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Speaker 1: Picture this. You've just traveled for hours. Maybe you were

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on a cramped flight where your knees were just jammed

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into the seatback. Or maybe you've been staring at highway

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white lines for six hours straight.

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Speaker 2: Oh that highway hypnosis. It's real, It.

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Speaker 1: Is so real, and you are just you're tired. You

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walk into a lobby that smells like that specific mix

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of industrial lemon cleaner and maybe some stale coffee.

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Speaker 2: I know that smell. Every single mid range hotel has

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that exact same smell.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. Walk up to the desk, you smile, You hand

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over a credit card, You get your key card, that

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little plastic rectangle, and you head up the elevator. You

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walk down this long, silent hallway, the carpet just dampening your.

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Speaker 2: Footsteps, total silence except for the ice machine humming somewhere

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down the hole.

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Speaker 1: Always. You find your number, slide the card, beep, green light.

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Speaker 2: You open the door, and the air conditioning is just

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humming that low, constant drone. The sheets are crisp, tucked

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in so tight you could probably bounce a quarter off them.

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It's a perfectly neutral, controlled and it's designed to be forgotten.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. You lock the door, flip that little dead bolt,

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maybe put the chain across, throw your bag on the bed,

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and for a moment you are completely anonymous. The world

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outside just stops existing.

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Speaker 2: It's a bubble.

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Speaker 1: It's supposed to be safe, it's supposed to be a

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predictable transaction money for shelter. But what happens when that

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predictability shatters? What happens when the hotel isn't a sanctuary

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but a trap?

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Speaker 2: And that is the unsettling question we are tackling today. Yeah,

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because for the vast majority of us, a hotel is

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just a pause button on life, a place to sleep

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between meetings, or you know, vacation spots. But for the

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people we are discussing today, the hotel wasn't a pause.

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It was a full stop.

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Speaker 1: Or worse, a vanishing point. Yeah, welcome to thrilling threads.

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I am your host, and I am ready to pull

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at the loose ends of reality until the whole sweater

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just unravels.

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Speaker 2: And I'm here to help see where those threads might

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lead and perhaps try to understand why they were cut

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in the first place. Though I have to warn you

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some of these threads lead to play that well logic

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has a really hard time following.

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Speaker 1: Today we are on a mission. We are looking at

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ten specific accounts of hotel mysteries. These are just ghost stories,

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though I guess one of them technically fits that bill

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later on it does. Yeah, these are cases where the

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physical reality of a hotel, the logs, the cameras, the

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electronic locks, all of it just failed to explain what

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happened inside. We're talking about guests who checked in but never.

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Speaker 2: Ever checked out, identities that just evaporated into.

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Speaker 1: Thin air, and locked rooms that held secrets so baffling

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they still don't make sense years or even a century later.

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Speaker 2: It is a mixture of true crime intrigue, the psychology

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of disappearing, and the inherently eerie nature of these transient spaces.

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We're going to be looking at the timelines, the forensic details,

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and those stubborn, enduring questions. It just will not go away.

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Speaker 1: We really need to move past the headlines on these

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and look at the mechanics of these disappearances. So make

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sure your door is dead bolted, check the closet. Let's

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unpack this.

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Speaker 2: Where are we starting. I have a feeling I know.

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Speaker 1: We have to start with the one that I think

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defined the genre of Internet mystery for a whole generation. Yeah,

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we're going to downtown Los Angeles. The Cecil Hotel.

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Speaker 2: Later rebranded as stan Maine in a rather desperate and

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I think ultimately failed attempt to distance itself from its

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checkered past. And checkerd is putting it so mildly.

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Speaker 1: Mildly is the word. I mean, that place has a

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history that reads like a horror anthology, even before twenty thirteen.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, you have Richard Dramirez, the nightstalker who stayed

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there during his killing spree. Jack Underwager, the Austrian journalist

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and serial killer, he stayed there too. Some people even

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connect it tangentially to the Black Dollia murder. It's a

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place with a dark energy.

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Speaker 1: It's got a reputation. But we are focusing on January

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twenty thirteen. The subject is a Lisa Lamb. Now, if

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you were on the internet ten years ago, you know

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the story or you think you know it. You know video,

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you know the video. But we need to really look

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at the details provided in the accounts because they are visceral.

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It all hinges on that surveillance video.

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Speaker 2: The elevator footage. It is a piece of evidence that

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becomes almost like a roar shock test for whoever watches it.

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I'm not exaggerating when I say it's one of the

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most analyzed clips of video in modern history.

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Speaker 1: It really is. So let's set the scene based on

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the footage. It's grainy, it's from a high corner angle,

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it's late at night. Alisa enters the elevator. She's casual,

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wearing a red hoodie in shorts, but immediately her behavior

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is off.

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Speaker 2: It's not just a little off, it's deeply strange. From

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the very first second.

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Speaker 1: She steps in and she leans forward and presses a

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whole column of buttons, not just one or two floors,

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it's the middle row. She hits them rapidly.

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Speaker 2: But then, and this is the first mechanical failure, or

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maybe just a bizarre coincidence, the door doesn't close, It

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just stays open.

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Speaker 1: And that's when the creep factor spikes. She steps out,

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almost cautiously. She looks left, she looks right, almost scanning

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the hallway. Then she jumps back in and hides in

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the corner, literally flattens herself against the wall where the

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sensors can't see her.

