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Speaker 1: Welcome to Missing Persons case Files, A place where they're gone.

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Are not the forgotten? What's happening in the forest of

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North America? How are so many people disappearing only to

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have the remains found much later, or, in many cases

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not at all. Are the predators to blame giant hair

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covered beasts or even more terrifying us as humans? Maybe

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it's both, Maybe it's neither. These are just a few

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of the questions we'll look to uncover here on the

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Missing Persons case Files.

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Speaker 2: In October of twenty sixteen, a father and son set

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out into the Oregon Wilderness stalking black tailed deer. After

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they split up, only one of them made it out

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of the woods. This is what happens when a hundred disappears.

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This article is written by J. R. Sullivan, published June

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thirteenth of twenty twenty four on fieldinstream dot com. Trevor

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Higgins was starting to panic. Even if his dad had

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shot a deer, he should have reached the trailhead by now.

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Or if he'd fallen and broken a leg, Trevor was

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sure his dad would have berely crawled to the road.

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He wasn't the kind of god to depend on some

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one else for help to sit and wait for rescue.

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But two and a half hours had passed since his dad,

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Shawn Higgins, had entered the woods. Maybe more. Trevor wasn't

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sure any more, but he knew that his dad should

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have come back to the truck already. Their plan was simple.

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Sean forty one would height down the narrow footpath looking

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for a black tail. Meanwhile, Trevor twenty one, who had

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killed a boat the day before, would wait with the

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truck at the next trail, had two miles up burnt

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Ridge Road and the Sissiqui Mountains of southwest Oregon. After

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a couple of hours, they'd meet up and drive to

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get Will Chandler, Trevor's uncle, whom they had dropped off earlier.

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They did this sort of thing often, There was no

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reason for Sean to have taken more than an hour

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or so to make the hike. Now, a storm began

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to bear down on the mountains, which further unsettled Trevor.

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He watched as the October sky grade. He could see

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a darkness coming. At two thirty p m. Will Chandler

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showed up at the truck. Trevor, his nephew and Sean,

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his brother in law, were supposed to pick him up

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three hours ago, but they never showed up, so he

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had to walk seven miles down the mountain by himself.

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Cold and irritated, he yanked open the truck door. Trevor,

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What and the hell is going on? He said, But

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the moment he saw Trevor's face, he knew something had

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gone wrong. My dad hasn't come out yet, Trevor said.

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For as long as Will had known Sean, he'd never

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once failed to show up like this. Will and Trevor

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agreed that they needed to look for Shawn before the

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weather worsened, but even now the conditions weren't conducive to

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a search. The wind was blowing hard enough to shake

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the pick up, and tree limbs crashed down around them.

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It wouldn't take long for the rain to erase any

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boot track from the trail. With nightfall just hours away,

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Will and Trevor split up in hopes of finding Shawn quickly.

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Trevor would start at the fore trailhead where he dropped

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off his dad that morning, while Will hiked in from

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where the truck was parked. They'd meet in the middle

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after one of them had found Seawn. Trevor drove his

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four wheeler north to the far trailhead, but the narrow

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path forced him to hike from there. As he struck

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off down the trail, he could see far through the

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old growth timber, and rock outcroppings. Trevor had grown up

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hunting this piece of wilderness, but his dad knew it

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even better, Another reason why his failure to show was

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so unnerving. Shan knew the mountains and ridges about as

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well as any one, and was an expert in pursuing

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deer in the timber. He jokingly referred to himself as

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doctor Blacktail. The wilderness that surrounded Trevor lies within the

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one point seven million acre Rogue Rigor Siskiyou National Forest.

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It is unforgiving country, with high, sharp bridges and dense

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stands of cedar and fir. The area where Trevor and

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Shawn were hunting, in particular, had seen its share of

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close calls and tragedies. Most notably, in November of two

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thousand and six, a family from San Francisco made a

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wrong turn off the one lane road that traverses the mountains,

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the same road Trevor and Shawn had taken that morning

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and ended up twenty one miles back in the woods,

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snow enveloped their station wagon. After seven days of waiting

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for rescue, the father, James Kim, left his family in

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search of help. His body was found four days later

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in an icy creek. His wife and two daughters survived.

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About a decade before that, a camper salesman new to

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the area and dured nine weeks in his snowbound pickup

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strainded deep in the back country before he starved to death.

