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Speaker 1: Park ranger Bud Connor, looked out across the gently lapping

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Speaker 1: waters toward the distant towers of Chicago, silhouetted under the

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Speaker 1: slowly reddening sky as it took a moment to enjoy

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Speaker 1: the last of the day's sun. Saturday, July two, nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six, had been a hot one at the Indiana

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Speaker 1: Junes State Park, where Bud had been busy keeping watch

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Speaker 1: over the thousands of day trippers there to enjoy the

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Speaker 1: July fourth weekend. The park, located on the southern shore

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Speaker 1: of Lake Michigan, was comprised of over two thousand acres

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Speaker 1: of sand dunes and rugged grassland, as well as a

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Speaker 1: fifteen mile stretch of sandy beach, and on days like these,

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Speaker 1: it was just about the most popular place in the state.

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Speaker 1: Letting out a side of relief at having made it

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Speaker 1: through without incident, Bud turned and headed back to the

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Speaker 1: ranger's hut when he was approached by a teenage couple

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Speaker 1: making their way to the car park. It probably wasn't

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Speaker 1: anything to be concerned about, they said, but they thought

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Speaker 1: he might like to know about the blanket and a

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Speaker 1: number of personal items that appeared to have been left behind.

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Speaker 1: On the beach. The items belonged to three young women

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Speaker 1: who the couple had seen arriving around ten am that

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Speaker 1: morning before settling down under several poplar trees close to

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Speaker 1: where they were sitting. The couple were sure they'd seen

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Speaker 1: the women boarding a boat on the lake sometime around twelve,

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Speaker 1: but hadn't seen them since. Bud gave a rise smile

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Speaker 1: at the thought of all the young women he'd seen

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Speaker 1: getting hit on by groups of guys trying to various

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Speaker 1: degrees of success to get them onto their boats. Chance

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Speaker 1: its were, he thought, if these women had boarded one

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Speaker 1: under similar circumstances, they'd be back soon enough to collect

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Speaker 1: their things. Bud thanked the couple and waved them on

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Speaker 1: their way, then headed over to pick up the items,

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Speaker 1: figuring the least he could do was make sure they

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Speaker 1: didn't get stolen. What Bud Connor couldn't possibly have known

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Speaker 1: then was that he just walked straight into one of

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Speaker 1: the greatest mysteries the American Midwest would ever know. You're

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Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McClean smith. With most

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Speaker 1: people having left the beach by then, it wasn't hard

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Speaker 1: to spot the abandoned blanket laid out about a hundred

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Speaker 1: yards from the shoreline under the poplars, just as the

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Speaker 1: teenagers had said. Moments later, Bud was stood over it

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Speaker 1: with a look of deep confusion on his face. There

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Speaker 1: were the usual things you might expect to get left behind,

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Speaker 1: like the yellow beach rope, sunglasses and suntan oil, or

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Speaker 1: the nearly empty packet of cigarettes, but there was other

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Speaker 1: stuff too that gave him pause for thought, like the wallets, transistor, radio,

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Speaker 1: and even a set of car keys. Bud looked about

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Speaker 1: the beach at the remaining couples and families in various

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Speaker 1: stages of packing up and heading home, then down to

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Speaker 1: the shoreline and out across the water, where earlier there'd

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Speaker 1: been hundreds of bathers and boats bobbing up and down

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Speaker 1: on the lake, only a few diehards remained splashing about

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Speaker 1: in the shallows. He looked down again at the items,

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Speaker 1: then bundled them all into the middle of the blanket

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Speaker 1: and pulled it up from the sand. A few minutes later,

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Speaker 1: Bud arrived at the office of park Superintendent William's Vettich.

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Speaker 1: After explaining what he'd found, the pair placed the items

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Speaker 1: in lost property for safe keeping, then closed up and

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Speaker 1: headed home. It was two days later, early in the

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Speaker 1: morning of Monday, July fourth, when the phone rang in

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Speaker 1: the ranger's hut. Spetich picked it up. It was a

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Speaker 1: man named Harold Blow in obvious distress, calling from Westchester,

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Speaker 1: a suburb of Chicago located about fifty miles west of

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Speaker 1: the park. His nineteen year old daughter, Patty, had left

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Speaker 1: with friends for the beach early on Saturday morning, but

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Speaker 1: hadn't been seen since, and neither had her two friends.

