Speaker 1: Lingo Ann's stories say the Kushtaka or koushtaka is a
Speaker 1: shape shifting otter like creature that lures people into the wilderness,
Speaker 1: sometimes trigging them to their deaths. Michael Oros arrived in
Speaker 1: the wilds of northwest British Columbia in nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: with a peach fuzz beard carrying a bamboo flute. Henry Vance,
Speaker 1: a First Nation taunting man who spent winters caretaking a
Speaker 1: hunting god's cabin and horses in she Slay, an abandoned
Speaker 1: native village and mining settlement, encountered Oros hiking along the
Speaker 1: trail from Telegraph Creek. When Oros moved into a deserted cabin,
Speaker 1: Vance suddenly found himself with a neighbor. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: Vance and his wife had to take care of the
Speaker 1: boy as he struggled to stay alive, and over time,
Speaker 1: Vance watched the young man harden and develop his wood skills.
Speaker 1: He also witnessed increasingly spooky violent behavior from Oros. For instance, once,
Speaker 1: when Oros showed up asking for dinner, he took offense
Speaker 1: when Vance asked him to wash his hands. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, Vance got the feeling that Oros was considering
Speaker 1: murdering him. Another time, he threatened to kill Vance's wife
Speaker 1: over a pitied dispute over Oros's dogs. Years later, after
Speaker 1: Vance learned that Oros had gone on to commit horrible
Speaker 1: crimes and murders across the region, Vance said he felt
Speaker 1: guilty for having helped him. Our taulting people are helpful people.
Speaker 1: We help people who are down and out, Vance said
Speaker 1: in an interview on a Canadian radio station. Vance could
Speaker 1: not have known at the time that he was helping
Speaker 1: a man who would become known as she Slay Free Mike,
Speaker 1: one of the most infamous and mysterious criminals to ever
Speaker 1: roam the North Country. At first, Oros's home base was
Speaker 1: near the headwaters of the she Sleiy River, which is
Speaker 1: a tributary of the massive Taco River watershed that originates
Speaker 1: in British Columbia and drains into southeast Alaska. It's likely
Speaker 1: that the isolation of living at she Sleay contributed to
Speaker 1: Oros becoming increasingly feral, paranoid, and delusional. He took to
Speaker 1: carving trees and building with his personal mark, a blazing
Speaker 1: sun symbol, which signified that he owned the country and
Speaker 1: everything in it. He roamed deeper into the wilderness, living
Speaker 1: in a tent and in abandoned structures, illegally hunting and trapping,
Speaker 1: and occasionally raiding a cabin. The heart of Oros's territory
Speaker 1: began more or less in she Slay, and stretched west
Speaker 1: to Atland and north to Teslon to encompass more than
Speaker 1: thirty thousand square miles. Much of the area is the
Speaker 1: Taku ling At people's ancestral home, where many still live today.
Speaker 1: Stories of Oros menacing nature and his cabin raids began
Speaker 1: to circulate as de detales of his almost superhuman ability
Speaker 1: to travel through the woods. He could supposedly snowshoe while
Speaker 1: hauling a heavy sled at a steady six miles per hour,
Speaker 1: covering sixty miles a day. He moved like a ghost,
Speaker 1: most of the time unseen, and at other times he
Speaker 1: would suddenly appear as if he were conjured. Over time,
Speaker 1: Oros ran the Tesla and Lingot off their legally owned
Speaker 1: trapping grounds and claimed them as his own. They could
Speaker 1: have filed charges, but they declined to talk to the police.
Speaker 1: Sit to ling At culturer bearer Dave Kenoe said that
Speaker 1: some families moved to southeast Alaska to get away from Oros.
