Speaker 1: Hello. I'm hugely excited to reveal that Unexplained will be
Speaker 1: coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August. The year
Speaker 1: is nineteen hundred three. Lighthouse keepers stand watch on a
Speaker 1: desolate island far from home, until one day they completely
Speaker 1: vanish from the face of the earth. Unexplained Life brings
Speaker 1: the haunting Flannanal's mystery to the stage in a gripping,
Speaker 1: immersive performance that plunges audiences into one of history's most
Speaker 1: chilling and enduring unsolved disappearances. I'll be performing at the
Speaker 1: Space at Surgeons Hall at ten oh five pm every
Speaker 1: night from August seventh to the twenty ninth, excluding the
Speaker 1: sixteenth and twenty third. Please go to Unexplained podcast dot
Speaker 1: com Forward Slash Events for more information, or you can
Speaker 1: purchase tickets direct by going to the Space UK dot
Speaker 1: com Forward Slash Shows, Forward Slash twenty twenty six, Forward
Speaker 1: Slash Unexplained hyphen Life. I look forward to seeing you there.
Speaker 1: The man rolled the window down and gazed out from
Speaker 1: the driver's seat of his suv and the wide desert
Speaker 1: vista spread out before him. Although it was only just
Speaker 1: after nine in the morning, the mercury was already well
Speaker 1: into the eighties. It might even have been hotter were
Speaker 1: it not for the scattering of clouds that had brought
Speaker 1: a recent run of much needed rain to the area.
Speaker 1: It was June twenty third, twenty twenty one, and the
Speaker 1: man Ken Elliott was waiting for a colleague to join
Speaker 1: him to inspect a borehole that had just been made
Speaker 1: for a water well intended to serve a new residential
Speaker 1: development just to the west of the White Tank Mountains
Speaker 1: near Phoenix, Arizona. All Ken could see for miles ahead
Speaker 1: of him was the bare, bleached soil of the vast
Speaker 1: Sonoran Desert and its scattering of pebbles, cacti, and brittle bush.
Speaker 1: The occasional spindly pallo verde and twisted ironwood could be seen, too,
Speaker 1: stirring along the bottom of the many dry washes that
Speaker 1: traversed the undulating, desicated terrain. Ken breathed in the deep,
Speaker 1: musky scent of creosoap bush as it wafted in through
Speaker 1: the window of his car. Finally, he saw a blue
Speaker 1: Jeep Renegade driving slowly toward him along the bumpy desert track.
Speaker 1: Ken climbed out of his vehicle and prepared to meet
Speaker 1: the jeep's driver as he pulled up next to him.
Speaker 1: As Daniel Robinson slid out of his jeep, Ken took
Speaker 1: in the athletic but slight twenty four year old man
Speaker 1: with his close cropped hair, blue jeans and check shirt,
Speaker 1: and orange hi Ve's vest just like his own. This
Speaker 1: would be the one and only time the two men
Speaker 1: would meet. After Daniel Robinson drove off a little later
Speaker 1: that morning, he would never be seen again. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. As Ken and
Speaker 1: Daniel greeted each other, Ken noticed that the young man
Speaker 1: was missing the lower part of his right forearm. A
Speaker 1: native of South Carolina, Daniel Cornelius Robinson had been born
Speaker 1: without a right hand and the lower part of his arm,
Speaker 1: but refused to use a prosthetic or to let it
Speaker 1: impact his life in any way. Some say it was
Speaker 1: exactly that attitude which helped him excel in athletics during
Speaker 1: his time as a student at the College of Charleston
Speaker 1: in South Carolina. Daniel would go on to graduate in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen with a degree in geology. Described by his
Speaker 1: family as bright and adventurous, Daniel had relocated to Arizona
Speaker 1: the previous year after taking a job as a hydrogeologist
Speaker 1: with a company called Matrix New World. The environmental engineering
Speaker 1: company was involved in a number of projects out west,
Speaker 1: including this one to test and develop water sources to
Speaker 1: supply the ever growing urban fringes of Phoenix. Daniel and
Speaker 1: Ken were meeting to assess a new well sight. No
Speaker 1: sooner had Daniel arrived, a heavy storm moved in. It
Speaker 1: was so intense they could feel the static in the air,
Speaker 1: so for a while, fearing an imminent lightning strike, the
Speaker 1: two men sat in Ken's car as they waited for
Speaker 1: the rain to pass. Despite this being their first meeting,
Speaker 1: Ken couldn't help but think there was something off with Daniel.
