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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you

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Speaker 2: should know. I don't really think you could call it

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Speaker 2: part of our ongoing true crime suite, but certainly unsolved

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Speaker 2: mystery suite.

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Speaker 1: I think, yeah, semi solved mystery, I guess at this

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Speaker 1: point because we're talking about what's known as the Death

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Speaker 1: Valley Germans. Pretty good band name, but it's in fact

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Speaker 1: a very sad story from July nineteen ninety six when

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Speaker 1: a blended family of German tourists came to the United

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Speaker 1: States for a three week tour of California and Nevada

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Speaker 1: and we're never seen again alive.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they just vanished into thin air, essentially in Death

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Speaker 2: Valley National Park and they've I mean, it's weird like essentially,

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Speaker 2: there was one guy who will meet later who got

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Speaker 2: it as close to solved as possible just from sheer determination.

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Speaker 2: But the family that you were talking about, they were

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Speaker 2: made up of Egbert Rimkus, who was thirty four. He

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Speaker 2: was an architect. He was the dad. George. I'm not

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Speaker 2: sure how to say George without an e. You took German?

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Speaker 2: Are you familiar? No?

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Speaker 3: I guess it's George Okay.

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Speaker 2: He was eleven. He was Egbert's biological son. Connie Meyer,

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Speaker 2: Cornelia Connie Meyer, she was twenty seven. She was Egbert's girlfriend,

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Speaker 2: and Max was Connie's biological son from a previous relationship.

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Speaker 2: He was four and Egbert had gone through a fairly

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Speaker 2: difficult divorce recently. And so this trip was essentially meant

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Speaker 2: to be like a fun bonding experience for the four

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Speaker 2: of them, Yeah, to kind of form a family unit

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Speaker 2: in this new new reality, these new circumstances they were in.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So they got to LA on July eight eighth. They

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Speaker 1: had a return flight to Dresden, which is where they

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Speaker 1: were from, for July twenty seventh, and the on the

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Speaker 1: docket was about a week or so in the LA area,

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Speaker 1: head on over to Las Vegas for a few days,

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Speaker 1: go to Death Valley National Park, check that out, head

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Speaker 1: over to Yosemite from there, and then go back to

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Speaker 1: LA and fly home. It's a it's a pretty standard

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Speaker 1: little itinerary for that that kind of you know, three

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Speaker 1: week adventure.

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Speaker 2: I would say yes. And for the adventure, they rented

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Speaker 2: a car, a ninety six Plymouth Voyager minivan, and they

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Speaker 2: rented it from Dollar rent a Car. Being German, they

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Speaker 2: would have rented it from Dollar because that's the American

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Speaker 2: subsidiary of deutsch Mark rent a Car.

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Speaker 3: Yeah huh.

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Speaker 2: And it was due back on the twenty sixth of July,

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Speaker 2: which is a day before their flight back to Germany. Right,

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Speaker 2: that's right. The problem is is Dollar rent a Car

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Speaker 2: never got their minivan back and the family didn't make

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Speaker 2: their flight to Germany. And not everybody noticed this. I mean,

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Speaker 2: certainly no one in America paid much attention. But remember

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Speaker 2: Egbert had an ex wife who was the mom of George,

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Speaker 2: and George's mom Heike, she was. She wanted to know

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Speaker 2: where her son was, so she alerted the authorities, and

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Speaker 2: very quickly Interpol put out an international alert for four

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Speaker 2: missing German tourists last seen in southern California. And here's

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Speaker 2: their itinerary. And it went absolutely nowhere. This is the

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Speaker 2: end of July, beginning of August nineteen ninety six, and

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Speaker 2: nothing happened for months.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think about I guess until October twenty first,

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Speaker 1: when a ranger was flying around in a helicopter looking

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Speaker 1: for mess labs, and he said, hey, this is a

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Speaker 1: very remote part of Death Valley, even for Death Valley,

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Speaker 1: and there's a Plymouth Voyager minivan with three flat tires

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Speaker 1: that had clearly been you know, mired in the sand.

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Speaker 1: So immediately like, what is this thing? Once they figured

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Speaker 1: out who the family was and this was who was missing,

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Speaker 1: they were nowhere to be found. There were no signs

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Speaker 1: of life, there were no signs of death. There was

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Speaker 1: nothing at all. And so the mystery of the Death

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Speaker 1: Valley Germans was born right there in one of the

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Speaker 1: most inhospitable places on Earth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the whole thing wouldn't be close solved or

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Speaker 2: close to being solved for another fifteen years. And for

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Speaker 2: those of us who aren't familiar with Death Valley, it's

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Speaker 2: a national park, like I said, that straddles California and Nevada,

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Speaker 2: and it is. It lives up to its name. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't have the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth, but

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Speaker 2: it has the second highest, and it's very close. The

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Speaker 2: highest temperature ever recorded in Death Valley in the summer

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Speaker 2: of nineteen thirteen was one hundred and thirty four degrees

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Speaker 2: farent height. Yeah, fifty six point seven degrees celsius hot.

