. One of the major criticisms of
Speaker 2: the Unsolved Mysteries episode is even though they presented the
Speaker 2: scenario of Jack's body being loaded from a dumpster into
Speaker 2: a garbage truck and transported to the landfill, they never
Speaker 2: acknowledged the possibility that the injuries he had could have
Speaker 2: been caused by the truck's trash compactor. It felt like
Speaker 2: they were intentionally omitting this key detail in order to
Speaker 2: make their narrative more mysterious. But that doesn't change the
Speaker 2: fact that the medical examiner and some of the investigators
Speaker 2: have expressed their belief that his injuries were consistent with
Speaker 2: a beating. Oddly, it does not seem like Lawnman has
Speaker 2: ever really acknowledged the trash compactor theory either, so you
Speaker 2: have to wonder if they have good reason to believe
Speaker 2: foul play took place.
Speaker 3: Was the death ever reclassified as unknown or an accident
Speaker 3: or anything like that, or is it still listed on
Speaker 3: the books as a homicide.
Speaker 2: It is still officially listed as a homicide, so they
Speaker 2: never actually have changed it.
Speaker 3: Wow, Because I know we talked about on the first episode.
Speaker 3: One of the problems is the medical examiner did not
Speaker 3: know about the trash compactor and things like that, so
Speaker 3: when he saw the condition of the body, it was
Speaker 3: very clear that something had happened to Jack. The injuries
Speaker 3: indicated something like an assault and blunt force trauma being
Speaker 3: the result of his death and so or the cause
Speaker 3: of his death. And so once you add in the
Speaker 3: fact of how his body was disposed of, or the
Speaker 3: injuries that could have come from the transportation from the
Speaker 3: bin to the landfill, it does create those question marks
Speaker 3: of where did the injuries come from? Was it before
Speaker 3: he entered that trash bin, or was it in the
Speaker 3: process of them taking that trashmentto the landfill? And when
Speaker 3: you look at that, it is very difficult, especially from
Speaker 3: a family's perspective. It's ruled a homicide. You said it
Speaker 3: was blunt force trauma. You've also mentioned a heart attack
Speaker 3: was the main cause of his death. Did that come
Speaker 3: as a result of the blunt force trauma and his
Speaker 3: heart couldn't keep up with the internal injuries. There's just
Speaker 3: not any answers there. It is interesting that they've never
Speaker 3: reclassified anything, and they've kept it an open homicide case,
Speaker 3: because if there was a possibility this was an accident
Speaker 3: or this was unknown, I feel like police would try
Speaker 3: to reclassify it so that they wouldn't have a cold
Speaker 3: case lingering on their books, especially if there was indication
Speaker 3: that this was a mental health crisis. It's frustrating. I'm
Speaker 3: frustrated with the story, and I'm not even one of
Speaker 3: the family members involved in the scenario.
Speaker 1: But perhaps it's because they want to leave it as
Speaker 1: a homicide because they aren't sure, and to have it
Speaker 1: classified as undetermined would mean that there would be less
Speaker 1: resources allocated to investigating, isn't that correct?
Speaker 2: That's very true, I think so like it remains active.
Speaker 2: They pretty much say we won't actively put any time
Speaker 2: and resources towards investigating this, but if someone gives us
Speaker 2: new tips or new leads, we can look into them,
Speaker 2: but otherwise we're just kind of leading it off to
Speaker 2: the side. If it's classified as undetermined, that's true, And.
Speaker 3: If they change the classification, then you don't have any
Speaker 3: of those resources allocated if someone came forward with information.
Speaker 1: Well shortly after the Unsolved Mysteries episode came out, an
Speaker 1: extensive post was made about this case on the Unresolved
Speaker 1: Mystery subreddit by a poster with the greatest username ever,
Speaker 1: slut for Bacon. The poster expressed their personal belief that
Speaker 1: Jack's death was not a homicide and actually expressed a
Speaker 1: really interesting theory about why this ruling was made. Jack's
Speaker 1: autopsy was performed relatively quickly, but at the time the
Speaker 1: medical examiner had no idea that Jack's body had been
Speaker 1: loaded from a dempster in to a garbage truck, as
Speaker 1: it took a couple of days for law enforcement to
Speaker 1: piece together that scenario. Therefore, it was perfectly reasonable for
Speaker 1: the medical examiner to initially assume the Jack's injuries were
Speaker 1: a result of a beating and that an unknown third
Speaker 1: party was responsible for killing him. Given that Jack had
Speaker 1: been a prominent and influential person in Washington, his death
Speaker 1: received a lot of instant media coverage, with much of
Speaker 1: the reporting referring to it as a murder. This story
Speaker 1: may be a case study on how the social status
Speaker 1: of a victim determines how much attention their death receives
Speaker 1: from law enforcement. If an unhoused person or a regular
Speaker 1: citizen had been found under these circumstances, their deaths may
Speaker 1: have been written off as an accident and we would
Speaker 1: never even have heard about them. However, because of who
Speaker 1: he was, Jack Wheeler was given the benefit of a
Speaker 1: full fledged homicide investigation, and even though it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like it's turned up any evidence which pointed towards a
Speaker 1: specific suspect, there may be a reluctance to a knowledge
Speaker 1: that the original homicide ruling might have been wrong, which
Speaker 1: is why Jack's death has never been reclassified as an accident. Indeed,
Speaker 1: Jack's family have been openly critical about the lack of
Speaker 1: communication that they've received from law enforcement, so you get
Speaker 1: the impression that they are not too certain where the
Speaker 1: investigation stands.
Speaker 3: I think when you talk about this valuable victim and
Speaker 3: the social status of a victim determining the attention received,
Speaker 3: we've talked about that extensively before. But what's interesting here, though,
Speaker 3: is when you couple that with mental health, you have
Speaker 3: people who, because they've mastered it for so long and
Speaker 3: so well, and because they have accomplished so much and
Speaker 3: done so many great things, acknowledging the mental health angle
Speaker 3: is difficult for a lot of people, right, Like, well,
Speaker 3: he was really successful, so he couldn't have struggled that
Speaker 3: bad Like, look at all the great things he did,
Speaker 3: He couldn't have struggled that badly to result in his death.
Speaker 3: I remember, I mean, this is not even on the
Speaker 3: same level, but I'm trying to help for ADHD or OCD.
Speaker 3: And the doctor really dismissed me, and he said, look
Speaker 3: at all the things you've accomplished, Ashley, like that doesn't
Speaker 3: happen for someone who is ADHD or whatever. And I went,
Speaker 3: can you please look at my results? Like they're off
Speaker 3: the charts. I'm definitely ADHD and I have some OCD tendencies.
Speaker 3: I had to change doctors to get someone to sit
Speaker 3: down with me for test results looking through things, and
Speaker 3: I went, my last doctor wouldn't even validate anything because
Speaker 3: of the success I had had in my personal and
Speaker 3: professional life. And I went, that's insane. That's not how
Speaker 3: mental health works.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Just because you do a good job either getting help
Speaker 3: for it, masking it, or coping with it, doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you don't struggle just as mightily as somebody else. So
Speaker 3: I think when you present there's this man who's discovered,
Speaker 3: who's this significant influence in Washington, d C. And it's
Speaker 3: murder or mental health question mark, people go, no way,
Speaker 3: not someone like Jack. Jack had it all together, and
Speaker 3: yet they don't see what Catherine sees, which is behind
Speaker 3: the scenes, he's fighting demons on a daily basis. So
Speaker 3: I think that plays into the scenario as well. When
Speaker 3: you start putting forward the mental health argument, it's well,
Speaker 3: what kind of victim is it? Like, let's talk about them.
Speaker 3: Because someone's super successful, it's much harder for society to
Speaker 3: see and understand their mental health diagnosis.
Speaker 1: Let me first say, I'm sorry that was your experience.
Speaker 2: It was so bad.
Speaker 1: That is wild that the idea that a mental health
Speaker 1: diagnosis would be predicated upon somebody's relative lack of success, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're not going to diagnose you with that. It's like,
Speaker 1: are you actually aware of any mental health issues and
Speaker 1: how they occur in all populations? People of all different
Speaker 1: professions have mental health issues. Just because somebody is a
Speaker 1: success doesn't mean that they haven't been struggling. So the
Speaker 1: fact that he or is it a he yes, that
Speaker 1: he didn't listen to you and didn't go okay, Well,
Speaker 1: her feelings are valid and these are her experiences. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to take her successes in life as this.
Speaker 1: Oh well, she can't actually be having these experiences because
Speaker 1: she's achieved A, B and C. But it seems like
Speaker 1: that's what's happening with Jack as well. A little bit here.
