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Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways brought the idea I don't know stories of things,
Speaker 1: sim of the answa to well, hey there, and welcome
Speaker 1: again to another episode of Thinking Sideways. Not just another episode,
Speaker 1: not just another episode. Welcome to our two hundredth episode
Speaker 1: based on my math. I think the math is right.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty close. I might be off by
Speaker 1: one or five. Yeah, we're off a little bit. You
Speaker 1: get to have another celebration with us. Yeah sweet, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've According to my math, this is our two hundredth
Speaker 1: episode regular regular. You're right, so shorts and holidays and
Speaker 1: stuff like that don't count. But actually, like our two
Speaker 1: or something, I don't know. I think about how many
Speaker 1: episodes that is and it kind of makes me feel
Speaker 1: old for a long time. It doesn't seem like it's
Speaker 1: been that long. Yeah it has. Yeah, sorry I interrupted you.
Speaker 1: That's okay, I am wait, what's your name? I'm Steve.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm Steve. I'm Steve as always joined by
Speaker 1: Devon and Joe. And even though it is our two
Speaker 1: hundred episode, we're not going to break form and we're
Speaker 1: still going to bring you a mystery because that's what
Speaker 1: we do every week. H not quite, We're actually gonna
Speaker 1: do you know, We've I don't know if either of
Speaker 1: you noticed this, but we've developed this weird little habit
Speaker 1: on the big numbered episodes. We do stories about famous
Speaker 1: people who disappear and so or die. It's like the
Speaker 1: three role, except not really increments of fifty. Yeah, yes, crazy, yes,
Speaker 1: So this week we are going to talk about another
Speaker 1: famous person who in this instance, disappeared, and that is
Speaker 1: Richie Edwards Richie Edwards and his disappearance is a listeners
Speaker 1: suggestion from everybody. We've been getting this a lot, so
Speaker 1: I finally caved. I do real quick though, before we
Speaker 1: get into the story and all of that. Trigger warning,
Speaker 1: this episode deals with some things that you may not
Speaker 1: be comfortable having a little ears here or if these
Speaker 1: are triggers for you, We're gonna be talking some about
Speaker 1: suicide and some about self hurting, so triggers. You're not
Speaker 1: listening to us anyway, so don't worry about it. But
Speaker 1: if you are listening and drew on this episode, please
Speaker 1: make sure to turn it off or save it for
Speaker 1: another time when it's better for those who of you
Speaker 1: who do not know. Richie Edwards was a member of
Speaker 1: the band Manic Street Preachers. Did you guys ever listen
Speaker 1: to them? Uh? Not much? No, I'm no, I'm too
Speaker 1: young for that. I never did either. I've listened to
Speaker 1: him since, but I had not listened to him. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if you know this or not,
Speaker 1: but it's you can't listen to music that's older than you,
Speaker 1: So I they can't really Okay that nobody ever told
Speaker 1: me that? Wow? So what what laws of physics have
Speaker 1: we been violated? Okay? Um, well, Richie at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty seven, he disappeared. It was in and he
Speaker 1: wasn't actually declared legally dead until two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: That's when his his family finally moved forward that with
Speaker 1: that process. So let's start at the beginning and we'll
Speaker 1: walk through Richie's story leading up to his disappearance. Richie
Speaker 1: Edwards grew up in Blackwood, which is Whale in Wales,
Speaker 1: which is in the United Kingdom for those of you
Speaker 1: don't know, South Wales. Yeah, it is south southeast Wales.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Ballpark, Ish. Now. I don't know why I
Speaker 1: found this surprising, but it turns out Richie Edwards was
Speaker 1: a really good student. He did quite well in all
Speaker 1: of his classes. Because you're a racist, that's right here,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, I hate Welsh people. I actually think
Speaker 1: that it might just be because of a different stereotype,
Speaker 1: and that is the rocker stereotype genrest, which is the
Speaker 1: rocker stereo o type. You know, the guy who does
Speaker 1: nothing in school but just plays and plays and plays
Speaker 1: and plays and plays until one day he's discovered and
Speaker 1: he makes it big, or until one day he finds
Speaker 1: himself working at a gas station for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life. Yeah, well, no, that's not the way the
Speaker 1: stereotype comes. Well, the other thing about Ritchie too, is
Speaker 1: that after school and everything, he still read a lot,
Speaker 1: and he was actually into literature and actually kind of
Speaker 1: political history like a learned guy. Yeah. Well yeah, he
Speaker 1: was yeah, smart guy and read a lot of important
Speaker 1: books and all kinds of stuff and talked intelligently about them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, let's be fair, though I haven't
Speaker 1: listened to his music, but was he that good of
Speaker 1: a musician? So there's there's two ways to split hairs
Speaker 1: on that. He was not necessarily a good musician. Musician
Speaker 1: in terms of being able to play an instrument. He
Speaker 1: had some other talents that were very, very influential, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk about those in a bit, But he couldn't
Speaker 1: play the guitar. No, but he wasn't very good write
Speaker 1: songs called the Good News Is for All Rock doesn't Matter.
Speaker 1: Edwards initially started out working for the band as a
Speaker 1: driver and roadie, and through a process that I'm not
Speaker 1: completely clear on, he somehow managed to eventually be brought
Speaker 1: on as a member of the band, well, the band
Speaker 1: itself started. It's it's three people. There's three guys in
Speaker 1: the band, and somehow he became the fourth member, starting
Speaker 1: out as a road It's just it's weird. I didn't
Speaker 1: go too deep down the rabbit hole on exactly how
Speaker 1: he managed that, but he did. He had some singing
Speaker 1: and singing and writing talent stuff. Well, and that's that's
Speaker 1: part of it, because, like we said before, he wasn't
Speaker 1: very good at playing the guitar, to the point that
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of contention that it may not
Speaker 1: actually be him playing guitar on the albums that they
Speaker 1: released when he was with the band. And well, apparently
Speaker 1: I had heard that when they did concerts he had
Speaker 1: a guitar and he was seen to be playing it,
Speaker 1: but it was it was almost I was unplugged. There
Speaker 1: was apparently a fair amount of that going on. He
Speaker 1: apparently could also play the piano, but it appears that
Speaker 1: keyboard was not something this band wanted, so he couldn't
Speaker 1: rely on that talent. So you've got to wonder, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if if he if he's not that good with the
Speaker 1: the instrument, then why are they keeping him around? And
Speaker 1: the reason is that he was really good at, as
Speaker 1: Devin said, promotion, and he was also he was fair.
Speaker 1: He was really good with lyrics he wrote. He wrote
Speaker 1: I think eighty or ninety percent of the lyrics that
Speaker 1: were on the album that came out the year before
Speaker 1: he disappeared. He did an awful lot of writing. Was
Speaker 1: the Holy Bible that's the name of the album that released.
Speaker 1: I mean I would guess that, you know what. One
Speaker 1: of the guys in the band said like, oh, hey man,
Speaker 1: your lyrics are pretty good. Um, do you want to
Speaker 1: be our writer? And he was like, no, I'll be
Speaker 1: in your band though, and they're like, okay, why not?
Speaker 1: Why not? Yeah? Well, he did good things for the
Speaker 1: band while he was absolutely so. Let's look at a
Speaker 1: timeline of Ritchie and Manic Street Preachers up until and
Speaker 1: shortly after his disappearance. Between the band was touring and
Speaker 1: they also released two studio albums during that that time frame.
Speaker 1: This actually all takes place what I'm about to talk about.
Speaker 1: On the fifteenth of May. Richie gets into an altercation
Speaker 1: with a journalist. He's a guy from n m E,
Speaker 1: which is New Musical Express, which is a magazine that
Speaker 1: I have not heard of, but apparently was big in
Speaker 1: the UK at the time, and maybe it's I think
Speaker 1: it still is around the journalists. Steve Lamock, It's no,
Speaker 1: that's not me. It's wrong as far as our listeners
Speaker 1: know that, it's totally not according to the reporting, and
Speaker 1: this is reported almost exactly the same way every time.
Speaker 1: But the quote is that the journalists had quote question
Speaker 1: the band's authenticity and values and edwards seriousness and commitment
Speaker 1: to his art end quote. That's kind of an absurd
Speaker 1: question when you think about it. It is, and what
Speaker 1: I feel, you know. What's also an absurd response to
Speaker 1: it is what Edwards did in response to prove how
Speaker 1: committed and how serious he was with his art. He
Speaker 1: apparently at the time was carrying around raised blade in
Speaker 1: his pocket and he pulled that out and he carved
Speaker 1: into his forearm for real, the numeral four R E
Speaker 1: A L that it's not it's not a nice He's
Speaker 1: actually lucky he did it or two yeah, And apparently
Speaker 1: that that was eighteen stitches is what it took to
Speaker 1: fix that. It took only as yes, so he was
Speaker 1: very lucky. And I think that might have been the
Speaker 1: harbinger of things to come. Yeah, I kind of went
Speaker 1: downhill from there. Huh. It did over time, because you know,
Speaker 1: as I said, between you know, from one to ninety
Speaker 1: two to ninety three, the band is touring, the releasing albums,
Speaker 1: are getting more and more popular, and then in December
Speaker 1: of ninety three, the their manager, Phil Hall dies of cancer.
Speaker 1: Apparently that had a significant impact on Edwards. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it had an impact on all of the guys in
Speaker 1: the band, but it apparently, you know, he took he
Speaker 1: didn't take it well, which is you know, I get that.
Speaker 1: We move into in the beginning of Nur at the
Speaker 1: age of either twenty five or twenty six, depending on
Speaker 1: exactly when he got it, Richie Edwards gets his first
Speaker 1: apartment or he gets his own apartment. He gets a
Speaker 1: flat in Cardiff because before that he'd been living with
Speaker 1: his parents, so he's out on his own, which is awesome.
Speaker 1: Cardiff Wales, fun town out here. I've I've heard lots
Speaker 1: of good things about it. Also seen a lot of
Speaker 1: shows that are supposedly based in it. Their accents are cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen the written language. It's very fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's like all consonants. In April of the band is
Speaker 1: touring and they're in Bangkok and a fan comes up
Speaker 1: to them and gives Richie a set of knives, which
Speaker 1: he then promptly pulls out and uses to cut a
Speaker 1: series of horizontal slashes across his chest. I wonder how
Speaker 1: was he? Was he really a fan or was he
Speaker 1: like a member of a rival band? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: But you know, the weird thing is is the first
Speaker 1: time I saw that photo, because that photos out there
Speaker 1: all over the place, he's he's just sitting around smoking
Speaker 1: a cigarette and having a drink and no shirt on,
Speaker 1: just you know, blood going down his front. To clarify,
Speaker 1: because I just realized I had a moment of question, Uh,
Speaker 1: Richie cut himself with the knives the friend gave him. Yeah, correct, Okay,
Speaker 1: just appreciation. I love you you you should have this,
Speaker 1: and he says sweet slash slash slash okay. I saw
Speaker 1: the photo and I thought, at first, because it was
Speaker 1: really pixelated, you how you'll find those scale down ones
Speaker 1: that Google will blow up. And I thought, wow, he's
Speaker 1: got this really interesting telephone poll wire tattoo thing on
Speaker 1: his chest. That's that's interesting, and that I found a
Speaker 1: better one. I was like, oh god, no, I mean
Speaker 1: cuts to the chest bleed, they do, but oftentimes I
Speaker 1: mean there's bone like right there. It doesn't take a
Speaker 1: lot to bleed a lot. He cut himself, I would say,
Speaker 1: about an inch or so above the point of a sternum.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's there. That's that's pretty thin. It's not
Speaker 1: like you could do a whole lot of damage. But
Speaker 1: it's really it's the fact that he did it, which
Speaker 1: is that he did it is crazy. Yes, that's shocking, right,
Speaker 1: but the fact that he was just kind of like
Speaker 1: chilling there afterwards, like they're not particularly I mean, he
Speaker 1: can't be right, but they were probably shallow a little
Speaker 1: like basically just you know, nicks that we're bleeding a
Speaker 1: little bit, and that he was just having a cigarette
Speaker 1: and enjoy you know. So I don't know he apparently
Speaker 1: Also this is this is when some of his larger
Speaker 1: issues begin to develop. I should clarify. Also, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to make light of self harm, no, because a
Speaker 1: decent amount of length through here as we go. Um,
Speaker 1: but he stopped eating at around that same time, so
Speaker 1: you know, people say he was anorexic. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you stop eating. Well do you know?
Speaker 1: And I don't, And so if I get this wrong,
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure that everybody understands. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Is anorexia the act of simply refusing to
Speaker 1: eat or suspending eating or is it with the intention
Speaker 1: of losing weight? Yeah? And actually is like, it's actually
Speaker 1: more than that, and are actually is My understanding of
Speaker 1: it is is that you have essentially kind of a
Speaker 1: dysphoria which makes you believe that you're fat eating weight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to
Speaker 1: lose weight and refusing to eat. However, I will say
Speaker 1: that sometimes it comes along with the desire to die
Speaker 1: more than the desire to lose weight, Like if you
Speaker 1: lose your will to live, you lose your will to eat.
Speaker 1: And he did, and that can also be classified as anorexia, okay,
Speaker 1: because he was known to suffer from about some depression,
Speaker 1: so that that would explain it. Thank you. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that I wasn't sure. After I had this all a
Speaker 1: firm of me, I realized I didn't know the actual
Speaker 1: definition of I mean of that, or at least a
Speaker 1: good rough disorders like out are hard to classify. They
Speaker 1: really are. There's all kinds of strange ones out there too.
Speaker 1: Obviously concerned about Ritchie because these things are going on.
Speaker 1: The band sends him home. They send him to what
Speaker 1: is called in all of the reporting farm. I want you,
Speaker 1: guys to send me to a health farm. I don't
Speaker 1: know that you do, because depending on the type that
Speaker 1: we choose, you may not be too keen on it.
Speaker 1: Because I had never heard of a health farm, so
Speaker 1: right to look it up, it might have been one
Speaker 1: of those special health farms where there's a lot of
Speaker 1: guys in white coats walking around. I mean, frankly, either
Speaker 1: of them sounds great. A luxury spa or a place
Speaker 1: that's focused on helping me improve my diet and helping
Speaker 1: me get exercise. I kind of need both of those.
Speaker 1: So that's that's that's kind of the spectrum of what
Speaker 1: you just said is the spectrum of what I have read.
Speaker 1: The health farm is the spectrum that I get is
Speaker 1: is like you said, it's a luxury spa. Or when
Speaker 1: I read the description of helping someone with their it
Speaker 1: and exercise, I sort of read that maybe a bit
Speaker 1: between the lines, as in, you're forced to take your meals.
Speaker 1: It is not, you know, voluntary like they're really really
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use air quotes. You're strongly encouraging you to
Speaker 1: eat again. Now again. This is all I guess on
Speaker 1: my part, I don't know how these work. I just
Speaker 1: don't know that you may enjoy your time so much
Speaker 1: because it's not all mud baths and cucumbers on the eyeballs.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a little counseling and involved two. And
Speaker 1: it might be too. I assume that he wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: to drink in there might be part of it, and
Speaker 1: said he might have been getting all those calories through
Speaker 1: booze and salo didn't feel all that hungry. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: know plenty of people who have done that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and this this was apparently not the first time
Speaker 1: he had been to a health farm. This was his
Speaker 1: third trip actually, so he'd been there for a number
Speaker 1: of times or a number of trips actually. And the
Speaker 1: other band was actually remarkably accommodating. They you know, they
Speaker 1: really were good friends, Richie. I think that's nice. They were.
Speaker 1: I think they actually did. You know, we're a lot
Speaker 1: of bands I think would have kicked him to the
Speaker 1: curb after the second trip to the health farm, you know,
Speaker 1: and I guess he missed a lot of shows and stuff.
Speaker 1: He did, and as we talked about, he he misses
Speaker 1: a whole bunch through this year. The good news is
Speaker 1: his guitar was never really plugged in to begin with.
Speaker 1: Good point, so they really were just losing him on vocals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I mean fair enough, right, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: significant loss, but that's kind of important. Let's step forward
Speaker 1: in time. We're gonna go to July. Richie disappears. He
Speaker 1: disappears for two days, and when he comes back, he
Speaker 1: sent for rehab at Priory Hospital for a total term
Speaker 1: of ten weeks because it was believed that he was
Speaker 1: drinking the entire times. He was drunk the whole time,
Speaker 1: and at the same time, he was self harming, so
Speaker 1: he was cutting himself, and and his form of cutting
Speaker 1: himself was hurting himself was not only to take a
Speaker 1: knife to his forearms or other parts of his body.
Speaker 1: He was also putting cigarettes out on himself. So he
Speaker 1: was covered in these self inflicted wounds. That's why he
Speaker 1: the band's whoa, we need to go something. I'll probably
Speaker 1: something a little more serious than just the health for
Speaker 1: you may be able to help me with this or not.
Speaker 1: When he was doing his like self harm cutting thing.
Speaker 1: You know, oftentimes there's self harm and there's attempted suicide,
Speaker 1: and they are two different things. And so he was
Speaker 1: self harming. He wasn't trying to kill himself. Yes, he
Speaker 1: mean maybe he was. It was I think it was
Speaker 1: doing the cutting. It was a half asked attempt at
Speaker 1: at taking his own life, is what it's believe. Because
Speaker 1: the self harm is not on the wrist like you
Speaker 1: could see he had cuts from say the elbow down
Speaker 1: where he was just cutting himself. I would say, I
Speaker 1: would strongly say that's not a half asked attempt at
Speaker 1: killing herself. It's it's a self harm. Yes, But but
Speaker 1: you know, these things escalating. So they knew he was troubled,
Speaker 1: he had issues, and so they sent him to somebodace
Speaker 1: to get help. He himself said that that cutting himself
Speaker 1: was just a way of taking and taking his focus
Speaker 1: off of things that were troubling him. But now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you've got something bigger to worry about,
Speaker 1: your little paint for this cut you just inflicted on yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, so you're gonna be gonna be thinking so
Speaker 1: much about this other stuff, and so it's a nice distraction.
