Speaker 1: This is a studio both and production.
Speaker 2: This is true crime bullshit. I'm your host, Josh Hallmark,
and this is a serialized story of Israel Keys. In
late summer, we started poring over Pacific Northwest cases in
preparation for my meeting with Agent Halla. Cases we thought
that we had strong arguments for as being Keys victims,
Camie and Eugene, Stephen, Michael Mason, Celia, Darlene Barnes, del
Mar Sample, Jonathan Corey, and other cases cases that had
been on our radar for years that we hadn't yet
deep dived due to either a lack of files or time.
Cases like Clark Banister, Zachary Weston, Gregory Siemans Brown, and
Roger Leonard Young. Brown and Young in particular are cases
that have come up in our research year after year
after year since almost the very beginning of the show,
and over this past year we finally received the case
files in all four of those disappearances. And of those
four cases, the strangest was Roger Jones. In it, there
were plenty of.
Speaker 1: Keys markers, but also a lot that just made no
sense at all, and there were some very bizarre coincidences.
There were three theories of what could have happened, but
none of them felt certain, corroborating circumstantial evidence for each,
but there was also circumstantial evidence that made each of
them feel unlikely. Roger was reported missing by his mother, Gail,
on October twenty fifth of two thousand and five. She
filed the missing person's report after receiving a phone call
from Roger's landlord in Everett, Washington. One of the tenants
in the apartment building where Roger lived had informed the
landlord that he hadn't seen Roger in about thirty days,
which was irregular, and he was growing concerned. And that's
the thing about this disappearance. It was complicated from the start.
Speaker 2: You see.
Speaker 1: The reason it was Roger's landlord who alerted his mother
that he was unaccounted for is that Roger had been
estranged from his parents for almost three years when he
went missing. According to police interviews with his parents, Roger
had graduate from UC Berkeley in two thousand with a
master's degree in mechanical engineering. Following graduation, he moved back
in with his parents in Kirkland, Washington, a suburb of Seattle,
and he stayed in their home until December of two
thousand and two, when they sat him down and told
him that they felt that they'd reached the end of
their obligation to financially support him, that he needed to
become self sufficient and get a place of his own.
So Roger packed up his life and told his parents
that he didn't want to see or hear from them again,
and he never did. Roger's estrangement from his parents made
things tricky because, according to the case files made available
to us, his parents seemed to be the primary source
of information about Roger and his life at the time
of his disappearance. According to them, Roger didn't work, didn't
have many friends, lived a fairly isolated life, and was
likely surviving off of an investment fund Roger's father had
set up for him, which had yielded somewhere between twenty
and thirty thousand dollars by the time that Roger moved
out of their house. They told police that Roger only
had one checking account, and as far as we can tell,
the investigations seemed to operate off of this information as
though it were fact, as though Roger's parents version of
him three years before he disappeared was the most accurate
version of him when he disappeared. But a lot can
change in a person's life in three years, particularly in
their late twenties and early thirties, so we can't assume
anything his parents knew about him three years prior to
his disappearance would be accurate or the same at the
time of his disappearance. And while financials would be fairly
easy to assess, close friends and confidants would be more
difficult to find. And it seems as though Everett Peady
never sought out any potential friends, employers, acquaintances, or hiking
buddies of Roger's as far as I can tell, they
only interviewed three people from Roger's life, his parents and
a park ranger. But we'll get more into that in
a few minutes. Because the one salient piece of information
Roger's parents gave police about Roger was his love for
and skill at mountain climbing. Roger's father told police that
Roger and their entire family were avid mountain climbers. Roger
had climbed every mountain in the Cascades and took mountain
climbing very seriously. He meticulously planned his climbs. He would
research each climb, ride up an action plan and would
note on his calendar his departure and expected return date
from each climb, and he always left fully, if not
overly prepared and equipped for those climbs. He told police
that if Roger had gone climb, his equipment would be
missing from his apartment and there would likely be some
notation of where he was going and when he expected
to return. He said that they should look specifically for
a climbing calendar, rope climbing gear, and ice axe and crampons, which,
for those uninitiated like me, are the spikey chain things
that climbers put on their shoes to gain traction. The
investigation into Roger's disappearance began immediately. Everett pe D contacted
the US Border Patrol in Bellingham, Washington to see if
Roger had recently crossed the border into Canada, and within
a day the RCMP were able to confirm that Roger
had not crossed into Canada within the past thirty days. Next,
they began looking into Roger's financial records and transactions. Roger's
last bank transaction was an ATM withdrawal of one hundred
dollars on September twenty first, approximately four days before he
was last seen by his neighbor. But on October fourth,
his four hundred dollars rent check cleared and he had
a balance of one thousand, four hundred fifty dollars in
his check account, his only known bank account. Meanwhile, Roger's
parents were working with local media to get the word
out that Roger was missing. Seattle's ABC news affiliate Como
ran a story urging anyone with information to contact Everett PD.
