WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Lake Huron boater disappearance 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.920 Thinking Sideways is not brought to you by Marvin the 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:07.080 freewheeling Parrot. Instead, it is supported by the generous contributions 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:11.040 of people like you, our listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:19.360 dot com slash thinking sideways to learn more Thinking Sideways. 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:30.560 I don't sue the stories of things we simply don't 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:36.920 know the answer too. Hey there, everybody, and welcome again 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:41.640 to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I as always am Steve, 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:48.319 joined as always by as always Dot dot dot, and 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.080 this week, believe it or not, we have another unsolved 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.520 mystery for you. This week, our mystery is the la 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.880 You're on voters, also known as the disappearance of Launa 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:04.080 Stampion and Charles Rutherford. Chuck Chuck. We're gonna use chuck 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:06.920 uh this. But before I get into the mystery, though, 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.920 this was a listeners suggestion was suggested by Susanne, So 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.280 thank you, Susanne. I don't know why I didn't find 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:15.800 this one in the list, but oh wait, the list 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.280 is huge. While to find it true, it's a good mystery. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:32.559 So the brief overview is that Laana and Laana Laana Okay, 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.960 danger zone, danger zone. That's how I have to get 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:41.200 out of my system. I'm sorry, it's a Archer joke. 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.200 I'm done the last time I'll do it. Let's go. Okay, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:48.160 So Laana and Chuck, we're a couple who went on 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.160 a to day boat trip on the Michigan side of 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.200 Lake Huron in two thousand five, and they never made 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.400 it to their fast final destination. Kind of it's kind 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.080 of like a Gordon Lightfoot song or Lingann's Island. Yeah, 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.880 one of the two here on set never gives up 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.880 her dead and the stores of November come early. So 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.400 let's tell you a little bit about our players before 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.320 we get too much into the mystery. Long of Stampion 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.360 was a thirty five year old lawyer. She worked for 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.800 the City of Detroit. But and and by all accounts, 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.960 she tended to get men's attention, not just because she 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:29.400 was a very pretty lady, but she was, but she 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.840 also apparently had um It was a very outgoing of 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:38.600 vivacious is what it's described as personality and attractive personality 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.040 as yes, yeah, so very uh people liked her. It's 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:46.280 too bad, Yeah, just happen. She when she got out 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.040 of high school, she had initially been a model. She 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.160 was on the car circuit, you know, car shows. She 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.120 was car show model, and but realized that that wasn't 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:56.919 what she wanted to just do forever. So she went 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.120 back to school and became a lawyer. He can't really 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.040 do that stuff forever. No, so she went to work 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.560 for the City of Detroit in their law department. To 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.400 be honest, I don't know what she did in the 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:14.120 law department, Joe, thank you. How did I not figure 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:19.400 that out? I did some research, and yeah, it turns 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:25.880 out that lawyers do legal stuff. Is okay. Let's move 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:31.480 over and talk briefly about Charles Rutherford Chuck. Chuck was 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.200 thirty four years old, and he was also a lawyer. 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.720 He was from a family of lawyers. He had He 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:43.520 had at one point been working as a for the 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:48.520 City of Detroit's Prosecutor's office before eventually opening his own practice, 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:50.280 which he had been doing for I think it was 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.960 about a year or two at the time that they disappeared. Uh, 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:57.160 And he was described as a really nice guy. Um, 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.040 he was evidently very in love. I think are smitten 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:03.760 is the way that you'll see it described when you 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:09.000 see the written accounts. Yeah, yeah, um. And they had 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.760 the pair had met sometime in two thousand three, he 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:17.360 was pretty quiet. Sorry, right, Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.680 that that relationship. You see that a lot. There's the 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.080 quiet one in the very outgoing he was the quiet 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.279 one in the relationship. They met though, and like I said, 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.960 in two thousand three, and then they moved in together 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.440 the following year. And I'm not really sure exactly what 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.560 this means, but it's said that they like to have 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.080 a few drinks. They were described as thirty something bar flies. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:39.880 At the end of the day they went out and 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.120 had a beer, a couple of drinks. Well, that's my 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.560 thing is, I don't know what what that means specifically, 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:49.320 because I know a lot of people who in their 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.520 early to mid thirties will go have a couple of 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:54.960 drinks at the end of the day, well a couple 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.360 of times a week. So I think that that's that's 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.479 one of those generational things and also a Portland's thing. 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.120 Like in Portland, we go out, we drink, we eat, 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.440 that's what we do. That's societally, that's what we do here. 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:11.680 A lot of places we don't have kids. There's not 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.960 enough room in our houses for kids, kitchens, we can't 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.000 afford them and put birds on everything, and yeah, you 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.880 can't cook, there's just pickles everywhere. But I mean, you know, 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.560 when I lived in the Midwest, for instance, Uh, you know, 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.440 people in their early thirties were expected to be married 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.560 with kids and young kids. So it was less of 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.640 the going out culture in your early to mid thirties 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.560 and more of the family life culture. So I can 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.119 see how that would be brought up sometimes as meant 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.280 to be an outlier. Whether we think it's an outlier 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.719 or not. I mean, I don't know that that's relevant. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.640 That's that's a perspective I hadn't thought of. Absolutely, yeah, 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:52.120 nothing nothing wrong with Yeah, I agree, Also nothing wrong 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.760 with being family. Absolutely. Back to the story though, but 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.159 by all, by all outward accounts to the pair were 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.719 in a relatively happy relationship, and we will talk about 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.920 some further details. As with every relationship, there's there's always 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.520 things that aren't quite right. Well, that's called being human. 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.640 That's why I'm gonna solve this. Murdered her. We'll talk 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:19.919 about that later on. Lana's father is retired from the U. S. 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:24.119 Coast Guard, and I say that because it's always brought 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.680 up about the fact that he was very diligent in 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.839 teaching her boat or safety, and because they spent so 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.719 much time on the water, she really liked being on 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.560 the water. She was competent and she was. Yes, she 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.400 was a competent behind the wheel of a boat or 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.240 behind the controls. Obviously she'd probably been doing it since 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.120 she was a kid, exactly, and she's you know, her 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:48.640 family has always said that she was very serious on 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.360 the when she was on the water, it was safety first. 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.000 If you were gonna have drinks, you did that when 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.640 you got back to the dock. Like she wasn't um 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.520 flippant isn't the word. She wasn't reckless about her careless 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.719 about it. Yeah, absolutely, this is this is important to 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:09.560 know because four years before she disappeared, which would be 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.920 in two thousand one, Lana had bought a twenty seven 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.600 foot well Craft cabin cruiser which she had named Sees Life, 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:22.120 not Sees Life. She named it boy mcboat face I 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.480 ever get about, I'm going to name it if only 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:32.120 she she was many many many years before that. So 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.080 just a quick description of her boat, because it's where 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.400 the majority of our mystery takes place. Well, it was 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.720 boat shaped. We know that. Thank you, Joe. Yeah, I 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.880 appreciate that. Really, when you get down to it, isn't 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:47.120 almost everything boat shaped. A lot of things are, most 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.120 especially you can float on a piece of play, but 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:53.920 it's not boat shaped. This argument is going nowhere. Let's 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.560 get back to the story. Well, I don't know it's 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.960 it's it was cabin cruiser right right, but not a 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:02.680 lot of people know what that. But not everybody knows 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.400 what that is. Here's here's a description of it. Is 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.760 the boat if it is one of those boats where 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:17.200 the rear half to two thirds is an open space. Yes, 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.280 the well has seats and benches for people to hang out. 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.720 There is the pilot seat where the controls are, the 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:29.400 steering and the throttle. Almost every picture you see online 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.560 of like rich, attractive people hanging out on a boat 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.520 is a boat like this right pretty close. It's like 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.559 the girls in bikini is sitting on the bench off 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.440 the back of a boat. That's this boat. But this 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.120 is the Keep in mind this boat is a single story. 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.600 Because you'll see boats that have the raised or enclosed cabins. Yeah, 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.400 those are like yachts. This is an open cabin boat. 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.440 Everything is open um. There is there is a small 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.360 stairwell in the front that goes into the bow which 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:01.319 has a small living quarters. It's the cabin. There's teeny 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.079 there's a small toilet, there's a place to a fridge 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.440 and a stove. And depending on the model or maybe 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.120 there there's something that can be changed out. It would 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.480 have bench seats at a table or a bed. I 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:15.520 would think it was like an RV, you know how, 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:20.080 you kind of that's what maybe changeable table. Usually usually 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.400 boats like this have a the berth and right up 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:24.920 in the bow, and then and then the dining table 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.560 you know, drops and it's got cushions you can put 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.920 on it, right, and then that's another bunk right usually, 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.280 And that's what the pictures of this look like, is 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.200 that it's it's bits. Yeah, it's not something that you 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.760 live in. It's take a trip. Oh, I gotta take 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.400 a wei. I go down and have someplace to sleep 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.520 if you're doing one overnight or right exactly. Oh And 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.280 the other thing that I will say is that because 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.480 it looks cool, I always like it. This boat has 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.120 a big spoiler on it off of the back end 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.600 that it's actually meant to also house. You know, they 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.720 have the the plastic and tarpaulin covers for cruddy weather, 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.880 you could cover it up. It's got a small swim 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.440 deck off the back, which is just a platform. There 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.599 is a swim ladder. It's important to note that the 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.600 ladder on this particular boat sits on the top of 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.040 the deck that you would dive off of. It's not 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.000 one of the ones that's mounted underneath or built into 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:23.400 the actual boat, right. But it's not something that would 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.240 be readily accessible from the water. Some boats have them 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.480 where they're on the underside and you can just reach 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:31.320 over and pull it, and this that's not what this 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.199 boat had at all. My some of my neighbors going 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.960 up at a boat very similar to this that we 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.439 took out onto the river. I will the only other 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.719 thing I'll say about her boat is, though we know 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.840 it's a twenty seven foot well Craft Kevin Cruiser, we 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.600 don't know the exact model, which makes it a little tough. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.120 I mean, when I say the exact model, okay, well, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:54.560 maybe it could be one or something. I tried to 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.720 get really deep into the specifics to figure out details 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.719 about this boat. I'm working off a lot of generalities. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.760 I kind of had to assemble it from similar boats 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.080 and ones that are of the year, because we don't 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.520 even know what year her boat was, so it makes 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:14.439 it a little probably. I did not not to stop 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:19.000 because I didn't um. So let's talk about the trip 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.480 that the pair had planned. Lana and Chuck. We're planning 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.079 to take a trip from her parents house, which is 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.319 in Bell River, Canada, and they were gonna go head 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:34.760 north to Mackinaw Island, which is in northern Michigan. Their 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.240 route was going to take them from the southern edge 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.640 of Lake St. Clair, which is a small lake connected 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:45.000 to Lake Uron, and up the Saint Clair River into 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.080 Lake uh like Uron, and then they were gonna head 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.720 north up to the point where like you're on meets 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.800 up with Lake Michigan. So it's about a three hundred 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:58.440 miles or so trip. Yeah, and it's gonna take about 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.319 two days. Except lake here is on the Lake of Death. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:06.040 It is not noticed that Joe, I'm thinking of somewhere else. 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:07.920 I do want to point out that this is one 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.000 of those times where I felt like a geography moron 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.000 because of the fact that wait, their trips started in 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:18.800 Canada and then they headed north to Michigan. It's because 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.120 because I'm for the West Coast and I always look 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.000 at the map and it's always the map of the 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.280 US with Canada deleted, and so you just you just 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:27.640 look at it's like, oh, well, it's kind of a 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.400 straight line. Canada dips down up there. I know that now, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.439 but I felt really dumb. Anybody else just confused, that's 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.360 what's going on now. I actually think that Canada should 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.320 give that land back. What the hell are they doing 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.320 down land further south in the US. That ain't right? 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.240 Oh well, sorry to all of our Canadian listeners. As 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:54.600 unsubscribed to the podcast, you can keep it so. On 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.400 the tenth of August two thou five, Lana and Chuck 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.960 launched from Bell River and they head north. They made 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.520 it to Oscota, which is about a hundred fifty miles 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:13.199 north roughly north of from their their launch point at 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.040 the end of the first day, and they stopped and 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.679 docked there that night. While they were there, they met 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.319 a guy named Richard Bannon, and he offered to take 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.040 give him a ride into town, and then he and 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.079 his wife joined them for dinner and a couple of cocktails, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.960 and then he took them back to the dock that night, 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:38.880 because they then the next morning got up and left. Yeah, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:40.400 how did you? I didn't know he wasn't hiding on 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:46.200 the boat somewhere. Sorry, too, are really wound up today, 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:51.480 I'm pretty about this. They left on the morning of 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.680 Thursday eleven, and they headed north and they stopped in 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.120 presque Isle at about twelve thirty in the afternoon. So 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.480 while they're there and they're they're getting fueled up, a 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.000 guy by the name of Gene Austin was working on 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.920 the dock and he had said he met the couple. 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.800 They were in good spirits. The weather was turning kind 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.120 of crappy. It was cold and windy, so they were 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.640 They were wearing fleeces to keep war, but they were 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:21.120 in good spirits. Uh. Lana asked him if there was 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.760 any areas that she needed to avoid, and he told 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.320 her about two different shallows to watch out for. She's 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.120 been told him, Oh, well, I've got those in my GPS, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.960 so no big deal. And they left after they had 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.480 topped off the tank and by all accounts everything was fine. Well. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.440 Were they shadowed by a mysterious figure in a black 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.560 raincoat in the fedora? No, they were not wait and 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:53.560 so the storms worth mentioning. It is so when they left, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.560 initially the weather was good and they thought they were 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.880 gonna have good weather the whole time. On that second day, 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.880 the weather was turned in cold. I don't know that 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.520 it was actually raining, but it was windy. Uh. The 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.760 seas did start to get rough. The water in the lake, 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.120 I believe the next day there are reports of swells 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:16.400 anywhere from three to five ft. Okay, so I just 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.880 the day the storm is continuing to roll in. It 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.240 was just crappy and cold. Should have taken a car. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:26.280 But Jean Austin, the guy that you know, he was 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.640 talking to them on the docks, he didn't really mention. Yeah, 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.280 and I thought they shouldn't be going out in that 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.920 weather nothing like that. So it seemed like it was fine. 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.600 It was like, not ideal, but it was. It was cold. 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.080 It was chilly out, but it wasn't as if they 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.320 were going into hurricane force winds or anything crazy like that. 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.320 It's not a big deal. Yeah, but it wasn't even 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.800 at that level on that day. So that's that's when 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.680 the story morning. Yes, okay, I just wanted to make 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:59.760 sure that I was understanding correctly absolutely as Somewhere around 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:04.680 one thirty in that afternoon, Laura called her aunt, the 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.560 one who lived on mcinna Isle or Island. Sorry, it's 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.360 not Issle, and she was gonna let her know. Hey. 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:13.600 She let her know, Hey, we're a couple of hours out, 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.200 so we'll be the same. Yeah, we'll be there in 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.000 a couple of hours, No big deal. She then at 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:22.160 one forty five called another aunt who lived in Florida, 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.280 chatted with her and also told her that they were 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:29.160 about two hours away from their destination. Now that's suspicious, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.600 and then it should have been one minutes. At at 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.800 about two o'clock, Launa made one more phone call where 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:41.240 she called a male friend of hers. He didn't answer 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.560 the phone, but she left a one minute voicemail for him. Yeah, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.240 I mean what she good friends with the aunt in Florida. 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.280 Evidently she was pretty close with her. It's just somebody 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.520 that she talked to on a regular basis. I guess 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.280 it's just kind of one of those things for me 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:59.200 where I just think, really, you know, she's on a boat, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.760 the weather is not great, she's calling all these pieces. 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:03.920 She could be in the cabin though she could be 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:08.439 chilling and driving the Chuck driving the ship. It's not 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:10.080 that hard to drive a boat. It's not that hard 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.840 to drive a boat. And Chuck had learned to drive 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.040 the boat. So they've been living together for a year, 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.320 they've been dating for at least two at that point, 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.200 and she was always on the boat, so he had 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.400 to have learned how to drive the boat, and if 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.760 nothing else, at least open water. So then you're saying, yeah, okay, Chuck, 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.920 you stay up here and you know, hate this by yourself. 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:29.280 I'm gonna go down to the cabin and make up 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:35.320 phone calls. Yeah, but yeah, I'm sure steering the boat. Yeah, no, 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.080 I'm sure they totally did. I've done that before when 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:40.800 on long trips here you take the wheel. I'm done 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:42.359 with this for a while. I take a lot of 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:47.640 boat trips occasionally, yea, I have three hour tours. Okay, 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.840 So we're gonna move forward to Friday the twelve. A 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.560 captain of a ship crossing like you're on saw a 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.280 small boat bobbing, as he says, it, up and down 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.639 in the rough sea. Ease. Yeah, that's when the swells 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.879 for three to five foot. He said that he figured 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.880 either the pilot of that boat was crazy or they 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.960 were in trouble. So he called the coast guard to 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:13.960 let him know that he had found this boat. Because 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:18.040 he approached the boat and nobody was responding, he calls 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.760 the coastguard. They had already been alerted to the fact 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.439 that Chuck and Lana hadn't arrived the day before by 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.560 Lana's dad. He had called the coastguard saying, hey, they 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:33.120 didn't arrive. It's been hours. Something's wrong. So the coast 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:37.200 guard go. They approached the boat. Um, nobody's on it. 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:42.400 The boat itself was just drifting. It was eleven miles 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:48.000 northeast of mckinnaw Island, so pretty close close ish, yeah, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:53.040 it called. No, Actually it's it's farther away. I mean, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.600 it's obvious that the boat had continued to travel, whether 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:01.320 on its own power or by the the currents. It's 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.119 hard to say, but yeah, I mean, it obviously had 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.720 gone to me when I tracked it on the map. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.120 It looks like from the two o'clock phone call onward, 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.359 the boat must have continued moving under power for some 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:16.680 amount of time. It couldn't have just stopped, right, It 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.399 couldn't that way was found or it was found it 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.960 wasn't moving in quite the right direction. It wasn't but 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.480 that's part of that's the currents. But the coast guard 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.720 go on the boat again, nobody answers their hail. They 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.720 go on the boat, they find nobody on it, and 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.720 they don't really find any signs of foul play. There's 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.840 not blood sprayed everywhere, or everything broken or anything crazy 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:44.200 like that. No ax marks in the frame of the boat. Um, 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.639 there's a there's a number of strange things about the 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.120 boat itself for the condition that we should talk about. Um, 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.359 Devon is gonna be very excited because I've used bullet 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.879 points here. The first thing we're gonna talk about is 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.480 that the boat's engine was on. It was running though 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.000 the boat was a neutral so it had been idling 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.080 first a fair amount of time. They had to fuel 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.560 up after one day, Right, they used an entire of 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.439 fuel in a day and a half day, day and 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.120 a half and that's its speed. I mean, boats, can 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.680 you know it's like your car. Your car can idol 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.359 for a long right, I mean, I guess That's kind 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:21.960 of what I'm wondering is were they able to guess, 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.800 you know, idling for this many hours, it would have 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.840 used this much gas, So we think it probably though 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.879 that's a good question, because yeah, I guess usage Obviously 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.639 they were going under power somewhere for a while, and 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.720 although you know, you never know, it might be kind 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.160 of useless to try to estimate that because somebody else 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.280 could have taken the boat us and refueled it. And 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.960 that's true adrift, that's true. Yeah, Yeah, And I haven't 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.399 seen anything that tried to plot how much fuel usage 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.840 there was, because I don't know that anybody ever said 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.600 and there was X amount of fuel left in the tank. 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.199 I've never seen that either, So I don't know. I 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:58.800 have to I guess I have to just assume that 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.239 the coast guard probably knows they're talking about and if 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:02.800 they thought it was well, they would have done it. 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.080 I hope they probably, Yeah. And of course, another another 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:07.400 good question to ask is if you search the boat, 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:09.800 do you find like a spare five gallon gas scan 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.840 somewhere and is it full or empty? Yeah? You know, yeah, 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.239 And then again that's something I've never heard of. And 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.720 another question I'd like to hear answer it is did 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.440 they have any kind of dinghy or lifeboat on this 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.680 thing and was it present. If they had any kind 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.720 of lifeboat, it would have had to have been an inflatable. 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.680 This boat is way too small to have anything but inflatable. 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:34.480 Per The last time we talked about uh, oh is 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:36.920 um the one we had our intern on right the 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.280 emergency because we actually look I actually looked up and 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.639 requirement and it sounds like Laana was, you know, pretty 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.400 responsible boat owner, and so she would have been required 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:52.640 to have an inflatable life up anything. Really. Yeah, well, 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:54.480 I do know that the boat had a lot of 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.159 p f d S life jackets. So besides a lot 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.920 of those boats the seat cushions or technically flotation devices, 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.399 but it also had four life vests on their actual 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.480 life vests not the right as far as I understand, 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:10.800 they were, because they're always referred to as p f 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.919 d s, which is a personal flotation device, which to 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:16.440 me does not infer that it was a seat cushion, 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:19.760 but it was actually something you could put on. Well, actually, uh, 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:22.600 p FD is anything. That's why a life jacket is 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.720 a little bit distinct, just like a propeller is a 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.119 little bit distinct from a screw. A propeller screw as 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:31.359 a propeller. A propeller is not necessarily a screw, like 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:36.640 I really hate it when he pulls out his knotic knowledge. Well, 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.000 but they also make They also make and I don't 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:40.960 I suspect they did not have this on the ship. 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:43.720 But they do also make body suits that are personal 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:48.080 flotation devices that are mainly for crews of ships that 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:50.840 are going across the Atlantic. Because they're insulated, they keep 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:53.639