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Speaker 1: Though he knew it was unlikely Spetitch would remember them personally,

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Speaker 1: Blow proceeded to give a description of the young women

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Speaker 1: just in case. Patty or pat was about five foot

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Speaker 1: six with brown hair and dark brown eyes. He believed

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Speaker 1: she'd taken a bright yellow bikini to wear at the

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Speaker 1: beach that day. Anne Miller, five ft two with brown

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Speaker 1: hair and blue eyes, was twenty one and would most

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Speaker 1: likely have been wearing a blue two piece swimsuit with

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Speaker 1: a red belt. And Lastly, Renee Brule, also nineteen, was

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Speaker 1: about five ft nine with brown hair and hazel brown eyes.

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Speaker 1: Her swimsuit, according to her husband Jeffrey, was brown and

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Speaker 1: had green flowers and gold leaves printed on it. The

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Speaker 1: three would have driven there in Anne's nineteen fifty five buick.

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Speaker 1: Sveetich leant back on his chair as he wrote it

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Speaker 1: all down and peered through to the storeroom at the

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Speaker 1: box of items that Bud Connor had brought in a

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Speaker 1: few nights ago. After reassuring Harold that his daughter would

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Speaker 1: soon turn up, Spetich hung up the call, then grabbed

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Speaker 1: the box from the storeroom. Pulling off the lid, he

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Speaker 1: took out the various items, including the bright yellow robe

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Speaker 1: just like the bikini that Harold had described. Moving it

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Speaker 1: to the side, he spotted the car keys, noticing now

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Speaker 1: the key ring attached to them in the shape of

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Speaker 1: a miniature Illinois license plate to tread two six five

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Speaker 1: four eighty seven. With it being so early, it didn't

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Speaker 1: take him long to spot the corresponding vehicle, parked up

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Speaker 1: on its own at the far side of the car park.

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Speaker 1: When he saw it was a buick, his stomach dropped.

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Speaker 1: A few calls later and Chicago police confirmed it the

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Speaker 1: car was Anne Miller's. Is there something interfering with your

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Speaker 1: off their first month at betterhelp dot com. Forward slash unexplained.

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Speaker 1: over one million people taking charge of their mental health

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Speaker 1: you to start living a happier life today. With the

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Speaker 1: Indiana State Police taking over what was now an official

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Speaker 1: missing person's case, members of the women's families were invited

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Speaker 1: to inspect the items left behind the beach. All were

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Speaker 1: confirmed as having belonged to pat Anne and Renee. It

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Speaker 1: was shortly afternoon when thirty nine year old Sergeant Edward Burke,

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Speaker 1: widely regarded as one of the best detectives in the state,

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Speaker 1: arrived at the park and swiftly set about trying to

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Speaker 1: establish a course of events. Having spoken to Bud Connor,

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Speaker 1: Burke was keen to learn more about the possible boat

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Speaker 1: the women were said to have boarded, according to the

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Speaker 1: young couple who first alerted to the items on the beach. However,

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Speaker 1: since Bud thought nothing of it at the time, he'd

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Speaker 1: neglected to take their details down, leaving Burke with only

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Speaker 1: the vague information that the boat had headed west after

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Speaker 1: the women boarded it. With close to six hundred boats

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Speaker 1: estimated to have been on the lake between Chicago the

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Speaker 1: Indiana June State Park that day, locating the one in

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Speaker 1: question would be almost impossible. Finding more witnesses who might

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Speaker 1: also have seen the women would prove equally difficult, since

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Speaker 1: close to nine thousand people were thought to have been

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Speaker 1: at the park around the same time. With little else

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Speaker 1: to go on the next day, Burke initiated a full

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Speaker 1: search of the two thousand, one hundred and eighty acre

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Speaker 1: reserve and shoreline, enlisting the help of the Coast Guard,

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Speaker 1: as well as forty two soldiers from a nearby missile

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Speaker 1: base and ten mounted officers from the Porter County Sheriff's Department. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: police issued a statement to the press giving descriptions of

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Speaker 1: the women and asking for members of the public to

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Speaker 1: come forward with any information they might have on them

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Speaker 1: or the mystery boat. Later that afternoon, witnesses from South

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Speaker 1: Holland in Illinois and Indianapolis called in to say they

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Speaker 1: too had seen the women getting into a boat that day.