And his parents met again with Everet PD to give
them more information about their estrangement from their son. They
said that when Roger returned home from UC Berkeley, he
became hyper focused on climbing, so much so that he
began to retreat from his friends and family. They said
that he wasn't depressed or suicidal or known to do drugs.
He just became a very independent, focused person. His sole
interests were climbing and charting a self reliant path for himself.
His mom said, when he wasn't climbing, when he was
reading books on being your own man, being your own boss,
controlling your life, and et cetera. They went on to
tell Everett PD that a family friend had run into
Roger and Everett in the spring before he went missing,
and that the two spoke for a while until the
friend brought up Roger's parents, at which point Roger immediately
disengaged from the conversation and that was it. Following the
initial call with Roger's parents, Everett PD put out a
bolo for Roger's car, which had disappeared with him, a
nineteen ninety red Jeep Cherokee with Washington state license plate
four to two one p d V. The car's description
was included in the Como News story as well, and
on October thirty first, they got their first credible tip
and separately knew information about Roger's life that took them
to some pretty unexpects did places because it turned out
that Roger was keeping a pretty big secret studio. Both
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the morning of October thirty first, two thousand and five,
the Everet PD received their first credible tip in Roger
Jones case. A man named Art and his wife had
seen both Roger and his jeep Cherokee just days before
on Thursday, October twenty seventh. According to Art, he and
his wife were riding their motorcycles on Fire Service Road
forty nine forty eight in the Gold Creek area of Hayak, Washington,
near the Snowqualmie Pass of Interstate ninety on the morning
of October twenty seventh. They were near the top of
the road at a turnaround area when they saw a
red jeep Cherokee traveling toward them on the road. The
jeep passed, but not long after the same jeep Cherokee
pulled up next to them on their bikes. The driver
was the only person in the car. They described him
as being in his late twenties or early thirties, with
glasses and shoulder length brown hair, wearing a wool hat.
Art told the police that the driver made eye contact
with him, but never said anything or got out of
the vea. He just stared at them until they left
shortly after. Now the way that's written in the report
is ambiguous and perhaps sounds more nefarious than the actual
encounter was. It isn't clear how long the encounter lasted,
or whether the couple left because the man was staring
at them, or if the encounter and stare were brief
and then they left the area sometime after it occurred.
I've reached out to Art and his wife for clarification
and haven't heard back yet, but Art said that he
was sure that the man driving the jeep was Roger.
He said that he even went back and looked at
the photos in the news reports before calling the tip
in because he wanted to be sure that who he
saw did in fact look like Roger. So this would
be a good time to bring up that Roger Jung
looks remarkably like Israel Keys, but something we'll get into later.
But at the time of Roger's disappearance, they both had thick,
shoulder length brown hair. They both wore glasses, although Keys
not always but often. Roger was six foot five, Keys
was six foot two. They were both one hundred ninety pounds,
and oddly they were exactly three years apart. Roger born
on January seventh, nineteen seventy five Keys born on January seventh,
nineteen seventy eight. At the time of the encounter, Roger
would have been thirty and Keys twenty seven. The same
morning that Art called in, Everett pe D worked with
Search and Rescue to search the trail heads of all
the areas they knew Roger to spend time hiking and
climbing in with no success, and following Art's tip, they
attempted to search the area at the top of fire
Service Road forty nine forty eight, but it had been
hit by a snow storm in the days following the
siding and was inaccessible. In addition to contacting Everett PD,
Art also reached out directly to Roger's father, and after
hearing from Art, mister Jung called Everett PD to make
sure that the police knew that the area of the
sighting was not an area Roger would ever go to
hiker climb. He said that he did not think the
person they saw could be Roger. Several days later, Everett
pe D received a call from a governmental agency out
of Bellingham, Washington. They had some surprising information about Roger.
So look, here's the moment where I'm going to annoy you.
Roger had a secret. He made a very big mistake,
a mistake that only one person who knew him knew about.
And Roger told that one person that he was mortified
and ashamed and very worried that people would find out
what he did, and whether Roger is alive or deceased,
and whether or not his disappearance has anything to do
with that mistake. I'm not willing to be the person
to turn that fear into a reality. So what I
will tell you is this Roger made a pretty careless
mistake that had big ramifications and huge impacts. Thankfully, no
person was harmed and the mistake wasn't made out of
ill will, but it got Roger into a lot of trouble.
The caller told police that he had seen a report
about Roger on the local news and that he had
important information to share. Roger was scheduled to appear in
court on November first for a citation he had received
in August. He had already missed a mandatory hearing, which
was scheduled for October fourth. Roger had been involved in
an incident while camping in the North Cascades near the
Ross Lake Recreation Area, in early August, and he said
that Roger could face fines that exceeded one hundred thousand dollars.
He faxed over the citation and courts and warned that
if Roger did not show up to his November first
court appearance, a warrant would be issued. The citation and
originating report were signed by a park ranger named Kelly Bush.
She'll come up later. The following day, Everett p D
received their second credible tip. A woman named Sharon reported
that she and her fiance were hiking a trail near
Dorothy Lake in Gold Bar, Washington, on October thirtieth, and
came across a red jeep Cherokee parked just off the
trail road. She reported that the jeep was there when
they started their hike at noon, and it was still
there when they returned to their car at around four
thirty p m. She unfortunately did not make a note
of the jeep's license plate. That same afternoon, Roger's landlord
granted Everett p D access to his apartment and confirmed
that they had not received a November rent check yet
from him, and that he almost always sent his rent
checkout in a week. Early the search of Roger's apartment
unfortunately yielded more questions than answers. When police arrived at
Roger's apartment at thirty one thirty Broadway in Everett, Washington,
both the dead bolt and knob were locked upon entry.
They conducted a somewhat superficial search of the apartment and
found the following On the coffee table. In his living room,
they found an ARII visa card, various store convenience cards,
twenty five dollars in cash, and several topographic maps. On
a desk. In the living room, they found a blue
wallet belonging to Roger, containing one hundred forty four dollars
in cash, Roger's check book, and an open map with
Trail seven fifteen the Meadow Mountain Trail in Granite Falls,
Washington marked in green ink. In his kitchen, they found
that the refrigerator was well stocked, although most of the
food was rotten by now. In his bathroom they found
all the standard toilet trees, and in Roger's bedroom they
found his climbing ropes, his climbing backpacks, all of his
climbing gear, and his winter and climbing wool clothes. According
to his landlord, the apartment looked exactly as it had
when he conducted a welfare check on October twenty fifth.
Police could find no clear indication that Roger had gone climbing,
no logs or notes as he was known to do,
and all of his climbing gear seemed to be accounted
for and present. In fact, the only items of note
that they couldn't find were Roger's driver's license and keys.
The following day, police checked Trail seven fifteen with no success,
and they contacted Kelly Bush, the ranger who had filed
a citation against Roger, and it turned out that Kelly
had a lot to say about Roger and may have
even been the last person to see him. Ranger Kelly
Bush advised the EVERT PD that she'd come to know
Roger quite well over the previous five years. He was
a highly accomplished elite North Cascades climber. She said that
he most often climbed solo. He told her he felt
he could do the climbs better alone and liked being
one on one with the mountain. She told law enforcement
that she did not officially cite Roger at the time
of the incident, that she made arrangements to meet with
him several days later on August tenth, to issue his citation.
It originally planned to meet at the library near Roger's apartment,
but Roger told her that he would instead meet her
at a rest stop on southbound Interstate five, just south
of Highway five thirty, since that was a more equidistant
meeting point for the pair. It's important to note that
we obtained the e mail correspondence between Ranger, Bush and
Roger regarding this meeting, and in it, Roger states that
e mail is the best way to reach him because
he doesn't have a cell phone. It's also insinuated that
he uses the local library to access the internet. Kelly
and Roger did meet at the rest stop at three
p m. On August tenth. She officially issued him his citation,
notified him that he was scheduled to appear in court
on October fourth, discussed what he should expect from the
court process, and let him know that the Department of
Transportation was filing a civil suit against him for somewhere
around seven thousand dollars, a significantly lower amount than had
previously been mentioned. She said that Roger was mortified about
what happened She said that he was okay paying the fines,
he just didn't want his name in the paper attached
to what had happened. He was incredibly embarrassed, remorseful, and cooperative.
She told police that when the Department of Transportation contacted
her in solicitation of Roger's name and information so they
could file suit, she refused to give it to them.