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He kept record of his experience on a legal notepad,

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writing toward the end, I have no control over my life.

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It's all in his hands. These men are far from

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the only ones who have perished or gone missing in

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this wilderness. Each year in Oregon, about eleven hundred people

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require rescue from the wild, ninety nine percent of whom

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make it home alive. From nineteen ninety seven to twenty sixteen, however,

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eighty lost persons were confirmed dead in the backcountry, and

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another seventy six stepped into the woods and have not

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been seen since. Ribbon marked the path through the timber,

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and Trevor followed it away from the train. Head wind

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whipped through the trees and rain puddled on the ground.

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I started to freak out, he recalls. The only thing

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that was really going through my mind was I need

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to find my dad. Trevor followed the trail for nearly

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an hour and a half until he reached a clearing

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atop a ridge line. He had no idea if Will

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had found his dad. He'd been in such a rush

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to get on the track and search that he had

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neglected to bring a cell phone, much less a compass

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or GPS. He had only his Remington seven hundred, a knife,

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a lighter, and the clothes he was wearing. From the clearing,

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the trail split, and though the ribbon stopped, Trevor decided

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to head right, believing that way led back toward the road.

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The trees that engulfed him made it difficult to gauge

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where he was going, and with darkness falling and the

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rain intensifying, he became desperate to find his way back.

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I just wanted to get to the pickup, he says.

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I wanted to see if my uncle found my dad.

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The underbrush grew thick, and Trevor pushed his way through

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as fast as he could. After another mile or so,

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he stumbled upon a deep drawl with a creak at

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the bottom. He could barely see as he eased down

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the slope. Suddenly his feet kicked out from under him,

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and he tumbled to the bottom. After a moment, he

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managed to stand and collect himself. He was shaken, but

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thankfully uninjured. He looked up toward the ridges that surrounded him,

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walls of blackness. He was lost, but he knew that

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he'd be worse off continuing blond than he would be

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making a camp. He tried not to imagine his dad

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somewhere out there alone. I just kept telling myself over

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and over that my dad had made it out that

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he was with my uncle. At five a m. Sunday morning,

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Stephanie Higgins woke to the knocking of the front door.

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It was her father, David Petite, who lived a house

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over That night, Will after failing to reconnect with Trevor,

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had phoned his wife back in Coos Bay, a small

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community on the Oregon coast where they all lived, who

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had then called Petite to deliver the news. He told

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me about Seawn first, and I flipped out. Stephanie said,

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it took him a minute to tell me. Then about Trevor.

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Stephanie's father and sister got in the car and they

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set out for the Rogue River sask You National Forest,

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about three hours away. Thunder boom through the hills and

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cannons as they weaved up the back roads into the hills.

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Stephanie and Sean had been together since they were teenagers,

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often skipping class to hunt and fish along the Rogue River.

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Sean's father had died when he was in grade school,

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and he'd grown up with his grandmother. Stephanie joked that

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he had married her for her family. He and Stephanie

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had Trevor young and another son, Garrett, seven and a

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half years later. Trevor now had a job unloading log

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trucks and lived nearby with his girlfriend, so they still

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saw him regularly. During the drive, Stephanie told herself again

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and again that Sean and Trevor were together. I was

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praying to God that it just got dark and they

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had to stay the night in there, she said. They

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arrived at the trailhead about an hour before rescuers. Stephanie

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waited and watched, hoping Sean and Trevor would come out

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at any moment, but no one would let her join

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the search. Fearing she assumed that she might see something

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she'd never forget. I felt helpless, she said, if she

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were the one who would vanish, there was no way

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that Sean and Trevor wouldn't be out there looking for her.

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We are not sit around and wait for shit to

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happen kind of people. As the morning wore on, more

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people came to help, guys that Sean had worked construction

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jobs with, and friends from COO's Bay. Search parties were formed,

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dogs dispatched, and reinforcements called. About three miles away, Trevor

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woke cold and wet at dawn Saturday. In the night,

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he made a shelter from down libs and dead bark,

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leaning them against a tree. He tried to start a

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fire with wood, shaving and small strips of clothing, but

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he couldn't get as lighter to work, and everything was

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damp or soaked.

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Speaker 1: Stay tuned for more paranormal odyssey.