Speaker 1: Canadian police officer Chris Morgan was stationed in Teslain for
Speaker 1: several years and had encounters with Oros. In a nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five interview for the Vancouver Sun newspaper, Morgan called
Speaker 1: Oros the missing link, the closest thing a man can
Speaker 1: be to being an animal and the closest thing an
Speaker 1: animal can be to being a man. But he wasn't
Speaker 1: always that way. He was born in Oregon in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two, the only child of a single mother who
Speaker 1: worked as a petroleum geologist, a chemical engineer, and a
Speaker 1: university professor. He never knew his father. Arla Clia got
Speaker 1: to know the boy and his mother in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties when the two moved to her neighborhood in Lawrence, Kansas.
Speaker 1: One of Client's first interactions with the two was taking Michael,
Speaker 1: whom she described as lonely in show, to his first
Speaker 1: day of school because his mom was busy. In nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight, when Michael was in the tenth grade, he
Speaker 1: became deeply affected by the Vietnam War. He developed a
Speaker 1: deep hatred for the government and authority in general. Not
Speaker 1: long after, his mother claimed she sent him away to
Speaker 1: live with relatives and work horses in Wyoming. Clia never
Speaker 1: saw Michael or heard his mother talk about him again,
Speaker 1: and whether Oros actually went to Wyoming is unclear. Either way,
Speaker 1: he was soon on his own, wandering the country. When
Speaker 1: he turned eighteen, he became a draft dodger and began
Speaker 1: using aliases. He'd used at least fifteen during his short life.
Speaker 1: In Taos, New Mexico, he joined a commune where he
Speaker 1: got tangled up in drugs and violence, though the details
Speaker 1: around this part of Oros's story are unclear. Eventually he
Speaker 1: fled to Fairbanks, Alaska. Vernon Frolic, a Canadian writer and prosecutor,
Speaker 1: had full access to Oros's diaries. He published the book
Speaker 1: about Oros entitled Descent into Madness The Diary of a Killer.
Speaker 1: The book describes Oros when he first comes north as
Speaker 1: a hardcore back to Earth, part of a movement to
Speaker 1: reconnect with the land that began in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: in response to industrialization and capitalism, and arguably reached its
Speaker 1: peak during the early nineteen seventies. Like a lot of
Speaker 1: young people moving to Alaska in that era, Oros was
Speaker 1: also looking to escape his past and reinvent himself. Oros
Speaker 1: was on a quest for freedom and truth, and the
Speaker 1: wild North seemed to be the perfect place to find it.
Speaker 1: More than that, he wanted to build a utopic community
Speaker 1: in the wilderness that would be a sanctuary for those
Speaker 1: seeking escape from society. He read esoteric books, studied zen,
Speaker 1: and was obsessed with concepts like trying to grasp the
Speaker 1: unseen reality. He took up with different small groups of hippies,
Speaker 1: mostly draft dodgers, and lived in primitive cabins. The cold,
Speaker 1: darkness and isolation of Fairbanks Winners was too much for him, though,
Speaker 1: In the spring of nineteen seventy two, he set out
Speaker 1: for Telegraph Creek in northwest British Columbia. One story goes
Speaker 1: that he was run out of Telegraph Creek by locals
Speaker 1: and that's why he ended up in She Slay. Another
Speaker 1: is that he was offered a job helping the same
Speaker 1: hunting outfitter Henry Vance was working for. But regardless, She
Speaker 1: Slay is the place that marked the beginning of his
Speaker 1: thirteen year war with the torture Druggers and the sneak Arounds.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long before he became known as She Slay
Speaker 1: Free Mike or just She Slay, and before long became
Speaker 1: bane of the country. Oros kept prolific journals documenting his paranoia, delusions,
Speaker 1: and rage. He'd leave notes or poems posted to trees
Speaker 1: or cabin doors, stating things like I'm a free man,
Speaker 1: let me be. In his journals, he constantly referred to
Speaker 1: torture druggers who experimented and poisoned him, as well as
Speaker 1: sneak arounds, whom he never seemed to catch sight of,
Speaker 1: but who he believed were stalking him. Armed with a
Speaker 1: three to zero three rifle, he'd spend a significant portion
Speaker 1: of many days hunting sneak arounds. Oros also imagined that
Speaker 1: every time a plane flew overhead, it sprayed him and
Speaker 1: the earth with poisonous chemicals. His hatred of authority figures
Speaker 1: had deepened into a murderous rage, and he constantly wrote
Speaker 1: in his journals about wanting to kill any government officials
Speaker 1: he might encounter. At the time, the only government employees
Speaker 1: who spent time in his territory were Alaska Department a
Speaker 1: Fish and Game fishery biologists, conducting research annually from April
Speaker 1: through October. Lead biologist Paul Kissner worked in the Taku
Speaker 1: Watershed from nineteen seventy one to nineteen ninety. At first,
Speaker 1: Kissner told me that he and his crew thought Oros
Speaker 1: was weird but a mostly harmless mountain man. Mike Beathers,
Speaker 1: a retired King Salmon biologists who worked with Kissner, said
Speaker 1: that changed as they learned more about him. Quote, the
Speaker 1: women at camp were especially scared. No one ever saw him,
Speaker 1: but we were always looking over our shoulders feathers set.
