Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there, and there's
Speaker 1: Jerry And this is Stuff you Should Know. That another
Speaker 1: true life mystery addition, a true life mystery. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to say crime because I'm
Speaker 1: not sure crime was involved. I'm sure it still falls
Speaker 1: under the umbrella of true crime, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: mystery of disappearance, how about that? Yeah? And this one is, uh,
Speaker 1: this can be frustrating to research, and this is our
Speaker 1: caveat and that. Um, this situation, as you will learn,
Speaker 1: happened in Bulgaria to a German Man and that's part
Speaker 1: of the reason it's hard to get great information. Um,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of people on the internet telling this
Speaker 1: story with different details, and uh, it's just sort of
Speaker 1: one of those cases where like we can't get our
Speaker 1: hands on Bulgarian case files from the cops right and
Speaker 1: read it ourselves. So, um, we did find a redditor
Speaker 1: who did something last year who claims that he got
Speaker 1: information from Lars's mother who you're gonna meet, Sandra not.
Speaker 1: She's not gonna be on the show. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: really meet her meet through our words. But you know
Speaker 1: who knows this is someone on Reddit, and um, all
Speaker 1: his uh sources were in German, so I couldn't double
Speaker 1: check those either, right, Yeah, no, I mean that's that's
Speaker 1: a caveat that works for just about any true crime
Speaker 1: or disappearance case these days, just because there's so many
Speaker 1: people who you know, take a story and run it
Speaker 1: through their own grinder, and you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: little details, little facts get changed here, and then somebody
Speaker 1: else picks up the same fact without double checking it,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, it's all over the place,
Speaker 1: and you can't tell if that's because it's real or
Speaker 1: because a bunch of people just repeated the same incorrect facts. So, um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna definitely do our best. But one of the
Speaker 1: things about this story is there are enough, you know,
Speaker 1: totally verified facts to it that that you know, you
Speaker 1: don't really need to get completely lost in the details.
Speaker 1: People have gotten completely lost in the details, um, but
Speaker 1: they've still not solved the case. That hasn't helped anybody yet.
Speaker 1: So just the facts that are known are kind of
Speaker 1: strange enough. Yeah, and I think it's it's always more
Speaker 1: comfortable for us when it's like when there's a book
Speaker 1: that's been written about it, published by like a real
Speaker 1: publisher like Beverly. Clearly it's not just internet dudes. Uh,
Speaker 1: But you know a lot of times these more recent
Speaker 1: sort of missing person cases, it is just internet dude.
Speaker 1: So you know, yeah, that's what it is. And the
Speaker 1: dude that we're talking about, uh is named Lars Matonk
Speaker 1: and he's known as the most famous missing person on
Speaker 1: YouTube because he is. It is pretty bad almost. It
Speaker 1: should have probably just scared us off of this episode
Speaker 1: to begin with, um, the the because you know, you remember, um,
Speaker 1: what was the name of that con the YouTube convention?
Speaker 1: We went to that one time. Oh it was like
Speaker 1: Internet com but it wasn't that. It was close to that.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. That almost put me off of YouTube forever.
Speaker 1: We blocked our memory bank as we did our our
Speaker 1: biggest show ever there in front of about twelve people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty bad, but I don't think of it.
Speaker 1: But by the way, we should think Dave Meischner, who
Speaker 1: was who's a listener who turned me onto this quite
Speaker 1: a while ago. So sorry it took so long to
Speaker 1: get to Dave Um. So we're talking again. We're talking
Speaker 1: about Lars ma Tonk and he uh vanished from the
Speaker 1: face of the earth. As his mom put it, it
Speaker 1: was like the earth just swallowed him up. Back in
Speaker 1: July eighth, two thousand and fourteen, in a town, a
Speaker 1: resort town in Bulgaria on the Black Sea called Golden Sands,
Speaker 1: which looking at pictures of it, it looks like a
Speaker 1: pretty charming little place. Uh, big con, that's it. It
Speaker 1: might as well have been called Internet Con. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: did you look at pictures of Golden Sands is to
Speaker 1: get a feel for the place? Yeah, you know, looks
Speaker 1: like any lovely seaside hamlet. Yeah. And I couldn't get
Speaker 1: the impression of whether it's more like Destined or more
Speaker 1: like Panama City beach. I just couldn't. It seems like
Speaker 1: a big party spot, if that's what you're wondering, Okay,
Speaker 1: But like it also looked like it. It was fairly
Speaker 1: like clean and well run and not just like you know,
Speaker 1: just whatever kind of thing. I don't know. I place
Speaker 1: it between the two from what I can tell. But
Speaker 1: that's where that that's where this event took place where
Speaker 1: the disappearance took place. There's actually Varna, Bulgaria, which is
Speaker 1: the main town that Golden Sands Resort beach town is
Speaker 1: right outside of Yeah. So as far as Lars Uh
Speaker 1: the young man who would go missing, he was born
Speaker 1: in February nineties six in northern Germany. He was an
Speaker 1: only child. He was handsome kid, very popular, He was athletic,
Speaker 1: he was smart. He did well in school. Um after
Speaker 1: he ended up. After he graduated, he ended up getting
Speaker 1: a job at the g d S who has power
Speaker 1: plant about a hundred miles from where he grew up,
Speaker 1: fixing um small electrical machines. He was an engineer and
Speaker 1: it seemed like he had a really good life and
Speaker 1: he enjoyed his job. He loved and this will figure
Speaker 1: in so put a pin in this. His one big
Speaker 1: love was his UH football club, his soccer team that
Speaker 1: he followed, which is in you know this is not
Speaker 1: how they would pronounce it, but the Verder Bremen football Club.