Speaker 3: I really feel like that. I really feel like some
Speaker 3: it's hard for people to step back and say, how
Speaker 3: could someone that successful struggle so mightily because we didn't
Speaker 3: see it, And you think about the fight Jack had
Speaker 3: to do. Catherine described it, the fight he had to
Speaker 3: put in daily, so no one did see it except
Speaker 3: those he was closest with and he could trust because
Speaker 3: he didn't want people to hurt like he hurt. He
Speaker 3: didn't want people to struggle, and so his whole life
Speaker 3: had been devoted to preventing that struggle in other people
Speaker 3: and masking it in himself. And so here, when you
Speaker 3: think about that, him possibly cracking and having that mental
Speaker 3: health decline so rapidly makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how open Jack was about his
Speaker 2: struggles with depression and bipolar disorder. Like I know that
Speaker 2: his family was well aware of it, but I don't
Speaker 2: know if he discussed much with a lot of people
Speaker 2: in his inner circle in Washington because he was such
Speaker 2: a prominent and successful figure, and to his family's credit,
Speaker 2: they have always been very open about it because they
Speaker 2: think there's no sense like concealing this to try to
Speaker 2: preserve his reputation because it might shed some light on
Speaker 2: why he died, and of course it helps a lot
Speaker 2: of other people if we're openly admitting that this very
Speaker 2: successful man also had daily struggles with mental health issues.
Speaker 2: This is actually not the first tragedy that Jack's wife,
Speaker 2: Catherine Kleist has ever had to experience, because in February
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety five, her sister, Emily Kleis Fischer, was
Speaker 2: murdered after she was stabbed over fifty times inside her
Speaker 2: home in Memphis, Tennessee. The case remained unsawd for eight
Speaker 2: years until two suspects were finally arrested for Emily's murder,
Speaker 2: and it turned out she was killed because her son
Speaker 2: owed his dealer a twenty dollars drug debt. This about
Speaker 2: a senseless of violent crime, as you can get and
Speaker 2: believe it or not. In May of twenty eleven, there
Speaker 2: would be additional drama in Catherine's life when her brother,
Speaker 2: Henry Klais decided to file a lawsuit in federal court
Speaker 2: against Catherine and their sister Ellen. Henry accused them of
Speaker 2: cyber terror by alleging that they hacked into the email
Speaker 2: accounts of himself and his wife and did whatever they
Speaker 2: could to disrupt their lives, even though Jack had been
Speaker 2: dead for five months at this point. He was also
Speaker 2: named as a defendant in his lawsuit because Henry claimed
Speaker 2: that Jack used the knowledge of cyber warfare he had
Speaker 2: gained from working for the government and the Metra Corporation
Speaker 2: to assist Katherine and Ellen with their harassment. The lawsuit
Speaker 2: would be settled about six months later, but even though
Speaker 2: Jack was doing work with cybersecurity at the time he died,
Speaker 2: I think that whole angle, as well as Jack's previous
Speaker 2: years of service with the government, is nothing but smoke
Speaker 2: and merrores.
Speaker 3: I'm so confused by Henry when you look at this
Speaker 3: lawsuit filed against the family was settled. Did they agree
Speaker 3: to terms that benefited Henry.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, because usually when they settle lawsuits,
Speaker 2: they're required to keep details private from the public. But
Speaker 2: when you see his actions, you do hope that he
Speaker 2: did get anything, but considering that he's doing this to
Speaker 2: his sister who has suffered a major tragedy only a
Speaker 2: couple months earlier. But unfortunately I just don't know the details.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's super bizarre. Yeah, there seems to be no
Speaker 3: consideration for anybody who knows what's happening to Henry and
Speaker 3: his wife, but seems very fishy that then you need
Speaker 3: to go after your sisters like how just very very
Speaker 3: bizarre implication and the tragedy of Emily's murder right and
Speaker 3: realizing that this is over a twenty dollars drug debt.
Speaker 3: Catherine really has experienced significant trauma in her life, both
Speaker 3: before and after Jack's death has as well, So not
Speaker 3: only is she a widow, but she has also lost
Speaker 3: her sister. She's also lost her brother in many ways
Speaker 3: because he's physically here, but he's attacking them while supposedly
Speaker 3: they're attacking he and his wife. So it's just tragic.
Speaker 3: It's like Catherine didn't ever get a break from either
Speaker 3: supporting her husband, trying to help her family, being chased
Speaker 3: after by her brother. I mean, I just feel so
Speaker 3: bad for her. In the midst of this, she still
Speaker 3: has all those question marks of saying, what actually happened
Speaker 3: to Jack? What actually happened to the man that I
Speaker 3: love and supported and built a life with. There's so
Speaker 3: many scenarios and she's left really just trying to juggle
Speaker 3: all of the mess that keeps falling in her lap.
Speaker 3: It's quite tragic.
Speaker 1: If Jack was the victim of foul play, it most
Speaker 1: likely came at the hands of a random stranger, as
Speaker 1: I think the shadowy government conspiracy theories surrounding his death
Speaker 1: are pretty ridiculous. I know Jack's family has pushed forward
Speaker 1: the possibility that he was the victim of a professional hit. Well,
Speaker 1: the problem is that we have a digital trail tracking
Speaker 1: a lot of Jack's movements during the last three days
Speaker 1: of his life. He spent this time period traveling around
Speaker 1: to a number of different locations for inexplicable reasons. Even
Speaker 1: though there's ample surveillance footage of Jack from various security cameras,
Speaker 1: had no point does it appear that he's being followed
Speaker 1: by anyone. It's likely that Jack's death took place in Newark,
Speaker 1: a town that he didn't have any known ties to
Speaker 1: or any reason to visit, so how could the killer
Speaker 1: have known that he would be there in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. Furthermore, Jack did not have any gunshot
Speaker 1: or stab wounds on him, so the only way it
Speaker 1: could have been murdered is if someone beat him to death,
Speaker 1: which does not seem to be the preferred method. Of
Speaker 1: execution for a professional assassin. However, if Jack's injuries were
Speaker 1: consistent with foul play, could it be possible that he
Speaker 1: had a random encounter with someone who administered a fatal beating.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and as what we were talking about earlier, I
Speaker 3: think he could have run into stranger and the encounter
Speaker 3: went one of two ways. He scared the stranger, it
Speaker 3: made him fearful of his own for his own safety,
Speaker 3: and therefore he attacks Jack and hits him in a
Speaker 3: way that kills him, and he pulls his body over
Speaker 3: to the dumpster, or he sees Jack. Jack is completely
Speaker 3: out of his own sense of reality, right, and is
Speaker 3: very vulnerable, and this person says, this is somebody I
Speaker 3: can attack, right, a crime of opportunity. But either way
Speaker 3: we still there's no way to prove are those injuries
Speaker 3: from a beating or are they from that transportation to
Speaker 3: the landfill. Both could be possible. Some injuries could be
Speaker 3: from an assault, either because Jack seemed threatening and or
Speaker 3: was vulnerable, and then he was placed in the dumpster
Speaker 3: and then secured more injuries, right, succumbed to more injuries,
Speaker 3: or it's possible Jack just climbed in there and got
Speaker 3: hurt in the bin itself. So, oh, this one's just
Speaker 3: really frustrating. But yeah, I think it could not have
Speaker 3: been an assassin. An assassin's not going to do hand
Speaker 3: to hand combat with Jack. It's going to be someone
Speaker 3: who shoots him or attacks him in a way that
Speaker 3: removes them from the physical presence of the victim, right
Speaker 3: so they can get away with it. But a stranger, Absolutely,
Speaker 3: I think it's a very strong possibility.
Speaker 2: Well, let's go back and start at the very beginning.
Speaker 2: We know that Jack left New York on December the
Speaker 2: twenty eighth to travel to Washington for work reasons, a
Speaker 2: decision which did not please his wife, since Catherine thought
Speaker 2: Jack would be off from Christmas until New Year's and
Speaker 2: she said they were planning to spend a few days
Speaker 2: seeing movies together. However, from what Catherine has said about Jack,
Speaker 2: I get the impression that he was a bit of
Speaker 2: a workaholic who had a constant need to feel like
Speaker 2: he was contributing something to the world, and was not
Speaker 2: the type of person who could just chill out and
Speaker 2: relax and spend a couple of days watching movies. Out
Speaker 2: of all the victims we featured on this podcast, I'd
Speaker 2: say that Jack Wheeler led one of the most interesting
Speaker 2: lives and had a number of impressive achievements. He was
Speaker 2: probably best known for his role at helping create the
Speaker 2: Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and in fact, he was actually portrayed
Speaker 2: by actor Marshall Colt and the nineteen eighty eight made
Speaker 2: for TV movie about this story, To Heal a Nation,
Speaker 2: which starred Eric Roberts as the founder of the memorial,
Speaker 2: Jan Scruggs. In fact, when Ronald Reagan visited the memorial
Speaker 2: later that same year on Veterans Day, it was Jack
Speaker 2: who introduced him. It sounds like things appeared relatively normal
Speaker 2: with Jack when he left New York, but at some
Speaker 2: point during the day he decided to leave Washington and
Speaker 2: travel to his home in Newcastle, and that's where his
Speaker 2: odd behavior began. Like we mentioned earlier, it's never been
Speaker 2: established when was the last time Jack took his medication
Speaker 2: for bipolar disorder, but if he had suddenly stopped taking it,
Speaker 2: this would go a long way towards explaining his actions.