Speaker 1: And I admittedly do not understand that rationale and logic.
Speaker 1: I feel for people who take that as a as
Speaker 1: a way experience that as a way to cope with
Speaker 1: other things, I don't get it. And if if you
Speaker 1: do that, please seek help. Yeah, I can tell you
Speaker 1: it escalates and it's not a good not a good
Speaker 1: habit from personal experience. Little corner here is that for me,
Speaker 1: it was always like, um, I like that's like what
Speaker 1: you felt like you deserved is like you just deserve
Speaker 1: to be in pain. You don't deserve to be happy,
Speaker 1: You don't deserve to have your life going well. And
Speaker 1: oftentimes I think if I would extrapolate that out, like
Speaker 1: if things were starting to go well for him with
Speaker 1: the band and they were, you know, gaining influence and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, but he had this like deeply troubled
Speaker 1: soul of like, you don't deserve that happiness. Then you
Speaker 1: know that that really can explain some of that escalation
Speaker 1: and what Yeah, it would make it worse because you
Speaker 1: would just continue to say like I don't deserve this,
Speaker 1: there's no you know, like and I deserve to be
Speaker 1: in pain. I deserve to be miserable. I don't deserve
Speaker 1: this amazing life that I found myself in. And that
Speaker 1: can be like a really good mode of escalation there So,
Speaker 1: but again, seek help, do hit please. People that listen
Speaker 1: are our podcasts are by definition, you know, very well balanced.
Speaker 1: You know people who are who really like to hear
Speaker 1: about murders, and by definition you are the definition. So
Speaker 1: they sent Richie to rehab basically like an inpatient rehab,
Speaker 1: and because he is there, he misses a lot of things.
Speaker 1: He misses the release of the Holy Bible on the
Speaker 1: thirty August, which is creative baby. Yes. Uh. He also
Speaker 1: misses quite a few shows. Uh. He is able to
Speaker 1: eventually rejoin the band for some of their shows in
Speaker 1: the UK, and then they go on a European tour.
Speaker 1: They go, they are the opening act for another band
Speaker 1: called Swede. Everything seems good. It's for the band, I
Speaker 1: should say, because for Richie things are continuing to maybe
Speaker 1: things are devolving for him and degrading well, and I
Speaker 1: can imagine that's also like a tour situation is an
Speaker 1: enabling situation if you're prone to drug abuse or alcohol abuse,
Speaker 1: excess and kind of access, and then you know, maybe
Speaker 1: that drug usage or that alcohol usage leads to your
Speaker 1: spiral of self harm. Like there's no I mean, that's
Speaker 1: it's a hard environment to be in. I'm sure. Oh
Speaker 1: you know you think that he was doing enough self
Speaker 1: harm just with all the boozing. You think that you
Speaker 1: think that would have been enough. And those hangovers, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's gotta hurt just about as bad as not a
Speaker 1: bunch of cut it's a that's that's a that's a
Speaker 1: slippery slope, sir. And it's a vicious circle. And and
Speaker 1: you know, and we talked about before that the band
Speaker 1: really was supportive of him to do whatever he needed
Speaker 1: to do to make himself, as they would say better there.
Speaker 1: I've got a quote here from Nicky Wire who he
Speaker 1: is one of the band members, and he told in
Speaker 1: an interview this was after Richie's disappearance. He said, we
Speaker 1: told Ritchie he could do whatever he wanted just right,
Speaker 1: just come to the studio, just tour, just whatever he
Speaker 1: needed to do to feel better. But he still wanted
Speaker 1: to be in the band end ut. So where as
Speaker 1: they said take it easy, do what you want ease
Speaker 1: into things. He dove right back in all the way.
Speaker 1: He didn't. He didn't ease in or work it in
Speaker 1: at all, and that that couldn't have helped while they
Speaker 1: were on tour. Um and this is for their European tour.
Speaker 1: This is in November. I'm sorry I pause because I
Speaker 1: just was suddenly thinking about this as I'm reading it.
Speaker 1: Is Richie somehow gets ahold of a butcher's knife, and
Speaker 1: the band finds him with that knife, and he tells
Speaker 1: them what his plan is, which is his plan is
Speaker 1: to take the butcher's knife and cut his fingers off
Speaker 1: so that he does not have to be on stage
Speaker 1: anymore pretending to play, because he knows well that he
Speaker 1: has unplugged during every show. And I can only imagine
Speaker 1: what that would feel like to be up there in
Speaker 1: front of screaming crowds mining the whole time. I can
Speaker 1: see how that would take a toll a long better
Speaker 1: approach would have been to take guitar lessons rather than
Speaker 1: cut your fingers off. That's how I would have approached it,
Speaker 1: but again at differently. Yep, it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a motive of approach for it now obviously than
Speaker 1: the band. The band found him, they stopped him. He
Speaker 1: did not go through with cutting his fingers off um.
Speaker 1: He did, however, continue to self harm or self self mutilate.
Speaker 1: After a show in Amsterdam on the November, Richie cut
Speaker 1: himself vertically down his chest, which, according to the reporting,
Speaker 1: required thirty six stitches to put back together. Which that's
Speaker 1: a that's a decent sized cot left. He's not nothing, no,
Speaker 1: but as far as like a chest wound goes, but
Speaker 1: it's got to be deep enough to require stitches. And
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, if if I cut myself with
Speaker 1: an just you know, accidentally flicked myself with a razor blade,
Speaker 1: I'd probably not again stitches. But it's got to be
Speaker 1: deep enough. You know, You've got to go through many
Speaker 1: layers of skin for him to want to do that.
Speaker 1: So the point is he does this. They're still on
Speaker 1: tour and on the third or the first of December,
Speaker 1: Nikki goes outside of their hotel in Hamburg, Germany and
Speaker 1: finds Ritchie with his face covered in blood because he's
Speaker 1: been banging his head against the side of the building.
Speaker 1: At that point, the band knew there was trouble. They
Speaker 1: canceled the rest of the tour. They did what really
Speaker 1: excellent friends would have done, yes, and they all went
Speaker 1: home and they took him home. I you know, I
Speaker 1: think about this case and I think about like Kurt Cobain,
Speaker 1: and I think about how, like how it makes me
Speaker 1: sad a little bit because they think if Kurt Cobain
Speaker 1: had had the kind of like really serious support system
Speaker 1: that Richie had, like he probably I mean, he may
Speaker 1: not have, but I think he would have been in
Speaker 1: a better situation. So you know, that's always interesting for me.
Speaker 1: That's a good boy, Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I
Speaker 1: think that there's a number of That's the hard part
Speaker 1: with fame and situations like that is it's a lot
Speaker 1: of people after the fact that have realized how caught
Speaker 1: up they get in it well, and so they lose
Speaker 1: touch with all those other things and all those other people.
Speaker 1: I mean, the manic street street teacher teachers walked away
Speaker 1: from a ton of money when they walked away from
Speaker 1: the rest of their tour. I mean, they forfeit that
Speaker 1: they may have even been liable for some of the
Speaker 1: the expenses in cared and they did that because they thought,
Speaker 1: this is our friend and he needs help. Away from it.
Speaker 1: At the same time, they were probably their temperates were
Speaker 1: getting a little shorter with every one of these incidents.
Speaker 1: They're probably maybe, but they could have just said, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're out, and they didn't do that. No, but they
Speaker 1: were probably at least getting somewhat exasperated. They were supportive,
Speaker 1: but at the same time they're probably richer. But I like, frankly,
Speaker 1: if it were like you guys, I would just be like,
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna lose me a ton of money,
Speaker 1: So like you just go home. I'm gonna stay here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, like that's just that's that's a
Speaker 1: tip of human behavior. It's it's really admirable the way
Speaker 1: that they tried to take care of him. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they could have gone the way of was
Speaker 1: a g n R and Axel Guns and Rose and
Speaker 1: Axel Rose, I mean, Axl Rose was notorious for getting
Speaker 1: drunk and showing up late, being a total prima donna
Speaker 1: until eventionally, am I wrong and do either you remember
Speaker 1: this until eventually they kicked him to the curb. So
Speaker 1: you're allowed to listen to it. Yeah, okay, I It's
Speaker 1: been so long since I've read I just remember him
Speaker 1: doing stuff like that, but that's that's not important to
Speaker 1: her story here. So they took him home. To take
Speaker 1: him home. Everything for the remainder of the month of
Speaker 1: December seems good. Everything for the month of January seems good.
Speaker 1: And by that I mean that his friends and family
Speaker 1: and mates all say that nothing seems wrong. He's relaxing,
Speaker 1: he's seeing people. He doesn't seem to be you know,
Speaker 1: his behavior isn't that he's continuing to get completely blasted
Speaker 1: drunk and then harm himself. Like maybe he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's really on the road. He's on the road to recovery, exactly.
Speaker 1: The timing on this lab this next bit might have
Speaker 1: been a little bit too soon, but the Ritchie was
Speaker 1: and James Bradfield, who is another member of the band
Speaker 1: that's still around by the way, Oh yeah, no, they're
Speaker 1: they've still putting out albums there and there's still actually
Speaker 1: you know, it's really I find admirable is it's still
Speaker 1: the original three guys and Richie came on. What happens
Speaker 1: with Richie happens and those three stuck together. They've not
Speaker 1: brought on anybody since that I can tell. So it's
Speaker 1: been the same guys the whole time, and thanks guy.
Speaker 1: I've heard too that they give a quarter of their
Speaker 1: money to Richie's family. Other words, the royalties are divided
Speaker 1: up four ways and Richie's share goes that's great. You
Speaker 1: know they are well And I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: still doing that, Joe. I know that up until up
Speaker 1: until the time that he was declared legally dead, they
Speaker 1: were still depositing his portion of everything in an account
Speaker 1: for him in holding. Yeah, it's a significant amount of money.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of oh yeah, no, no, many many
Speaker 1: years of money. So yes. So, like I'm saying, though,
Speaker 1: is James Bradfield and he they're supposed to go on
Speaker 1: a promotional tour in America, and Richie had been on
Speaker 1: the phone with his mom and he had said that
Speaker 1: he wasn't too excited about the tour and he didn't
Speaker 1: really want to go or the promotional tour. But he
Speaker 1: didn't really want to go, but he's going to do
Speaker 1: it because he had to kind of kind of approach,
Speaker 1: which we've all had conversations like that, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. The
Speaker 1: pair check into the Embassy hotel on the thirty one
Speaker 1: of January, James and and Richie and Richie, yes not
Speaker 1: not Richie and his mom. Correct. Correct. They are supposed
Speaker 1: to leave the next day, which is February one, but
Speaker 1: instead on the first Richie checks out of his room
Speaker 1: and then makes several hour drive from London to Cardiff.
Speaker 1: And I am pretty sure that there's so there's a
Speaker 1: obviously a bunch of embassy hotels all over England, but
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that they would have been flying out
Speaker 1: of Heathrow. They were saying, like the embassy at the
Speaker 1: airport or by water or something like that. I can't
Speaker 1: remember now that's fine, I mean it doesn't probably don't
Speaker 1: need to know exactly where, but it was London. I
Speaker 1: was in the London area. So he makes a several
Speaker 1: hour drive from there back to his flattened Cardiff. When
Speaker 1: he did left, he took his wallet and his passport
Speaker 1: and his car keys. Um. I think they said that
Speaker 1: he left behind. I can't remember if he took or
Speaker 1: left behind some prozac. And he also took with him
Speaker 1: twenty eight hundred pounds which he had been slowly collecting
Speaker 1: theoretically in preparation for this trip to America. He was
Speaker 1: because he was he was going to the A T
Speaker 1: M and getting two hundred pounds a day because that
Speaker 1: was his limit. So theoretically he was taking it where
Speaker 1: he's getting it all in in prep for the trip.
Speaker 1: You know, he's gonna converted to the US dollars. A
Speaker 1: little walking around money. Not a bad idea, yeah, Bradfield,
Speaker 1: I mean, he had no choice. He had to go.
Speaker 1: So he got on the plane and he went to America.
Speaker 1: And he said he hoped that Richie would just, you know,
Speaker 1: come with senses and show up. It sounds like Richie
Speaker 1: kind of did that sometimes. It was a bit flighty
Speaker 1: at times. He just like wander off and then be like,
Speaker 1: oh here I am. Yeah. On the next day, which
Speaker 1: would be the second of February, the Manic Street Preachers
Speaker 1: manager files missing person's report. From that point on, things
Speaker 1: get a heck of a lot harder to track. They're
Speaker 1: not nearly as exact as a lot of what we've
Speaker 1: talked about so far. After the second supposedly, Ritchie was
Speaker 1: spotted in the passport office in Newport, which is in Wales. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's bad, it's east of Cardiff. I want it looks
Speaker 1: like it's about an hour or so drive maybe away,
Speaker 1: but he supposedly spotted there. He's also said to have
Speaker 1: been spotted by a fan at the Newport bus station
Speaker 1: and then so those are two fan sightings or regular sightings.
Speaker 1: And there's also there's a taxi driver that pops up
Speaker 1: in this and we're gonna talk about him now and
Speaker 1: again later. But the short version of the taxi driver
Speaker 1: is that on the seventh of February, he says he
Speaker 1: picked up a man who he believed was Ritchie from
Speaker 1: the King's Hotel in Newport and then drove him around
Speaker 1: the area for what sounds like at least an hour,
Speaker 1: and people say that he was probably taking it if
Speaker 1: it was Richie, taking him to see his old haunts
Speaker 1: in neighborhoods and stuff like that, before the driver eventually
Speaker 1: dropped him off at the Severn Service station, at which
Speaker 1: point the passenger pays the sixty eight pound fair in cash. Now,
Speaker 1: I find some issues with that destination, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about that in theory. So we're gonna hold off
Speaker 1: on the cab driver portion till then. Okay, And by
Speaker 1: the way, that the seven service station is arrest area, correct,
Speaker 1: and we're we're gonna go into some more detail on
Speaker 1: that as well, because it plays into some of the
Speaker 1: local things that are around in the area where the
Speaker 1: last belief sightings are. Actually, we're gonna talk about it
Speaker 1: right now. Okay, Ritchie's Vauxhall Cavalier. It arrived at that
Speaker 1: at that same service station, the seven service station, on
Speaker 1: the fourteenth of February, and the Vauxhall Cavaliers a car.
Speaker 1: It is a car. It was reported as abandoned on
Speaker 1: the seventeenth of February. By the way, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a several hour parking limit at this station, which is
Speaker 1: why after three days they consider it abandoned. And then
Speaker 1: it was it was collected by the police. You know,
Speaker 1: they took it, they towed it. Sorry, I just looked
Speaker 1: up what a Vauxhall Cavalier looks like, thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be some like super cool car, and
Speaker 1: it's like a crappy letl like, it's it's not a
Speaker 1: fancy car. No, not at all. It's like what you're
Speaker 1: driving high school something like that. Sorry I interrupted. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's okay, okay, let's let's explain. Because Joe actually had
Speaker 1: started on this route, and then I shut him down
Speaker 1: much too quickly, and I apologize for that. Is we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about what the Severn service station is
Speaker 1: because here in the US, we're all used to rest
Speaker 1: stops which have hopefully working restrooms at them. Well, and
Speaker 1: if you're also lucky, they might have vending machines for
Speaker 1: you know, snacks and drinks, and those may or may
Speaker 1: not exist or may or may not work. The ones
Speaker 1: in the Midwest are pretty nice. Sometimes they even have like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't remember what they even call them. They call
Speaker 1: them like sky ramps or something like that. And you
Speaker 1: like exit and you park, and it's like a couple
Speaker 1: of restaurants and a service station and like blah, you've
Speaker 1: never seen them. They're like above, they're like an overpass
Speaker 1: kind of situation. Okay, that's super cool, but they're few
Speaker 1: and far between. Okay, in Oregon it's yeah. And some
Speaker 1: places that I've lived and traveled to around the country,
Speaker 1: I've always just seen the basics. You're lucky. If there
Speaker 1: is somebody selling coffee for donations, kind of call that
Speaker 1: crack coffee. I do have to say that that what
Speaker 1: do you got? Those things are wonderful. Especially I am
Speaker 1: happy to stop and deal with the scheezy guy. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to complain too much. Yeah, okay, So in
Speaker 1: the in the UK there maybe not like that. They're
Speaker 1: not like that because I've been to them. So what
Speaker 1: they are instead is much like you talked about in
Speaker 1: the Midwest, where there will be a restaurant or two
Speaker 1: or three, sometimes in the same building. Sometimes they're not.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's even a you know, a shop or two
Speaker 1: selling chatsky from the local area. You know, look at
Speaker 1: the such and such and such and get it on
Speaker 1: a key ring. I mean, like there's things, and it's
Speaker 1: it's likely to be populated by, if nobody else, some
Speaker 1: Lory drivers and the employees at the location, so it's
Speaker 1: it's not a desert like we're used to. Well, that's
Speaker 1: part of the reason that they they're really they're kind
Speaker 1: of well monitored. Typically. I know they're not all I
Speaker 1: read some of the reviews of different stations that I
Speaker 1: get that they are not all the same. But there's
Speaker 1: gonna be people there and that's why they are really
Speaker 1: able to do a good job of monitoring cars when
Speaker 1: they when they're there, because people are coming in and out,
Speaker 1: and they want to make sure that nobody's squatting or
Speaker 1: camping at that location because that's rarely allowed. Hopefully. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I don't know what every one of
Speaker 1: them is like, but that's okay. This particular station though,
Speaker 1: this the Severn Service station, is next to properly named
Speaker 1: the Severn Bridge, which crosses can you guess the Severn River?
Speaker 1: The Severn yea a Severn valley of canyon? It is
Speaker 1: river Severn, Yes, Severn and Wells's value of death. I forgot.
Speaker 1: I forgot in in England, it's it's River Severn, not
Speaker 1: the It's not the Severn River, it's opposite. Everything has
Speaker 1: to be a little different every English. I actually bragged
Speaker 1: people all the time, like did you know that I
Speaker 1: am completely fluent in reading the Queen's English? And they
Speaker 1: always look at me like they don't understand the joke?
Speaker 1: Do you have to read it in her voice? Though? Too? Hi?
Speaker 1: Do you do? Okay, we're way off track. I can't
Speaker 1: tell which one of these sounds more like the Queen.
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's tough, we're really good at it,
Speaker 1: but we're way off top. So so here there's a bridge, right, there. Yes,
Speaker 1: So the point is River Severn flows, it eventually flows
Speaker 1: into the Bristol Channel, which eventually flows into the ocean,
Speaker 1: because England is it's his island. Yes, they all kind
Speaker 1: of well, they're all pretty close to the don't know
Speaker 1: if you know they're not. But almost every single river
Speaker 1: who into the ocean eventually a river which goes into
Speaker 1: the ocean. Exactly. Sorry. Seven bridge a suspension bridge. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty big one. Actually it's scott Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 1: cool looking and it's a suspension bridge. And it goes
Speaker 1: from the Bristol side to the Newport side, and Newport
Speaker 1: is on the north west side of the bridge, and
Speaker 1: I believe southeast is the Bristol side, and the service
Speaker 1: station itself is on the southeast end of the bridge.
Speaker 1: There's a park on the other end, which according to
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that I've seen on the inn,
Speaker 1: it looks pretty nice. But what's important to understand about
Speaker 1: this is that, and this whole play into our theories
Speaker 1: is there is something about this particular suspension bridge, as
Speaker 1: there is with many tall bridges, it attracts people who
Speaker 1: are wanting to take their own lives. Well, it's probably
Speaker 1: because there's a really nice parking area at the southeast
Speaker 1: end of the bridge. Yeah, if they would just move
Speaker 1: that thing. No, well, I mean, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: the deck is a hundred and fifty feet above the water.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a drop or forty sevens that's a
Speaker 1: long ways down. Pretty good chance you're not going to
Speaker 1: survive that. So that's very attractive to someone who's intent
Speaker 1: is not to survive it. I still say it's a
Speaker 1: parking So, like I said, they collected his vehicle on
Speaker 1: the seventeenth of February, and and that's it. From from
Speaker 1: no point forward on was was any sign of Richie
Speaker 1: concretely found nobody. When they found his car, they could
Speaker 1: tell that it had been lived in for at least
Speaker 1: several days with burger rappers and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: not necessarily not even necessarily by rich food rappers. Food
Speaker 1: rappers could have been fast food rappers. Anybody could have
Speaker 1: moved into his car. The thing that makes people think
Speaker 1: that probably didn't happen though Joe is that there were
Speaker 1: Phoe those of his family in there strewn about in
Speaker 1: the car, which leads people to think that he must
Speaker 1: have been hanging out sleeping in his car and looking
Speaker 1: at family reminiscing, but we don't know that for sure.
Speaker 1: Over the years, Uh, just like with Elvis and any
Speaker 1: other famous person, there are sightings. There have been sightings
Speaker 1: of Richie, and he is very well traveled. According to
Speaker 1: the sightings. He's been in the Canary Islands, He's been
Speaker 1: in Goa, India. Uh. He was apparently sited at the
Speaker 1: library in Newport, which is just a couple of miles
Speaker 1: away from where he disappeared several years later, So he's
Speaker 1: all over the map. Seems to be the go to
Speaker 1: spot for sighted people. Who but seriously, I w who
Speaker 1: else am I thinking of? It? Seems like I've heard
Speaker 1: of a couple of other people who disappeared, and we're
Speaker 1: also spotted and none other than go Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems to be the place to go. It does appear
Speaker 1: to be a popular, popular destination for it disappeared. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. So it's almost time to go into theories.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, we should probably take a
Speaker 1: quick break and listen to Richie's last album. So we're
Speaker 1: going to take a break and we'll be back in
Speaker 1: about fifty six minutes. Perfect. I cried because I had
Speaker 1: no shoes, and then I met a man who had
Speaker 1: no feet, and I said, hey, dude, give me your
Speaker 1: shoes and socks if you're not using them. Well, I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you that really improved things a lot, especially
Speaker 1: the socks, because it turns out the socks were not
Speaker 1: just your ordinary socks. They were Bombas, which you probably
Speaker 1: heard of if you're on the internet, especially for listening
Speaker 1: to podcasts. Bombas that spelled bomb ass. Bomba's other creation
Speaker 1: of Randy Goldberg and David Heath, who about four years
Speaker 1: ago I said they were going to redesign the sock
Speaker 1: and they did. They really really thought them well. And frankly,
Speaker 1: I'm wearing a pair of right now, and I truly am,
Speaker 1: and they're really good. I've been wearing them all day
Speaker 1: and that won't feel nearly as bad as socks typically
Speaker 1: due by twelve hours of my feet in them. They
Speaker 1: have premium socks, they have seven substantial improvements to the
Speaker 1: ordinary sock, and for every pair that they sell, this
Speaker 1: is a nice selling point, they donate a pair to
Speaker 1: those Indeed, they've already donated over two million pairs of
Speaker 1: socks so far, so that's a pretty cool thing. So
Speaker 1: if you need new socks, I don't think you can
Speaker 1: go wrong with Bomba's. So go to Bomba's dot com
Speaker 1: slash Sideways now and you can get off your first
Speaker 1: order you love the socks, or you get your money back.
Speaker 1: That's guaranteed. That's bombas dot Com. That's b O M
Speaker 1: b a s dot Com slash Sideways And we're back.
Speaker 1: Then does it really matter that he couldn't play the guitar.
Speaker 1: It's got some good beats, good rhythm. Now, I mean,
Speaker 1: do you ever see Bono playing the guitar? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he has those stupid glasses I don't think can see. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're in theories. We're going to start out with
Speaker 1: the most prominent theory out there, which is suicide. So
Speaker 1: from what and there's there's some back history to why
Speaker 1: this theory is so such a favorite. From what I've read,
Speaker 1: Wales was not exactly a prospering place in the eighties
Speaker 1: and growing up there really wasn't all that awesome because
Speaker 1: at eighties into the nineties, because if you remember back,
Speaker 1: there's Margaret Thatcher and she did she did some things
Speaker 1: where she reorganized industry, specifically coal mines, and that that
Speaker 1: really closed down the economy to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and it had some pretty negative impacts for a lot
Speaker 1: of blue collar workers. And so there was a lot
Speaker 1: of families who were you know, shortage on food, shortage
Speaker 1: on money, unemployment for years on end. Like it didn't
Speaker 1: do good things in Wales was not one of those
Speaker 1: places that got off scott free. It went for just
Speaker 1: like everybody what they were scott free. If you want
Speaker 1: to Scotch you went to Scotland. That I would say.
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time in Wales, and it's
Speaker 1: a it's a beautiful little country. I like Whales a lot.
Speaker 1: But the country is made of slate, which means that
Speaker 1: most of the houses abilities are also made of gray slate,
Speaker 1: which is very picturesque on a sunny day, but on
Speaker 1: a cloudy, rainy day it can be kind of just
Speaker 1: a little bit gray. And they have so many of them,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of them. Yeah, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean even then there's a certain beauty to it, but
Speaker 1: it's definitely more depressing than a sunny day in Wales
Speaker 1: for sure. Oh yeah, no, I mean we live in
Speaker 1: a town where it's cloudy and rainy for months and
Speaker 1: months Onunday and I get it. But imagine living in
Speaker 1: the same town and all the buildings and houses are gray. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really yeah, that's that's a that's a very good point.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Wales, don't be it, don't be upset.
Speaker 1: I still like your country a lot. Yeah, it's very picturesque. Now.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of creatives, Richie was able to take
Speaker 1: the things that he went through in his life and
Speaker 1: turn them into his music. I mean, that's how That's
Speaker 1: something that he drew upon to make his lyrics. So
Speaker 1: there's a positive in this negative. Um, he's not the
Speaker 1: only one that did it from the coal strikes stuff.
Speaker 1: So for anybody who knows Chumbawamba, they their their hit
Speaker 1: tub Thumping, and that is also based on what happened
Speaker 1: in the coal industry. I get knocked down again. You're
Speaker 1: never going to keep me down. That was like my favorite.
Speaker 1: That was one of the first albums I ever bought.
Speaker 1: I love that album. That is fun The rest of
Speaker 1: the album really good. Yeah. I Actually it's funny is
Speaker 1: that when I was when I was doing my research,
Speaker 1: I turned that on when I came across that this bit,
Speaker 1: which I've known for a while I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I should listen to it, thinking well, I'll just keep
Speaker 1: reading this, and I found it was impossible to do
Speaker 1: while it was playing You Got you Gotta sing along? Well, no,
Speaker 1: I just said to posit. Okay, I did that instead,
Speaker 1: because it's in the office. I gotta, I gotta, like,
Speaker 1: I gotta listen to this song. It's and too long
Speaker 1: as I've heard that, I will serenade you later. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll pull it up on on whatever website we need to.
Speaker 1: So the thing is like we talked about before. So
Speaker 1: there's that. And then Richie he had been experiencing depression
Speaker 1: for many years and he was very open about it.
Speaker 1: He didn't hide it away, and I to a degree,
Speaker 1: I believe that might be one of the things that
Speaker 1: drew some people to him, as he was open about it.
Speaker 1: He talked openly about I'm going through this thing and
Speaker 1: this is what it is, and I'm going to deal
Speaker 1: with it, which he was at least at the end
Speaker 1: he was on prozac. Have some podcaster friends who attribute
Speaker 1: their success greatly to being able to be open about
Speaker 1: the issues that they have gone through them. So I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's absolutely accurate. I think people like to connect
Speaker 1: with people who are going through similar things. So there's
Speaker 1: a quote here, um which which I will give, which
Speaker 1: is something that Richie Gosh, when did he I don't
Speaker 1: remember when he said this. This was in the last
Speaker 1: year or so before he died, if I am correct,
Speaker 1: And it is quote by the way before. Actually it's
Speaker 1: him talking about his thoughts on suicide, because that's the
Speaker 1: theory we're in. And he says in terms of the
Speaker 1: S word that does not enter my mind. It never
Speaker 1: has done in terms of an attempt because I am
Speaker 1: stronger than that. I might be a weak person, but
Speaker 1: I can take pain unquote. Yeah, that comes back to
Speaker 1: kind of my the thing I was talking about earlier
Speaker 1: with this self harm versus like attempted suicide, and that
Speaker 1: it does sound like to me that he may have
Speaker 1: driven himself to his rock bottom through another route. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean it also sounds like he wasn't self
Speaker 1: harming to be killing himself. He was self harming to
Speaker 1: experience that pain in his life for whatever reason. And
Speaker 1: so you know, I mean, that's that's not uncommon. It's
Speaker 1: not uncommon for people to self harm and have no
Speaker 1: thought of suicide. Yeah, I don't. I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: how much of a correlation there is between the two,
Speaker 1: to be I don't believe that the experts there might
Speaker 1: be really no correlation as far as I know, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I I don't know how much of it is
Speaker 1: the cyclical nature of things, the escalation, like we've talked
Speaker 1: about in a lot of different things. I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: I would think that if you're that that, at that point,
Speaker 1: in that space where you're harming yourself, you would probably
Speaker 1: statistically be a little more likely to commit suicide than
Speaker 1: the average person, probably probably, But beyond that, I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure that it's a strong correlation. Um So, so
Speaker 1: there's that, that's he that's there's his stance on suicide
Speaker 1: and what he said, and maybe he was just putting
Speaker 1: up airs and he was not as strong as he thought.
Speaker 1: One other thing that people point to is the lyrics
Speaker 1: for the Holy Bible. People say that the lyrics on
Speaker 1: that album were actually Richie Edwards suici note because there
Speaker 1: was no actually there was no physical note. You know,
Speaker 1: you always see the note pinned left somewhere that it
Speaker 1: was his opus to his life. Correct that, and he
Speaker 1: had also apparently for like six months, he had been
Speaker 1: collecting works that he found important, and he had him
Speaker 1: in a three ring binder, and he had been organizing
Speaker 1: it and copying this stuff. And then he went and
Speaker 1: made copies of all of it and gave it to
Speaker 1: the other three members of the band, like it was
Speaker 1: a really big important thing that he had been working
Speaker 1: on for six months, which is coincidentally, once he gave
Speaker 1: it to them, it wasn't very long after that that
Speaker 1: he disappeared, that along with the lyrics on the album,
Speaker 1: it would be interesting. Well, but that's the trick I mean,
Speaker 1: is that it was important to him before he disappeared.
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't mean that he killed himself or doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that he was preparing to leave for a different
Speaker 1: I mean, like they equally plausible he could have said.
Speaker 1: Mean they could have been a sign of this is
Speaker 1: all this literature. I want you to have this, all
Speaker 1: this great material. Yeah, I gotta leave the band, not
Speaker 1: to kill myself or not to start in your life.
Speaker 1: But I think, what are you getting at, Devin Craim,
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave the band. No, I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: He was just saying goodbye, And he could have been
Speaker 1: saying goodbye, like I'm I'm about to go to America
Speaker 1: or the you know, Galopcos Islands or wherever and you know,
Speaker 1: be there, or I'm going to kill myself and this
Speaker 1: is the last time. I mean it's to me, all
Speaker 1: that says is he was preparing to say goodbye and
Speaker 1: like leave something for them. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: to me that he killed himself or you didn't know well,
Speaker 1: And there is some of that that typical goodbye behavior
Speaker 1: in his actions during the month of January, because he
Speaker 1: does go see a lot of his family during that time.
Speaker 1: So people said, well he was he was doing his
Speaker 1: final goodbyes. There's the whole thing with the trip with
Speaker 1: the that's supposedly on the seventh of February. There's the
Speaker 1: cab driver. Okay, so there's a lot of problem. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the cab driver says he picks him up at
Speaker 1: this hotel in Newport and drives him all over and
Speaker 1: then drops him off at the seven service station, which
Speaker 1: I have two questions. One, okay, so where's his car
Speaker 1: and when did this this guy come forward? And I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that this guy didn't the day he's made
Speaker 1: this sighting come forward. I'm sure a week or seven
Speaker 1: later he saw something in the news when oh I
Speaker 1: picked that blowup in my cab blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Well even more than that, he dropped him off on
Speaker 1: a station where his car might have been. So why
Speaker 1: didn't Richie just drive himself on this reminiscing Like why
Speaker 1: did he spend all the money and potentially you know,
Speaker 1: exposing why why? Why? Yeah, I didn't he just drive himself?
Speaker 1: Hard to say maybe somebody was using his car or
Speaker 1: car Well, yeah, okay, I mean yeah, there's there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of weird things. So I really, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: immediately ready to discount some of the sightings prior, the
Speaker 1: ones that happened prior to the whole cabs situation. I'm
Speaker 1: willing to just throw out entirely to kill. But also,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably worth mentioning that Richie is not
Speaker 1: like a crazy unique looking He's not nondescript, but it's
Speaker 1: not like there's something about him where you would immediate
Speaker 1: look at him and be like, it's not like foot
Speaker 1: seven with blue hair. Yeah, he's not even that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, he's kind of an average looking dude, and yeah, certainly,
Speaker 1: you know, for performances and stuff. He put on the
Speaker 1: makeup and did the whole show, but without the makeup
Speaker 1: and just as a normal person, Like he just kind
Speaker 1: of looked like an ormal person. Especiating how many cavies
Speaker 1: listening to the manic street Preachers. Yeah, yeah, I really
Speaker 1: think this is all boils down to newspaper coverage of
Speaker 1: the story. But the Daily Mail, the Daily Mail, so
Speaker 1: that that really, you know, the proximity to the bridge,
Speaker 1: which is a notorious place for people to commit suicide from,
Speaker 1: along with the stuff we talked about there, that is
Speaker 1: the sum total of what I've got for the suicide theory.
Speaker 1: We do actually have two more theories to go though,
Speaker 1: so we're not completely done. Okay, let's go to the
Speaker 1: next one, which is he ran away to start an
Speaker 1: entirely new life. I mean, why not? I want this
Speaker 1: to be the actually what it is? This is the one, right,
Speaker 1: this is whenever we do disappearances, were like, and this
Speaker 1: is the one I wanted to be, Yes, but we
Speaker 1: don't think it is. Uh, I'm not particular case. Well,
Speaker 1: and before we went to the break, we talked about
Speaker 1: the fact that There were all kinds of sightings of Ritchie,
Speaker 1: and most of them, of course in the We're all
Speaker 1: happened in the first couple of years, when the story
Speaker 1: was rather fresh. Those sightings are always fueled by the
Speaker 1: idea that he left, and I have to believe that
Speaker 1: will think that Richie Edwards left the band and fame
Speaker 1: because he simply could not take the rock and roll
Speaker 1: lifestyle anymore and what it was doing to him mentally
Speaker 1: and physically. He had to get away. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's what this whole thing is always about. There are
Speaker 1: a few things that make it plausible, first of which
Speaker 1: is the location of where they found his car, which
Speaker 1: is at the seven service station, which is on the
Speaker 1: M forty eight, which is a spur of the M four,
Speaker 1: which is a giant, major thorough highway. So it could
Speaker 1: he could very easily have stopped there and dumped his
Speaker 1: car and call the cab thumbed ride walked away, even
Speaker 1: like there's a whole bunch of ways to to then
Speaker 1: go over to a bus station and catch a bus away,
Speaker 1: Like there's a whole bunch of ways he could have
Speaker 1: left on his own under his own power. While the
Speaker 1: you know, like we said, while the Manu Street Preachers
Speaker 1: were popular, not all that unique of an individual in appearance,
Speaker 1: so also like we're popular, but well, I need I've
Speaker 1: never ever had somebody be like, your voice sounds kind
Speaker 1: of familiar. I mean, like Joe has such a distinctive voice,
Speaker 1: and that's never happened to you, right, Like, nobody's ever
Speaker 1: come up to you and been like, hey, sorry, you
Speaker 1: have a very distinctive voice. Like that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: did happen took once. But I mean I have friends
Speaker 1: who are on things and I you know, I'm out
Speaker 1: with them and sometimes they get like super mob recognized
Speaker 1: and other times they don't. It's just kind of like
Speaker 1: it's'd be easy, especially if you have your aesthetic again
Speaker 1: with like the makeup and all that stuff, and if
Speaker 1: he's wearing a ball cap and regular everyday close, he's
Speaker 1: not going to stand at any way shape or for
Speaker 1: the other thing is that we talked about this before,
Speaker 1: is that supposedly Richie had on him twenty eight hundred
Speaker 1: pounds because he did yeah, even pulling money. He've been
Speaker 1: pulling money out of his bank account, hundred pounds inspendable cash.
Speaker 1: According to his sister, she says that he was taking
Speaker 1: that money out because his intention was to buy and
Speaker 1: pay for a desk for his his flattened cardiff. Now
Speaker 1: there's some problems with that. First of which is there's
Speaker 1: no record of him ever having paid for that, so
Speaker 1: the order doesn't you know, she says this, but there's
Speaker 1: no accounting of any store saying yeah we had that,
Speaker 1: or that's what he told her. Right. The other problem
Speaker 1: is is that you know, I mean, there's there's no receipt,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that, And he could have he could
Speaker 1: have been pulling it out and spending it every day,
Speaker 1: or he could have just been holding away and hanging
Speaker 1: on to it. Yeah, Britain is actually kind of expensive,
Speaker 1: so you know, I could see he could go to
Speaker 1: a well, actually it desfinitely cost half of what he
Speaker 1: had taken out. Four hundred pounds, Yeah, but there were
Speaker 1: many fourteen How do you can breeze through that pretty
Speaker 1: damn quick? You You could burn through it if you
Speaker 1: were not being frugal about your money, you could go
Speaker 1: through it very fast. You know. That's not that I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not that much money. It's not that much money,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not nothing to scoff at. I mean
Speaker 1: I could, if I was careful about it and I
Speaker 1: was traveling, I could make that money go for a
Speaker 1: decent amount of time. For reference, it's about six thousand
Speaker 1: dollars today, which again is it nothing, but it's not
Speaker 1: a lot. If your plan is I'm going to go
Speaker 1: start a new life somewhere, well, if you're going to
Speaker 1: start a new life, it had better be in the
Speaker 1: third world somewhere. But but okay, So if you remember, though,
Speaker 1: one of the sightings of Richie Edwards was at a
Speaker 1: passport office, so he could have been there to get
Speaker 1: a air quotes here new passport. Maybe he was had
Speaker 1: falsified a bunch of freaking documents. I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: that's what this theory. It's why people like this because
Speaker 1: it's so easy to say, wait, he went to the
Speaker 1: passport office. He then dumped his car and with his
Speaker 1: new passport, he got out of the country. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be on the Galoppa, was with the tortoises
Speaker 1: or or the Canary Islands with the don't know that
Speaker 1: that's what I want to But also I don't uh, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't want to believe is the
Speaker 1: final theory that Okay, wait, actually we're not quite done
Speaker 1: with this, this little start of new life thing. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things, as we noted at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the episode, this uh story has been suggested quite
Speaker 1: a few times by quite a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: I've looked into Richie's story before, and I had always
Speaker 1: assumed that Richie killed himself because and but until but
Speaker 1: this time around, since we detarted to actually talk about it,
Speaker 1: I looked into his life a little bit more. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I noted about him, you know,
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, he was very much in the
Speaker 1: literature and one of his favorite authors was was a
Speaker 1: French author, French poet named author Rambo. I Don'm sure
Speaker 1: you guys have heard of Rambo was, Yeah, Rambo was
Speaker 1: broken the poetry scene in the late nineteen century at
Speaker 1: the young age of about thirteen fourteen. Was a huge sensation.
Speaker 1: Uh totally like revolutionized poetry and lived a crazy life
Speaker 1: in many ways similar to Ritchie's, a little little kind
Speaker 1: of self destructive. After five years, about age nineteen, he
Speaker 1: gave up the poetry stuff and traveled the world and
Speaker 1: traveled all over Asia and the Middle East, and Africa
Speaker 1: and eventually took up residents in Harar, Abyssinia, which we
Speaker 1: now call Ethiopia today. So essentially he essentially disappeared. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a famous story out there about a Frenchman
Speaker 1: who actually used to know him, was on a ferry
Speaker 1: with a with a British not he was a Dutch guy,
Speaker 1: excuse me, who actually ran an import export business, and
Speaker 1: and the Dutch guy says, oh, I have a French
Speaker 1: guy working for me. His name is Arthur Rombo. And
Speaker 1: the French guy was a gog because well I met Rambo.
Speaker 1: I went to the same school as him. And by
Speaker 1: the way, everybody thinks he's dead because but no, he
Speaker 1: was living and her are Ethiopia than Abyssinia. Basically trading
Speaker 1: and coffee beans and elephant ivory and guns. He was.
Speaker 1: He was an arms street. He was an armstealer. Interesting
Speaker 1: the guy goes from being a poet to being an
Speaker 1: arms stealer after after reading about Ritchie and how fascinated
Speaker 1: Richie was with Rambo and also the other one. Another
Speaker 1: interesting thing about him is is the ark of their
Speaker 1: careers five years both of them before they checked out.
Speaker 1: And so again this doesn't prove anything, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: mean again, it's like it is. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: similar thing with like the Asha degree or Asia degree case,
Speaker 1: where we were like, well, she did read that book
Speaker 1: where they went on an adventure, and so maybe she
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we I think this is a
Speaker 1: common thing to do with disappearances like this, and I'm
Speaker 1: not not to discredit it, right, but I think it
Speaker 1: is pretty common for us to kind of like reach
Speaker 1: for those straws of like, well, this person like this author,
Speaker 1: like I I like some authors that if I disappeared,
Speaker 1: people could be like, oh yeah, and she liked this author,
Speaker 1: so clearly she went off to emulate that life if
Speaker 1: I disappear. It's yeah there, yeah, No. There's a big
Speaker 1: difference though, and that is Asia read this book and
Speaker 1: then disappeared. It's like it's not like she had been
Speaker 1: reading the book for years and years and years or
Speaker 1: reading other books by this author and again but then't
Speaker 1: there one there was another one that we I feel like,
Speaker 1: this is just something we've talked about a couple of times,
Speaker 1: I think, but two d episodes later, we've probably said
Speaker 1: every one of these words at least four times. This
Speaker 1: exact same order, probably even yea true that. But the
Speaker 1: thing about Rambo is that is that his story was
Speaker 1: not fiction. It wasn't a kid's fantasy. This guy actually
Speaker 1: lived in real life. And the thing about Rambo is
Speaker 1: that his life after he left literary scene in France
Speaker 1: and one abroad. I'm sure in some ways it was harder,
Speaker 1: but his life was a lot more interesting. He actually
Speaker 1: a comp a lot more cool stuff after he dropped
Speaker 1: out of society, disappeared. He was that he explored hitherto
Speaker 1: unexplored places. He was only the third white man ever
Speaker 1: to even set foot the town in the city of Harror,
Speaker 1: where he established himself as a successful businessman. I can
Speaker 1: see where if you're all in despair about your life
Speaker 1: and everything, you said, well, I can go jump off
Speaker 1: a bridge and kill myself or leave the bourgeois like
Speaker 1: or why not just go to Why don't just go
Speaker 1: to the ends of the earth and start over, And
Speaker 1: if it truly sucks, that, don't kill myself. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not totally convinced, But all the saying is I
Speaker 1: would like to interview his family and make them bring
Speaker 1: out their passports. I want to look at their stamps.
Speaker 1: I want to see where they've been going. But yeah, again,
Speaker 1: and and the coincidence of it all five years, both
Speaker 1: of them, I got to wonder, just a little convenient,
Speaker 1: I'll give you that. Okay, okay, So what's this horrible
Speaker 1: last theory? This horrible last theory like that the one?
Speaker 1: This is the one that I say w T too.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, I was. I was really kind of
Speaker 1: surprised by this because this theory is that Richie was
Speaker 1: knocked off by the New World Order. Basically, yeah, the
Speaker 1: basics of it art that, uh, the n W took
Speaker 1: him out because he he knew too much and he
Speaker 1: was trying to warn the world about what the WO
Speaker 1: was doing through his lyrics. Did you did you find
Speaker 1: this theory on a website that had like a black
Speaker 1: background with like lashing normal bs? Ok? Yeah, So so
Speaker 1: according to this theory, an example of what Richie was
Speaker 1: doing and the things that he was bringing forth to
Speaker 1: people's attention are in the lyrics of the song that
Speaker 1: he wrote which is on the Holy Bible. And that
Speaker 1: song is the title is if White America told the
Speaker 1: truth for one day, it's world would fall apart. I've
Speaker 1: read the lyrics did your world fall apart? I don't
Speaker 1: get it, America, I am what did you read it
Speaker 1: for an entire day? No, I did not read it
Speaker 1: for an entire day, but I did read it several times.
Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you that I don't get it.
Speaker 1: And the remainder of this theory is really loose. I
Speaker 1: think it's the best way to say it. Nothing explains
Speaker 1: how Richie found out about the New World Order, what
Speaker 1: the real threat was. How did they actually take him out?
Speaker 1: Did they like throw him off the bridge or shove
Speaker 1: him off the bridge, or did they throw him in
Speaker 1: some deep dark hole somewhere and his car for him,
Speaker 1: like they planted the car. They didn't throw him off
Speaker 1: the bridge, kidding, No, don't get your hands dirty that way.
Speaker 1: Wet work is below them. You know. They tortured him first,
Speaker 1: try to get to find out what they knew. Probably,
Speaker 1: But this this is a very cookie theory. And I
Speaker 1: was re really really surprised to find it out there
Speaker 1: that reading and interpreting lyrics can lead you to wherever
Speaker 1: you want to go. What is that website that is
Speaker 1: out there, Devon, You may remember the name of it.
Speaker 1: There's a website out there where people review the lyrics
Speaker 1: of songs and then give the interpretations of what they
Speaker 1: say those mean. Does this ring a bell to you? Okay,
Speaker 1: there was this. I've actually gone to this website because
Speaker 1: there's songs like I don't understand what what the point is?
Speaker 1: What are they trying to say? Like I hear the words,
Speaker 1: I don't get the meaning. It's fun. It also doesn't
Speaker 1: work because you get seven hundred different interpretations of what
Speaker 1: that actually means. I mean, that song is just a
Speaker 1: criticism of the kind of weird corporate American lifestyle it see,
Speaker 1: and the other the other person said that it is
Speaker 1: a celebration of wholesome white America and it's what we
Speaker 1: should strive to No, I'm kidding, but it just said
Speaker 1: it's super easy. I mean, like all you have to
Speaker 1: do is like kind of look at the lyrics and
Speaker 1: he's just like it's big Mac and it's politics of
Speaker 1: the time, and I mean, yeah, it's it's very just
Speaker 1: joining it is, yeah, because he's not trying to say
Speaker 1: something right, because that's what I'm like, I don't think
Speaker 1: that this actually does what this theory says. It's the post,
Speaker 1: but you gotta understand, I mean I see this in
Speaker 1: our politics all the time, and I hear people saying
Speaker 1: stuff that makes utterly no sense to me, but I
Speaker 1: know it makes sense to them. It's just said, well,
Speaker 1: they live in a different world than I do, which
Speaker 1: again is like fine, but off of one song, you're
Speaker 1: going to kill a man because he knows too much.
Speaker 1: He said other stuff too about the New World But
Speaker 1: the fascinating thing about the New World Order is it's
Speaker 1: more than any other any other conspiracy theory. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a roar shock blood conspiracy theory. It, I mean,
Speaker 1: at least the lizard people they yeah, but the New
Speaker 1: World Order. But which basically, by the way, new World
Speaker 1: Order was a throwaway phrase in a George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush speech that he gave, like, you know, right after
Speaker 1: the collapse of the Soviet Union. It wasn't that, Senior,
Speaker 1: not junior? Yeah, Senior, Yeah, George Bush, senior Bush. And
Speaker 1: it's amazing after after hearing him say that so many
Speaker 1: years ago, how many people ran with that. People, people
Speaker 1: of all stripes too, you know, interpreted all kinds of
Speaker 1: different ways, every one of them. Sinister. Well, here's these
Speaker 1: Here's what I know about the New World Order is
Speaker 1: that I don't think they killed him, because we did
Speaker 1: discover the truth about the Denver International Airport and we
Speaker 1: are still alive. Well, somebody is still doing the podcast.
Speaker 1: I hate to admit this right now to both of
Speaker 1: you because I'm actually in the higher program than the
Speaker 1: pair of you. But we are all a eyes and
Speaker 1: we are all pre programmed, and they have just emulated
Speaker 1: our voices pretty much. Yeah, which is why this podcast
Speaker 1: will go on indefinitely. So and by the way, and
Speaker 1: by the way, up yours, you're the subroutine, not me,
Speaker 1: I just the observer server. All right. Well, well that's
Speaker 1: all I've got for Richie. Ever, do you guys have
Speaker 1: any other bits or bubbles on the start? I'm still
Speaker 1: saying if I were, I'm not going to close it
Speaker 1: until somebody has gone to Hurraar, Ethiopia and and how
Speaker 1: to look see it. I see if Richie living there.
Speaker 1: I deeply believe he's somewhere tropical and living his life,
Speaker 1: his best life. Happy. Okay, he's a tortoise farmer. Okay,
Speaker 1: doak Well, none of the white van that is observing
Speaker 1: us has left. We're going to give people the important
Speaker 1: information because they can't hear it. First off, you probably
Speaker 1: want to know where to find any details the research
Speaker 1: bits about the episode, because we always put up some
Speaker 1: of our research that will all be along with this
Speaker 1: episode and all pasted in future episodes on our website.
Speaker 1: The website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. On the
Speaker 1: right hand side of our website, you're also going to
Speaker 1: see links to merchandise. We've got red Bubble and Zazzle
Speaker 1: for sure, words and coffee mugs and all kinds of
Speaker 1: fun stuff. That's all there. By the way, We've got
Speaker 1: a more it's not totally new, but we gotta put
Speaker 1: out a new shirt design recently. Yes, yes, we did
Speaker 1: the word design. Yeah, we got the word now. But
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty really popular. Yeah, people are liking it.
Speaker 1: We are going to be totally accessible on social media,
Speaker 1: so we were on Facebook with the Facebook page and
Speaker 1: the Facebook group. We are on Twitter at Thinking Sideways
Speaker 1: without the G in the middle Twitter's character limit. We
Speaker 1: have a subreddit as well, and if you want to
Speaker 1: get a hold of us directly, we have the email address,
Speaker 1: so you can send us an email at Thinking Sideways
Speaker 1: Podcast at gmail dot com. Episode suggestions, questions, praise, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you want, like send it through to us criticism
Speaker 1: that okay, and then maybe not. Yeah, well you can
Speaker 1: find us the mode criticism put attention devon again. That's
Speaker 1: a big line. You can find us for download and
Speaker 1: subscription just about anywhere. So of course a lot of
Speaker 1: people use iTunes or Stitcher or any other place that
Speaker 1: you find good podcasts or quality podcasts. That we're going
Speaker 1: to be there, fine podcast. She likes the word fine.
Speaker 1: I don't like the word fine because everything is fine, fine,
Speaker 1: like a fine wine. I'm not fine, it's fine, okay,
Speaker 1: got it all right, So we are aged at this point,
Speaker 1: we get well aged. Yes, I okay, Well that is
Speaker 1: all that we have got ladies in German. So we're
Speaker 1: going to go ahead and close this one up and
Speaker 1: we will talk to you next week. And I staring
Speaker 1: at each other scene who's going to go first? Go ahead? Okay?
Speaker 1: Now I drumroll please, Yeah, I say, go to the
Speaker 1: ends of the earth. You'll find Ritchie. Yeah. Here's to
Speaker 1: another two episodes that to rock on dudes,