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Speaker 1: happy sickly. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Thinking
Speaker 1: Sideways the podcast. I Am Devin, joined as always by
Speaker 1: Steve uh and Joe. I love that you. I think
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know. I don't remember. I don't remember
Speaker 1: my alias showed up. Today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a mystery and it's a disappearance and I'm willing about
Speaker 1: it's one you've never heard of. Yeah, I would say
Speaker 1: most people have not heard because it's from Canada. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a few people have heard of Canada. America's hat Yeah, um, sorry,
Speaker 1: there are going to be some Canadian shows. What does
Speaker 1: that make Mexic I don't want Okay, America's pants Okay, Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about the disappearance of Stephanie Stewart.
Speaker 1: It's nice alliteration. What Canadian name is? Yeah? And um,
Speaker 1: actually Megan suggested this mystery in two thousands sixteen, so
Speaker 1: thank ye thanks Meg. Yeah. Um, well, I guess let's
Speaker 1: get to it. In two thousands six seventy year old
Speaker 1: Stephanie Stewart disappeared. She was an avid outdoors woman and
Speaker 1: had spent eighteen consecutive summers fire spotting. You guys know
Speaker 1: what fire spotting is, right, you should probably tell their listeners.
Speaker 1: She's not everybody's gonna know. It's literally sitting in a
Speaker 1: tower with like binoculars looking to see if you can
Speaker 1: see any fires, happy smoke smoke. Well, typically you're looking
Speaker 1: for smoke, looking for smoke. Yes, anyway, so um, the
Speaker 1: last thirteen years of her fire spotting career were spent
Speaker 1: at the same cabin slashed tower combo, about fifteen miles
Speaker 1: orkilometers outside of Hinton, Alberta, Canada, which is about three
Speaker 1: hours west of Edmonton, Alberta, which I think is the
Speaker 1: largest closest largest city. Everybody knows where Edmonton is, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's up there, yeah, yeah, north parallel. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: tower is called the Athabaska Tower, And I have heard
Speaker 1: that it's not like terribly remote. It's only like three
Speaker 1: miles or five kilometers off of a fairly major highway.
Speaker 1: And this one is a nice it's like just a
Speaker 1: drive up and we'll talk about that and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's also really close to Edson, Alberta, just if
Speaker 1: anybody is like familiar with that area. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: such a lonely outpost to be at, I guess to
Speaker 1: be clear, I said cabin tower combo. So the way
Speaker 1: these things work is you have this big tower, at
Speaker 1: least this particular one. Most of them worked this way
Speaker 1: do they. I think most of them do. Like around here,
Speaker 1: most of the towers around here, it's like the cabin
Speaker 1: in the tower combined. Yeah, the cabin is at the
Speaker 1: top of the tower. That's where you live, which probably
Speaker 1: would have been a better situation. Yeah, But the way
Speaker 1: that the towers work in Canada, or at least in
Speaker 1: this area of Canada, is their tower cabin combos. So
Speaker 1: the tower is relatively small at the top. You know,
Speaker 1: I think it has room for you know, chairs and
Speaker 1: desks or whatever, but it's pretty small. Otherwise you're just
Speaker 1: kind of up there with a book or your thoughts
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then you climb down the ladder every
Speaker 1: night and there's a big cabin where you stay with
Speaker 1: your bed in your kitchen and your bathroom and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. And you know, it's funny is that
Speaker 1: I had seen old school fire towers before, so I
Speaker 1: was actually a little taken off guard when I saw this.
Speaker 1: And I know that some people may think that this
Speaker 1: is what they are, but they're steel constructs. The towers.
Speaker 1: The towers are. It's you know, it's a big giant
Speaker 1: pole in the sky with a god would be say, Joe.
Speaker 1: It's like ten by ten, fifteen by fifteen, But it's
Speaker 1: all glassed in, like it's not open to the elements.
Speaker 1: It's it's rather sheltered in that way. And it must
Speaker 1: be a joy to be inside on a hot day. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can only imagine. But the ones I was used
Speaker 1: to seeing for when I was a kid in the
Speaker 1: open wood and wood one, Yeah, wore a wooden platform
Speaker 1: and we're lucky if they had a handrail around. So
Speaker 1: those are pretty nice. Actually, there's still around. You can
Speaker 1: you know, you can still you can stay in there.
Speaker 1: You can rent it for a weekend. Yeah, as mentioned,
Speaker 1: Stephanie did her you know, stint for thirteen years at
Speaker 1: the same on this one, same cabin, and so she
Speaker 1: lived every year April two September in that cabin tower combo.
Speaker 1: It sounds like kind of a fun summer job. For
Speaker 1: some people I would die because they hate being alone,
Speaker 1: very extroverted. But I know a lot of people who really,
Speaker 1: I think would super enjoy this. And that wasn't so
Speaker 1: far It really wasn't so far out of the stick,
Speaker 1: except people couldn't come and visit either. I think she
Speaker 1: did have visitors well, and I know that like you
Speaker 1: could have somebody live with you and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: but I need stuff. Yeah. Well, she was obviously was
Speaker 1: one of those people that being by herself, and I
Speaker 1: mean you always he listed that she was gardening, and
Speaker 1: was it knitting? Is that the thinker? She was knitting,
Speaker 1: and there was some other hobby that she had. So
Speaker 1: she had all these very solitary, singular person hobbies. One
Speaker 1: thing she was fun of doing it was going out
Speaker 1: in the woods and teasing the bears. Keep trying to
Speaker 1: frame a theory a little foresaw is that she she
Speaker 1: obviously she had interests that lent themselves to this, whether
Speaker 1: she had them before she started it or learned them
Speaker 1: during her time. Yeah, she probably already knew how to
Speaker 1: read in the gardens. Probably. I think on her time
Speaker 1: off she spent most of it outdoors. Actually, she had reportedly,
Speaker 1: very recently, at seventy years old, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's pretty that. That would be hard for
Speaker 1: me to do. And I'm thirty, so she's in much
Speaker 1: better health than I am, which you know, it was fine.
Speaker 1: And she wintered at a resort community called Rocky Mountain
Speaker 1: in somewhere in Alberta, Canada. I didn't bother to really
Speaker 1: look up because I didn't think it mattered that much.
Speaker 1: There was a senior community send us an email. You know,
Speaker 1: somebody's going to be community probably think so. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: had at least one daughter, but other than that, details
Speaker 1: on her life are very sparse, and I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of intentional. You know, Like we said, spotters live
Speaker 1: pretty much alone during their time at the cabins, though
Speaker 1: it will it is noted that they're allowed to have
Speaker 1: you know, like a spouse or a dog or something
Speaker 1: like that with them, but most of them do it alone.
Speaker 1: And it does seem like that was a draw for Stephanie.
Speaker 1: She did seem to be into that lonely lifestyle. And
Speaker 1: then yeah, I've mentioned she was seventy year old. Seventy
Speaker 1: years old at her time of disappearance, five to and
Speaker 1: about a hundred and five pounds. Yeah, that's that's a
Speaker 1: small person. Fire spotters do make routine calls via radio
Speaker 1: or phone, um depending on the time of the day,
Speaker 1: to check in yeah, to a kind of like central
Speaker 1: tracking hub which is run by a supervisor, to report
Speaker 1: all clear or anything needing further investigation and Stephanie was
Speaker 1: by all reports, very good about making these calls. She
Speaker 1: checked in every time by the time that was required.
Speaker 1: Not crazy early, but I mean more so now than then.
Speaker 1: But they were obviously big on safety. You know, you
Speaker 1: wanted to check in on your people multiple times, just
Speaker 1: to make sure because they are out in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere by themselves, especially if they take a tumbill
Speaker 1: coming down those stairs in the tower. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: I was gonna go to is if you look at
Speaker 1: photos of her online, you can actually see her wearing
Speaker 1: her harness to tether up to the stairs or the
Speaker 1: ladder I should say, yeah, because it's one of those
Speaker 1: ladders with the circular bands of metal around it so
Speaker 1: that if you fall over you stay contained. But she
Speaker 1: also was harnessed in all the time, not necessarily stay containing,
Speaker 1: you just sort of like you don't you just sort
Speaker 1: of rattle down that little too. Yeah, but if you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be that and you see pictures ever in
Speaker 1: that so I mean a the safety equipment was present
Speaker 1: and be it sounds like from the way she took
Speaker 1: things she took very seriously and it was by the
Speaker 1: book all the time. Yeah, Well, I mean The other
Speaker 1: reason you want your fire spotters to check in all
Speaker 1: the time is fires can get very quickly out of hand. Um,
Speaker 1: And so you know, the more notice you have to
Speaker 1: send somebody to go check on that spot where it's
Speaker 1: coming with smoke coming out of it, the better chance
Speaker 1: you have to really contain it and have it not
Speaker 1: spread into like what we're seeing in California right now
Speaker 1: or what we saw in Oregon over the summer. And
Speaker 1: you want to make sure your spotter is therefore on
Speaker 1: the job and not like you know, just stopped taking around. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So let's get into the night of the night before
Speaker 1: Stephanie's disappearance and the circumstances surrounding. Shall we be the
Speaker 1: night before the night of the night before? It's hard
Speaker 1: to tell. On the evening of August six, Stephanie called
Speaker 1: a relative and I've literally never maybe you guys with
Speaker 1: like eagle eyes. I know I posted a couple like
Speaker 1: threads and I honestly did not look at every single
Speaker 1: post on every single thread. So sorry guys, but um,
Speaker 1: but if you egalize saw this, my egis some reason
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it was your daughter. I had the same
Speaker 1: I never saw, but I had the same thought. Well,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that in theories because I also
Speaker 1: think that. But um, but Stephanie called a relative and
Speaker 1: that's literally the only way you will ever see it
Speaker 1: reported is that she called a relative. I think it
Speaker 1: was about nine pm, and that was the last time
Speaker 1: that anybody officially spoke to her. I'm I mean probably
Speaker 1: other people spoke to her, depending on the theory, but
Speaker 1: that's the last time that somebody actually spoke to her,
Speaker 1: like mentioned, Like we mentioned just a couple of minutes ago.
Speaker 1: Spotters are required to check in every morning as well,
Speaker 1: right to say hey, I'm up, I'm headed up to
Speaker 1: the tower. I'm not dead yet, not dead yet. And
Speaker 1: Stephanie missed her required check in that morning. On so
Speaker 1: on the August six, Since Stephanie was super reliable, you know,
Speaker 1: her supervisor figured ocation and just sleep over a right
Speaker 1: but oversleep. Yeah, sorry, but I'll give her a call
Speaker 1: on the phone just to you know, check And nope,
Speaker 1: no answer. So the supervisor called a spotter that was
Speaker 1: close to Stephanie's location and said, hey, I can't get
Speaker 1: in contact with Stephanie. Can you just run over to
Speaker 1: her cabin slashed tower, See what's going on, you know,
Speaker 1: see if she needs any help, check on her, check
Speaker 1: on her, you know. Normal. Officially, this spotter that was
Speaker 1: close to her went to the cabin tower combo situation
Speaker 1: and found a pot of boiling water, a pot or kettle,
Speaker 1: it's unclear which of boiling water, but no Stephanie. Also
Speaker 1: missing were two pillows with blue pillow cases, a burgundy
Speaker 1: bed sheet. This is all a tongue twister from me. Apparently,
Speaker 1: burgundy bed sheet and a Navajo printed bed cover, and
Speaker 1: a gold watch Stephanie's. I assumed the initial spot or
Speaker 1: didn't just walk right in there and notice that stuff gone. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was later. Yeah, but this is a better storytelling
Speaker 1: this way. Her truck was also still there. No, she
Speaker 1: didn't leave a note, no, no, nothing just anything like that.
Speaker 1: A massive hunt was launched. Um no sign of her
Speaker 1: whatsoever was found. The police have ruled this a homicide.
Speaker 1: Now you may be wondering, but Devin, she just was
Speaker 1: missing with some stuff. Why is this a homicide? Well,
Speaker 1: dear listeners, from all of the reporting, it does seem
Speaker 1: like it was pretty muntine. But I have read what
Speaker 1: I I cannot substantiate this, but I find it to
Speaker 1: be credible for whatever reason its may cut. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there was a massive amount of blood in
Speaker 1: the cabin, and that there were a lot of unanswered
Speaker 1: phone calls placed to the cabin, but not unanswered they
Speaker 1: were picked up and hung up. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: we actually be careful by saying there's a massive amount
Speaker 1: of blood. We know that. I mean, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff that talks about blood, but we don't actually
Speaker 1: have any idea if it is a splatter of blood
Speaker 1: or a room full of blood. The things that I've
Speaker 1: seen lean more towards way more right. But the problem
Speaker 1: is that none of those are official, and so I
Speaker 1: just want to I just want to put in that
Speaker 1: that little bit of hesitation, because totally don't. We can't
Speaker 1: say that the room was soaked in blood, right, so
Speaker 1: I think I what I want to say is in
Speaker 1: order for the police who have ruled it a homicide,
Speaker 1: they had to have found enough blood evidence to prove
Speaker 1: that somebody was dead. Like you, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys watch forensic files or not, but
Speaker 1: they're that's my jam. But there are a couple stories
Speaker 1: where they'll talk about something has been proven a homicide
Speaker 1: even without a body. And in order to do that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in order to do that, they have to be able
Speaker 1: to say, wow, there's a ton there's like enough blood
Speaker 1: here to definitely assume that person is dead. Uh, And
Speaker 1: it all came from the same person in this case.
Speaker 1: I don't know that they made like bothered to test.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that's not released to the
Speaker 1: public on this case, and I think that's intentional, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, and then there was also those phone calls
Speaker 1: where the phone rang and I, uh, it's my understanding
Speaker 1: the phone rang and was picked up and then put
Speaker 1: back down, like nobody actually said hello, right, but like
Speaker 1: a number of times before the phone was just unplugged
Speaker 1: from the wall, which would also lead anybody who was
Speaker 1: examining the case to believe that somebody was there, somebody
Speaker 1: like stayed there for a little bit, like maybe stay tonight. Maybe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This cabin, as we talked about, was what's called the
Speaker 1: drive up cabin, and there are two different types of cabins.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I really need to say this,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna anyway. A drive up cabin is a
Speaker 1: cabin you can drive your car up to Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they're also there are some and I don't
Speaker 1: know how many are in service. It would assume that
Speaker 1: the majority of the fire spotting cabins in use are
Speaker 1: drive up cabins, but they also have hike in cabins, which, again,
Speaker 1: as the name would lead you to believe, you just
Speaker 1: you have to hike in. You park at a trailhead
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you hike in and you take all
Speaker 1: your stuff with you, which seems like kind of a bummer,
Speaker 1: but myself, Yeah, the drive in cabin tower combos have
Speaker 1: seen massive improvements over the past ten years. Really, it
Speaker 1: happened like pretty close after Stephanie to say it was
Speaker 1: definitely driven by this case. And if and if there
Speaker 1: is a you know, they kind of say, if there's
Speaker 1: a silver lining here, it is that a lot of
Speaker 1: people are way safer now. But it doesn't strike me
Speaker 1: as a terribly hazardous job. Yeah, but you are out
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. It does make you an
Speaker 1: easy target. Yeah, that's why, you know, I just do
Speaker 1: you definitely want to have a revolver or something with you,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you know, if you're in America, you
Speaker 1: have a gun, but just to briefly touch on the cabins,
Speaker 1: especially drive up cabins were relatively unsafe. Um they were unsecure.
Speaker 1: They were safe necessarily, but they weren't you'd be pretty
Speaker 1: easy for somebody to just break in. So there was
Speaker 1: no there are now gates, chain link fences with you know,
Speaker 1: barbed wire around the cabins there that didn't exist. You
Speaker 1: could just drive up from any angle up to the cabins,
Speaker 1: which is already kind of like. I haven't seen if
Speaker 1: there were any unaccounted for tire marks or anything, but
Speaker 1: I think it's likely that the spotter who came to
Speaker 1: check on Stephanie would have ruined any of that, like,
Speaker 1: would have driven up and just like you know, gone
Speaker 1: over any kind of tire marks if there had been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like if somebody had pulled their car up and then
Speaker 1: pulled away, they probably would have pulled up and pulled
Speaker 1: away in the same fashion that the you know them
Speaker 1: and then the police. Also because once the police responded,
Speaker 1: they probably didn't really know what they were looking at.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's likely that if there were
Speaker 1: other tire tracks, that they had been destroyed. And by
Speaker 1: the way, did the spot or did he like walked
Speaker 1: through the house or that the cabin and like make tracks.
Speaker 1: I don't know like that, I have no idea. I
Speaker 1: don't think so. I don't think they are terribly large cabins,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like there's like five rooms where
Speaker 1: you'd be like Stephanie or you in here, stephaniely you're
Speaker 1: in here. But I don't know. I have no answer
Speaker 1: to that question. But also they find any any like
Speaker 1: pop prints, you know, like wolves, bears, anything like that.
Speaker 1: Blood they ruled They ruled out an animal attack, is
Speaker 1: what I will say to you. I know you keep
Speaker 1: saying this, and well, we can talk about this all
Speaker 1: in theories. But additionally, there was brush surrounding the cabin,
Speaker 1: which would have made it really hard for you. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, on the one hand, it's a privacy thing
Speaker 1: for you as a person who's inside a cabin, right
Speaker 1: because it's harder to see just directly into the windows.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you can't just look out
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, there's a person running at the cabin.
Speaker 1: Brush outside, you mean, like bushes growing and covering your windows,
Speaker 1: and so you didn't have any good lines of visibility
Speaker 1: that's since been cut down of fire not at all well,
Speaker 1: or even visibility like you can't see, you know, down
Speaker 1: the road to see that there's a truck coming up
Speaker 1: invisibility to you is line of fire to hit fair enough,
Speaker 1: same thing, that's fair pretty much. There was just one
Speaker 1: phone in the house or in the cabin, is my understanding,
Speaker 1: which you know, again, pretty easy for somebody to just
Speaker 1: deny you access to that. And the doors were super flimsy.
Speaker 1: They were like cardboard, right, They're just yeah, they were
Speaker 1: literally just cut out of card No, they're just normal
Speaker 1: wooden doors, kind of like the interior doors. Yet in
Speaker 1: a lot of newer houses where it's just a piece
Speaker 1: of like one eighth inch plywood on each side with
Speaker 1: the hollow middle kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: my understanding it with a wooden and there were wooden frames,
Speaker 1: so you know, again it's pretty easy to just put
Speaker 1: your fist through it, yeah, or you know, force your
Speaker 1: way in or whatever. That's one of the big improvements
Speaker 1: they have since made. All of the doors in these
Speaker 1: drive up cabins are steel reinforced, but they also change
Speaker 1: at the glass and all. Yeah, they're now shatterproof glass
Speaker 1: and there's panic buttons. So the firewatchers. As mentioned, they
Speaker 1: have these harnesses that they're supposed to wear and now
Speaker 1: apparently whenever they're on premises. It's my understanding whether this
Speaker 1: is true or not, you know, it means to be seen,
Speaker 1: but that they're supposed to wear their like tagged with
Speaker 1: trackers basically, so that it was a radio that had
Speaker 1: a panic button. It's both. I thought it was like
Speaker 1: their regular walkie talkie talk to the world radio is
Speaker 1: the way I took this to be. Oh, I thought
Speaker 1: it was two separate things that on their radio they
Speaker 1: have a panic button and they also were tagged. They
Speaker 1: had like you can like the old people life alert thing.
Speaker 1: Those don't those don't have geo trackers. Okay, well, well
Speaker 1: this is the it doesn't have service version of it.
Speaker 1: So well, it's my understanding that those trackers don't have
Speaker 1: panic buttons in them or anything. They just are basically geolocators,
Speaker 1: so that if you went missing or you pushed a button,
Speaker 1: they could be like and we know exactly where that
Speaker 1: person is or they know where that's right, but so
Speaker 1: that that would also help track somebody they went by. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: even if you didn't have time to push a panic button.
Speaker 1: Or whatever, that they'd be too separate, that's my understanding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which would have been really helpful if Stephanie had again
Speaker 1: one of those kind of like maybe silver linings, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd be easier just to output them with guns. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, I don't think that's a solve all,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like it's not always going
Speaker 1: to have it right at hand, but you need it,
Speaker 1: but you know still, yeah, yeah, anyway, that is our story.
Speaker 1: So that's about it. Yeah, so she as she vanished,
Speaker 1: and nobody's heard a word about it. There's been no leads,
Speaker 1: total cold trail, nothing found. They beat the brush. I mean,
Speaker 1: they looked more than just like I had to repeat
Speaker 1: from the cabin, I assume, oh yeah, absolutely, it was
Speaker 1: like thousands of acres actually tens of thousands, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they did air and they did diver is in
Speaker 1: lakes and like all sorts of stuff, and they just
Speaker 1: never found any hide nor hair of her, which is
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. You probably don't know this that they bring
Speaker 1: in trackers or anything like that before they went out
Speaker 1: and store. This totally started thrashing around the brush that
Speaker 1: they're bringing any trackers. You could really good at following
Speaker 1: people through the world. Visual trackers like people are dogs
Speaker 1: or both. I don't think so. Um, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the presumption is well, actually, why don't we just like
Speaker 1: talk about theories and then we can talk about that. Yeah, ok, buff, First,
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Speaker 1: and we're back. So I guess the presumption is is
Speaker 1: that if there was as much blood as it seems
Speaker 1: like there was at the site, that she was killed
Speaker 1: and then like wrapped up and taken away in the cabin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that she would have been murdered in the
Speaker 1: cabin and then that's why the blankets and the quiote
Speaker 1: we're missing, is that somebody wrapped her up in that
Speaker 1: and then in the back of the truck and then
Speaker 1: drove away. I think that is the by and large
Speaker 1: the presumption, particularly if if she did lose so much blood,
Speaker 1: there would have been a blood trail, if she had
Speaker 1: been left on foot or been dragged or like whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that so the trail of blood they went out
Speaker 1: to the driveway, and then I don't think there was
Speaker 1: a trail of blood. I think there was enough blankets,
Speaker 1: especially if they bled out already. But yeah, there. Maybe
Speaker 1: she didn't die, maybe she was kidnapped and carted away.
Speaker 1: She's still around, so uh to up the creepy factor.
Speaker 1: The other speculation of why the blankets and pillows and
Speaker 1: stuff were missing that the speculation on why those items
Speaker 1: were missing was that somebody else spent the night with Stephanie,
Speaker 1: with her without her consent, and if she was dead
Speaker 1: or alive, I really hope that wasn't an amorous encounter
Speaker 1: and that yeah, especially if she was dead. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that there needed phone calls spooked the person into getting
Speaker 1: to leaving with her body or with her Yeah, I
Speaker 1: probably figured, you know, it's just not going to be
Speaker 1: just I'm not in so far in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: I can you expect nobody's going to show up for
Speaker 1: the next three months. Or maybe didn't know that the
Speaker 1: checkens were compulsory, you know, like maybe didn't realize that somebody, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't understand, you know, they thought, well, they probably
Speaker 1: just check in if a fire happens, right, So like
Speaker 1: if they don't hear from her like oh no, right,
Speaker 1: and that the reason that like the pillows were missing,
Speaker 1: for instance, would be that if they had slept, they realized, okay,
Speaker 1: I left trace evidence. I got to get rid of these.
Speaker 1: So so this, I mean, are we what are you
Speaker 1: saying with this theory? You're saying that this is a
Speaker 1: targeted attack. Are you saying this is random attack? I
Speaker 1: don't know, because somebody like up the creepy factor. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to like add I guess the theory is like
Speaker 1: why why was that stuff missing? Okay? Because that was
Speaker 1: when you were talking about the person not knowing the schedule.
Speaker 1: That to me talks a little bit about premeditation. You know,
Speaker 1: I see this person, I decided I want to kill
Speaker 1: this person, but not I think it can go either way, honestly,
Speaker 1: Like you know, even if it's like I said, that
Speaker 1: somebody would want to target her. So that's why I
Speaker 1: was a little confused. There's a few things. But but
Speaker 1: more than that, I think that if somebody did want
Speaker 1: to target her, they knew what the process was like.
Speaker 1: And so I think that this speaks more to it
Speaker 1: at being a random or less meditated murder. But if
Speaker 1: it were just some random psychopath who lived in the town,
Speaker 1: you know, like close by, and just was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go kill somebody, and drove up and killed her,
Speaker 1: and actually it's uh my, that makes me wonder if
Speaker 1: it maybe it was somebody who actually had an idea
Speaker 1: of where the towers were, who worked in them, because
Speaker 1: she would seem like the ideal target for a random
Speaker 1: She's a very tiny for a thrill kill. Yeah, there's nobody.
Speaker 1: She's not gonna be able to fight back as much
Speaker 1: as a pound person would. Guy, And even though she
Speaker 1: wasn't like excellent, oh, yeah, but that was kind of
Speaker 1: suggest to me, and maybe it wasn't entirely just random
Speaker 1: stranger killing after all. Yeah, so you must have been
Speaker 1: the smallest of the spotters. Uh yeah, probably she was
Speaker 1: one of the smaller ones. Yeah. Um, let's let's dig
Speaker 1: into some of the like solid theories here. We're gonna
Speaker 1: dive into you know, libel or whatever. Um and name
Speaker 1: some people. So one of the people that I see
Speaker 1: the name I see this tossed around a lot on
Speaker 1: the Internet, and actually, after digging into the one case
Speaker 1: officially associated with this person, I don't think it's so
Speaker 1: terribly off base, but there are a lot of question marks. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Steve making his speculation face. Yeah, we're talking about Darth Vader.
Speaker 1: He is nowhere near that cool. Yeah, not Darth Vader. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Travis Edward Vader. He sure it's pronounced Vader. It is Canadian,
Speaker 1: that's true. I'm my call with Vader. Yeah. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: man Vader is currently in jail for the murder of
Speaker 1: two I'm gonna say elderly. I don't like to classify
Speaker 1: Stephanie as elderly retirees. These people were retirees. They were
Speaker 1: they were like eighties, so that's more elderly. I think
Speaker 1: that's we'll call We'll just call everybody retirees hose the
Speaker 1: politically correct term anyway, until we get an email about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some term that we didn't know about.
Speaker 1: Vader is currently serving time for the murders of Lyle
Speaker 1: and Marie McCann. Not no relation to Madeleine. I know
Speaker 1: you can't see that name and not think about year
Speaker 1: old couple. Eighty and seventy nine. So he was eight,
Speaker 1: she was. Their bodies were also never found. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about their story real quick, because you know, apparently
Speaker 1: this was not far away. It was like an hour away.
Speaker 1: They're abouts, yeah, hours drive thereabouts. And on July three,
Speaker 1: the Meccans left their home in St. Albert for vacation.
Speaker 1: They were also supposed to pick their daughter up on
Speaker 1: the tenth at abbot's Ford International Airport. They were seen
Speaker 1: on that day, the third sorry of July, getting gas
Speaker 1: and it is noted that they were also towing their
Speaker 1: green Hyundai behind their SUV. They were driving SUV because
Speaker 1: they were retired r V. I'm sorry, yeah, the Hunda
Speaker 1: is the suv. I'm sorry, um, but Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: driving RV because they were tires. You know old people
Speaker 1: in RVs that on a wy they go together either
Speaker 1: because they don't want to actually because they don't actually
Speaker 1: want to camp, but campgrounds are cheap. Well know, you
Speaker 1: know what one of the things listen, I now know
Speaker 1: some folks that are of the age to have r
Speaker 1: vs and they love it because when you're at one
Speaker 1: park and you've been there for a couple of months
Speaker 1: and you get sick and tired of your neighbors, you
Speaker 1: know what you do. You unplug and you drive to
Speaker 1: the next park and suddenly you don't live next to
Speaker 1: the jerk wad who's always, you know, doing whatever's annoying you.
Speaker 1: That's kind of cool. You know, he's not monas long enough,
Speaker 1: and that bothers you. So you moved to a different one.
Speaker 1: Not that you're mean a trailer park, not an r
Speaker 1: V park. RV r vs, you will see them in
Speaker 1: trailer parks. They a fair number of them, at least
Speaker 1: in the southern portion of this country, have slots that
Speaker 1: are open for day and week rentals, depending I mean
Speaker 1: obviously depending on the level of the park, but fair enough.
Speaker 1: Although they owned a home as well, so I think
Speaker 1: their r V was just like a convenient, a fun
Speaker 1: way for them to travel, fun way for him to
Speaker 1: take out the overhangs and gas station for real. Anyways,
Speaker 1: it is actually it's nice to not have to go
Speaker 1: into the hotel room and unpack your crap totally, but
Speaker 1: still so anyway, they were driving an r V and
Speaker 1: on the evening of July so, two days after they
Speaker 1: were seen getting gas, firefighters responded to an RV fire
Speaker 1: at the Middle Lake Campground near Edson, Alberta remember Edson.
Speaker 1: No bodies were found. Um police discovered that the RV
Speaker 1: did belong to them hands, but there was no sign
Speaker 1: of their Hondai SUV that they had been towing behind it.
Speaker 1: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Mounteas visited the mccans home.
Speaker 1: They didn't find they didn't get an answer, so they
Speaker 1: kind of just were like, all right, well, I guess
Speaker 1: they're presumed missing, but they weren't going to do too
Speaker 1: much searching for them because their car was missing, so
Speaker 1: they were just like, you know, they probably drove away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they might have. Might have been like an insurance fraud thing,
Speaker 1: and hindsight, it's a weird lax bit of motion on
Speaker 1: the part of the Mountains. I'm not criticizing, like in hindsight,
Speaker 1: it's like should might have been a busy day in
Speaker 1: their office, but yeah, they probably should have been a
Speaker 1: little quicker than they were. Five days later, on July tenth,
Speaker 1: when they were supposed to pick their daughter up from
Speaker 1: the airport, they didn't arrive. So their daughter, whose name Trudy,
Speaker 1: notified of the Mounties and they filed a missing report
Speaker 1: person's report and also released one. Right, you know, be
Speaker 1: on the lookout. At that point, the Mounties realized that, oh, hey, McCann,
Speaker 1: that sounds interesting. He why does that sound interesting? Why
Speaker 1: does that sound familiar? Ay, I don't know. Oh hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Um it's the that RV that was burnt
Speaker 1: down by the Tim Horton's I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I've been waiting this whole time for that to happen.
Speaker 1: I knew. Yeah, I'm pretty good at a Canadian accent,
Speaker 1: so our apologies to our Canadian listeners. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I love love the maple leaf. Oh yeah, god,
Speaker 1: you guys are amazing. Anyway, So the Mounties were like,
Speaker 1: oh crap, um, okay, these people are actually missing, great,
Speaker 1: so let's search for him. So in the sixteen six
Speaker 1: days later, the Mounties did actually find that hondai um
Speaker 1: and they actually found it near Highway sixteen and like
Speaker 1: it's called Range Road, Yeah, of course, yeah, familiar, We're
Speaker 1: all familiar with it. It's about eighteen miles or thirty
Speaker 1: kilometers east of Edson, which is near Hinton, which is right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really near Hinton, which is near n Yeah. Edson
Speaker 1: and Hitting are both really close to our tower. Actually,
Speaker 1: our tower is on Highway sixteen. It's that's the one
Speaker 1: that it's like three miles off of. Anyway, the police
Speaker 1: amounties at that point did say that they thought that
Speaker 1: the meccansas parents was foul play, and then that's at
Speaker 1: that time they announced that they thought that Vader was
Speaker 1: responsible for it through a number of connections. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to go too deep into this because it's
Speaker 1: not it's not an episode about the mccans, But so
Speaker 1: I I didn't ever see anything that was strongly linking him.
Speaker 1: Can you at least give us one or two to
Speaker 1: the mccans or to the mccans some cans, I can, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I didn't see anything yeah, like the most circumstantial case.
Speaker 1: Based on the reporting that I kept coming across, there
Speaker 1: was there was some circumstantial evidence, but that paired with
Speaker 1: the fact that his brother said, yeah, he's staying with
Speaker 1: me because he says he burned in r V. I
Speaker 1: didn't catch didn't see that. Yeah, And then the girlfriend
Speaker 1: was also like, yeah, he like showed up in this car,
Speaker 1: and I was like, get rid of that car. Whose
Speaker 1: car is that? Like there was some reporting around it
Speaker 1: where people close to him when they were interviewed told
Speaker 1: the mount He's like he had stuff that Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't like stuff, but they that he
Speaker 1: had shown up and he looks like tired and disheveled,
Speaker 1: and they're like, what happened. He was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: burned down a r V. Yeah, So there was a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and but I mean, like I said that, I actually
Speaker 1: don't think I said this. He is currently serving time
Speaker 1: for the crime, but it's been a bit of back
Speaker 1: and forth. Like he was initially arrested and then they
Speaker 1: released him because they didn't have enough evidence, and then
Speaker 1: they reopened the case and they found actually maybe they
Speaker 1: did have enough evidence, so they tried to get him
Speaker 1: and he was released again, and then finally they were like,
Speaker 1: all right, we have enough evidence and they charged him
Speaker 1: and he's now in jail for it. Well they tried
Speaker 1: him before though, I mean, if he was tried for
Speaker 1: the crime, wasn't he Yeah, yeah, and they kept him
Speaker 1: in jail for like four and a half years, Like,
Speaker 1: they kept him in jail for a long time before
Speaker 1: they really decided we've got a good case. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that was rough because you know, he came out and said,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, of course, like any sane human,
Speaker 1: he was like, no, I did not do that, because
Speaker 1: like you never why would you ever be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I do right, So he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't do that. And actually the Mountins have ruined
Speaker 1: my life because they kept me in prison for four
Speaker 1: years trying to figure out if I did this. So
Speaker 1: like that's pretty ruined. Branted, he has a pretty significant
Speaker 1: rap sheet like already, although nothing, you know, nothing too
Speaker 1: terribly violent, frankly, I mean, I mean he was a
Speaker 1: lot of his stuff stopped far far short of murder,
Speaker 1: vehicular theft, in possession of breaking tools, driving a motor vehicle, unauthorized,
Speaker 1: operating in a regular motor vehicle. I want to hear
Speaker 1: that story trailer and weapon charges in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: stealing and burning a truck in two thousand nine, and
Speaker 1: then careless use of a firearm and authorized possession of
Speaker 1: a firearm in June two thousand ten leading up to
Speaker 1: the disappearance. It sounds like a loose cannon. It sounds
Speaker 1: like escalating as well, maybe, but I mean, still way
Speaker 1: way way short of murder, right, But again, um, this
Speaker 1: isn't a story about the Meccans, right, So, like I know,
Speaker 1: I opened this can of worms and we could go
Speaker 1: back and forth, but no, it could be said though
Speaker 1: there still could be a connection. Even if Vader is innocent,
Speaker 1: there still could be you know, for this crime, still
Speaker 1: could be our perp too. So you're bringing him up
Speaker 1: because you're we've and I've read the reading online too,
Speaker 1: and I want this for people to understand, is that
Speaker 1: the idea is that he is responsible for what happened
Speaker 1: to Stephanie exactly because he was in that area and
Speaker 1: obviously he did something very questionable things. So I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that we can say
Speaker 1: is that we've said this before about people who are
Speaker 1: have only been convicted of like the one murder, but
Speaker 1: they seem like super skisy leading up to it just
Speaker 1: means they got caught that one time. So with this
Speaker 1: kind of rap sheet like circling around. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that people with rap sheets like this are like murderers.
Speaker 1: I'm not, and I'm not saying necessarily that Vader is,
Speaker 1: you know. But the theory is is that um, that
Speaker 1: pot that was that was boiling um somebody said, and
Speaker 1: I actually thought this was kind of you know, it
Speaker 1: can go either way, um, but I think it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 1: Is that somebody said it's a bad way to do it,
Speaker 1: but you can kind of start a fire that way,
Speaker 1: depending on the pot, depending on the stove, depending on brothers,
Speaker 1: lots of dependence. But just because that's lots of tendance
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that like somebody who's kind of dummy didn't
Speaker 1: try it. You know. I gotta tell you, I never
Speaker 1: saw as much in the boiling pot or kettle as
Speaker 1: most of the the internet seems to. And here's my
Speaker 1: reason for is that I've lived in places in the
Speaker 1: summer where it was hot as hell and the only
Speaker 1: way that you could make your house not feel like
Speaker 1: it was, you know, the desert was to have water
Speaker 1: on the heat so that there was some moisture in
Speaker 1: the air. Because I don't know about you, but if
Speaker 1: it's really hot for a period of time, my sinuses
Speaker 1: dry out, I'll get nosebleeds. And I know people who
Speaker 1: will just have a pot of water on simmer or
Speaker 1: a cattle you know, people do it pot pourri too,
Speaker 1: but something to get some moisture in the air. So
Speaker 1: it is just not such an arid environment where you're
Speaker 1: at all the time. So I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: she probably, I mean, it could very well have just
Speaker 1: been something she always had going and on a simmer
Speaker 1: like boil. Boil could be a term that inflames people's
Speaker 1: ideas of the story. Well there's a simpler answer for that,
Speaker 1: and that is that whoever intruded upon her time didn't
Speaker 1: spend the night. They came in the morning and they
Speaker 1: interrupted her morning routine of boiling water for tea or
Speaker 1: something like that. Right, But I just wanted to I
Speaker 1: want to run with this one real quick, like, let's
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to run with the idea
Speaker 1: of somebody who is serving time for murdering retirees. And
Speaker 1: then setting the scene on fire within like a close proximity,
Speaker 1: is at least somebody who's worth mentioning, right, and managed
Speaker 1: to dispose of two bodies without being found. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: bodies of the Meccans have never been found. That's why
Speaker 1: I mean, Vader or not, I think the same purp.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't either, And I really
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if it was a really poorly informed
Speaker 1: attempt at starting a fire in the cabin, because again,
Speaker 1: I think we can safely assume that whoever did this
Speaker 1: didn't really understand the procedure of fire watching. They probably
Speaker 1: didn't think that within fifteen minutes somebody would be there
Speaker 1: checking on her, right, especially since I think they let
Speaker 1: so many calls happen, and I think they let like
Speaker 1: three or four calls happen and like picked up and
Speaker 1: hung up and then finally unplug the phone. And then
Speaker 1: at that point the supervisor was like, Okay, well, we're
Speaker 1: definitely spending someone out there, like what it is. Even so,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good way to start a
Speaker 1: house fire. But if somebody thought they had a long
Speaker 1: time and it looked like, you know, there was wood around,
Speaker 1: and they could really start. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a great theory, but I think it's worth
Speaker 1: to use a empty pot to start a water to
Speaker 1: start a fire. It would make a hell of a
Speaker 1: lot more sense to just pour the water out of
Speaker 1: the pot and put the empty pot on top of
Speaker 1: the eat source with the intention of it then causing
Speaker 1: Like spattering hot water is not going to cause the
Speaker 1: fire is gonna be It's not the spattering, it's after
Speaker 1: it dries out, right, So my point is you empty
Speaker 1: the water out of the container that you're heating to
Speaker 1: speed up this. I'm going to burn everything down with
Speaker 1: the pot or a dry a dry potter, dry cattle thing,
Speaker 1: unless you're trying to give yourself time to create an alibi,
Speaker 1: Like if you're so, I mean, it's like a long
Speaker 1: time for a dry pan or pots. It's not. It's
Speaker 1: not likely to say no, absolutely, it's not. And like
Speaker 1: I am continuing to say, I think it's a bad
Speaker 1: way to start a fire, but I can see a
Speaker 1: kind of a dummy thinking, Okay, so here's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do. I'm gonna set this pot of water to
Speaker 1: boil because I know that he's wrong, right, But he says, okay,
Speaker 1: because I think that'll start a fire. But I'll start
Speaker 1: a fire in like an hour and a half, right,
Speaker 1: so I have time to go back to Edson, to
Speaker 1: go sit in a local cafe, create like a serious
Speaker 1: alibi for myself, so that people know where I am at,
Speaker 1: like whatever given time, and so that like even more
Speaker 1: if for whatever reason it's somebody were like, oh, I
Speaker 1: wonder where fire started. McGhee, is you know at the time,
Speaker 1: then I at least can say, well, I was at
Speaker 1: the coffee shop. But here's the thing. Number one, he
Speaker 1: you know, or to give himself enough lead time. It's
Speaker 1: a lousy way to start a fire. Oh absolutely start
Speaker 1: a fire. Number number one. Number two. If you really
Speaker 1: want to have a delayed reaction fire, you use the microwave.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there was a microwave there. That's
Speaker 1: a good point there, maybe, But there's better ways than
Speaker 1: the pot of the stove. I think somebody just put
Speaker 1: a pot on there too, just to boil and forgot
Speaker 1: about it. I just forgot about I agree. I'm getting
Speaker 1: in Devon's chair, so I am channeling her, and I'm
Speaker 1: saying that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: um there, while we're on the topic of Edson, because
Speaker 1: we are, because Edson is pretty close to Slander the
Speaker 1: entire town, not the entire town. This is Canada, and
Speaker 1: Canada is only a few hundred miles from here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I could come down to murder us. Edson
Speaker 1: is um only about people as of two sixteen. I
Speaker 1: don't know where the population has gone since then. Well
Speaker 1: it's full of killers and probably down well, but that's
Speaker 1: the thing that's like weird, is like you go through
Speaker 1: the threads and people are like, oh, yeah, well, there's
Speaker 1: this other rapist from Edson that it could be, or
Speaker 1: there's this other murderer from Edson that it could be,
Speaker 1: And it's like, how many freaking rapists in that stuff?
Speaker 1: Because people reach back way in the archives. I mean,
Speaker 1: there could be somebody who lived in Edson and committed
Speaker 1: a string of rapes twenty five or thirty years prior
Speaker 1: and maybe doesn't even live in the area anymore, but
Speaker 1: they'll find that, so then they'll start, well, look at
Speaker 1: this and it's got to be this Like we have
Speaker 1: to be careful with that because there wasn't people's Well,
Speaker 1: it's also the town that size. You know, it really
Speaker 1: doesn't take doesn't take more than a couple of families
Speaker 1: of dirtbags to really skew this statistics. Absolutely true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: another theory that I saw, which is less vicious. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's pretty vicious. Still, it's my understanding.
Speaker 1: So Edson, it's my understanding that Edson is like you
Speaker 1: can see it basically from this fire tower you can
Speaker 1: see into it, or like the outskirts, I am given
Speaker 1: to understand that Edson has a pretty intense meth problem.
Speaker 1: Many small towns do. That is true, yes, um, and
Speaker 1: you know other crime things like a lot of people
Speaker 1: go missing on Highway sixteen for instance, which again is
Speaker 1: the one that's like three miles away from the fire tower.
Speaker 1: So there is also this theory, which is again I
Speaker 1: think a pretty interesting theory, that Stephanie could have witnessed
Speaker 1: something or at least been perceived to have witnessed something
Speaker 1: go down. How far from from Edson's tower, It's not
Speaker 1: that far. I don't know, it's a couple of miles.
Speaker 1: But I think I think Devon actually hit the name
Speaker 1: the nail on the head by saying perceived she maybe yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, let's be honest, when people are tweaking,
Speaker 1: they come up with some pretty cookie ideas and they go,
Speaker 1: there's the fire oh god, the person in the fire tower,
Speaker 1: I mean. But or alternately, like I said, a lot
Speaker 1: of people go missing from Highway sixteen, which was three
Speaker 1: miles away from but like easily to be spotted perceived again, right,
Speaker 1: so if somebody kidnapped somebody that like is not somehow
Speaker 1: not even connected to this, or you know, it's a
Speaker 1: Jane Doe missing from who knows where, but somebody kidnapped
Speaker 1: someone and thought, oh, I bet whoever's in that tower
Speaker 1: saw this, better go take care of that. Also, like, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that could also give reason to take the bed sheets
Speaker 1: with them. That if they kidnap somebody, they go to
Speaker 1: the cabin, they kill Stephanie, rape who or whatever whoever
Speaker 1: they kidnapped, and then take it all with them, your
Speaker 1: second and third characters. And yeah, that would also, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's like extra that as an additional tragedy to this
Speaker 1: whole story. But but the idea that either somebody knew
Speaker 1: that she saw something bad happen or thought that she
Speaker 1: saw something illegal or bad happen and thought, I gotta
Speaker 1: go take that witness out. This is one of the
Speaker 1: lamest of the theories that are out there. And now
Speaker 1: you didn't come up with I didn't come up with
Speaker 1: any of these theories. Yeah, it's like the whole idea.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh my god, there's a tower two miles away.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that. Yeah, because their binoculars on me the
Speaker 1: whole time. I don't even even at two miles I
Speaker 1: had not seen a par of binoculars that are going to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, actually bring the kind of resolution and magnification
Speaker 1: to make me actually be able to identify somebody committing
Speaker 1: a crime. But but I will say, like what Steve
Speaker 1: was saying before is super valid that like I you know,
Speaker 1: Portland's used to, I don't know if we still do,
Speaker 1: but definitely used to have a pretty serious meth problem.
Speaker 1: It's smooth Van Tucky and I have no I know
Speaker 1: enough people like I interacted with a couple of people
Speaker 1: who were like really really heavily addicted to meth. And
Speaker 1: you know, I've definitely seen some of the weird insane
Speaker 1: spirals that that drug can send people on. And it
Speaker 1: I don't think it's beyond reason to think that somebody
Speaker 1: could have, you know, gotten high on meth and thought,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that person saw me, I gotta go take
Speaker 1: him out. And then also oftentimes not I feel like
Speaker 1: I should say not to like stereotype people who are
Speaker 1: on meth, but like oftentimes people are on meth, like
Speaker 1: we'll take refuge wherever they can, and so, you know, again,
Speaker 1: then we circle back to like maybe they stayed the
Speaker 1: night up they were, Like I would actually buy more
Speaker 1: into the theory that somebody not even on math or whatever,
Speaker 1: somebody just neated a place to hold up for you know,
Speaker 1: happening a knife. Yeah yeah, I mean also like it's
Speaker 1: it's also possible like I don't know what time she
Speaker 1: went to bed, but they could have thought it was
Speaker 1: except for her truck was outside, so never mind. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say they could have thought it was just
Speaker 1: an abandoned empty cabin and then been surprised and killed her.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's true. I think with the
Speaker 1: truck outside, they probably could have known it was occupied.
Speaker 1: I have a I have an issue with the this
Speaker 1: you know, this this drug adult theory as well as
Speaker 1: I did with Vader. Is that the fact that the
Speaker 1: sheets were taken, like the whole conversation of well, they
Speaker 1: knew their DNA was on it, so they were hiding it.
Speaker 1: Like I think that's a mental process that would be
Speaker 1: beyond the people in that type of circumstance. I could
Speaker 1: see it being the you know, bundle the body up
Speaker 1: in something to put it in the car and get
Speaker 1: rid of it. But I wouldn't you know, the protect
Speaker 1: yourself to hide your DNA like that, Just I think
Speaker 1: that would be beyond somebody in that condition. If it
Speaker 1: was just somebody who was like homeless or on the
Speaker 1: run or whatever like that, maybe they wanted a couple
Speaker 1: of pillows and some blankets, just you know, for camping.
Speaker 1: I guess I I'm I don't have a problem with
Speaker 1: that as much because I am not necessarily willing to
Speaker 1: say that they woke up in the same condition that
Speaker 1: they committed the crime in. I always struggle with this
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to put things delicately. But there there
Speaker 1: are some long term cognitive effects to serious usage, and
Speaker 1: there can be two long term serious usage of that drug.
Speaker 1: I think that the majority of people would find changes
Speaker 1: in their mental capacity and somebody to be I would
Speaker 1: perceive somebody to be in the state to have gone
Speaker 1: to this length for whatever, they would have to be
Speaker 1: pretty far in the bag. I wants to agree with you, yes,
Speaker 1: but from personal experience, you know, again, nobody I know
Speaker 1: murdered someone, right, But I will say that, you know,
Speaker 1: the people that I interacted with were two totally different people.
Speaker 1: You know, went on when high and then when not high,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know. Again, you know, it's it
Speaker 1: just depends on the absolutely because there's no good theory
Speaker 1: on this. There's another There's one other theory in terms
Speaker 1: of like her getting murdered, and that is that apparently
Speaker 1: she didn't always get along with the local guides there.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of adventure sports in
Speaker 1: areas like this, and so there were a couple um
Speaker 1: people who are guides for like kayaking trip or you know, hiking,
Speaker 1: engineering whatever, yeah or whatever, and apparently she didn't totally
Speaker 1: get along with a lot of them, and so you know,
Speaker 1: there was a theory that she had had a bad
Speaker 1: interaction with one of them and they were like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go kill her. But I feel like
Speaker 1: that is like of all of them. That's the dumbest,
Speaker 1: Like somehow I believe I even believe Joe's forthcoming theory
Speaker 1: that a bear ate her more than I believe any
Speaker 1: of the others. Yeah, do you to talk about your
Speaker 1: bear theory, the animal attack theory? Well, weren't you going
Speaker 1: to talk about another theory where whereby she staged your
Speaker 1: murder and just left to start a new life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was going to end with that because
Speaker 1: it'd be like a nice okay, nice Yeah, a nice thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I kind of like the bears things too, because at
Speaker 1: least at least it means that, you know, a bear,
Speaker 1: a couple of bears got a good meal out of it,
Speaker 1: you know, which is better than some some crackhead. But
Speaker 1: does it ex randomly? But does it explain the missing
Speaker 1: blankets and pillows and gold watch? It does because they
Speaker 1: were Yogi and Boo Boo and they needed to buy
Speaker 1: a piccanic bass. Yeah, Yogi would like a new watch.
Speaker 1: That's probably true, But I don't know that if you
Speaker 1: think about Yogi always had he did. But here's what
Speaker 1: I will say, yes, but yeah, but here's what I
Speaker 1: will say is that it was her gold watch, and
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine. I mean, I imagine her wrist was
Speaker 1: about the same size as mine. I don't imagine that
Speaker 1: would fit on Yogi's wrists. Listen, bears don't understand the sizing,
Speaker 1: so you can't. You can't hold that against them. They
Speaker 1: make bears are grumpy for a reason because they buy
Speaker 1: ill fitting jewelry on a regular basis. But Yogi and
Speaker 1: boo boo, right, notwithstanding, what do you I mean, do
Speaker 1: you have an explanation for what happened to the what
Speaker 1: could have happened to those Yeah, well, I mean it's
Speaker 1: like if she decided to take off and go for
Speaker 1: like an early morning hike with her blankets and pillows. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll get to that in a second. If she wanted
Speaker 1: to take off and go for a hike, um, well,
Speaker 1: you know, she probably would have taken her watch with
Speaker 1: her because she had to check in at a certain time,
Speaker 1: so she had to keep track of the time. It
Speaker 1: goes off, gets eaten by bears, you know, and we
Speaker 1: never hear from her again. As far as everything else
Speaker 1: that was missing, it wasn't a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. And you know, I'm really not sure exactly
Speaker 1: how they accounted for what was there that should have
Speaker 1: been there versus not there, et cetera. I mean, I
Speaker 1: really don't know how they did that. It would be
Speaker 1: my guess, um, and this is just a guess, but um,
Speaker 1: growing up, we had a cabin that we shared with
Speaker 1: three other families, and there it was cabin's stuff. You
Speaker 1: had your yeah, totally, So it would be my guess
Speaker 1: that they furnished everything, you know, except for food, you know, consumables,
Speaker 1: and they provided that stuff for you, especially the hike
Speaker 1: in ones. You know, you like, you don't want to
Speaker 1: have to carry all that stuff. So I don't know
Speaker 1: why they wouldn't also for the drive in ones. So
Speaker 1: that's my guess as to how they were able to
Speaker 1: figure out what was missing was because they said, well,
Speaker 1: we have this inventory. It says it should have this stuff.
Speaker 1: Now that she might have hated that crap and replaced it.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, that does not explain that. I
Speaker 1: presume that there were only two pillows totally in the
Speaker 1: whole cabin, But it's true she could have just hated it.
Speaker 1: I guess, you know. I mean, it's like this inventory
Speaker 1: of stuff that they're sure is missing. I'm a little questioned.
Speaker 1: She was also the only fire watcher there for the
Speaker 1: last thirteen years, so it's maybe she was just sick
Speaker 1: of that crap and this year she decided it was
Speaker 1: time for a change. Totally as far as well, you know,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, people do just put water on
Speaker 1: and forget about it, and it has happened. There was
Speaker 1: a reason for her to wear a watch she left,
Speaker 1: I think, and I think what they need to do
Speaker 1: is just check all the bear poop and about a
Speaker 1: hundred mile radius, they'll probably find a gold watch in there.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that the phone calls that were picked
Speaker 1: up and put down, the phone unplugged, and the blood
Speaker 1: around is just like made up. That's just an addition
Speaker 1: to the story. Would have been really smart bears. Yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, I just wanted to next theory to fat
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's just all this talk about depravity and
Speaker 1: serial killers and meth heads depressing. Yeah. I think the
Speaker 1: whole bear theory is actually a little more cheery. It
Speaker 1: is somehow. Yeah. Yeah, and that's you know my other theories,
Speaker 1: like it's just a staged murder, it's just dear blood
Speaker 1: and your death, or you know, to go climb Mount Kilmanjaro. Again.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I don't know one thing I will
Speaker 1: add to the kind of more depressing, especially the witness
Speaker 1: to the crime, but other theories where you know, maybe
Speaker 1: she was murdered by somebody she knew, maybe she witnessed
Speaker 1: a crime. We mentioned earlier that the police have not
Speaker 1: and do not release what relatives she spoke with the
Speaker 1: night before. Right. Additionally, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: I've never seen so I've never seen the last name
Speaker 1: of the daughter released, and I believe that's intentional. I
Speaker 1: also believe it's intentional that they have not released the
Speaker 1: names of any other family members or anybody else who's
Speaker 1: connected to Stephanie. They printed a map of the all
Speaker 1: the firewatched cabins and the ones that are ready to
Speaker 1: get to. But but I so, I I almost wonder
Speaker 1: if the police are intentionally withholding this because they suspect
Speaker 1: it's somebody with a vendetta against Stephanie, and they think, Okay,
Speaker 1: she talked to somebody on the phone between the time
Speaker 1: that she was witnessed this crime and the time we
Speaker 1: got to her, Right, so that person is now also
Speaker 1: a target. I don't think that's accurate, but it adds
Speaker 1: a little bit to that theory. But all I want
Speaker 1: to say is that I really hope that she just
Speaker 1: like threw dear blood everywhere and like left to go
Speaker 1: live with Alan Cordermain and yeah, Steve Irwin, you know whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's Australia. I think you're probably right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very close enough. It's a foreign country where they speak
Speaker 1: a weird version of English. Won't fit in your wallet.
Speaker 1: I don't know everywhere. I don't have any good theories.
Speaker 1: Almost I would say the random killing is probably the
Speaker 1: most likely deal. I would too. As far as somebody
Speaker 1: having a vendetta against her, it's hard to imagine. She
Speaker 1: seemed pretty harmless. I mean, she's like really nice, just
Speaker 1: a cranky old lady. If she wasn't nice, she was
Speaker 1: just a cranky old lady. And but so what I mean,
Speaker 1: she was cracky or not. She was in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere. Is not too many people who get upset
Speaker 1: by her. Yeah, actually my understanding too. So she was
Speaker 1: actually pretty nice. People would drop by the cabin, strangers
Speaker 1: or friends or whatever, and she would always be well.
Speaker 1: I think the cabin had like a thousand visitors a year.
Speaker 1: Or something like that or something, right, yeah, right on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, but as a final parting thought,
Speaker 1: for any of you who you know are the killer
Speaker 1: or are Yogi or whatever, there is a twenty thousand
Speaker 1: dollar reward for well, for any leads leading to significant
Speaker 1: break in the case. Yeah, that's I mean, that's nothing.
Speaker 1: We'll give up. Yeah, do it. Definitely do it. Somebody rats,
Speaker 1: somebody up, come on. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Um, that's the
Speaker 1: end of this really uplifting story in which somehow a
Speaker 1: bear attack is the kindest theory, at least at the bears.
Speaker 1: You really can't hold it against him, now, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all the bears to know better. Well, bears tend to
Speaker 1: only attack one provoked. But yeah, whatever. Anyway, if you
Speaker 1: want to see some of the links to some of
Speaker 1: our research, you can do that on the website. You
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Speaker 1: Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. I think that's everything. Thanks,
Speaker 1: so I was paying attention. Great, all of that having
Speaker 1: been said, we are gonna get on out of here.
Speaker 1: Hang on, let me that Clement, that Clem think. Nope,
Speaker 1: don't back fuck fire. No, there's