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Speaker 2: It looks for all the world like she's hiding from

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someone playing a game maybe, or genuinely terrified or something

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or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Then she steps out again, and this is the

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part that haunts me. She starts moving her hands. It's

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this weird fluid motion, almost like she's treading water or

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conducting an invisible orchestra.

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Speaker 2: Or talking to someone. Her fingers are splayed, her wrists

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are turning. It's very specific the gestures she's making. It's

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not just random flailing.

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Speaker 1: Not at all. She looks down the hallway, appears afraid

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or maybe just confused, and then she just walks away.

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The doors finally finally close, and she is never seen

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alive again.

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Speaker 2: It is a deeply, deeply unsettling sequence of events. When

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you watch it, your brain desperately wants to find a

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logical cause. Is there someone just out of frame? Is

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she having a psychotic break? Is she on drugs?

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Speaker 1: All of the above her theories right, absolutely.

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Speaker 2: But the official ruling eventually linked her behavior to a

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mental health episode, specifically bipolar disorder. She had a history

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of it.

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Speaker 1: I know that's the medical explanation. And you know she

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was reportedly off her medication or undermedicated. According to the

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toxicology reports later. But that explanation, while medically sound regarding

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the behavior in the elevator, it doesn't stop the avalanche

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of logistical questions that.

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Speaker 2: Follow, not even close.

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Speaker 1: Because she goes missing for days and the way she

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was found, that is the part that turns this from

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a tragedy into a complete nightmare.

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Speaker 2: It was in police discovery. It wasn't search dogs. The

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LAPD had searched the building with dogs, including the roof,

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and found nothing, which is a whole other mystery in itself.

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Speaker 1: No, it was the guests. The guests started complaining, and

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this is the detail that makes me never want to

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drink tap water in a hotel again.

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Speaker 2: I know where you're going with this, and it is

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just it's grim.

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Speaker 1: They went to the front desk saying the water pressure

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was low and worse, the water tasted odd. Some said

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it had a weird sweet taste. Others said the color

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was brownish or black coming out of the tap.

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Speaker 2: And people are showering in this, brushing their teeth with it,

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drinking it.

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Speaker 1: For days for over two weeks. Some reports say. So

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maintenance goes up to the roof to check the main

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water supply. There are these four massive cisterns water tanks,

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and inside one of them was a Lisa Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And this is where the thrilling thread really gets tangled.

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We have the official conclusion accidental drowning with bipolar disorder

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as a significant condition. But we have to look at

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the mechanics, which the accounts highlight as the primary source

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of the mystery. Right, you can explain the erratic behavior

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in the elevator with a manic episode. You could explain

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her wandering the hotel, But the tank, that's a physics problem.

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Speaker 1: Right, Let's get into the mechanics because this is where

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the Internet slooths lose their minds, and frankly, for good reason.

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First getting to the roof, the police report states the

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roof door was alarmed and.

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Speaker 2: Locked, but the hotel staff noted that the alarm system was,

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to put it mildly temperamental. Staff used that roof for

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smoke brakes all the time. There was also a fire

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escape that led to the roof. Getting on the roof

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is impossible.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so let's grat that. Let's say she got on

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the roof.

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Speaker 2: Agreed, the roof access is plausible, but the tank itself

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is the real puzzle. We are talking about a one

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thousand gallons cistern. It's nearly ten feet tall. There is

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no fixed ladder on the side of these tanks.

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Speaker 1: None, So to get to the top you have to

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find a way to scale the smooth metal side, or

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use a nearby ladder that may or may not have

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been there. Then balance on the rim and then lift

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a lid.

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Speaker 2: And I looked up the specks on those lids. They

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aren't tupperware lids. They're heavy metal hatches. Some report say

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twenty pounds, others say closer to fifty depending on the

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hinge resistance in condition.

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Speaker 1: So it's a significant weight. Now here's the question. If

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you are inside treading water, barely buoyant, how do you

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generate the leverage to close a heavy lid back over yourself?

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Speaker 2: That is the crux Biomechanically, it borders on the impossible.

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To close a heavy hatch from below requires you to

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pull it down, but you have nothing to anchor your

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feet against. You are floating. If you pull down on the.

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Speaker 1: Lid, you just push yourself deeper in to the water.

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It's basic physics. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

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You pull the lid down, you push your body down,

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and yet when the maintenance worker found her, the lid

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was closed.

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Speaker 2: That singular physical discrepancy is what keeps the foul play

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theory alive despite the coroner ruling in an accident. The

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police theory is that she climbed in, perhaps thinking she

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was being chased, in a paranoid state, and pulled the

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lid shut to hide.

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Speaker 1: But panic usually makes fine motor skills and complex leverage

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tasks harder, not easier. I can barely open a jar

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of pickles when I'm calm right.

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Speaker 2: And her toxicology report was another point of contention. It

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showed her prescription medications, but at levels that suggested she

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hadn't taken her full dose recently. It also showed no

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illegal drugs and.

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Speaker 1: No alcohol, so it supports the mental health crisis theory,

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but it doesn't explain the tank lid.

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Speaker 2: It explains the why she might have been acting strangely,

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but not the how she ended up in that specific state.

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Speaker 1: And what about the search teams? Why did they miss

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her initi if she was there the whole time they

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had dogs on the roof. I thought cadaver dogs could

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smell a body through water.