Speaker 1: Oh really, how would they pronounce it? Well, it's always
Speaker 1: just a little more German. Like the guy the Reditor.
Speaker 1: He narrates his own document Henry, and he said it
Speaker 1: in a way that I'm not even gonna attempt. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: all right, fine, So, UM, that whole football club thing
Speaker 1: actually plays a role in this because, um it may
Speaker 1: be at the center of his disappearance. We're not a
Speaker 1: hard percent sure, but UM, to kind of give you
Speaker 1: an idea of what kind of guy Lars Metank was.
Speaker 1: Matank was. His dad had a stroke a couple of
Speaker 1: years before he disappeared, Um, and his mom had to
Speaker 1: take care of his dad full time. Lars was an
Speaker 1: only child, and he would come home, UM I guess
Speaker 1: about a hundred miles from where he lived and worked
Speaker 1: almost every weekend to help take care of his dad,
Speaker 1: which is not every guy in their late twenties would
Speaker 1: do that, you know. Um, And apparently he was dedicated
Speaker 1: enough that his mom had to kind of encourage him
Speaker 1: to go along with five other friends of his two
Speaker 1: a week long vacation at Golden Sands in Bulgaria in July,
Speaker 1: the end of June beginning of July. Um, he wasn't
Speaker 1: going to go. In his IM said no, you should
Speaker 1: should totally go. You you deserve a week off like this.
Speaker 1: So he went. Yeah. So the um, it's a big
Speaker 1: party scene Like I said, it is well known for
Speaker 1: young people from all over Europe going to take advantage
Speaker 1: of the resort deals, all inclusive places, the cheap booze,
Speaker 1: plenty of drugs to be had. Um Lars was the
Speaker 1: life of the party, according to his friends. Um as
Speaker 1: I saw it anywhere from three to five friends. I
Speaker 1: know for sure, two guys, and I think these were
Speaker 1: his high school mates who were most prominent, named Tim
Speaker 1: Schultz and Paul Roman Um. But they were hanging out,
Speaker 1: going to the beach playing soccer. Uh. The one weird
Speaker 1: thing that I think people may have made too much
Speaker 1: about online as far as internet sleuthing goes is his
Speaker 1: friends remarked that he didn't have much of an appetite
Speaker 1: on the trip, was eating like soup and salad and fruit,
Speaker 1: whereas they were, you know as an all inclusive resort,
Speaker 1: so they were just like feasting on everything, and I
Speaker 1: think they thought it was odd that he wasn't. But
Speaker 1: I don't make a whole lot about that. Yeah, neither
Speaker 1: did that one Redator slash documentary and who said that
Speaker 1: he apparently had kind of gotten he had been on
Speaker 1: a health kick, so he was kind of watching what
Speaker 1: he ate a little more. Um. Yeah, some people have
Speaker 1: been like, there's your there's your answer right there, that
Speaker 1: that explains it all. Yeah, basically. Um So, I mean
Speaker 1: the week went by pretty uneventfully. I think one of
Speaker 1: his friends later said on TV or in an interview that, um,
Speaker 1: it went by really quick. Um. On one of they
Speaker 1: think the second to last day, they went to watch
Speaker 1: a World Cup match. The World Cup in Brazil was
Speaker 1: going on at the time, and UM, you may not
Speaker 1: know this about Europe, but they're really crazy about soccer.
Speaker 1: Uh so much so that they have their own word
Speaker 1: for it football, which is goofy. But that's the way
Speaker 1: it goes. And so they went to um this bar
Speaker 1: rock bar or okay, b a r um which sounds
Speaker 1: like a cool place, and they watched the match, I
Speaker 1: think Costa Rica and the Netherlands. And while they were there, UM,
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of soccer fans. They're watching this
Speaker 1: from all different clubs and countries, and there were some kids,
Speaker 1: I guess who were recent high school graduates and we're
Speaker 1: fans of FC Byron, which is the rival to UH
Speaker 1: Verder Bremen. And I guess they kind of got into
Speaker 1: it verbally only with um with Lars and his friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I also saw places that there was actual physical confrontation.
Speaker 1: We don't know for sure, but we do know that
Speaker 1: it wasn't the biggest deal and it wasn't the big
Speaker 1: fight that happened later on. Um, after this night out,
Speaker 1: the guys apparently go to this McDonald's which is kind
Speaker 1: of an open air um order than open air window
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and Lars didn't want to eat because
Speaker 1: I guess he was on that health kick, and he
Speaker 1: sort of just stood nearby while his two buddies were ordering. Um,
Speaker 1: they got their food, they turned around, he wasn't there.
Speaker 1: They don't see him for the rest of the night.