Speaker 2: Even though his neighbor didn't get a good enough look
Speaker 2: to positively identify him, I think it seems pretty obvious
Speaker 2: that Jack was the shadowy figure who tossed the smoke
Speaker 2: bombs at the house, which was under construction across the
Speaker 2: street from his residence. Particularly since his cell phone was
Speaker 2: left behind at the scene, it sounds like preventing the
Speaker 2: construction of the house on that property was one subject
Speaker 2: that Jack was particularly obsessive about, so if he was
Speaker 2: off his medication and was going through a manic episode,
Speaker 2: this may have led to an impulsive decision to abandon
Speaker 2: whatever he was doing in Washington and go to Newcastle
Speaker 2: for the express purpose of destroying this home. After all,
Speaker 2: it had only been about two weeks since Jack's request
Speaker 2: for a temporary restraining order against the construction was denied
Speaker 2: by the court, so he may have figured that burning
Speaker 2: the whole structure down was his only option, even though
Speaker 2: these smoke bombs didn't do much damage.
Speaker 3: Remember that his neighbor, I think it was Robert Dill,
Speaker 3: said that there were so many times he had to
Speaker 3: talk Jack down from just going off about this construction
Speaker 3: that he didn't want to happen across the street, and
Speaker 3: that you could really tell that even Dill himself was like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to deal with this. This is ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It's kind of out of hand. And so when you
Speaker 3: think about the obst sessive nature, if someone was off
Speaker 3: their medication and they're ruminating about something and they're creating
Speaker 3: this situation that's much bigger in their head than it
Speaker 3: is in reality. It's already been an obsession of his
Speaker 3: when he was healthy, but now add that he could
Speaker 3: be struggling from a mental health episode, he might not
Speaker 3: be on his medication, and he decides, I'm going to
Speaker 3: make sure that I stop the construction of this home.
Speaker 3: And he gets smoke bombs, which even that indicates does
Speaker 3: he really understand like the amount of damage that would do.
Speaker 3: He didn't try to burn it down, gasoline and matches,
Speaker 3: he didn't do any of that. It's the smoke bombs.
Speaker 3: But clearly if it was Jack, his phone's there. If
Speaker 3: it was Jack, then he's trying to end this construction.
Speaker 3: It's that important to him. He's going to really go
Speaker 3: to great lengths in his head to end the construction.
Speaker 3: You can tell if that was Jack, something's not okay,
Speaker 3: that he just has completely lost touch with reality. And
Speaker 3: it's very probable that it was the shadowy figure. It
Speaker 3: was Jack who's lingering outside that home.
Speaker 2: And you make him wonder like when did this happen?
Speaker 2: Because he was going from New York to Washington to
Speaker 2: work for a few days, but then just gets this
Speaker 2: sun compulsion that I'm gonna drive back to Delaware and
Speaker 2: I'm going to like obsessively burn this place down, even
Speaker 2: though I have not been thinking about it for the
Speaker 2: last few weeks. So it makes you wonder, do you
Speaker 2: just get off his meds at that point, like what
Speaker 2: made this come into his mind that he felt compelled
Speaker 2: to do this now?
Speaker 3: And then you see he doesn't ever get back to
Speaker 3: a healthy spot like he's doing that. He reports that
Speaker 3: he's been robbed and all of his things are missing,
Speaker 3: but his phone ends up at that house later down
Speaker 3: the road. All of this stuff starts to just kind
Speaker 3: of cascade to where he's seen looking homeless, dishoveled, limping
Speaker 3: around like he's been crying, like he doesn't know where
Speaker 3: he's at. People are aware enough to stop him multiple
Speaker 3: times and say can we.
Speaker 2: Help, Do you need any help? Sir?
Speaker 3: Are you okay? And every time he says he's fine
Speaker 3: and deny a need for help. But when you put
Speaker 3: it all together, you're seeing this de escalator, like he's
Speaker 3: just cascading into this kind of tragic existence of himself,
Speaker 3: and the only explanation really is that mental health condition.
Speaker 1: It makes you think of like chaos theory or the
Speaker 1: butterfly effect. If he would have taken that help from somebody,
Speaker 1: how could this situation have played out differently. It's just
Speaker 1: so sad that in that state, he either didn't feel
Speaker 1: safe accepting help from somebody he didn't know, or didn't
Speaker 1: feel as though he needed it, but he did seem
Speaker 1: lucid enough to feel like he was. I think he
Speaker 1: said he was dazed in boxed in to family, so
Speaker 1: he knew that he was struggling, and things seemed to
Speaker 1: be not clear. It seemed to be that everything was
Speaker 1: very opaque. So I just I really really feel for
Speaker 1: him in this moment. It must have just been so
Speaker 1: terrifying going through the world and not understanding what is
Speaker 1: really and truly going on. It also seems that Jack
Speaker 1: was responsible for vandalizing his own residence and will have
Speaker 1: never heard any indication that it was positively identified. I'm
Speaker 1: sure the bare footprint found in the kitchen clensor likely
Speaker 1: belonged to Jack, and I think it's interesting that Jack's
Speaker 1: ceremonial West Point Cadet sword and shield were lying on
Speaker 1: the floor, and the book about his West Point class
Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty six was lying open on the counter,
Speaker 1: As you get the impression that he was taking a
Speaker 1: few moments to reminisce about his past. Now, in some
Speaker 1: sources about the case, you'll read that one of Jack's
Speaker 1: neighbors reported hearing what sounded like a loud noise of
Speaker 1: the television inside the Wheeler residence in the days prior
Speaker 1: to Jack's death, even though no one appeared to be home. However,
Speaker 1: according to his neighbor Robert Dill, Jack liked to leave
Speaker 1: the radio on whenever he was absent from the residence
Speaker 1: in order to give off the false impression that someone
Speaker 1: was home and possibly discouraged potential burglaries from taking place.
Speaker 1: While Dill checked the residence on December thirtieth, he said
Speaker 1: the radio was no longer play. So I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: the noise this other neighbor reported hearing was a radio
Speaker 1: and not a television, and Jack switched it off at
Speaker 1: some point when he went inside on the twenty eight.
Speaker 3: This is this is so sad. I do think when
Speaker 3: you look at the at the scene that's left, especially
Speaker 3: that ceremonial West Point sword and the book from nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty six, it's open on the counter. It's almost like
Speaker 3: he's just sitting there kind of reliving these moments. And
Speaker 3: remember earlier on you guys said west Point and the
Speaker 3: service to his country along with his fellow West Point
Speaker 3: classmates was one of those things that weighed really heavily
Speaker 3: on him, and that most likely was one of those
Speaker 3: life changing chapters that really impacted his long term mental health.
Speaker 3: Right he's serving at this prestigious school where there's a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure, there's a lot of expectation to perform.
Speaker 3: He's going off to serve in Vietnam, and while he's
Speaker 3: in a non combative position, his friends from West Point
Speaker 3: are not and many of them pass away in Vietnam.
Speaker 3: And so the fact that he's looking back, it makes
Speaker 3: you wonder like, was it one of his close friends
Speaker 3: that had died in Vietnam and the trauma of that
Speaker 3: and he's not medicated. Could some of those PTSD moments,
Speaker 3: some of the memories and triggers, could that have caused
Speaker 3: a really rapid decline where he doesn't have access to
Speaker 3: the medication that could have subsided some of those symptoms,
Speaker 3: And because he's reminiscing about that West Point chapter, it
Speaker 3: starts to go down this rabbit hole of loss and
Speaker 3: anger and frustration in fear that he now starts this
Speaker 3: kind of process outside of the home after he's gone
Speaker 3: through his West Point regalia.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to point out outside of just mania,
Speaker 1: there can be associated with bipolar disorder an earlier onset
Speaker 1: of cognitive decline. He can really tax the brain much
Speaker 1: like epilepsy does, and a lot of the mechanisms aren't understood.
Speaker 1: But I'm not saying that's what was happening here, but
Speaker 1: that could have been something that was contributing to the situation.
Speaker 2: And we talked in the last episode that one of
Speaker 2: his earliest sources of trauma was the fact that he
Speaker 2: lost ten percent of his graduating class from West Point
Speaker 2: in Vietnam, which really bothered him. And back in the sixties,
Speaker 2: he just was not equipped to deal with the trauma.
Speaker 2: So who knows, maybe just reminiscenting about that time and
Speaker 2: maybe seeing photographs of his fallen classmates just caused something
Speaker 2: to trigger within him and made his condition even worse.