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Speaker 2: Usually, yes, decomposition scents rise, but if the lid was

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sealed tight, maybe the scent was contained. It's a weak explanation,

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though it highlights how a large building like a hotel

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can hide things in plain sight. We assume, because there

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are cameras in staff, that everything is seen.

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Speaker 1: But there are voids.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, there are voids in these buildings, rooftops, utility closets,

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water tanks, places where the surveillance state ends, and that's

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where the real mysteries can happen.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of voids and the failure of surveillance, let's pivot.

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So with the Lisa, the hotel was this passive container

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that sort of swallowed her up. The building hid the secret.

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But in our next case, the guest wasn't a victim

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of the building. She reconized it.

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Speaker 2: She used the anonymity of the hotel system as a shield,

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as a tool.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, we're moving from a possible accidental concealment to active,

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aggressive erasure. We need to talk about Oslo Norway ninety five,

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the case of Jennifer Fairgate.

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Speaker 2: This one feels like a spy novel, but it's real life,

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and unlike Lisa Lamb, where we have this haunting video,

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but no clear motive for her final actions. Here we

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have a clear motive disappearing, but zero video and zero identity.

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Speaker 1: A woman checks into the Oslo Plaza Hotel. This is

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a high end place, glass elevators, international clientele, right in

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the heart of the city. She uses the name Jennifer Fairgate,

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though records show variations in the spelling on the registration

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card like Furgate, and.

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Speaker 2: Right away the system fails. She checks in with no

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credit card, no ID.

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Speaker 1: How does that even happen in nineteen ninety five in

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a major international hotel. I can't even check into a

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motel six without showing my license and a credit card.

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Speaker 2: It's the glitch again, but likely a social engineered one. Sometimes,

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if you act confident enough, or if the desk clerk

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is busy enough, protocols slip. She likely said, oh, my

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card is in my luggage, I'll bring it down later,

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or she paid some cash up front. She manages to

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get a room, a high up room, Room twenty eight

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oh five, with zero verifiable identity.

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Speaker 1: She stays there for three days, almost entirely in her room.

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That do not disturb sign is on the door. The

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whole time.

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Speaker 2: Then a security guard knocks on the door because the

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bill hasn't been paid.

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Speaker 1: He knocks and then bangs a singular gun shot from

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inside the room.

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Speaker 2: The guard freezes, which honestly I would too. He retreats,

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calls for backup. They wait about fifteen minutes because they

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don't know if there's an active shooter, if they're hostages.

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Speaker 1: They finally enter the room and she's dead on the bed,

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a single gunshot wound to the forehead, weapon in hand.

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It looks like a suicide case closed right.

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Speaker 2: That is where the simple version ends, as our source

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material suggest because when they started looking for Jennifer Faregate,

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they realized she didn't exist.

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Speaker 1: Nowhere, no records, no family coming forward, and her room

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it was weirdly empty, sterile.

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Speaker 2: Minimal belongings. But the most telling detail, and this is

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a recurring theme we'll see, is the clothing.

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Speaker 1: The labels were removed.

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Speaker 2: Every single tag cut right out of her blousees, her coat,

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her pants, everything.

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Speaker 1: Why do you do that? That's not something a depressed

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tourist does on a whim. That is premeditated. That's something

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someone does when they are actively trying to prevent their

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body from being tracked or identified precisely.

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Speaker 2: It implies a level of tradecraft, a professional effort to

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sever ties with one's own history. Clothing labels tell a story.

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If you buy a shirt in Paris and the label

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says made in France or has a specific boutique tag,

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that's a lead for investigators.

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Speaker 1: It tells them where you were, when you might have

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been there. If you cut it out, you are just

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a body in black clothing, a blank slate.

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Speaker 2: And she had no toiletries, no toothbrush, no hair brush,

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no makeup in the luxury hotel for three days. It's

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like she was a ghost before she even died. Who

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travels without a tube.

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Speaker 1: Someone who doesn't want their DNA found on a toothbrush,

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or someone who disposed of everything before the final act.

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But there's another forensic anomally here that we need to

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touch on the gun.

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Speaker 2: The Browning nine millimeter pistol.

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Speaker 1: Right. She was found holding the gun. Her thumb was

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on the trigger. Those suicide cases involving a powerful handgun

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like a nine millimeter, the recoil is significant. The gun

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usually flies out of the hand or lands beside the body.

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Speaker 2: To find it's still gripped in her hand is unusual,

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not impossible. There's a phenomenon called cadaverc spasm. But it

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definitely raised eyebrows with the investigators.

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Speaker 1: And no gunshot residue on her hands.

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Speaker 2: That's the other thing. There was no blood on her

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hand that held the gun and no GSR. It's incredibly

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clean for such a violent close contact death. It's almost

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as if she wiped her hands after firing the gun,

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which makes no sense.

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Speaker 1: So was she murdered? Was there someone else in the

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room who staged it as a suicide?

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Speaker 2: The door was double locked from the inside, That's the

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classic locker room mystery. The security guard was outside unless

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someone went out the window twenty eight floors up, or

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was hiding in the room and somehow slipped out later

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she was alone.

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Speaker 1: It's terrifying. It implies you can just step out of

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the world and the hotel lets you. And speaking of

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stepping out of the world, we have a similar case,

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but with a completely different method. Let's go to Ireland

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two thousand and nine, the case of Peter Bergman.

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Speaker 2: This is a fascinating counterpoint to Fairgate. Fairgate hid in

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her room, creating a void. Bergman, on the other hand,

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was everywhere right.