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Speaker 1: They were certain it was the women in question on

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Speaker 1: account of the unmissible bright yellow bikini worn by pat Blow.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps more importantly, they also remembered the man on the

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Speaker 1: boat who'd invited them onto it, describing him as being

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Speaker 1: well tanned and in his early twenties, with wavy raven

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Speaker 1: colored hair and wearing a windbreaker jacket. As for the boat, however,

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Speaker 1: they were less sure, remembering only that it hadn't been

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Speaker 1: especially big, perhaps only fourteen to sixteen feet long, and

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Speaker 1: was possibly white and blue in color. By the end

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Speaker 1: of the first day, scouring the parks, dunes and meadows,

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Speaker 1: sifting through every blade of marram grass, the search teams

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Speaker 1: found no sign of the missing women. Suspecting they may

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Speaker 1: have drowned, Detective Burke ordered a crew of beech buggies

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Speaker 1: to continue patrolling the shore line in case their bodies

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Speaker 1: washed up in the night, but by first light the

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Speaker 1: next morning nothing had come in. The search continued through Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: with an additional one hundred volunteers joining in to help,

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Speaker 1: but with no further clues on the women's whereabouts, Burke's

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Speaker 1: thoughts turned to a letter that had been found left

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Speaker 1: behind at the beach in Renee Brule's purse, dated two

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Speaker 1: weeks prior to her disappearance and clearly written in anguish,

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Speaker 1: It was addressed to her husband, Jeffrey. In it, Renee

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Speaker 1: accused her husband of being more interested in his friends

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Speaker 1: and hot rod cars than spending time with her. The

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Speaker 1: marriage was over its set, and she wanted a divorce.

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Speaker 1: When Burke brought the letter to Geoffrey's attention, he was stunned.

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Speaker 1: Though he wasn't so naive to think they hadn't been

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Speaker 1: having problem, he hadn't fully appreciated the depth of Renee's misery.

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Speaker 1: Renee's family insisted, however, that the fact she never sent

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Speaker 1: the letter was evidence that she hadn't been serious about

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Speaker 1: leaving Jeffrey, and had perhaps written it more out of

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Speaker 1: frustration than anything else. Then a call came into Burke

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Speaker 1: from the beach. The search team had found a pile

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Speaker 1: of debris that appeared to be pieces of a boat,

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Speaker 1: loosely matching the description of the one the women had

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Speaker 1: been seen getting into. It was found about three miles

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Speaker 1: to the west of where they'd been sitting, in the

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Speaker 1: shadow of the Bailey Generating Station, a large coal power

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Speaker 1: station that sat at the far end of the park.

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Speaker 1: The debris was comprised of twisted pieces of metal, oil

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Speaker 1: soaked wood, and large chunks of styrofoam thought to have

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Speaker 1: come from the back of boat seats. Oil and gasoline

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Speaker 1: canisters were also found nearby. Despite still no evidence of

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Speaker 1: the women being found, police began to wander if they'd

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Speaker 1: been involved in a boat crash, possibly with a water

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Speaker 1: intake crib, a structure designed to feed water into the

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Speaker 1: power station that was positioned in the lake close to

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Speaker 1: where the debris washed up, But detective Burke wasn't so sure.

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Speaker 1: Surely anything like that would have been seen by somebody,

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Speaker 1: and nor was there a record of any boat being

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Speaker 1: reported missing on that day, And by the third day,

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Speaker 1: even the boat lead was beginning to look a little dubious.