Speaker 2: Was not entirely clear with the timeline is whether Jack
Speaker 2: tore apart his residence before or after the incident with
Speaker 2: the smoke bombs. Details are also kind of murky about
Speaker 2: when exactly police found Jack's cell phone at the scene
Speaker 2: and traced it back to him. What we do know
Speaker 2: is that Jack sent an email to his employer the
Speaker 2: following morning to inform them that his house been burglarized
Speaker 2: and that a number of important items, including his briefcase
Speaker 2: and cell phone, were stolen, Yet he never attempted to
Speaker 2: report this to the police. Given that Jack was very
Speaker 2: reliant on his cell phone, I'm sure he probably would
Speaker 2: have become panicky if he dropped it somewhere, particularly if
Speaker 2: he realized that he left it outside the house across
Speaker 2: the street and there was no way for him to
Speaker 2: retrieve it. If Jack believed that the police were going
Speaker 2: to find the phone and trace it back to him,
Speaker 2: he may have decided to ransack the house. He may
Speaker 2: have decided to ransack his house in stage of burglary
Speaker 2: so that he could present a cover story that his
Speaker 2: cell phone was stolen by an unknown party who subsequently
Speaker 2: dropped it when they tossed the smoke bombs of course,
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone would have bought that story, but
Speaker 2: I'm sure Jack was not thinking rashally at that point.
Speaker 2: One detail about this mystery, which has never been solved,
Speaker 2: is what actually did happen to Jack's briefcase, as it
Speaker 2: was never found. It's possible that Jack simply left it
Speaker 2: on the train during one of his trips, and the
Speaker 2: loss of the briefcase was one of the triggering events
Speaker 2: which caused his mania to worsen. In fact, I've always
Speaker 2: wanted if perhaps Jack kept his medication inside the briefcase,
Speaker 2: which is why he stopped taking it. It's also never
Speaker 2: been made clear where exactly Jack sent those emails from
Speaker 2: on the morning of December the twenty ninth, since he
Speaker 2: no longer had his self at that point, but it's
Speaker 2: possible he used a computer at an internet cafe or
Speaker 2: a library. We do know that Jack was seen at
Speaker 2: a Newcastle pharmacy at six pm, and since he often
Speaker 2: had its prescriptions filled at that location, Jack naeven stinctively
Speaker 2: decided to go there if he lost his medication, though
Speaker 2: all he did was ask for a ride to Wilmington.
Speaker 2: It does seem apparent that something was wrong with Jack.
Speaker 2: At this point, because the security footage chows him wearing
Speaker 2: a suit jacket and he does not have an overcoat,
Speaker 2: even though the weather was quite cold. When Jack shows
Speaker 2: up at the Newcastle County Courthouse parking garage forty minutes later,
Speaker 2: he looks to be in even worse shape, since he's
Speaker 2: now limping and carrying one of his shoes in his hand. Personally,
Speaker 2: when I look at the pharmacy footage, it appears to
Speaker 2: me that Jack is already limping when he walks inside.
Speaker 2: But there has been speculation that something happened to Jack
Speaker 2: during that forty minute window between when he left and
Speaker 2: arrived at the parking garage.
Speaker 3: That was my thought originally was wherever his in this
Speaker 3: transition of when he was going from He was going
Speaker 3: from DC down to Delaware, right, Ah, yes, yeah, So
Speaker 3: when he's making that transition, I thought, Okay, maybe that's
Speaker 3: where he loses his medication. But Jules correct me if
Speaker 3: I'm wrong. I feel like if you lost your mental
Speaker 3: health medication once you've relied on for decades at this point,
Speaker 3: and you have the wherewithal to sit down and communicate
Speaker 3: with your family, wouldn't there have been a timeframe where
Speaker 3: he went crap, I've lost my medicine. I need to
Speaker 3: go get it, and he's on his way to a
Speaker 3: place where he has a prescription and he has a
Speaker 3: pharmacy where he could go in and report his medicine
Speaker 3: medicine missing. I almost think his mental health crisis would
Speaker 3: have had to start in DC where he gets that
Speaker 3: obsession that he needs to go ruin this home and
Speaker 3: stop that construction, because had he been aware that I'm
Speaker 3: on this trip, I lost my medication, I think before
Speaker 3: a decline, he would have known to replace that medication.
Speaker 3: But it makes more sense that the kind of mania
Speaker 3: started back in DC to get back down to Delaware
Speaker 3: to stop this home construction, and once he does that,
Speaker 3: he's already down a spiral where he isn't aware of
Speaker 3: what the reality is at that point.
Speaker 1: We're operating under the presupposition that he didn't stop taking
Speaker 1: his medication prior to when he lost it, which is
Speaker 1: also a possibility because I think you're right there are
Speaker 1: certain things that indicate that he may have been dealing
Speaker 1: with potential mania earlier than that, such as the Vietnam Forum,
Speaker 1: what is it or of the West Point for him
Speaker 1: that he was part of being kicked out of that
Speaker 1: or temporarily banned, and the obsession with the neighbor. So
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Ash. If somebody was very much
Speaker 1: on top of taking their medication at that time and
Speaker 1: they lost it, yeah, I think the next logical step
Speaker 1: would be, Okay, I've got to ensure that I can
Speaker 1: get this and most mental health medication. You can go
Speaker 1: into your pharmacy and say I lost my prescription. It's
Speaker 1: not a narcotic. It's not like anyone's going to go
Speaker 1: in there with drug seeking behavior looking for something like lithium.
Speaker 1: But he didn't do that, So I think you're right.
Speaker 1: It does indicate that something was going on earlier and.
Speaker 3: As Matt as Catherine got at him, and it makes
Speaker 3: it seem like it was pretty abnormal that he was
Speaker 3: going to on a holiday ditch the family. She's angry
Speaker 3: because she said, this is the holiday, like we're doing Christmas.
Speaker 3: Then we've got this wedding on New Year's Eve, Like
Speaker 3: why are you going to DC? Why are you going
Speaker 3: to work? We have family plans. It almost seems like
Speaker 3: it's possible he was struggling then as well, not just
Speaker 3: the computer form you mentioned, but Catherine's really frustrated with him, like,
Speaker 3: get it together, man, this is not what the plans were.
Speaker 3: She's really frustrated. They getting a pretty heated fuss, because
Speaker 3: he even expresses to his daughter that fuss is really
Speaker 3: weighing on him. So it's possible that this mania was
Speaker 3: happening even before his trip, Robin, do you know did
Speaker 3: the company confirm that, yes, indeed, he did show up
Speaker 3: and he was working for them, or they had requested
Speaker 3: him to come work for them in that Christmas holiday time.
Speaker 2: No, they never actually did request. It was pretty much
Speaker 2: his own decision that he wanted to go to Washington
Speaker 2: and catch up on some work, even though it was
Speaker 2: supposed to be a holiday. But it's never really been
Speaker 2: confirmed if he actually showed up. We know that he
Speaker 2: took the train from New York to Washington and he
Speaker 2: was there for a few hours, but then he hopped
Speaker 2: on the train to Delaware, but we don't know what
Speaker 2: he was doing in Washington. We have no idea if
Speaker 2: he actually showed up at his office or not.
Speaker 1: One detail that the unsolved Mystery segment is frustratingly vague
Speaker 1: about is who exactly gave Jack a ride from the
Speaker 1: pharmacy and where did they take him? Did they drop
Speaker 1: him off at the parking garage or take him elsewhere. Well,
Speaker 1: shortly after the release of their episode, Unsolved Mysteries, co
Speaker 1: creator Terry dun Muir addressed this question during an interview
Speaker 1: with the website The Wrap dot com, where she confirmed
Speaker 1: that a man and a woman gave Jack a ride
Speaker 1: and they were not believed to be involved in his disappearance.
Speaker 1: But the show was unable to track this couple down
Speaker 1: to interview them or obtain any specific details about Jack's trip.
Speaker 1: But we know that Jack left his car in a
Speaker 1: train station parking lot garage one week earlier, so he
Speaker 1: may have asked to be dropped off at the courthouse
Speaker 1: parking garage because he was under the mistaken impression that
Speaker 1: his vehicle was there. It's never been conclusively established where
Speaker 1: Jack went after he left the garage, but the Unsolved
Speaker 1: Mystery segment did say that the evidence was found to
Speaker 1: suggest that Jack spent the night in the basement of
Speaker 1: the Nemorous building, which is where he was seen the
Speaker 1: following day. The building is a large complex and there
Speaker 1: are a number of four doors down in the basement area,
Speaker 1: so I can definitely believe that Jack might have been
Speaker 1: able to hide out there undetected. We know that Jack
Speaker 1: visited the law firm at the building named Connelly Beau
Speaker 1: Lodge and Huts and asked to speak with the managing
Speaker 1: partner before he left, even though Jack did not seem
Speaker 1: to have any apparent connection to that firm. Here's a
Speaker 1: detail that I've only seen mentioned in one source. The
Speaker 1: Wheeler family, as Robin I think mentioned in Part one,
Speaker 1: did have an attorney named holmb Connolly, who became a
Speaker 1: spokesperson for them following his death. However, even though colmb
Speaker 1: Connolly did work at the nemorous building, he was not
Speaker 1: employed by that particular firm, which was named after an
Speaker 1: entirely different Connolly. I have to wonder if perhaps Jack
Speaker 1: wanted to speak to an attorney because he feared there
Speaker 1: might be legal problems for the incident with the smoke bombs,
Speaker 1: but he was so disoriented that he went to the
Speaker 1: wrong law firm. The surveillance footage of Jack wandering around
Speaker 1: the basement really paints the picture of someone who seems
Speaker 1: lost and unsure of what to do. Another point of
Speaker 1: confusion is that when Jack was filmed leaving the building
Speaker 1: later that night. He was wearing a hoodie which didn't
Speaker 1: belong to him, but there was actually an employee locker
Speaker 1: room in the basement area, so it's my guess that
Speaker 1: Jack might have stolen the hoodie from there. The last
Speaker 1: confirmed sighting of Jack took place at eight forty two PM,
Speaker 1: and his body was found just over twelve hours later,
Speaker 1: so what happened during this window of time is a
Speaker 1: big mystery.