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Speaker 1: He checks into the Sligo City Hotel in Ireland. He

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gives a fake name, Peter Bergman, and a fake address

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in Austria. But he's not hiding. The CCTV catches him constantly.

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He's a visual fixture in the investigation.

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Speaker 2: But look at what he's doing in the footage. He

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leaves the hotel repeatedly, and every single time he leaves

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he's carrying a purple plastic bag, a purple.

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Speaker 1: Plastic bag that's such a mundane, everyday object.

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Speaker 2: And when he returns to the hotel.

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Speaker 1: He's empty handed.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, he is dismantling his life, piece by piece and

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scattering it across the city of Sligo. He's walking to

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different bins around the town, throwing away his clothes, his documents,

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his personal effects, making sure that when the end comes

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there's nothing left to find.

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Speaker 1: That is so hauntingly methodical. It's like he's conducting his

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own funeral rite in reverse, a e raising the evidence

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of his existence while he's still walking around.

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Speaker 2: It's a calculated erasure. Unlike Fairgate, who removed labels, Bergmann

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removed the objects entirely. He went to great lengths to

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ensure his body would be found. It was eventually discovered

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on Ross's Point Beach, but that his story would.

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Speaker 1: Not be and it worked completely.

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Speaker 2: It did to this day. Despite the unusually good surveillance

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coverage of his last days, investigators never found out who

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he was. We know from the autopsy he had advanced

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prostate cancer and bone tumors. He was likely in immense pain.

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Speaker 1: So he knew he was dying. He wanted to go

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out on his own terms. But why Sligo, Why there?

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It's a quiet town on the crist of Ireland. It's

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almost poetic in a dark way. He scripted his own ending,

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and then he burned the script.

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Speaker 2: It connects back to that idea of control. Suicide is

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often about regaining control when life feels uncontrollable, but this

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goes beyond that. This is controlling the narrative, or rather

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the complete absence of one. Post mortem. He denied the

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world the same satisfaction of knowing his tragedy.

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Speaker 1: He didn't want pity.

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Speaker 2: He just wanted to end anonymously.

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Speaker 1: It's chilling, But if Bergmann was about erasure, our next

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case feels like someone living multiple conflicting lives all at once.

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We're going back in time a bit to nineteen seventy

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Norway again the Isdol Woman.

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Speaker 2: This is perhaps Norway's most famous cold case, and it

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fits perfectly into our thrilling threads because her life seemed

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to be nothing but threads woven into a very very

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complex knot.

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Speaker 1: She was traveling all over Norway, checking into different hotels

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in Bergen, Stavener, Oslo. But here's the kicker. She used

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a different alias at every single hotel.

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Speaker 2: Different names, likely different backstories. Fanilla Lorc, Genevieve Lancier, Claudia Tilt.

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The source material says she had a collection of wigs,

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she was a chameleon.

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Speaker 1: And then the grim discovery on November twenty ninth, nineteen seventy.

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She's found in the Isdalen Valley, a remote hiking area

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known locally as Death Valley, and she's been.

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Speaker 2: Burned a brutal end. Her body was found near a campfire,

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with sleeping pills in her system and carbon monoxide in

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her blood from the smoke. But the investigation led back

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to the railway station in Bergen, where they found two

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suitcases connected to her left in a locker.

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Speaker 1: And what was inside those suitcases close.

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Speaker 2: And guess what don't tell me the labels were removed?

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Speaker 1: There it is again the label removal trope. Is this

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int a handbook somewhere? How to be a mystery? One

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oh one?

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Speaker 2: It connects her to the Fairgate case and methodology, for sure,

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but the scale here is different. They also found something

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else in their belongings that Fairgate didn't have coded notes.

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Speaker 1: Coded notes. Okay, now we are fully in spy territory.

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This is where it gets very John lecre It really does.

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Speaker 2: Investigators found note pads with strings of numbers and letters.

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When they finally cracked it, it wasn't nuclear launch codes.

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It was a travelogue, dates, locations, codes for cities. She

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had visited Paris, Rome, Bergen.

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Speaker 1: So she was meticulously tracking her own movements, but in

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a way that no one else could easily read exactly.

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I have to push back on the spy theory for

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a second, though. I know it's the sexy answer, it's

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what everyone wants it to be. But does a professional

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spy really write down their travel route encode on a

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notepad they keep in their suitcase. That feels sloppy or performative.

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Speaker 2: It's a valid critique. Real tradecraft is usually about being

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boring about blending in not having a suitcase full of

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wigs and cryptic notes. However, the counter argument is the

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consistency of her raider. The labels weren't just ripped out,

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they were surgically removed. That implies training.

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Speaker 1: And the context of the time.

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Speaker 2: In the context nineteen seventy Norway, this was the Cold

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War's northern flank. Norway was a hugely strategic location for

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NATO to monitor Soviet naval activity from the vases in Romansk.

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Speaker 1: So she could have been watching military movements.

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Speaker 2: Well. Witnesses saw her observing military trials of new rockets

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in western Norway. She was seen in a restricted area

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taking notes, so it's not just speculation. There are eyewitness

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accounts placing her near sensitive military operations.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that adds a lot of weight to the spy,

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But then you have the mental illness theory. Paranoid schizophrenia

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often involves the belief that one is being followed, the

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need to use aliases, the need to destroy identification.