Speaker 1: In early summer of nineteen seventy nine, Kissner and crew
Speaker 1: returned to their research camp on the Nakuina River, a
Speaker 1: tributary of the taku and found that Oros had stolen
Speaker 1: their river boat from and raiding their camp. Oros knew
Speaker 1: at least some of the crew's names and that many
Speaker 1: of them lived in Juno. Kisner reported the theft to
Speaker 1: the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was willing to testify
Speaker 1: against Oros. Police were well aware of Oros by the
Speaker 1: time and suspected him in numerous crimes. Now they had
Speaker 1: an arrest warrant, but they made no move. Locating Oros
Speaker 1: would be difficult and dangerous, not to mention, the charge
Speaker 1: likely wouldn't amount to a substantial conviction. Despite his aversion
Speaker 1: to civilization, Oros would go into the town on occasion
Speaker 1: for short term work, to stock up on supplies and
Speaker 1: look for women. He'd do this sometimes in Juno, where
Speaker 1: he wasn't infamous. The fall after he stole the ADF
Speaker 1: and G riverboat, it appears he went to Juno and
Speaker 1: was working with a road crew paving the highway. Kisner
Speaker 1: was still up at Taku when lay one night, a
Speaker 1: hippie with long and sandy blonde hair knocked on his
Speaker 1: and his wife's condominium door. Through the door, Kisner's wife
Speaker 1: asked the man what he wanted quote He told her
Speaker 1: there was a problem with her newspaper and that she
Speaker 1: needed to let him in. Kisner said he seemed threatening,
Speaker 1: and she retreated to the kitchen to call the police.
Speaker 1: The man became irate, pounding and demanding to be let in,
Speaker 1: and when a trooper finally arrived, the only sign of
Speaker 1: the prowler was the evidence he left dripping down the door. Later,
Speaker 1: upon seeing a photo of Oros, Kisner's wife guessed it
Speaker 1: could have been him. Phil Timpany, a Canadian woodsman, was
Speaker 1: the only member of Kisner's fishery crew whoever actually saw Oros.
Speaker 1: It happened sometime after the fall of nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: while Oros was being held in custody in Atlan, a
Speaker 1: cop wanted to come in and Oros and Timpany was
Speaker 1: out in the same country as the madman, and the
Speaker 1: cop was worried for his safety. The officer told Timpany
Speaker 1: they suspected Oros of a number of disappearances and murders. Quote.