Speaker 3: It's also interesting that we have no idea where Jack
Speaker 3: was sleeping or where he was resting while he was there.
Speaker 3: He had a home in this area, but it sounds
Speaker 3: like from the looks of how disheveled he was, how
Speaker 3: he had dirt all over his clothes, how he was
Speaker 3: losing clothing items, like he was wearing a suit at first,
Speaker 3: then he was not wearing the suit jacket, then he
Speaker 3: had the sweatshirt on. People were reporting he looked homeless
Speaker 3: and dirty. You can tell that clearly either he had
Speaker 3: not tended to himself when he got home, but more
Speaker 3: likely that he might not have ever gone back home
Speaker 3: at some point and was kind of drifting around in
Speaker 3: this manick state and wasn't resting, was sleeping on the
Speaker 3: street was really just lost and kind of stumbling through.
Speaker 3: It sounds like he could have had that impulsivity to
Speaker 3: go down to the locker room and steal a sweatshirt.
Speaker 3: It was cold outside as well, and remember at one
Speaker 3: point he doesn't even have his shoes on. So it's
Speaker 3: really confusing given that he had the home there. If
Speaker 3: this wasn't a complete mental break, he would have returned
Speaker 3: back to his house, and so it's pretty clear that
Speaker 3: that's going on. The question then becomes what could have happened?
Speaker 3: Who could he have run into or did he climb
Speaker 3: into a garbage bind by himself? So that's kind of
Speaker 3: that gap. We know he was struggling at this point,
Speaker 3: We know that he was not doing any of the
Speaker 3: things that were at his access, getting help, going back
Speaker 3: to his own home, going to get his medicine from
Speaker 3: the pharmacy. So then that twelve hours, like you said,
Speaker 3: what happened there? That's the big question because we know
Speaker 3: he's on this downward spiral. Did someone take advantage of that,
Speaker 3: did someone get scared by that? Or was this an
Speaker 3: accident where simply his mental health overcame him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm guessing the main reason he didn't return home
Speaker 2: is because he knew he'd tossed those smoke bombs into
Speaker 2: the house across the street and left his cell phone there,
Speaker 2: so he probably figured, if I try to return home,
Speaker 2: I'm probably going to get arrested. So he was probably
Speaker 2: just wander around the city trying to think about what
Speaker 2: his options were and what to do next. But unfortunately
Speaker 2: it just eventually led to his death. And on a
Speaker 2: lighter note, I do find it funny that one of
Speaker 2: the partners at that law firm has the last name Huts,
Speaker 2: So I wonder how many jokes they got about line
Speaker 2: of lots from The Simpsons. Given that traces of Jack's
Speaker 2: DNA were found inside a dumpster in Newark, the theory
Speaker 2: about a garbage truck collecting his body and transporting it
Speaker 2: to the Cherry Island landfill is logical. But the big
Speaker 2: question is how Jack made it to Newark to begin with,
Speaker 2: since it's about fourteen miles away from Wilmington. Well, we
Speaker 2: have the account from the eyewitness who believed they shared
Speaker 2: a taxi CAAP ride to Newark with Jack at around
Speaker 2: eleven thirty pm. And while the unsaw Mystery segment planted
Speaker 2: the seed that the witness could have been mistaken. I
Speaker 2: think this would be the best explanation for how Jack
Speaker 2: got there. Of course, we still have no idea why
Speaker 2: Jack would want to make a trip to Newark, but
Speaker 2: given a state of mind at the time, we really
Speaker 2: can't apply standard logic to his actions. Remember, we have
Speaker 2: reports of him asking people for a ride to Philadelphia
Speaker 2: while he was at the Nemores Building earlier that day,
Speaker 2: even though there's no real reason for him to travel
Speaker 2: there either. So after Jack arrived in Newark, there are
Speaker 2: two possible explanations for how he died. He climbed into
Speaker 2: the dumpster himself, possibly to get warm, and was killed
Speaker 2: by the injuries he sustained by being picked up by
Speaker 2: the garbage truck, or he crossed pass with an unknown
Speaker 2: party who killed him and tossed his body into the dumpster.
Speaker 2: Even though Jack's official cause of death was blood forced trauma,
Speaker 2: I guess a third explanation is that he could have
Speaker 2: suffered a fatal heart attack before he even wound up
Speaker 2: in the truck. As it sounds like his family has
Speaker 2: been given conflicting information about whether or not a heart
Speaker 2: attack took place, his death may have been a combination
Speaker 2: of heart attack and injuries. But could the medical examiner
Speaker 2: have mistaken injuries caused by a garbage truck for injuries
Speaker 2: caused by a beating.
Speaker 3: Well, I would assume that. Well, of course, I would
Speaker 3: also assume that a heart attack could come on from
Speaker 3: sudden a physical trauma to your body, When your organs
Speaker 3: are injured, when you're having internal bleeding, When all those
Speaker 3: things are happening, I believe your heart has just an
Speaker 3: equal chance of giving out as well. So I think
Speaker 3: that you could associate the physical trauma with also being
Speaker 3: combined with his heart being affected. I also know that
Speaker 3: mental health plays a role in heart attacks and things
Speaker 3: like that, So you know, you see grief and emotional
Speaker 3: trauma and things like that weighing on people's organ functions
Speaker 3: and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
Speaker 2: And things of that nature.
Speaker 3: So if he's in this heightened state, an injury could
Speaker 3: have definitely caused a coinciding heart attack. But is it
Speaker 3: also possible that maybe just the trauma and the pressure
Speaker 3: inside his body could have also caused his body to
Speaker 3: shut down. I just there's no way to know what
Speaker 3: came first, rights what's happening to his little body. What's
Speaker 3: sad is the family is getting mixed messages, not because
Speaker 3: of any kind of nefarious act or any kind of
Speaker 3: desire to mislead them, but they are getting conflicting information,
Speaker 3: which further complicates their ability to move forward and understand
Speaker 3: what actually happened to Jack. They're still asking questions.
Speaker 1: If Jack wasn't sleeping, his chance of having a cardiac
Speaker 1: event goes up exponentially, which with each day that he's missing.
Speaker 1: So that, combined with the possible trauma from a trash compactor,
Speaker 1: I think would be a recipe for a heart attack,
Speaker 1: if that is indeed what happened.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's true we were under the assumption he
Speaker 2: slept the night before, but we can't be one hundred
Speaker 2: percent sure that he even did sleep, Like he could
Speaker 2: have spent the entire night wandering around, and which means
Speaker 2: he would have been up for maybe around forty eight
Speaker 2: hours at that point, which could have increased his chances
Speaker 2: of a heart attack.
Speaker 1: And even if he was just sleeping a few hours
Speaker 1: a night, that would still increase his chance of a
Speaker 1: heart attack. Well, here's a section from a May twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen article of The Washington Post written by journalist Steve Volk.
Speaker 1: He was interviewed during Unsolved Mystery segment. It reads quote
Speaker 1: Connolly hired a private investigator who brought CLIs a theory
Speaker 1: which remains popular on the internet that Wheeler wasn't actually killed.
Speaker 1: In this scenario, Wheeler sought refuge from the cold in
Speaker 1: a dumpster and died after the drop into a trash truck.
Speaker 1: Newark police reject this idea, however, saying the autopsy's evidence,
Speaker 1: which they won't specify for fear of harming the investigation,
Speaker 1: is entirely consistent with a homicide. Furthermore, a photograph of
Speaker 1: Wheeler taken after his death, which a friend of the
Speaker 1: family shared with their permission, shows Wheeler's face and head
Speaker 1: covered in bruises that appear to be more likely the
Speaker 1: product of a sustained pummeling than a drop into a
Speaker 1: trash truck. Now, admittedly we haven't seen the original autopsy
Speaker 1: report since it's never been released publicly, but I noticed
Speaker 1: they kept using the phrase drop into a trash truck
Speaker 1: and never actually made mention of the trash compactor. I'd
Speaker 1: really be curious to know if you could distinguish injuries
Speaker 1: from a drop.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, like when they made the decision A originally,
Speaker 3: I understand it right. You get a body that's laying
Speaker 3: on top of a trash pile and you say, Okay,
Speaker 3: clearly this person has been bludgeoned to death. There are
Speaker 3: too many injuries on their body. It is blunt force trauma.