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Speaker 1: With more and more people contacting the police claiming to

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Speaker 1: have seen the women, They soon found themselves dealing with

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Speaker 1: a number of competing statements. Some had seen the women

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Speaker 1: get onto a boat with three men, others that there

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Speaker 1: were two men, or sometimes just one. The color and

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Speaker 1: size of the boat also varied significantly, with some saying

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Speaker 1: it was roughly fifteen feet long and others that it

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Speaker 1: was nearly thirty feet in length. On Thursday, July seventh,

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Speaker 1: scuba divers and air patrols were brought in to scan

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Speaker 1: the water for bodies and any more debris. Pat Blou's father, Harold,

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Speaker 1: who was a member of the Illinois Civil Air Patrol,

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Speaker 1: also joined the air search. In the meantime, eyewitness reports

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Speaker 1: continued to trickle in, with most being quickly discounted, while

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Speaker 1: others offered faint glimmers of hope, only to be quickly

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Speaker 1: dashed when they were followed up on. When a rumor

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Speaker 1: spread to the press that three bodies had been dragged

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Speaker 1: from the lake. Detective Burke was forced to issue a

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Speaker 1: heat himself increasingly wary of. Then later that afternoon, a

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Speaker 1: report came into the Indiana State Police from South Haven,

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Speaker 1: a lakeside town in Michigan located about eighty miles east

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Speaker 1: of Indiana Dunes. It came from police officers who reported

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Speaker 1: seeing three women wearing swimsuits and no shoes, asking for

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Speaker 1: directions to Saginaw, a town close to Lake Huron, one

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty miles away. The women said they were

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Speaker 1: traveling from Chicago. It seemed unlikely it could be them,

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Speaker 1: thought Burke, but it did make him wonder. All this

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Speaker 1: time he'd been acting on the assumption that the women

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Speaker 1: had spontaneously boarded a boat for fun. But what if

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Speaker 1: something else was going on? It was time he looked

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Speaker 1: a little closer into the lives of the three women.

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Speaker 1: Although Patricia Blou worked as a secretary for the utility

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Speaker 1: company Commonwealth Edison, her real passion was horses. Having ridden

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Speaker 1: throughout her childhood, Pat's parents eventually clubbed together to buy

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Speaker 1: her a horse of her own, which she kept in

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Speaker 1: Illinois's oak Brook Polo Club stables, where Anne Miller was

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Speaker 1: employed to exercise the horses. Over time, the pair had

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Speaker 1: got to know each other there and became firm friends.

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Speaker 1: Renee Brule was a friend of Pats from their time

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Speaker 1: together at Proviso West High School in Maywood, and had

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Speaker 1: recently completed a course in medical technology in the Loop,

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Speaker 1: the main central business district of Chicago. Renee loved horses two,

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Speaker 1: and the three friends often rode together at Tri Color

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Speaker 1: Stables in Palatine, Illinois. But there was more too. All

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Speaker 1: three women socialized regularly together at a bar in Hodgkins,

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Speaker 1: about a twenty minute drive from where they lived, where

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Speaker 1: it is believed Anne and Pat each struck up relationships

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Speaker 1: with married men. After speaking to a number of the

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Speaker 1: women's friends, the police was surprised to discover that Anne

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Speaker 1: Miller was three months pregnant at the time of her disappearance,

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Speaker 1: while Pat Blow may well have been two. Miller had

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Speaker 1: even told friends that she was planning to enter a

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Speaker 1: home for unwed mothers. Something else of interest was a

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Speaker 1: letter found by Harold Blow in his daughter's bedroom, written

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Speaker 1: by Pat to her ex boyfriend, John Paul Jones. Jones

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Speaker 1: was six years older than Pat and had recently moved

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Speaker 1: to California. Like Renee's letter to her husband, this one

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Speaker 1: hadn't been sent either, and talked mostly of Pat's unhappiness

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Speaker 1: that Jones had left without even telling her. Jones, who

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Speaker 1: was ride by Detective Burke as an ex convict and

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Speaker 1: rodeo cowboy who presumably met Pat through horses, denied all

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Speaker 1: knowledge of Pat's disappearance after being interviewed by the FBI. However,

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00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:17,879
Speaker 1: when added all together along with Brene's marital troubles, it

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Speaker 1: painted a complex portrait of three troubled young women, each

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Speaker 1: with a reason to potentially want to disappear. Warby Parker

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00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,600
Speaker 1: was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty goal

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00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:39,680
Speaker 1: to create bootique quality eyewear at a revolutionary price point.

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Speaker 1: Glasses start at ninety five dollars, including prescription lenses, sunglasses, progressives,

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Speaker 1: and blue light lenses are also available. Warby Parkers committed

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Speaker 1: to providing exceptional vision care online and in stores, offering eyeglasses, sunglasses,

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Speaker 1: eye exams, and contact lenses. Just answer a few quick

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Speaker 1: questions online and they'll suggest some great looking glasses that

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Speaker 1: are totally personalized to fit your face and style. The

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Speaker 1: best thing of all is Warby Parker's home try on system,

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Speaker 1: allowing you to order up to five pairs of glasses

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Speaker 1: for free to try on at home, either for yourself

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Speaker 1: or to get the advice of friends and loved ones

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Speaker 1: of glasses at home for free at warby Parker dot com.

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Speaker 1: Forward slash unexplained. That's w a r by Parker dot com.

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Speaker 1: Forward slash unexplained. It was three am in the morning

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Speaker 1: of July ninth when the phone rang at the Blouse

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Speaker 1: residence in Westchester. Pat's parents, who'd barely slept a wink

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Speaker 1: since her disappearance, ran blearily to the hall to pick

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Speaker 1: it up. Hello, said Pat's mother into the receiver, as

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Speaker 1: Harold waited anxiously by her side, but the caller didn't reply,

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Speaker 1: letting the silence hang between them. Unable to bear it

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Speaker 1: any longer. Pat's mother burst into tears, telling whoever it

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Speaker 1: was on the line, if it was Pat, that she

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Speaker 1: had nothing to worry about, and that she should come

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Speaker 1: home as soon as she could. Then there was a click,

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Speaker 1: and the corps went dead. The following day, at a

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Speaker 1: complete loss what to do, Harold made an appeal in

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Speaker 1: the press to Peter Herkos, a self described clairvoyant from

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Speaker 1: the Netherlands. Harold had seen her Cos on the news

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Speaker 1: the night before, promoting an E. S. P card game

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood, but the plea was never answered. When Harold

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Speaker 1: had read his daughter's letter to her ex boyfriend, his

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Speaker 1: heart had broken at the anguish in her word, breaking

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Speaker 1: all the harder of the thought that he might never

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Speaker 1: get the chance to console her over it. Either way,

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Speaker 1: He just simply couldn't believe that she would deliberately disappear,

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Speaker 1: as some were beginning to suggest, not least of all

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Speaker 1: because of her horse, who she'd named Hank, who meant

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Speaker 1: more to her than anything else in the world. In

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Speaker 1: recent months, thanks to Pat's hard work and dedication, Hank

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Speaker 1: had developed into an impressive thoroughbred. Only days before her disappearance,

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Speaker 1: Hank had won a race in Winnipeg, Canada, and was

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Speaker 1: due to race again on July eleventh. As for any

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Speaker 1: suggestion that she might have drowned in the lake, he

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Speaker 1: thought that unlikely too, since his daughter was a strong

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Speaker 1: and experienced swimmer, easily capable of swimming over twenty miles.

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Speaker 1: The only logical explanation he believed was that for some

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Speaker 1: reason or other, the women had been abducted. On July tenth,

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Speaker 1: Harold and two colleagues from the Civil Air Patrol mounted

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Speaker 1: their own investigation of the lake and surrounding areas, flying

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Speaker 1: to every airport between DuPage County and Ludington, Michigan, asking

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Speaker 1: residents along the way if they'd seen anything. Back down

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Speaker 1: at Detective Burke's office, after six days of searching, they

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Speaker 1: had nothing to show for it, except for a few

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Speaker 1: pieces of possible boat debris and a handful of conflicting

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Speaker 1: witness statements. When finally they got a break, about a

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Speaker 1: week after pat Blow, Anne Miller, and Renee Brule were

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Speaker 1: declared missing, a man from Liganeer, Indiana, contacted the police