She also confirmed that Roger had failed to appear at
his October fourth hearing. Kelly also told investigators that she
had heard that Seattle City Light was also reviewing billing
Roger for their cost related to the incident. Everett Peady
confirmed with DOT that they planned on billing Roger for
just above six thousand dollars. They also confirmed that Ranger
Bush had in fact refused to give them Roger's information.
Reports state that the incident costs Seattle City Light around
one thousand dollars. My high level assessment is but Roger
would have been billed somewhere around eight thousand dollars total
based on the information available in the files and online.
I think it's important to note that we have scoured
the internet, including pacer, Washington State court recordsandnewspapers. DOT com
and we have not been able to find anything publicly
linking Roger to the incident. Following their call with Ranger Bush,
there was no new information on Roger or his jeep,
no credible leads or tips, no successful searches, no new
financial transactions, and less than a month later, Everett PD
closed the case inactive, and the case would remain closed
and cold for seven months. On June twenty second of
two thousand and six, eight months after Roger was reported missing,
his nineteen ninety red jeep Cherokee, was found. Hikers from
a group called the Cascade Climbers found Rogers jeep parked
at a trailhead in the mountains near Leavenworth, Washington. As
the report is written, it's unclear if they were actively
looking for the jeep or stumbled upon it while hiking,
but the jeep had clearly been parked there through the
winter and was in the hikers words trashed the Snowhomish
County Sheriff's Office flew a helicopter to the area and
they were able to land it near the jeep. Paperwork
inside confirmed that it was Rogers, and a cursory search
of the jeep found the following a sleeping bag which
appeared to have been slept in, a pair of flop
flops on the floorboard, fishing equipment, a packaged trout, and
a trail pass dated October twenty seven, two thousand five,
the same day that Art and his wife believed they
encountered Rod and his jeep one hundred twenty seven miles
away in Hyak, Washington. Unfortunately, the report doesn't indicate which
trail this pass was for, and when we foyed the pass,
we were notified that it no longer existed, which is
incredibly unfortunate for several reasons. More on that later, the
Sheriff's office told Everett Pad that it would likely be
some time before they were able to do a ground
search of the area surrounding the jeep due to severe
weather conditions. Rogers jeep was found parked at the Phelps
Creek trailhead, about forty five miles north of Leavenworth in
the Okanagan Wanatche National Forest. According to the U. S.
Forest Service's website, the roads accessing this trailhead are very
rough and may not be suitable for low clearance vehicles.
There are approximately fourteen miles of rough dirt road the
trail is available only for day hikes, backpacking, and horse riding.
On July fifteenth of two thousand six, the Shelon County
Sheriff's Department was able to conduct with Search and Rescue
a search of the Phelps Creek Trail and its surrounding areas.
They spent twelve and a half hours on the scene
searching and found not one single piece of evidence, and
based on items found in Roger's apartment, there was no
indication that he had ever researched or planned to climb
in this area. But there was a lot of important
information missing from the case files. Where was the day
pass found in Roger's car?
Speaker 3: For?
Speaker 1: How much gas was in his jeep's tank? Were Roger's
dad's assessments of his finances accurate? Were Rogers driver's license
and keys ever located? What does packaged trout mean? Was
it pre packaged and bought in a store or was
it hand packaged after being caught? Was anything else found
in the jeep? The Cascade climbers described it as trashed.
Did that mean externally or internally? And if it meant internally,
what contributed to it being trashed? As I tried to
delve further into Roger's life. I went to the Cascade
Climber's website, which a listener had pointed me toward long ago,
and there were dozens of posts about Roger and his disappearance,
including a link to NW hikers dot net. And there,
as plain as day was a post from a hiker
who had seen Roger's jeep at the Phelps Creek trailhead
on July twenty first, just six days after Search and
Rescue were in the area. It reads, I was at
Phelps Creek trailhead this past week and saw the red
jeep Cherokee. I noticed all his gear inside. I think
it is a crime scene myself. He came back from
his climb and signed out. Maybe the fish found in
his car is not his, but belongs to the person
who might know where he is. Definitely suspicious. I think
Roger came back at the wrong time, wrong place, and
with the wrong person. I would consider talking to foreign
service employees or anyone that is back there during that time.
I think heads should roll on this. Carr left last
October and just found out it belonged to Roger.
Speaker 2: Just not right.
