# Over 1 Hour of Chilling Cold Cases Too Twisted For TV | 284

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 28 Jul 2026, 1 h 17 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO7889024104.mp3

Join me for over 1 hour of disturbing cold cases. Episode 284 of the true crime podcast btw. Also don't forget to drop a rating if you enjoy the show. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 unsolved mysteries, true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, cases too dark for MrBallen, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, cold cases, true crime, true crime solved, 5 true crime cases

## Transcript

[0:00] In the last week of June 2010, on a street in Elmont, NY, a
[0:05] black Volkswagen Jetta was found sitting at the curb with its
[0:08] engine turning over and nobody behind the wheel.
[0:12] The registration came back to a 25 year old from West Islip who
[0:16] had been gone 6 days. His dog, which the man had
[0:20] brought along with him, was gone too.
[0:23] Upon further investigation, the cops discovered that the man was
[0:27] on his way to meet a woman he met online.
[0:31] Michael Taos was born on September 30th, 1984, which made
[0:35] him 25 in the summer of 2010. He was tall, 6 foot three, about
[0:42] 190 lbs, blonde with blue eyes and pierced ears.
[0:48] He lived on Everdell Ave. in West Islip, a quiet stretch of
[0:52] Suffolk County on Long Island South Shore, where he ran a
[0:56] successful car detailing business.
[0:59] He was close with his parents, Russell and Barbara, keeping in
[1:03] touch with them regularly. Which is going to matter for
[1:06] this case. Michael had also been using
[1:09] online dating, and this was a specific moment in that
[1:13] technology's history that requires some explanation.
[1:17] Dating sites had been around since the 90s, but 2010 sat
[1:21] right at the Hinge point, where meeting strangers through apps
[1:25] was still faintly embarrassing. People had started to do it
[1:29] fairly commonly, but they would tell their friends and family
[1:32] that they met at a coffee shop since meeting online still
[1:35] seemed a bit unusual. Tinder wouldn't launch for
[1:38] another two years, and profiles weren't verified by anyone.
[1:44] Phones didn't share your location, and there was no easy
[1:48] screenshot you could fire off to a friend.
[1:50] That said, here's who I'm with, and here's where we'll be.
[1:54] FaceTime, for its part, had actually been introduced on June
[1:58] 24th, 2010, just days after Michael disappeared.
[2:04] You can still conduct A brief screening call on something like
[2:07] Skype, but according to some data I found, only 19% of
[2:11] American adults had ever made a video call in 2010.
[2:16] You made a profile, you traded messages, you got a phone
[2:19] number, and then you drove somewhere to meet a person you'd
[2:22] never really laid eyes on. Michael told his father he had a
[2:26] date, and Russell later described his son as seeming
[2:29] happy about it. He said he'd warned him to be
[2:32] careful, since, in the words of his dad, he'd met the woman on
[2:37] the computer. Barbara had teased him about the
[2:40] same thing more than once, joking that he ought to tell her
[2:44] where he'd be so she'd know if somebody ever kidnapped him.
[2:49] In the true crime video industry, that's what we call
[2:51] foreshadowing. On the evening of Friday, June
[2:55] 18th, 2010, Michael left his home on Everdell Ave.
[3:00] He was dressed in a pink shirt and jeans, totally ordinary
[3:04] summer clothes for a totally ordinary first date.
[3:08] But then what followed was entirely out of the ordinary
[3:11] because no one would hear from Michael for five days.
[3:15] Nobody panicked immediately, and there's no reason anyone should
[3:18] have. A 25 year old man who goes out
[3:22] on a Friday and isn't answering his phone Saturday morning isn't
[3:26] a missing person in most circumstances.
[3:29] What eventually got his parents attention wasn't a single
[3:31] dramatic moment, but an accumulation of nothing.
[3:36] He wasn't calling. He wasn't turning up when he
[3:38] usually did, and when they started asking the people who'd
[3:41] normally have heard from him, the answers came back the same
[3:45] every time. Eventually, after five days of
[3:48] silence, his parents went to the Suffolk County police and
[3:51] reported him missing. Roughly six days after Michael
[3:55] was last seen, his black 2004 Volkswagen Jetta was located in
[4:00] Elmont, NY. Elmont isn't a place a West
[4:03] Islip man ends up by accident. At least, it's not likely.
[4:09] It's in Nassau County, hard against the Queen's border,
[4:12] about 30 miles West of Everdell Ave.
[4:16] It's best known for Belmont Park, and it's the sort of
[4:19] suburb you pass through on your way into or out of the city,
[4:23] rather than the sort you drive half an hour to visit.
[4:27] If Michael went there under his own power, he was likely heading
[4:30] toward New York City or meeting someone who lived on that end of
[4:34] the island. Notably, when the Jetta was
[4:37] discovered, the engine was still running, indicating the vehicle
[4:42] was recently dumped there. Investigators went over the car
[4:46] and found nothing directly useful in terms of the
[4:49] investigation. A detective with the Suffolk
[4:52] County Police told reporters at the time that there was nothing
[4:55] about the vehicle to suggest it had been part of a violent
[4:58] scene. There was no blood in it and
[5:01] nothing broken or even out of place in any meaningful way.
[5:06] It was just a car sitting where it had no business sitting with
[5:11] the engine on. So I did a little bit of
[5:14] arithmetic and additional research here, and I found that
[5:17] a 2004 Jetta carries a fuel tank of roughly 14 1/2 gallons.
[5:22] Federal figures put idle consumption for a compact sedan
[5:26] of that class at something like 1/6 of a gallon an hour.
[5:31] This works out to somewhere under four days from a full tank
[5:34] to a dry 1, and that's the generous end, assuming the tank
[5:38] was full to begin with. Michael, for his part, had been
[5:42] gone 6 by the time the Jetta was discovered, so the car wasn't
[5:46] idling continuously since the night of the 18th.
[5:50] The math proves that it couldn't have been, so either somebody
[5:54] started it shortly before it was found, or it was driven to
[5:58] Elmont days after Michael vanished and left running there.
[6:03] There's also the possibility that it was refueled somewhere
[6:06] in between prior to being left where it was dumped.
[6:11] Whichever it is, the car was in somebody's hands after Michael
[6:14] stopped answering his phone, and that somebody walked away from a
[6:18] working vehicle without bothering to shut it off.
[6:21] That's potentially the behavior of a person in a hurry, or a
[6:25] person who had no interest in the vehicle since they had no
[6:28] intention of coming back to it. None of that tells us where
[6:32] Michael went, but it does tell us the Jetta wasn't simply
[6:36] parked on June 18th and forgotten about.
[6:40] Then there's the matter of the dog.
[6:42] Since Michael had a pit bull named Romeo, reportedly around 2
[6:45] years old, when his family went looking, Romeo wasn't there, and
[6:52] neither were the dog's food and water bowls.
[6:55] This had investigators saying RR wherefore art thou Romeo?
[7:02] This single fact has bent the entire interpretation of the
[7:05] case, and it deserves to be taken seriously because it's
[7:09] strange a man leaving for a first date doesn't pack his
[7:13] dog's dishes. As last I checked, that's not
[7:17] date behavior, but travel behavior.
[7:20] It's what you do when you're bringing an animal somewhere
[7:23] it'll need to eat, which means somewhere you expect to stay a
[7:26] while. So either Michael left that
[7:29] night intending to be gone longer than a dinner, or he came
[7:32] back at some point afterward and collected the dog before leaving
[7:36] again. It's also possible that somebody
[7:39] else went into his place and took the dog and its bowls for
[7:43] reasons that aren't clear. Now, the problem with each of
[7:46] those interpretations, at least in my view, is that they all
[7:50] break something else. If he planned to leave, why tell
[7:54] his father about a date? And why do it on a random Friday
[7:58] in June without leaving a note or touching his own money?
[8:02] If he came back, then the last confirmed sighting of him isn't
[8:06] the last time he was in West Islip and the timeline everyone
[8:09] has worked from since is wrong. If a third party took the dog,
[8:14] then that person had access to his home and a reason to remove
[8:18] an animal that could bark, bite, or be recognized.
[8:22] There's a fourth possibility and it's maybe the plainest 1.
[8:26] He brought Romeo along because he liked having the dog with
[8:29] him, and he threw the bowls in the back because that's what you
[8:33] do when the dog's coming. A big guy turning up to a first
[8:37] date with a big pit bull in the passenger seat is not, in
[8:40] fairness, the strangest thing that happened on Long Island in
[8:44] 2010, or really, in any year. But it means that wherever
[8:50] Michael ended up, the animal ended up there, too.
[8:54] And dogs are conspicuous. They get surrendered to shelters
[8:57] and picked up by animal control, and the ones that turn up stray
[9:01] get scanned for a chip. A person can in a certain sense,
[9:07] vanish a lot more quietly than a dog, which is odd to think
[9:11] about. So this brings us to what the
[9:14] investigation actually had to work with.
[9:17] And almost nothing is the honest answer.