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Speaker 2: By midmorning, lightning cracked the sky. As Trevor gathered his

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gear and set out into the storm. He headed toward

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where he thought the road might be, but just forty

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yards from the shelter, something told him to stop. My

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dad had plenty of friends who had hunted that area

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with him for years. He said they could be looking

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for him. Plus, he trusted that his uncle had found

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his dad and that together they would be searching. I

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wasn't sure exactly what was going on, so I figured

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I'd try to set myself up to where I could

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survive as long as possible. He spent the rest of

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the day rebuilding his shelter, using an extra raincoat to

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better insulate the structure and to collect rainwater. He tried

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to make a fire again, but it was useless. There

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was little to do but wait. People kept coming back

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from searches with nothing to show for their efforts. A

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day passed, then two friends took off work to scour

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the woods, some staying out for twelve hours at a

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time in the heavy, freezing rain. Stephanie couldn't make herself

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leave the mountain. She slept in her car, replaying in

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her mind. Her conversation was shown before he and Trevor

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had left that weekend, the forecast had called for thunderstorms.

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If you and Will want to be idiots, then fine,

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But don't you take my baby, she told him, referring

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to Trevor. But Sean had insisted upon hunting because the

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deer would be moving as the storm approached. They'd be

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out of the woods before it got bad, he promised.

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You know what, Sean had added, If I die and

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I'm up in the woods doing something I love, then

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I'm happy. Trevor passed his time in the shelter listening

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for noises in the distance. It rained on and off

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day and night, but whenever there was a break, he'd

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walk a little call out and wait for a response.

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Late on his fourth day in the woods, he hiked

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up a hill and heard dogs barking. He blew a

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whistle that he had made from an empty shellcasing, hoping

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to get their attention. Then came the sound of people talking.

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He yelled and blew the whistle more, but soon the

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woods fell silent. Maybe rescuers are narrowing in, he thought.

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At mid morning came another sign of hope. A helicopter appeared,

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flying within one hundred yards of his shelter. He ran

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into a nearby clearing and waved frantically by firing his

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rifle into the air three times, but the chopper moved on.

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That was honestly the worst part Trevor said. He was

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hungry and cold, and his feet had gone numb, making

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it hard to walk. He had stilled himself to survive

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for as long as he could, but he knew his

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situation was dire. It was surreal, he said, coming to

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terms with the thought that this might be the end,

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that he might die before his parents and grandparents. You

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want to at least be able to say goodbye to everybody,

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he said. Still, he tried to stay calm. He had

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to make it back for his dad. It would destroy

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him if I had gotten lost out there and had

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never been found. On Trevor's fifth day in the wilderness,

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the weather broke and sunlight poured through the trees. At

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ten a m. He stripped off his damp clothes and

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hung them up to dry. He was sitting in the

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dirt when he heard another helicopter circling nearby. It came

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within view, and he tried to flag it down, waving

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a yellow bag tied to his rifle barrel, but the

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chopper quickly disappeared. He was devastated. He wondered whether that

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was his last shot at rescue. With winter coming, the

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mountain would soon be impassable. They couldn't keep sergic forever.

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At two thirty p m. Though he heard voices far

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off through the trees. He yelled and yelled and got

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an answer. Two men appeared in a clearing. They had

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been looking for him. They had told him, what took

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you so long? Then, Trever asked jokingly, every emotion that

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Trevor had restrained over the past five days seized him.

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He started to laugh, then he wept. A few minutes

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later laid for reasons he couldn't explain. He began to

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laugh again. The men had a fire belt within ten minutes,

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by which point Trevor worked up the nerve to ask

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the question, are you searching for one lost person or two? Two?

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They said? They confirmed his worst fear. His father had

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never made it back to the truck. He thought he

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was going to vomit. I told myself for so long

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that my dad was out looking for me, and that

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he was fine, he said. Stephanie was at the top

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of the mountain when word came that Trevor had been

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found and was being airlifted to the hospital. She pleaded

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to speak with him over the radio to hear his voice,

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to ask if he had seen Sean, but Trevor couldn't talk.

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She was overjoyed that he had been found, but whatever

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relief she felt quickly faded. What about Sean? What about

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my husband? At that point, she said, I knew it

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was really freaking bad. She met Trevor at the hospital.

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He was hypothermic and his kidneys and liver were shutting down,

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but he would recover. Doctors even let him eat a

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bacon cheeseburger. When Stephanie saw him for the first time,

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she threw her arms around him. I couldn't speak, she said.

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When she eventually calmed down, Though she asked if he'd

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seen any trace of his dad, Trevor broke into tears.

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She stopped asking him questions after that. Stephanie returned to

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the mountain later that day. Even though there was no

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reason to suspect foul play, she couldn't keep her mind

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from spinning. What if Sean had walked up on some

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bad dudes steep in the woods. What if they did

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something to him? What if someone on the road had

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accidentally run over him and tried to cover it up.

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Since she knew, but she couldn't shake these thoughts. The

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Sheriff's department suspended the search for Shawn Higgins on October

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twenty fifth of twenty sixteen, and the eleven days since

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he disappeared, search teams had uncovered no trace of him

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and were no closer to knowing where he might be.

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With so much time having passed, the odds were against

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his survival. Stephanie had spent nearly every waking moment on

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the mountain since Shawn disappeared. She knew people had to

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return to their lives, to their families, but she would

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have done anything to convince them to stay. I would

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have sent three hundred thousand people down there to look

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for him, she said. Over the next couple of months,

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she and family members returned to the mountain every weekend,

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searching areas that might have been overlooked, But by early December,

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snow had blanketed the mountains, haunting their efforts. They made

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plans to return next spring. At what point do you

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stop looking, Stephanie asked herself. At what point do you

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admit that your best friend and the father of your

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children has ceased to exist. She didn't have an answer,

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neither did Trevor. It's hard to say with confidence how

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many people like Sean or missing in the American wilderness.

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Some experts claimed that the number could be as high

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as sixteen hundred, but the government doesn't keep nationwide records

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of missing persons in the wild Trevor sees though, how

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his dad could have gotten lost like he did, given

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how that particular trail makes you think you're on one

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ridge when you're really on another. But Stephanie speculates that

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whatever happened to Sean was bad and quick. I think

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it happened immediately, she said, a tree fell on him,

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or he fell somewhere. The months following Sean's disappearance have

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felt stagnant, the loss the only window through which the

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family can see the world. Trevor moved back in with

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his mom and brother and returned to his job before

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his dad went missing. During downtimes, Trevor used to get

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out of his lobstacker and talk with the other guys,

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but now most days he stays in the machine by himself.

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What gets to me the most is how come I

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was found but he wasn't. At first, Trevor couldn't get

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through a day. He'd break down and start crying. With

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the help of counseling, he has begun to settle into

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the reality of life without his dad. I can't change

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what happened, he said. I just want to work hard

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like he did and treat everyone good. What a very

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heartbreaking missing person case. It is tragic when you lose

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someone like that that you love and you have no

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answers to make sense of anything. And then on top

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of that, Trevor had the survival the survivor guilt. Why

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was I found? Why was my dad continuously lost? Searched

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for but looked over? It is a very heartbreaking case,

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but one that I wanted to cover, and I appreciate

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you coming and supporting the show and listening to this case.

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If you have anything to add to it, please leave

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00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:47,400
it in the comments below. Take a few seconds just

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00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:52,759
to like and subscribe to Paranormal Odyssey. We would appreciate it,

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and until our next case, we'll talk to you later.

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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks so very much for checking out this

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00:23:02,039 --> 00:23:05,880
episode of Paranormal Odyssey. Love you guys so much all

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00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,640
the continued support. I want to ask everyone please take

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just a second go rate and review the show wherever

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it is you get your podcasts. Also like to remind

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everyone about Paranormal Odyssey Live, which can be found every

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Tuesday evening eight pm over on YouTube, as well as

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every other Saturday Tiffany and I Do and after our

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show at ten pm over on YouTube. Guys, please go

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check that out hit that subscribe button if you are

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new over there, we would appreciate that so much. Also, guys,

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if you would please head over and check out our website,

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Paranormalworldproductions dot com, we'll see you next time.

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Speaker 2: Guys, they say you don't gotta go, but you cast

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00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:06,319
stay and I don't want to poles all we're all happen.

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00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:35,079
Chrys Child, that child everything, call him ride back, ride back,

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00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:39,400
and the joy from me joy to stay right there,

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00:24:41,400 --> 00:25:53,960
come it right away. Its sassssssssssssssssss