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Speaker 2: True, but paranoia rarely comes with the funding to travel

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extensively across Europe, staying at high end hotels. That's where

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the mental illness theory hits. A wall, the financing, she

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had money, She moved with purpose. The coded notes, even

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if a bit clumsy, show a methodical mind.

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Speaker 1: So what's the verdict? Was she a spy, a courier,

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a criminal on the run.

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Speaker 2: That's the thing we don't know. The case was officially

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closed as a suicide, but almost no one believes that.

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Was she hiding from someone working for someone? Did she

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try to stage a disappearance? That one horribly wrong. The

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hotel trails the only clear part of her story. It

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shows as the logistics of her life, but none of

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the motivation.

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Speaker 1: It's the spy novel come to life.

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Speaker 2: But the last chapter is missing precisely, and the fact

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that we are still talking about it over fifty years

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later proves how effective her erasure was. She destroyed the facts,

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so we filled the void with legend.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's move from the cold intrigue of Europe to

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a gritty noir nightmare in the American Midwest. We're going

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to Kansas City, nineteen thirty five, The Hotel President.

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Speaker 2: The Room ten forty six.

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Speaker 1: Mystery this story. Honestly, if you wrote this as a screenplay,

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people would say it's too cliche noir. It's two on

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the nose, but it happened. It feels like it should

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be in black and white, with cigarette smoke hanging in

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the air.

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Speaker 2: It has all the elements, the mysterious stranger, the darkened room,

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the cryptic phone calls the brutal violence.

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Speaker 1: So a man checks in, says his name is Roland

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t Owen. He has no luggage, just a comb and

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a toothbrush. Essentially. He asks for an interior room, one

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that doesn't face the street right away.

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Speaker 2: That's suspicious. He wants privacy, he wants to be insulated

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from the outside world. He's not there as a tourist, no.

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Speaker 1: And he keeps the room dark. The staff go in

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to clean and he's just sitting there in the dark

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with the shades drawn. He's described as nervous, anxious. He

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keeps pacing. He tells the maid to leave the door

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unlocked because he's expecting a.

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Speaker 2: Friend, and this friend is the key to the whole thing.

473
00:22:04,079 --> 00:22:05,960
The staff overhear him on the phone. He's talking to

474
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:07,720
someone named Don Don and.

475
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:10,160
Speaker 1: The quote that a made overheard is down I will

476
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:11,359
be back in fifteen minutes.

477
00:22:11,519 --> 00:22:15,880
Speaker 2: It implies a schedule, a meeting, a transaction. Something is

478
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:16,680
supposed to happen.

479
00:22:16,839 --> 00:22:20,880
Speaker 1: Then the next morning, absolute chaos. The phone operator notices

480
00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:23,079
the phone in room ten forty six is off the

481
00:22:23,079 --> 00:22:25,799
hook for hours. They send a bell boy up to

482
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:28,319
check on him. The door is locked from the outside

483
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:29,839
with a do not disturb.

484
00:22:29,559 --> 00:22:32,519
Speaker 2: Sign, which is strange because Owen told the maid to

485
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:34,519
leave it unlocked exactly so.

486
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:38,319
Speaker 1: The bellboy, after knocking, uses a passkey and he finds

487
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:41,400
a scene that makes the Shining look like a cartoon.

488
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 2: It was gruesome.

489
00:22:42,839 --> 00:22:45,799
Speaker 1: Roland was on his knees, his neck, elbows and wrists

490
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:49,039
bound with cord. He had been stabbed multiple times in

491
00:22:49,039 --> 00:22:51,680
the chest. His skull was fractured, and there was blood

492
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:53,559
on the walls, the ceiling, and the bed.

493
00:22:53,839 --> 00:22:56,519
Speaker 2: And yet the room didn't show signs of a chaotic struggle.

494
00:22:56,680 --> 00:23:00,480
There were no overturned chairs. It was almost ritualistic. And

495
00:23:00,559 --> 00:23:03,920
here's the detail that gets me. The phone was off

496
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:06,480
the hook. He had been beaten within an inch of

497
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:10,160
his life, bound tortured, but someone had taken the time

498
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:11,759
to knock the phone off the receiver.

499
00:23:11,599 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 1: So he couldn't call for help. But get this, he's

500
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:16,960
still alive when they find him, barely. The police arrived,

501
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,119
they cut him free and they ask him, who did

502
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:20,680
this to you? And what does he say?

503
00:23:20,799 --> 00:23:23,400
Speaker 2: He says nobody. I fell against the bathtub.

504
00:23:23,559 --> 00:23:25,759
Speaker 1: I fell against the bathtub. Sir, you are tied up,

505
00:23:25,799 --> 00:23:28,279
You've been stabbed. Your skull is fractured. That is the

506
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:32,920
ultimate code of silence. Even while dying, he protects the perpetrator.

507
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 2: It suggests a criminal underworld connection. You don't snitch even

508
00:23:37,759 --> 00:23:40,559
on your deathbed. This seels like a mob hit or

509
00:23:40,599 --> 00:23:42,000
a gambling debt gone wrong.

510
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,519
Speaker 1: He dies later at the hospital, and then the mystery deepens.

511
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:49,720
The police find out Roland t Owen isn't his real name.

512
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:54,160
Speaker 2: Right years later he was identified as Artemis Ogletree, a

513
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:58,000
young man from Alabama. But that identification didn't solve the

514
00:23:58,039 --> 00:23:58,599
case at all.