[9:20] There was no crime scene because there was no known location
[9:24] where anything had happened. Detectives couldn't even be sure
[9:28] that any crime was committed since the car offered nothing
[9:33] and there was no body and no weapon.
[9:36] Nobody has ever come forward who saw Michael after he left
[9:39] Everdale Ave. and nothing has been released publicly that puts
[9:43] him anywhere at all. After that evening.
[9:46] His bank accounts reportedly went untouched and his phone
[9:49] went silent and stayed that way. In the years since, no sighting
[9:55] has ever been substantiated and Suffolk County classified him as
[9:59] an endangered missing person and entered him into the national
[10:02] database. This classification suggests
[10:06] that the cops may have additional evidence of foul play
[10:09] that hasn't been released to the public.
[10:12] The one thread that should have led somewhere was the woman from
[10:16] the dating site, and you'd assume there would be a digital
[10:19] paper trail there. Michael told his father he was
[10:23] meeting someone he'd found online, which means she existed
[10:27] at least as a profile, and profiles leave records.
[10:32] Whether investigators ever identified her, spoke to her, or
[10:36] ruled her out has never been made public, and that silence
[10:40] has been filled in by speculation for well over a
[10:42] decade. It's entirely possible she was
[10:45] located in the first week, gave a completely normal account, and
[10:50] was cleared. It's also possible the profile
[10:53] was a shell that evaporated the moment it was no longer needed.
[10:57] There's also the distinct possibility that the cops
[11:00] working with their understanding of technology in 2010 simply
[11:05] never bothered to check his computer.
[11:08] It sounds bizarre now, but I can't confirm that any search of
[11:11] his computer was ever done. And in 2010, even in cases that
[11:16] should have a digital paper trail, it wasn't standard.
[11:22] As for the theories, there's a number of them, and I don't
[11:24] necessarily strongly favor any one of them, since we really
[11:28] don't have enough evidence here to draw conclusions.
[11:31] That said, I think taking what we do know, there is one theory
[11:36] of the case that makes by far the most sense, and I'll get to
[11:40] it Last, the voluntary disappearance theory has the dog
[11:45] on its side and not much else. It explains the bowls, the
[11:49] absence of a struggle, and why no remains have surfaced.
[11:53] What it can't explain is the money, since adults who walk
[11:58] away from their lives generally take resources with them, and
[12:02] Michael's accounts reportedly sat untouched.
[12:06] Nor does it explain the car, which is a working vehicle worth
[12:09] real money to a man starting over, left running on a street
[12:13] in Nassau County. And while I say I don't favor
[12:16] any particular theory, this one seems incredibly far fetched to
[12:20] me. A 26 year old man with no
[12:23] commitments doesn't need to cook up an elaborate story to restart
[12:28] a new life out in California or Florida or wherever.
[12:32] He can just pack his things in a truck and move across the
[12:35] country with his dog. It's as simple as that.
[12:38] The idea that he would have cooked up some fake date through
[12:41] an online dating site seems unlikely if this is what he was
[12:45] going to do. Some have proposed that there
[12:48] may have been an accident involving Michael and Romeo.
[12:52] Long Island is surrounded by water and a man with a dog and
[12:55] no particular plan can get into serious trouble without anyone
[12:59] doing a thing to him. Even a simple late night trip to
[13:02] a beach with your dog after a bad date could theoretically
[13:05] turn into a nightmare scenario. It's entirely speculative, but
[13:10] some have proposed that Romeo may have ran into a body of
[13:13] water and gotten himself into some trouble.
[13:17] The natural response for any dog owner is to run in and try to
[13:20] save your dog, but unfortunately this can quickly turn ugly for
[13:25] both the dog and the human involved.
[13:28] It could also technically provide an explanation for the
[13:31] vehicle, since Michael may have left his vehicle with the keys
[13:34] in it while Romeo went into the water.
[13:38] This of course, requires that someone found the Jetta by the
[13:40] body of water and stole it before dumping it days later.
[13:45] While this is an elegant explanation for why both Michael
[13:48] and Romeo have entirely disappeared, there's absolutely
[13:52] no real indication that this actually occurred.
[13:56] For me, I prefer the foul play reading of the case since it
[14:00] explains the untouched accounts and the dead phone and the total
[14:04] absence of contact with parents he was close to.
[14:08] What it struggles with is the dog and the bizarre state the
[14:12] vehicle was left in. Someone who intended to harm
[14:15] Michael that night had no reason to arrange for his dog's food
[14:19] bowls to leave the house. Perhaps more importantly, A
[14:23] catfisher seems unlikely to have suggested that Michael brought
[14:27] along his big tough dog on the fake encounter.
[14:30] It seems likely that the catfisher would have simply said
[14:33] that they could save the dog meeting for the second date.
[14:37] They also had no obvious reason to leave his car idling 30 miles
[14:41] from home rather than simply parked.
[14:45] I think it's likely that Michael was catfished and potentially
[14:48] set up to be robbed when he fought back, or the attacker
[14:52] realized that there was a tough dog with him.
[14:55] The perp may have dramatically escalated the violence.
[15:00] Michael's case remains open with the Suffolk County Police
[15:02] Department, though there have been no new developments in well
[15:06] over a decade now. Michael would be 41 years old
[15:09] now if he's still alive. And Romeo, if he lived out an
[15:13] ordinary dog's life somewhere, would have passed away years
[15:17] ago. In 1998, in the Mexican city of
[15:24] Guadalajara, 2 police officers came to a wealthy family with a
[15:28] quote UN quote business proposition for $5000.
[15:34] As the family's most famous member later described it,
[15:36] they'd provide a room the men who'd taken the family's
[15:40] patriarch tied to a chair and a sturdy pipe for $10,000.
[15:46] There was a tidier package. The kidnappers would have an
[15:49] unfortunate accident. While they, quote, resisted
[15:52] arrest, the family said no to both offers, and the son who
[15:56] helped make that call was the famous Hollywood filmmaker
[16:00] Guillermo del Toro. The man who was kidnapped was
[16:03] none other than his own father. To understand what was taken
[16:07] that year, we have to understand what Federico del Toro had built
[16:11] and the absolutely unusual way he built it.
[16:15] He was born in Ciudad Guzman, a modest city about 70 miles South
[16:20] of Guadalajara, and spent his youth racing motorcycles well
[16:23] enough to win trophies. He settled in Guadalajara,
[16:28] married a woman named Guadalupe Gomez Camberos, and started a
[16:32] family. Their son Guillermo arrived on
[16:36] October 9th, 1964, and for the most part they lived a solidly
[16:41] upper middle class existence. Then in 1969, Federico won the
[16:47] Mexican National Lottery, and Guillermo later put the windfall
[16:50] at roughly $6 million American. Despite the massive winnings,
[16:56] Federico decided to use the money not to retire, but to
[16:59] build 1 of Guadalajara's most successful car dealership
[17:02] operations. The family moved up in the world
[17:06] almost overnight into a big house that Guillermo has
[17:09] compared to an enchanted castle. It was stocked with
[17:13] encyclopedias, art books and, eventually, the young
[17:17] Guillermo's growing collection of monsters.
[17:21] Federico never really understood his son's unusual obsessions,
[17:25] but he backed him anyway, like supportive dads tend to do.
[17:30] When Guillermo made Kronos, his 1993 debut, about an antiques
[17:35] dealer who stumbles onto a device offering a hideous kind
[17:38] of immortality, Federico helped fund it.
[17:41] Kronos won a major prize at Cannes and launched an
[17:45] international career. It also cemented a friendship
[17:48] with James Cameron, whom del Toro had met in the early 90s
[17:53] and who'd become one of his closest allies in Hollywood.
[17:56] And keep Cameron in mind, because he's about to matter for
[17:59] the true crime portion of this narrative.
[18:02] By the late 90s, Federico was exactly what he'd spent 30 years
[18:06] becoming, a fixture of Guadalajara's business
[18:10] community, prosperous and settled in his routines.
[18:14] In the Mexico of that moment, though, a rich man with a
[18:18] recognizable name and predictable habits was
[18:21] effectively wearing a giant target on his back.
[18:26] The peso collapsed in December 1994, and the crisis that
[18:30] followed hollowed out the Mexican economy.
[18:33] Somewhere in the wreckage, kidnapping stopped being a rare
[18:37] thing and became an industry. By the late 90s, Mexico was
[18:43] reportedly suffering more abductions each year than nearly
[18:46] any country on earth except Colombia.
[18:50] Gangs took executives, ranchers, doctors, prosperous lawyers and
[18:54] anyone they thought could pay big.
[18:57] Some crews demanded millions and held victims for months and
[19:00] prepared safe houses. Others ran quick turn around
[19:04] operations, driving a victim to bank machines until the accounts
[19:08] ran dry and then dumping them off.
[19:11] And in an uncomfortable number of cases, the men doing the
[19:14] kidnapping and the men assigned to investigate it turned out to
[19:17] be colleagues. Families learned to treat the
[19:20] authorities as a threat rather than a resource, and by some
[19:24] estimates, the majority of abductions in that era went
[19:27] unreported. Calling the police could mean
[19:30] briefing the very people who'd planned the crime, giving away
[19:33] key information on their next moves.
[19:36] Wealthy families across Latin America began buying kidnap and
[19:40] ransom insurance, and a small profession of private hostage
[19:44] negotiators emerged to handle these situations.
[19:49] That was the climate when Federico del Toro was taken in
[19:52] his own city. The mechanics of the abduction,
[19:55] where it happened, how many men were involved and whether he'd
[19:59] been followed beforehand have never been publicly detailed.
[20:05] The tellings closest to del Toro himself generally placed the
[20:09] kidnapping in 1998, though plenty of published accounts
[20:13] shifted to 1997, And we'll get to why the details wander.
[20:18] The opening demand after the kidnapping was $1 million in
[20:21] cash, accepted in American currency.
[20:24] Only Guillermo, despite the family dealerships and a
[20:28] Hollywood resume, has said plainly that he didn't have that
[20:32] kind of money sitting anywhere. As it turned out, Federico had
[20:36] spent a fortune trying to bring his son's visions to the world,
[20:40] and as of yet, it hadn't really paid off big, at least not
[20:44] financially. Guillermo was coming off the
[20:47] most bruising stretch of his professional life.
[20:50] Mimic, his 1997 Hollywood debut, had been wrestled away from him
[20:55] by Miramax during production, an experience he has ranked among
[21:00] the worst of his career. He was trying to regroup when
[21:03] word of his father's abduction reached him, and whatever plans
[21:07] he had stopped mattering for the next 2 1/2 months.
[21:11] Here's where the story splits into two versions.
[21:14] The famous one goes like this. James Cameron, freshly crowned
[21:18] King of the world After Titanic heard about the kidnapping, he
[21:23] marched his friend to a bank and handed over $1,000,000 in cash
[21:27] to pay the ransom. That version has appeared in
[21:31] dozens of outlets over the years, and it's easy to see why
[21:34] it's stuck since it's so cinematic.
[21:37] It's also, according to del Toro himself, not what happened.
[21:41] And on a podcast, he set the record straight.
[21:44] His family paid the ransom with their own money, perhaps through
[21:48] loans or liquidating assets. It's immaterial to the
[21:52] narrative. What Cameron did without being
[21:55] asked was arguably more valuable.
[21:58] He hired a professional hostage negotiator, the kind of
[22:02] specialist terrified families rarely know how to find, and
[22:06] told del Toro the man would be at the family's door within 72
[22:10] hours. The fee reportedly ran to 1/4 of
[22:14] $1,000,000, and Cameron covered it up front and offered to pay
[22:19] the entire ransom too, if the family came up short.
[22:23] Del Toro has said he repaid him afterward and that what stayed
[22:27] with him was the loyalty of a friend who moved before anyone
[22:30] asked him to. But to be clear, James Cameron
[22:33] never asked to be repaid and never expected that to be the
[22:37] case. So yeah, James Cameron in the
[22:41] official narrative comes out even better than initially
[22:45] reported by the media. Cameron himself has never talked
[22:49] about the event, which I suppose makes a great deal of sense.
[22:52] One of those stories that sounds better coming from someone else.
[22:56] The negotiation. Ground on for weeks and the
[22:59] documented details are grim enough on their own.
[23:02] The. Family was.
[23:03] Warned from the start not to contact the police.
[23:08] The phone duty. Proved too brutal for any one
[23:10] person to carry, so the del Toro brothers rotated through it.
[23:15] The oldest started, the youngest took over and Guillermo finished
[23:20] working. Calls.
[23:21] He has described as openly hostile.
[23:24] By some accounts. The figure climbed as talks
[23:26] dragged on, though del Toro has declined to confirm the final
[23:30] number. 72. Days after Federico was taken,
[23:35] he came home alive, and for the rest of his life those days were
[23:39] sealed off, at least publicly. Nobody was.
[23:43] Ever. Brought to justice in any way
[23:45] the family could see, and the reasons for this are
[23:48] unfortunately quite disturbing. The people responsible were
[23:52] never caught and the money was never recovered, meaning that
[23:56] the gang behind this likely kept on doing what they were doing.
[24:01] Given that police. Officers had approached the
[24:03] family selling revenge like a subscription service.
[24:07] It's hard to imagine the official investigation was ever
[24:10] headed anywhere better. Now for the strange.
[24:14] Part. Or perhaps what would be the
[24:16] strange part if we didn't have the context for kidnappings in
[24:19] Mexico in the 90s? Almost everything.
[24:22] We Know comes from Guillermo del Toro telling the story himself
[24:27] in pieces across more than two decades.
[24:31] That makes the. Retellings themselves worth
[24:33] examining because according to some media reports, they don't
[24:37] quite add up. In a 2000. 11 Magazine interview
[24:42] He described living in involuntary exile, saying
[24:45] something reminded him of that status every week.
[24:49] By the mid 2. Thousands profiles of his
[24:52] friendship with Cameron were carrying the bank and cash
[24:55] ransom legend which hardened into accepted fact through sheer
[25:00] repetition. Then.
[25:03] On November 14th, 2015, Del Toro posted the fullest account he's
[25:08] ever given, compressed into 8 tweets.
[25:12] That thread. Is where the two police officers
[25:14] and their price list appear, along with the family's refusal
[25:19] and one more scene that's hard to shake.
[25:22] Months after the. Release At a dinner gathering of
[25:26] families who'd survived kidnappings, a commotion rippled
[25:30] through the far end of the table.
[25:32] Someone mentioned. Photographs being passed around
[25:36] and Del Toro stayed in his seat and never looked.
[25:39] He didn't want to learn. Whether another family had taken
[25:42] the $10,000 option, though he never actually confirmed that
[25:46] they did. At Cannes in.
[25:48] May 2022, he told an audience he would have gladly spent his
[25:53] whole life in Mexico and that his father's kidnapping ended
[25:57] that possibility. Months later came.
[26:00] The podcast Correction about Cameron's role and through 2025,
[26:04] while promoting Frankenstein, he talked about finally getting his
[26:08] father to open up privately. Of course, he never.
[26:11] Actually discussed those details with anyone, presumably out of a
[26:16] respect for his father's wishes. Notably, some.
[26:20] Versions of the account have it happening in 1997 and others
[26:25] have it happening in 1998. While some news.
[26:28] Articles try to treat this as some sort of discrepancy.
[26:32] This. Fails to.
[26:32] Account for Federico being held for exactly 1/5 of a year.
[26:37] This could easily. Mean that Federico was kidnapped
[26:39] in 97 and the ordeal ran into 98.
[26:44] Other apparent. Discrepancies could come from
[26:46] the fact that the incident was kept under wraps for a long
[26:49] period. You generally don't want to
[26:52] publicize that your family is paying out seven figure ransoms
[26:56] while the threat of kidnapping is still real.
[26:59] Such open. Statements could also
[27:01] potentially jeopardize coverage on kidnap and ransom insurance.
[27:07] The family for. Their part didn't wait to find
[27:09] out whether the kidnappers would come back for a second round
[27:13] once. Federico.
[27:14] Was free. The del Toros got out of Mexico
[27:17] almost as one, though Federico himself reportedly refused to
[27:21] stay away for good. Reports say that.
[27:24] Guadalajara is where he lived out his final years, having
[27:27] returned deep into his 80s. Guillermo.
[27:31] Who'd already been splitting time with Hollywood, made his
[27:34] own move permanent and the. Word he's.
[27:37] Used for it ever since is exile the involuntary kind.
[27:42] He wanted Mexico, and the Mexico of 1998 wouldn't let him keep
[27:48] both his family and his home. And in the years since, not too
[27:53] much has changed. You can debate.
[27:55] How much of what came afterward was shaped by those 72 days?
[28:00] And del Toro resists drawing straight lines.
[28:03] However, some claim that this experience of his father's
[28:06] kidnapping has influenced all of his films that came after.
[28:11] While I'm not above. Doing movie analysis on this
[28:13] true crime channel. I'm no expert of Guillermo del
[28:16] Toro's filmography by any means. I've seen Pan's Labyrinth and
[28:21] Pacific Rim, but I don't think I've seen any of his other films
[28:25] and if I have I don't remember any details.
[28:29] As for the crime? Itself, I struggle to call this
[28:31] a cold case because there's no case whatsoever, since this
[28:36] wasn't a time when a family could simply go to the police.
[28:39] I also struggle. To call it a mystery in the true
[28:42] sense, because the cops almost certainly knew who had done it.
[28:47] That's why they. Approached the family to quote
[28:49] UN quote solve the problem for either 5000 or 10,000 bucks.
[28:54] However, as. Far as the family ever learned,
[28:57] the kidnappers were never identified and the money never
[29:00] surfaced. Hey everyone.
[29:05] It's Jimmy with my usual quick reminder to ring the
[29:08] notification bell and turn on all notifications.
[29:12] Also, don't forget to check out the Patreon or the membership if
[29:15] you enjoy my content and want to support my channel even further.
[29:25] In a small. Courtroom in Sauvignon, France
[29:28] in the winter of 1457. A judge had delivered his
[29:31] verdict. A sow, the primary defendant,
[29:35] was condemned for the slaying of a 5 year old boy.
[29:38] Her six piglets, her Co accused were acquitted and justice of a
[29:44] sort had been served. But the story wasn't finished.
[29:49] In the quiet. That followed the sentence.
[29:52] The piglets owner, a farmer named Johan Bailey, stood before
[29:56] the court. The judge had.
[29:58] Restored the six young animals to him, but on one condition
[30:03] that he give bail for their future good behavior, which
[30:06] Bailey refused he. Formally.
[30:09] Renounced his ownership of the piglets, declaring that he
[30:13] couldn't be held accountable for any future crimes they might
[30:16] commit. The legally.
[30:18] Innocent but socially tainted animals were declared vacant
[30:22] property and forfeited to a local noble woman who was
[30:25] willing to ensure they would behave.
[30:30] This strange. Unsettling epilogue is perhaps
[30:33] the most revealing moment in the entire affair it.
[30:37] Forces us. To look past the immediate
[30:39] absurdity of a pig on trial and ask a deeper set of questions.
[30:44] Why would a farmer? Reject his own valuable
[30:46] property. And what crime could be so
[30:49] profound that it stained not only the perpetrator but also
[30:53] her young, legally exonerated offspring?
[30:57] The answer lies. At the heart of the medieval
[30:59] worldview, this. Was a world.
[31:01] Struggling to impose a human system of justice and order onto
[31:06] a universe that often seemed random, brutal, and terrifyingly
[31:10] chaotic. The trial of the.
[31:13] Savigny Sow was not an act of collective madness, but a
[31:17] desperate, highly ritualized attempt to make sense of a
[31:20] senseless tragedy. In December. 1457 a sow and her
[31:27] six piglets brutally attacked A5 year old boy and despite the
[31:31] best efforts of the townspeople, he perished and the porkers were
[31:35] taken into custody. In the context.
[31:38] Of a 15th century French village, this was a horrifying
[31:42] but not entirely unthinkable event.
[31:46] Unlike today, medieval pigs often roamed freely through the
[31:50] streets. They were a source.
[31:52] Of food and wealth. But their size and proximity to
[31:55] humans, particularly unattended children, also made them a
[32:00] potential danger. What followed?
[32:04] However, was not a simple act of vengeance.
[32:06] The community didn't immediately slaughter the offending animals,
[32:10] but instead they turned to the law.
[32:14] The sow, her six piglets and their owner Jehan Bailey were
[32:19] formally arrested and taken to jail to await trial a month.
[32:23] Later. They were brought before a local
[32:25] judge in a proceeding that had all the hallmarks of a human
[32:28] criminal case. The court records note the
[32:31] presence of three lawyers, 2 for the prosecution and, remarkably,
[32:37] one who appears to have been appointed for the defense of the
[32:41] pigs. 9 witnesses. Were called to give evidence
[32:45] about what happened. The witnesses.
[32:50] Established that the Sow was the clear aggressor and the
[32:53] so-called ringleader in the attack.
[32:56] The role of her. Piglets was far more ambiguous
[33:00] while. They were found.
[33:00] Covered in blood, no one had actually seen them take any
[33:04] direct hostile actions. They were heard squealing,
[33:08] though no one could interpret what these noises actually meant
[33:11] and if they were an attempt to egg on the assault or stop.
[33:15] The. Attack.
[33:18] This detail. Became the crux of the case and
[33:21] after consulting with experts in local customary law, the judge
[33:25] delivered a split verdict that would be unthinkable today.
[33:30] The sow was. Found guilty and sentenced to be
[33:32] hanged from a gallows tree by her hind legs.
[33:36] A customary form of execution for such crimes in the region of
[33:39] Burgundy. Her piglets.
[33:42] However, were acquitted and the reasoning given sounds
[33:45] surprisingly modern. The.
[33:47] Court cited. Their youth, the corrupting
[33:50] influence of their poorly behaved convict mother and the
[33:53] lack of direct evidence as mitigating factors.
[33:57] They also. Acknowledged that the noises
[33:59] made by the piglets could have been an expression of sympathy
[34:03] for the human boy. This nuanced.
[34:07] Verdict reveals the trials true purpose.
[34:10] Had the goal been simple retribution, all 7 pigs would
[34:14] have been given the Bacon penalty.
[34:17] Rather the trial. Was using the sophisticated
[34:19] intellectual tools of jurisprudence to parse degrees
[34:22] of culpability exactly the same way it would be done for humans?
[34:27] Further. It applied concepts of
[34:29] diminished responsibility, youth and parental influence to non
[34:34] human actors. The court wasn't.
[34:37] Just butchering a pig. It was constructing an elaborate
[34:40] narrative of justice. The Savignon.
[34:45] Case was a surreal episode, but it was far from unique.
[34:50] For centuries, from roughly the 13th to the 18th century, animal
[34:54] trials were a remarkably common feature of European justice.
[34:58] These proceedings, however, were not monolithic.
[35:02] They operated within a structured system divided
[35:05] between two distinct legal realms, the secular and the
[35:09] ecclesiastical. Secular.
[35:12] Courts like the one in Savigny held jurisdiction over
[35:16] individual domesticated animals, pigs, bulls, horses and donkeys.
[35:23] These creatures. Lived alongside humans and were
[35:25] seen as members of the community, subject to its laws.
[35:31] Ecclesiastical. Courts, on the other hand, dealt
[35:34] with a different class of offender.
[35:37] Their defendants. Weren't individuals, but entire
[35:40] collective groups of pests and vermin, rats, locusts, weevils,
[35:45] caterpillars and flies. Their crime?
[35:48] Wasn't against a person, but against the community's
[35:51] livelihood, typically the destruction of crops or the
[35:55] intentional spreading of disease.
[35:58] Seen as creatures. Outside the human domain and
[36:01] subject only to God's law. Their punishment?
[36:05] Was spiritual rather than physical.
[36:08] After a formal. Trial.
[36:09] They could be cursed or solemnly banished from the district.
[36:15] The records of these. Trials are filled with
[36:17] astonishing cases in. 15. 22 A brilliant French lawyer by the
[36:23] name of Bartholomew Chasenet made his name defending a group
[36:27] of rats accused of destroying the barley crop of a region.
[36:32] When his clients. Failed to appear in court.
[36:35] He successfully argued that a single summons was invalid given
[36:39] his clients were an entire class of animals in a region when.
[36:44] A second. Summons was issued from every
[36:45] pulpit and the rats still failed to appear.
[36:49] Chassonet made his master stroke.
[36:52] He argued that. His clients couldn't be
[36:54] compelled to attend as the journey was fraught with peril
[36:57] due to the presence of cats in the region since.
[37:01] The court. Was unable or unwilling to
[37:03] remove all cats from the region and guarantee his clients safe
[37:07] passage. The case was dismissed.
[37:10] While the official. Records don't recount how
[37:13] Bartholomew Chassonnet was paid for his work.
[37:16] I personally like to assume he had a lifetime supply of cheese
[37:19] morsels. In a more bizarre.
[37:23] And sinister case in 1750, a female donkey was accused of
[37:27] quote UN quote unnatural behavior with a human male, but
[37:32] the. Townspeople.
[37:33] Including the parish priest came to her defense, signing a
[37:37] certificate attesting to her virtuous character and gentle
[37:41] nature. The.
[37:43] Court was. Moved, and while the man was
[37:45] eliminated, the donkey was acquitted on the grounds that
[37:48] she was a victim of violence, not a willing participant in the
[37:51] crime. But let's get back.
[37:54] To the medieval pig trial for a second.
[37:59] To the modern. Mind, we necessarily have to
[38:01] question why a medieval society would go through the trouble of
[38:04] giving a pig its day in court before hanging it.
[38:08] The answer isn't simple. It lies in a confluence of
[38:11] theological, philosophical and social anxieties that shape the
[38:16] medieval world. No.
[38:18] Single. Explanation suffices, but
[38:21] together they reveal a society desperate to find meaning in a
[38:24] world that often provided none. The most foundational
[38:28] explanation is theological, the need to restore a divinely
[38:32] ordained cosmic order. Medieval Society.
[38:36] Was built upon the concept of the Great Chain of Being, a
[38:39] rigid hierarchy descending from God down through angels,
[38:43] humanity, animals and plants. In this world.
[38:47] View a pig acting out aggressively to a human wasn't
[38:51] just a tragedy, it was. A complete.
[38:54] Metaphysical crisis and a violent subversion of God's
[38:58] plan. The trial was.
[39:00] A public ritual designed to symbolically reassert the proper
[39:04] order to demonstrate human dominion over the animal Kingdom
[39:08] and restore the universe to its rightful balance.
[39:14] This was. Complicated, however, by an
[39:16] ambiguous understanding of the animal soul.
[39:19] Drawing on Aristotle, theologians like Thomas Aquinas
[39:23] argued that animals possessed a sensitive soul for instinct, but
[39:27] lacked the rational soul that gave humans moral culpability.
[39:32] In this view. An animal could not truly form
[39:35] criminal intent, yet popular folklore and the daily
[39:38] experience of living with animals led many ordinary people
[39:42] to attribute to them a degree of reason and will.
[39:48] This ambiguity. Created a legal Gray area and
[39:51] the court could proceed as if the animal were a rational
[39:54] agent. In essence.
[39:57] Everyone agreed to put aside the thorny theological issue about
[40:01] whether animals possessed free will and just treat them like
[40:05] they did. After all, in a world where
[40:08] people interacted with animals all the time, everyone knew
[40:11] that, even animals of the same species.
[40:14] Had wildly different temperaments.
[40:19] On a more. Pragmatic level.
[40:21] The trial served as a powerful sociological tool.
[40:24] The public butchery of a sow attended by other farmers with
[40:28] their own pigs was a terrifying and unforgettable public service
[40:32] announcement it. Was a warning.
[40:34] Aimed squarely at the human owners.
[40:37] Control your animals or the state will, and you will bear
[40:41] the catastrophic economic loss. Notably, it's.
[40:46] Unclear if any pigs themselves were brought to the hanging,
[40:49] though under the logic of the time it's a distinct possibility
[40:52] that unruly swine were brought to be scared straight.
[40:57] Naturally. The next logical question is why
[41:00] these practices ceased. The practice of.
[41:03] Trying animals faded with the dawn of the Enlightenment, first
[41:07] in metropolitan areas, but. Gradually.
[41:10] Spreading out over all of Europe.
[41:13] During this period. Animals were reduced to a
[41:15] machine like status by philosophers.
[41:19] Unlike theologians who had to accept that animals at least had
[41:23] some semblance of a soul, Enlightenment thinkers viewed
[41:26] them as completely unthinking. Animals had no moral agency
[41:31] whatsoever, and so the courtroom doors closed to beastly
[41:35] defendants. Interestingly.
[41:39] Centuries later, we're now exiting the era of animals as
[41:43] unthinking automatons. For example.
[41:47] Grey parrots have been noted to have human like levels of
[41:50] consciousness and potentially even a very rudimentary sense of
[41:54] morality. Under our ever.
[41:56] Evolving understanding of animal intelligence, It's possible that
[42:00] we will one day see the medieval approach to animal justice as
[42:04] humane and our own time as barbaric.
[42:08] In the early. Hours of May 7th, 1988.
[42:12] A chilling sound crept through the walls of a quiet Burbank
[42:15] apartment building. Muffled shrieks.
[42:18] And high pitched moans Jarred awake 23 year old Susan Aiken, a
[42:23] former Miss America. She.
[42:25] Listened an. Alarm with her fiance as the
[42:28] mysterious cries continued rhythmically for nearly an hour.
[42:32] Less than a week. Later on Friday the 13th of May,
[42:36] neighbors complained of a foul odor from that same upstairs
[42:39] unit. Police responded.
[42:42] And discovered the lifeless body of 29 year old Crystal Spencer
[42:46] lying face down on the floor of her apartment.
[42:51] Crystal Spencer. Was an ambitious young woman
[42:54] with Hollywood aspirations. She grew.
[42:57] Up in a. Small Northern California town,
[43:00] and after her father passed away when she was just eight, life
[43:03] got a lot more difficult for her.
[43:06] Crystal ended up. Having to leave high school
[43:08] early to help her mom support the family in her early 20s, she
[43:13] moved to Los Angeles dreaming of stardom.
[43:16] But like many hopeful actresses, she found only bit parts and
[43:19] frustration in her first years. To make ends.
[43:23] Meet Crystal reluctantly took a job as a dancer at the Wild
[43:27] Goose, an adult club near Los Angeles International Airport.
[43:32] She wasn't happy. That she was in this line of
[43:34] work and Crystal never abandoned her Hollywood dreams.
[43:39] She landed a couple. Of small roles including two TV
[43:42] commercials and enrolled in drama and comedy workshops to
[43:46] hone her craft. By 19. 88 At 29 years old, she
[43:51] was still striving for that big break.
[43:56] In 1980. Seven She had begun dating Anton
[43:59] Klein, a 37 year old aspiring screenwriter whom she met at a
[44:04] garden party. For several months, Crystal hid
[44:07] her dancing job from him, afraid of losing his respect and that
[44:12] it would cause them to break up. When Anton eventually discovered
[44:16] her other life, he was shocked but accepted it and the two
[44:20] stayed together. In early 19. 88 A new
[44:26] opportunity on the horizon gave her hope.
[44:30] Crystal was. Preparing to spend 3 months in
[44:32] Japan working as a nightclub Hostess, a job that promised
[44:36] quick money and a chance to step up from the dancing scene.
[44:40] She confided to. A friend that the idea of moving
[44:43] to Japan made her nervous, but she was determined to go through
[44:47] with it. On Wednesday.
[44:51] May 4th, Anton stopped by Crystal's Burbank apartment
[44:55] because she was home sick with what seemed like a bad cold.
[44:59] He brought her groceries and noted that she appeared to be in
[45:01] good spirits. The next night.
[45:05] Thursday, May 5th would be the last time Crystal spoke with her
[45:09] family. Late that evening, Crystal
[45:12] phoned her sister Julie, sounding distressed and claiming
[45:15] she had come down with a terrible flu.
[45:19] She wanted to know. What number their mom could be
[45:21] reached at since their mom was staying with friends in Los
[45:24] Angeles while Crystal plan to leave for Japan.
[45:29] She begged Julie. For their mother's phone number,
[45:31] desperate to reach her mom for comfort or help, but Julie.
[45:35] Thought. Crystal was being dramatic and
[45:37] told her she didn't have it. As midnight.
[45:42] Passed into the early hours of May 6th, troubling signs
[45:45] continued at Crystal's apartment.
[45:48] Very late that night, unusual noises emanated from her unit.
[45:52] One neighbor. Later told police they had heard
[45:54] sounds throughout the day and into the night that sounded a
[45:57] lot like violent vomiting. Then came the.
[46:00] Harrowing screams that Susan Aiken and her fiance heard in
[46:04] the early hours. As mentioned.
[46:07] Due to the rhythmic style of agony they heard, they assumed
[46:10] that a couple were taking a walk on the wild side and didn't call
[46:13] the cops. This decision.
[46:16] Not to call the cops because they didn't want to interrupt.
[46:19] A freaky night going on upstairs would come to haunt the couple.
[46:26] Meanwhile. Anton Klein was growing
[46:28] concerned. All through that weekend.
[46:31] He repeatedly tried calling Crystal, but her phone line was
[46:35] persistently busy. Eventually a.
[46:37] Phone operator informed him that the line wasn't just busy.
[46:41] The telephone receiver in Crystal's apartment was off the
[46:44] hook, effectively disabling incoming calls.
[46:48] On Monday, May. 9th With still no word from Crystal, Anton took
[46:54] an extra step. He phoned the Wild.
[46:57] Goose Club, where she worked and asked the doorman if anyone had
[47:00] seen her. The response He.
[47:02] Got was strange and unexpected since Anton was informed that
[47:06] Crystal had left for Japan. Anton was rather heartbroken
[47:11] that she had left without saying goodbye, but ultimately decided
[47:15] to reluctantly accept what he was told.
[47:19] On May. 13th, 1988 Nearly one week after the mysterious late
[47:24] night screams, the truth of Crystal's fate was finally
[47:28] revealed. Neighbors, unable to ignore the
[47:31] awful smell seeping through the building's hallway, called the
[47:35] police. Officers entered.
[47:37] Crystal Spencer's apartment and found her on the living room
[47:40] floor. Crystal's body.
[47:42] Had lain there for days, decomposing in the spring heat.
[47:47] She was found. Wearing only a red top with no
[47:50] clothing from the waist down and her telephone was off its hook
[47:54] next to her, the cord wrapped around her legs.
[47:58] The apartment. Itself was in disarray,
[48:01] belongings scattered about which could have indicated A struggle
[48:04] or break in, although friends noted Crystal wasn't the tidiest
[48:08] person to begin with. One responding.
[48:12] Officer noted immediate suspicion of a possible slaying
[48:15] given the state of the apartment and her body.
[48:18] However, with the corpse so badly decayed, it was difficult
[48:21] to discern much from the crime scene.
[48:24] Notably there. Were absolutely no signs of
[48:26] trauma that could be conclusively identified on the
[48:29] remains. Further yet.
[48:32] Investigators found no trace of substances in Crystal's system
[48:35] either. In the absence.
[48:37] Of clear evidence, the coroner could not determine how Crystal
[48:41] Spencer perished. After a thorough.
[48:44] Autopsy The cause was officially recorded as undetermined,
[48:49] essentially acknowledging that the forensic experts were unable
[48:53] to say what ended her life. When crystal.
[48:58] Spencer's remains were first examined.
[49:00] The coroner's office registered them as a Jane Doe Her.
[49:04] Body was so. Decomposed that staff had to
[49:06] remove her fingertips surgically just to get prints for
[49:10] identification. This.
[49:12] Autopsy. Would cause a significant degree
[49:14] of controversy for Crystal's family and friends.
[49:17] It listed a 5 foot seven, 140 LB woman, while Crystal was barely
[49:22] 5 feet tall and just over 100 lbs.
[49:27] Anton Klein. Suggested that her body may have
[49:30] been switched out either accidentally or on purpose.
[49:34] However, the authorities explained that the height
[49:36] discrepancy was likely a clerical error and the weight
[49:39] discrepancy came from not factoring in the weight of the
[49:42] Gurney. Notably, the authorities tested
[49:46] her fingerprints 2 more times to ensure the proper body had been
[49:49] examined, which they were able to confirm.
[49:55] Questions also. Arose about the initial police
[49:57] investigation. Burbank police did look into
[50:01] Crystal's passing, but only briefly.
[50:04] They processed the apartment and interviewed a few people yet
[50:08] within. A few.
[50:08] Months, the department quietly closed the case, having found no
[50:12] concrete evidence of foul play. Eventually, by the summer of
[50:16] 1988, Crystal's file was marked as a passing due to probable
[50:21] natural causes. This conclusion.
[50:24] Infuriated Crystal's family and Anton Klein, who believed the
[50:28] police had been too quick to write off the case.
[50:32] Anton and. Crystal's family took it upon
[50:34] themselves to find what the police didn't.
[50:38] In the days after. The autopsy Crystal's relatives
[50:42] went through her disheveled apartment and discovered a
[50:45] potential clue that investigators had left behind.
[50:49] Crystal's camera This camera had.
[50:51] A roll of undeveloped film still inside, and the police had not
[50:56] confiscated it or even noted its existence.
[51:00] Anton had the. Film developed on his own and
[51:03] the photos revealed something intriguing.
[51:05] It showed a middle-aged man with a mustache sitting in Crystal's
[51:09] apartment, smiling at the camera.
[51:12] This unknown. Man's presence raised alarm
[51:14] bells. Anton managed to obtain
[51:16] Crystal's phone records and playing detective, matched a
[51:20] number to the mystery man's identity, then handed this
[51:24] information to the Burbank police.
[51:27] Detectives did. Track the man down and interview
[51:29] him and in the end he was ruled out as a suspect.
[51:36] More than three. Decades later, the death of
[51:38] Crystal Spencer remains an unsolved puzzle, and people
[51:42] still debate whether she perished from natural causes,
[51:45] causes or was the victim of a sinister plot.
[51:49] Over the years. Several theories have emerged to
[51:52] explain what might have happened in that Burbank apartment in May
[51:56] 1988. 1. Possibility is that Crystal did
[52:00] in fact die of a medical issue, A rapid and severe illness that
[52:05] struck suddenly, no. Definitive.
[52:08] Illness was identified in the autopsy, but.
[52:11] Not every. Condition leaves obvious traces.
[52:15] It's conceivable. That severe complications from
[52:17] the flu or another natural cause took her life quickly.
[52:21] Proponents of. This theory point out that no
[52:24] evidence of violence was found on her body and the coroner
[52:27] couldn't pinpoint any injury or toxin which might indicate a
[52:31] medical cause. However.
[52:34] The natural death hypothesis struggles to explain the
[52:38] haunting screams heard in the night.
[52:44] Some have. Suggested that it's unusual for
[52:46] someone dying of illness to make the kind of prolonged, shrill
[52:50] cries that were described. Further, it doesn't.
[52:53] Fully explain why she wouldn't have called an ambulance as her
[52:56] condition was worsening. However, those who believe this
[53:00] theory generally think that she did make an attempt to call 911,
[53:04] but only did so when it was too late.
[53:08] Many. Including Crystal's family
[53:11] strongly suspect that she met with foul play the.
[53:15] Screams heard. By multiple neighbors bolster
[53:17] the idea that she wasn't alone and was in severe distress if.
[53:22] This theory. Is true.
[53:23] The identity of the attacker remains unknown and no direct
[53:27] suspects have ever been identified publicly.
[53:30] It could. Have been a.
[53:31] Stranger, perhaps a patron or stalker from the club, or
[53:36] someone Crystal knew casually. It could even be.
[53:39] Someone such as a boyfriend who inserted himself into the
[53:42] investigation consistently over the following years, but.
[53:46] That's just. Speculation, of course.
[53:50] Notably. There were no signs of forced
[53:52] entry reported, but Crystal might have opened her door
[53:55] willingly if she recognized the visitor.
[53:59] Unfortunately, the delayed discovery of her body meant much
[54:02] of the evidence which may have existed could have vanished by
[54:06] the time the cops found her body.
[54:11] One particularly. Tangled Theory involves A
[54:13] corrupt ex cop and the criminal underworld orbiting the adult
[54:17] club scene. Horace McKenna was a former
[54:20] California Highway Patrol officer who, according to rumor,
[54:24] allegedly secretly owned or controlled the wild goose where
[54:27] Crystal worked. According to an.
[54:30] LA Times report McKenna was said to run an illegal gambling
[54:34] operation out of an Inglewood warehouse.
[54:37] In fact, a. Waitress friend of Crystal's
[54:39] later attested that Crystal had spent time at this clandestine
[54:43] casino, possibly rubbing shoulders with dangerous people
[54:46] in Mckenna's circle. The.
[54:49] Theory goes. That crystal might have become
[54:50] an informant on Mckenna's illicit activities.
[54:54] Notably. In favor of this theory, it
[54:56] turned out that the FBI had an open file on Crystal, which
[55:00] Anton obtained. The only problem?
[55:03] Was that the file was almost entirely redacted.
[55:07] According to this theory, McKenna ordered the hit and then
[55:10] used his significant connections within the Los Angeles Police
[55:13] Department to botch the investigation.
[55:17] However, McKenna. Himself was eliminated just
[55:19] months later, and no evidence ever tied him to Crystal's
[55:22] demise. Another theory.
[55:27] Branches off from Crystal's planned trip to Japan, some have
[55:30] wondered if the offer to work as a nightclub Hostess in Tokyo
[55:34] wasn't as quote UN quote, innocent as it seemed.
[55:38] During the 19. 80s There were real instances of young American
[55:43] women being lured abroad for Hostess jobs that ended up being
[55:47] fronts for forced exploitation. Now this theory.
[55:52] Really gets into wild and speculative territory.
[55:55] So I mentioned that there was initially some doubt about
[55:58] whether the body examined was crystals due to some issues with
[56:02] mismatches and information. This theory.
[56:06] Claims that the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, kidnapped
[56:09] Crystal and then shipped her to Japan or Hawaii and then put
[56:14] another body in her apartment. Notably, the authorities double
[56:18] checked the fingerprints on the body twice and determined that
[56:22] they were indeed from Crystal. Notably.
[56:26] There's been no connection whatsoever found between the
[56:28] Yakuza and Crystal. To this day it.
[56:32] Remains entirely unclear whether Crystal was the victim of a
[56:34] crime or whether she simply perished due to natural causes.
[56:41] However. Personally, I can't accept that
[56:44] Crystal's death was simply natural or accidental.
[56:48] The condition of her body left to decompose for nearly a week
[56:52] may have erased the very signs that would have revealed the
[56:55] truth. Advanced.
[56:57] Decomposition can obscure bruising, subtle trauma, or even
[57:01] evidence of strangulation if the hyoid bone wasn't broken.
[57:07] The fact that she. Was found half clothed, the
[57:10] phone ripped from its base and neighbors reported hearing what
[57:13] sounded like screams makes me strongly suspect foul play.
[57:22] Hey everyone. Jimmy here as usual, with a
[57:24] shout out to all subscribers, YouTube members and patrons.
[57:28] Also, don't forget to check out my new history video podcast,
[57:32] Lazy Chill History by clicking the link in the description.
[57:40] On a spring day. In 1980, a hiker in Canada's
[57:43] Algonquin Provincial Park wandered off the trail and
[57:46] stumbled upon a chilling discovery human remains hidden
[57:50] beneath the forest floor. Scattered around.
[57:54] Were personal items weathered by the seasons A.
[57:57] Single boot. A leather wallet, a sleeping
[58:00] bag, clothing and camping gear. There was no.
[58:05] Identification on the body only these haunting clues in the
[58:09] dirt. It would take nearly.
[58:12] Half a century for the truth to emerge, finally revealing the
[58:15] fate of Ricky Singer, a 22 year old from Ohio who vanished
[58:20] without a trace in 1973. Ricky Singer.
[58:25] Grew up in the Cleveland, OH area and was known for being a
[58:29] free spirit. In 19. 70 At age 19, he dropped
[58:34] out of college after receiving a draft card for the Vietnam War,
[58:39] an event that prompted him to head north to Canada in search
[58:42] of a different path. Ricky spent the.
[58:45] Next few years living in Canada, exploring options for school and
[58:50] work. By the fall of. 197322 year old
[58:54] Ricky was back home in Ohio for a short stay with his parents.
[58:59] Then on October 3rd, 1973, he packed a backpack, hopped on his
[59:05] bicycle, and rode off, telling no one exactly where he was
[59:10] going. That day was the last time his
[59:13] family ever saw him. When Ricky failed.
[59:15] To stay in contact, his worried relatives filed a missing
[59:19] persons report and even hired a private investigator, but no
[59:23] leads turned up. Unbeknownst to.
[59:28] His family. Ricky's journey led him back to
[59:30] Canada once more. Given his love of.
[59:33] Travel and nature It's believed he ventured into the Wilds of
[59:36] the Canadian province of Ontario for a solitary trip.
[59:41] He had been spending. A lot of time in Canada already
[59:44] and he likely felt comfortable there.
[59:47] What we know for. Certain is that Ricky never
[59:49] returned home after October 1973.
[59:53] Decades would. Pass before his loved ones got
[59:56] any answers as his disappearance gradually transformed into a
[1:00:00] cold case. Fast forward.
[1:00:04] To April 19th, 1980, a hiker trekking near the Hardwood
[1:00:08] Lookout Trail in Algonquin Provincial Park made a grisly
[1:00:12] find just off the path. Partially buried.
[1:00:15] Under leaves and soil were human remains, which at first appeared
[1:00:19] to be a shallow grave of some sort.
[1:00:22] The Ontario. Provincial police from the
[1:00:24] nearby Whitney detachment arrived and conducted A thorough
[1:00:28] search of the area over the following days.
[1:00:31] They. Recovered a.
[1:00:32] Number of items at what looked like an old campsite.
[1:00:35] These. Personal.
[1:00:36] Effects painted a portrait of a young outdoorsman who had been
[1:00:39] prepared to camp in the wilderness.
[1:00:42] Notably. No driver's license, passport or
[1:00:46] any form of identification was found.
[1:00:51] Investigators. Determined that the remains
[1:00:53] belong to a white male, likely between 18 and 21 years old at
[1:00:58] the time of death. Based on the decomposition and
[1:01:02] condition of the campsite, they estimated he had died several
[1:01:05] years before, roughly sometime between 1971 and 1978.
[1:01:12] Importantly. The forensic examination found
[1:01:14] no obvious signs of foul play. It appeared this.
[1:01:18] Young man's life had ended due to misadventure or natural
[1:01:21] causes rather than violence. But stay tuned because we'll get
[1:01:25] back to that shortly. Despite these.
[1:01:29] Clues The police had no name to go on.
[1:01:32] They compared the John Doe's description and belongings
[1:01:35] against missing persons reports from both Canada and the United
[1:01:38] States, but initially nothing matched.
[1:01:42] Public appeals. Were made and the story of the
[1:01:44] unidentified remains in Algonquin Park was circulated in
[1:01:48] the media, yet no one came forward to claim the young man.
[1:01:53] As weeks turned. Into months, the Algonquin Park
[1:01:57] John Doe case went cold his. Remains were.
[1:02:00] Laid to rest without a name, and for years the mystery lingered
[1:02:04] in the back of investigators minds.
[1:02:08] In March. 199515 years after the initial discovery, a new break
[1:02:14] in the case occurred, though it only deepened the mystery at
[1:02:17] first. Another hiker found a human
[1:02:20] jawbone along the same trail, not far from the 1980 spot where
[1:02:25] the other remains were found. Investigators.
[1:02:28] Immediately recalled the previous body that was found and
[1:02:32] set out to prove or disprove the relationship between the two
[1:02:35] sets of human remains. Forensic tests.
[1:02:39] Confirmed the jawbone belonged to the same unknown individual,
[1:02:43] indicating that animals had scattered parts of the skeleton
[1:02:46] over time. The police organized another
[1:02:49] search of the area, but no further remains or clues were
[1:02:52] located beyond that single bone, and the case once again fell
[1:02:57] dormant. DNA testing.
[1:03:00] Was done at the time and was compared to databases over the
[1:03:03] years, but another major breakthrough in technology would
[1:03:07] be required to give Singer his name back.
[1:03:12] In 2020. Two investigators turned to
[1:03:15] forensic genetic genealogy and teamed up with the DNA Dough
[1:03:19] Project, a nonprofit organization that uses
[1:03:22] genealogical databases to solve these cases and.
[1:03:26] Yeah, just a. Big shout out to this group in
[1:03:28] general for all the great work they do.
[1:03:31] They're a nonprofit that relies on funding from everyone, so
[1:03:34] consider making a donation if you've got the spare resources.
[1:03:40] Anyway, by late. 2023 This painstaking genetic detective
[1:03:43] work paid off. The DNA Doe Project team
[1:03:46] discovered a cluster of relatives in the database that
[1:03:49] led them to a family in the United States.
[1:03:53] In September. 2023 detectives contacted 2 Sisters, Ruth and
[1:03:58] Mary Singer with astonishing news.
[1:04:02] They. Believed the.
[1:04:02] Long lost Algonquin Park, John Doe was in fact Ricky Singer,
[1:04:07] their brother, who had disappeared 50 years earlier.
[1:04:12] The Sisters. Provided their own DNA samples
[1:04:15] to the investigators, which allowed for a direct family
[1:04:18] confirmation of the match it. Wasn't a quick.
[1:04:21] Process by any means and final verification took nearly a year
[1:04:26] and a half, but on February 14th, 2025, investigators
[1:04:32] confirmed the remains belong to Ricky.
[1:04:36] In the summer of. 2025 Ricky's sisters traveled up to Algonquin
[1:04:40] Provincial Park to walk the forest trail where their
[1:04:43] brother's life had ended this. Emotional.
[1:04:46] Pilgrimage brought some degree of solace to the family, who had
[1:04:50] spent over half a century wondering where Ricky was.
[1:04:56] With Ricky Singer. 'S identity known, the big
[1:04:59] question now turns to what happened to him.
[1:05:02] The official investigation turned up no evidence of foul
[1:05:05] play. However, his body was
[1:05:07] skeletonized at the time he was found.
[1:05:10] This means that there. Could have been significant soft
[1:05:13] tissue trauma that was lost due to the process of decomposition.
[1:05:17] Personally, I think it's possible that he could have run
[1:05:19] into a dangerous individual while off the beaten path in
[1:05:23] this National Park, though obviously the evidence isn't
[1:05:27] there to prove it. The authorities.
[1:05:31] For their part, consider the most plausible theory that Ricky
[1:05:34] fell victim to the unforgiving wilderness.
[1:05:37] He may have gotten. Lost or injured while hiking
[1:05:40] alone. Algonquin Park.
[1:05:42] Spans thousands of miles of dense forest, lakes and rocky
[1:05:47] terrain. An easy place for even an
[1:05:49] experienced outdoorsman to get turned around or hurt.
[1:05:54] If Ricky had. An accident or simply became
[1:05:56] disoriented and strayed from the trail, he could have succumbed
[1:05:59] to exposure. A lone camper in the woods
[1:06:03] without a way to call for help can quickly find themselves in a
[1:06:06] life threatening situation. Notably.
[1:06:11] Hypothermia is a constant danger in Ontario's Backcountry,
[1:06:16] especially if Ricky was camping in the autumn when temperatures
[1:06:19] can drop rapidly at night. An early winter.
[1:06:22] Storm or cold snap could have overwhelmed him if he wasn't
[1:06:25] prepared for severe weather. Unfortunately, death by
[1:06:30] misadventure leaves little forensic trace, and a case of
[1:06:33] hypothermia or exhaustion wouldn't show up in skeletal
[1:06:37] remains. Another.
[1:06:40] Possibility is that Ricky became I'll while out in the
[1:06:43] wilderness. Even a bad case of food
[1:06:46] poisoning, dehydration or a sudden infection could be fatal
[1:06:50] if one is days away from civilization.
[1:06:54] We know from the. Evidence that he had a camp
[1:06:56] stove and pot, which indicates he was cooking for himself.
[1:07:00] Perhaps he ate. Something poisonous or drank
[1:07:03] untreated water that made him gravely sick.
[1:07:07] Alone and weak. He might have lain down in his
[1:07:09] sleeping bag and never woken up. The way his.
[1:07:13] Remains were found at what looked like a campsite,
[1:07:17] undisturbed except by nature suggests he perished peacefully
[1:07:21] in place rather than in a panicked struggle.
[1:07:27] Some have wondered. If Ricky might have intended to
[1:07:29] disappear, essentially choosing a hermit's life in the wild
[1:07:33] before then ending it all. However, this.
[1:07:37] Theory doesn't appear to be supported by the evidence and On
[1:07:40] the contrary, he had been exploring his future and had
[1:07:43] maintained contact until the point he vanished.
[1:07:47] Further yet. In my view, it doesn't really
[1:07:50] fit the evidence at the site where his body was located, so I
[1:07:54] think this one can very safely be ruled out.
[1:07:59] Also. Naturally, since this is a
[1:08:01] National Park disappearance, people have suggested a whole
[1:08:05] variety of really far out otherworldly theories about what
[1:08:08] could have happened. The evidence doesn't.
[1:08:11] Really support anything of this nature though, so there's really
[1:08:14] not much more to say about that. And yeah, before.
[1:08:17] You comment, I already know that someone will mention that he's a
[1:08:21] Midwestern guy with a vaguely German sounding last name.
[1:08:27] At present. The true 'cause of Ricky
[1:08:29] Singer's passing isn't known, but police have continued to
[1:08:32] investigate the matter and have promised further updates.
[1:08:36] Personally though. I suspect they'll rule that he
[1:08:39] perished from exposure and close out the file.
[1:08:45] Imagine. Hiking a tranquil trail in the
[1:08:48] Sierra Nevada foothills only to stumble upon a decades old
[1:08:52] secret hidden beneath the brush. In July. 1984 a hiker near
[1:08:58] Nevada City, CA made a grim discovery the.
[1:09:02] Remains of. A young woman discarded down an
[1:09:05] embankment off a wooded trail. Nearly 40 years.
[1:09:08] Later, that woman is known only as the Nevada City Jane Doe, and
[1:09:13] both her identity and perpetrator remain unknown.
[1:09:18] On July. 8th 1984 Two hikers walking along the Independence
[1:09:22] Trail north of Nevada City noticed something disturbing.
[1:09:27] There. 200 feet down an embankment, they spotted
[1:09:30] something highly unusual, which turned out to be what was left
[1:09:34] of the body of a young woman. The woman's.
[1:09:37] Remains were almost entirely skeletonized by the time of
[1:09:41] discovery, indicating she had perished at least a few weeks
[1:09:44] prior. Authorities.
[1:09:49] Noted that the Jane Doe was Caucasian and likely between 18
[1:09:52] and 30 years old based on her bones and dental
[1:09:55] characteristics. Her height was harder to pin
[1:09:59] down due to the condition of the remains, but she was estimated
[1:10:02] somewhere between 5 feet and five feet 8 inches tall.
[1:10:07] She had shoulder length hair that appeared to be dark blonde
[1:10:10] or light brown, remnants of which were found with the body.
[1:10:16] Even more alarming? Were the signs of what had
[1:10:19] happened to her. An autopsy later revealed that
[1:10:22] this woman had been slain in a particularly cruel way.
[1:10:27] Now I've got to give. Some details here because it'll
[1:10:29] be relevant to the analysis of the case and who may have done
[1:10:32] this. Without going.
[1:10:35] Into the gruesome details, she was strangled and also suffered
[1:10:39] significant blunt force trauma to her head.
[1:10:43] Based on the. Location investigators believe
[1:10:46] the actual attack took place elsewhere and the predator
[1:10:50] dumped her body in this remote spot, hoping it would remain
[1:10:53] hidden. While the young woman.
[1:10:57] Had no identification on her. She was found with a number of
[1:11:01] personal items and clothing that offered critical clues.
[1:11:05] In fact, the clothing she wore was quite distinctive, both in
[1:11:09] style and in its inconsistency with the warm July weather.
[1:11:13] Detectives. Cataloged each item in hopes
[1:11:16] that someone might recognize them.
[1:11:19] She wore a distinctive. Red long sleeve shirt with an
[1:11:22] embroidered tiger face on the front, layered under a large
[1:11:25] men's Plaid shirt in red, tan and blue.
[1:11:29] Over these she. Had a tan reversible vest.
[1:11:32] Her lower body had size 8 Calvin Klein jeans, white tube socks
[1:11:37] with red stripes, and blue size 5 Nike sneakers.
[1:11:41] A. Red Tan.
[1:11:42] And blue Bandana was tied around her right ankle, echoing the
[1:11:46] Plaid shirts colors. The only jewelry.
[1:11:49] Noted was a gold toned floral ring with an Oval Opal stone at
[1:11:53] the center. The ensemble of.
[1:11:57] Clothing is striking for a couple of reasons.
[1:12:00] First, the layers of shirts and a vest were unusually heavy
[1:12:04] attire for a Northern California summer.
[1:12:07] July temperatures in Nevada City are hot, yet this woman was
[1:12:11] dressed as if for a cooler climate.
[1:12:14] Investigators. Took note of this and theorized
[1:12:16] that the victim may not have been a local resident, but
[1:12:20] perhaps came from a colder region.
[1:12:24] Secondly. The clothing and accessories
[1:12:27] themselves were potentially identifying.
[1:12:30] The embroidered tiger shirt was highly distinctive.
[1:12:33] Detectives publicly highlighted that shirt in particular,
[1:12:37] describing the tiger face design and media reports and
[1:12:40] circulating images of it. It wasn't a known band or sports
[1:12:44] team logo, but it looked unique enough that someone might recall
[1:12:48] seeing it before. And if you're watching this on
[1:12:51] YouTube right now, take a look at your screen and check out
[1:12:55] this unique tiger. I feel like this.
[1:12:58] Thing could actually be a core memory unlocked moment for
[1:13:01] someone who recalled A relative or a friend of the family
[1:13:04] wearing this exact shirt back in the day.
[1:13:09] Early efforts. Focused on standard police work
[1:13:12] of the 1980s, including manually checking missing persons reports
[1:13:17] and comparing dental records to national databases.
[1:13:20] Notably. Due to the skeletonized nature
[1:13:23] of her remains, fingerprints, one of the most powerful
[1:13:27] forensic tools at the time, were unavailable.
[1:13:31] The. Autopsy.
[1:13:31] Estimated she'd been deceased for about a month, placing her
[1:13:35] time of death roughly in early to mid June 1984.
[1:13:39] This timeline. Was important for investigators
[1:13:41] trying to match her to missing persons reports.
[1:13:45] They scoured. Recent reports of young women
[1:13:47] missing in late spring of that year.
[1:13:50] However, if this Jane Doe was from out of the area, her
[1:13:53] disappearance might not have been reported in Nevada County,
[1:13:56] and this significantly widened the scope of the search. 1
[1:14:02] theory. Considered that she might have
[1:14:03] been a hitchhiker or traveler passing through.
[1:14:07] Hwy. 40. 9 while not an Interstate is a route that
[1:14:10] connects to other major roads and tourist areas, while.
[1:14:14] Less common. Already than earlier years, it
[1:14:17] wouldn't be unheard of for a young person in the 1980s to
[1:14:21] hitch a ride, potentially crossing paths with the wrong
[1:14:24] person the. Presence of a.
[1:14:26] Men's shirt in her layers could hint she acquired clothing along
[1:14:29] the way or borrowed it from someone, perhaps a boyfriend or
[1:14:35] even the perpetrator. There's also the.
[1:14:37] Possibility she was homeless and that she was essentially
[1:14:41] carrying all her belongings on her back with her.
[1:14:45] These scenarios. Might explain why no immediate
[1:14:48] missing person match was found locally.
[1:14:50] If she wasn't from Nevada City and no one knew she was there,
[1:14:54] her disappearance might be logged in a completely different
[1:14:57] city or state, or potentially not reported at all.
[1:15:02] Over the years. Numerous missing women have been
[1:15:05] compared to Nevada City's Jane Doe, but all have been ruled
[1:15:09] out. As for how to solve this?
[1:15:12] This is a case. That's ripe to be solved with
[1:15:15] genetic genealogy. Though it's unclear.
[1:15:18] If her case has actually been referred out for testing.
[1:15:22] At any rate, if. It hasn't been.
[1:15:25] If you're a local, consider reaching out to the authorities
[1:15:28] and asking for a status update on the case and if genetic
[1:15:31] genealogy has been considered. After all, the only way these
[1:15:36] does get their names back is if local people pressure their
[1:15:39] police departments to actually solve these cases.
[1:15:44] With her identity. Still elusive.
[1:15:47] There's also a number of theories about who committed
[1:15:49] this act. Notably, since this is an active
[1:15:53] and ongoing investigation, publicly released information
[1:15:57] has been somewhat limited. However, all that said, the
[1:16:01] nature of the crime provides some insights.
[1:16:06] Strangulation. Suggests a very personal and
[1:16:09] deliberate act, and the presence of blunt force trauma could
[1:16:12] indicate A struggle or an attempt to subdue her.
[1:16:16] It's possible. The perpetrator knew the victim,
[1:16:19] but it could also be the work of a predator who picked up a
[1:16:22] vulnerable stranger. California in.
[1:16:25] The 1980s had its share of violent serial offenders looking
[1:16:29] for individuals like this young woman to victimize.
[1:16:33] Notably the. I5 strangler Roger kibbe
[1:16:37] targeted women around Sacramento and Stockton, but his confirmed
[1:16:41] slayings began a couple of years after 1984 it's.
[1:16:45] Not. Impossible that the Nevada City
[1:16:47] Jane Doe was one of his early victims, though there's no
[1:16:51] evidence whatsoever to confirm this.
[1:16:56] As of now. The Nevada City Jane Doe remains
[1:16:58] unidentified for over 40 years, but the case is far from closed
[1:17:03] once her identity is returned to her by genetic genealogy.
[1:17:08] This may allow the police to reconstruct her last days and
[1:17:12] bring justice for her and her family.
[1:17:15] For now though. Her case remains a chilling
[1:17:17] unsolved mystery from the California wilderness.

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