WEBVTT - Selects: The Disappearance of Lars Mittank 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.280 Hey, everybody, Chuck here on a Saturday with a little 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.400 mystery true crime episode served up for you. It's the 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:11.559 disappearance of Lars Metonk and I think it's me Tonk 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.760 And if I'm not mistaken, Josh and I probably pronounced 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.480 it all sorts of ways because that's kind of what 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:18.840 we do, much to the annoyance of many of you. 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:27.520 We're very sorry, but I hope you enjoy it. Welcome 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.960 to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.280 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:42.560 there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.920 and this is Stuff you Should Know at another True 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:48.920 Life Mystery edition. 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:51.600 A True Life Mystery. 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.040 Yeah, Okay, I don't want to say crime because I'm 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.240 not one hundred percent sure crime was involved. I'm sure 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.680 it still falls under the umbrella of true crime, but 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.720 it's a mystery, a disappearance, how about that? 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.520 Yeah? And this one is this can be frustrating to research. 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.040 And this is our caveat in that this situation, as 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.200 you will learn, happened in Bulgaria to a German Man 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.840 and that's part of the reason it's hard to get 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.759 great information. There are plenty of people on the Internet 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:29.679 telling this story with different details, and it's just sort 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:31.920 of one of those cases where like we can't get 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.759 our hands on Bulgarian case files from the cops and 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:40.080 read it ourselves. So we did find a redditor who 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.840 did something last year who claims that he got information 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:48.760 from Lars's mother, who you're going to meet, Sondra. She's 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:49.920 not gonna be on the show. You're not going to 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.920 really meet her meet through our words. But you know 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.960 who knows this is someone on Reddit and all his 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.240 sources were in German, so I couldn't double check those either, right. 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.320 Yeah, No, I mean that's that's a caveat that works 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:10.240 for just about any true crime or disappearance case these days, 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.040 just because there's so many people who you know, take 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.440 it in a story and run it through their own grinder, 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.240 and you know, like you said, little details, little facts 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.120 get changed here, and then somebody else picks up the 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:21.959 same fact without double checking it, and now all of 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:23.840 a sudden, it's all over the place, and you can't 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.639 tell if that's because it's real or because a bunch 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.799 of people just repeated the same incorrect facts. So We're 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.040 gonna definitely do our best. But one of the things 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.520 about this story is there are enough, you know, totally 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:43.480 verified facts to it that you know, you don't really 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.800 need to get completely lost in the details. People have 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.440 gotten completely lost in the details, but they've still not 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.640 solved the case. That hasn't helped anybody yet, So just 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.800 the facts that are known are kind of strange enough. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.280 Yeah, And I think it's it's always more comfortable for 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.080 us when it's like when there's a book that's been 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.440 written about it, published by like a real publisher. 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:08.200 Like Beverly Cleary. 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.480 It's not just internet dudes. But you know, a lot 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.120 of times these more recent sort of missing person cases, 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:17.720 it is just internet dude. 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:19.920 So you know, yeah, it is what it is. And 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.760 the dude that we're talking about is named Lars Matonk 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.520 and he's known as the most famous missing person on 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:28.440 YouTube because. 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:29.440 I hate that he is. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.200 It's pretty bad almost. It should have probably just scared 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:38.040 us off of this episode to begin with. The because 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.280 you remember what was the name of that con, the 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.400 YouTube Convention. We went to that one time. 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:50.440 Oh, it was like Internet con, but it wasn't that. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:52.960 It was close to that I can't remember. That almost 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:54.360 put me off of YouTube forever. 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:59.160 We blocked our memory bank as we did our biggest 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.880 show ever there in front of about twelve people. Yeah, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.240 it was pretty bad, but I'll think of it. But 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:09.040 by the way, we should thank Dave Meischner, who's a 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.480 listener who turned me onto this quite a while ago. 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.040 So sorry it took so long to get to Dave. 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.320 So we're talking again. We're talking about Lars matonk and 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:22.000 he vanished from the face of the earth. As his 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.640 mom put it, it was like the earth just swallowed him up. 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.080 Back on July eighth, twenty fourteen, in a town, a 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.039 resort town in Bulgaria on the Black Sea called Golden Sands, which, 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:34.920 looking at pictures of it, it looks like a pretty 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:40.560 charming little place. Big con, that's it. It might as 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.680 well have been called Internet Con. Yeah, but did you 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.920 look at pictures of Golden Sands to get a feel 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:46.480 for the place? 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.760 Yeah, you know, looks like any lovely seaside hamlet. 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.359 Yeah. And I couldn't get the impression of whether it 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.400 was more like Deston or more like Panama City Beach. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.000 I just couldn't. It seems like a big party spot, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:00.720 if that's what you're wondering. 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.760 Okay, But like it also looked like it was fairly 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.120 like clean and well run and not just like you know, 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.040 just whatever kind of thing. I don't know, I place 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.000 it between the two from what I can tell, But 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.560 that's where that's where this event took place, where the 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.320 disappearance took place. It's actually Varna, Bulgaria, which is the 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.720 main town that Golden Sands Resort beach town is right 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:25.400 outside of. 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.880 Yeah. So as far as Lars, the young man who 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.600 would go missing, he was born in February nineteen eighty 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.960 six in northern Germany. He was an only child. He 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:40.320 was a handsome kid, very popular. He was athletic, he 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.280 was smart. He did well in school. After he ended up. 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.640 After he graduated, he ended up getting a job at 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.000 the GDFSUS power plant about one hundred miles from where 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.880 he grew up, fixing small electrical machines. He was an 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.760 engineer and it seemed like he had a really good 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.560 life and he enjoyed his job. He loved and this 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.000 will figure in so put a pin in this. His 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.000 one big love was his football club, his soccer team 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.240 that he followed, which is in you know, this is 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.400 not how they would pronounce it, but the Verder Bremen 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:14.279 football club. 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:16.280 Oh really, how would they pronounce it? 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.560 Well, it's always just a little more German, let's see, 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:25.160 you know, like the guy the Redditor, he narrates his 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:26.800 own documentary and he said it in a way that 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:28.080 I'm not even going to attempt. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:33.000 Oh okay, all right, fine, So that whole football club 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:37.479 thing actually plays a role in this because it may 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.040 be at the center of his disappearance. We're not one 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.120 hundred percent sure, but to kind of give you an 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.200 idea of what kind of guy Lars Metank was. Metank was. 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.080 His dad had a stroke a couple of years before 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.680 he disappeared, and his mom had to take care of 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.080 his dad full time. Lars was an only child, and 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:57.760 he would come home I guess about one hundred miles 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.719 from where he lived and worked almost every weekend to 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.919 help take care of his dad, which is not every 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:07.800 guy in their late twenties would do that, you know. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.680 And apparently he was dedicated enough that his mom had 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.440 to kind of encourage him to go along with five 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.040 other friends of his two week long vacation at Golden 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.640 Sands in Bulgaria in July, the end of June beginning 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.080 of July. He wasn't going to go, and his mom said, no, 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.760 you should should totally go. You deserve a week off 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:29.760 like this, So he went. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.600 Yeah. So it's a big party scene. Like I said, 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.480 it is well known for young people from all over 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.480 Europe going to take advantage of the resort deals, all 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:48.040 inclusive places, the cheap booze, plenty of drugs to be had. 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:53.840 Lars was the life of the party. According to his friends, 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.520 I saw her anywhere from three to five friends. I 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.120 know for sure two guys, and I think these were 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.160 his high school mates who were most prominent, named Tim 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.480 Schultz and Paul Roman. But they were hanging out, going 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.600 to the beach playing soccer. The one weird thing that 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.960 I think people may have made too much about online 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.200 as far as internet sleuthing goes, is his friends remarked 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.480 that he didn't have much of an appetite on the trip, 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.480 was eating like soup and salad and fruit, whereas they were, 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:23.360 you know, as an all inclusive resort, so they were 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.040 just like feasting on everything. And I think they thought 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:27.960 it was odd that he wasn't, but I don't make 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:29.080 a whole lot about that. 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.240 Yeah, neither did that one reditor or slash documentary and 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.240 who said that he apparently had kind of gotten had 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.360 been on a health kick, so he was kind of 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.959 watching what he ate a little more. Yeah, some people 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:43.960 have been like, there's your there's your answer right there 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:49.280 that explains it at all. Yeah, basically, So, I mean 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.120 the week went by pretty uneventfully. I think one of 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.000 his friends later said on TV or in an interview 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:59.280 that it went by really quick. On one of the 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.120 I think that's second to last day, they went to 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.040 watch a World Cup match. The World Cup in Brazil 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.480 was going on at the time, and you may not 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.079 know this about Europe, but they're really crazy about soccer, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:13.640 so much so that they have their own word for 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.160 it football, which is goofy. But that's the way it goes. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:22.400 And so they went to this bar rock bar or Okbaar, 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:27.080 which sounds like a cool place, and they watched the match, 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.360 i think Costa Rica and the Netherlands. And while they 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.120 were there, there were a bunch of soccer fans. They're 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.960 watching this from all different clubs and countries, and there 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.680 were some kids I guess who were recent high school 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.280 graduates and were fans of FC Byron, which is the 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:49.360 rival to Verder Bremen, And I guess they kind of 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:54.079 got into it verbally only with Lars and his friends. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.640 Yeah, and I also saw places that there was actual 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.320 physical confrontation. Oh yeah, you don't know for sure, but 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.280 we do know that it wasn't the biggest deal and 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.720 it wasn't the big fight that happened. Later on, after 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.120 this night out, the guys apparently go to this McDonald's 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:15.959 which is kind of an open air order at the 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.160 open air window kind of thing, and Lars didn't want 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:20.960 to eat because I guess he was on that health kick, 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.679 and he sort of just stood nearby while his two 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.040 buddies were ordering. They got their food, they turned around, 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.600 he wasn't there. They don't see him for the rest 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.280 of the night. But like I said, it's sort of like, 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.480 you know, spring break party central. So if one of 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.720 your friend disappears for the night and you're a bunch 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.640 of dudes, you might just think like, all right, well, 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.520 you know, maybe he ended up meeting somebody, or maybe 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.680 he just went out and partied some more. But it 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.680 didn't send up these huge alarms that he didn't come 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:51.360 back that night. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.880 Yeah, So when he did show up again, I don't 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:57.920 know if it was later that night or the next morning, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.720 he said that he had been beaten up, actually jumped 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:07.400 by three or four Bulgarian guys, and that he had 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:09.800 gone to duck when one of them threw a punch 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.480 and had actually taken a punch in his ear, which 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.360 is a terrible place to get punched. And he said 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.280 that he was quite convinced that it was those kids, 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.000 those high school kids who were fans of Byron FC 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.800 Byron that they'd gotten into it with at the bar 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.760 earlier that night, because apparently they had said, this is 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.400 just I only saw this in one place that they 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.600 had said that they had shouted that it's easy to 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.640 get to pay somebody to beat other people up in Bulgaria. 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.319 And so this happened close enough and close enough proximity 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.920 to that other altercation that he just assumed that's why 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.480 those guys jumped him. I mean, there's apparently there was 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.120 no other explanation for it. So that was his story. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.840 He showed up with an injured ear in the story 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.839 that he had been jumped by some local Bulgarians. 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.679 Yeah, and his friends apparently didn't necessarily believe that story 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.960 because he wasn't you know, he didn't have black eyes 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.640 or a bloody nose or anything. He looked fine and 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.360 he was acting fine, so they weren't too sure about 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.160 that story. Again, with the internet, slose, I've seen people 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.360 saying that like he totally made up the story about 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.439 the fight. But that is all just people speculating online. 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.520 I know, if you ever want to see people just 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.040 take a piece of information and then spin it to 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:34.400 the n degree the most extreme possible interpretation of it, 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.080 that you could do worse than hang out on the internet. 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.480 So he goes to a doctor, he gets the diagnosis 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.800 of a ruptured ear drum. Apparently went and saw a 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.160 specialist at a hospital who confirmed it, said you should 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.320 get surgery, and Lars is like, great, but I'm not 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:53.840 getting that here. I'm going to go back come to 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:55.160 Germany if I'm going to get surgery. 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:55.440 Ye. 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:57.920 And then this is sort of one of the keys 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:04.559 is he was given biotic name cepheroxyme and he was 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.000 given the strongest possible dosage, which was about I think 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:09.719 it was five hundred milligrams. 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.599 Yes, and that's just a general I think a cephalexin 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:19.440 based antibiotic that doesn't really usually have many side effects, 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.760 and if it does have side effects, it's typically something 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.840 like an upset stomach. I saw that there's a condition 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:29.040 where it turns huge patches of your skin very dark 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.200 all over the place, almost like your highlights have been shaded. 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.079 It's really interesting to look at. But that has nothing 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.280 to do with any other anything that Lars exhibited, any 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:48.640 behavior exhibited. It's just antibiotics. I mean, if you've ever 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.960 taken antibiotics, you know that there's not really usually many 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:52.920 side effects to it. 0:13:54.080 --> 0:14:01.680 Right, So Lars catches well, again, different information. I saw 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.560 that his friends were going to stay with him. He 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.800 insisted they leave. So his friends eventually do catch that 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:12.880 original flight out and Lars stays behind, you know, because 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.120 of his ear. He was a little concerned about obviously, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.040 with changes in the atmosphere and on pressurization on a plane. 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.640 He didn't think it was a good idea. And I'm 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:24.600 not sure if that original doctor told him that might 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:26.960 have been a problem, but he knew it was going 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:27.680 to be a problem. 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:30.280 So a little bit about that original doctor. I saw 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.040 that from the redditor who said that he spoke to 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.680 the guys to his mother, that his mother said that 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.920 that Lars said that the doctor didn't really treat him. 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.160 The first one did and said you should go to 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.160 a specialist. But then when he went to the specialist, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.240 a specialist said like wouldn't speak to him in English, 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.640 and Lars felt he had mocked him, and that apparently 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.920 Sondra thought that that was really significant because that was 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.040 not a word that Lars typically used. But he still 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.760 managed to get the antibiotic from doctor. The thing about 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.560 the perforated or ruptured ear drum is I was looking 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.280 on the internet, it turns out, and the National Health 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.360 Service says that if you have a perforated ear drum, 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.880 it would probably actually make flying more comfortable, not more dangerous. 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.560 So I can understand Lars being worried about that, not 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.520 being a trained medical professional, but if he's encountering at 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:28.720 least three other medical professionals in Bulgaria, you would think 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.720 one of them would be like, actually, no, you're actually 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:33.760 better off flying like this, or would at the very 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.800 least be like, you don't have to worry about that 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.840 at all. That's not a thing interesting yeah, so too. 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.280 All right, well, let's take a break and we will 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.520 come back and talk about what happened after his friends 0:15:45.640 --> 0:16:19.520 left Lars alone in Bulgaria right after this, all right, 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.880 so Lars's buddies go back home to Germany. Lars is 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.680 left there by himself, which is pretty key as far 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.000 as understanding that they weren't worried about him. He wasn't 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:35.000 behaving weird. He seemed fine. He seemed like Lars. Otherwise 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.040 one of them probably would have raised some sort of 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.000 alarm bells and been like, hey, maybe we should stay here, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:41.880 but they said he seemed to relaxed, he was in a 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:46.760 good mood, and so they took off. Being summer, Lars 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:51.240 had a hard time getting a hotel room because everything 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.560 was booked up and he was staying on extra, so 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.480 he ends up having to check into the Hotel Color 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.920 of Varna, which was a really cdy place that this 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.159 cab driver takes him to, apparently a lot of drug dealers, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.119 a lot of sex workers, but that was kind of 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.880 the only place available, And we don't know a lot 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.439 about what happened that night other than these phone calls 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.320 and texts that he exchanges with his mom. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.920 So one thing though about the hotel color I looked 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.440 at it. Trip Advisor gives it a four out of 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.320 five and booking dot Com has it at seven point 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.440 eight out of ten. And it is definitely cheap. I 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.480 think rooms are like twenty five American dollars a night, 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.439 which is suspiciously cheap. And that yeah, there is like 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.560 probably some criminal activity there, but that it's not like 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.480 it's not like a trap house hotel or anything like that. 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.120 But it was the fact that it was his only 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:46.040 option I think kind of tells you quite a bit 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.520 too about it. Sure, So he goes to this hotel 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.200 he checks in. Apparently the person behind the counter made 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.040 a copy, a photo copy of his credit card, and 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.400 according to his mother, that did not sit very well 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:04.120 with Lar. And at eleven PM, after he's checked into 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.480 the hotel, he calls his mom, I think it's the 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.360 first phone first of many phone calls that evening, and 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:13.840 he tells her that he wants her to block his 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.280 credit card because he's kind of sketched out by this 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.320 hotelier who has made a photo copy of his card. 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.199 He's worried that they're going to use it for fraud 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:24.640 and he can just unfreeze it when he gets back. 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:26.800 That's the first phone call he makes. 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.160 Yeah, there ends up being another call where he has 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.840 left the hotel. He said that he was hiding on 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.920 a hill, and I think even said that he was 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.200 at risk of falling, So it must have been sort 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.000 of some sort of a really steep type of situation, 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.440 I guess. But he said that there were four men 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:48.879 after him that were trying to kill him, or that 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.720 intended to kill him at least, And he said, don't 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.679 call me back because my phone. I don't want my 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.480 phone to ring. I'm not sure I knew he didn't 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.440 have his smartphone with him. He left that at home yea, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:01.720 and brought sort of a cheaper phone, So I don't 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:03.320 know if it didn't have a way to turn the 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:05.119 ringer off or not, or if he was just not 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:07.640 thinking clearly, but he said not to call him back. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.440 He eventually texts his mom what is Sarah? Fom five hundred, 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:17.679 which was that antibiotic which you might think means like 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.080 he's feeling weird and like, what is this? 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.320 I've taken that to me says that if he was 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:30.040 behaving weirdly or experiencing some different behavior that he guessed 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.960 that that's what it was. That's the only explanation for that, 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.640 because they found that he had taken three of them, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.240 so he knew that he had that in his system, 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.680 which I guess if he was acting weird, maybe that's 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:45.800 what he thought it was. That's what sticks out to me. 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:49.600 Yeah, and I think it was either that night or 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:51.879 the following morning. When he asks, I think it was 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.560 the following morning. You know, she had booked a flight 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.239 home for him. He doesn't get back in touch with her, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.760 which really worked. He's her. But the next morning he 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.480 does get back in touch. This is two days after 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.440 this bar fight. She's relieved. He says he's going to 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.479 go to the airport and can he get five hundred 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.880 euros wired, you know, money grammed or whatever? 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:16.879 Western you know what? 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.000 Did they have Western Union over there? 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.920 Yeah? Supposedly there's a real detail in there and that 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:23.119 it was Western Union. 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.160 Well, what's the what makes Western Union important? 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.119 So his mother had never heard of Western Union and 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.200 Lars hadn't either, But apparently he talked to another German 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:34.560 tourist at the airport who had told him to use it, 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.680 and he was able to describe to his mom how 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.560 to use Western Union in a way that she understood 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.280 how to use Western Union after he explained it, which 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.160 said to his mom that he had his wits about him. 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.800 He wasn't out of his mind, he wasn't wasted on 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.840 drugs or anything like that. He was very much with 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:54.520 it mentally. 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:59.160 All right. So he and I saw two different things here. 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.000 Either his mom urged him to go to the airport 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:04.600 doctor just to make sure he's good to fly, or 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.920 there was some requirement that he do so. But either way, 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.760 he goes to the airport medical center. And this is 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:17.560 where things get a little confusing, because it's really all 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:19.520 over the place, whether or not he goes in right 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:24.160 away or whether he goes in later. But he apparently 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.920 calls his mom tells her, hey, they said I shouldn't 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.920 fly or drive. But he hadn't even gone to see 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.760 the doctor at that point. And then once he does 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:34.680 see the doctor, the doctor ends up giving a few 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.720 different versions of what happened while he was in there, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.600 which is either, you know, some people think that looks 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.040 really shady. I think it could have just been like 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:45.879 at the time, this doctor, you know, you're not making 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:49.919 some really big mental notes about the random patient that 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:50.560 comes in. 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.199 Like, this guy's going to be an international mystery in 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:53.640 an hour. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:56.520 Yeah, So you know, it could have been innocent that 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:58.760 his story changed, or it could be shady. 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.800 It could be so so from what I saw, that 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:07.320 the doctor changes story three times, and that an airline 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.320 employee came in, and then later it was an airport 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:14.040 employee came in, which I think kind of across the internet, 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.600