Speaker 3: But when you back up and you say, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: you're telling me that they were in a trash container,
Speaker 3: they were dumped into a trash truck that uses a compactor,
Speaker 3: and then they were dumped into this landfill. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of injury that would be sustained just from that
Speaker 3: transportation experience. Now, there are ways to look at bruising
Speaker 3: and when a body is deceased and how the bruising
Speaker 3: is affected by time of death and all of those
Speaker 3: kinds of conditions. So there's definitely forensic ways to establish
Speaker 3: times of injuries and all of that. But again, given
Speaker 3: the complicated nature of this case, it would be really
Speaker 3: difficult to look at injuries to bone injury, to the
Speaker 3: skin injury and discoloration and definitely no, this is from
Speaker 3: this event, while this injury is from this event. It
Speaker 3: would just be very very difficult to kind of separate
Speaker 3: those out. I would think.
Speaker 2: This whole situation is pretty reminiscent of a high profile
Speaker 2: missing person's case from the United Kingdom involving a Royal
Speaker 2: Air Force Regiment gunner named Corey mcgeeg, who vanished after
Speaker 2: leaving a nightclub in Suffolk during the early morning hours
Speaker 2: in September of twenty sixteen. The most common theory in
Speaker 2: that case is that since mcgegu was heavily intoxicated at
Speaker 2: the time, and there were a number of industrial bins
Speaker 2: on the route he was last seen taking, he wound
Speaker 2: up climbing into one before was picked up by a
Speaker 2: garbage truck and mckeigue was crushed to death. His body
Speaker 2: was then taken to a landfill site and dumped there.
Speaker 2: And while the authorities have performed numerous searches of this
Speaker 2: landfill and found nothing, there is so much waste there
Speaker 2: that its fear of mcgeig's remains might be irretrievable. So
Speaker 2: all things considered, Jack Wheeler's family got very lucky that
Speaker 2: there was a spot er at the Cherry Island landfill
Speaker 2: who noticed his body right after it was dumped there.
Speaker 2: Otherwise it's possible that Jack might still be a missing
Speaker 2: person of this day, and no one would have any
Speaker 2: idea what happened to him. The biggest hold in the
Speaker 2: theory that Jack was the victim of foul play is
Speaker 2: that he was still wearing valuable jewelry and had cash
Speaker 2: on him when his body was found. So if robbery
Speaker 2: was not the motive for his death, what was If
Speaker 2: he simply got into an altercation with a random stranger
Speaker 2: who caused his death, why would they go to the
Speaker 2: trouble of placing his body in a dumpster? I'd even
Speaker 2: see in a vehicular hit and run push forward as
Speaker 2: a potential explanation for Jack's injuries. But again, why would
Speaker 2: a motorist risk concealing his body rather than simply fleeing
Speaker 2: the scene?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, if you hit him as a motorist, you
Speaker 3: would just keep ongoing because by the time you physically
Speaker 3: make contact with his body, hair, fingerprint, skin, all of
Speaker 3: that has the potential to be transferred. And I don't
Speaker 3: think that that would be one of the explanations that's
Speaker 3: plausible here.
Speaker 2: When you look at the.
Speaker 3: Idea of a robbery, same thing. He looks dishoveled and homeless.
Speaker 3: I do not think that someone's approaching him to rob him.
Speaker 3: I do think there are people who when you hear
Speaker 3: about criminals and the way they operate, some are just opportunistic.
Speaker 3: And if you have somebody who has a darkness and
Speaker 3: an evil inside of them, there are people who enjoy
Speaker 3: hurting people for fun. And so you see this man
Speaker 3: who's vulnerable and stumbling around and incoherent, it makes a
Speaker 3: very easy target that you would assume nobody was going
Speaker 3: to miss or realize was missing. So I think there's
Speaker 3: that potential he is vulnerable and therefore he's attacked. I
Speaker 3: also think he has this history of aggression and anger
Speaker 3: and kind of erratic behavior. Can be very very aggressive,
Speaker 3: to the point where his neighbors, the posters on those forums,
Speaker 3: they were having to step back and say, you've got
Speaker 3: to stop. I don't like your behavior. It makes me
Speaker 3: uncomfortable or it scares me. So if that's what we
Speaker 3: know can happen when he's not in his best mental
Speaker 3: health state, it is very possible that he threatens some
Speaker 3: or scared them to the point where they stood up
Speaker 3: for themselves and fought back and it went too far.
Speaker 3: Are they decided they were going to end his life
Speaker 3: to protect Fairs or got so angry at him that
Speaker 3: they ended his life. So all of those scenarios are possible,
Speaker 3: but the motor vehicle hitting him and taking the time
Speaker 3: to get out and place his body in a dumpster,
Speaker 3: and or a robbery, those two just don't seem fitting whatsoever.
Speaker 1: However, we do have to make a comparison to yet
Speaker 1: another case that we've covered which has a number of
Speaker 1: similarities to this one, and that's the nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: death of Blair Adams, who took an unexpected four thousand
Speaker 1: mile cross country trip from his home in British Columbia
Speaker 1: before he was found dead in the parking lot in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: The circumstances of Blair's death were incredibly bizarre, as he
Speaker 1: was nude from the waist down and thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: in different currencies were scattered around the scene. Like Jack,
Speaker 1: Blair had been acting very strangely prior to his death,
Speaker 1: as he was paranoid, his life was in danger, and
Speaker 1: the people were after him, so it seemed a parent
Speaker 1: he was suffering from some sort of undiagnosed mental health issues.
Speaker 1: But of course, the key difference is that Blair was
Speaker 1: killed by a violent blow which ruptured his stomach, something
Speaker 1: which could not have been self inflicted, so a third
Speaker 1: party had to have been involved at his death. When
Speaker 1: you track Blair's movements, it seems very unlikely that someone
Speaker 1: could have followed him across the continent, which is why
Speaker 1: we've always suspected that he was killed by someone he
Speaker 1: crossed paths with in Knoxville. Given his erratic behavior, perhaps
Speaker 1: Blair had an encounter with a completely random stranger and
Speaker 1: said or did something which prompted this person to deliver
Speaker 1: a fatal blow to his stomach before fleeing the scene. Theoretically,
Speaker 1: the same thing could have happened to Jack, as he
Speaker 1: may have been wandering the streets of Newark and had
Speaker 1: an encounter with the stranger who beat him and inflicted
Speaker 1: the injuries that caused his death. This beating could have
Speaker 1: been caused by nothing more than Jack's saying or doing
Speaker 1: something which set his attacker or attackers off.
Speaker 3: But we also talked about the fact that Jack would
Speaker 3: have been placed in that dumpster had he been attacked,
Speaker 3: But the reality is he could have been attacked and
Speaker 3: then stumbled off and crawled into that dumpster. Himself out
Speaker 3: of fear, out of paranoia that the people were coming
Speaker 3: back to get him and finish him off. So my
Speaker 3: original assumption was that he either was attacked and placed
Speaker 3: in that bin, or he got in himself to stay warm,
Speaker 3: But there actually could have been a combination of those two.
Speaker 3: That he got beaten and then he himself also crawled
Speaker 3: into the garbage bin, and those injuries were life threatening.
Speaker 3: They did cause his body to go into cardiac arrest
Speaker 3: or internal bleeding caused his death. So I had not
Speaker 3: thought of that that. You know, there's this idea of, well,
Speaker 3: would they go to the trouble of moving his body.
Speaker 3: Maybe they didn't, Maybe they beat him and he s
Speaker 3: comes to his injuries after he himself gets into the
Speaker 3: bin as well.
Speaker 2: Remember when we discussed the Blair Adam's case. I think
Speaker 2: that was one of the very earliest episodes we did
Speaker 2: together on the Path with Chili.
Speaker 1: I'm still obsessed with that case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's just it's even more bizarre than Jack Wheeler's.
Speaker 2: But when I remember when I watched Jack's case and
Speaker 2: Unsow Mysteries, I instantly had flashbacks to the Blair Adams case,
Speaker 2: and it was thinking what if he crossed paths with
Speaker 2: someone who beat him so severely, a complete stranger he
Speaker 2: had no connection with, who decided to take advantage of
Speaker 2: him because of the way he was acting. Of course,
Speaker 2: whoever killed Blair Adams left him out in the open
Speaker 2: and had no concern about concealing his body, But which
Speaker 2: once again begs the question about why anyone would bother
Speaker 2: concealing Jack at a dumpster. But, like Ashley said, perhaps
Speaker 2: the ANSWER's lie somewhere in the middle. What if someone
Speaker 2: delivered a severe beating to Jack which was not fatal,
Speaker 2: and he subsequently crawled into the dumpster to nurse his injuries.
Speaker 2: For all we know, Jack could have died or passed
Speaker 2: out before the garbage truck arrived. In essence, maybe the
Speaker 2: trash compactor or a heart attack was the exact cause
Speaker 2: of Jack's death, but he still had noticeable injuries on
Speaker 2: him from a beating. Under normal circumstances, I would ordinarily
Speaker 2: go with the explanation that Jack's death was a tragic
Speaker 2: accident caused by being loaded into the garbage truck. But
Speaker 2: I have to reiterate that this isn't one of those
Speaker 2: cases in which the authorities have closed the investigation because
Speaker 2: they're confident that no foul play took place. They were
Speaker 2: the ones who classified Jack's death as a homicide and
Speaker 2: have given off the impression that they believe his injuries
Speaker 2: were consistent with a beating. But we have to harken
Speaker 2: back to the aforementioned theory that the medical examiner could
Speaker 2: have made his homicide ruling prematurely and misinterpreted Jack's injuries
Speaker 2: because he had not yet received any information to suggest
Speaker 2: that Jack had been in a dumpster and a garbage truck.
Speaker 2: It seemed like the initial impression was that someone had
Speaker 2: murdered Jack at another location and dumped his body at
Speaker 2: the landfill on their own accord.
Speaker 3: Which would absolutely justify the ruling that this was a beating,
Speaker 3: and then he was placed at the landfill.
Speaker 2: But then you have those.
Speaker 3: Fingerprints and evidence, biological evidence that Jack was in a
Speaker 3: trash bin that was then dumped and the trash truck
Speaker 3: that then took his body to the landfill. So once
Speaker 3: that's actor into play, like you said, it just opens
Speaker 3: up so many different scenarios of just how did he
Speaker 3: get there, how and what happened to him before he
Speaker 3: got into that bin? Was he alive? When he got
Speaker 3: into that bin, or the injuries because of the trash compactor,
Speaker 3: like all of those things become really overwhelming when you
Speaker 3: think about how many realities could exist here. But what
Speaker 3: is interesting I was kind of hard on the police earlier.
Speaker 3: This is like, why not just change the ruling then?
Speaker 3: But there has to be something where they say, listen,
Speaker 3: we need to have the ability, if and when a
Speaker 3: lead comes in that we can investigate this is a homicide.
Speaker 3: I don't want to tie our hands. I don't want
Speaker 3: to remove that as an option. So is it simply
Speaker 3: just the beating and the bodily injuries where they just
Speaker 3: don't think Jack could have been solo in this endeavor?
Speaker 3: Or is there something else, some other piece of evidence
Speaker 3: that they have they just haven't shared. It's a very
Speaker 3: interesting dilemma when you talk about it from the police perspective.
Speaker 1: They very easily could write it off as an accident
Speaker 1: and bring it to the medical examiner to have it reclassified.
Speaker 1: But I agree with you, there has to be something
Speaker 1: there that they're clinging onto that makes them truly believe
Speaker 1: that a homicide took place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like we saw that comment earlier from someone who
Speaker 2: had seen the autopsy photos and says these look like
Speaker 2: a beating. They don't look like someone who has injured
Speaker 2: in a trash compactor. But of course, because those photos
Speaker 2: have never been released publicly, we can't really judge for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Since Jack was such a high profile figure with government affiliations,
Speaker 1: there would be a reluctance to admit that the original
Speaker 1: ruling was wrong and acknowledge that there was no foul play.
Speaker 1: After all, I really hate to see this, but it's
Speaker 1: possible that the attitude may have been the result of
Speaker 1: the stigma which still surrounds mental illness. Since the guy
Speaker 1: who lived such an interesting, productive life, I think everyone
Speaker 1: who cared about Jack might have had a hard time
Speaker 1: reconciling the fact that his bipolar disorder caused him to
Speaker 1: spend the last three days of his life wandering around
Speaker 1: terrified and confused, and his death came about because he
Speaker 1: crawled to a dumpster to keep warm. It's easier to
Speaker 1: cling to the idea that Jack was murdered by someone
Speaker 1: who placed him in the dumpster, because then you have
Speaker 1: someone to blame. Losing a level one to issues that
Speaker 1: are related to mental illness is so much harder to process,
Speaker 1: especially when they spend the last moments of their life
Speaker 1: doing things which don't seem to make any rational sense.
Speaker 1: Since Ray Rivera was never officially diagnosed with anything, you
Speaker 1: can understand why his family would believe his death was
Speaker 1: a result of some sort of murder conspiracy rather than
Speaker 1: him deciding to jump off a roof. All that being said,
Speaker 1: we've not seen Jack Wheeler's autopsy report, and I assume
Speaker 1: there are a lot of key pieces of information that
Speaker 1: the authorities have never released publicly. If they legitimately have
Speaker 1: good reason to believe that Jack was a victim of
Speaker 1: foul play, we would be more than happy to be
Speaker 1: proven wrong by seeing an arrest someday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this case is just really difficult. When you look
Speaker 3: at the idea that you have someone who was so
Speaker 3: successful and in those last moments you can tell he's
Speaker 3: in a mental health decline. It is heartbreaking. And when
Speaker 3: you think about this idea of you know, the case
Speaker 3: is still open. What happens if someday we can prove
Speaker 3: that someone had assaulted him. I think it'd be very
Speaker 3: difficult in trial to convict somebody of let's say, of
Speaker 3: a high degree of murder, because someone could say, yes,
Speaker 3: I got in an altercation with Jack, right like, or
Speaker 3: they could prove that someone had gotten into a fuss
Speaker 3: with him or assaulted him or attacked him, But it
Speaker 3: would be very difficult to prove when and how Jack
Speaker 3: died because if you said the assault was the cause
Speaker 3: of his death, you need to make sure that there's
Speaker 3: no way that that trash compactor could have actually ended
Speaker 3: his life, right, and that the assault was what killed him.
Speaker 3: So if the person eventually claimed, hey, he walked away
Speaker 3: from me after this fuss, yes he could be held
Speaker 3: accountable for the assault and eventual death, but the degree
Speaker 3: of charges against him would be so much lower if
Speaker 3: you couldn't disprove that something else could have happened to Jack,
Speaker 3: That Jack could have climbed into that band, that Jack
Speaker 3: could have been crushed by the compactor. So it's wild
Speaker 3: because if you're advocating for justice in this case, even
Speaker 3: that the court case would be so traumatic and difficult
Speaker 3: listening to different theories of who knows what really happened
Speaker 3: to Jack that night. It would be a very very
Speaker 3: interesting case. Even if we did come forward and had
Speaker 3: reliable evidence that an assault was part of this case, right,
Speaker 3: how do you prosecute it and prove that the assault
Speaker 3: caused his death. It's just tragic all the way around.
Speaker 3: It's tragic. Jack was such a good human being who
Speaker 3: worked so hard, and just the thought of the mental
Speaker 3: health decline makes you, It makes your heart just go
Speaker 3: out to him and think how sad that that's how
Speaker 3: his life ended, when he had done so much to
Speaker 3: give back to people and to make sure others didn't hurt.
Speaker 3: He died hurting in some way, whether it was mental
Speaker 3: or physical or both.
Speaker 2: I do agree. I think it would be hard to
Speaker 2: get a murder conviction if they arrested a suspect of
Speaker 2: being able to prove whether or not a beating could
Speaker 2: have caused Jack's injuries, or if they were caused by
Speaker 2: the trash compactor. But at the same time, I think
Speaker 2: it would still provide a lot of validation from the
Speaker 2: family if they can find someone and get them to
Speaker 2: admit or prove that they beat Jack, because then they
Speaker 2: can know that, hey, he didn't just wander around and
Speaker 2: die in his own We at least have someone that
Speaker 2: we can hold responsible for his death, and we can
Speaker 2: officially call his death a homicide rather than just him
Speaker 2: dying lonely and alone of like a heart attack or
Speaker 2: something inside a dumpsters, so at least that would give them,
Speaker 2: I think, some sort of closure. However, I do find
Speaker 2: it encouraging that ever since the release of the Unsolved
Speaker 2: Mysteries episode, most of the online discussions I've seen about
Speaker 2: this case have focused more on the issue of mental
Speaker 2: health rather than over the top conspiracy theories. For many
Speaker 2: cold cases, the opposite is true, So I'm taking this
Speaker 2: as a sign that people are opening to considering and
Speaker 2: discussing mental health issues, so there's less of a stigma
Speaker 2: attached to it. Regardless of whether his death was an
Speaker 2: accident or murder, Jack Wheeler deserves to be best remembered
Speaker 2: for the many things he achieved in life, such as
Speaker 2: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, rather than the circumstances of how
Speaker 2: he died. But if you happen to have any information
Speaker 2: about the death of Jack Wheeler which points towards a homicide,
Speaker 2: please contact Delaware Crime Stoppers at one eight hundred tip
Speaker 2: three three three three. That's one eight hundred eight four
Speaker 2: seven three three three three, or you can submit a
Speaker 2: tip through their website at Delaware crimestoppers dot com. Jules Ashley,
Speaker 2: any final thoughts in this case.