515
00:23:58,799 --> 00:24:01,799
Speaker 1: No, it just raised more questions. Who was Don? Why

516
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,920
was Artemis in Kansas City using a fake name. And

517
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:08,200
here's the weirdest part. His clothes were missing. The room

518
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:11,559
was stripped of his belongings, his coat, his pants, everything

519
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:12,279
was gone.

520
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:14,880
Speaker 2: That's the detail that differs from the suicide cases we

521
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,559
discussed in Farrigate and Bergwen. They remove their identity. In

522
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:22,000
room ten forty six, a second party, presumably Don removed

523
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,480
the identity. It suggests a clean up operation.

524
00:24:24,759 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 1: Someone walked out of that hotel with a bundle of

525
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:29,559
bloody clothes and a weapon right through the lobby and

526
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:30,799
no one saw a thing.

527
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,160
Speaker 2: It's brutal. The violence was external, but the motive is

528
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:36,640
a complete void. It's a locked room mystery where the

529
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:39,279
door was left open and the answer just walked right out.

530
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:41,839
Speaker 1: It highlights how vulnerable you are in a hotel room.

531
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:45,599
You're isolated. If you invite someone in, you are completely

532
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:49,079
at their mercy. The hotel door locks the world out,

533
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:51,160
but it also locks you in with whatever you brought

534
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,559
with you or whoever you invited, and in.

535
00:24:53,519 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 2: This case, he invited in a monster.

536
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,599
Speaker 1: Let's shift gears a little. We've talked about these unsolvable mysteries,

537
00:24:59,599 --> 00:25:01,440
but I we want to talk about how time and

538
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:05,119
technology are changing the game. We're seeing cases that were

539
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,279
unexplained for decades suddenly getting answers.

540
00:25:08,599 --> 00:25:11,400
Speaker 2: The John does and the march of technology. This is

541
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:15,599
a very important thread because it recontextualizes all these other cases.

542
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:18,759
Often what we call a mystery is simply a limitation

543
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:19,839
of the current science.

544
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: Take the case of Lyle Stavick two thousand and one

545
00:25:22,759 --> 00:25:25,640
Amanda Park, Washington. It's a very remote area.

546
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 2: A young man checks into a motel, pays for the

547
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,119
room in cash, and ends his life. He used the

548
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,839
name lyle Stebic, which comes from a Joyce Carol Oates novel.

549
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,799
Speaker 1: You must remember this, a literary reference that immediately got

550
00:25:38,799 --> 00:25:41,599
the Internet sleuse excited and it felt like a clue.

551
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:46,799
Speaker 2: It did. It suggested intelligence, a specific background. He sat

552
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,519
unidentified for years. They had his DNA, his fingerprints, his

553
00:25:50,599 --> 00:25:53,200
dental records, but no matches in any of the criminal

554
00:25:53,279 --> 00:25:54,599
databases like Cody's.

555
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: He was a ghost in the system. People built up

556
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,319
all these theories. Was he a runaway cult member by

557
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:02,279
a terrorist who lost his nerve?

558
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 2: All these elaborate backstories were created for him online, and

559
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:07,319
then twenty eighteen happens.

560
00:26:07,319 --> 00:26:10,039
Speaker 1: Genetic genealogy right, and for the listener who hears that

561
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,440
term a lot. This isn't just checking fingerprints against a

562
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:14,400
police database. Can you explain how it works?

563
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 2: It's incredible. Forensic investigators create a DNA profile from the

564
00:26:18,319 --> 00:26:22,279
unidentified remains and then upload it to public ancestry sites

565
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,480
like ged match, where people voluntarily upload their own DNA

566
00:26:26,559 --> 00:26:28,279
results to find relatives so.

567
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: They aren't looking for the guy. They're looking for the

568
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:33,000
guy's third cousin who decided to build a family tree

569
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:33,920
last Christmas.

570
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:39,039
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's triangulation. They find distant relatives and then genealogists,

571
00:26:39,079 --> 00:26:43,279
often volunteers, work for hundreds of hours building out family

572
00:26:43,319 --> 00:26:46,400
trees forward and backward until they find the empty branch

573
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,519
that belongs to the John or Jane Doe. It turns

574
00:26:49,519 --> 00:26:52,359
a cold forensic sample into a living name.

575
00:26:52,599 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 1: And the reality. For Lyle Stavick, it wasn't a spy thriller.

576
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,200
It was a sad family story. He was a young

577
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,079
man from California who was struggling, who wanted to drift away.

578
00:27:01,519 --> 00:27:04,359
The family has kept the details private, which is their right,

579
00:27:04,759 --> 00:27:05,119
and it's.

580
00:27:05,039 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 2: A really important reminder that behind these thrilling threads there

581
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,559
are real families with real grief. The mystery was just

582
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,759
privacy maintained by tragedy, and frankly, does the public have

583
00:27:14,799 --> 00:27:16,759
a right to know the why? I'm not so sure

584
00:27:16,799 --> 00:27:17,000
we do.

585
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: That's a tough one. We feel entitled to the answer

586
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,160
because we invested time in the mystery, but we aren't

587
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,880
entitled to his life. We saw again with Donald Hadlan

588
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:27,160
Junior in Nogallis, Arizona, two thousand and two.