Speaker 1: Maybe the person who was in charge of the parking
area should be talked to. The person who posted this
posted it anonymously, so it's unclear who posted it, what
their intentions were, or how honest they were being. But
if there's any shred of honesty to it, it indicates
that the car sat there for weeks after it was recovered,
full of Roger's stuff, and that despite gear being found
in his apartment, Roger had taken gear with him on
that trip, gear that either made it back to his
jeep or never left it in the first place. Additionally,
that the fish found in his car appears to have
been a fish caught and not bought, which begs a
lot of questions. With that post were many others honoring, exalting,
and celebrating Roger, and while he may have retreated from
his family and high school friends, it's clear that in
his time away from his family, he made new friends
in the climbing community. People he climbed with, people who
were in awe of his skills and experience, people who
knew him as he was. There are multiple threads devoted
to Roger, but one is solely in celebration of him
and his achievements. On it, they posted pictures of his
summit registers. They shared stories, climbers literally followed in his
footsteps to celebrate him. The original summit register left by
Warren Spickard, Duke Watson and party in nineteen fifty eight
was still there, as it should be. Most surprising to
us was the fact that the last five ascents were
made by the late and Great Roger Jones, all solo,
and the greatest surprise of all was that one of
them was in the winter up Goodell Creek, and he
summitted on the second day, after snowshoeing all the way
up Goodell Creek on day one, absolutely astonishing. The same fall,
while Roger went missing, I ran into his father, Jim
Jum on a late season scramble of Corteo. I was solo,
he was with a partner. We talked of his son's exploits,
and I could tell there was a lot of worry
and pain in the strain of his disappearance. I still
remember Jim's parting words to me, please keep an eye
out for my son. I still do, maybe more so
now than I am a father to two boys of
my own. A partner and I followed on skis the
approach of one of his vision quest winter Roots, a
few years after he led the way solo on snowshoes.
That trip was among the high points of my life.
It felt like we were stealing something just by completing
the approach. I never met the man, but given the
places he chose to go, he must have been a
remarkable person to have known. True crime Bullshit will return
next week with the second half of our investigation into
Roger's disappearance.
Speaker 3: You know you're left me standing there out of the
calm of the coldest. I don't believe the world do sing?
But I can't find the words. Oh, I can't fun
the words. You goneing other life. I don't believe.
Speaker 2: I just serve.
Speaker 3: I could feel, nest me and escape from the world. Man,
I'm afraid of the world. One day else see Heaven Street.
I found the one who loves me sleeping. Every one
was another seat that could feed every soul in me,
all one by the water and me.
Speaker 4: Somebody found me here. Somebody held my brother. Somebody saved
me from Thorold to that.
Speaker 5: Endy.
Speaker 3: She called crime ta Andy, she called home, She call
mec Son. You say, oh, Stan found Onte.
Speaker 1: This episode was written researched edited and produced by Me
Your Host Josh Hallmark, with research assistants by Shana Wolensky,
Michelle Tooker, Kim Kay and Jordan Taylor. This episode was
made possible by the following Patreon producers Amelia Hancock, Amy
Basel and Marie Cash and at l Ash Fish, Becky c,
Benjamin Choppa, Pong, Casey Jensen, Richardson, Christina Sissoon, Corey Deetley,
Dale Axton, Drew Vipon, Heather Horton, Whedon, gen Jacoby, Jillian Natalie,
Kathleen Studor, Kendall C, Lana Holiday, Lauren f Linley, tuscoff
Manolas Bullacus, Nicole and Dennis Henry, Nicole Guzman, Pink s C.
Shelley Brewer, Sherry D. Trista, Tuesday Whitworth, zach Ig Nottowitz, Warren,
Beth McNally, John Comrie, Jordan m Jordan Taylor, Michael Beer,
Sarah C, Shawna Harden, Spooky Express, Theyhen and Lydia Fiedler.
Thank you to Studio both Anne's newest Patreon supporters, Paula
de bri, b Astrad k Sennye, Katrina Kay, Christa r Quinn,
Ambercy Amy n Isabella c M, Miss Rosa, Nina E Mora,
b J s A, Diana B Christa, s Ashley B
Michael S, m K, Takaberry Michael R, My Wanderlust and
Brandon L. To support the investigation and get AD free episodes,
go to Patreon dot com, slash Studio both and. This
episode included music by William hellfire A tai Argemon, Serge
Teramisanov and Wife, with featured music by Katie Herzig.
Speaker 3: M.
Speaker 5: Somebody found me here, Somebody held my broth Somebody say
you fo thord. Every day she's gone to cry my tears. Yeah,
is be GONEA hold my bad.
Speaker 3: In't forgonna me see the sun? You say, Oh low
stand fun.
Speaker 5: On long stand from Oh Low Stand fand.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm low stand fund, Oh low stand fa, H
low stand from oh low Stand fun, Oh I Love
stand Fun