Speaker 1: But like I said, it's sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: spring break party central. So if one of your friends
Speaker 1: disappears for the night, and you're a bunch of dudes,
Speaker 1: you might just think like, all right, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe he ended up meeting somebody, or maybe he just
Speaker 1: went out and partied some more. But it didn't send
Speaker 1: up these huge alarms that he didn't come back that night. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: when he did show up again, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was later that night or the next morning. Um,
Speaker 1: he said that he had been beaten up, actually jumped
Speaker 1: by three or four Bulgarian guys, um, and that he
Speaker 1: had gone to duck when one of them threw a
Speaker 1: punch and it acts actually taken a punch in his ear,
Speaker 1: which is a terrible place to get punched. And he
Speaker 1: said that he was quite convinced that it was those kids,
Speaker 1: those high school kids, um, who were fans of Byron
Speaker 1: FC Byron, that they've gotten into it with at the
Speaker 1: are earlier that night, UM, because apparently they had said
Speaker 1: this is just I only saw this in one place
Speaker 1: that they had said that. Um, they had shouted that
Speaker 1: it's easy to get to pay somebody to beat other
Speaker 1: people up in Bulgaria. And so this happened close enough
Speaker 1: and close enough proximity to that other altercation that he
Speaker 1: just assumed that's why those guys jumped him. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's apparently there was no other explanation for it. So
Speaker 1: that was his story. He showed up with an injured
Speaker 1: ear in the story that he had been jumped by
Speaker 1: some local bar Bulgarians. Yeah, and his friends apparently didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily believe that story because he wasn't you know, he
Speaker 1: didn't have black eyes or bloody knows or anything. He
Speaker 1: looked fine and he was acting fine, so they weren't
Speaker 1: too sure about that story. Um Again, with the internet, sluice,
Speaker 1: I've seen people saying that, like he totally made up
Speaker 1: the story about the fight. But that is all just
Speaker 1: people speculating online. I know if you ever want to
Speaker 1: see people just take a piece of information and then
Speaker 1: spin it to the ant due the most extreme possible
Speaker 1: interpretation of it, that you could do worse than hang
Speaker 1: out on the internet. Uh. So he goes to a doctor,
Speaker 1: he gets the diagnosis of a ruptured ear drum. Apparently
Speaker 1: went and saw a specialist at a hospital who confirmed it.
Speaker 1: Said you should get surgery, and Large is like, great,
Speaker 1: but I'm not getting that here. I'm gonna go back
Speaker 1: come to Germany if I'm gonna get surgery. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then this is sort of one of the keys is
Speaker 1: he was given uh an antibiotic name uh seff rock Sime,
Speaker 1: and he was given the strongest possible dosage, which was
Speaker 1: about I think it was five yes, and that's a
Speaker 1: just a general I think a cephlexin based antibiotic um
Speaker 1: that doesn't really usually have many side effects, and if
Speaker 1: it does, have side effects. It's typically something like an
Speaker 1: upset stomach. I saw that there's a condition where it
Speaker 1: turns huge patches of your skin very dark all over
Speaker 1: the place, almost like your highlights have been shaded. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to look at. But that's that's has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with any other anything that that Lars exhibited,
Speaker 1: any behavior he exhibited. Um, the it's just antibiotics. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you've ever taken antibiotics, you know that there's not
Speaker 1: really usually many side effects to it. Right, So uh,
Speaker 1: Lars catches um, well again, different information. I saw that
Speaker 1: his friends we're gonna stay with him, he insisted they leave.
Speaker 1: So his friends eventually do catch that original flight out
Speaker 1: and large stays behind. Um, you know, because of his ear.
Speaker 1: He was a little concerned about obviously, with changes in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere on pressurization on a plane. He didn't think
Speaker 1: it was a good idea. And I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: that original doctor told him that might have been a problem,
Speaker 1: but he knew it was going to be a problem.
Speaker 1: So a little bit about that original doctor. I saw
Speaker 1: that from the rehdator who said that he spoke to
Speaker 1: the guys to his mother that his mother said that
Speaker 1: that Lars said that the doctor didn't really treat him.
Speaker 1: The first one did and said you should go to
Speaker 1: a specialist. But then when he went to the specialist,
Speaker 1: a specialist said like, wouldn't speak to him in English,
Speaker 1: and and Lars felt he had mocked him, and that
Speaker 1: apparently Sandra thought that that was really significant because that
Speaker 1: was not a word that Lars typically used. But he
Speaker 1: still managed to get the antibiotic from the doctor. The
Speaker 1: thing about the perforated or ruptured ear drum is I
Speaker 1: was looking on the internet, it turns out, and the
Speaker 1: National Health Service says that if you have a perforated
Speaker 1: ear drum, it would probably actually make flying more comfortable,
Speaker 1: not more dangerous. So I can understand Laws being worried
Speaker 1: about that, not being a trained medical professional, but if
Speaker 1: he's encountering at least three other medical professionals in Bulgaria,
Speaker 1: you would think one of them would be like, actually, no,
Speaker 1: that's you're you're actually better offline like this, or or
Speaker 1: would at the very least be like, you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about that at all. It's not that's not
Speaker 1: a thing interesting. Yeah, so too, All right, well, let's
Speaker 1: take a break and we will come back and talk
Speaker 1: about what happened after his friends left Lars alone in Bulgaria.
Speaker 1: Right after this, all right, so large as buddies go
Speaker 1: back home to Germany, Lars has left there by himself,
Speaker 1: which is at the key as far as understanding that
Speaker 1: they weren't worried about him. He wasn't behaving weird. He
Speaker 1: seemed fine. He seemed like Lars. Otherwise one of them
Speaker 1: probably would have raised some sort of alarm bells and
Speaker 1: been like, hey, maybe we should stay here, but they
Speaker 1: said he seemed relaxed, he was in a good mood,
Speaker 1: and so they took off. Um, being summer, Lars had
Speaker 1: a hard time getting a hotel room because everything was
Speaker 1: booked up and he was staying on extra. So he
Speaker 1: ends up having to check into the Hotel Color Varna,
Speaker 1: which was a really seedy place that this cab driver
Speaker 1: takes him to. Apparently a lot of drug dealers, a
Speaker 1: lot of sex workers, but that was kind of the
Speaker 1: only place available. And um, we don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about what happened that night other than these phone calls
Speaker 1: and texts that he exchanges with his mom. So one
Speaker 1: thing though about the Hotel Color I looked at it.
