WEBVTT - From Deep Cover: Never Seen Again 0:00:14.996 --> 0:00:21.956 Pushkin. Hey, it's Dana. I am currently writing new episodes 0:00:21.956 --> 0:00:24.236 of Lost Tales for you, but in the meantime I 0:00:24.276 --> 0:00:27.756 wanted to share something really awesome. It's a preview of 0:00:27.836 --> 0:00:30.996 deep Cover, another true crime show from Pushkin and my 0:00:31.036 --> 0:00:34.876 friend Jake Halbern. In deep Cover's new season, Jake tells 0:00:34.916 --> 0:00:37.396 the story of two young women living on opposite sides 0:00:37.396 --> 0:00:40.316 of the country who went missing at almost the exact 0:00:40.356 --> 0:00:44.516 same time. Seven years later, their stories collided when one 0:00:44.556 --> 0:00:48.836 woman resurfaced posing is the other. A small town detective 0:00:48.836 --> 0:00:51.636 became obsessed with the case, convinced that one of them 0:00:51.836 --> 0:00:55.236 was a spy. Okay, here's a sneak peek. I hope 0:00:55.236 --> 0:00:57.556 you enjoyed as much as I did. You can find 0:00:57.596 --> 0:01:00.476 deep Cover wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can 0:01:00.476 --> 0:01:04.516 get all six episodes right now at pushkin, dot FM, 0:01:04.756 --> 0:01:10.956 forward slash plus. This is a story about a young 0:01:10.996 --> 0:01:14.556 woman who ran away from home. At least that's how 0:01:14.596 --> 0:01:17.036 it all started. I think people think that I had 0:01:17.076 --> 0:01:18.796 this master plan and I went out and did it, 0:01:18.836 --> 0:01:23.196 and like, you know, like it's not fun, right. You're 0:01:23.236 --> 0:01:25.716 constantly scared, you have no support, you have no one 0:01:25.756 --> 0:01:27.836 to talk to, which is part of the reason it 0:01:27.916 --> 0:01:31.276 got so carried away, Like if I had just talked 0:01:31.316 --> 0:01:35.116 to somebody, they would have been like, this is crazy. 0:01:36.196 --> 0:01:38.836 Along the way, there were plenty of moments where she 0:01:38.876 --> 0:01:44.516 could have stopped running, but she didn't. Sort of like 0:01:44.556 --> 0:01:48.036 I got on a train track. There was clearly the 0:01:48.076 --> 0:01:51.036 wrong train track, and like, my train is running away, 0:01:51.036 --> 0:01:53.996 and at some point you're not thinking, crap, how do 0:01:54.076 --> 0:01:56.196 we get off this train track? You're just thinking, crap, 0:01:56.236 --> 0:01:58.476 how do I stop this train from like going off 0:01:58.516 --> 0:02:01.876 the rails? You know, I just kept making horrible decision 0:02:01.876 --> 0:02:05.716 after horrible decision after horrible decision, just trying to keep 0:02:05.716 --> 0:02:08.196 the train from crashing and killing me. At that point, 0:02:12.516 --> 0:02:14.556 we're going to come back to this woman and go 0:02:14.636 --> 0:02:17.756 deep into her story so you'll hear more about all that, 0:02:18.436 --> 0:02:21.916 but not just yet, because this is actually a story 0:02:22.116 --> 0:02:26.236 about not one, but two young women who vanished at 0:02:26.276 --> 0:02:29.276 about the same time. The two of them were roughly 0:02:29.396 --> 0:02:32.676 the same age, but in so many other ways they 0:02:32.716 --> 0:02:35.716 could not have been more different. One grew up in 0:02:35.796 --> 0:02:39.436 rural Montana, where she was raised in a sheltered, devoutly 0:02:39.436 --> 0:02:42.996 religious home. She was shy and kind of a nerd. 0:02:43.876 --> 0:02:48.116 The other was a kind hearted free spirit from South Carolina. 0:02:48.276 --> 0:02:51.716 She partied often and sometimes hung out with a rough crowd. 0:02:52.596 --> 0:02:57.316 They both disappeared in nineteen ninety nine. Their families searched 0:02:57.356 --> 0:03:01.796 for them, but didn't find many clues, and then improbably 0:03:01.836 --> 0:03:05.796 their stories collided when a lone investigator got involved and 0:03:05.956 --> 0:03:10.356 quickly became obsessed. I think of a situation as a sweater. 0:03:11.276 --> 0:03:14.796 So sometimes you have a loose thread and you pull 0:03:14.796 --> 0:03:17.116 the thread and you get a naught. And sometimes you 0:03:17.196 --> 0:03:20.676 pull a thread and it just keeps unraveling and you 0:03:20.756 --> 0:03:24.076 just keep falling and falling and bone. This investigator was 0:03:24.116 --> 0:03:27.476 convinced that the fates of these two young women, the 0:03:27.556 --> 0:03:31.636 free Spirit and the nerd, were linked, and that by 0:03:31.756 --> 0:03:35.236 solving one of their cases he might also solve the other. 0:03:35.716 --> 0:03:39.036 Not just that he suspected that one of them was 0:03:39.076 --> 0:03:43.516 a master of deception, a highly trained chameleon who conned 0:03:43.516 --> 0:03:46.876 her way into the ivy leagues. He began an investigation 0:03:46.916 --> 0:03:50.836 that ultimately drew in the Secret Service, the US Marshals, 0:03:50.956 --> 0:03:54.276 and the Justice Department. The media soon got wind of this. 0:03:54.876 --> 0:04:01.116 Allegations of murder, fraud, and espionage swirled. Eventually, a nationwide 0:04:01.116 --> 0:04:05.836 manhunt got underway, all because of this one investigator and 0:04:05.996 --> 0:04:10.636 his hunch. Now, given the giant, gantic scope of all this, 0:04:11.156 --> 0:04:13.876 you might think that our investigator worked for some big 0:04:13.916 --> 0:04:17.956 city police department or a fancy federal agency, or maybe 0:04:17.956 --> 0:04:22.396 even an international outfit like Interpoll. Nope, he was a 0:04:22.436 --> 0:04:26.156 small town cop who'd just become a detective. He didn't 0:04:26.156 --> 0:04:29.236 have a partner, or for a while even a computer. 0:04:30.036 --> 0:04:35.156 But he was doggedly stubborn, almost perversely. So I just 0:04:35.196 --> 0:04:37.956 pulled a thread and it just kept going and going 0:04:37.996 --> 0:04:41.276 and going, to the whole thing unraveled. I get it. 0:04:41.796 --> 0:04:44.796 I love pulling on threads. As a journalist, I've done 0:04:44.836 --> 0:04:48.156 this so many times, pulled and pulled until I have 0:04:48.236 --> 0:04:51.036 lost track of what I was originally looking for or 0:04:51.036 --> 0:04:54.596 whether it was worth it. And sometimes most of the time, 0:04:54.596 --> 0:04:59.116 in fact, it's not. But every once in a while, 0:04:59.556 --> 0:05:03.396 there's a set of facts it's so irresistibly curious that 0:05:03.476 --> 0:05:07.956 I just can't let go. And I suppose it doesn't 0:05:07.996 --> 0:05:11.516 matter whether you're a ernalist or a detective or just 0:05:11.636 --> 0:05:15.356 a nosy neighbor. So many of us believe that great 0:05:15.556 --> 0:05:19.316 mysteries lurk in the periphery of our lives. So when 0:05:19.316 --> 0:05:24.036 we find an especially curious thread, we keep pulling because 0:05:24.076 --> 0:05:42.676 we won't be satisfied until we've unraveled at all. I'm 0:05:42.756 --> 0:05:48.196 Jake Alburn and this is deep Cover Season three, Never 0:05:48.236 --> 0:06:20.556 Seen Again, Episode one, The Dark Corner. The detective that 0:06:20.596 --> 0:06:23.956 I told you about. His name is John Campbell, and 0:06:24.556 --> 0:06:27.116 he's just about the friendliest guy I've ever met. He 0:06:27.196 --> 0:06:30.396 has whispy brown hair and a boyish grin. He wears 0:06:30.396 --> 0:06:33.516 a pair of those wraparound sunglasses that dads always wear 0:06:33.556 --> 0:06:36.836 a little league practice. He's also got this goofy and 0:06:36.956 --> 0:06:40.476 totally lovable laugh that he breaks into all the time. 0:06:41.036 --> 0:06:44.516 So not an old timey lawman. In fact, one of 0:06:44.516 --> 0:06:46.716 the first things that he tells me is that he 0:06:46.756 --> 0:06:49.316 doesn't care for guns. When I retire, I can't wait 0:06:49.356 --> 0:06:50.916 to put this in a drawer. I mean, this is 0:06:51.436 --> 0:06:53.596 a this is the thing I banged my elbow on 0:06:53.836 --> 0:06:57.796 all the time. So it's not about carrying a gun. 0:06:57.796 --> 0:06:59.636 I carried gun because we have to. I'd rather be 0:06:59.636 --> 0:07:02.716 like Andy Griffiths and just be sharing with that a gun. 0:07:03.076 --> 0:07:07.516 I met John Donnan Traveler's Rest, South Carolina, where he lives. This, 0:07:07.636 --> 0:07:09.956 by the way, was also the hometown of the free 0:07:09.956 --> 0:07:12.756 spirited young woman that I told you about, one of 0:07:12.756 --> 0:07:16.636 the two that went missing. Back in the early two thousands, 0:07:16.756 --> 0:07:21.076 when our story really starts. John was the town's loan detective. 0:07:21.716 --> 0:07:23.956 I asked him what this was like. He told me 0:07:24.036 --> 0:07:28.836 that back then, this was truly a sleepy backwater. Travel's 0:07:28.876 --> 0:07:32.116 Rest was almost a dry town. We had one bar 0:07:32.516 --> 0:07:35.036 and one liquor store, and the liquor store closed I 0:07:35.036 --> 0:07:38.156 think at eight or nine o'clock at night. The bar 0:07:38.276 --> 0:07:41.596 closed at midnight, and we rolled up the streets and 0:07:41.636 --> 0:07:43.796 the only problems we ever had was at the bar, 0:07:44.836 --> 0:07:47.196 and so we could shut the bar down two or 0:07:47.196 --> 0:07:51.036 three times, took their license. Outside of town, well that 0:07:51.196 --> 0:07:57.556 was a different story. The thickly wooded slopes quickly rose 0:07:57.636 --> 0:08:00.796 into the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The land 0:08:00.876 --> 0:08:04.916 was steep and craggy. Some called it the Dark Corner. 0:08:06.636 --> 0:08:09.276 For generations it was known as a place where out 0:08:09.356 --> 0:08:12.716 and folk brewed moonshine and lived by their own rules 0:08:13.316 --> 0:08:18.036 mountain justice. By the nineteen nineties, that had begun to change. 0:08:18.236 --> 0:08:22.116 Newcomers were arriving, retirees and the like, but the Dark 0:08:22.156 --> 0:08:25.156 Corner remained a place where it wasn't wise to venture 0:08:25.156 --> 0:08:27.596 at night or turned down a road you didn't know. 0:08:29.076 --> 0:08:31.716 I talked to one local who told me he once 0:08:31.756 --> 0:08:34.636 found a great big log blocking the road with a 0:08:34.716 --> 0:08:38.316 stack of dog skulls on it, and then he just 0:08:38.436 --> 0:08:48.036 knew better turn around. John says that occasionally the Mountain 0:08:48.076 --> 0:08:51.356 folks would just show up at John's office and hear 0:08:51.396 --> 0:08:53.436 this roar of a truck would come in, and people 0:08:53.436 --> 0:08:55.956 would pile out, and they'd say, we're looking for the law, 0:08:56.156 --> 0:08:58.636 you know, and Mountain justice had failed and they had 0:08:58.636 --> 0:09:02.396 to come to into town to find some law enforcement 0:09:02.756 --> 0:09:06.636 for the police and Traveler's Rest. The key was basically 0:09:06.676 --> 0:09:10.436 to secure the town's perimeter, so I called Traveler's Rest 0:09:10.436 --> 0:09:12.716 of the circle of wagons. So we had seven square 0:09:12.756 --> 0:09:14.916 miles that was like a circle of wagons in our 0:09:14.956 --> 0:09:17.156 little town, and we kept all the crime out of 0:09:17.196 --> 0:09:20.556 our little circle out into the county, bushed it out. Wait, 0:09:20.596 --> 0:09:23.396 so your job was basically just like make sure that 0:09:23.436 --> 0:09:26.636 the criminals stayed out of the circle. Yeah, pretty much. 0:09:26.996 --> 0:09:30.076 Did you ever like like tell guys like not in here, 0:09:30.156 --> 0:09:31.716 you're on the Oh yeah, what you say, this is 0:09:31.716 --> 0:09:36.676 our town? Out take that up the mountains. John says 0:09:36.716 --> 0:09:40.316 this strategy. It worked. Not much happened in the way 0:09:40.316 --> 0:09:44.276 of major crime in Traveler's Rest. But then one day, 0:09:44.996 --> 0:09:52.516 something rather sinister happened in this small town, something that 0:09:52.636 --> 0:09:56.476 broke the humdrum rhythm of daily life. A twenty year 0:09:56.516 --> 0:10:01.076 old girl went missing. Her name was Brooke Henson. She 0:10:01.236 --> 0:10:05.116 vanished from within the town's limits, inside the circle of wagons, 0:10:05.636 --> 0:10:09.676 and her disappearance would ultimately send John Campbell on an 0:10:09.716 --> 0:10:14.956 epic quest. It would become a huge case, a national case, 0:10:15.516 --> 0:10:19.876 and John, the small town detective who hated carrying a gun, 0:10:20.516 --> 0:10:22.396 would be at the center of it all.