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Speaker 1: with some extraordinary information. As it happened, he'd been filming

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Speaker 1: at the beach the day the women disappeared. And had

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Speaker 1: just gone back to inspect the footage after hearing about

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Speaker 1: the case. Incredibly, he'd managed to capture the women, identified

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Speaker 1: clearly by their swimming costumes, the moment they boarded the

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Speaker 1: mystery boat. In the footage, the women could be seen

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Speaker 1: climbing on to what was in fact a sixteen to

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Speaker 1: eighteen foot trimaran with three holes, with Pat in her

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Speaker 1: yellow bikini seen taking a seat up front while the

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Speaker 1: other two sat at the back. The man on the

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Speaker 1: boat was also visible, looking just as the witnesses had described,

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Speaker 1: early twenties, with dark wavy hair. The footage was taken

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Speaker 1: early on in the day, yet many witnesses were adamant

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Speaker 1: that they'd seen the women back on the beach later

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Speaker 1: in the afternoon. There was also the fact that many witnesses,

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Speaker 1: including Robert Blatts, a lawyer from Gary, Indiana, also claimed

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Speaker 1: to have seen the women boarding a completely different looking

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Speaker 1: boat with three men on board. Blats described it as

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Speaker 1: being twenty six to twenty eight feet long and possibly

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Speaker 1: a Trojan cabin cruiser, with no name on its side

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Speaker 1: and a large radio antenna. It then occurred to the

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Speaker 1: police could it be that the women had in fact

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Speaker 1: boarded two boats that day. After checking the footage again,

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Speaker 1: a boat was spotted matching Blatz's description, and the police

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Speaker 1: immediately got to work tracing its owners. Now with solid

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Speaker 1: proof that the women had boarded a boat after all,

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Speaker 1: more statements were released to the press asking for the

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Speaker 1: men seen on the boats and the footage to come forward,

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Speaker 1: or for anyone else who might have seen them or

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Speaker 1: knew them to contact the police. Another search of the

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Speaker 1: coastline was made, with divers also instructed to check inside

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Speaker 1: the water intake crib in case the women had somehow

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Speaker 1: been sucked or placed into it. But nothing was found

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Speaker 1: and no one came forward, With Detective Burke becoming increasingly

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Speaker 1: convinced that, for whatever reason, the women would not be

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Speaker 1: found at the beach, the search of the park was

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Speaker 1: eventually called off. Then something else came to light. According

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Speaker 1: to a friend of Pat Blouse, the young woman had

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Speaker 1: been seen a few months back with a bruise on

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Speaker 1: her face. When asked where it had come from, she'd

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Speaker 1: replied vaguely that she'd got into trouble with some horse

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Speaker 1: racing people. Then another friend added that Pat had told

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Speaker 1: her secretly one day that she was just going to

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Speaker 1: leave and nobody would find her. This new information led

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Speaker 1: the investigators back to the girl's personal belongings and to

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Speaker 1: something in particular that had been found in Pat's purse,

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Speaker 1: her phone number belonging to a man named George Jane,

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Speaker 1: the owner of Tricolor Farm where pat An and Renee

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Speaker 1: rode horses together, had the answer to the women's whereabouts

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Speaker 1: been staring at them the whole time. You've been listening

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Speaker 1: to Part one of Unexplained, Season five, Episode sixteen, built

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Speaker 1: on Shifting Sands. Part two will be released next Friday,

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Speaker 1: May twenty first. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like

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Speaker 1: to help supporters, you can now do so via Patreon.

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Speaker 1: To receive access to add three episodes, just go to

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Speaker 1: patron dot com, forward slash Unexplained Pod to sign up,

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Speaker 1: or if you'd like to make a one time donation,

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Speaker 1: you can go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward Slash Support.

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00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: All donations, no matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained,

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00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never

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00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,399
Speaker 1: before been covered on the show, is now available to

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00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 1: buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble,

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00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:14,680
Speaker 1: and Waterstones among other bookstores. All elements have Unexplained, including

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00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.

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Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts,

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Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts

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Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like

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Speaker 1: to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast

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Speaker 1: dot com or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at

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Speaker 1: Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast