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Speaker 1: School of Humans.

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Speaker 2: On June twenty fifth, twenty twenty, a fifty six year

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Speaker 2: old man named James Escalante, who had Native American heritage

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Speaker 2: and was also known by his nickname Blackhawk, left his

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Speaker 2: home in Wonder Valley, California, on his mountain bike. James

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Speaker 2: lived with a girlfriend, Sherry. She told law enforcement that

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Speaker 2: when he left home that day, he was headed down

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Speaker 2: the road about ten minutes from their place, in order

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Speaker 2: to help a friend of theirs d whose car had

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Speaker 2: gotten stuck in sugar sand, which is almost like dried

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Speaker 2: desert Quicksand it is hot out there in the desert.

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Speaker 2: The average temperature for that part of the desert in

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Speaker 2: July and August is around eighty nine degrees and highs

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Speaker 2: regularly go over one hundred degrees or even one hundred

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Speaker 2: and five, and out there in the desert it's dry heat,

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Speaker 2: so it feels like you're baking in an oven. It

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Speaker 2: happens every year hikers go missing. People just wander off

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Speaker 2: and get lost and don't come back. But the terrain

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Speaker 2: also means that when people do go missing under mysterious circumstances,

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Speaker 2: it can be easier for local law enforcement to write

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Speaker 2: it off as just an accident. Now. Supposedly, the friend

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Speaker 2: D had been out looking for rocks near Highway sixty

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Speaker 2: two and Shelton Road, east of the town of twenty

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Speaker 2: nine Palms. James had lived in that desert for a

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Speaker 2: long time. He knew the area well, so the plan

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Speaker 2: was for James to meet D at a specific intersection

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Speaker 2: to rescue her. But once he got out there, according

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Speaker 2: to Sherry, he couldn't find D. So James called Sherry

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Speaker 2: on his cell phone to figure out what was going on.

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Speaker 2: At that point, Sherry called D on a three way call,

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Speaker 2: so Sherry, D, and James were all on that call together,

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Speaker 2: and then James told D to honk her horn so

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Speaker 2: he could find her. He seemed to think he could

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Speaker 2: hear her, so he hung up the phone. But he

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Speaker 2: never got to D's car, and no one ever saw

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Speaker 2: James Escalante alive again. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past

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Speaker 2: five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,

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Speaker 2: I've learned that there is no such thing as a

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Speaker 2: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds

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Speaker 2: of messages from people all around the country asking for

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Speaker 2: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them. Their families

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Speaker 2: and their communities. If you have a case, she'd let

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Speaker 2: me and my team to look into. You can reach

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Speaker 2: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at

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Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four or five.

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Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six ' one

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Speaker 2: four or five, or you can send us a message

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Speaker 2: on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.

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Speaker 2: I heard about this case from James's daughter in law,

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Speaker 2: Heather Escalante, who listens to this podcast and reached out

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Speaker 2: to us for help. In the month's following James's disappearance,

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Speaker 2: Heather and her husband started working hard to find out

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Speaker 2: what happened to her father in law. She talked to

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Speaker 2: us about what was going on in James's life around

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Speaker 2: the time he went missing, and her struggle to put

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Speaker 2: together the missing pieces.

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Speaker 1: So James lived out in Wonder Valley, California, in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the desert. Wonder Valley is huge land mass wise,

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Speaker 1: but it has under seven hundred residents in that area.

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Speaker 1: It seems big, but it's really quite small and very

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Speaker 1: farse in the desert. A lot of the buildings and things.

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Speaker 1: Even if he went to maps and looked at it.

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Speaker 1: A lot of his buildings are abandoned dilapidated, so it

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Speaker 1: might sound like you know land mass wise, if there's

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Speaker 1: a lot, there's really not. It's very desolate and you

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Speaker 1: can see a lot for miles and miles out there.

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Speaker 2: Heather explained that James was living in a trailer on

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Speaker 2: the back of someone else's property. He lived with his girlfriend, Sherry,

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Speaker 2: and a third person, her ex boyfriend and their mutual friend,

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Speaker 2: a guy named Tyler who went by Tank.

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Speaker 1: At the time that James went in the thing, he

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Speaker 1: was living with his girlfriend at the time, and to

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Speaker 1: be honest, this is all things that we learned after

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Speaker 1: he went in the thing. He was living with someone

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Speaker 1: who's claiming that they were together at the time. Her

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Speaker 1: name is Very. They also had another person staying out

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Speaker 1: there with them, who oddly enough was Ferry's on again

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Speaker 1: off again boyfriend Flashed Fyance for about eight nine years

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Speaker 1: prior to this as well. They were living at the

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Speaker 1: back of someone's property off of Kerrn Road in Wonder

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Speaker 1: Valley in travel trailers. And the reason they were there

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Speaker 1: is because the person who was living in the home

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Speaker 1: at the time had a lot of health issues and

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Speaker 1: Scarry was supposally his caretaker. He actually passed away, probably

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Speaker 1: about a month or so before James disappeared, and the

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Speaker 1: family let them know, Hey, we're going to get ready

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Speaker 1: to sell the house, so you guys need to move.

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Speaker 1: And so they were actually in the process of packing

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Speaker 1: up and trying to move when James went missing, and

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Speaker 1: so very and be on again, off again boyfriend that

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Speaker 1: also lived there. Very strange dynamics. But who's their own

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Speaker 1: I guess.

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Speaker 2: The person who owned the land and property they lived

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Speaker 2: on passed away recently and their family was apparently planning

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Speaker 2: on selling that land, so Tank, James and Sherry's living

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Speaker 2: situation may have been about to change, which would have

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Speaker 2: potentially meant that they would have had to move. Heather

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Speaker 2: is open about the fact that James battled addictions and

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Speaker 2: challenges in his life, including drugs.

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Speaker 1: To tell you a little bit about James James was,

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Speaker 1: I've never made it a secret. James was not a faint.

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Speaker 1: He had a pass He had accurrence that didn't I

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Speaker 1: guess meet everybody's standard of what people want in their

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Speaker 1: perfect victim. I guess you could say in a story, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we've never made that a secret. We've

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Speaker 1: never tried to hide any of that stuff, but James was,

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Speaker 1: you know, despite all of that, James was an incredibly

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Speaker 1: sweet person. He had a big heart. That man will

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Speaker 1: give you the shirt off of his back if you

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Speaker 1: needed it. He was always helping people, even in in

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Speaker 1: the throes of his own issues. You know, when we

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Speaker 1: did his celebration of life, for instance, this is just

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Speaker 1: a really great example of just who James was. A

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Speaker 1: girl that I had never met showed up and she

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Speaker 1: came up to me and she says, you know, I

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Speaker 1: just wanted to tell you where an important person James

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Speaker 1: is to me because I was in the first of

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Speaker 1: an active addiction, and even though James was battling his

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Speaker 1: own demons, he mentored me and coached me into sobriety.

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Speaker 1: And now I'm going and taking classes so that I

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Speaker 1: can help other people get to him. So that was

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Speaker 1: just I mean, that's to me, is just the perfect

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Speaker 1: example of how James was. You know, regardless of what

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Speaker 1: he was dealing with in his own life, he always

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Speaker 1: put other people first, and he always was willing to

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Speaker 1: help people.

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Speaker 2: Heather said that James was quiet and kept to himself,

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Speaker 2: which meant that often family members wouldn't talk to him

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Speaker 2: for long periods of time. That was not unusual.

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Speaker 1: And you know, he was he was a very quiet man,

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Speaker 1: kind of came across as a little bit mysterious, and

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Speaker 1: he had a good sense of humor, and he was

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Speaker 1: he was pretty he was he was a pretty wise guy.

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Speaker 1: Like you know, if you if you needed advice, he

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Speaker 1: was a great listener, but he was also great at

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Speaker 1: giving advice. And he was a good person for everybody

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Speaker 1: to go to when they regardless of what they needed.

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Speaker 1: You know, like I said, he would do whatever he

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Speaker 1: could for you. So you know, that's kind of I

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Speaker 1: guess the best way I can describe him as a person.

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Speaker 2: James lived a fairly simple life. He worked in construction

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Speaker 2: and doing odd jobs around the desert.

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Speaker 1: He did a lot of construction type work and and

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Speaker 1: so I know, a long time ago he used the

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Speaker 1: lot at Salt Minds out there, but that was probably

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Speaker 1: when my husband was teenager time frame, so it had

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Speaker 1: been a while since he had done anything like that.

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Speaker 1: But he was doing a lot of like odd jobs

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Speaker 1: and things around the desert out there, you know, fixing things,

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Speaker 1: working on people's houses and some rants out there. I

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Speaker 1: know he was doing a lot of that right before

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Speaker 1: he went missing.

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Speaker 2: Heather said that the first time she learned that James

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Speaker 2: was missing was in September of twenty twenty. Remember this

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Speaker 2: was during COVID, so going long stretches of time without

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Speaker 2: seeing people in person or sometimes even talking to them

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Speaker 2: was something that was a little bit more normalized in

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Speaker 2: and James was someone who kept to himself anyway.

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Speaker 1: It was the beginning, like the first week of September.

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Speaker 1: My husband and his dad both are very wiaet people.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're not the type people you're going to

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Speaker 1: start a conversation up with. Because he hadn't asked them

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Speaker 1: a question, They're going to give you a one word answer,

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Speaker 1: and then that's kind of you just kind of boasted there.

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Speaker 1: So they didn't talk a lot on the phone or

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Speaker 1: things like that. And of course, my husband and I

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Speaker 1: live out in South Carolina, so literally couldn't get much

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Speaker 1: further away distance wise, so we didn't see the last

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Speaker 1: time we saw him in person was in twenty seventeen

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Speaker 1: when we went out there on trip. So we didn't

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Speaker 1: see him very often, and they really didn't talk often

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Speaker 1: because neither of them are talkers to be on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you know, we started catching word from people out

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Speaker 1: in the desert, like, hey, haven't seen your dad in

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Speaker 1: a while, do you know where he's at, Like, we

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Speaker 1: haven't heard from him. To be honest, in the beginning,

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Speaker 1: we didn't really put a lot of weight into it

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Speaker 1: one because of unfortunately the person that we were hearing

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Speaker 1: it from is not the most reliable source. And then

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Speaker 1: because you know, James was kind of a walker. He's

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Speaker 1: like a little bit of a nomad, if you will,

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Speaker 1: and so he would take off sometimes for you know,

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Speaker 1: a couple of days to a week, Yeah, things like that,

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Speaker 1: and you know, just kind of get away from things

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Speaker 1: and kind of you by himself. He was a loner,

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Speaker 1: and so at first we didn't really just take it

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Speaker 1: too seriously. But then after a while it was like, okay,

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Speaker 1: this was getting a little too much. So because of

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Speaker 1: the distance, we asked a close family friend of ours

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Speaker 1: to please go out there and check things out for

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Speaker 1: us and like see what they could find out.

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Speaker 2: The family friend was not able to make contact with James,

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Speaker 2: so Heather said that on September seventh, they had the

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Speaker 2: family friend call the police in Wonder Valley to make

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Speaker 2: a police report. Around that same time, Heather started posting

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Speaker 2: about James on Facebook.

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Speaker 1: It was just a whirlwind from that point forward. I

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Speaker 1: had immediately started putting, you know, creating missing person's flyers

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Speaker 1: and trying to figure out like kind of how to

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Speaker 1: get a space out there in the area. And beyond that,

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Speaker 1: started joining all kinds of Facebook groups that, you know,

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Speaker 1: if they were pertaining to that area the desert, I

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Speaker 1: joined them. If it was just a missing person's group

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Speaker 1: in general, I joined them. Anything to do with American

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Speaker 1: Indian missing type pages, joined those as well, and just

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Speaker 1: started trying to get a space out there and let

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Speaker 1: people know that he was missing and we're looking for him.

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Speaker 2: After that, James's girlfriend, Sherry, saw one of Heather's posts

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Speaker 2: and actually made a comment underneath it. Heather said that

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Speaker 2: that was her and her husband's first contact with Sherry,

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Speaker 2: and she said that from the first time that her

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Speaker 2: husband talked to Sherry on the phone, a conversation that Heather,

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Speaker 2: by the way, overheard, Heather said she began to feel uncomfortable.

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Speaker 2: Something was wrong. Heather and her husband talked to Sherry

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Speaker 2: on the phone after Sherry commented on Facebook post, and

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Speaker 2: Heather said the whole thing felt off.

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Speaker 1: Jerry actually saw one of my posts on one of

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Speaker 1: the desert pages out there and commented on it was like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm his girlfriend, give me a call and put her

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Speaker 1: number on there. So had my husband call her. I

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Speaker 1: was standing right next to him in the whole conversation

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Speaker 1: between the two of them, that very first conversation immediately

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Speaker 1: just I don't even know how to explain it. It just

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Speaker 1: got my stomach turning, and I just had like the

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Speaker 1: worst feeling the initial conversation between the two of them

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Speaker 1: that day on the phone. When she answered the phone,

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Speaker 1: she immediately started apologizing profusely, like I'm sorry, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: I'm fair, I'm so sorry, and we're you know. And

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Speaker 1: then from there it's like the entire conversation she was

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Speaker 1: referring to him in the past tent which immediately set

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Speaker 1: me off a little bit, because, I mean, at this point,

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Speaker 1: he's a missing person, right, that's it, And for all

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Speaker 1: we knew at this point he might have just still

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Speaker 1: been wandering. We didn't know. Yeah, I mean, he could

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Speaker 1: have been perfectly fine. So why are you referring to

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Speaker 1: him in the past tense? So that was the first

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Speaker 1: thing that immediately just set me off a little bit.

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Speaker 2: On that call, Sherry told them about what happened, the

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Speaker 2: series of events that led to James going out to

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Speaker 2: the desert to help their friend DP.

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Speaker 1: So she tells us at this point in time that

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Speaker 1: there was a friend of theirs that she had gone

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Speaker 1: out in the middle of the night, in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the desert, in the streetlights, there's no nothing to

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Speaker 1: hunt rocks, and got herself stuck out in sugar sand

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Speaker 1: out in the desert, which is really soft fand that

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Speaker 1: once you're in it, you're you're not getting out very easily.

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Speaker 2: Sherry said that after getting stuck, d had actually initially

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Speaker 2: called the third guy who lived on that same property, Tank,

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Speaker 2: but apparently he wasn't available to help, and then, according

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Speaker 2: to Sherry, Dee also tried to call someone else, a

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Speaker 2: guy named Gary. He said he wouldn't be able to

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Speaker 2: go get d for hours since he was at work.

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Speaker 2: So that's how James ended up volunteering to go out

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Speaker 2: there to help.

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Speaker 1: So that's at the point when she started kind of

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Speaker 1: blowing up Sherry's phone, and Sherry and James were supporting

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Speaker 1: the Sherry sitting at their place. Neither of them had

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Speaker 1: a vehicle, and Sherry claims that she sent James out

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Speaker 1: there to help her friend on a mountain bike, which

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Speaker 1: that for James was incredibly normal. James, even when he

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Speaker 1: had a license and a car, he rode his bike everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and I mean like ten twenty miles one way, kind

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Speaker 1: of rode his mountain height everywhere.

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Speaker 2: According to Heather, he knew the area very well. Also,

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Speaker 2: where D disappeared was close to where James and Cherry lived.

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Speaker 1: It's a dirt road, but it's a pretty start road

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Speaker 1: until you get to a certain point, so I mean,

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Speaker 1: for the most part, it would have been a pretty

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Speaker 1: food ride for him. I looked it up on Google

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Speaker 1: Map and even changed it to say I was going

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Speaker 1: to be riding my bike, and it said it was

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Speaker 1: about a ten to eleven minute bike ride, like it

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Speaker 1: shouldn't have taken him that long.

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Speaker 2: But James didn't make it out to D and then

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Speaker 2: he never came home. Heather says that according to Sherry,

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Speaker 2: when James didn't come home, eventually Gary and Tank drove

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Speaker 2: out to pick D up from the desert. But Heather

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Speaker 2: said she doesn't understand one, No one D or Sherry

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Speaker 2: or Tank or anyone else ever reported James missing or

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Speaker 2: why they didn't look for him.

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Speaker 1: He never made it to d No one ever went

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Speaker 1: looking for him, nobody reported him missing, nobody did anything.

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Speaker 1: I mean, here's some man that you're claiming that is

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Speaker 1: the love of your life, right, he goes missing and

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Speaker 1: you don't do anything.

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Speaker 2: The reason Sherry eventually gave to Heather for non immediately

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Speaker 2: calling police was that James had been involved in things,

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Speaker 2: including drugs, things that they thought he would not appreciate

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Speaker 2: them attracting police attention. Heather said that considering James's past,

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Speaker 2: she can understand this logic to a certain point.

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Speaker 1: Honestly, they've given me a reason, and I can somewhat

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Speaker 1: understand given James's history and current things that he you

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Speaker 1: know that he did, they didn't really want to draw

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Speaker 1: police attention to him. This was right but for me,

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Speaker 1: and I get that, not that I don't even necessarily

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Speaker 1: disagree with it to a point, right, right, I mean

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Speaker 1: that was right, No, And that was the thing that

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Speaker 1: was crazy to me. So like for a couple of days,

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Speaker 1: maybe cool, he didn't want to, but I mean a

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Speaker 1: month or two later, that's a problem. James has never

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Speaker 1: gone missing for that long and not been in contact

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Speaker 1: with somebody.

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Speaker 2: Heather said that over the times they talked to Sherry,

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Speaker 2: small details about the story seemed to change, like what

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Speaker 2: time everything happened, So.

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Speaker 1: That is part of the story from Sherry that has

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Speaker 1: changed multiple times. At one point it was, you know,

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Speaker 1: eighty thirty in the morning, at one point it was

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Speaker 1: ten am. I have talked to Sherry's multiple times. In

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Speaker 1: the beginning, I tried to be very nice. After a while,

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Speaker 1: it just didn't It didn't end up that way, so

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Speaker 1: we don't really speak much anymore.

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Speaker 2: Heather said that she reached out to D through Facebook

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Speaker 2: messenger and initially D was responsive, but then things between

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Speaker 2: them got complicated after something was posted in one of

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Speaker 2: the groups that were discussing James being missing, something that

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Speaker 2: Heather said led to D cutting off contact with her

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Speaker 2: and taking her to court. I want to say there's

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Speaker 2: zero suggestion that D was in any way involved in

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Speaker 2: anything bad happening to James. And it's unfortunate when families

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Speaker 2: who are desperate for answers and trying anything they can

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Speaker 2: to put the word out there, when people sometimes make

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Speaker 2: comments on these posts, comments that accuse people of things

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Speaker 2: on social media sometimes this unfortunately leads to relationships getting

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Speaker 2: shut down. But there's a lot we still don't know.

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Speaker 2: Heather has not actually talked to de or to Tank

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Speaker 2: or to the other guy Gary. Heather began to read

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Speaker 2: more and more about the number of people who went

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Speaker 2: missing in or near the Mojave Desert. Some were accidents,

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Speaker 2: others seem to have elements of foul play. There are

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Speaker 2: definitely a lot of elemental dangers out there, not just

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Speaker 2: the heat, but also things like hill and valley wash,

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Speaker 2: which happens when flash floods occur. Basically, dry river bottoms

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Speaker 2: fill up with water really fast. They can drown people

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Speaker 2: and sweep them away all the way out in the desert.

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Speaker 2: On Reddit threads like missing for one one, people talk

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Speaker 2: openly about the number of people who went missing in

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Speaker 2: the area where James disappeared. One comment on Reddit red

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Speaker 2: quote distance in the desert is meaningless. I'm in a

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Speaker 2: further northwest area of the Mahave, but it's got similar dangers.

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Speaker 2: Every hill and valley and wash looks the damn same,

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Speaker 2: even if you have a particular mountain to orient yourself to.

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Speaker 2: If you don't already know the distance and how big

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Speaker 2: it is, it's not very helpful. It could be two

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Speaker 2: miles away or twenty end quote. In a lot of

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Speaker 2: media reports, people talked about the number of bodies found

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Speaker 2: in the desert, six bodies in the last three years alone.

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Speaker 2: Were all of these disappearances just people who got lost

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Speaker 2: or turned around, or could some of them have been

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Speaker 2: something more sinister. Some people started wondering if there could

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Speaker 2: be a serial killer at work stalking the area, especially

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Speaker 2: because someone else vanished on that same strip of road.

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Speaker 2: This time it was thirty seven year old Erica Lloyd.

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Speaker 2: James and Erica went missing nine days and a quarter

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Speaker 2: of a mile apart. On July twenty fifth, twenty twenty,

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Speaker 2: a guy named Doug Billings, who was actually a Cave

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Speaker 2: and nine expert, was searching for any trace of Erica

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Speaker 2: or Erica's black car, and he found something, but it

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Speaker 2: wasn't Erica's black car. It was James Escalante's bike. On

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Speaker 2: July twenty fifth, a month after James as Galante disappeared,

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Speaker 2: a searcher looking for Erica Lloyd, a woman who went

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Speaker 2: missing nine days before James, found James's bike, and then

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Speaker 2: on August eighth, twenty twenty, according to an article on

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Speaker 2: meat Eater, a hunting website, a hunter named Kyle Gibson

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Speaker 2: was out in the desert north of Joshua Tree National Park,

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Speaker 2: near the town of twenty nine Palms. Twenty nine Palms

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Speaker 2: is famous, actually, that whole region of desert is famous.

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Speaker 2: It's in the Mojave in San Bernardino count It has

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Speaker 2: the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center nearby. There are

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Speaker 2: very ritzy areas in towns like Palm Springs. There's the

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Speaker 2: Coachella Music festival out in near Indio. There are also

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Speaker 2: a lot of hunters, like a lot of places where

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Speaker 2: I've spent time for this podcast, like the Ozarks. The

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Speaker 2: wilderness is beautiful but also dangerous because, needless to say,

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Speaker 2: you do not want to get disoriented and stranded out there.

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Speaker 2: People do not last long. A lot of secrets are

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Speaker 2: buried out there in that desert, including bodies and evidence

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Speaker 2: that could be lost forever. They have found six bodies

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Speaker 2: along that strip of road in the past three years alone.

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Speaker 2: While the hunter was out there, he saw bones. At

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Speaker 2: first he thought they might belong to an animal, but

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Speaker 2: then he saw jeans and black nikes. He called the

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Speaker 2: police and showed the deputy you came to the scene

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Speaker 2: his OSX app. The deputy was able to see the

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Speaker 2: exact location where he walked and the location of the body.

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Speaker 2: Police went out there and recovered the remains. They confirmed

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Speaker 2: that the body was human, and in December, the coroner

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Speaker 2: called James's family to confirm that body was James Escalante.

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Speaker 2: I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen

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Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans

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Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine

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Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy

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Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance. This episode was sound designed

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Speaker 2: and mixed by Noah Kamer. Our theme song is by

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Speaker 2: Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C. Crowley.

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Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the

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Speaker 2: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on after Podcasts. If you

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Speaker 2: were interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,

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00:22:59,525 --> 00:23:02,805
Speaker 2: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonepott.

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Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my

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00:23:05,045 --> 00:23:07,205
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us

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Speaker 2: at our helengoone Murder Line at six seven eight seven

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Speaker 2: four four six one four five. That's six seven eight

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Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five.

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Speaker 1: School of Humans,