Speaker 1: Trip Advisor gives it a four out of five, and
Speaker 1: booking dot Com has it at seven point eight out
Speaker 1: of ten. And it is definitely cheap. I think rooms
Speaker 1: are like twenty five American dollars a night, which is
Speaker 1: suspiciously cheap. And that yeah, there is like probably some
Speaker 1: criminal activity there, but that it's not like it's not
Speaker 1: like a trap house hotel or anything like that. But
Speaker 1: it was the fact that it was his only option
Speaker 1: I think kind of tells you quite a bit too
Speaker 1: about it. Sure, so um he goes to this hotel,
Speaker 1: he checks in. Apparently the person behind the counter made
Speaker 1: a copy of photo copy of his credit card, and
Speaker 1: according to his mother, that did not sit very well
Speaker 1: with lars Um. And at eleven PM, after he's checked
Speaker 1: into the hotel, he calls his mom. I think it's
Speaker 1: the first phone first of many phone calls that evening,
Speaker 1: and he tells her that he wants her to block
Speaker 1: his credit card because he's kind of sketched out by
Speaker 1: this hotelier who has made a photo copy of his card.
Speaker 1: He's worried that they're going to use it for fraud
Speaker 1: and he can just unfreeze it when he gets back.
Speaker 1: That's the first phone call all he makes. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: ends up being another call where he has left the hotel.
Speaker 1: He said that he was hiding on a hill. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I think he even said that he was at
Speaker 1: risk of falling, So it must have been sort of
Speaker 1: some sort of a really steep type of situation, I guess, um.
Speaker 1: But he said that there were four men after him,
Speaker 1: that we're trying to kill him, or that intended to
Speaker 1: kill him at least, And he said, don't call me
Speaker 1: back because my phone I don't want my phone to ring.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I knew he didn't have a smartphone
Speaker 1: with him. He left that at home and brought sort
Speaker 1: of a cheaper phone, so I don't know if it
Speaker 1: didn't have a way to turn the ringer off or not,
Speaker 1: or if he was just not thinking clearly, but he
Speaker 1: said not to call him back. He eventually texts his
Speaker 1: mom what is Sarah? Fam five hundred, which was at antibiotic, which, um,
Speaker 1: you might think means like he's feeling weird and like,
Speaker 1: what is this? I've taken that to me says that
Speaker 1: that if he was behaving weirdly or experiencing some different behavior,
Speaker 1: that he guessed that that's what it was. That's the
Speaker 1: only explanation for that, because they found that he had
Speaker 1: taken three of them. So, Um, he knew that he
Speaker 1: had that in his system, which I guess if he
Speaker 1: was acting weird, maybe that's what he thought it was.
Speaker 1: That's what sticks out to me. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: was that it was either that night or the following morning.
Speaker 1: When he asks, I think it was the following morning. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, she had booked a flight home for him.
Speaker 1: He doesn't get back in touch with her, which really
Speaker 1: worries her. But the next morning he does get back
Speaker 1: in touch. There's two days after this bar fight. She's relieved.
Speaker 1: He says, he's going to go to the airport and uh,
Speaker 1: can he get five euros? Uh wired, you know, moneygrammed
Speaker 1: or whatever? Western What did they have Western Union over there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Supposedly there's a real detail in there, and that it
Speaker 1: was Western Union. Well what's the what makes Western Union important?
Speaker 1: So his mother had never heard of Western Union and
Speaker 1: laws hadn't either, But apparently he talked to another German
Speaker 1: tourist at the airport who had told him to use it,
Speaker 1: and he was able to describe to his mom how
Speaker 1: to use Western Union in a way that she understood
Speaker 1: how to use Western Union after he explained it, which
Speaker 1: said to his mom that he had his wits about him.
Speaker 1: He wasn't out of his mind, He wasn't um wasted
Speaker 1: on drugs or anything like that. He was very much
Speaker 1: with it mentally, alright. So he um and I saw
Speaker 1: two different things here. Either his mom urged him to
Speaker 1: go to the airport doctor just to make sure he's
Speaker 1: good to fly, or there was some requirement that he
Speaker 1: do so. But either way, he goes to the airport
Speaker 1: medical center. And this is where things get a little confusing, because, uh,
Speaker 1: it's really all over the place whether or not he
Speaker 1: goes in right away or whether he goes in later.
Speaker 1: But he apparently calls his mom tells her, hey, they
Speaker 1: said I shouldn't fly or drive. But he hadn't even
Speaker 1: gone to see the doctor at that point. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then once he does see the doctor, the doctor ends
Speaker 1: up giving a few different versions of what happened while
Speaker 1: he was in there, which is, either, you know, some
Speaker 1: people think that looks really shady. I think it could
Speaker 1: have just been like at the time, this doctor, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not making some really big mental notes about the
Speaker 1: random patient that comes in, like this guy is going
Speaker 1: to be an international mystery in an hour. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: you know, it could have been innocent that heads his
Speaker 1: story changed, or it could be sad. It could be
Speaker 1: so for from uh, from what I saw that the
Speaker 1: doctor UM changed the story three times and that airline
Speaker 1: employee came in, uh. And then later it was an
Speaker 1: airport employee came in, which I think kind of across
Speaker 1: the internet became a construction worker because that the airport
Speaker 1: had recently undergone or was undergoing renovations. And then I
Speaker 1: guess the third story was that the doctor said that
Speaker 1: no one had come in uh, and that Lars had
Speaker 1: excused himself to go to the toilet and did not
Speaker 1: come back. The doctor was expecting to come back. He
Speaker 1: just never came back with the doctor didn't know uh
Speaker 1: if that was in fact what happened was that Lars
Speaker 1: wasn't coming back because he was sprinting through the airport
Speaker 1: and running out of the airport and into the surrounding countryside. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And in the version where someone does come in, UM,
Speaker 1: what that means is is that literally a human being
Speaker 1: another person walks into the examination room and apparently really
Speaker 1: freaked out if if that version is correct, really freaked
Speaker 1: out Lars, who was already obviously feeling a little bit
Speaker 1: paranoid and was like, what is this person doing in here?
Speaker 1: In the one version of the story, the doctor tries
Speaker 1: to explain, Hey, it's just a construction guy, or no,
Speaker 1: this is an airline employee that's going to actually walk
Speaker 1: you to the plane. Um, it's a little frustrating to
Speaker 1: not know the exact truth, but no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: we do know that he's rented from the airport because
Speaker 1: that part is actually on YouTube and on CCTV, And
Speaker 1: that's why he's the most famous disappeared person on YouTube,
Speaker 1: because it's very compelling to watch this uh young kid
Speaker 1: drop all and you don't see him drop his stuff,
Speaker 1: but clearly he walks in with a backpack in a
Speaker 1: duffel bag and he sprints with nothing in his hands
Speaker 1: at like full you know, twenty one year old athletic
Speaker 1: gallop out of there as if someone is chasing him. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: but there's a couple of weird things about it. If
Speaker 1: you watch the video and and again you can go
Speaker 1: anywhere on the internet and see this. I think it's
Speaker 1: a good thirty seconds of it, um cut together that
Speaker 1: he is running in the airport, and then when he
Speaker 1: gets outside he kind of like walks and then jogs
Speaker 1: a little bit and runs some more. But then I
Speaker 1: saw somebody on I think it was read at two
Speaker 1: on a different post um they're they're unresolved mysteries group
Speaker 1: is just really good. Um. But somebody pointed out that
Speaker 1: if you watch him, he's not really like looking behind him.
Speaker 1: He's not he's not looking to see somebody coming after him. Um.
Speaker 1: And it kind of puts a different spin on things
Speaker 1: because you do think, well, surely he's running for his life,
Speaker 1: but if you're running for your life, it does seem
Speaker 1: like you would be a lot more concerned about who
Speaker 1: was coming after you and would probably look behind you
Speaker 1: a little more. He doesn't quite do that. Actually, he's
Speaker 1: it's a very strange run, but it's also not like
Speaker 1: the run of a person who's out of their mind.
Speaker 1: That's a That was what stood out to me is
Speaker 1: that he doesn't seem to at all be out of
Speaker 1: his mind. Yeah, and another couple of details here, um
Speaker 1: that was tough to verify. Supposedly, in the doctor's office,
Speaker 1: he said, I don't want to die here. I have
Speaker 1: to get out of here. Uh. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's true or not, but um, supposedly that's what he said.
Speaker 1: And then the mom, Sandra evidently saw she went over
Speaker 1: there um to you know, do her own investigat ing
Speaker 1: obviously right after it happened, and supposedly saw footage directly
Speaker 1: from the airport that had a lot of different stuff
Speaker 1: that was not included in the footage that went to
Speaker 1: the police. And she said in the footage that she
Speaker 1: saw was that when he leaves the airport, he stands
Speaker 1: there like checks his pocket as if he's checking to
Speaker 1: make sure he has his passport and his wallet and stuff,
Speaker 1: and kind of looks around and orients himself for a minute,
Speaker 1: like should I go this way? Should I go that way? Um?
Speaker 1: If you look at other places on the internet and
Speaker 1: you just look at that footage, it looks like he
Speaker 1: just bolts from the airport and then continues to either
Speaker 1: kind of walk or jog and never stops, never checks
Speaker 1: his pockets, never orients himself at all. Yeah, So he
Speaker 1: actually walks within um, twenty feet of a couple of
Speaker 1: cops who are standing talking to one another in the
Speaker 1: parking lot. He walks past them. Um, he goes behind
Speaker 1: the sand pile and then eventually goes over. I think,
Speaker 1: is it actually on camera him going over of the
Speaker 1: fence or is it just presumed that he went over
Speaker 1: the fence. Now it's on camera, but it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like they had to circle and
Speaker 1: highlight him because he's so far in the distance. But
Speaker 1: he he goes over a barbed wire fence into a
Speaker 1: full bloom sunflower field, which are very very tall and
Speaker 1: literally disappears never to be seen again now. And on
Speaker 1: the other side of that sunflower field, very importantly is
Speaker 1: the a two highway, so who knows what happened. And
Speaker 1: then beyond that there's a lot of woods. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it like the most densely forested place on earth,
Speaker 1: but there's a pretty decent sized woods around there. There's
Speaker 1: also a lot of farm fields too that's exposed and
Speaker 1: out in the open, but there's a highway on the
Speaker 1: other side of it, and that's to me, is is
Speaker 1: extremely important. All Right, Should we take another break? Yes, alright,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take another break and bring it home with
Speaker 1: what happened from there and then some of the theories
Speaker 1: about what happened to large mat talk. Yeah, so Chuck,
Speaker 1: just to recap Lars Matonk has fled. There's a really
Speaker 1: good way to put it, the airport leaving behind in
Speaker 1: the doctor's office all of his stuff, including his wallet, phone,
Speaker 1: and passport. Now, is that verified? I saw that basically everywhere,
Speaker 1: including speculating that she saw him checking is. Yeah, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I thought that was very confusing. But I saw it
Speaker 1: in the sun which I realized is not the most
Speaker 1: credible source, but sadly it is one of the most
Speaker 1: credible sources when it comes to researching this case. Um,
Speaker 1: I saw it on a Yale um article. It's it's
Speaker 1: basically every rewere that his wallet, passport and phone were
Speaker 1: left behind. Um, I I be. But I mean that's
Speaker 1: a really good point, Like we're totally we're lost in
Speaker 1: the sunflower field. As far as that stuff concerns, we
Speaker 1: we don't know. We've got to get our hands on
Speaker 1: the police report. UM. And even that I read when
Speaker 1: when Lars's mom hired um Bulgarian lawyer as an investigator. Um,
Speaker 1: they got weird conflicting information about you know, what was
Speaker 1: found with him or not, or what was what was
Speaker 1: left behind by him or not. So even his mom
Speaker 1: probably couldn't say for certain what was there. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: get the picture that it was a frustrating experience working
Speaker 1: with the Bulgarian police. Um. It seems like the Germany
Speaker 1: got involved with interpoll, but they had some frustrations as well.
Speaker 1: There's there's some speculation that they intentionally kind of um
Speaker 1: kept the story on the download because they didn't want
Speaker 1: it to affect to her is him? Yeah, I could
Speaker 1: see that. Other people say that, well maybe not that,
Speaker 1: but it just wasn't widely known it was some German kid. Uh,
Speaker 1: it wasn't all over the newspapers, and so people, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily even know what was going on if
Speaker 1: they saw this flyer, or they maybe not have. Maybe
Speaker 1: they didn't even run it on the evening news. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so like if it was three weeks four weeks
Speaker 1: after the disappearance, that like news started to really spread,
Speaker 1: or maybe news never really spread. If you were a
Speaker 1: driver and you gave a kid a ride on the
Speaker 1: A two highway outside of the airport, um, you might
Speaker 1: not have ever put two and two together or um,
Speaker 1: if you saw some kid running through a field into
Speaker 1: the woods. You might not have ever heard of Lars
Speaker 1: Matonk either. So, um, there's it's possible there's people out
Speaker 1: there with information who just aren't aren't don't know to
Speaker 1: cough it up, although that's probably exceedingly unlikely these days
Speaker 1: because of the exposure that this story has gotten. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one interesting tidbit is that they did find that those
Speaker 1: five hundred euros were untouched in his account. Um, and
Speaker 1: I don't think we mentioned I think some people speculate
Speaker 1: the fact that it was five hundred euros on the
Speaker 1: nose and that it was Western Union and he had
Speaker 1: never used it meant that he was being told by
Speaker 1: somebody to get five hundred euros wired via this way.
Speaker 1: But again that's just internet speculation. Well, I also saw
Speaker 1: that it was his mom's decision. He just asked her
Speaker 1: to wire him some money, some money he had decided
Speaker 1: that that that was according to that documentarian who knows,
Speaker 1: we really need to get sounder ma talk on here, dude. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the cool things that happened through this through
Speaker 1: his mother investigating this is various leads came in over
Speaker 1: the years, like hey, there's this guy that speaks German.
Speaker 1: He could be Lars. She would go check it out,
Speaker 1: there's this other guy. Uh oh. Over the years, she
Speaker 1: has ended up finding fifteen German expatriots in Bulgaria somewhere addicts,
Speaker 1: some were mentally ill, uh, Some were actually reunited with
Speaker 1: their families, some didn't want to be reunited. But she
Speaker 1: found all these people, so like every time that happened,
Speaker 1: it gave her hope that even though the chances, you know,
Speaker 1: with a case like this is if you don't find
Speaker 1: this person within the first you know, a few days
Speaker 1: or the first week, it's like very slim to no chance.
Speaker 1: All of these things gave her hope that she could
Speaker 1: if she just kept at it, that she might eventually
Speaker 1: find her son. Yeah. I was really surprised to see
Speaker 1: that there was a statin here that said that something
Speaker 1: like only three percent of missing persons cases aren't resolved
Speaker 1: within the first year in Germany. Yeah, not even in Germany,
Speaker 1: but among German citizens. Yeah, I thought it would be
Speaker 1: a lot higher than that. But that's that's actually not
Speaker 1: not bad as far as I can tell. Yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of those people, by the way, um who was
Speaker 1: found that was thought to be. There's like a whole
Speaker 1: thing where people are following this case and anytime uh
Speaker 1: something ends up on the internet, uh, it ends up
Speaker 1: being passed along to Sandra Matonk who will basically post
Speaker 1: on her Instagram like, hey, uh, this was sent from
Speaker 1: this town. Can somebody go see if they can find
Speaker 1: this homeless guy and and get me more pictures of
Speaker 1: them so we can figure out if it's Lars. Like
Speaker 1: she does this kind of frequently. There was one where
Speaker 1: a guy turned up in Brazil who looks a lot
Speaker 1: like Lars, but disheveled with the beard and his hair
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. Uh. And that turned out to be
Speaker 1: a different man Um who was missing from British Columbia
Speaker 1: named Anton Pilpa, who was reunited with his family after
Speaker 1: five years. And they think that he hitch hike, hitchhiked
Speaker 1: and walked from British Columbia down to Brazil um and
Speaker 1: then kind of lived around uh Rio. I think Rio
Speaker 1: um on his own for a while during a mental
Speaker 1: break man. Uh So some of the theories over the
Speaker 1: years that have been formed, um, the one that seems
Speaker 1: the most obvious to me is that along with the
Speaker 1: ear injury, there was some sort of a head injury,
Speaker 1: maybe a concussion left untreated that led to erratic behavior
Speaker 1: and paranoia maybe, and that you know, once he had
Speaker 1: left and had no money and no phone and no passport, Uh,
Speaker 1: he sort of was just sort of perhaps lost his
Speaker 1: memory and lost in Bulgaria and still lost in Bulgaria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's entirely possible, especially if it was a head injury
Speaker 1: that was getting worse and worse by the hour. Um.
Speaker 1: That could definitely explain the erratic behavior of leaving his
Speaker 1: stuff and running through the airport and jumping the fence
Speaker 1: into a sunflower field, Because if you think about it,
Speaker 1: everything up to that point you can explain by him
Speaker 1: being intimidated in a hotel he didn't feel comfortable in
Speaker 1: um by some guys who aimed to rob him. And
Speaker 1: even if those guys didn't aim to rob him, just
Speaker 1: him thinking that they were going to rob him explains
Speaker 1: everything else up to that point. The thing that makes
Speaker 1: it inexplicable as far as I'm concerned is him leaving
Speaker 1: the airport the way they did and potentially leaving everything behind.
Speaker 1: That throws everything out the window and actually makes the
Speaker 1: idea of a traumatic brain injury a lot more um
Speaker 1: possible in my mind. The problem is that if that's
Speaker 1: what happened to him, it's really possible that he's up there,
Speaker 1: you know, out in the woods somewhere still and just
Speaker 1: hasn't been found and is is dead probably by now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I suppose he could have just you know, wandered into
Speaker 1: a town and assimilated. Well. His mom apparently does believe
Speaker 1: that he's still out there, which is why she tries
Speaker 1: to shake down every lead she can, but thinks that
Speaker 1: he does have memory loss and that that's why he's
Speaker 1: still out there just and is never her contacted her.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that, you know, maybe everything he said
Speaker 1: is true, maybe there were men following him. Maybe it
Speaker 1: had something to do with that fight, and these guys
Speaker 1: that may or may not have been hired to beat
Speaker 1: him up. Apparently the human trafficking in Bulgaria is a problem,
Speaker 1: and maybe you know, a young, handsome, fit man like
Speaker 1: Lars could have been a target for human trafficking and
Speaker 1: that he really like had every right to be anxious
Speaker 1: and nervous because otherwise he seemed like he was okay. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's all very confusing and frustrating. I can't imagine what
Speaker 1: Sandra Matonk has been going through for these years. So dude,
Speaker 1: just can't even I mean, when you're when you have
Speaker 1: when you don't have closure like that, your imagination is
Speaker 1: left to just fill in whatever blanks. And you know,
Speaker 1: in a situation like that, people's imaginations tended to go
Speaker 1: to the darkest places. I can't imagine the stuff that
Speaker 1: she's come up with or that people have suggested to
Speaker 1: her too, you know, being caught up in it and
Speaker 1: forgetting like this is the mom, Like this is real
Speaker 1: to her, this is her life. This isn't just something
Speaker 1: on the internet. But what about the trucker. Oh, so
Speaker 1: that's one of the leads. Um, uh, that there was
Speaker 1: a trucker in uh what where was it? Brandenburg? The
Speaker 1: trucker So there was a trucker that in two thousand
Speaker 1: nineteen picked up a hitchhiker in Dresden and drove him
Speaker 1: all the way to Brandenburg. I guess, um and uh.
Speaker 1: He said later on he didn't know about the Lars
Speaker 1: Matonk case at the time, but he said later on
Speaker 1: he found out about it and said, oh man, that's
Speaker 1: got to be the kid that I picked up. And so, um,
Speaker 1: his His mom shook down the story, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that she ever got in touch at the truck
Speaker 1: driver else. The truck driver was just like, here's what
Speaker 1: I think, but I can't. I can't say either way,
Speaker 1: and I don't know where he went. So there's like
Speaker 1: a beyond the lookout among you know, Lars matonk watchers
Speaker 1: in Brandenburg. From that story. Yeah, there was another stuff
Speaker 1: like that that kept her owen totally. Um. I saw
Speaker 1: there was another one about a man in Dusseldorf UM
Speaker 1: that the whole thing lasted for about two hours. That's
Speaker 1: how fast things get done. She posted pictures that somebody
Speaker 1: had sent her of a man, a homeless man in
Speaker 1: Dusseldorf UM, and asked for more pictures than they Within
Speaker 1: two hours, the coptain Dusseldorf had picked the guy up
Speaker 1: and verified that it was not Lars. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the head injury and loss of memory, like
Speaker 1: he would want to get back to Germany. By all accounts,
Speaker 1: he had a good life and enjoyed his job, was
Speaker 1: a pretty happy guy and loved Germany. UM. So like
Speaker 1: the idea of him choosing to stay there of his
Speaker 1: own like sound mind just doesn't seem likely at all. No,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately that really strongly suggests foul play as a
Speaker 1: possibility to the fact that he has not turned up,
Speaker 1: he has every reason to, like you said, turned turned
Speaker 1: back up again, get back to his life. I saw
Speaker 1: that um this on the State Department's website for Bulgarian
Speaker 1: human trafficking. Like, Bulgaria does have a human trafficking problem,
Speaker 1: but it seems to be typically targeting Bulgarians, especially Romani
Speaker 1: people um who end up getting forced to beg on
Speaker 1: the streets, are forced into hard labor if you're a man.
Speaker 1: Um that it doesn't necessarily target tourists, and I think
Speaker 1: the Bulgarian officials would probably not put up with that
Speaker 1: because it would harm tourism so dramatically. So it's fairly
Speaker 1: unlikely that like a blonde German guy named you know,
Speaker 1: Lars would be would end up begging on the streets
Speaker 1: of France at the behest of the Bulgarian mafia. And
Speaker 1: I also saw another theory that he was a drug
Speaker 1: mule and he flipped out, was scared he was gonna
Speaker 1: get caught, and ran out of the airport. What really
Speaker 1: kind of undermines that theory is that no drugs were
Speaker 1: found in his stuff, so it's possible he took drugs.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are like, well, clearly he was
Speaker 1: on drugs, Like, why else would you do that? Um,
Speaker 1: that's a possibility as well. But again, if you really
Speaker 1: look at some of his behavior, um it the yes,
Speaker 1: the fact that he ran out of the airport and
Speaker 1: jumped over a fence, that's erratic behavior. But if you
Speaker 1: look at the way he was behaving during that erratic behavior,
Speaker 1: he's not acting erratic. If that makes any sense. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's one of the most bizarre mysteries
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. So kudos to you and uh Dave
Speaker 1: Meischner for coming up with this one. Yeah. I knew
Speaker 1: nothing about it until Dave sent it, So way to go, Dave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to spend more time on YouTube. I guess
Speaker 1: we can totally missed this one, so we can go
Speaker 1: back to vid gun. Right, do you got anything else? Nope?
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if you want to know more about
Speaker 1: Lar's matonk go out and solve the mystery, will you,
Speaker 1: at least for his dear mother's sake, And since we
Speaker 1: said his dear mother's sake, it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this this is another kid right and
Speaker 1: in Uh, this is actually from dad. My son Hans
Speaker 1: colored a picture of you podcasting today, prompted, which did
Speaker 1: you see this picture? No, I gotta bring it up.
Speaker 1: It was very cute, which I thought was awesome. I
Speaker 1: said we should send it to Josh and Chuck in
Speaker 1: his eyes lit up. He wrote out what he wanted
Speaker 1: to type in an email to you, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was better to just send you his note. I've
Speaker 1: been listening to the show for the last ten years
Speaker 1: or so, and introduce my son a few months ago.
Speaker 1: We read books before bed, including yours, and then listen
Speaker 1: to the podcast as he falls asleep. I'm thankful that
Speaker 1: I'm able to share this with Hans. He's a smart
Speaker 1: kid with incredible memory, so we'll often bring up facts
Speaker 1: he's learned from you guys, which I had already forgotten. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the picture, what's adorable? What's the name of the
Speaker 1: guy who sent it? I'm looking for Sam Okay And Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a picture with magic marker and you were sitting
Speaker 1: upright at a table and he actually nailed it because
Speaker 1: you're on the left, you know, back in the before
Speaker 1: times when we were actually in our studio. He has
Speaker 1: it right, you're on the left, I'm on the right.
Speaker 1: I am. It looks like I'm passing out though I'm
Speaker 1: kind of slumped over. But he's got two little microphones
Speaker 1: and then two little pieces of paper with a handwritten
Speaker 1: thing that says notes, pointing at the paper and says
Speaker 1: I listen to your she almost every night. And then
Speaker 1: there's a handwritten letter which is great, which I'll read
Speaker 1: UH as best I can. I love your show, Chuck
Speaker 1: and Josh. Today I listened to your s y s
Speaker 1: K about ear wax. I told my mom and UH
Speaker 1: and had some of your tips. Hey, have you guys
Speaker 1: made a football episode like Touchdown? But if not, can
Speaker 1: you make one? I listen to almost all the episodes
Speaker 1: except ones that my parents don't let me watch. I
Speaker 1: also have your book. I have read some of the
Speaker 1: chapters in it and they are great. I like that
Speaker 1: you guys have different types of episodes, like short stuff
Speaker 1: and just regular episodes. I'm your biggest fan. I'm the
Speaker 1: second grade. Yours, sincerely, and that is Hans last name
Speaker 1: redacted because he's a kid Hans, I was amazing. I'm
Speaker 1: going to find the picture. I haven't been able to
Speaker 1: find it yet, but that was a beautiful letter. And
Speaker 1: you have a super cool name by the way. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love it, and thank you Dad, Sam and whoever
Speaker 1: else is in the family helping to support the show.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. Ye. Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, like Hans, maybe try drawn
Speaker 1: a picture. What are you waiting for? Um? We love pictures.
Speaker 1: You can send them off to us here at stuff
Speaker 1: podcast did iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
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