Speaker 3: I think this is one of those cases that really
Speaker 3: does make you step back and pause and think about
Speaker 3: how blessed we are that the conversation is changing. Robin,
Speaker 3: you just said it, like, is it getting better where
Speaker 3: we're able to talk openly about mental health struggles and
Speaker 3: what can that do for people? Well, you know, there's
Speaker 3: a famous quote that kind of references this idea that
Speaker 3: the people that do the most good around them and
Speaker 3: are trying to help other people not struggle are people
Speaker 3: who know struggle the most and know hurt the most,
Speaker 3: and they just don't want other people to feel the
Speaker 3: way they feel. You see that in Jack. You see
Speaker 3: a hero who served our country, who protected dignitaries, who
Speaker 3: stood next to Ronald Reagan as a memorial gets unveiled
Speaker 3: that Jack played a big role in. I mean, these
Speaker 3: are amazing, powerful things, and yet his wife takes you
Speaker 3: into their reality behind the scenes and says, look at
Speaker 3: all the magic my husband did, Look at all the
Speaker 3: good he did, And yet when he laid his head down,
Speaker 3: there were such dark demons and they were waiting for
Speaker 3: him when he woke up. I think he hated himself.
Speaker 3: It's heavy, and it's a reality that this is not abnormal.
Speaker 3: So many people we love and care about are struggling
Speaker 3: with ease, mental health issues. They're struggling with the darkness
Speaker 3: and the demons that take over and are much louder
Speaker 3: than the reality sometimes. And so it is that reminder
Speaker 3: to reach out to people, to be open to people,
Speaker 3: to be understanding of what individuals are going through. And
Speaker 3: you saw people do the right thing in this case
Speaker 3: when they saw someone struggling. They said, something's wrong. Let
Speaker 3: me get my supervisor to come talk to this man.
Speaker 3: Something's wrong. Let me see if we can help this man.
Speaker 3: Something's wrong. Let me call him a cap so he
Speaker 3: doesn't get in a car with some stranger. People really
Speaker 3: were trying to intervene. And I think as time goes on,
Speaker 3: you'll start to see more and more education and access
Speaker 3: to help for people with mental health issues. But it's
Speaker 3: just it's tragic because he dedicated his whole life to
Speaker 3: serving our country, to making other people feel safer and
Speaker 3: happier and to give people peace, and he couldn't find
Speaker 3: it himself. My heart breaks for Catherine, who had things
Speaker 3: before his death that were overly traumatic.
Speaker 1: For her.
Speaker 3: She had issues after his death with her own family
Speaker 3: and being estranged from them. So my prayer would just be,
Speaker 3: like you said, Robin, maybe there's not a criminal case
Speaker 3: that can be brought forward, but maybe just answers so
Speaker 3: that there's less question marks for Catherine and her family
Speaker 3: would be really powerful. But it gives me hope. It
Speaker 3: gives me hope that you don't look at somebody and
Speaker 3: judge a book by the cover. People that are incredibly successful,
Speaker 3: people that seem to have it all together, people that
Speaker 3: seem the happiest. Sometimes they're doing that because they're trying
Speaker 3: to mask the darkness that's behind that joy. And so
Speaker 3: we're getting better at that. We're getting better at saying
Speaker 3: pay attention. Right, there's warning signs. And Catherine knew it best.
Speaker 3: She said, he's a great man, but mann does he
Speaker 3: hate himself?
Speaker 2: Like I know her.
Speaker 3: Her dying wish would be if Jack could feel the
Speaker 3: way he makes me feel, if he could see the
Speaker 3: man that I see, if he could just be free
Speaker 3: from the darkness that plagues him, right, that's what she
Speaker 3: wanted as his spouse. Actually, it seems like that actually
Speaker 3: took his life. It's a pitiful tragic case. It's heartbreaking,
Speaker 3: but it's also really inspiring that we are making changes
Speaker 3: and that we are trying to become more and more
Speaker 3: aware of how we prevent more cases like Jack's, where
Speaker 3: people fall through the cracks because of their mental health.
Speaker 1: That insight from Catherine that you just referenced really hit
Speaker 1: me in the gut when I heard it, because there
Speaker 1: can be so much shame and so much pain that
Speaker 1: can be associated not only with dealing with a mental illness,
Speaker 1: but dealing with society's view of that mental illness, and
Speaker 1: just as actually just reference we've talked about throughout the
Speaker 1: conversation is changing, and I think since we first started
Speaker 1: our podcast to where we are now, I think there's
Speaker 1: been a huge shift. So I'm really excited to see
Speaker 1: where we're at in ten years. But with what Jack
Speaker 1: was dealing with, I just my heart just breaks because
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened here. There's any number of
Speaker 1: possibilities that could have happened. It could have been from
Speaker 1: the trash compactor, it could have been homicide. I really
Speaker 1: don't have any insight because I don't know who he
Speaker 1: could have potentially met and exactly the state that he
Speaker 1: was in it's anybody's guest at this stage. The fact
Speaker 1: that law enforcement seems very hell bent on holding on
Speaker 1: to the homicide determination made by the original medical examiner,
Speaker 1: that leads me to believe that there could just be
Speaker 1: something there that we're not aware of, that they aren't releasing,
Speaker 1: and they're keeping close to the vest so that if
Speaker 1: they do have a suspect, or if they do question somebody,
Speaker 1: that it might be knowledge that only that person would have.
Speaker 1: But it breaks my heart seeing that this man went
Speaker 1: through what seems to be hell over this three day period,
Speaker 1: becoming disoriented, doing these strange acts like the smoke bombs,
Speaker 1: and leaving behind his phone, and seeming like some of
Speaker 1: the actions like I think Robin had pointed out that
Speaker 1: they could have been logical, and that he was looking
Speaker 1: to go to a law firm because he thought there
Speaker 1: could be legal ramifications for the smoke bomb incident. So
Speaker 1: he went to Connolly, But he didn't have his full
Speaker 1: frame of mind to be able to know that that
Speaker 1: was in his lawyer's office and this wasn't the right Connolly.
Speaker 1: So you see him making some choices. It seemed to
Speaker 1: be grounded in some kind of logic, but he's just
Speaker 1: not fully there and we're not aware if he's sleeping
Speaker 1: or not. It's so so tragic that I really hope
Speaker 1: that we continue to grow as a society and as
Speaker 1: a culture that consumes true crime towards this space of
Speaker 1: you know, increased empathy and increased compassion towards victims, And
Speaker 1: like Ashley just said, it gives me great hope that
Speaker 1: we are moving in that direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mentioned earlier that before I watched the Unsolved
Speaker 2: Mysteries episode, I had limited knowledge of the Jack Wheeler case,
Speaker 2: but from what I did know, I mostly had come
Speaker 2: across conspiracy theories, and they were making it sound like
Speaker 2: he was working in the government and he knew stuff
Speaker 2: that he should have and his life was in age
Speaker 2: or so someone sent an assassin to kill him. So
Speaker 2: then when I watched the Unsolve Mysteries episode, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this story is nothing like this at all. And I'm
Speaker 2: thinking to myself, if this story had been covered something
Speaker 2: like ten twenty years ago, they probably would have gone
Speaker 2: all in on the conspiracy theories and barely even acknowledged
Speaker 2: his struggles with bipolar disorder, and people would be looking
Speaker 2: at this case with a different light. But it is
Speaker 2: good to know that in recent years people have been
Speaker 2: focusing more on mental health and they realized that regardless
Speaker 2: of whether Jack was murdered or his death was an accident,
Speaker 2: mental health did play a big role in what happened
Speaker 2: to him. That his strange behavior was not because he
Speaker 2: was being followed or tracked. He may have thought in
Speaker 2: his own mind that someone was following him and trying
Speaker 2: to kill him, but the evidence in the video surveillance
Speaker 2: footage go against that. And I do believe that if
Speaker 2: he was murdered, then the only explanation is that he
Speaker 2: crossed paths with a stranger and perhaps tried to start
Speaker 2: a confrontation with them, or this person took advantage to
Speaker 2: Jack because he was vulnerable, and they gave him a
Speaker 2: severe beating which played some sort of role in his death.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is tempting to think that this was
Speaker 2: nothing more than an accident, and I can understand the
Speaker 2: frustration from the family because if it was an accident
Speaker 2: and there was no one else around and no other witnesses,
Speaker 2: then there's no way they can ever know for sure.
Speaker 2: But if it was a homicide, then at least they
Speaker 2: can find a suspect and possibly learn the full truth.
Speaker 2: But like we said, police officially ruled a homicide and
Speaker 2: they have kept this ruling for the past thirteen and
Speaker 2: a half years, so they must have information to make
Speaker 2: them not want to change the cause of death and
Speaker 2: still actively investigate this. But they're being pretty tight lipped
Speaker 2: about this, so we don't really know where the investigation
Speaker 2: is at at this at some point, but fingers crossed,
Speaker 2: if this was a homicide, maybe one of these days
Speaker 2: we will see and rest and finally learn the full
Speaker 2: explanation for how Jack died.
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 4: about the trailment Cold Patreon.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes which
Speaker 2: I talk about cases which are not featured on the
Speaker 2: Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
Speaker 2: ten dollars Tier one of the features we offer is
Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawd Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series. Enjoying doing those, so we
Speaker 4: hope you'll check out those patreons will link them in
Speaker 4: the show notes.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 2: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 2: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated.
Speaker 2: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: You can reach us on Twitter at the pathwin. So
Speaker 2: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 2: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy