# Chilling Cold Cases That Completely Baffle Detectives | 258

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 18 Jun 2026, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6223523552.mp3

Very grateful to have you here watching and listening. Don't forget to drop a comment saying what you're doing while you watch or listen to the podcast. Also don't forget to hit that follow button. Episode 258 of the true crime podcast btw. 👇 Support My Work: ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 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, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, cold cases, true crime, true crime solved, unsolved mysteries, too dark for netflix

## Transcript

[0:00] A loaded 9mm sat untouched in the glove box and an uncashed
[0:04] paycheck waited on the dashboard.
[0:06] The keys were still in the ignition of the truck in the
[0:09] driveway, and the man who owned all of it had walked out of an
[0:12] ordinary house and simply vanished. 3 months later, a man
[0:18] paddling a canoe down the Charles River would find what
[0:21] was left of him. David Cox had already survived
[0:25] the Marine Corps, a court martial that could have put him
[0:29] away for life, and a Hollywood film that turned the worst night
[0:33] of his career into entertainment.
[0:36] What he didn't survive was a quiet winter morning back home.
[0:40] And more than 30 years later, nobody can tell you who walked
[0:44] him into those woods. David was born in Boston in
[0:48] November 1966 and grew up in Needham, a comfortable suburb.
[0:54] He was the youngest of three, with an older brother, Steven,
[0:57] and an older sister, Christine. His parents split when he was
[1:02] 15, and he bounced between them before finishing at Needham High
[1:06] School in 1985. He didn't waste time after
[1:11] graduation, and David signed up for the Marine Corps almost
[1:14] immediately, enlisting alongside a close friend through a buddy
[1:19] program that kept them together. They went to Parris Island, the
[1:23] recruit depot in South Carolina where the Corps takes ordinary
[1:27] teenagers apart and rebuilds them into fighting men.
[1:32] David made it through boot camp, qualified as a scout sniper, and
[1:37] ended up serving in Panama, South Korea, and at Guantanamo
[1:41] Bay on Cuba. By the time he left the service
[1:44] in 1989, he'd reached the rank of corporal and earned an
[1:48] honorable discharge. But it was what happened at
[1:52] Guantanamo that would follow him for the rest of his short life.
[1:56] David's first overseas posting put him on the fence line at
[1:59] Gitmo, guarding the perimeter that separated the American base
[2:03] from Castro's Cuba. He was part of a security team,
[2:08] and by his own account, he belonged to an unofficial inner
[2:10] circle the men called the 10. You earned your way in by doing
[2:16] brutal things, running in full gear through 110 degree heat,
[2:20] hanging off a 60 foot tower by your hands until your grip gave
[2:24] out. One Marine in the platoon didn't
[2:27] fit. Private First Class William
[2:29] Alvarado had been writing letters to a Texas congressman.
[2:33] He was complaining about conditions on the base and about
[2:37] Marines firing shots across the line into Cuba.
[2:41] He wanted off the base, and he'd gone around the chain of command
[2:45] to say so. And to the rest of the platoon.
[2:49] That was a betrayal of the highest order, according to the
[2:54] men involved. The order to deal with Alvarado
[2:57] was never written down or said outright.
[3:01] The way David's old squad leader later described it, their
[3:04] platoon commander had implied that if they were good Marines,
[3:07] something ought to happen. So one night in the late summer
[3:12] of 1986, around 1:30 in the morning, several of them went
[3:17] into Alvarado's room. They blindfolded him, gagged him
[3:21] with a pillowcase, bound him with tape, and dragged him from
[3:25] his bunk. The plan, as David told it, was
[3:29] humiliation rather than harm. Shave the man's head and leave
[3:34] it at that. David produced the Clippers and
[3:37] got to work. But then everything went wrong,
[3:41] at least to the extent that anything had ever gone right in
[3:45] this situation. Within minutes, Alvarado stopped
[3:49] struggling. He was choking, his lungs
[3:52] filling with fluid, and he was turning a frightening shade of
[3:55] purple. The men cut the assault short
[3:58] and called for help, and Alvarado was rushed to the
[4:01] Infirmary, then flown to a hospital in Miami, where he made
[4:05] a full recovery. The Marines who'd held him down
[4:08] were arrested almost at once. What followed was the legal mess
[4:13] that made the case famous. All 10 Marines were handed a
[4:17] choice. They could take a plea deal that
[4:19] carried no criminal conviction but came with a dishonorable
[4:23] discharge, or they could roll the dice at a court martial on
[4:27] charges of attempted murder. Seven of them took the deal, but
[4:32] David and two others refused, saying that it was, in essence,
[4:36] A hazing gone very wrong. Their defense was that they'd
[4:41] been following an order, even an unspoken 1, and that nobody had
[4:46] ever intended for anyone to be seriously injured or worse.
[4:50] It was a hard argument to win, especially with a Colonel
[4:54] denying he'd given any such order.
[4:56] David's appointed attorney warned him plainly that
[4:59] obedience to orders was a defense that had failed at
[5:03] Nuremberg and failed again for the officer behind my lie.
[5:08] David fought it anyway because he believed he'd done nothing
[5:11] wrong, and in the end the four day court martial cleared him of
[5:14] the serious charges. He was convicted only of simple
[5:18] assault, and since he'd already spent more time than he was
[5:22] ordered to serve in the Brig awaiting trial, the sentence
[5:25] amounted to nothing. He went back to finish his
[5:28] enlistment and left the Marines with an honorable discharge,
[5:32] something he never could have managed if he took the deal.
[5:36] For David, this was virtually a complete vindication of his
[5:39] version of events, especially since he had never denied the
[5:43] assault itself, but the intent to end the life of Alvarado.
[5:49] Here's where the story takes its strange turn, and it's probably
[5:53] the reason why you've heard of the case.
[5:55] One of the young Navy lawyers who'd work the case happened to
[5:58] be the sister of a struggling playwright named Aaron Sorkin,
[6:02] and she told her brother about it.
[6:05] Sorkin turned it into a Broadway play, and in December 1992, that
[6:10] play became a blockbuster film starring Tom Cruise, Jack
[6:15] Nicholson and Demi Moore. The movie kept the bones of
[6:20] David's real ordeal and changed the details that mattered most
[6:25] on screen. The hazed Marine died, and the
[6:29] defendants were convicted and drummed out of the Marines.
[6:33] Millions of people watched it, saw that it was based on a real
[6:37] account, and assumed they understood what those men had
[6:40] done. But it wasn't true.
[6:43] David was furious. He felt the film had branded him
[6:46] a hardened criminal and made strangers rich off his name.
[6:49] Without ever asking, he went on the radio to set the record
[6:53] straight, talking openly about the case and what he'd seen the
[6:57] American military doing in Cuba. Along with several other
[7:02] Marines, he was part of a lawsuit against the studio
[7:05] seeking $10 million and arguing the story had been lifted from
[7:10] their lives. The suit went nowhere, but by
[7:13] then David had made himself a loud, public man with an extreme
[7:17] grievance. Ultimately, though, he accepted
[7:21] that he didn't really have the power to change the Hollywood
[7:24] narrative, either in the court of public opinion or a court of
[7:28] law. By the start of 1994, David was
[7:33] 27 and trying to build a normal life, and he was living with his
[7:37] girlfriend, Elaine Tinsley, in Natick, MA.
[7:42] He'd earned A2 year paralegal degree and worked a string of
[7:45] ordinary jobs at that moment. Specifically, he was doing
[7:50] temporary work for United Parcel Service, better known as UPS,
[7:55] and hoping it would turn into something permanent.
[7:58] On the night of January 4th, his back was bothering him, so he
[8:02] slept on the couch. The next morning, Tinsley woke
[8:06] him before she left for work around 8:30.
[8:09] He was waiting on a call that would tell him whether he'd
[8:12] gotten the full time job with UPS.
[8:15] He specifically didn't have any plans to leave the house because
[8:18] he wanted to be around for the call, which he anticipated would
[8:22] be coming that morning. That call came, and when Tinsley
[8:26] phoned home at noon and checked the answering machine, there was
[8:29] a message from David's boss at UPS offering him the position.
[8:33] Now, maybe I'm showing my age here, but I had to confirm that
[8:37] you could call an answering machine to check messages.
[8:40] And yes, this was apparently a routine occurrence.
[8:45] The good news he'd been waiting for had arrived, but David
[8:49] didn't pick up when she called him to tell him that he had
[8:51] missed the call. This was extremely odd, because
[8:55] he was supposed to be glued to the phone the whole morning,
[8:57] waiting for that specific call. She tried again at 1:00, but
[9:01] there was still nothing. Absolute Radio silence.
[9:06] When she got home around 5:30, the house was oddly quiet and
[9:11] every interior door stood open. The rabbit they normally kept in
[9:15] a cage in the kitchen was loose and hopping through the rooms.
[9:19] A few glasses had been knocked over and David's truck was right
[9:22] where it should be, out in the driveway, but David wasn't
[9:26] anywhere. Then she looked closer at the
[9:28] truck. The keys were in the ignition,
[9:31] and his uncashed paycheck lay on the dashboard.
[9:35] His nine mil was tucked in the glove compartment, right where
[9:38] he'd have reached for it, and he was known to carry it routinely
[9:41] when he went out. A man who'd been trained to
[9:44] fight had left his weapon behind and gone off with someone with
[9:47] no sign of a struggle to explain it.
[9:50] Tinsley called everyone she could think of, but no one had
[9:53] heard from him. For the time being, she didn't
[9:56] assume the worst, but as the night went on, her panic ended
[10:01] up reaching a fever pitch. The next day, she filed a
[10:05] missing person report with the Natick police, but the initial
[10:07] searches turned up nothing. The family pleaded through the
[10:11] local media and for three months there were no leads at all and
[10:15] the case went cold. On April 2nd, as the spring thaw
[10:20] finally pulled the snow off the ground, a man canoeing down the
[10:24] Charles River near Medfield noticed a shoe poking out from a
[10:28] tangle of branches. When he got closer, he found the
[10:32] remains of David in a wooded patch well off any road.
[10:36] The medical examiner's findings were grim and precise.
[10:40] David had been eliminated execution style, with multiple
[10:44] shots fired. Three 9mm shell casings were
[10:47] recovered at the scene, though the autopsy showed that four had
[10:51] been fired, and I find it unusual that only three casings
[10:55] were recovered, perhaps suggesting that there was a
[10:58] botched attempt by the assailant to recover them All that said,
[11:03] I'm no weapons expert, so if you are, feel free to suggest any
[11:07] alternative explanation in the comments.
[11:11] The location also said something too, since the spot sat between
[11:15] 2 hunting ranges, the kind of place where a shot wouldn't make
[11:18] a single neighbor look up. Whoever brought David there knew
[11:22] the ground and knew the area well enough to commit the crime
[11:26] there and then. There was what he was wearing.
[11:30] Cox had on his military issue camouflage field jacket and his
[11:34] Marine Corps Scout sniper hoodie paired with jeans and white
[11:38] sneakers. His family and the investigators
[11:41] agreed on one odd point. David didn't wear any military
[11:45] related clothes out in public and he never had.
[11:50] Robbery was ruled out fast since cash and credit cards were still
[11:54] in his wallet. Investigators came to believe
[11:57] David had left home willingly with someone he trusted.
[12:00] Since there was no forced entry and no sign of a struggle, the
[12:05] walk to the spot where he was found ran the better part of a
[12:09] mile into the trees. Detectives reasoned that a
[12:12] stranger holding a weapon on him would have finished things
[12:15] within the 1st 40 yards, not marched him deep into the woods.
[12:20] David was, after all, a qualified scout sniper, an elite
[12:25] Marine, and the idea that the attacker would have taken this
[12:28] risk didn't seem right. David, they thought, had walked
[12:33] in beside someone he knew and trusted to a great degree, and
[12:37] that he was in all likelihood, ambushed.
[12:42] His family split on what that meant, with many members of his
[12:46] immediate family going public with their personal theories.
[12:50] His brother Steven recalled that David had mentioned spotting a U
[12:54] PS: supervisor and a driver in what he believed was theft
[12:58] months before he vanished. His mother had warned him he was
[13:02] being too loud on the UPS radio about the military, speaking too
[13:07] freely about things he'd been involved in.
[13:10] His sister Christine felt that the cold precision of it pointed
[13:14] to a professional job, but she was completely at a loss for who
[13:18] could be responsible. Then there was something that
[13:22] hinted at personal problems in David's life, and it turned out
[13:26] he had developed a gambling habit and owed money at the time
[13:29] of his death. Investigators looked hard at it
[13:33] and didn't buy it, and while they originally thought he may
[13:36] be deeply in debt, that wasn't the case.
[13:40] The debt came to only about $1000, small enough that he had
[13:44] the funds in the bank to clear it if anyone had leaned on him.
[13:49] The case went cold the moment it began, and no suspect was ever
[13:53] named, nor was any motive ever pinned down.
[13:57] Everyone involved in his life, from his fellow soldiers at
[14:01] Guantanamo to bookies to the people at UPS, were
[14:04] investigated, but nothing was ever found.
[14:08] Some Hollywood figures involved in the lawsuit over the movie
[14:11] were also investigated, but they were cleared of all suspicion.
[14:16] In February 2019, two members of the Massachusetts State Police
[14:21] announced they were reopening the file.
[14:24] Both were former Marines themselves, and both believed
[14:28] that forensic techniques unavailable in 1994 might
[14:32] finally pull something usable from the evidence.
[14:35] As of now, that's where David's case stands, with no further
[14:39] breakthroughs or any additional developments.
[14:43] Anyway, I'm sure you're all expecting me to have some sort
[14:46] of theory on what actually happened here, but this one
[14:49] doesn't make sense to me at all. My gut feeling is that none of
[14:53] the speculative theories are right, but of course a gut
[14:57] feeling is just that. One thing I'd like to know but I
[15:01] can't find an answer to is if David would wear military
[15:05] related stuff when he was hanging out around buddies from
[15:08] his time in the Marines. If he did, that could possibly
[15:13] point to someone from that period in his life, perhaps
[15:17] someone who had a bone to pick with David over something that
[15:20] happened over his service. And I'm not even saying that
[15:23] would be something related to the hazing incident.
[15:26] I'm saying any sort of interpersonal conflict over the
[15:30] course of the years. That said, David may have put on
[15:35] his military clothing as a sign to his family and investigators
[15:38] that something was wrong. It may have been his coded way
[15:42] of instantly warning the people who cared about him that he was
[15:46] leaving his house under duress. I can also say for certain I
[15:51] don't believe for a second it was anyone involved in the movie
[15:53] or the lawsuit related to the movie.
[15:56] A Few Good Men was produced by a massive production company and
[16:00] had an astronomical inflation adjusted budget of about $100
[16:04] million. These sort of companies get
[16:07] routinely sued and everyone involved understands that
[16:11] litigation is just one of the costs of doing business.
[16:16] The idea that there was any animus from someone on the
[16:18] winning side of the lawsuit on one of the most financially
[16:21] successful films of the decade strikes me as pure fiction.
[16:26] Anyway, All that said, I have a lot to say about theories I can
[16:31] rule out, but not much in the way of a coherent explanation of
[16:35] the evidence. On a June morning in 2011, a man
[16:43] stood in his own backyard in rural North Carolina with his
[16:46] BBQ tools laid out on the grill. His air conditioner was humming
[16:52] and his two cars and his two motorcycles were parked exactly
[16:55] where they always sat. By that afternoon, his house was
[16:59] burning and he was gone, leaving behind no body and no goodbye to
[17:03] anyone who loved him. The only thing that remained was
[17:07] a dog that wandered home alone the next day and a girlfriend
[17:11] who told his family not to worry because Daniel had simply gone
[17:15] on vacation. The closest anyone has come to
[17:18] finding him is a single leg poking out of a car trunk
[17:22] wearing a sock that looked an awful lot like his, but more on
[17:26] that bizarre sighting in a moment.
[17:29] Daniel Moses was born on the 5th of July 1951 and as an adult you
[17:35] couldn't miss him since he stood 63 and weighed in at over 2
[17:39] bells. By 2011 he was 59, retired after
[17:44] a long career driving trucks, and back home on his family's
[17:47] land in Northampton County after spending most of his adult life
[17:51] up in New Jersey. In his retirement he liked to
[17:54] fish and hunt, and more than anything he loved to cook.
[17:59] That last part is what made him a local fixture, and somewhere
[18:03] along the way Daniel started grilling chicken and bottling
[18:06] BBQ sauce, and it turned out he was very good at it.
[18:11] He built up a steady roster of customers scattered across the
[18:14] county, delivering plates by hand to neighbors who came to
[18:18] know him simply as Dan the BBQ man.
[18:23] It was part time work, but it was the kind he genuinely
[18:26] enjoyed. After a career with long hours
[18:28] on the road, he kept in regular touch with his family by phone,
[18:33] and slipping away without a word to anyone would have been
[18:35] completely out of character for him.
[18:39] The last confirmed sighting of Daniel came on the morning of
[18:41] June 16th, 2011. He was seen standing behind his
[18:46] home on the 1900 block of WJ Duke Service Rd. out in the
[18:51] Rehoboth community near Rich Square.
[18:54] Later that same day, the small wooden house he lived in caught
[18:58] fire. One of his brothers got the call
[19:01] and rushed over, telling their sister Sheila the home was
[19:04] burning, but that Daniel wasn't inside it.
[19:08] When the fire was finally out, investigators picked through
[19:11] what was left and found something that didn't add up.
[19:16] There was no sign of Dan. Both of his cars and both of his
[19:20] motorcycles sat untouched, and the day after the fire, his dog
[19:24] trotted back to the property alone.
[19:27] With no owner anywhere Insight, investigators would eventually
[19:31] rule the blaze an accident, blaming faulty wiring in the old
[19:35] building. But Daniel's family has never
[19:38] bought that explanation. For years, the case went cold
[19:43] with no trace of Daniel. But then in 2022, a witness came
[19:48] forward and told investigators that around the time Daniel
[19:52] disappeared, she had glimpsed a leg sticking out from the trunk
[19:55] of a car near his house. The foot, she said, was wearing
[20:00] a tennis shoe. And the same kind of tube sock
[20:03] Daniel like to pull on whenever he rode his motorcycle.
[20:07] By her account, a car ahead of her hit a bump near a bridge and
[20:12] the trunk jolted open just long enough for her to register what
[20:15] was inside before it closed again.
[20:18] Now I have to question why someone would wait a full 11
[20:22] years to come forward with that information.
[20:25] I've personally never seen a human leg sticking out of the
[20:28] trunk of a car, but if I did, I would be on the phone with the
[20:32] cops immediately. This witness, on the other hand,
[20:36] decided that despite a man being missing from the neighborhood,
[20:40] she'd simply sit on it for 11 years.
[20:44] In April of 2023, that lead turned into boots on the ground
[20:49] and dozens of searchers, along with sniffer dogs and drones,
[20:53] converged on the grounds of a former prison near the town of
[20:57] Jackson. Somewhere between 60 and 70
[21:00] people drawn from local agencies, North Carolina and
[21:04] Virginia teams and the surrounding community turned out
[21:08] to help. They combed roughly 140 acres of
[21:12] trees and fields, ground they believed might be hiding a
[21:16] grave. A detective who was working the
[21:19] case said that the search wasn't just a shot in the dark, but
[21:23] didn't reveal anything more of what happened.
[21:27] Anyway, the fact that the cops searched a very specific spot
[21:30] near those former prison grounds clearly suggests to me that they
[21:34] know much more than has been publicly reported.
[21:37] I also have some serious questions about the witness who
[21:40] waited 11 years to report seeing a leg sticking out of a trunk.
[21:45] I don't imagine there's any situation where someone just
[21:48] sits on that for so long, so I'm guessing there's more to that
[21:52] witness report that hasn't been disclosed.
[21:55] At any rate, I hope there's some justice for Dan in the coming
[21:58] years and his family can have closure on this unsolved
[22:02] mystery. Hey everyone, it's Jimmy
[22:08] dropping a quick reminder to hit that subscribe button and tap
[22:11] the notification bell. Also, don't forget to check out
[22:14] the Patreon or the membership to take your support for my channel
[22:18] to the next level. Somewhere under.
[22:23] A Mesa in the far northwest corner of New Mexico, 16 tons of
[22:27] gold may still be lying in the dark exactly where it was left
[22:31] in the summer of 1933 the. Man who put.
[22:35] It there took care of one thing before he passed, and he never
[22:39] drew a map. When he carried the.
[22:41] Location into the grave he turned a fortune into a Riddle
[22:45] people have chased for nearly a century.
[22:49] The story. Begins, as a lot of doomed
[22:51] schemes do, with a few wealthy men in a room convincing each
[22:55] other they'd found a sure thing. In the early days.
[22:58] Of 1933, in the city of Cuernavaca, 5 wealthy Mexicans
[23:03] sat down to talk about gold. There was Leon.
[23:07] Trabuco, a rancher and large scale miner from Chihuahua who
[23:12] was rich and hungry for much more with.
[23:15] Him were. Ricardo Arteaga, A rancher from
[23:18] Torrion, and Carlos Sepulveda, another rancher out of
[23:22] Chihuahua. There was also Rafael Borrega,
[23:26] an international banker with ties to Mexico and Spain, and
[23:30] Guzman Morata, an economics professor at the University of
[23:34] Mexico. Morata was.
[23:36] Effectively the brains behind the operation and his pitch was
[23:40] simple and on paper, brilliant. The United States.
[23:44] Was four years deep into the Great Depression.
[23:47] The dollar was wobbling and he was convinced Washington was
[23:50] about to push up the price of gold at.
[23:53] That point. Gold sat at $20.67 an ounce.
[23:58] Murata figured. The jump could be $10.00 an
[24:00] ounce or more, the kind of money that changes a man's life when
[24:04] he's holding tons of the stuff buy.
[24:07] Enough cheap. In Mexico, hold it until the
[24:09] American price climbed and the profit would be staggering.
[24:14] So they pooled their. Money and started buying as much
[24:17] gold as possible from small scale miners all across the
[24:21] country. Buying the gold.
[24:24] Was the easy part, but getting it into the United States
[24:27] without going to prison was where things got interesting.
[24:31] The. Men took their.
[24:32] Horde to a makeshift foundry, melted down coins and jewelry,
[24:36] and recast the whole lot into plain ingots that wouldn't draw
[24:39] as much attention. In under 3 months, they'd
[24:43] accumulated close to 16 tons of solid gold.
[24:47] Smuggling that. Much metal across the border was
[24:50] a felony that could put all of them behind bars for years, and
[24:53] they knew it. Their solution came from the
[24:56] air. Trabuco is said to have hired a
[24:59] pilot, a man remembered as Red Moyzer.
[25:03] It's. Unclear.
[25:04] From the narrative, if that name was just an alias given by an
[25:07] American pilot to the wealthy Mexicans, and some researchers
[25:11] believe he was actually called Bill Elliott.
[25:15] Either way. The pilot loaded roughly one ton
[25:17] of gold at a time into a small plane and made the run after
[25:22] dark. He reportedly.
[25:24] Flew 16 evening runs over the following months, changing his
[25:28] route each time so the plane was never once caught crossing the
[25:31] border. The traditional narrative points
[25:34] to a final delivery landing on July 14th, 1933, which will be
[25:40] important, so keep that date roughly in mind.
[25:44] The pilot. Notably, was never told what he
[25:46] was really doing in the sense that he was never let in on the
[25:50] scheme. He knew he was delivering gold
[25:54] and he knew it was a smuggling job, but he wasn't wired into
[25:57] the actual operation beyond that.
[26:01] He'd set the plane. Down on a remote plateau, unload
[26:04] his cargo as fast as possible and was ordered to take off
[26:08] again immediately from. There.
[26:11] Trucks carried the ingots off to a burial site that only Trabuco
[26:15] and whoever was responsible for hauling them off knew.
[26:19] He'd chosen a. Thinly populated stretch of
[26:21] desert near Farmington in the Four Corners country close to
[26:25] the Ute and Navajo reservations. It was the kind.
[26:29] Of empty sun scorched ground where a man could bury a fortune
[26:34] and trust that the land would keep it.
[26:35] A mystery. Here's where the whole.
[26:38] Beautiful plan started to come apart, and if you're a fan of
[26:42] American history during this period, you knew what was
[26:45] coming. The men.
[26:46] Were betting. Everything on the American
[26:48] government raising the price of gold.
[26:51] But when the government did exactly that, the monkey's paw
[26:54] curled. They just made it.
[26:56] Impossible for anyone like Trabuco to cash in and profit
[27:00] off their gold hoarding. In April of. 1933 While the gold
[27:06] was still being flown, N President Franklin Roosevelt had
[27:10] already signed Executive Order 6102.
[27:14] This made it. Illegal for private citizens to
[27:16] hoard most gold with a grace period to surrender what they
[27:20] held to the Federal Reserve for paper money.
[27:24] Then on. January 30th, 1934 came the Gold
[27:28] Reserve Act, and the price of bullion shot upward, and on
[27:32] paper the group's profit ballooned by something like
[27:35] $7,000,000. But they couldn't legally sell a
[27:38] single ounce of it inside the country, and worse, they got
[27:43] greedy. Rather than offload the gold for
[27:46] whatever they could get, they decided to sit on it and wait
[27:50] for the price to climb higher. It was the.
[27:53] Decision that doomed them. 16 tons of treasure had effectively
[27:57] turned into 16 tons of trash they couldn't touch.
[28:02] Perhaps worse. Than trash actually, because in
[28:04] general you don't end up getting clapped in cuffs by the feds for
[28:07] having something like that. If you wanted to.
[28:11] Write the men out of the story 1 by 1.
[28:13] Fate seemed determined to do it for you.
[28:17] Over the next several. Years, every one of Trabuco's
[28:20] partners passed away under circumstances that are often
[28:24] made out to be mysterious. Personally, I don't see anything
[28:28] too unusual about what happened, but some believe that Trabuco
[28:31] had a hand in knocking off at least some of his associates.
[28:36] Borrega and Murata. Died from what are generally
[28:38] believed to be natural causes, while Sepulveda lost his life in
[28:42] a car crash. Arteaga.
[28:45] Went out in a way that's truly bizarre.
[28:47] He was gored in public by a fighting bull.
[28:50] The pilot's. End was just as cinematic, and
[28:53] he allegedly perished in a bombing raid over Germany
[28:56] sometime in 1944 or 1945. That left.
[29:01] Leon Trabuco. He was now the only living soul
[29:04] who knew where 16 tons of gold lay buried in the New Mexico
[29:08] desert, sitting on a fortune he had no legal way to spend.
[29:13] Now I will note. Here that this may be something
[29:15] of a plot hole in the narrative, and there will be more on that
[29:18] shortly. Trabuco had.
[29:20] Also hired men with trucks to physically haul the gold and
[29:24] bury it. Even if those men were kept in
[29:27] the dark about what they were actually moving, the idea that
[29:31] they didn't know it was valuable strikes me as implausible.
[29:35] I've never been. In this situation, but if I was
[29:38] meeting someone at a clandestine airstrip near the border and
[29:42] burying something, I would probably assume what I was
[29:45] hauling had some value. For roughly 18.
[29:49] Years, Trabuco tried to turn his buried gold back into money, and
[29:53] for roughly 18 years, he failed he.
[29:56] Worked the black. Market reaching out to buyers
[29:59] who wouldn't ask awkward questions about the origins of
[30:02] the gold or why it had been smuggled into the United States.
[30:07] He dealt with men. Who were reportedly connected to
[30:09] the regimes in Germany and Italy.
[30:12] People who needed large amounts of gold to fund operations in
[30:15] North America. The strangest?
[30:18] Offer came in 1941 when a man calling himself Ivan Nasichku
[30:23] approached Trabuco, claiming to represent one of the royal
[30:26] houses of Europe. The buyer behind.
[30:28] Him was suspected to be Carl the Second, the deposed king of
[30:32] Romania, who was then living in exile in Mexico.
[30:36] The former king. Had been refused entry into the
[30:39] United States, and the theory goes that he hoped to buy his
[30:42] way across the border with a mountain of gold.
[30:46] Trabuco. Turned Ivan down flat, judging
[30:49] the whole thing too dangerous and questioning whether he truly
[30:53] represented any European royalty at all.
[30:56] By 1952, the authorities had caught the scent, and Trabuco,
[31:00] by some accounts, had approached the government himself that
[31:04] year, hoping to quietly cut a deal.
[31:07] Instead of a handshake, he got a grand jury convened to examine
[31:12] whether he and his partners had plotted to buy up Mexico's gold
[31:16] and dump it in the states for profit.
[31:19] In the end, he was. Never indicted.
[31:21] And then he slipped out of history altogether.
[31:24] Some accounts have. Him on his deathbed afterward,
[31:27] others have him resurfacing in Spain years later, still working
[31:31] the phones. An old man chasing the same
[31:33] gold. Either way.
[31:36] True to form, he left no map behind to indicate where the 16
[31:40] tons of gold had been left. The one.
[31:44] Breadcrumb he's said to have dropped near the end was a
[31:47] madding remark that the gold lay only a few miles from a major
[31:51] New Mexico landmark. Which in a state.
[31:54] Full of mesas and peaks and rivers narrows it down to almost
[31:58] nothing. But of course, for treasure
[32:00] hunters, any crumb is potentially worth chasing.
[32:06] The legend might. Have died with Trabuco if not
[32:08] for the treasure hunters, and one in particular gave it most
[32:12] of his life. A man named Ed Foster spent more
[32:15] than 35 years combing the desert around Farmington.
[32:19] He became convinced he'd found the very airstrip Trabuco's
[32:22] pilot used back in 1933 on a plateau called Conger Mesa in
[32:27] San Juan County. Foster reportedly tracked down
[32:31] elderly women on the reservation who remembered a plane landing
[32:35] and taking off there. Of course, the problem with that
[32:39] is that memories fade. And just because planes took off
[32:43] and landed there doesn't mean they were the gold planes.
[32:48] He found other. Things, too, that appeared to
[32:50] confirm his suspicions that he was on the right trail.
[32:54] About 20. Miles West of the Mesa stood an
[32:56] old house that looked like nothing else on the reservation.
[33:00] It was a Mexican. Style structure with a front
[33:03] door, a back door and a veranda which Foster suspected had been
[33:08] built as a guard post. Not far from.
[33:11] It was a rock carved with a date and a phrase that, if real, is
[33:15] hard to argue with. 193316 ton. Foster came to.
[33:22] Believe the gold lay somewhere inside the triangle marked by
[33:25] those three points in the country near Shiprock Peak.
[33:30] When private. Ownership of bullion finally
[33:32] became legal again at the end of 1974.
[33:36] The buried horde, if it ever existed, was suddenly worth
[33:40] chasing all over again. The desert near.
[33:44] Farmington has been walked, surveyed and dug at by hopefuls
[33:49] for decades, all working from the same thin hand me down story
[33:53] and a handful of clues. As of yet, though, no one has
[33:58] found Leon Trabuco's 16 tons of gold.
[34:01] And perhaps they never will, because there's one more element
[34:04] to the lost treasure. The strongest?
[34:08] Argument against the Trabuco treasure isn't that the story is
[34:11] impossible, it's that it behaves like folklore.
[34:16] Skeptics point. Out that the legend seems to
[34:18] rest on a very narrow paper trail, and the entire narrative
[34:22] has a very dramatic flair from. Trabuco.
[34:26] Potentially eliminating other members of the cabal to
[34:29] Roosevelt banning private gold hoarding as the last shipments
[34:32] were hitting America. It seems a little too perfect.
[34:37] Some skeptics. Have even gone so far as to say
[34:39] that the entire initial narrative of the smuggling was
[34:42] invented and that subsequent investigations were based on
[34:46] rumor. Personally.
[34:48] I think it's very possible that elements of the narrative are
[34:52] exaggerated or have grown in the telling, but I don't think that
[34:55] means the whole thing is fake. Treasure stories almost always
[34:59] get polished over time, and it doesn't take much to add in a
[35:03] little extra mystery by claiming Trabuco may have been involved
[35:06] in the deaths of his associates. Though the evidence.
[35:10] Is quite thin. There's absolutely nothing to
[35:13] suggest that Trabuco was involved in the deaths of his
[35:16] partners in crime. It's something that can simply
[35:19] be inserted into the history by someone who cares more about
[35:23] telling a compelling narrative about a treasure because the
[35:27] underlying evidence is so thin. Also.
[35:31] Timelines get cleaned up over time to make the narrative more
[35:34] dramatic, but again, that doesn't mean the original events
[35:38] didn't happen. Specifically.
[35:41] The idea that the executive order was being signed right
[35:44] during the final Gold flights seems like it was possibly added
[35:47] in to add more tension to the narrative.
[35:52] In the end this. Is a narrative about rich men
[35:54] getting together to commit what would have been a fairly low
[35:57] stakes, high reward financial crime if Roosevelt hadn't
[36:01] changed the laws. To me, that sounds like the
[36:04] exact sort of thing that has happened countless times
[36:07] throughout history. Trabuco's Lost Gold is the
[36:10] classic financial crime narrative about a group of rich
[36:13] men who would risk it all to be just a little more rich.
[36:19] Imagine. Walking into your home 1 morning
[36:22] to find an empty room, realizing that a loved 1A vulnerable
[36:26] person who can't navigate the world alone has slipped away
[36:29] into the night. That startling.
[36:32] Discovery marked the beginning of an agonizing mystery that
[36:35] continues to define the disappearance of Jonathan Hoang.
[36:40] On Sunday. Evening March 30th, 2025 in
[36:44] Arlington, WA 20. One year.
[36:47] Old Jonathan Hoang's life appeared stable and routine.
[36:51] He reportedly said goodnight to his father at approximately 7:30
[36:55] that night. An ordinary end to an ordinary
[36:58] day. His family.
[37:00] Believed that he would simply be spending his night in his room
[37:03] before falling asleep as usual. However.
[37:07] Sometime between that evening exchange and the following
[37:10] morning at 6:40, when his mother attempted to wake him for
[37:13] school, Jonathan vanished. The immediate mystery
[37:17] surrounding his departure was characterized by a profound
[37:20] contradiction. He abandoned.
[37:23] Items essential for his comfort and survival, yet took an item
[37:27] that implied preparation or outside contact.
[37:32] When authorities. Were called to report him
[37:34] missing on Monday morning, March 31st.
[37:37] They quickly established the weird circumstances of his exit.
[37:42] Jonathan left. Behind his cell phone, his
[37:44] money, his wallet and his medication.
[37:49] Most critically. He left his preferred hooded
[37:51] jacket and his shoes. Jonathan who?
[37:55] Is autistic, had a strict personal routine, and his family
[37:59] noted he never left home without this specific jacket.
[38:03] Curiously though. He took his Airpods and his
[38:05] iPad, items that he only ever took on long car trips or plane
[38:09] rides. These details.
[38:12] Immediately presented a complex picture.
[38:15] Leaving essential. Comfort items suggested a
[38:17] hurried, unplanned exit where he expected a quick return, but
[38:23] taking a device he used for a digital connection to the world
[38:26] suggested he may have been communicating with someone.
[38:30] This inherent. Conflict meant the investigation
[38:33] needed to immediately prioritize the possibility of third party
[38:36] involvement rather than merely treating the event as a
[38:39] self-directed departure. Jonathan is a.
[38:44] Vulnerable young adult whose life and capabilities were
[38:47] central to assessing the urgency of his disappearance.
[38:51] Though 21. Years old, he had significant
[38:54] cognitive issues due to autism, requiring assistance and
[38:58] supervision. Notably, his.
[39:00] Family describes him as having an extremely trusting
[39:03] personality and in essence, believing that everyone is good.
[39:08] Disturbingly. Someone may have taken advantage
[39:10] of this fact to abduct him. According to his parents, he
[39:15] isn't capable of independent travel or navigating his way
[39:19] back home. Until his.
[39:21] Disappearance. He had been enrolled in an
[39:24] extended high school transition program, further illustrating
[39:27] his dependence on structure and established support systems.
[39:31] Jonathan's life. Was defined by rigid structure
[39:34] and habitual routines. He maintained extremely strict
[39:38] and rigid hygiene patterns and meticulously followed typical
[39:41] known paths when taking walks. Though he did indeed like going
[39:46] for walks, he never did so in the evening hours.
[39:50] His sudden. Late night deviation from his
[39:52] routine was a definitive red flag.
[39:56] These immediate. Facts concerning his complex
[39:59] medical needs and uncharacteristic departure
[40:02] should have signaled instant danger.
[40:05] Following the missing. Persons report the Snohomish
[40:08] County Sheriff's Office immediately launched an
[40:11] intensive search and rescue operation.
[40:14] This initial. Search spanning 6 days and
[40:17] involving a massive mobilization of resources demonstrated a
[40:21] significant commitment to locating Jonathan in the
[40:24] immediate area. The scale of the.
[40:27] Effort was extensive deploying. Over. 150 searchers,
[40:32] professional trackers and scent dogs drawn from multiple
[40:35] counties. They also called.
[40:38] In specialized crews experienced in difficult Alpine terrain.
[40:42] The agency's. Air assets were also utilized,
[40:45] including drones and helicopters equipped with infrared cameras.
[40:50] Over the six. Day period authorities amassed
[40:52] thousands of man hours dedicated entirely to combing the
[40:56] immediate vicinity of his home and the surrounding areas.
[41:01] On April 7th, after determining the search had exhausted all
[41:05] immediate leads in the area, the authorities suspended the on the
[41:08] ground operations. Specialized.
[41:11] Canines were brought back into the neighborhood on April 10th,
[41:15] but they too gave no indications.
[41:19] The intensive. Nature of the search resulting
[41:21] in zero physical evidence found in the Arlington area strongly
[41:25] suggests Jonathan didn't simply wander off and become lost
[41:29] locally. This outcome?
[41:31] Instead bolstered the hypothesis that Jonathan was quickly
[41:35] relocated, possibly picked up by a vehicle soon after leaving his
[41:39] house. This abduction.
[41:41] May have looked entirely routine to anyone who witnessed it,
[41:45] especially given Jonathan's extremely trusting nature.
[41:49] This would explain. Why?
[41:50] There was no evidence of him whatsoever found within the
[41:53] search and rescue perimeter. Detectives reported performing a
[41:57] thorough digital analysis of Jonathan's known electronic
[42:00] devices, including his computer and cell phone.
[42:05] They worked with. Major technology companies like
[42:08] Google, Microsoft and Apple to trace his digital whereabouts.
[42:13] Disturbingly. Their conclusion was that no
[42:15] electronic activity on Jonathan's accounts had been
[42:19] detected since the time he was reported missing.
[42:22] Upon completing. Their digital investigation they
[42:25] determined that there was no evidence of foul play
[42:28] whatsoever, though the nature of the findings weren't released.
[42:33] This finding. Drew criticism from his family,
[42:36] who questioned how thorough the digital portion of the
[42:38] investigation had been. This may also.
[42:42] Be a good time to mention that the authorities seem to take a
[42:45] different view of Jonathan's functional capabilities than his
[42:48] family. While his family.
[42:51] Describes him as having the abilities of a 10 year old.
[42:54] The authorities seem to view him as much more highly functioning.
[42:59] This naturally. Could be problematic if they
[43:01] found evidence that he was in essence groomed.
[43:04] Into. Leaving.
[43:07] Months after. The comprehensive search had
[43:09] been suspended and the official investigation appeared to stall.
[43:13] A major development occurred that challenged the initial
[43:16] findings. There was a.
[43:17] Highly. Significant potential sighting
[43:19] 40 miles away from Arlington. The family was alerted to
[43:23] security footage, which they validated as likely showing
[43:27] Jonathan in the South Juanita neighborhood of Kirkland, WA.
[43:33] This alleged. Sighting occurred late on the
[43:35] evening of June 23rd, months after he had vanished.
[43:40] Footage captured. From three different homes in
[43:42] the same general area taken between 11:00 PM and midnight
[43:47] appeared to show the missing man.
[43:50] While the individual. In the footage seemed
[43:52] disoriented. The most consequential
[43:54] observation was that he appeared clean and well put together.
[44:00] This detail. Became the linchpin of the
[44:02] family's ongoing abduction theory.
[44:05] They argue. Compellingly that an autistic
[44:07] adult with Jonathan's cognitive abilities and complex needs
[44:12] couldn't have maintained such a neat appearance.
[44:15] If he had merely. Wandered off the elements lack
[44:18] of proper hygiene and lack of routine care would have.
[44:23] Left him. Visibly deteriorated.
[44:26] Consequently. The visual evidence of the
[44:28] Kirkland sighting strongly reinforces the hypothesis that
[44:32] Jonathan wasn't alone during those months.
[44:37] In my view. The most troubling element of
[44:39] this case is the growing likelihood that Jonathan is
[44:42] being held in captivity by someone the.
[44:45] Clean and. Well kept appearance of the
[44:47] person believed to be him in the Kirkland footage directly
[44:51] contradicts every reasonable expectation for a vulnerable
[44:55] adult. It suggests.
[44:57] Shelter and a certain base level of care being provided, but not
[45:01] the kind given by his loving family.
[45:04] Instead, it points toward an environment where someone else
[45:07] is controlling access to resources and monitoring his
[45:11] movements. That possibility?
[45:14] Makes me question whether the digital forensic work in this
[45:17] investigation was truly as exhaustive as authorities
[45:20] claimed. We're told that detectives
[45:23] analyzed his devices and worked with major tech companies, yet
[45:26] their conclusion was that no digital activity existed and no
[45:30] foul play could be inferred. But absence of activity isn't
[45:35] proof of absence of a digital trail, and there may have been
[45:38] more that wasn't covered. For instance, he may have met
[45:42] his abductor through an online game, and the conversations may
[45:46] have taken place there rather than through text messages or
[45:49] something like Discord. At any rate, I.
[45:52] Personally believe that on the night he was seen on
[45:55] surveillance, he may have briefly escaped from his captor
[45:58] or captors. This is pure.
[46:00] Speculation on my part, but I personally believe that he's
[46:03] likely still alive and in the hands of these people.
[46:08] The only way to. Ensure his safe return, if
[46:11] that's still possible, is by putting overwhelming attention
[46:14] on this case so that the authorities don't let Jonathan
[46:18] slip through the cracks. Anyway, I hope.
[46:21] To have a meaningful update on Jonathan's case at some point in
[46:24] the near future. There's a long.
[46:30] Stretch of asphalt traversing the Hungarian plains, connecting
[46:34] cities and economies. It's called Main Road 4.
[46:38] But between? 2007 and 2010 this ordinary
[46:43] National Highway became something else entirely.
[46:47] The chilling. Reality is that a lone predator
[46:49] turned this critical transportation corridor into a
[46:53] systematic hunting ground, targeting vulnerable women who
[46:56] sought a living on the outskirts of society.
[47:00] The case of the main. Road Four Killer represents 1 of
[47:03] Hungary's most perplexing modern cold cases, involving multiple
[47:07] confirmed killings and at least one disappearance.
[47:11] Also. Apologies in advance to anyone
[47:13] who speaks Hungarian, because I can assure you I'll be
[47:17] mispronouncing every name to some degree despite my best
[47:21] efforts. The victims.
[47:24] Associated with the Route 4 series share a common
[47:27] denominator. They were women engaged in
[47:30] illicit work along the highway, placing them squarely in a high
[47:34] risk demographic. This inherent vulnerability
[47:37] played directly into the perpetrators operational
[47:40] strategy, allowing him to select targets whose movements might
[47:44] not be immediately tracked. This also allowed.
[47:47] Him to easily get the victims into his vehicle without raising
[47:50] too much suspicion of a truly serious crime.
[47:54] The earliest known. Case involved a 34 year old
[47:57] woman identified only by her last name, Zoltan.
[48:03] She vanished in. Late summer 2007.
[48:07] As she was. Estranged from her family, her
[48:09] disappearance went unreported for several months and her
[48:13] remains were eventually recovered in 2011.
[48:17] The violence. Intensified in 2010.
[48:21] A woman identified as Paraska, 24 years old, was slain on June
[48:26] 19th, 2010. Disturbingly.
[48:30] She was a known regular along the highway and someone had seen
[48:33] her alive just 15 minutes prior to the discovery of her body two
[48:38] months later on August 20th, 2010. 24 year.
[48:43] Old Erzabeth was killed after leaving a local bar or
[48:47] nightclub. Her body was.
[48:49] Found the next day in a water ditch along the highway.
[48:53] The final known. Incident involved an 18 year old
[48:56] named Angela who disappeared on May 22nd, 2010 near Karkag, also
[49:02] along the highway. A witness saw.
[49:05] Her entering a vehicle, described as red or maroon,
[49:09] heading toward the city of De Brecon.
[49:12] Notably, all the. Attacks are believed to have
[49:14] occurred on a weekend which suggested to the cops that the
[49:17] predator was constrained by his job duties from Monday to
[49:20] Friday. Hungarian.
[49:23] Criminal profilers were brought in to create a psychological
[49:26] portrait of the serial predator. Their findings suggested the
[49:30] victims were symbolic, serving as proxies on to whom the killer
[49:34] displaced rage stemming from rejection experienced with women
[49:38] in his life. The analysis.
[49:41] Indicated the violence was intrinsically about the desire
[49:44] for dominance and revenge. According to this.
[49:48] Profile He likely had the appearance of a normal life,
[49:52] despite the disturbing acts he routinely committed.
[49:56] They also agreed. That he was almost certainly
[49:58] gainfully employed and likely wouldn't have any meaningful
[50:01] gaps in his employment history. He was also.
[50:05] Believed to live somewhere close to the highway and may have
[50:08] travelled along this route during his Monday to Friday
[50:11] commute. This may have been.
[50:14] The time when he singled out the women he would ultimately
[50:17] target, and he may also have engaged in stalking behaviors on
[50:21] the weekend before striking. Despite the.
[50:24] Completion of this profile. This would ultimately bring the
[50:27] authorities no closer to cracking the case.
[50:32] Perhaps the most. Telling and frustrating piece of
[50:34] evidence in the case is the sudden stop after August 2010.
[50:39] Since a serial. Predator's actions are driven by
[50:42] overwhelming, constant psychological needs.
[50:45] It's highly improbable that the individual voluntarily stopped.
[50:50] An offender driven by such intense and deranged pathology
[50:53] rarely ceases activity unless they find a replacement behavior
[50:58] or are externally blocked. The abrupt.
[51:01] End to the series of attacks strongly suggested an external
[51:05] involuntary situation prevented the continuation of his
[51:09] predatory behavior, at least according to officials.
[51:14] Investigators. Generated 4 primary theories to
[51:17] account for this silence, which are honestly just a list of
[51:20] everything that could have possibly happened.
[51:22] They speculated that he died, suffered A debilitating injury
[51:26] or serious illness, was incarcerated for an unrelated
[51:30] crime, or left the region or country permanently.
[51:34] That. Said I do.
[51:34] Think it's possible that he stopped and my evidence for this
[51:38] is that his attack on Angela was his last known crime?
[51:42] During that attack. Someone saw his vehicle and got
[51:45] a description which may have spooked the predator.
[51:49] His self. Preservation instincts may have
[51:51] caused him to be one of the rare cases where a predator can
[51:54] simply stop his deranged spree. Despite the.
[51:59] Detailed behavioral profile and extensive efforts.
[52:03] The case of the main Road Four killer remains unsolved with no
[52:07] suspects having been named. Unfortunately, it appears that
[52:11] no forensic evidence tied to the perpetrator was discovered at
[52:15] any of the crime scenes, which further complicates solving this
[52:19] crime. But.
[52:21] Even if his. Genetic material was discovered
[52:23] cutting edge techniques like forensic genetic genealogy just
[52:27] generally don't work in Europe for a variety of reasons.
[52:31] The. Primary.
[52:32] One is European Union privacy laws.
[52:35] But also, there's just much less reason for a Hungarian to seek
[52:38] out an ancestry test. After all, if.
[52:41] All your Hungarian great grandparents came from your
[52:44] Hungarian village. You're.
[52:46] Going to be much. Less inclined to pay a few 100
[52:48] bucks to find out your Hungarian.
[52:51] Or maybe I'm. Totally misreading the
[52:53] situation, and Hungarians are desperate to know that they're
[52:56] an eighth German or something. On a brisk.
[53:04] October night in 2722, year old Charlie Allen, a senior at the
[53:10] University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, vanished without a
[53:13] trace. In the days.
[53:16] Leading up to his disappearance, Charlie's behavior grew
[53:19] increasingly erratic. He had.
[53:22] Stopped. Taking his bipolar disorder
[53:23] medication over the summer and began expressing paranoid fears
[53:27] that people were out to get him. On October. 11th, 2007 He called
[53:33] his sister Brittany in a panic, insisting that he wasn't safe
[53:37] and that she needed to leave school because people were after
[53:41] both of them. That same night.
[53:43] He left his parents strange, breathless voicemails saying he
[53:46] planned to flee to Texas or Florida.
[53:49] These were the last. Communications anyone received
[53:52] from Charlie Allen and by the next morning he had disappeared.
[53:59] That Thursday. Had begun unremarkably earlier
[54:02] on October 11th. Charlie had lunch plans with his
[54:05] father and played a routine afternoon tennis match with a
[54:08] friend, even inviting him to a party planned for later that
[54:12] night. But Charlie?
[54:14] Never. Showed up for that 8:30 PM meet
[54:16] up. In the wake of.
[54:18] His panicked phone calls and the sudden silence of his cell
[54:21] phone. His family grew alarmed and
[54:24] alerted the university and police that he was missing.
[54:28] Then in the. Pre dawn hours of October 13th,
[54:30] 2007. A possible sighting provided a
[54:34] chilling clue. At roughly.
[54:37] Three AMA Dartmouth resident reported that a young man had
[54:41] tried to climb into her second story bedroom window.
[54:45] The. Intruder.
[54:45] Matched Charlie's description and when confronted, he
[54:48] apologized, claimed he was looking for a friend and then
[54:53] jumped out the window and ran into the nearby woods.
[54:57] Despite the. Weird and inherently threatening
[54:59] circumstances. The young man was extremely
[55:02] polite and as non threatening as he could be given the situation.
[55:09] Police. Responding to the scene later
[55:11] discovered Charlie's backpack discarded in the woods near
[55:14] campus, filled with his school notebooks and personal items.
[55:19] They. Also found.
[55:20] A pair of sneakers believed to be his left behind near the
[55:24] house where the break in occurred.
[55:27] Soon afterward. Charlie's 1999 Ford Expedition
[55:31] was located parked on the UMass Dartmouth campus.
[55:35] It appeared he had been sleeping in the vehicle in the days
[55:37] prior. However.
[55:41] There was no sign of Charlie himself.
[55:43] His keys, wallet and cell phone were missing and have never been
[55:47] recovered. Further, it wasn't clear if he
[55:50] had injured himself when he jumped out of that second story
[55:53] window, assuming it was in fact him.
[55:56] Authorities. Launched an intensive search of
[55:59] the area. Sniffer dogs.
[56:01] Traced Charlie's sent through the woods and police teams
[56:04] combed the campus, nearby forests, and local homeless
[56:08] shelters and hotels for any trace of the 22 year old.
[56:13] After 2. Weeks of exhaustive efforts with
[56:16] no new evidence to follow. The official local search was
[56:20] suspended on October 27th, 2007. Investigators.
[56:26] Believe that Charlie's disappearance was likely the
[56:28] result of a mental health crisis rather than foul play.
[56:32] One investigator. Came out early in the case and
[56:35] advised that it was being treated as a vulnerable missing
[56:38] person situation rather than a crime.
[56:42] Indeed, a review of Charlie's computer and records turned up
[56:45] no indications of any threats or conflicts that might explain his
[56:49] fearful statements before he vanished.
[56:54] In the immediate. Aftermath of Charlie's
[56:56] disappearance, police followed every lead they could find.
[57:00] Dozens of reported sightings poured in from the public.
[57:04] Some people even claim to have spotted a young man matching
[57:07] Charlie's description talking to a truck driver.
[57:11] This particular. Tip fueled speculation that
[57:13] Charlie might have hitchhiked out of New England, perhaps
[57:16] heading South toward the warm climates he mentioned in his
[57:19] voicemails. This was investigated, but it
[57:22] proved nearly impossible to verify the supposed truck ride
[57:26] without more specific evidence. The authorities.
[57:32] Periodically researched the woods where he was last seen,
[57:35] returning even years later to examine the swampy area.
[57:39] Yet every search effort turned up empty.
[57:42] Over time. As leads grew cold, active
[57:45] ground searches tapered off. Still, the case was never
[57:50] closed, and the mystery continued to haunt both
[57:53] Charlie's family and the investigators who had hit a
[57:56] wall. Then there.
[57:58] Was a sudden potential break in the case in January 2021.
[58:05] A fragment of a. Human skull was discovered on a
[58:07] Dartmouth beach and it appeared to have been there for some
[58:10] time. Investigators.
[58:12] Collected DNA from Charlie's parents to check against the
[58:15] remains, but despite hopes this was.
[58:18] Confirmed. Not to be from him.
[58:22] In 2020. 215 years after Charlie's disappearance, law
[58:26] enforcement renewed their focus on the case.
[58:30] The Bristol County. District Attorney's Office added
[58:32] Charlie Allen's file to a newly expanded Cold Case Unit project
[58:37] aimed at re examining long term missing persons cases.
[58:41] The DA expressed. Hope that advances in forensic
[58:44] DNA technology and genetic genealogy could provide a fresh
[58:48] lead where earlier efforts had failed.
[58:51] However, as yet there have been no further updates on the case,
[58:55] suggesting that no John Doe has matched to the Allen family.
[59:02] Over the years. Several theories have emerged to
[59:05] explain what might have happened to Charlie Allen.
[59:08] One. Straightforward.
[59:09] Possibility is that Charlie, in the throes of a psychotic
[59:13] episode, simply ran until he could go no further and
[59:17] tragically succumbed to the elements.
[59:20] Perhaps. Disoriented and half dressed on
[59:23] that chilly night, he wandered into a remote spot and perished
[59:28] from exposure not long after disappearing.
[59:32] Under this. Theory He may have seriously
[59:34] injured himself after the 2nd floor jump, complicating his
[59:37] ability to survive in the woods. This theory would.
[59:42] Align with the absence of any contact or confirmed sightings
[59:45] after the initial incident. Indeed, many believe he may have
[59:49] perished somewhere in the woods around campus, with his remains
[59:53] just never found in the difficult terrain.
[59:56] Investigators. Conducted multiple searches over
[59:59] the years to test this hypothesis, even revisiting
[1:00:03] swampy areas as conditions changed, but they found no trace
[1:00:07] of Charlie's body. Another theory.
[1:00:12] Suggests that Charlie intentionally vanished to start
[1:00:15] a new life. His former roommate noted that
[1:00:17] Charlie was well connected to friends online and spent a lot
[1:00:21] of time chatting with these friends.
[1:00:24] As it turns. Out Charlie had been a fairly
[1:00:26] major figure in the early days of competitive Half Life and had
[1:00:31] a network of friends across North America and the world.
[1:00:36] If he truly. Believed powerful people were
[1:00:38] after him. It's conceivable he went into
[1:00:40] hiding deliberately. Supporters of.
[1:00:43] This theory point to the numerous unconfirmed sightings
[1:00:46] of Charlie reported in various states over the years.
[1:00:50] They. Also note.
[1:00:50] That just a month before, Charlie had legally changed his
[1:00:54] name to the unusual moniker Neo Babson Maximus, ostensibly so he
[1:01:00] would stand out in the pro tennis world in.
[1:01:03] Hindsight. That decision, made while he was
[1:01:05] off his medication, could hint at grandiose plans or an attempt
[1:01:10] at reinventing himself. However, a little digging
[1:01:14] revealed that this was the gamertag he used back in the
[1:01:17] day, so the choice perhaps isn't as odd as is usually portrayed.
[1:01:22] That said, of course, the fact that he made the decision while
[1:01:25] off his medication unfortunately doesn't bode well at all.
[1:01:31] Under the voluntary disappearance scenario, Charlie
[1:01:34] might still be alive today, living off the grid or under an
[1:01:38] assumed identity. However, if.
[1:01:41] That's the case. It's unclear why he never
[1:01:44] resurfaced or contacted his family in the many years since.
[1:01:48] Charlie had a. Strong relationship with his
[1:01:50] family and they were the people he reached out to when he
[1:01:55] believed his life was in danger. It remains a.
[1:01:58] Real possibility that Charlie may still be alive and homeless,
[1:02:02] having never gotten the mental health help he desperately
[1:02:05] needed. That said.
[1:02:09] This is generally viewed as unlikely, since bipolar mania
[1:02:12] eventually fades out put. Simply.
[1:02:16] It's generally not a permanent state and when he came down he
[1:02:20] would have likely attempted to reach out to his family.
[1:02:25] Charlie's family. Members have wrestled with these
[1:02:27] possibilities and tend to suspect that something more
[1:02:30] nefarious might have occurred. They find it hard to imagine him
[1:02:34] willingly cutting off all contact unless he felt he had no
[1:02:37] other choice. In this theory.
[1:02:40] Charlie may have encountered foul play, whether at the hands
[1:02:44] of someone he knew or a stranger he crossed paths with while
[1:02:48] vulnerable. One angle that.
[1:02:51] Was explored was Charlie's involvement in the online gaming
[1:02:54] community. There was talk that.
[1:02:56] He might have gotten quote UN quote in over his head with
[1:03:00] another gamer or provoked the wrong person.
[1:03:03] There are documented cases of such things happening, though
[1:03:07] generally this has occurred as the result of disputes over
[1:03:10] items and Mmos. And as a quick.
[1:03:13] Aside for non gamers, these are massively multiplayer online
[1:03:17] role-playing games with persistent worlds basically.
[1:03:21] Think. World of Warcraft.
[1:03:25] When police. Dug into the online gaming
[1:03:27] dispute possibility, they found no evidence of any grudges or
[1:03:31] dangerous feuds in his life at the time or at any other point.
[1:03:36] Investigators. Couldn't confirm that any of the
[1:03:38] adversaries Charlie thought existed were real.
[1:03:42] In the absence. Of evidence, most believe these
[1:03:45] ideas were the result of his then untreated mental health
[1:03:48] issues.

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