589
00:27:27,759 --> 00:27:30,559
Speaker 2: This one was strange because of the physical details. He

590
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:32,839
told the hotel manager he was seeing a doctor in

591
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:35,839
Mexico for head surgery, and he actually had a visible

592
00:27:35,839 --> 00:27:37,039
surgical scar on his.

593
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: Head, So you have a specific physical identifier a scar.

594
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,200
But because he used a fake name, it led to

595
00:27:43,319 --> 00:27:46,519
years of confusion. Was it fraud, identity theft? Was he

596
00:27:46,559 --> 00:27:47,759
fleeing a medical debt.

597
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 2: It took until twenty twenty three, over twenty years later,

598
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,599
for genetic genealogy to connect the dots. The mask of

599
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,039
the hotel registry held for two decades.

600
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:01,319
Speaker 1: And then there's Edward Sidney Bruton a John Doe in

601
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,680
a holiday inn in Raleigh, North Carolina since nineteen ninety.

602
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 2: Four, identified only in late twenty twenty five according to

603
00:28:07,759 --> 00:28:08,559
the source material.

604
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:09,759
Speaker 1: It's over thirty years.

605
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 2: Think about that, for thirty years, the hotel had this

606
00:28:12,279 --> 00:28:15,279
lead little box around his death check and date, room number,

607
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,839
death date, a tidy little file, but his life, who

608
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,079
he was, who loved him, who his favorite color was,

609
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:23,119
remained completely outside that box.

610
00:28:23,279 --> 00:28:26,279
Speaker 1: It really emphasizes that unexplained often just means waiting for

611
00:28:26,319 --> 00:28:27,440
science to catch.

612
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,559
Speaker 2: Up, and it changes how we look at the older cases.

613
00:28:29,759 --> 00:28:32,319
If we had twenty twenty five technology in nineteen thirty five,

614
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:35,319
with the Room ten forty six mystery be solved, would

615
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:36,680
we know who Don was?

616
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a fascinating thought. Don's DNA was probably all

617
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,079
over that room, on the phone, on the cords, on

618
00:28:42,119 --> 00:28:42,680
the doorknob.

619
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,279
Speaker 2: Almost certainly we could have traced Don to his great

620
00:28:46,279 --> 00:28:49,839
grandchildren today, but that evidence is long gone. We can

621
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,400
solve the new mysteries, but the old ones are sealed

622
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:52,920
by time.

623
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 1: But some mysteries endure not because of science, but because

624
00:28:56,039 --> 00:29:00,240
of stories folklore. Let's talk about the intersection of the

625
00:29:00,319 --> 00:29:02,240
unsolved and the supernatural, the.

626
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 2: Stories that become part of the mortar of the building itself.

627
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 1: We have to talk about the Iowa couple nineteen eighty

628
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:09,400
Rose Bergert and Roger Actison.

629
00:29:09,759 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 2: This is a heavy one. A holiday inn in Williamsburg, Iowa,

630
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:14,440
right off the interstate.

631
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: They check in, they are found to cease the next day.

632
00:29:17,279 --> 00:29:20,559
The investigation suggested a third person was involved, but no

633
00:29:20,799 --> 00:29:22,039
arrests were ever made.

634
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,359
Speaker 2: This one scares me because of the mundanity. A roadside

635
00:29:25,359 --> 00:29:28,880
holiday inn near Interstate eighty. It's not a gothic castle.

636
00:29:29,079 --> 00:29:31,440
It's not the Cecil Hotel. It's where you stop on

637
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,039
a road trip to get a vending machine soda and

638
00:29:34,119 --> 00:29:36,200
sleep for six hours before getting back on.

639
00:29:36,119 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: The road, exactly. And the scary part is the lack

640
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,680
of resolution. Someone left that busy hotel, got in a

641
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,200
car and just drove away. They left no path to

642
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:49,319
a courtroom. It highlights that hotels are transit points, perfect

643
00:29:49,319 --> 00:29:51,039
for predators who want to keep moving.

644
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,359
Speaker 2: Interstate eighty is a river of steel, and sometimes things

645
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:55,359
just wash away in it.

646
00:29:55,359 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: It's the anonymity we spoke about the beginning. It protects

647
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,960
the guest, but it also protects the entre truer. If

648
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,240
everyone is a stranger, then the killer is just another

649
00:30:04,319 --> 00:30:06,519
face in the lobby getting coffee.

650
00:30:06,039 --> 00:30:07,039
Speaker 2: And no one would ever know.

651
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: And finally we have to go away. Back to the

652
00:30:09,759 --> 00:30:14,079
grandmother of hotel mysteries. Eighteen ninety two, the Hotel del

653
00:30:14,119 --> 00:30:15,680
Coronado in California.

654
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,759
Speaker 2: A beautiful historic building, the red turrets, the Victorian architecture.

655
00:30:19,759 --> 00:30:22,480
It's iconic and the story of Kate Morgan.

656
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 1: She checked in as Lottie A Bernard. She was there

657
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,400
for five days. She looked sick, sad. Witnesses said she

658
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:30,720
was waiting for a gentleman who never arrived. Then she

659
00:30:30,799 --> 00:30:33,559
was found dead on the exterior staircase leading to the beach,

660
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:35,279
a gunshot wound to the head.

661
00:30:35,599 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 2: Ruled a suicide at the time, but over the last century,

662
00:30:39,079 --> 00:30:42,319
the discrepancies in the inquest, the witness statements, the type

663
00:30:42,359 --> 00:30:45,720
of bullet versus the gun found, it is all fueled

664
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,799
a legend. Some say she was murdered by the husband

665
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:51,519
she was waiting for. Some say she was pregnant and

666
00:30:51,519 --> 00:30:52,279
he abandoned her.

667
00:30:52,319 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: She's basically the resident ghost now right, she's famous for

668
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:55,599
being a ghost.

669
00:30:55,799 --> 00:31:00,519
Speaker 2: She is Room three three twenty seven is infamous. But

670
00:31:00,559 --> 00:31:04,079
why does this fit our thrilling threads? Because it shows

671
00:31:04,079 --> 00:31:07,200
that hotel mysteries don't just fade away. They become part

672
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,960
of the brand. The Hotel del Coronado embraces the Kate

673
00:31:11,039 --> 00:31:13,240
Morgan story. You can buy books about her in the

674
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:13,759
gift shop.

675
00:31:14,039 --> 00:31:16,359
Speaker 1: Right, it's a strange thing. If you die in a house,

676
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,240
it's a tragedy that lowers the property value. If you

677
00:31:19,319 --> 00:31:22,720
die in a historic hotel under mysterious circumstances, you become

678
00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:23,599
a tourist attraction.

679
00:31:23,799 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 2: It's a way for us to process the darker side

680
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,799
of these spaces. We turn the unexplained into the haunted,

681
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,880
because ghosts are easier to understand than the randomness of

682
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,279
violent death or the despair of suicide. A ghost story

683
00:31:35,319 --> 00:31:38,160
has rules, it has a narrative. A random murder feels

684
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:39,400
chaotic and meaningless.

685
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: That is a profound way to put it. We sanitize

686
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,480
the horror by making it a campfire story.

687
00:31:45,599 --> 00:31:48,359
Speaker 2: It cannex back to the beginning. The hotel is a stage.

688
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:51,000
Kate Morgan is still performing on that stage one hundred

689
00:31:51,039 --> 00:31:51,920
and thirty years later.

690
00:31:52,119 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: So let's wrap this up. We've looked at the glitches

691
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:59,039
like Alisa Lamb, the erasures like Jennifer Fairgate and Peter Bergman,

692
00:31:59,319 --> 00:32:01,960
the spy, the noirs, and the ghosts. What is the

693
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,160
common thread here? What connects all of these?

694
00:32:04,519 --> 00:32:07,079
Speaker 2: I think it's the suspension of reality. Whether it's eighteen

695
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,880
ninety two or twenty thirteen. A hotel is a place

696
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,440
where the rules of normal life seem to suspend. People

697
00:32:12,599 --> 00:32:15,799
use them to hide, to reinvent themselves, or to commit

698
00:32:15,839 --> 00:32:17,759
acts they feel they can't commit at home in their

699
00:32:17,799 --> 00:32:18,319
own lives.

700
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:21,839
Speaker 1: It's the locked room concept. It's terrifying because it implies

701
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,759
we can be physically present, checked in, logged in on camera,

702
00:32:25,039 --> 00:32:27,599
but socially non existent. We can be in a building

703
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:31,319
with five hundred other people and be completely and utterly alone.

704
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 2: And when something goes wrong in that space, it feels

705
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,319
like a violation of a social contract. We paid for safety,

706
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,920
we paid for a night of rest, and instead we

707
00:32:40,039 --> 00:32:42,400
got a mystery. We expect the hotel to be a

708
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,200
neutral background, and when it becomes an active participant in

709
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,519
a tragedy, it breaks our sense of order.

710
00:32:47,599 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 1: It's deeply unsettling. Now I want to hear from you.

711
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:52,599
We've covered a lot of ground today, a lot of

712
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:55,720
very dark quarters. Which of these threads keeps you up

713
00:32:55,759 --> 00:32:58,839
at night? Is it the impossible physics of the Elisa

714
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:01,759
Lamb case in that worldk Do you have a theory

715
00:33:01,799 --> 00:33:03,279
on how she closed that lid?

716
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,359
Speaker 2: Or is it the calculated chilling erasure of Peter Bergman

717
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,519
with his purple plastic bag, That image of him walking

718
00:33:09,559 --> 00:33:12,799
through the city methodically dissolving his own life. That one

719
00:33:12,839 --> 00:33:13,359
sticks with me?

720
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:15,519
Speaker 1: Or do you have a theory about who Dawn was

721
00:33:15,559 --> 00:33:17,759
in Room ten forty six? Was he a hit man,

722
00:33:18,119 --> 00:33:21,920
a lover a figment of Artemis olbal Tree's tortured imagination.

723
00:33:22,359 --> 00:33:24,839
Speaker 2: That one is still the most baffling to me personally,

724
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:26,000
the sheer brutality of it.

725
00:33:26,079 --> 00:33:28,319
Speaker 1: Drop a comment and let us know your stance. What

726
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:30,920
do you think really happened behind those closed doors? We

727
00:33:31,039 --> 00:33:33,720
read everything, and we genuinely want to know your theories.

728
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,079
And perhaps, next time you check into a hotel, take

729
00:33:37,079 --> 00:33:38,559
a look at who is standing next to you in

730
00:33:38,599 --> 00:33:41,440
the elevator. You never know what story they are writing.

731
00:33:41,519 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 2: We're racing.

732
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:45,119
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on thrilling threads. Until next time,

733
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:46,359
keep your eyes open