Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways. I don't stories of things we simply don't
Speaker 1: know the answer too. Hi there, welcome again to an
Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Sideways. I'm your host Joe, joined as
Speaker 1: always by and Steve. Yeah. Well, so we're going to
Speaker 1: tackle another cool mystery this week. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the disappearance of David Like the singer. Uh No, actually,
Speaker 1: well it's funny. It's an interesting mystery in a mystery
Speaker 1: here is that David snedd and the singer has got
Speaker 1: a Wikipedia page, but list David Sneddon does not have one.
Speaker 1: Be honest with you, the singer David Sneddon kind of
Speaker 1: became the bane of my existence throughout researching this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, because I don't care where he's touring. That's
Speaker 1: not what I'm after now. It's unfortunate, but yeah, he
Speaker 1: does clog after Google service. Yeah, I know. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that fans of him are saying the exact same thing
Speaker 1: about our story tonight. I don't want to read about
Speaker 1: this story again. Really shouldn't have been in China anyway, man,
Speaker 1: any way, back to back to the disappearance of David
Speaker 1: snid And he was a twenty four year old students
Speaker 1: and traveler who disappeared in China and two thousand four.
Speaker 1: And before I say anything more, I'd also I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our listeners Sean who suggested this story, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad that he did because I had not heard
Speaker 1: about this one before. It's really it's really good. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting story, don't you think. Yeah, And so onto
Speaker 1: the case. Then let me let me lay out the
Speaker 1: facts for you. David was twenty fourth time that he
Speaker 1: just disappeared. And in two thousand four, he had finished
Speaker 1: his junior year at Brigham Young University and was planning
Speaker 1: on returning in the fall to finish out his final year,
Speaker 1: and he was making plans to go to law school.
Speaker 1: Had it all has left, all planned out? Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He was a Mormon, son of Roy and Kathleen Sted,
Speaker 1: and he had ten brothers and sisters, big old family.
Speaker 1: And as he all probably know, Mormons are expected to
Speaker 1: go somewhere for two years on a mission, and the
Speaker 1: missionaries and score some new Mormons, and uh, yeah, that
Speaker 1: is part of what they do on their mission. It's
Speaker 1: not just trying to convert people. Yeah, yeah, even primarily. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they'll do that kind of stuff too, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: missionary work and whatever that it might entail. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: David spent his two years in South Korea. Then he
Speaker 1: was fluent in Korean. Yeah, and at b y U
Speaker 1: he also studied Mandarin. He lived in the Chinese house.
Speaker 1: Apparently they had different houses there that so you could
Speaker 1: be immersed in the language and learned. So he lived
Speaker 1: in the Chinese house and his plan apparently was to
Speaker 1: when he came back uh in the follow two thousand
Speaker 1: fours he wanted to study Spanish also, so he just
Speaker 1: planning on living in the Spanish house. This guy was
Speaker 1: in the languages. Apparently he had some facility with them.
Speaker 1: I was I was gonna say, because that's not an
Speaker 1: easy thing to do. Yeah, now, neither of those are
Speaker 1: particularly easy languages. Yeah. Apparently, from what I understand, he
Speaker 1: was fluent in both Mandarin and Korean. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's that's impressive. Yeah. And anyway, after he finished his
Speaker 1: class as at b y U in two thousand four,
Speaker 1: he went to China to study Mandarin and Beijing and
Speaker 1: when the classes ended, which is at the beginning of August,
Speaker 1: he left Beijing with his roommate George Bailey, who was
Speaker 1: also going to be y U, and they traveled together
Speaker 1: until August nine. At that point, George had to leave
Speaker 1: because his plane his returned plane ticket was earlier than
Speaker 1: than David's. David continued on to United Province, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm gonna state this right away. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of words here that I'm probably going to mispronounce.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay. So he went to Unan Province, which
Speaker 1: is in the southwest of China borders Vietnam. Laos Burma
Speaker 1: went down there. He went to the town of Lijiang,
Speaker 1: where he spent to night, and on August eleventh, he
Speaker 1: sent an email to his mother which read quote, actually, Devin,
Speaker 1: you want to read that so they don't have to
Speaker 1: listen to entirely in my voice. Sure, yeah, he says,
Speaker 1: I'm in Lijiang now, the in western Non province. I
Speaker 1: will take a bus and hike tiger Leaping gorge in
Speaker 1: about half an hour. I am having a great time here,
Speaker 1: but nonetheless I'm excited to come home unquote. And that
Speaker 1: was the last that the family heard from him. Uh.
Speaker 1: He went to the tiny town of Keo Too, which
Speaker 1: is the jumping off point for tiger Leaping gorge. And
Speaker 1: by the way, let a moment here Tiger Tiger leaping gorge.
Speaker 1: You can do a Google on it. It's just fantastically incredible.
Speaker 1: It's you've seen pictures of it. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I ever get to China, I'm really going to
Speaker 1: try to go make that take that hike. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would take the hike though,
Speaker 1: it's a little scary. I'm I don't know I would
Speaker 1: take that. Yeah, Yeah, more about the hike in a
Speaker 1: little bit. Here. He was carrying a large backpack. He
Speaker 1: left that at a youth hostel called James guest House,
Speaker 1: and he took the top that it's one of those
Speaker 1: backpacks that's got the detachable top party you can use
Speaker 1: kind of look at Fannie packed. And so he took
Speaker 1: that only and put a few clothing articles and toothbrush
Speaker 1: and this Book of Mormon in there, and uh left
Speaker 1: to hike the trail. And I'm sitting I'm assuming he
Speaker 1: had some water in there too. Yeah. He never came
Speaker 1: back to get the backpack. The police found it there
Speaker 1: weeks later. He was he would generally stay in touch
Speaker 1: with his family while traveling. He would email them then
Speaker 1: two or three times a week at least. Um. When
Speaker 1: a week went by, they started worrying about not hearing
Speaker 1: from but they they assumed, well, he's kind of traveling
Speaker 1: in our remote area, so maybe there's no internet cafes.
Speaker 1: But on the twenty sixth of August, he was supposed
Speaker 1: to meet up with his brother Michael in Seoul, South Korea,
Speaker 1: and he didn't show up for their meeting, and that
Speaker 1: was That would have been about two weeks after he
Speaker 1: left to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge. Yeah. Uh so the
Speaker 1: family got in touch with the U. S. Embassy in China,
Speaker 1: and the Chinese authorities did a little searching. They they
Speaker 1: went around, like since he said he was going to
Speaker 1: go to Tiger Leaping Gorge, they went to the tiny
Speaker 1: town of Kian two and put up posters all over
Speaker 1: the place, especially outside hospital hostels. And they also went
Speaker 1: up the trail because they were there were also small
Speaker 1: little hostels and and what we're called guest houses on
Speaker 1: the trail itself. So they went to all those places
Speaker 1: and put posters up and stuff and ask questions, and
Speaker 1: that's how they found the backpack. Other than that, they
Speaker 1: apparently his passport hadn't been used to his his bank
Speaker 1: account hadn't bed touch since August five. They checked the hospitals, jails,
Speaker 1: mental hospitals, found nothing. They decided that murder was out
Speaker 1: of the question because there's very little murdering that part
Speaker 1: of that part of China. It's kind of rural and
Speaker 1: you know, nice, it's not like the cities, and China
Speaker 1: does at least officially have a very low murder rate.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, one per a hundred thousand, which
Speaker 1: is yeah, and privacy, mean most of that is in
Speaker 1: the cities. Yeah, I would imagine. So, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of a cultural taboo, yeah, exactly. So they
Speaker 1: found his backpack where he left at Jame's guest house,
Speaker 1: like I said, and looking at that, they've got some clothes,
Speaker 1: some airline tickets, and some undeveloped rules of film, which
Speaker 1: they turned over to the U. S Embassy. Eventually, they
Speaker 1: concluded that David had fallen from the trail to his death, because,
Speaker 1: after all, it is kind of a scary little trail.
Speaker 1: It was kind of kind of treacherous. In fact, I
Speaker 1: came across several amusing blog posts by people who would
Speaker 1: who would hide the trail. You read those two, yeah,
Speaker 1: ne were talking about how it was the most terrifying experience,
Speaker 1: that there was a lot of colorful descriptions of the trail. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it sounds like why I'll never, I'll never hike it.
Speaker 1: It looks kind of awesome. Yeah, now it looks pretty
Speaker 1: awesome to me too, And I'm thinking about the opportunity
Speaker 1: for for photography and some really awesome pictures. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: according the end, and probably you guys read those some
Speaker 1: of the accounts that I read, which is there are
Speaker 1: a few people that said it's very easy to lose
Speaker 1: your way and get sidetracked and get on the wrong path,
Speaker 1: which not a false trails from the main trail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then some of those will lead to very perilous
Speaker 1: places and you and here you thinking, well, this is
Speaker 1: a real trail, you know your head, and you keep
Speaker 1: heading on down to this place that's going to lead
Speaker 1: it like maybe not certain death. But oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I've I've read I think it might have been one
Speaker 1: of the ones you put up of hikers who went
Speaker 1: down a false trail and followed it for two hours
Speaker 1: and when they realized they were on a false trail
Speaker 1: had to go back and then continue hiking in the
Speaker 1: real trail. So they're doing it in the dark. If
Speaker 1: you've ever hiked in the dark, you know, just a
Speaker 1: flat area, it's kind of perilous. Now put yourself on
Speaker 1: some extreme slope with basically a goat track, that's what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Yeah, now, uh yeah. The only time I
Speaker 1: went up lost and hiking in the dark, I luckily
Speaker 1: had a small flashlight with me. Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: good thing for you. I'm really glad I had that
Speaker 1: with me, because I would have been hosed. As I said,
Speaker 1: The Chinese concluded that he left the trail, may roll
Speaker 1: down the mountain side, maybe even on into the Jinshaw River,
Speaker 1: which is at the bottom of Tiger Leaping Gorge where
Speaker 1: he drowned, if he wasn't already dead from the fall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from the fall? Is this? Is this a correct conclusion? Well,
Speaker 1: there's I found one Reddit thread. There's more than one
Speaker 1: Reddit thread about this. This this particular one was the
Speaker 1: shortest one I've ever seen it. That's somebody introduces the
Speaker 1: mystery and everybody's I'll come on. Of course he fell
Speaker 1: and died, you know, Yeah, uh so, but there were
Speaker 1: other threads that had a little more we were a
Speaker 1: little less close minded than that. Yeah, there are people
Speaker 1: who think otherwise, including David Sniden's family, especially the family,
Speaker 1: because they've done a lot of looking for David. They
Speaker 1: really have invested heavily in figuring out what was going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good for them. I mean, you know, they won't give
Speaker 1: up on their son. I can only hope that my
Speaker 1: family would do the same, you know, you would hope.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've met your family out and they
Speaker 1: don't seem to really care for you. It happened. Who's
Speaker 1: going to watch the dog your hell? Okay, so it
Speaker 1: goes xerox off some posters. Yeah, here are a few
Speaker 1: of the theories that are floating around out there. And
Speaker 1: he yes, we're right in the theories now right away,
Speaker 1: right away. This one. Whenever somebody disappears, of course, this
Speaker 1: theory always gets floated, which is that they disappeared voluntarily
Speaker 1: to go start a new life. And you know, we
Speaker 1: heard that in Marrow Murray's case, Dorothy Arnold's case. And
Speaker 1: I found a website called NK News which quotes an
Speaker 1: anonymous friend of David's who said that David was conflicted,
Speaker 1: that he was struggling, that he felt trapped, that he
Speaker 1: was being forced into a mold that he didn't really want.
Speaker 1: K News I believe would be North Korea. I'm suspecting. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I was never able to find out to
Speaker 1: my satisfaction whether or not it was just a North
Speaker 1: Korean propaganda side. Yeah, I think I was on that
Speaker 1: site and I couldn't figure out what was going on.
Speaker 1: I know, I know it's if you ever read any
Speaker 1: official press releases from North Korea, they're a lot less
Speaker 1: professional than that, particular than endkan News with the website. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, because you know, the ones from North North
Speaker 1: Korean government are bombastic, combative and and just kind of ludicrous.
Speaker 1: And whereas that one was that that the NK news
Speaker 1: article was was actually written in a fairly reasonable rational voice,
Speaker 1: even though even though I think they made up this
Speaker 1: anonymous friend of David's and they didn't say who he was,
Speaker 1: and it didn't sound to be like from his other
Speaker 1: his other friends said that he was conflicted at all.
Speaker 1: They said he was David. Back to end Kane News,
Speaker 1: he was last seen at the Korean Restaurant in the
Speaker 1: company of quote A beautiful Asian woman unquote. So they
Speaker 1: floated the idea that he's decided to leave and start
Speaker 1: his life over again. Yeah, I don't like this, sary.
Speaker 1: Had he left seven hundred behind seven hund dollars behind
Speaker 1: his bank account, why wouldn't he get that out? If
Speaker 1: you're gonna head off to start a new life, how
Speaker 1: don't you want to take as much cash as you
Speaker 1: can with you. You never back to get his backpack either,
Speaker 1: he already paid tuition for fall and bring him young. Um.
Speaker 1: And also, last of all, I think that leaving your
Speaker 1: family hanging like that is is really kind of what's
Speaker 1: the word I'm trying to think. Yeah, it's a d
Speaker 1: bag move, you know. I mean, and he didn't strike people.
Speaker 1: What I've learned about David, that's that kind of a guy.
Speaker 1: So I have a couple of questions for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first off, tuition was paid? Was he financing his tuition
Speaker 1: or was he paying cash? Do you know I never
Speaker 1: found him? No, I do not know. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess they're going to bring him young.
Speaker 1: He probably had to finance it. So when it says
Speaker 1: that it was paid for, really he had signed the
Speaker 1: loan paperwork, but if he never showed up, the money
Speaker 1: never would transferred. Yeah, I well, I in this particular case,
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not fully behind the he decided to
Speaker 1: to just take off and make a new life. I
Speaker 1: will say that from the perspective of his religion. It's
Speaker 1: you here describe I've I've known some folks who were Mormons.
Speaker 1: Is that there. It's a bit rigid at times, and
Speaker 1: you put on the happy face. You are everything is great.
Speaker 1: You couldn't be happier. You do everything you're told to.
Speaker 1: You show no signs of any cracks in the foundation,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean they're not there, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that people in that situation won't do things behind
Speaker 1: everybody else's back. Very particular example is that years ago
Speaker 1: I met a girl and we started dating. This was
Speaker 1: very briefly, and I kind of knew she was Mormon,
Speaker 1: but I didn't really pay attention to it. And then
Speaker 1: not too long after we had been together for a
Speaker 1: very brief amount of time, I come to find out that, oh, well,
Speaker 1: she's actually her family doesn't know about me. They think
Speaker 1: she's extremely devout and she's, according to the church, engaged.
Speaker 1: This does somebody else entirely who was of the church. Okay,
Speaker 1: now she was doing all of this for I mean,
Speaker 1: she pulled it off with me for about a month
Speaker 1: before I was like, whoa, So no, this is not okay.
Speaker 1: She didn't try to convert you or anything. No. But
Speaker 1: but the point is is that when you are following
Speaker 1: what you're told you have to do and it's not
Speaker 1: what you want to do, people can get extremely creative
Speaker 1: about making that double life. Now do I think that
Speaker 1: that's what happened to him? I I really I don't
Speaker 1: see anything. But then again, I have to wonder was
Speaker 1: he good enough at making that double life that for
Speaker 1: him the whole time in Korea was a giant party,
Speaker 1: but everybody else didn't know it because he was just
Speaker 1: so good at hiding it. You know, I had no
Speaker 1: idea how to vow he was. You know, any religion
Speaker 1: is like there's always going to be people who are
Speaker 1: more into it than other people. The varying degrees of commitment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of variance there. But he left
Speaker 1: the money in the backpack behind. I don't know. People do,
Speaker 1: not everybody obviously, but there's a certain fair number of
Speaker 1: people who classify Mormonism as a cult just to like
Speaker 1: that out there. Well, you know, while everything like Stephen
Speaker 1: saying may have seemed really hunky dorry to his friends
Speaker 1: and family, if he was feeling that, it was kind
Speaker 1: of that way and the only way to escape out
Speaker 1: of it would have been to fake his death and
Speaker 1: lead a different life. But I agree, I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think you would leave all that stuff behind. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Yeah. I mean that dropping of
Speaker 1: every physical trace. That's I almost want to say, that's like,
Speaker 1: you know, a total government plot level thought ahead of time,
Speaker 1: instead of you know, some dude who is like, that's it.
Speaker 1: I got to get out. He's not going to be
Speaker 1: that good at planning and ahead and you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's I don't think this is what happened, But I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't push it away as a possibility is as
Speaker 1: easily as some are willing to, I can push it
Speaker 1: away pretty easily. I'm giving this theory um once one
Speaker 1: star out of seven possible. They it's one of those
Speaker 1: stories for Joe. Yeah, folks at home, please write down
Speaker 1: that number. You're gonna need a cheat sheet at the
Speaker 1: edge because there will be a test. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: not a not a good theory in my opinion. Okay,
Speaker 1: next theory, Um, he was murdered. It's hard to say
Speaker 1: why somebody would murder him. Something maybe robbery, Maybe somebody
Speaker 1: wanted wanted his money as Walleton, but it seems like
Speaker 1: he didn't have that much money on him. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's probably not necessary to kill somebody. You
Speaker 1: can just rob him, right. And of course, as I said,
Speaker 1: murder was not typical of the area. But I will
Speaker 1: say this I did, I did look around a little bit.
Speaker 1: But it turns out in in two thousand four when
Speaker 1: David disappeared, there happened to be a farmer named jiangyang Ming.
Speaker 1: He lived in Yunon Province, although he didn't live like
Speaker 1: he lived near the sent of the city of kung Ming,
Speaker 1: which is a city that David was actually going it
Speaker 1: was actually going to travel to shortly. It's a nearby city. Uh.
Speaker 1: In May two thousand twelve, Young Ming Jiang how would
Speaker 1: be calling jiangang Ming was arrested for murder and turns
Speaker 1: out he was a serial killer and he was suspected
Speaker 1: of murdering perhaps as many as seventeen people. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: first murder was in nineteen seventy nine. He uh served
Speaker 1: prison time for that until nineteen ninety seven, when they
Speaker 1: let him out and gave him some land in Yunan
Speaker 1: Province to be a farmer. After he murdered these people,
Speaker 1: reportedly he butchered their bodies and fed parts of them
Speaker 1: to his dogs. And here's the best part, or maybe
Speaker 1: not the best part, but a lot of the meat.
Speaker 1: He would cure it and take it down to the
Speaker 1: local market and sell it as ostrich meat. It's white meat, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, And so you don't know what in white
Speaker 1: meat is white meat? Yeah? So yeah, the word of
Speaker 1: the wise if you go to China, don't eat the
Speaker 1: ostrich meeting. Yeah. So, anyway, his spree is mostly concentrated.
Speaker 1: I think the ones that were able to pin on
Speaker 1: him were from two thousand to two thou twelve. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that he didn't commit the odd murder before
Speaker 1: that time, just means maybe he escalated, so could Jang
Speaker 1: and David cross paths and did that and not so
Speaker 1: well for David that you know. My thing with this
Speaker 1: whole theory is that he's hiking a trail. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: that's not the best place to try and abduct somebody
Speaker 1: or commit a crime, because you don't know there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's inevitably going to be somebody just around the corner
Speaker 1: on that path. Well yeah, but I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: because I personally think spoiler alert here and play your ear.
Speaker 1: But I personally think he didn't meet him on the trail.
Speaker 1: He met him, met him afterwards, after he left the trail,
Speaker 1: if he met him at all, that I doubt. At
Speaker 1: the odds of these two crossing paths is I think
Speaker 1: pretty minimal. Yeah, it makes me think of do you
Speaker 1: remember what is that Timothy Oliphant movie where he is, uh,
Speaker 1: he's a newly wed and he needs another newlywed couple
Speaker 1: and it turns out one of the one couple is
Speaker 1: a set of crazy psycho killers. But it's just everything
Speaker 1: about the movie is so absurd because the chances of
Speaker 1: this and the chances of that, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of those we just build suspense and suspense till
Speaker 1: we have a sort of okay ending. But it's like
Speaker 1: that that only happens in written Hollywood movies. That's where
Speaker 1: they meet on the trail and they hike for a
Speaker 1: day together, and they bore him my friendship and then
Speaker 1: he beats him over the head and cooks him for dinner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the I don't think that if they did meet,
Speaker 1: I think they would admit probably later on. Okay, but
Speaker 1: I guess another point to be made probably is that
Speaker 1: you don't a tourist is probably way more likely to
Speaker 1: be missed. That's an American tourists. Yeah, you know, because
Speaker 1: apparently people disappear in China with a disturbing regularity, but
Speaker 1: like locals, locals exactly. So everybody figures they went to
Speaker 1: the big city or the next town to get better work,
Speaker 1: or everybody figures that they were kidnapped and sent off
Speaker 1: to do Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, so I I murder.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say it's kind of improbable, and we're
Speaker 1: going to give that three stars okay out of okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be consistent here. Is this an arbitrary
Speaker 1: scoring system, by the way, or is there some you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's done all the math behind it, calculations want
Speaker 1: to make really complex formulas. I don't. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get you know, some statistician right and in about
Speaker 1: how our system is skewed. I just want to make sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now you multiply three of three or three times and
Speaker 1: you get yeah. And I like the system because it's
Speaker 1: more precise than just say four or five stars. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: next theory suicide. Now, I know it's stupid, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to give this one a quarter star. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: obviously nobody h there was no evidence of any kind
Speaker 1: of depression. His friend George Bailey that he lived with
Speaker 1: in Beijing and he traveled with after Beijing said I
Speaker 1: didn't report any sort of depression or anything like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would give ran away more more credence in this.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, twice as much in fact, at least our
Speaker 1: next theory he fell on the gorge and went splat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Of course, as you know, some people believe this, including
Speaker 1: the Chinese government. That's what China says, That's what says. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's plausible because the high Trail's what we've already said.
Speaker 1: It's kind of scary, and people have died by the way.
Speaker 1: Of course, one difference between those incidents and this is
Speaker 1: that they found the bodies in the cases. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this will be this will be a first, but that's
Speaker 1: not that doesn't make it completely out of the question, right,
Speaker 1: But it's it's a gorge. It's not a you know,
Speaker 1: a smooth surface. There's nooks and crannies, there's places for
Speaker 1: a body to fall into, andre face, he gets stuck there,
Speaker 1: that's true. And you know, a month goes by and
Speaker 1: the local birds have been having a heyday with it.
Speaker 1: You're not going to notice it anymore. It's just a
Speaker 1: pile of stuff. Yeah, I know. So it's so that's possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: But David's father and his two brothers went to China.
Speaker 1: His father's name is Roy, his brothers Michael and James.
Speaker 1: They traveled there about a month after he disappeared and
Speaker 1: retrace his steps. They want to they want to over
Speaker 1: the trail, and they claim that the trail is actually
Speaker 1: not that bad. And they also say they found witnesses.
Speaker 1: We saw him after he left the trail and the gorge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what they say. So so then he made it
Speaker 1: out of tiger leaping and gore intact. Yeah. They arrived
Speaker 1: in Kao two on September twelfth, I believe, and the
Speaker 1: m of the U. S Embassy had developed the roles
Speaker 1: of film that the Chinese found in the backpack. They
Speaker 1: found a lot of shots from his travels with George Bailey,
Speaker 1: but there were about four good shots that we had
Speaker 1: to have been taken only days before. According to George Bailey,
Speaker 1: the pictures were taken on August seventh and eighth, two
Speaker 1: thousand four, so just just a few days before he disappeared.
Speaker 1: When they got there, they hired its betting guy named Sean,
Speaker 1: who happens to own Seawan's guesthouse, Nentiger Leaping Gorge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they also hired an interpreter. They sat on the
Speaker 1: high trail and as I said, they didn't find it
Speaker 1: to be as difficult to some people make it out
Speaker 1: to be. But apparently these guys have a lot of
Speaker 1: outdoors experience. Well I was gonna say, I know how
Speaker 1: old is Roy. He's in his sixties now, is that
Speaker 1: about so? Yeah? So I know that not too long
Speaker 1: after everything went down with their son, and he and
Speaker 1: his wife went on another mission to somewhere in Africa,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, doing you know, their missionary duties,
Speaker 1: which was not all just sitting around in front of
Speaker 1: a table and waving of people. They're like doing heavy
Speaker 1: labor and stuff. So these people. They're tough stock. Yeah there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they did. They apparently do lots of backpacking and hiking
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Worth reminding everyone, David is their family,
Speaker 1: so he would have been of the same. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: had According to the family, he was an eagle scout
Speaker 1: who had many years of experience with backpacking, and so
Speaker 1: them finding it not so difficult would mean that he
Speaker 1: would likely have also found it not so difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably similar experience levels are competence. Yeah, anyway, they spent
Speaker 1: they traveled to the Gorge and uh, one of the
Speaker 1: first persons that they met they were they had they
Speaker 1: had made these placards that they put on their bodies
Speaker 1: which had a picture blown a picture of David's face
Speaker 1: and also in English and Mandarin's missing trekker. And they
Speaker 1: talked to a lot of people. People would you know,
Speaker 1: walk up to them and try to be helpful. And
Speaker 1: they met this guide on the trail who was guiding
Speaker 1: some people through through the trail, and he said that
Speaker 1: he had seen David and he described he encountered this way.
Speaker 1: He said that he had been hiking from west to
Speaker 1: east in the gorge. So count two was in the
Speaker 1: west where you start out and then it goes up
Speaker 1: and over the mountains, then back down to what's called
Speaker 1: the Lower Trail, which is actually a road. Used to
Speaker 1: be a trail. Now they made it into a road.
Speaker 1: And at that spot there's a guesthouse or a hostel
Speaker 1: called Tina's Guesthouse. So they were headed. They were headed
Speaker 1: from west to east on the trail, and David caught
Speaker 1: up with them. He was with a Hong Kong couple
Speaker 1: and he said that they chatted for a little bit
Speaker 1: in in Mandaroin, and he and David chatted. David and
Speaker 1: the Hong Kong couple would talk to each other and
Speaker 1: they would alternate talking in English so the Hong Kong
Speaker 1: people could practice their English, and they would switch to
Speaker 1: Mandaaroin so he David could practice his Mandarin. So they
Speaker 1: had for three hours. So obviously this guy got a
Speaker 1: real good look at David. And then they went on
Speaker 1: to Teain his guesthouse where they all spent the night. Um,
Speaker 1: so obviously, if that's true, then he made it out
Speaker 1: of the gorge. Okay, let me let me describe how
Speaker 1: they how they questioned people. They tried not to ask
Speaker 1: leading questions or plant ideas so they first question was
Speaker 1: is did you meet a white guy who spoke Chinese?
Speaker 1: And if somebody said yeah, I think I did, I remember,
Speaker 1: And then they would ask for a description of his
Speaker 1: his high weight clothing, and if that was reasonable, they'd
Speaker 1: ask what was he wearing a pack of any SciTE
Speaker 1: of any kind and asked him to describe the pack,
Speaker 1: the size, you know that, the color, and if if
Speaker 1: their answers were all reasonable and believable, and then they
Speaker 1: would pull out the pictures and only then and showed
Speaker 1: them to the witness and so pictures in addition to
Speaker 1: the placard. Yeah, and the placard. Apparently the picture and
Speaker 1: the placard was not that great. It was was that
Speaker 1: intentional I'm guessing based on their questioning method. No, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was intentional or not. That was
Speaker 1: just one of the most recent pictures available of him
Speaker 1: and it wasn't that high resolution. So so when they
Speaker 1: blew it up and put it on the placard, it
Speaker 1: just wasn't that great. But the travel photos that were
Speaker 1: in the roles of film. Turns out several of those
Speaker 1: were very good, much better quality. So they'd show these
Speaker 1: of these people and then people would I say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the guy, or no, that's not the guy. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and so David, David obviously is going to stand out
Speaker 1: a little bit if you talk to him, because if
Speaker 1: you're Chinese, you're probably not used to running into people
Speaker 1: white Americans who speak Chinese. Yeah, that would be abnormal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be kind of abnormal. Um. The Stentdons continued
Speaker 1: on the trail to the end, stopped at Tina's guesthouse.
Speaker 1: Nobody there remembered David, so they asked if they could
Speaker 1: look at the register or the guest lugs to see
Speaker 1: if he had signed in. And Uh, at this point,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm getting this from from some of their
Speaker 1: They actually wrote some long emails, which they eventually posted
Speaker 1: on their website. Uh, they went through the records. They
Speaker 1: found the records to be in somewhat somewhat of disarray,
Speaker 1: and there were no records for the tant or eleventh
Speaker 1: of August in there. They've been confiscated. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because a guy named Chris Vogel wrote
Speaker 1: a good article about this whole thing and Outside magazine,
Speaker 1: and he said he said that in the article that
Speaker 1: these things have been confiscated and then they got the
Speaker 1: logs have been confiscated for the month of August. But
Speaker 1: what what they said at the time was that they
Speaker 1: didn't say anything about the police confiscating them. They just
Speaker 1: said that the tenth and the elevens were missing. It
Speaker 1: sounds like their logs were pretty haphazard at the best. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like yeah, So, I mean that's what the
Speaker 1: Staton said that I'm guessing it's not a log book
Speaker 1: as much as a series of leaflets or sheets of paper. Probably, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they said to quote the Snettons in their email. As
Speaker 1: it's a case with so many guest houses that we
Speaker 1: have visited, the record keeping is not always well organized
Speaker 1: or up to date. Um, sometimes records have been delivered
Speaker 1: to the police and sometimes they are missing. So and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm trying to as kind of a
Speaker 1: police day. So I'm not sure if they have to
Speaker 1: save all these things for the police or that take
Speaker 1: them to the police, or or if the police took
Speaker 1: it when they were doing their original search, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then just never returned them. It could have been that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not sure if there was no
Speaker 1: if he didn't sign and I'm not sure why they
Speaker 1: bothered taking him except his evidence maybe, but then evidence
Speaker 1: that he hadn't been there had to be right about
Speaker 1: the fact that he fell into the gorge. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: but you would think they would just look and see
Speaker 1: if he signed in and then give him back balogues,
Speaker 1: right unless he did sign in, huh and if they
Speaker 1: were like they wanted to cover it up. Yeah, possible.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit more on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: They did find another place by the way, and Shangra Law.
Speaker 1: There's a town. I forgot the original name. It was
Speaker 1: renamed as Shango Law in two thousand and one. I
Speaker 1: know that that. I gotta tell you. Reading about Shangra
Speaker 1: lass Anger lash Anger Law, really I got I was
Speaker 1: so weird because I'm like, wait a minute, no, I
Speaker 1: grew up hearing about Shangri Lab being this mystical place
Speaker 1: that nobody he found, and now it's a town in
Speaker 1: Tiger Leaping Gorge. What it really it's weird for anybody
Speaker 1: who has grown up learning that is that because it's
Speaker 1: from what is the book? And from nine three Lost Horizons?
Speaker 1: I think that's yeah. Yeah, they at least that was
Speaker 1: the name of the movie. Maybe the book was something different,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I guess they renamed it that for touristic reasons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's totally why. It's a little tacky, asked me. But
Speaker 1: like the what was the movie the River Quai? They
Speaker 1: shot at the movie in the wrong place, and so
Speaker 1: the government went ahead and renamed a village so that
Speaker 1: it was in the right place according to the movie
Speaker 1: for tourism reasons. It's not the first time this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff has happened. That's hilarious. I didn't know about
Speaker 1: that any way. Back to back to Shango Law. They
Speaker 1: did find a place called there was They eventually went
Speaker 1: on and and to Shangra La and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: how they got there. But this this place called the
Speaker 1: De King Tibetan Area International Guesthouse where some of the
Speaker 1: women who worked there I do David and said that
Speaker 1: he had spent the night there in August the thirteen.
Speaker 1: And she was not able to show the records because
Speaker 1: she did say that the police had taken all records
Speaker 1: regarding foreign visitors. And whether that's just routine or if
Speaker 1: they took him because they were because of David's just disappearance,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure. Anyway that staying on the trail.
Speaker 1: When you get to the trail, you can turn left
Speaker 1: or right and it's super familiar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, when
Speaker 1: you got off the trail and you wind up on
Speaker 1: the lower trail, which is the road. And so he's
Speaker 1: still along the river, So he still could have wind
Speaker 1: up floating in the river at this point. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: he could have turned right and gone down the road
Speaker 1: to Kioto and gotten his backpack back, or he could
Speaker 1: have turned left and headed northeast to a village called
Speaker 1: Habba and some other villages beyond there. Then that that
Speaker 1: road eventually leads to Shaka Law, and so the family
Speaker 1: decided to turn left and go to Habba just on
Speaker 1: a hunch, and two kilometers out the road they got
Speaker 1: to Shawn's Guesthouse, which is where their business at their
Speaker 1: guide owns. And by the way, Sean himself didn't remember
Speaker 1: actually seeing David one because David actually stopped in just briefly.
Speaker 1: He didn't spend the night there or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I think he stopped in and maybe had a little food.
Speaker 1: But a couple of employees at Shawn's guesthouse did remember
Speaker 1: seeing David, and then from there they continued on to
Speaker 1: the village of Habo and canvas the town and eventually
Speaker 1: found out a storekeeper who had who positively identified David
Speaker 1: again to using their stringent methods of you know, describe
Speaker 1: him first before we're showing the pictures. Uh, they can't,
Speaker 1: they can't. They went on by a hired car and bus,
Speaker 1: et cetera until they got to Shango Law and the
Speaker 1: first day they had no luck. Second day they found
Speaker 1: a Korean restaurant called the Yak Bar. And knowing that,
Speaker 1: David like, I know, I understand why it's named that,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't sound like I went to the Yak
Speaker 1: Bard made yak Yeah, I know. Well, I'm twelve. I
Speaker 1: can't help it. I'm fourteen. In the is funny. Yeah, yeah, Anyway,
Speaker 1: the act Bar. I wouldn't name my bar that, but
Speaker 1: but anyway, the owner of the act Bar did remember
Speaker 1: David coming into the restaurant three times in a two
Speaker 1: days period about a month before. Again, she remembered him
Speaker 1: very distinctly. I mean she positively because he because she
Speaker 1: was Korean. He insisted on speaking to her in Korean
Speaker 1: and they had some good conversations. And once again, you know,
Speaker 1: white American who speaks Korean in China and China that's
Speaker 1: stick in your mind. Yeah, And she very possitively identified
Speaker 1: him and said there's no evidence that David was in
Speaker 1: Shankra Law before he went to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Remember
Speaker 1: his email to his mother says, I'm leaving Lijiang on
Speaker 1: the bus to go to type of Tiger Leaping gorge, right,
Speaker 1: so he must this must have been after he left
Speaker 1: the gorge, so he couldn't have lined up dead in
Speaker 1: the river, right right. Yeah, I don't know, although this
Speaker 1: does bring up a because he was seen with a
Speaker 1: with an attractive woman at that point. Yeah. Apparently she
Speaker 1: said that he came in at one point in one
Speaker 1: of his visits, it might have been even the last one,
Speaker 1: and he was with an Asian woman whom probably must
Speaker 1: have been an American something somebody. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: when when you travel by yourself, you tend to be
Speaker 1: friend people sometimes, you know, more likely to start talking
Speaker 1: to people. And she was probably American and probably probably
Speaker 1: didn't speak Chinese or Korean or anything, and so that's
Speaker 1: that's what that's what The owner. Her name was Jang
Speaker 1: Yao Finn and she said that he did come in
Speaker 1: one time with an attractive Asian woman who did not
Speaker 1: appear to speak Korean or Chinese because David had to
Speaker 1: translate for her. So, so if from English state Korean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this might be the attractive woman that they talked
Speaker 1: about in the Endkan News article. But she didn't report
Speaker 1: that David and the Asian girl were like affectionate or
Speaker 1: holding hands. It was probably just one of those things
Speaker 1: where you're traveling and you get kind of acquainted with
Speaker 1: somebody for a little bit, right. Yeah. And also, by
Speaker 1: the way, another employee at the same restaurant remember David too,
Speaker 1: so uh, and some other people around shang seeing David.
Speaker 1: So I think the Stentons did a pretty good job
Speaker 1: improving that David didn't die on the high trail and
Speaker 1: tiger leaping gorge. Yeah. And also, by the way, if
Speaker 1: you if you'd taken he probably would have wound up
Speaker 1: in the low road on the low trail, which is
Speaker 1: a road, as I said, instead of plunging into the river.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, how what do you guys think
Speaker 1: of the theory they died in the garge? I got
Speaker 1: to give it a quarter star. It's just night and
Speaker 1: any an, he thought, Steve, No, No, I mean it's
Speaker 1: the evidence is there to disprove the fall I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean there's just too there's too many things because
Speaker 1: he was too unique of a carecter. Yeah. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: they had found just one person, just one witness, and
Speaker 1: I'd say, okay, well maybe you know, but yeah, they
Speaker 1: seem to have found quite a few. And just let
Speaker 1: me show you here. You read the report right that.
Speaker 1: I read parts of it. I didn't read for the
Speaker 1: entire thing. Okay, I'm going to hold this up to
Speaker 1: the microphone so you can see it. This is they
Speaker 1: list the witnesses, and this is their their ranking system.
Speaker 1: Looks like a QR code. Yeah, they're yeah, and so
Speaker 1: based on all the various criteria for credibility, um, they
Speaker 1: ranked them on a scale of one to ten using
Speaker 1: using this little table here. As you can see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but as you can see, they were. They were very
Speaker 1: pretty credible, very stringent, and you know they didn't if
Speaker 1: somebody comes up and just says, yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: saw somebody like that. That ain't good enough. I mean
Speaker 1: you had to really jump over a bunch of hurdles
Speaker 1: to actually be one of these people. They called, you know,
Speaker 1: what they call a sighting of David. Well, and that's
Speaker 1: the problem with you know, any kind of way. We
Speaker 1: talked about this so many times, witness testimonies. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw a guy who looked like that. I think
Speaker 1: maybe I'm positive kind of sure's yeah, absolutely, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's just the way it goes. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Memory is fallible. Oh yeah, it is. I think I
Speaker 1: think one of the advent I just ahead in the
Speaker 1: case of David again, it's the language thing. Yeah that's huge, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's real big. Yeah. Okay, So anyway, so much for
Speaker 1: that theory. He did not die into gorge. You what
Speaker 1: are you ranking that, sir? Of course I was busy
Speaker 1: looking at the map in front of me. Okay, I know.
Speaker 1: Our next theory, human trafficking. Here's something from the CIA
Speaker 1: World Factbook. Actually, Devin, you want to read that? Why not, Steve? Okay, Steve,
Speaker 1: you want to read that? No, No, I'll do it anyway, okay.
Speaker 1: China is a source, transit and destination country for men, women,
Speaker 1: and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. Chinese
Speaker 1: adults and children are forced into prostitution in various forms
Speaker 1: of forced labor. Yeah, why did I have to read that?
Speaker 1: That was the most depressing statement. Yeah, I just I
Speaker 1: just wanted people to live, to be able to listen
Speaker 1: to other voices besides me. But it's estimated. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how reliably that ten to twenty people a year
Speaker 1: abducted and sent off to do forced labor or prostitution
Speaker 1: or whatever is in China. Yeah, okay, that's about there.
Speaker 1: Abducted and brought into China. They're abducted and shipped out
Speaker 1: of China, you know, or whatever. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: but like why white American? Yeah, well that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I think that they would be less likely to because
Speaker 1: of attracts attention. I just threw this one in here
Speaker 1: to have shre randomness. Okay, yeah, cheer randomness. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this this doesn't write too high. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: this two stars, probably probably more than it deserves. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: our last theory, this is an interesting one. He was
Speaker 1: abducted going the North Koreans. The last sighting of David
Speaker 1: Snedden was August fourteen, which was and it was at
Speaker 1: the Yak Bar run now or one o'clock. He was
Speaker 1: leaving apparently for Lee Jiang on a bus and then
Speaker 1: he was going to stop off in Kyo two and
Speaker 1: get his backpack, of course, and actually he didn't say
Speaker 1: that to anybody, but obviously that ob yeah, that was
Speaker 1: that was on the way to you know, to the
Speaker 1: Jiang and and so he never got the backpacks. So
Speaker 1: it's we have to kind of conclude that he disappeared
Speaker 1: either in Shango Law or in Kyo two or somewhere
Speaker 1: in between on the day of the fourteenth, since he
Speaker 1: was never seen or heard him about that. The statons
Speaker 1: seemed to be pretty intelligent, rational people, and they've already
Speaker 1: made a good case that he didn't disappear voluntarily, and
Speaker 1: that executive report that I talked about, they didn't make
Speaker 1: a good case. And of course we didn't rank that
Speaker 1: particular theory very highly ourselves, right. They also established that
Speaker 1: he couldn't have died in the Gorge, and so their conclusion,
Speaker 1: and this was in late two thousand four when they
Speaker 1: wrote the report, was that David had been taken and
Speaker 1: was being held against his will. But at that time
Speaker 1: they had no idea who. They said their report to
Speaker 1: the State Department, by the way, like seventy four pages
Speaker 1: it was pretty thorough. It has pictures and maps and
Speaker 1: graphs and all kinds of stuff. They they were pretty
Speaker 1: thorough and it was actually very helpful for me and
Speaker 1: putting all my facts together. It was it was it's
Speaker 1: worth looking at. They sent their report to the State Department,
Speaker 1: and after months of pleading, the State Department got the
Speaker 1: Chinese government to launch a new investigation that they reinterviewed
Speaker 1: all the witnesses at the Students found and it turns
Speaker 1: out all the witnesses changed their stories just like that.
Speaker 1: They all they were all positive before that they had
Speaker 1: seen David when they were talking to the fair, talking
Speaker 1: to the family, and now at this point they're saying
Speaker 1: they're not really sure. Some of them were saying they
Speaker 1: don't remember it at all, really kind of hanky talking
Speaker 1: to an authority figure. Yeah, well that might be it,
Speaker 1: you know, it might be that. You know, again, there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of allegations of cover up and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But at the same time, and in some
Speaker 1: of these countries, when the government shows up, um, you're
Speaker 1: more likely say I don't really know because you don't
Speaker 1: really want to get involve. I don't really want to
Speaker 1: get involved, so you know, there's it's hard to say,
Speaker 1: but it's people have alleged that the Chinese government is
Speaker 1: actually trying to cover this up. Well, the weird, the
Speaker 1: weird shift of story from witnesses, such a dramatic shift.
Speaker 1: I can see why people would say that. But I
Speaker 1: can also see why you would do that in that
Speaker 1: situation when suddenly you're faced with a couple of Chinese
Speaker 1: military men or policemen and they've got that look on
Speaker 1: their face, like, what did you see that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have I didn't see anything. I saw nothing. I haven't
Speaker 1: no idea what's going on? Yeah, I live in a
Speaker 1: state of see something, say nothing. On the other hand, though,
Speaker 1: it could be that it's incredibly frustrating for the investigators
Speaker 1: in China, the Chinese investigators who show up and say,
Speaker 1: all right, like, tell us your story. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you have something to tell us about this thing that
Speaker 1: can help us, you know, crack this mystery. Oh been
Speaker 1: witnesses suddenly go no, no, I don't know nothing. I'm
Speaker 1: god of fear, whether it's real or perceived. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's hard to say if there's a
Speaker 1: sinister cover up going on or not quite possibly well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but anyway, the case sat there for a long time,
Speaker 1: and then in April two thousand eleven, the students got
Speaker 1: a phone call from a guy named Chuck Downs, who
Speaker 1: at that time ran an organization called the Committee for
Speaker 1: Human Rights in North Korea. He's he says he has
Speaker 1: left that position, but I think he's still involved in
Speaker 1: North Korean issues. But Chuckdowns told the Snatans that he
Speaker 1: believed that David had been abducted by the North Koreans,
Speaker 1: which does make some sense because the North Koreans actually
Speaker 1: kind of are in the habit of abducting people stuff
Speaker 1: like that, lots and lots of it, mostly Japanese and
Speaker 1: South Koreans. Japanese especially because they forced them to teach
Speaker 1: English to the North Korean Americans. There have been a
Speaker 1: few Americans, some Europeans, Middle Eastern areas, all kinds of
Speaker 1: people have been kidnapped by the North Koreans. Did you
Speaker 1: know that the the Um North Korean's own own are
Speaker 1: currently holding the only US naval ship to be like captured.
Speaker 1: They still have the Pueblo. They still have it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is crazy. Yeah, I you know, I've often I've
Speaker 1: up and wondered why the world puts up with North Korea.
Speaker 1: I mean, after after they several years ago when they
Speaker 1: sank that South Korean warship just unprovoked, they just torpedoed it,
Speaker 1: sank and killed a bunch of people. I really, I
Speaker 1: really felt like the US and the Japanese and South
Speaker 1: Korean should have gotten together and just sunk their entire navy.
Speaker 1: I'm not joking. I mean that's that the snake of
Speaker 1: sink every submarine at the very least they do some
Speaker 1: they do some pretty amazing stuff. I mean that the
Speaker 1: American that I was thinking of was gosh, what was
Speaker 1: it was the late fifties, was a couple of Americans
Speaker 1: that crossed into North Korea through through the demilitarized Zone
Speaker 1: thinking that they would get out of the war because
Speaker 1: the North Koreans would deport them to Russia and become
Speaker 1: prisoners of war and they get shipped back home and instead,
Speaker 1: I think one of them, the one who actually finally
Speaker 1: got out, he didn't leave North Korea till like two
Speaker 1: thousand and four exactly, and his wife is Japanese and
Speaker 1: they were basically put together. I think he was like
Speaker 1: a thirty or forty year old man by the time
Speaker 1: they were put together, and she was a twentysomething. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they basically just and they probably kidnapped her. She was
Speaker 1: she was she had been forcibly taken. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: I believe. I believe he was one of their one
Speaker 1: of their principal English teachers, teaching their spies all about
Speaker 1: English and America. Was significantly. He finally got out of
Speaker 1: North Korea, I think in July two thousand four, which
Speaker 1: is a month before David disappeared. Yeah, I did another
Speaker 1: English teacher. I hadn't even made that connection. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: point that lost Yeah. Yeah, they no longer had their
Speaker 1: main English speaking yeah, to teach everybody. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: if they had gotten wind of David Snedden with his
Speaker 1: language skills and also he would have been a great
Speaker 1: teacher for teaching people about American customs and society and
Speaker 1: stuff like that on a certain level. Yeah, you could
Speaker 1: at least teach them to impersonate Mormons, that's true. He
Speaker 1: would know English, he would know general customers, have general knowledge,
Speaker 1: which is just invaluable. And I'm sorry, but we live
Speaker 1: in an internet age. Even the government of Korea is
Speaker 1: going to have the Internet to be able to use
Speaker 1: for their spies even though they don't give it to
Speaker 1: their people. Maybe yeah, not sure. Dishes everywhere, Yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: they I'm sure that. I'm sure that Kim Jong and
Speaker 1: at least gets access to the Internet. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he must because he found out about the interview. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. That's a funny thing with the view, isn't
Speaker 1: it didn't even watch that. I didn't. I didn't watch,
Speaker 1: but now I heard they were upset about upset they
Speaker 1: were happy, But yeah, I wonder how they felt about
Speaker 1: Team America World Police. I go back to the story
Speaker 1: for Yeah, so the actual evidence that Snedden was abducted
Speaker 1: by the North Korean. So there's not a lot. There
Speaker 1: is just one little bit, uh to May two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: a Japanese group called the National Association for the Rescue
Speaker 1: of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea. That's an actual thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a long name there. But in May
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, they put some interesting information on their
Speaker 1: website in which they said a North Korean defector who
Speaker 1: had previously provided reliable information to them, had obtained Chinese
Speaker 1: security documents indicating that the twenty three or twenty four
Speaker 1: year old American student was arrested in Yunnan Province on
Speaker 1: charges of helping illegal residence and that he ended up
Speaker 1: in the hands of five North Korean secret agents. What
Speaker 1: is it? What is that helping illegal residents? Bit mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not just heard several interpretations. It's kind of it's
Speaker 1: kind of vague. I mean, apparently there are there are
Speaker 1: illegal North Korean immigrants in there. They escape the winters
Speaker 1: Gun railroads. Yeah, that kind of thing, an underground railroad,
Speaker 1: because they escape Obviously in Korea, you're not going to
Speaker 1: escape into the South over the d m Z right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so and and so. The only other way to
Speaker 1: do it is to escape across the border into China.
Speaker 1: And then from China you have to travel so you
Speaker 1: can get to a friendlier country where you can escape
Speaker 1: from them there and go to South Korea. Um In
Speaker 1: I believe it was two thousand four, for example, there
Speaker 1: were Vietnam allowed more than four hundred North Korean refugees
Speaker 1: to leave Vietnam and go to South Korea, which apparently
Speaker 1: upset the North Koreans quite a bit. I can see
Speaker 1: why they'd be upset about that they don't want their
Speaker 1: people to leave. Well, you know what I gotta say
Speaker 1: that if if your country is such a frigging paradise,
Speaker 1: why do you have to hold everybody a prisoner? I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sh my mouth. Yeah, okay, okay, but anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this happened again. Happened in August two thousand four
Speaker 1: in Yunan Province, Uh, to a white American around twenty
Speaker 1: four years old who was a student. Could it be uh,
Speaker 1: this is in Kunming where this happened. Of course, if
Speaker 1: that is actually true, and then what that means is
Speaker 1: that that would mean the Chinese government had to have
Speaker 1: been involved, because if he had been kun Ming, that
Speaker 1: would have mean he would have stepped off in Kio
Speaker 1: two and picked up his backpack, because Kyoto was on
Speaker 1: his way to lee Jiang, which is on his way
Speaker 1: on the way to Kunming, which is where he needed
Speaker 1: to catch to catch this um his flight. Yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of a straight line basically. Yeah. Yeah, so since nobody
Speaker 1: if if this report is actually true, it kind of
Speaker 1: had to have been David because there's there haven't be
Speaker 1: any other any other American tourists who disappeared in China
Speaker 1: and China. These guys apparently, according to these documents, that
Speaker 1: Chinese arrested him in August, held him for about a month,
Speaker 1: and then either let him go or sold him to
Speaker 1: eventually sold his information to the Koreans for a bribe,
Speaker 1: or maybe for a bribe they just turned him straight
Speaker 1: over to the Koreans. Yeah, and what and and we
Speaker 1: have nothing that indicates a who that person is and
Speaker 1: be if that really happened, As far as I know,
Speaker 1: we have nothing. Yeah, I just want to I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure. I'm like, well, let's start going
Speaker 1: through you know, let's I hadn't even thought about looking
Speaker 1: for anybody else who had gone missing in that general
Speaker 1: area for anything. Yeah, I think that if they're correct
Speaker 1: that this was an American student and he had disappeared
Speaker 1: and it wasn't David, then we would we would know
Speaker 1: something about that. I mean, some other American student had
Speaker 1: disappeared in China, we would we would have heard about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. Though it could have has been a
Speaker 1: white guy, and they everybody just said, well he was
Speaker 1: an American, he was white. Yeah, it could have been
Speaker 1: a britty but I mean it's not just I mean
Speaker 1: it's like, um, it's it was a twenty four year
Speaker 1: old or twenty four year old American. Again, no, no
Speaker 1: Americans disappeared in China in two thousand four other than
Speaker 1: David Steadon. Right, so yeah, So of course this report
Speaker 1: is not necessarily true, right. It could be. It could
Speaker 1: be distorted, It could be completely fabricated, could be whitewashed,
Speaker 1: it could be. I mean, we don't, we don't entirely know.
Speaker 1: But I did read an article, uh which actually, actually,
Speaker 1: by the way, I got quite a bit of information
Speaker 1: from and I rely on it quite a bit for
Speaker 1: our report here, not quite so much as the family's report,
Speaker 1: but I have relied on it. With this guy named
Speaker 1: Chris Vogel wrote this article which I've mentioned already in
Speaker 1: Outside Online. You guys read that article, right, yeah, good article,
Speaker 1: right yeah, And he wrote an article about Snead and
Speaker 1: then he uh, he said in May two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: he had an opportunity. You talked to a Japanese cabinet
Speaker 1: minister about the association that's that's the association of you know,
Speaker 1: people people in support of kidnap Japanese by the North
Speaker 1: Koreans except that side. You got that wrong National Association
Speaker 1: for the Rescue of Japanese kidnapped by North Korea. There
Speaker 1: you go, I just didn't. I don't know how you
Speaker 1: couldn't remember that. I know, it's like it's talking about
Speaker 1: three sentences long. So yeah, So he talked to this
Speaker 1: minister about the associate that the association's information. The minister's
Speaker 1: name is is Kaiji for yeah. He said that he
Speaker 1: believes that the association's information is very credible. He also
Speaker 1: said that the Prime Minister of Japan, Shenzo Abe, also
Speaker 1: believes what the association is saying is true. So this
Speaker 1: is these are people at the top of the Japanese
Speaker 1: government think. He also said something, um, the minister said
Speaker 1: something in the order of that the Americans, the American
Speaker 1: government should be doing more to look into David Steddon's case. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I just want to interject a little bit here though,
Speaker 1: is that at this point in time, Japan has it
Speaker 1: out for North Korea for taking people because it was
Speaker 1: right around this time that Kim Jong ill admitted to
Speaker 1: kidnapping Japanese citizens. I believe it. It wasn't it was
Speaker 1: who was he talking, dude? Do you remember this, Joe
Speaker 1: or Devon. He was talking to somebody specifically, and he
Speaker 1: was trying to foster relations between his country and Japan,
Speaker 1: and the topic came up, and the interpretations that I've
Speaker 1: read was that he decided that by admitting it, he
Speaker 1: would be admitting it and then we would all just
Speaker 1: sweep it under the carpet and everything would be fine.
Speaker 1: And so he said, yes, we kidnapped thirteen people over
Speaker 1: the years from your country, and did we totally did that?
Speaker 1: But opties, Now can we talk about some trade negotiations?
Speaker 1: And of course that got out and the public lost
Speaker 1: their minds. Can you blame them, No, not at all.
Speaker 1: From that point they have They've just got a axe
Speaker 1: to grind and all they tell everybody those guys are
Speaker 1: a holes and we need to go after them, and
Speaker 1: don't believe anything they say. Oh yeah, I think that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I do support maintaining lots and lots
Speaker 1: of sanctions against North Korea's because, let's face it, their
Speaker 1: gangster state and the only way they support or the
Speaker 1: only way that that entire country survives is aid from
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. That's the worst part. From
Speaker 1: the rest of the world doing things like counterfeiting US currency.
Speaker 1: That's that's not aid. That's their side, not officially in
Speaker 1: their grows, their their gross national products. But but they
Speaker 1: they survive entirely on aid from other countries. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't I don't remember how many tons of rice
Speaker 1: get shipped to North Korea. And yet they still have
Speaker 1: people walking their signs on the lawns, you know, in
Speaker 1: the public spaces that say please do not pick the grass,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing else to eat, unfortunately, and there's photos
Speaker 1: of poor people who were walking along with baskets picking
Speaker 1: the grass so that in throwing at a basket where
Speaker 1: they can take it home to feed their family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not doing it right. That's not a happy place.
Speaker 1: And yeah, speaking of age shipments and gangsterism, there's a
Speaker 1: kind of an amazing story from some years back when
Speaker 1: they were getting all these shipments of grain from China
Speaker 1: and they would of course gratefully offload the grain, and
Speaker 1: then they just kept the trains because because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have a manufacturing base, we can't
Speaker 1: make trains, and we can't buy them because we don't
Speaker 1: have any money. So but we've got these here trains
Speaker 1: from China. We'll just keep these Yeah, yeah, totally okay.
Speaker 1: If you're one of our many North Korean listeners, by
Speaker 1: the way, don't be offended by this. You probably know
Speaker 1: what's going on already. Yeah, they probably do. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to the Sneddons, the Seton family. They have written
Speaker 1: many letters, like we're talking fifty six letters at least,
Speaker 1: to the State Department into the government looking for any
Speaker 1: information the US government might have about his disappearance, and
Speaker 1: the only replies they've gotten is basically saying that we
Speaker 1: can't really release any information without David's written consent. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know. Uh that's from the U. S.
Speaker 1: State Department. Yeah, not the North Korea State Department. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the US government. Like there's a story that I read,
Speaker 1: I think probably on Reddit recently. It was like this
Speaker 1: woman was like, hey, everybody, UM, I need some help.
Speaker 1: I just got this subpoena in the mail, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's a you have to show up for court, and
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's for my six month old daughter. And
Speaker 1: I called and I said it was my six month
Speaker 1: old daughter. I think you subpoenaed the wrong person. And
Speaker 1: they said, no, she must show up for court or
Speaker 1: we will throw her in jail, so that you know,
Speaker 1: the woman went with the baby and was like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're here. I don't know what you want to sug
Speaker 1: testify about, but we're here. Yeah. So what did they do.
Speaker 1: Did they interrogate the kid? No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think it's standed like put
Speaker 1: the kid in the dark room with shed a light.
Speaker 1: All right, where's the bank? Yeah? Really? Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: feel like that's about on the same page. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's litely, it's crazy. That's a government for you. They
Speaker 1: also filed a Freedom of Information Act request which turned
Speaker 1: up fourteen documents, and the government released only one of them,
Speaker 1: which said nothing other than the Chinese government hasn't found
Speaker 1: any trace of David Well. Okay, that and the other
Speaker 1: thirteen they're not releasing because privacy concerns and national security
Speaker 1: concerns and sess in that, which is really kind of
Speaker 1: interesting because if the government, if the US government knows nothing,
Speaker 1: then why are they withholding thirteen documents and so those
Speaker 1: things would have been redacted, so technically all their secrecy
Speaker 1: stuff should be blacked out. Okay, I guess for me,
Speaker 1: it makes a little bit of sense because it's easier.
Speaker 1: There's like a plausible deniability aspect to this, right, where
Speaker 1: if you release these documents and you say, yeah, we
Speaker 1: know that North Korea has him and we're like trying
Speaker 1: to get him back, okay guys, then you then you know,
Speaker 1: people will be like, well Troy hard or well whatever versus,
Speaker 1: you know, because because there's a possibility that he'll die
Speaker 1: or be killed over there, right, and so it's it
Speaker 1: looks publicity wise, it looks way better to be able
Speaker 1: to say we just found out had David and they
Speaker 1: killed him. We had no Yeah, then it does to
Speaker 1: say like, yeah, we're working on getting him back. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly saving face, and it's probably politically it's better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's entirely possible. It's it's it's even possible that the
Speaker 1: Chinese government themselves, we're not involved in David's disappearance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's totally possible, But it would be embarrassing for them
Speaker 1: to admit that a foreign power is active as agents
Speaker 1: active on their soil and it's actually abducting people. That
Speaker 1: would that would be a kind of embarrassing for an
Speaker 1: agent that is worldwide. I think painted is kind of buffoons, right,
Speaker 1: Like we kind of kind of worldwide paint North Korea
Speaker 1: as this like kind of bumbling of a country where
Speaker 1: you know, we make fun of them, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, I eat this like North Korea. But
Speaker 1: it would be it would be a huge change in
Speaker 1: public opinion if you were able to say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: they're actually being highly successful at covert operations of kidnapping
Speaker 1: people across the world. They have kidnap people from all
Speaker 1: over the place, Europe and especially Japan and kurred in
Speaker 1: South Korea, but a lot of other places too. And
Speaker 1: interesting that the guy we talked about a little while ago,
Speaker 1: David Jenkins, he's the guy that defected in nineteen and
Speaker 1: was held He had the American soldier. Yeah. He he's
Speaker 1: living in Japan now and his personal belief is that
Speaker 1: they're not just abducting people for training purposes, but they're
Speaker 1: also abducting them to breathe them. Yeah, yeah, because if
Speaker 1: you have like they apparently he said that the Koreans
Speaker 1: actually were gifted a much of American POWs from Vietnam
Speaker 1: who they were handed over to the North Koreans, and
Speaker 1: he said that they went out and found them, found
Speaker 1: them wives to meete with, because the whole idea is
Speaker 1: to have somebody who is ethnically South Korean or ethnically
Speaker 1: white American, but raise them and indoctrinate them in North Korea,
Speaker 1: and then you've got yourself a nice little spy to
Speaker 1: plan overseas. So yeah, if you think it's more than
Speaker 1: just training, he's the guy at the has an interesting story.
Speaker 1: It's a long range plan, then, yeah, very long range. Um.
Speaker 1: And he himself, David Jenkins, still is looking over his shoulder.
Speaker 1: And when he left North Korea, the understand he was
Speaker 1: he was going to come back. He left with his daughters.
Speaker 1: His wife was already in Japan and I've been there
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. And he laughed, of course,
Speaker 1: and never came back. And so he said that he
Speaker 1: doesn't go out at night. Well, I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: was is he didn't leave right away because his wife
Speaker 1: was one of the original parties that she was one
Speaker 1: of the abductees that was returned to Japan, and she
Speaker 1: was the trip was we're going to let you go
Speaker 1: visit your family and then you'll come back. And of course,
Speaker 1: as soon as they got there, the Japanese government said no,
Speaker 1: you're not sending you back. Yeah, and so he you know,
Speaker 1: he's then of course in fear for his life because
Speaker 1: it's a shame my aspect, I guess. I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what it was that he thought meant that the
Speaker 1: North Koreans were going to kill him, but he was
Speaker 1: really worried about that. When I were in his situation,
Speaker 1: I would definitely we do one of those underskin trackers
Speaker 1: like that you can like embed in people. I would
Speaker 1: definitely do that and be like, here, everybody that I
Speaker 1: care about, here's the code to the GPS tracker that
Speaker 1: I've embedded into my body. If I disappear, please use
Speaker 1: it and find me a lot of agents of shields. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the North Korean nastiness and craziness is also
Speaker 1: David Jenkins. He was He was of course in prison
Speaker 1: there for many many years, and at some point somebody
Speaker 1: noticed one of the North Korean's notice said he had
Speaker 1: an army tattoo on his heart on his arm, and
Speaker 1: so that just wouldn't do. So they took him to
Speaker 1: They took him to a doctor, and the doctor used
Speaker 1: a scalpel and scissors to exercise without anesthesia all because
Speaker 1: oh my god, he's got a tattoo. It's crazy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I could never go there. Yeah, no, I that's my
Speaker 1: our army tattoos, tattoos in general. Yeah, army if you
Speaker 1: have MABE, if you're tattooed free, I don't recommend going
Speaker 1: to North Korea if you could possibly help it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's about it. We've got our theories. There's
Speaker 1: a theory that he ran away, Davis ran away to
Speaker 1: join the circus, which I find completely implausible. There is
Speaker 1: a theory. I think there is some there's I said
Speaker 1: this before. I think there's some credence to it. I'm
Speaker 1: not on board with it, but I still consider it
Speaker 1: a possibility. I think that's just your wide i'd hope. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's what it is. He would have gone
Speaker 1: back for his backpack and his money in his bank accounts,
Speaker 1: so maybe he fell on the gorge. No that nets
Speaker 1: have pretty much disproved that he was murdered by a
Speaker 1: serial killer. That seems pretty unlikely. Although you know he's murdered,
Speaker 1: wound up being ostrich meet in the local marketplace. It's
Speaker 1: it's actually more plausible than the idea that he ran
Speaker 1: off to starting new life somewhere, but it still is
Speaker 1: far from proven. Has it ever been suggested that maybe he,
Speaker 1: you know, he was seen with that attractive woman it
Speaker 1: was it. Has it ever been suggested that maybe she
Speaker 1: was like married, or she was there with her boyfriend
Speaker 1: and that it was like a jealous lover situation. No,
Speaker 1: nobody's ever suggested that that's possible. Entirely he was murdered
Speaker 1: or that wasn't he traveling a little bit with the
Speaker 1: married family and the guide. Yeah, maybe you know, the
Speaker 1: husband of that couple was got jealous and threw him over.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's a I think there's a
Speaker 1: murder aspect of it that doesn't necessarily have to be
Speaker 1: like serial murderer or you know, somebody who went out
Speaker 1: just to kill him. It could have been like a
Speaker 1: fit of rage sort of thing. Yeah. A lot of
Speaker 1: murders don't fit timelines, They don't fit into this nice
Speaker 1: little puzzle that we're laying out. They just kind of happened.
Speaker 1: People do random, weird stuff and it ends up with
Speaker 1: the loss of somebody else's life. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: like that, it's like the whole thing from I know
Speaker 1: what you did last summer where he was just walking
Speaker 1: down a road going to get his back back as
Speaker 1: somebody accidentally ran him over and hit the body. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's entirely possible. And you know, then, of course
Speaker 1: our last theory, which is that he was kidnapped by
Speaker 1: the North Koreans, and which I think is the most
Speaker 1: plausible the theories not. My only issue with the North
Speaker 1: Korea theory is they are easy target. And it's not
Speaker 1: that I don't think that they deserve to be, but
Speaker 1: it's there the convenient one. And do you know what
Speaker 1: I'm getting at here? It's like everybody says North Koreans there,
Speaker 1: and they're a bunch of jerks and they do all
Speaker 1: this stuff, so they must be responded. And we have
Speaker 1: no idea what's going on in North Korea, so it's
Speaker 1: really easy to just say there's no way from information
Speaker 1: blackout means I get to fill in the holes with
Speaker 1: whatever I want. That's true. I mean, it's it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible that the Chinese government could have taken him and
Speaker 1: they're holding him. I mean, I don't think it's likely,
Speaker 1: because why they have that mean they don't need English teachers.
Speaker 1: The Chinese has, they have a lot of interactions with
Speaker 1: the US and Europe, and they don't really need him
Speaker 1: for any particular reason, so that's why. But it's possible,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's possible that they arrested him for questioning
Speaker 1: for whatever reason and he accidentally died in their custody.
Speaker 1: That's entirely possible. Yeah, and so there's all kinds of possibilities.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm still saying that the North Koreans are
Speaker 1: my favorite suspect in this one. Yeah. All right, Well
Speaker 1: that's about it, unless you guys want to theorize anymore
Speaker 1: anything else. Okay, Well, I'm sure if you're out there listening,
Speaker 1: you've probably got ideas of your own about this, and
Speaker 1: so definitely if you want to communicate them to us,
Speaker 1: you can send us an email. We are at Thinking
Speaker 1: Sideways a podcast at gmail dot com, So if you
Speaker 1: want to discuss this or any other mysteries, send us
Speaker 1: an email please. Um. You can find us on our
Speaker 1: website at Thinking Sideways podcast dot com, where you can
Speaker 1: download episodes and you can check links. We post links
Speaker 1: to all these various mysteries that we talked about, and
Speaker 1: you can also leave comments, preferably polite comments. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can also find us on I tune. If you find
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Speaker 1: We're on Twitter where we are thinking sideways, not thinking,
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Speaker 1: there if you want to completely optional, but if you
Speaker 1: feel like it, you can, you know, pledge a small
Speaker 1: amount of money per episode. And again totally optional because
Speaker 1: I mean, I I read a lot of blogs and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and I don't hit the tip jars,
Speaker 1: so I'm not trying to guilt to anybody in anything.
Speaker 1: Just if you feel like it. Okay, So that's it
Speaker 1: for this week. Any last thoughts, guys, I mean, neither
Speaker 1: my mind is blank, so by everybody, we'll see in
Speaker 1: a week. Bye guys, Bye guys, and I want the
Speaker 1: Ostrichs meet you