Speaker 1: Hello, friends, Welcome to our latest episode. This time we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about Yellowstone National parks most disturbing disappearances.
Speaker 1: Join me. Let's take a walk and say now. For
Speaker 1: millions of visitors every year, Yellowstone National Park is a
Speaker 1: place of beauty, towering mountains, endless forest, boiling geysers, wildlife
Speaker 1: roaming freely across one of the last truly wild landscapes
Speaker 1: in America. But beneath that beauty, Yellowstone hides something darker,
Speaker 1: because for decades now, people have entered diswilderness and simply
Speaker 1: never come back. Some of these disappearances likely have tragic explanations. Others, though,
Speaker 1: remain deeply unsadily now. Some victims were experienced outdoorsmen who
Speaker 1: knew survival better than most people know their own hometowns.
Speaker 1: Others vanished under circumstances so bizarre this investigators still can't
Speaker 1: explain what happened. In some cases, only a single shoe
Speaker 1: or an abandoned vehicle or a deserted campsite was all
Speaker 1: that was ever found. In this episode, we're diving into
Speaker 1: some of the strangest and most unsettling disappearances connected to
Speaker 1: Yellowstone National Park and the deeper you go into these cases,
Speaker 1: the more Yellowstone begins to feel less like a park
Speaker 1: and more like a place where people are swallowed whole.
Speaker 1: First up Larry Marvin Morris. In April nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: twenty four year old Larry Marvin Morris was finishing temporary
Speaker 1: work as a seismograph operator in Riverton, Wyoming. Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Larry planned to drive home after making a short stop
Speaker 1: a Yellowstone National Park, but he never made it back home.
Speaker 1: Larry was last seen on April twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: leaving Riverton in a green nineteen sixty six pick up truck.
Speaker 1: Friends and co workers expecting him back in Oklahoma within days,
Speaker 1: but when he failed to report to work the following Monday,
Speaker 1: concern quickly turned into panning. Investigator searched Larry's apartment and
Speaker 1: discovered something unsettling. There were no signs that he had
Speaker 1: ever returned home, no evidence of packing, no signs of
Speaker 1: a struggle, no clues at all. But then the case
Speaker 1: took a terrifying turn. Less than two weeks later, police
Speaker 1: and Idaho arrested two men attempting to rob a country
Speaker 1: sto work. One of them identified himself as Larry Morris,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't Larry Morris. The suspects were later identified
Speaker 1: as James Franklin Javis and Jack Raymond Lincoln, both convicted
Speaker 1: criminals with violent histories. Lincoln had actually escaped to Colorado
Speaker 1: prison just two days before Larry vanished, and when investigators
Speaker 1: searched the men's vehicles, they found Larry's credit cards, and
Speaker 1: identification authorities soon uncovered the trail stretching your cross multiple states.
Speaker 1: Witnesses reported the two men using Larry's credit cards in Wyoming, Nevada, California,
Speaker 1: and Idaho, while signing receipts with Larry's name. But then
Speaker 1: it gets even worse. Larry's truck was eventually discovered abandoned
Speaker 1: at a repair shop in California. Lincoln's fingerprints were reportedly
Speaker 1: found inside the vehicle and on the stolen credit card seats.
Speaker 1: Yet despite all that, no one was ever charged with
Speaker 1: Larry Morris's murder. For of Detective Ed Mcoslin, who spent
Speaker 1: decades working the case, became convinced Larry had encountered the
Speaker 1: two men shortly after leaving Riverton, possibly picking them up
Speaker 1: while they hitchhiked along the highway. At that time, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing was common, especially in rural Wyoming during
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. Now Mccaustlin believed Larry was likely murdered
Speaker 1: somewhere between Riverton and dub Wyoming. Heavy snowstorms had blanked
Speaker 1: to the region, meaning the killers probably wouldn't have needed
Speaker 1: to move far off the highway to hide the body
Speaker 1: forever and forever maybe exactly what happened, because more than
Speaker 1: fifty years later, Larry Morris has never been found. Next
Speaker 1: up case of Daniel Lynn Campbell. Now, all disappearances feel tragic,
Speaker 1: but others just feel wrong. Daniel Lynn Campbell's case falls
Speaker 1: firmly into the second category. Dan was an experienceial outdoorsman
Speaker 1: from Big Timber, Montana. He knew the Yellstone Wilderness well
Speaker 1: and often spent days hiking through remote backcountry terrain with
Speaker 1: his dog Freckles. Then, on April sixth, nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: Dan was dropped off near the hell Roaring Creek trailhead
Speaker 1: inside Yeostone National Park. His plan, it seems straightforward. He
Speaker 1: intended to hike north towards Jardine, Montana, while recovering a
Speaker 1: cash of hidden elk antlers he had illegally collected earlier.
Speaker 1: The antlers they could be sold for thousands of dollars,
Speaker 1: and Dan reportedly needed money badly. But Dad never arrived
Speaker 1: at his pickup point, and neither did Freckles. Search teams
Speaker 1: launched in operation days later, but Yellstone was suddenly hit
Speaker 1: by severe late season snowstorms. Avalanche conditions developed across parts
Speaker 1: of the park, making searches incredibly dangers. Still, something about
Speaker 1: the case immediately stood out. Searchers found absolutely no trace
Speaker 1: of Dan or his dog, no backpack, no clothing, not
Speaker 1: a single footprint, nothing. Eventually, after the snow melted, investigators
Speaker 1: located Dan's abandoned campsite near Specimen Creek on the slopes
Speaker 1: of Hell Roaring Mountain. The camp looked eerily untouched. Food
Speaker 1: remained scattered around the site. Supplies were still there. The
Speaker 1: fire pit contained bird cans and evidence that Danny cooked
Speaker 1: the meal before vanishing. It looked as though he had
Speaker 1: simply walked away from the camp and disappeared into thin air,
Speaker 1: but there were troubling surrounding Dan's disappearance. Almost immediately, family
Speaker 1: members learned that multiple antler hunters had been operating in
Speaker 1: the same area around the time Dan vanished. Some witnesses
Speaker 1: reportedly heard gunshots echoing through the mountains. Others claimed Dan
Speaker 1: had been associating with dangerous individuals connecting to the illegal
Speaker 1: antler trade, a black market industry so lucrative that park
Speaker 1: officials once compared it to drug trafficking. Dan's brothers became
Speaker 1: convinced that he had been murdered, and over time they
Speaker 1: grew furious with law enforcement. According to his family, investigators
Speaker 1: ignored possible suspects, released armed antler hunters without properly questioning them,
Speaker 1: and repeatedly pushed the theory that Dan had voluntarily disappeared,
Speaker 1: despite evidence suggesting otherwise. At one point, the family even
Speaker 1: sued the Sheriff's department, alleging incompetence and claiming critical evidence
Speaker 1: had been lost or mishandled. Then came another disturbing detail.
Speaker 1: In documents later obtained through AFOIA Breed of Information request,
Speaker 1: investigators revealed that new evidence serviced in twenty sixteen evidence
Speaker 1: serious enough to reignite investigative activity, but the details were
Speaker 1: almost entirely redacted. To this day, nobody knows exactly what
Speaker 1: investigators discovered, and perhaps the strangest part of all, not
Speaker 1: even Freckles ever came back out of Yellowstone. Now many
Speaker 1: believe Dan and his dog may have been murdered somewhere
Speaker 1: near Hell Roaring Mountain, but more than three decades later,
Speaker 1: nobody truly knows what happened out there next up Kim Crumbo.
Speaker 1: By twenty twenty one, Kim Crumbo was practically considered a
Speaker 1: legend in the outdoor world. A former Navy seal who
Speaker 1: served two tours in Vietnam, Kim later worked as a
Speaker 1: river ranger and wilderness coordinator at Grand Canyon National Park.
Speaker 1: Frinds described him as obsensibly prepared, highly skilled, and the
Speaker 1: most experienced outdoorsmen they had ever known, which makes what
Speaker 1: happened next so difficult to explain. In September of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, Kim and his half brother Mark O'Neill entered
Speaker 1: Yellowstone for a four night canoe trip near Shoshonee Lake,
Speaker 1: one of the largest remote backcountry lakes in the United States.
Speaker 1: But when the pair failed to return, family members reported
Speaker 1: them missing. Search teams soon located their abandoned campsite. Then
Speaker 1: they found their canoe, A paddle a life vest and
Speaker 1: eventually Mark O'Neill's body along the shoreline after what investigators
Speaker 1: believe was a cold water accident. But Kim Crumbo was
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found, and that shocked everyone who knew him.
Speaker 1: For instances, Kim was the kind of person who planned
Speaker 1: for every possible contingency. Some openly stated that they believed
Speaker 1: if anyone could survive tho Stone alone, it would be
Speaker 1: Kim Crumbo. But the conditions on Shoshonee Lake are brutal.
Speaker 1: Water temperatures, however around forty eight degrees fahrenheit, strong winds
Speaker 1: and sudden storms can turn the lake deadly within minutes.
Speaker 1: Survival time after immersion is often estimated less than thirty minutes. Still,
Speaker 1: no body was ever recovered. Despite massive searches involving helicopters,
Speaker 1: shoreline crews, and water operations, Kim Crumbo vanished completely, and
Speaker 1: considering his level of experience, many people continue to struggle
Speaker 1: with the official explanation. Next up, we have the strange
Speaker 1: case of ill hun Row. Now, most Yellstone disappearances involve forests, rivers, cliffs,
Speaker 1: or storms, but ill hun Rose case involved something far,
Speaker 1: far worse, a thermal pool. In August of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Yellowstone employees made a horrifying discovery at Abyss Pool, on
Speaker 1: the park's deepest and hottest geothermal springs. Floating in the
Speaker 1: water was a shoe with a strange thing. The shoe
Speaker 1: contained a human foot. DNA later identified the remains as
Speaker 1: belonging to seventy year old Ill Hun Row, a California
Speaker 1: resident visiting Yellowstone alone. Investigators soon learned that Rowe had
Speaker 1: likely vanished weeks earlier. His banded vehicle remained part near
Speaker 1: the West Thumb geyser basin. Inside were maps, personal belongings, notebooks, poems, cash,
Speaker 1: and travel materials, but no sign of Row himself. Authorities
Speaker 1: eventually concluded that he likely fell into the thermal spring
Speaker 1: sometime around July thirty first, and what happened afterward is
Speaker 1: almost too horrifying to imagine. Abyss Pool reaches temperatures above
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty degrees fahrenheit and extends more than
Speaker 1: fifty feet deep. Investigators believe the extreme heat and the
Speaker 1: cidic conditions severely destroyed much of the remains, but no
Speaker 1: witnesses ever came forward, no note was ever discovered, no
Speaker 1: evidence of foul play was found, just a single shoe
Speaker 1: that still contained part of human foot. It's one of
Speaker 1: the most disturbing mysteries Yelstone has ever seen. And then
Speaker 1: there's Stuart Isaac. In September of twenty ten, forty eight
Speaker 1: year old Stuart Isaac abruptly left his home in Maryland
Speaker 1: after writing a note telling family members he was going
Speaker 1: on a cross country trip. Days later, he arrived at
Speaker 1: Yelstone National Park. Then he simply disappeared. Now what makes
Speaker 1: Stuart's case so strange is that he wasn't known for
Speaker 1: hiking or wilderness survival. Friends described him as someone with
Speaker 1: very little outdoor experience. Yet investigators later found his abandoned
Speaker 1: les this part near Craig Pass, a remote stretch of
Speaker 1: road between Old Faithful and West Thumb. The car was unlocked,
Speaker 1: the keys were still inside, and there were no hiking
Speaker 1: trails nearby. But even stranger. Just two days earlier, Seward
Speaker 1: had made an unexpected late night phone call to an
Speaker 1: old high school friend in Guam. The conversation reportedly lasted
Speaker 1: two hours. No one knows what they discussed. When park
Speaker 1: rangers discovered the vehicle on September twenty sixth, extensive land
Speaker 1: and air searches began immediately, but nothing was found. No footprints,
Speaker 1: no supplies, no evidence Stuart had even walked into the wilderness,
Speaker 1: and that leaves investigators with a haunting question. Why would
Speaker 1: a man with little wilderness experience suddenly drive across the
Speaker 1: country alone, abandoned his vehicle in a remote part of
Speaker 1: Yellowstone and vanish forever So Yellowstone National Park covers more
Speaker 1: than two million acres of mountains, forests, rivers, canyons, caves,
Speaker 1: geothermal fields, and isolated wilderness. It's beautiful, but it's also unforgiving.
Speaker 1: Every year people underestimate the park's dangers freezing water, hidden
Speaker 1: thermal pools, wildlife cliffs, storms, and terrains so vast that
Speaker 1: someone can disappear only a few hundred feet off the
Speaker 1: trail and never be seen again. But again, some of
Speaker 1: these cases feel different. A vanished outdoorsman and his dog,
Speaker 1: a suspected murder hidden beneath the snow covered mountains, an
Speaker 1: abandoned car with the keys still inside, a legendary survival
Speaker 1: expert who disappeared without a trace, and a human foot
Speaker 1: floating in a boiling spring. Somewhere out there, Yellowstone is
Speaker 1: still keeping secrets and for the families left behind those
Speaker 1: secrets never stop hurting. Well, friends, there you have it.
Speaker 1: What do you think of these cases from Yellowstone National Park?
Speaker 1: As always, I look forward to your comments, but please
Speaker 1: keep it friendly and respectful. In the meantime, be good
Speaker 1: to yourselves, send each other. I'm Steve Stockton and I'll
Speaker 1: see you a little further on down the trail. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and please tell your animals, Steve says, Hi