Speaker 1: The men talked amiably as the heavy rain splattered the windscreen,
Speaker 1: but every so often Daniel seemed to pull back, then
Speaker 1: turned to look out at the window and stare out
Speaker 1: at the desert. It was around nine point forty five
Speaker 1: when Daniel abruptly asked Ken if he wanted to go
Speaker 1: back to Phoenix. Ken assumed he meant it in the
Speaker 1: sense of whether it was worth waiting any longer for
Speaker 1: the rain to end, so He told Daniel to wait
Speaker 1: a moment as he pulled up a weather app to
Speaker 1: find out when it was due to stop, but no
Speaker 1: sooner had he done so. Without saying a word, Daniel
Speaker 1: opened the door and got out of the car. Ken
Speaker 1: watched with confusion as Daniel ambled back over to his jeep,
Speaker 1: then turned to give Ken a brief wave before climbing
Speaker 1: into his vehicle and driving off. Startled by the sudden departure,
Speaker 1: Ken could only look on as the jeep made its
Speaker 1: way back down the dirt road and disappeared out of sight.
Speaker 1: Though his view of the vehicle was obscured by the terrain,
Speaker 1: Ken knew that in just two thousand feet Daniel would
Speaker 1: come to a spot where the road split. There he
Speaker 1: could either turn to the east and head back towards
Speaker 1: the city, or west and out into the wide Sonoran desert.
Speaker 1: Laughing it off, Ken called his boss to fill him
Speaker 1: in on the unexpected turn of events, then shifted his
Speaker 1: car into gear and drove off himself. When Ken reached
Speaker 1: the split in the dirt road, he saw the rain
Speaker 1: had washed away all but the most recent set of
Speaker 1: tire tracks, those belonging to Daniel's jeep. Much to his surprise,
Speaker 1: they didn't turn east toward Phoenix, but west into the
Speaker 1: vast expanse of the desert. Around mid afternoon, Ken's boss
Speaker 1: phone to ask if he'd spoken to Daniel at all
Speaker 1: since they last met. No one at the company had
Speaker 1: heard from him since the morning. Ken cast his mind
Speaker 1: back to their meeting earlier and how distant Daniel had
Speaker 1: seemed when they spoke. He began to get worried. A
Speaker 1: short time later, Ken was back in his truck, heading
Speaker 1: out to the well site where he and Daniel had
Speaker 1: met earlier that day. Scrambling up to a high vantage point,
Speaker 1: he stared out long and hard across the desert, but
Speaker 1: saw no sign of Daniel or his vehicle. By late afternoon,
Speaker 1: Daniel's family were becoming concerned. Although Daniel was adventurous, he
Speaker 1: also kept in frequent contact with his family, typically calling
Speaker 1: or testing his father and siblings several times a day,
Speaker 1: especially his sister Davisha, who also lived in the Phoenix area.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't like him to suddenly go quiet. A
Speaker 1: little after seven that night, with no one in the
Speaker 1: family having heard from Daniel in twenty four hours, his father,
Speaker 1: army veteran David Robinson phoned the Buckeye Police Department from
Speaker 1: his home in South Carolina and reported his son as missing.
Speaker 1: The police report filed that evening was characteristically blunt and
Speaker 1: to the point. Twenty four year old Daniel Robinson, it read,
Speaker 1: is black with short hair, missing his right arm and
Speaker 1: has no prosthetic, no visible tattoos, no facial hair, no
Speaker 1: medical issue, but has been acting strain. The father last
Speaker 1: heard from his son yesterday. This morning, he met someone
Speaker 1: at a job site. No one has heard from him since.
Speaker 1: The police began their search by attempting to call Daniel
Speaker 1: on his cell phone, but no one picked up. Then
Speaker 1: they called his employer, Matrix New World, who yet to
Speaker 1: hear from him and had little to add to what
Speaker 1: was already known. That evening, Daniel's sister d Visha went
Speaker 1: to his apartment in Tempe in Central Phoenix, but the
Speaker 1: windows were dark and there was no sign of Daniel,
Speaker 1: nor was his jeep Renegade parked outside. At that point,
Speaker 1: all the police had to go on was Ken Elliott's
Speaker 1: account from when Daniel was last seen and the coordinates
Speaker 1: to the work site where he and Daniel had met.
Speaker 1: The spot is surrounded by nothing but desert and ranchland,
Speaker 1: with the dry bed of the Hassiampa River just over
Speaker 1: a mile to the west. The nearest settlement was about
Speaker 1: eight miles further west, out in the desert, in the
Speaker 1: direction that Daniel had last been seen heading. It was
Speaker 1: the fenced compound of the Our Lady of Solitude Monastery,
Speaker 1: a small, enclosed community of contemplative nuns. The same day
Speaker 1: Daniel was reported missing, two officers from the Buckeye Police
Speaker 1: Department drove out to where Daniel and Ken had met
Speaker 1: that morning, as a red setting sun sent slanting rays
Speaker 1: across the desert. They drove the surrounding dirt trails for
Speaker 1: four hours until well after dark, but found no trace
Speaker 1: of Daniel or his vehicle. The following morning, the police
Speaker 1: quizzed Daniel's father, David, about his son's state of mind.
Speaker 1: David insisted there being nothing in his recent phone call
Speaker 1: with his son to suggest that he was suicidal or
Speaker 1: wanted to hurt himself. As for drug abuse or other
Speaker 1: addiction issues, David said Daniel had no such problem with
Speaker 1: anything like that, but smoked marijuana from time to time,
Speaker 1: which was legal in Arizona. David Robinson did say, however,
Speaker 1: that his son had been acting a little odd lately.
Speaker 1: Daniel's shifting mood, according to his father, seemed to coincide
Speaker 1: with his meeting of a woman that he'd apparently fallen
Speaker 1: in love with, but when David questioned his son about
Speaker 1: the woman, he didn't seem to know much about her.
Speaker 1: The police asked Daniel's father to check his son's social
Speaker 1: media for any clues. There, he found a link to
Speaker 1: an Instagram account of someone named Caitlin, displaying a profile
Speaker 1: picture of a young woman with straight, dark hair, smiling
Speaker 1: at the camera and holding a dog. But then David
Speaker 1: noticed something strange. Not only were there no new hosts
Speaker 1: on Daniel's account, but all the photos on his Instagram
Speaker 1: and Facebook accounts had been completely removed. About the same time,
Speaker 1: police interviewed Daniel's sister, Davisha too. She conferred that Daniel
Speaker 1: had lived alone in an apartment in Tempe for the
Speaker 1: last year. When asked if there been any change in
Speaker 1: his usual character in the last few months or weeks,
Speaker 1: Davisha couldn't help reflecting on one of the last times
Speaker 1: she'd seen him, he'd asked to come to her place,
Speaker 1: but when he arrived, he just sat there for half
Speaker 1: an hour without saying anything, before simply getting up and
Speaker 1: walking out of the apartment. Her brother had told her
Speaker 1: too that he'd recently met a woman and was in
Speaker 1: love with her. She couldn't confirm if they were actually
Speaker 1: in a relationship, but the way Daniel talked about her,
Speaker 1: she suggested that perhaps they were. Curiously, Daniel told his
Speaker 1: sister that the woman had introduced him to a podcast,
Speaker 1: which he claimed had profoundly changed the way he looked
Speaker 1: at life. Da Visha didn't have the woman's contact details,
Speaker 1: but remembered Daniel mentioning that she lived in Lavigne, on
Speaker 1: the west side of Phoenix. While Buckeye Police conducted a
Speaker 1: ground search near the well site where Daniel was last seen,
Speaker 1: one officer checked you Connect, a vehicle tracking system that
Speaker 1: Daniel's jeep had supposedly been linked to, but the GPS
Speaker 1: coordinates for the vehicle were all set to zero. The
Speaker 1: reason for this could be due to one of three things.
Speaker 1: Either the system application had not been properly updated in
Speaker 1: the vehicle, the jeep battery had gone dead, or someone
Speaker 1: had tampered with the system. An attempt to ping Daniel's
Speaker 1: cell phone for its location was also unsuccessful. Meanwhile, a
Speaker 1: separate search was initiated to try and track down the
Speaker 1: mysterious Kate Lie. Incredibly, thanks to the Arizona motor vehicle records,
Speaker 1: a woman was soon found matching her description. When the
Speaker 1: police eventually got hold of her, she was sorry to
Speaker 1: hear that Daniel was missing, but she hadn't heard from
Speaker 1: him either. Then she explained how she knew him in
Speaker 1: the first place. It was back on Saturday, June twelfth,
Speaker 1: and the so called Valley of the Sun was living
Speaker 1: up to its name. There wasn't a cloud in the
Speaker 1: sky as the urban sprawl of Phoenix shimmered under a
Speaker 1: smoggy heat haze. It was the first day the city
Speaker 1: had reached one hundred and ten degrees fahrenheit that year,
Speaker 1: and an excessive heat warning had been issued by the authorities.
Speaker 1: Caitlin and a friend of hers were hanging out at
Speaker 1: Caitlyn's home in Levigne, on the western edge of the city.
Speaker 1: They were doing what many people did on days like this,
Speaker 1: staying inside with the air conditioning on, watching TV, and drinking.
Speaker 1: The temperature barely dropped as darkness fell, and neither woman
Speaker 1: fell motivated to go out to eat so they ordered
Speaker 1: a takeout. About half an hour later, the doorbell rang
Speaker 1: and Caitlyn got up to answer it. She opened the
Speaker 1: door to find a smiling, friendly faced young man holding
Speaker 1: their delivery items. He told Caitlyn that his name was Daniel.
Speaker 1: He had a warm smile and a bright demeanor, so,
Speaker 1: feeling somewhat tipsy, Caitlyn invited the man to come inside
Speaker 1: and hang out with her and her friend. The three
Speaker 1: shared the food and drank some more. Then, when Daniel
Speaker 1: eventually left, he and Caitlyn shared phone numbers. Sometime after
Speaker 1: two a m. Caitlyn sent Daniel a text with a
Speaker 1: link to a podcast on spirituality that she suggested he
Speaker 1: listened to. She thought no more of the encounter until
Speaker 1: a day or so later, when Daniel texted her that
Speaker 1: he'd accidentally left his shade canopy for his car at
Speaker 1: her place. He wanted to know when he could come
Speaker 1: over and get it. It was Monday, June fourteenth, the
Speaker 1: day after Daniel left her apartment, that Caitlyn received the
Speaker 1: first text message, Hey, I accidentally left my canopy outside
Speaker 1: your house. Is it still there? If so, is it
Speaker 1: okay if I pick it up? Also, the podcast was
Speaker 1: great wrote Daniel. Caitlyn replied the next day, Yes, you
Speaker 1: can pick it up whenever. Daniel replied soon after that
Speaker 1: he could come over straight away to get it, or
Speaker 1: the following day if Caitlin preferred. Caitlyn hadn't yet replied
Speaker 1: and was away in Flagstaff when she got an alert
Speaker 1: on her phone. Her door camera had picked up movement
Speaker 1: outside her house. Watching back the footage, she was a
Speaker 1: little surprised to see Daniel at the door. She texted
Speaker 1: him back, Hi, I saw you on the camera. I'm
Speaker 1: in Flagstaff and will be home later tonight if you want,
Speaker 1: and put it out front by the chairs before I
Speaker 1: head out for work tomorrow morning. Daniel replied an hour
Speaker 1: later with a red heart emoji, then later that night
Speaker 1: with the words I'm sorry. The next day, Caitlin got
Speaker 1: another alert on her phone while she was out of
Speaker 1: the flat. It was Daniel at her door again. Feeling
Speaker 1: a little irked, Caitlyn asked later that evening that he
Speaker 1: stopped showing up at her door unannounced, to which he replied, okay,
Speaker 1: I won't ever again. Growing a little tired of the issue,
Speaker 1: Caitlyn went out to the garage to have a look
Speaker 1: for the canopy, but couldn't find it anywhere. I don't
Speaker 1: see it in the garage, she texted Daniel moments later.
Speaker 1: But Daniel, it seemed, had already been in the garage
Speaker 1: and found it for himself. I already have it, he replied.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry for disappearing
Speaker 1: the other day, he said, then with a sad face emoji.
Speaker 1: Then moments later he sent another text, I couldn't stop
Speaker 1: thinking about you. Caitlyn didn't know what to say to that.
Speaker 1: She thought perhaps not replying at all might be the
Speaker 1: best thing to do, hoping that Daniel might get the message.
Speaker 1: A few days later, Daniel texted again, can we hang out?
Speaker 1: Having at first felt irritated by Daniel's unwanted advances, Caitlin
Speaker 1: was now starting to feel harassed. Having told him she
Speaker 1: wasn't free to hang out. Daniel had replied simply, okay.
Speaker 1: It seemed perhaps that that might be the end of it.
Speaker 1: Then later that night, just after midnight, he sent another message,
Speaker 1: I love you, it read again. Caitlyn didn't quite know
Speaker 1: how to respond to that, so once more she opted
Speaker 1: not to reply. The following morning, Daniel sent another message
Speaker 1: to ask if Caitlyn was at home. In an effort
Speaker 1: to get him to back off, she decided to be
Speaker 1: straight with him. Honestly, you showing up at my house
Speaker 1: unannounced made me extremely uncomfortable. I don't see his hanging
Speaker 1: out anytime soon, she wrote at three point thirty six pm.
Speaker 1: Later that day, Daniel wrote back, I'm outside of your place.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Feeling increasingly anxious, Caitlyn tried again to get him to
Speaker 1: back off, telling him it wasn't okay to keep turning
Speaker 1: up at her house when she expressly told him not to.
Speaker 1: Do you hate me, Daniel replied later, I don't hate you,
Speaker 1: said Caitlyn clearly at the end of her tether, but
Speaker 1: please leave me alone. There was one last text from
Speaker 1: Daniel the following day. It came on Tuesday, twenty second
Speaker 1: of June, at three oh seven pm. The world can
Speaker 1: get better, but I'll have to take all the time
Speaker 1: I can, or we can, whatever to name it. I'll
Speaker 1: either see you again or never see you again. The
Speaker 1: very next day, Daniel went missing. Two days after his disappearance,
Speaker 1: on Friday, June twenty fifth, the Buckeye Police carried out
Speaker 1: another ground search around the site where Daniel had last
Speaker 1: been seen, while a police helicopter conducted a much wider
Speaker 1: search from the air, but still nothing was found. Daniel
Speaker 1: Robinson had been missing for just over a week when
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, June thirtieth, a detective was finally assigned to
Speaker 1: the case. Larry Biffin was a decorated officer who'd served
Speaker 1: for many years with the Buckeye Police Department. As Biffin
Speaker 1: poured over the case notes, he couldn't help but be
Speaker 1: puzzled by the whole thing. Having seen that all Daniel's
Speaker 1: Instagram posts had been deleted, he began by making a
Speaker 1: request to the social media company to return them, and
Speaker 1: set about getting in touch with all of Daniel's contacts.
Speaker 1: A friend of Daniel's name Antonio, had a seventeen minute
Speaker 1: phone call with Daniel on June sixteenth, the first day
Speaker 1: he'd gone to Caitlyn's house unannounced. Antonio said that his
Speaker 1: friend seemed more hyper than usual and talked about two
Speaker 1: girls he'd met while working as a delivery driver. Daniel
Speaker 1: said that he'd hooked up with one of the girls.
Speaker 1: Antonio commented that although very social, Daniel hadn't made many
Speaker 1: friends since moving to Arizona and could at times be
Speaker 1: quite gullible, implying that Daniel may have read more into
Speaker 1: the encounter than the woman intended. Another friend, Ruben, spoke
Speaker 1: with Daniel just after he'd texted Caitlin for the last
Speaker 1: time on the twenty second. They only spoke for five minutes. Reuben,
Speaker 1: who lived in Florida, was excited about a vacation He
Speaker 1: was planning to Arizona and California and was looking forward
Speaker 1: to catching up with his friend. He was disappointed when
Speaker 1: Daniel didn't seem to want to talk about his visit.
Speaker 1: He said his friend appeared to be down, preoccupied, and
Speaker 1: off somehow. After gaining access to Daniel's apartment, Detective Biffin
Speaker 1: found no obvious indications of foul play or any sign
Speaker 1: that Daniel had packed for a trip, since most of
Speaker 1: his possessions were still there. Biffin then had flyers placed
Speaker 1: at the two small local airports in the Buckeye area,
Speaker 1: asking for any crew flying in and out to keep
Speaker 1: a lookout for Daniel and his vehicle. Then he raised
Speaker 1: for another air search to be conducted over the region
Speaker 1: where Daniel had last been seen. In the early morning
Speaker 1: of Friday, July ninth, It was already ninety four degrees
Speaker 1: fahrenheit when Detective Biffin strode out across the baking Aspha
Speaker 1: at the junction of some Valley Parkway and Cactus Road
Speaker 1: and shook hands with Daniel's father, David Robinson. Mister Robinson
Speaker 1: had driven all the way from South Carolina to Phoenix
Speaker 1: the day after he learned of his son's disappearance, and
Speaker 1: had been there ever since. He was frantic with worry
Speaker 1: and had already undertaken several searches of the desert himself,
Speaker 1: helped by local volunteers, with no result. Daniel's father could
Speaker 1: only watch as the two search planes traversed the sky
Speaker 1: back and forth while the thermometer climbed steadily to one
Speaker 1: hundred and six fahrenheit. But the search crew found nothing,
Speaker 1: and nor did they the following day when another plane
Speaker 1: was sent up to help. It had been over two
Speaker 1: weeks now and not one shred of evidence to where
Speaker 1: Daniel Robinson had gone had been found. Having grown tired
Speaker 1: of the police's seeming in ability to locate his son,
Speaker 1: David Robinson hired a private detective named Jeffrey McGrath to
Speaker 1: undertake a separate investigation on his behalf ten days later,
Speaker 1: on Monday, nineteenth of July, a rancher spotted something at
Speaker 1: the bottom of a ravine on his land. Getting out
Speaker 1: of his truck to investigate further, he saw then it
Speaker 1: was a badly damaged blue jeep that had rolled on
Speaker 1: to its passenger side. When he called the police to
Speaker 1: report it, a quick check on the number plate confirmed
Speaker 1: it with Daniel's jeep. A short time later, Detective Larry
Speaker 1: Biffin was making his way out to the site with
Speaker 1: the team of officers in tow. Their route took them
Speaker 1: out beyond the urban sprawl of Phoenix and into the dusty,
Speaker 1: sun bleached desert beyond. The further out they went, the
Speaker 1: smaller the roads became, until eventually they found themselves in
Speaker 1: the foothills of the White Tank Mountains, heading west along
Speaker 1: a narrow dirt track cresting the top of a rise.
Speaker 1: Biffin and his entourage finally arrived at the top of
Speaker 1: the ravine, and there at the bottom of it was
Speaker 1: Daniel's jeep. Biffin got out of his car and slipped
Speaker 1: down into the ravine to get a better look. The
Speaker 1: vehicle's front bumper had crumpled where it had hit the dirt.
Speaker 1: The driver's window was shattered and the windscreen and roof
Speaker 1: were damaged to All of the interior airbags had been deployed,
Speaker 1: but there was no sign of Daniel inside. Then Biffin
Speaker 1: found something unexpected About three feet from the wreckage. Gathered
Speaker 1: in a messy pile was what he assumed to be most,
Speaker 1: if not all, the clothes Daniel had been wearing when
Speaker 1: he disappeared. It included a pair of jeans, a pair
Speaker 1: of brown work boots, a faded orange high viz vest
Speaker 1: bearing the Matrix New World Company low so Go, as
Speaker 1: well as a T shirt and a pair of socks.
Speaker 1: Examining the genes, Biffin found a wallet in the back pocket.
Speaker 1: Pulling it out, he found Daniel's ID inside it, along
Speaker 1: with multiple debit and credit cards, but no cash. Despite
Speaker 1: the substantial damage the vehicle had sustained, there was nothing
Speaker 1: to indicate that the driver had been injured at all.
Speaker 1: As Biffin inspected the jeep's interior more closely, he found
Speaker 1: Daniel's cell phone, the keys to the vehicle and his apartment,
Speaker 1: as well as a backpack containing his laptop and some documents.
Speaker 1: There were other miscellaneous items, two more clothing, a basketball,
Speaker 1: and quite a few unopened bottles of water. The detective
Speaker 1: straightened back up, not quite knowing what to think. It
Speaker 1: was certainly strange, he thought how they'd searched the area
Speaker 1: multiple times but not spotted the jeep despite it being
Speaker 1: fairly out in the open. And something else bugged him
Speaker 1: about it too. It seemed unusually clean for a vehicle
Speaker 1: that had supposedly crashed out there almost four weeks previously.
Speaker 1: As Detective Biffin stared down at the wreckage, he was
Speaker 1: joined by the rancher who'd found the vehicle in the
Speaker 1: first place. He too was perplexed as to how the
Speaker 1: jeep had lain there undetected for such a long time,
Speaker 1: and just like Detective Biffin, even with the recent monsoon rains,
Speaker 1: he couldn't, for the life of him, understand how a
Speaker 1: vehicle exposed to four weeks of desert, wind, sand and
Speaker 1: dust appeared so clean. When officers searched the area around
Speaker 1: the vehicle, there was nothing to suggest that Daniel had
Speaker 1: spent any time at the site. There were no empty
Speaker 1: water bottles, for example, and no footprints appeared to lead
Speaker 1: away from the vehicle. In the end, finding Daniel's jeep
Speaker 1: seemed to only raise more questions than it had answers.
Speaker 1: Detective Biffin gazed at Daniel's upturn hard hat lying in
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ruined vehicle, now filled with rain water,
Speaker 1: then looked up and out at the vastness of the
Speaker 1: desert stretched out before him. Was Daniel Robinson dead or alive?
Speaker 1: If he was dead, why couldn't they find his body?
Speaker 1: And if he was alive, then where on earth was he?
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Unexplained Season nine, episode twenty five,
Speaker 1: Desert Rain, Part one. The second and final part, will
Speaker 1: be released next Friday, June the eleventh. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Diane Hope and Richard McLain smith. Thank you
Speaker 1: as ever for listening Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard McClain smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is now
Speaker 1: available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes
Speaker 1: and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and
Speaker 1: rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation or a story of your own you'd
Speaker 1: like to share. You can find out more at Unexplained
Speaker 1: podcast dot com and reach us online through X and
Speaker 1: Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast.
Speaker 2: A new as