Speaker 1: I ask what to do if I meet up with
Speaker 1: him in the woods. He said, don't ever say goodbye. Basically,
Speaker 1: just shoot him. At the jail, Timpany expected there would
Speaker 1: be a one way window or something blocking Oros from
Speaker 1: seeing him. Instead, the cop took him right in front
Speaker 1: of Oros. Quote. I saw him at the store a
Speaker 1: couple of days later, and he never took his eyes
Speaker 1: off me. He was the most wild looking guy, but
Speaker 1: not in a woodsy way. His eyes were just intents,
Speaker 1: like a caged animal in intense eyes. Timpany said. Just
Speaker 1: about everyone was scared of Oros, except for an old,
Speaker 1: enigmatic trapper named Gunther Lishey, an ex Nazi who fought
Speaker 1: in World War Two before being imprisoned in a Russian camp.
Speaker 1: Lichy emigrated to Canada to live in the woods. He
Speaker 1: was tough, and he was woods wise and apparently dangerous Timpany,
Speaker 1: who also had a trap line, treaded lightly around Lishey.
Speaker 1: He recalled hearing a story of Lichy encountering another trapper
Speaker 1: on his line. Lichy aimed his gun at the man,
Speaker 1: and Lishy's companion, who happened to be a cop, and
Speaker 1: told him to stop. Lischi said something along the lines
Speaker 1: that he'd killed many men in his life and one
Speaker 1: more wouldn't make any difference. Supposedly, Lichi and Oros only
Speaker 1: met twice. Once was briefly in the Wiles, when Lichi
Speaker 1: took a photo of Oros. It was one of the
Speaker 1: three photos found on the German's cabin wall after he disappeared.
Speaker 1: The second was in the late summer of nineteen eighty one. Lichy,
Speaker 1: knowing Oros had a cabin and a trap line on
Speaker 1: Hudsongola Lake, got dropped off by a floatplane. In late July,
Speaker 1: Oros was gone, Lichi began building a cabin less than
Speaker 1: one hundred yards from Oros's cabin. Lishi's actions were bizarre.
Speaker 1: For one, Lichi knew it was illegal to trap the area.
Speaker 1: Traplines are owned in British Columbia. You can't go laying
Speaker 1: steel wherever you please, and second, knowing it was illegal,
Speaker 1: why would Lichi allow his business to be known by
Speaker 1: chartering a commercial floatplane. Finally, Lichi was well aware of
Speaker 1: Oros's reputation. Why would he build a cabin so close.
Speaker 1: One likely explanation could be that Lichy, knowing Oros had
Speaker 1: run the legal trapline owners out of the area, planned
Speaker 1: on taking over the fur Ridge country for himself. After
Speaker 1: surviving World War II, the German might have believed that
Speaker 1: dealing with Oros wouldn't be that difficult. On September tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, one pilot Dave Weeb landed in Hutzegola
Speaker 1: Lake to pick up Lishey as they had scheduled weeks before,
Speaker 1: but instead of Lishy, Web was confronted by Oros, who
Speaker 1: said he'd never heard of the old trapper, let alone
Speaker 1: seen him. Web's instinct told him that Oros was going
Speaker 1: to try to kill him, so he played it as
Speaker 1: cool as he could and he got away. He flew
Speaker 1: to Atland and immediately contacted the RCMP. Police, believing they
Speaker 1: finally had solid evidence on Oros, immediately mobilized the team.
Speaker 1: Their plan was to use the arrest warrant from Oros
Speaker 1: as nineteen seventy nine theft of the ADF and G
Speaker 1: riverboat to pick him up and hold him in jail
Speaker 1: while they built a murder case against him. When the
Speaker 1: team arrived at Hutsgola Lake on September twelfth, Oros was
Speaker 1: long gone deep in the wilderness. The officer searched the
Speaker 1: area and gathered Lihi's belonging, many of which Oros had
Speaker 1: tried to hide. They also took Oros' diaries for evidence.
Speaker 1: They searched Tor, but they couldn't find Lishi's body. Oros
Speaker 1: got caught the following March after he returned to his
Speaker 1: cabin at Hutzegola for the winter. Oros had spent most
Speaker 1: of the winter hunting sneak arounds and fantasizing about killing
Speaker 1: an ever growing list of people. When police flew in,
Speaker 1: Oros inexplicably went without much of a fight. The only
Speaker 1: thing that Oros seemed to care about were his dogs.
Speaker 1: Many people have referenced his devotion to them. What happened
Speaker 1: after Oros was handcuffed is unclear. Officially, he was put
Speaker 1: on a helicopter and his dogs were later destroyed. There's
Speaker 1: another story that out of spite, an officer shot Oros's
Speaker 1: favorite dog right in front of him. Vernon Frolic, the
Speaker 1: prosecutor who'd later write to sent into Madness, worked with
Speaker 1: the police during the investigation. Without Lehi's body or a confession,
Speaker 1: and only minor charges. Frolic and the police tried to
Speaker 1: have Oros locked up in a psychiatric hospital. While Oros
Speaker 1: was deeply disturbed, he was also extremely intelligent and cunning.
Speaker 1: His diaries are largely free form madness, but it appeared
Speaker 1: that he never wrote anything legally incriminating. By late August,
Speaker 1: Oros had been acquitted and set free. He roamed all
Speaker 1: over the Lower forty eight in Canada. Timpany heard a
Speaker 1: cop in that one claimed Oros was being tracked daily
Speaker 1: during his travels. Around this time, Oros directed the lion's
Speaker 1: share of his hatred toward police officers. He wrote in
Speaker 1: his last diary that focusing his hatred allowed him to
Speaker 1: set back and enjoy himself doing a few things I
Speaker 1: wanted to do before I died. One of those things
Speaker 1: may have been the rape and murder of Cindy Elrod,
Speaker 1: whose body was found on August twenty third, nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 1: in Juno. The night before, el Rod had been seen
Speaker 1: at a bar with a man described as having long,
Speaker 1: sandy blonde hair like Oros and being within a similar age,
Speaker 1: height and weight range. A composite sketch shows a baby
Speaker 1: faced man with long hair parted in the middle, the
Speaker 1: same as Oro's hair was in pictures. During his last years,
Speaker 1: Oros's rambling journals showed he believed that an elite paramilitary
Speaker 1: unit would be helicoptered into an area to hunt him down.
Speaker 1: This prediction became a reality in March of nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: after Frank and Aileen Hayes arrived at their cabin in
Speaker 1: Teslin Lake and found that Oros had looted and destroyed it.
Speaker 1: He had taken everything of value, including their wedding rings.
Speaker 1: He left the partially butchered remains of a Ca hal
Speaker 1: mooso In's side. Clumps of hair and rotting blood were
Speaker 1: splattered on the walls and soaked into the floorboards. The Hasses,
Speaker 1: rightfully worried for their lives, snow machined back to Teslin
Speaker 1: and reported to break into the police. The RCMP reconnaissance
Speaker 1: flight was sent out, and when the pilot found Oros
Speaker 1: hauling a slid through the snowy wilderness, the madman fired
Speaker 1: at the plane. Teslain police contacted emergency response teams and
Speaker 1: literally overnight, a team of rcmps, most elite officers, were mobilized.
Speaker 1: Two of the men on the ERT were close friends
Speaker 1: with Mike Badey and Gary Rogers, both of whom dealt
Speaker 1: with Oros in nineteen eighty two while he was in
Speaker 1: custody and terrace and afterward while he was waiting for
Speaker 1: his trial. Budday was a larger than live character. One night,
Speaker 1: after having a few drinks and showing up at Roger's house,
Speaker 1: he decided to use his chainsaw to cut the door,
Speaker 1: rather than to be rude by knocking and descent into madness.
Speaker 1: Frolic wrote that when Oros was detained in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: two and tore apart a jail, sell officers went and
Speaker 1: fetched Budet, who was off duty and drinking at the bar,
Speaker 1: to subdue him. Buddet is more than just a muscled
Speaker 1: up drinker, though. When Oros was waiting for his trial
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, he slept on a police station
Speaker 1: bench when the weather was bad. If anyone tried to
Speaker 1: mess with him, but they put a stop to that.
Speaker 1: While members of the ERT were on their way north,
Speaker 1: Oros slept on Big Island in Tusslin Lake. The burial
Speaker 1: place of a lingo Ant shaman. There had long been
Speaker 1: a belief circulating around Oros, especially with the lingo Ant people,
Speaker 1: that he was not human. They believed that he was
Speaker 1: a physical manifestation of the kushta Ka, an evil spirit
Speaker 1: that preys upon and possesses the loss, turning them into
Speaker 1: a reflection of itself. The kushta Ka is a shape
Speaker 1: shifting monster associated with madness and disappearances and wildness. The
Speaker 1: kushta Ka can be linked to the wild man of
Speaker 1: the woods archetype, and that it lures its victims into
Speaker 1: the wilderness, turns them insane, and causes them to lose
Speaker 1: their humanity. To this day, many people who were involved
Speaker 1: with Oros believe this, including Rogers. Some also believe that Oros,
Speaker 1: by sleeping at the burial site on Big Island, woke
Speaker 1: the spirit of the shaman. One of the most important
Speaker 1: functions of the Lingolnt shaman was to battle the cousta Ka.
Speaker 1: Oros knew police would be coming for him. He could
Speaker 1: have escaped into the wilderness, but instead he chose to
Speaker 1: wait for them. His journals indicate his belief that his
Speaker 1: war with the real and imagined world was about to end.
Speaker 1: In a big shootout. On the morning of March nineteen, Rogers, Badet,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the ert flew into Teslin late.
Speaker 1: Rogers in Budet, armed with them sixteen's along with a sharpshooter,
Speaker 1: made up one of the units. Their unit was dropped
Speaker 1: off in front of Oros, while another was dropped behind him.
Speaker 1: While Rogers in Bedet were hiding in the deep snow,
Speaker 1: hoping to intercept Oros. As he snowshoed toward them, the
Speaker 1: mad trapper disappeared into the brush unseen. He circled around
Speaker 1: and snuck up on Rogers in Budet. Oros fatally shot
Speaker 1: Bedey through the back of the neck with his three
Speaker 1: to zero three rifle and then turned to Rogers. Forty
Speaker 1: four yards separated the two men. Rogers said he believes
Speaker 1: he and Bidet had some higher power with them that day.
Speaker 1: The moment after Budet was shot had an out of
Speaker 1: body experience, like he was watching the events happen from above.
Speaker 1: He says he looked down on Oros as the man
Speaker 1: worked his rifle. Boat took aim and pulled a trigger,
Speaker 1: and then Rogers watched himself raise his M sixteen and shoot.
Speaker 1: His bullet went through Oros's forehead, killing him instantly. Examination
Speaker 1: of Orosa's rifle afterwards showed that the firing pin had
Speaker 1: been worked in, dented the primer, but hadn't ignited the powder.
Speaker 1: Rogers should have been killed. Lihi's remains were found a
Speaker 1: year and a half later when a constable from Teslain
Speaker 1: flew into Hutzegola Lake and stumbled on the German scattered bones.
Speaker 1: There was a bullet hole through the right scapula. Forensics
Speaker 1: showed Lichi had been shot in the back with a
Speaker 1: bullet matching a three to zero three cartridge. With Oros dead,
Speaker 1: a wave of relief washed over the region. Forty years later,
Speaker 1: Much of the land he wants roam is still wild,
Speaker 1: though there is a massive mining operation plan for the region.
Speaker 1: Oros has been pretty much forgotten except by those who
Speaker 1: are affected by him directly. He remains as cryptic in
Speaker 1: death as he was in life. People who dealt with
Speaker 1: him still lower their voices when they talk about she
Speaker 1: Slave Free Mike, if they speak of him at all.