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Speaker 2: I think the record was in Elaziza, Libya, in nineteen

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Speaker 2: twenty two. It was only two and a half degrees

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Speaker 2: hotter than that. So clearly Death Valley is very hot.

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Speaker 2: And even in a regular summer it's still crazy hot.

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Speaker 2: And in nineteen ninety six in the summer, remember they're

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Speaker 2: in there hanging out in late July, which is the

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Speaker 2: height of the summer of Death Valley. The daily high

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Speaker 2: temperature the average was one hundred and twenty four degrees

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Speaker 2: height and ninety one was the low.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's scorching hot, which is just you know,

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Speaker 1: it's very dangerous conditions, especially if you're not used in

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing, not prepared for that kind of thing. Apparently,

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Speaker 1: Death Valley is something that was I guess two days

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Speaker 1: ago years old when I found out is a very

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Speaker 1: popular tour site for Germans. There was a writer in

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century name Karl My spelled m a y

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Speaker 1: writer had never been to Death Valley, but wrote a

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Speaker 1: bunch of hugely popular travel adventure books set in the

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Speaker 1: American Southwest, including Death Valley. Some were made into spaghetti westerns,

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Speaker 1: including one called The Valley of Death in nineteen sixty eight.

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Speaker 3: But this dude, whom I've.

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Speaker 1: Never heard of, sold two hundred million books, so, like

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the top selling authors of all time.

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Speaker 1: And so Germans as a result, became fascinated with making

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Speaker 1: that trek out to Death Valley. And that's what this

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Speaker 1: family did.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you didn't know that.

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Speaker 3: I had never heard of this guy, had you No?

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Speaker 2: Okay, So this is popular with German tourists, but that's

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Speaker 2: not to say that all German tourists who go to

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Speaker 2: Death Valley die or get lost or even don't have

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Speaker 2: a good time. Like of course, yeah, it's a very

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Speaker 2: popular place. But people do die in Death Valley National

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Speaker 2: Park every year, every summer in particular, and between twenty

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Speaker 2: seven and twenty twenty four, sixty eight people died in

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Speaker 2: Death Valley. There's a lot of people who died simply

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Speaker 2: from being a exposed to the local weather. They died

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Speaker 2: of hyper thermia, most of them, I think twenty or

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Speaker 2: not most, but twenty percent died of hyperthermia, which if

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Speaker 2: you've ever been in a hot sauna that got too

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Speaker 2: hot for your comfort, that you imagine dying from that,

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Speaker 2: that's dying from hyperthermia. I think the rest who died

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Speaker 2: from exposure died from dehydration, because that can come on

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Speaker 2: really quick too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah for sure.

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Speaker 1: So a day after this mini ban is discovered by

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Speaker 1: a helicopter and death Valley, the ranger came back with

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Speaker 1: the local sheriff on the ground to check it out.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe they flew out there, who knows, but at

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Speaker 1: any rate, at some point their feet were on the ground.

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Speaker 3: They opened the van up. They, like I said, there

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Speaker 3: were three flat tires.

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Speaker 1: It was stuck up to its axles in the sand,

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Speaker 1: and they determined that it had driven for at least

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Speaker 1: a couple of hundred feet on the flat tires.

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Speaker 3: The whole thing was covered in dust.

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Speaker 1: You know, clearly hadn't been seen by anyone else or disturbed.

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Speaker 1: That was the things you would expect to fine from

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Speaker 1: disappeared people on an adventurisfication like this, like their luggage

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Speaker 1: and their clothes like nothing really weird. Empty water bottles,

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Speaker 1: empty juice containers, a couple of unopened bottles of bud

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Speaker 1: Ice beer, which you remember that yeah, dates the thing

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Speaker 1: in the mid nineties. I was never into the ice beers.

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Speaker 2: No, I think, if I remember correctly, it just it

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Speaker 2: got you more crunk than the average beer.

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Speaker 3: I feel like that was how they sold it. Who knows.

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Speaker 1: I mean that was before things like high gravity beers

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Speaker 1: really came to the forefront. So maybe it was like,

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Speaker 1: you know, these things have an extra percentage of abb.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the slogan was bud ice, get you plastered.

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Speaker 3: I remember the dry beers too.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was fancy in college at one point

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Speaker 1: because I was drinking michelob dry.

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Speaker 2: Oh. At this point, speaking of fancy, I was drinking Zema.

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Speaker 3: Oh. I never went down the Zemer road.

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Speaker 2: Oh they were They went down easy.

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Speaker 3: What was the flavor? What was it like a sprite?

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was. It was close to that, Like it

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Speaker 2: wouldn't take a sip of zem and be like, that's right.

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Speaker 2: But that's probably the closest thing you could just mention

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Speaker 2: off the top of your head. Some people put jolly

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Speaker 2: ranchers in it too, to flavor it even further. It

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Speaker 2: also had a bit of like a dry like in

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Speaker 2: the sense that champagne can be dry. It had a

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Speaker 2: little bit of that nothing that you'd be like, wow,

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Speaker 2: it's a really dry drink. But yeah, and I think

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Speaker 2: ultimately it was malt liquor, which really could get you

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Speaker 2: plastered too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I used to drink the Mickey's Big Mouths in college

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Speaker 1: and the occasional little giant Schlitz tall Boy can.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, those were the days. I keep it pretty simple

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Speaker 3: these days.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, but you're right there. But Ice definitely dates

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Speaker 2: it to the mid nineties for sure, and they're like,

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Speaker 2: you said, this is kind of important. That's why I'm

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Speaker 2: going back to it. There were a couple of bottles

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Speaker 2: of unopened but ice beer still in the minivan.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And then one of the just sort of small

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Speaker 1: clue as far as to show where they'd been, there

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Speaker 1: was a business card from the Seahorse Resort in San Clemente,

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Speaker 1: which is where they stayed while I guess seeing the

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Speaker 1: LA area, which is not super close to LA, so

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Speaker 1: I guess maybe they wanted to be between LA and

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Speaker 1: San Diego or something.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I think they just saw pictures of the view and

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Speaker 2: were like there, maybe because the view is very nice.

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Speaker 2: So there was a guide book there too, in German,

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Speaker 2: a guidebook that they purchased or that was purchased at

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Speaker 2: the Furnace Creek Visitor Center in Death Valley and like

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Speaker 2: I said, it was in German. And so they went

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Speaker 2: to the visitors center. Investigators did later, and they found

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Speaker 2: that on July twenty second, there were two German language

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Speaker 2: guide books sold at the visitor center at Furnace Creek

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Speaker 2: and none on July twenty third. So with that they

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Speaker 2: started to be able to begin to retrace their steps.

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Speaker 2: That was the first clue that they were able to

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Speaker 2: kind of extrapolate from.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so their second clue came when they found undevelop

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Speaker 1: roles of film and cameras, So sort of like the

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Speaker 1: end of the hangover, they were able to get those

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Speaker 1: developed and pieced together, you know, at least roughly by

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Speaker 1: way of the pictures they took, at least what they

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Speaker 1: had done on their trip, maybe even as we'll see

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Speaker 1: clues to where they like the last picture taken obviously

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Speaker 1: would be the most instructive. So from these pictures they

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Speaker 1: realized they stayed in San Clementy for a little while

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Speaker 1: seeing the La area, they drove up the California coast

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Speaker 1: and then over to Las Vegas, Nevada, and there they

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Speaker 1: stayed at the Treasure Island Hotel, which also dates this

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Speaker 1: in the mid nineties and there, they found that the father, Egbert,

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Speaker 1: had called his bank in Germany on July twelfth try

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Speaker 1: to have another fifteen hundred bucks wired to Bank of

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Speaker 1: American San Clemente, but they sent it to the wrong

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Speaker 1: bank and at Treasure Island. He you know, he was

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Speaker 1: clearly in need of some dough as he even faxed

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Speaker 1: his ex wife and said, hey, which also dates this,

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Speaker 1: can you send more money?

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Speaker 3: And she never responded.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. What I didn't get and I didn't see anyone

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Speaker 2: explain it is why he was just like, oh, well

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Speaker 2: they send it to the La branch of Bank of

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Speaker 2: America rather than San Clemente. I guess there's nothing I

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Speaker 2: can do to go get it. He just never went

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Speaker 2: and picked up the fifteen hundred dollars.

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Speaker 3: Well maybe he didn't know. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I would still spend some time trying

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Speaker 2: to figure out where my fifteen hundred dollars. That's about

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Speaker 2: three thousand dollars in today's money, So it seems like

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Speaker 2: he just shrugged it off. From what from his actions,

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Speaker 2: I just think that's really strange.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, also could have been one of those

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Speaker 1: things where where they're like, well, sir, we don't know

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Speaker 1: which banket's in, stop bothering us, and like we can find.

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Speaker 3: Out in a week. Yeah, it could be, and you know,

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Speaker 3: they had a schedule, so who knows.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So the long and short of it, though, is

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Speaker 2: they were low on funds now right. And Luckily, if

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Speaker 2: you're going to national parks like Death Valley and Yosemite

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Speaker 2: and the only thing you're doing after that is making

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Speaker 2: it back to the airport to turn in your car

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Speaker 2: and take your flight home, you can get by on

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Speaker 2: some pretty low funds. You can still buy some but

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Speaker 2: ice it wasn't particularly expensive, so they seem to kind

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Speaker 2: of be making their way low on funds, and that

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Speaker 2: actually helped track them a little bit further later on.

253
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Speaker 2: But there was one other clue too, and it was

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Speaker 2: an American flag and it had Butte Valley Stone Cabin

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Speaker 2: on its label. That's where it belonged to in Death Valley.

256
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Speaker 2: It's locally called the Geologist Cabin, and I think it

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Speaker 2: does what it says on the label, which is it

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Speaker 2: houses geologists who are conducting experiments out there. So there's

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Speaker 2: food there, there's water there, but they keep it locked.

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Speaker 2: If you're a geologist, it's kind of like a gas

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Speaker 2: station bathroom. You have to go get the key first

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Speaker 2: before you start using the geologist's cabin. So they seem

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Speaker 2: to have just taken the flag as maybe a souvenir

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Speaker 2: or something like that. Like I know, if I were

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Speaker 2: in the Black Forest and I came across the German flag,

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Speaker 2: I would take it and then take it back to

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Speaker 2: America as a souvenir.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's what this was being used for

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Speaker 1: back then, because I think now you can actually stay there.

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Speaker 3: Oh really, Yeah, it's like.

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Speaker 1: A you know, along the Appleachian Trail and just sort

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Speaker 1: of all over in national parks. They'll be like a

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Speaker 1: remote cabin that you know, you come, you can stay there.

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Speaker 1: There might be some food and water rations if you

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Speaker 1: need it, and you're the idea is that you're supposed

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Speaker 1: to leave something, yeah, and leave it better than you

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Speaker 1: found it, because I've seen pictures of people that you know,

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Speaker 1: in the twenty tens that have stayed there, and like

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Speaker 1: it's it's a destination for people who are into Death

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Speaker 1: Valley because it's super cool looking.

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Speaker 3: It's out in the middle of nowhere.

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Speaker 1: It's like a stone cabin and it's on a lot

283
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Speaker 1: of people's list of like I want to go stay

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Speaker 1: at the geologists cabin. So I guess that just wasn't

285
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Speaker 1: the deal back then, right, because it was locked up

286
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Speaker 1: what I don't get, Well, we'll get.

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Speaker 3: To what I don't get later. Okay, should we take.

288
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Speaker 2: A break, Yeah, I think that's a good spot.

289
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Speaker 1: All right, we'll take a break and we'll come back

290
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Speaker 1: with more on the Death Valley Germans right after this.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, So where we left off, they had Pilford

292
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Speaker 2: the American flag from the geologist's cabin, and right, like,

293
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Speaker 2: all of this stuff, this is just the stuff they

294
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Speaker 2: found in the van. This is as far as the

295
00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:41,320
Speaker 2: search has gone. Yeah, And so the rangers of the

296
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Speaker 2: park start conducting their own investigation, and they go to

297
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Speaker 2: like Furnace Creek Ranch, which is a resort kind of upscale.

298
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Speaker 2: There's a campground, but you have to pay for all

299
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Speaker 2: those and there was no record of the family staying

300
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Speaker 2: at either of those places on July twenty second or

301
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Speaker 2: twenty third, or anytime. Really. One of the other things

302
00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:02,240
Speaker 2: they did was check logbooks. Apparently they pick up log

303
00:16:02,280 --> 00:16:07,520
Speaker 2: books even at sites that don't have anyone working there.

304
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Speaker 2: They'll still have a log book, and they struck gold

305
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Speaker 2: at one of them, the Warm Springs Mine log Book,

306
00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:17,320
Speaker 2: which is an abandoned mine above Death Valley in the mountains.

307
00:16:17,320 --> 00:16:20,600
Speaker 2: I guess on a ridge and you can get to it.

308
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,160
Speaker 2: It's a road. There's a road that goes to it.

309
00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:25,800
Speaker 2: It's nothing that you would normally call a road, but

310
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Speaker 2: in Death Valley National Park it might as well be

311
00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:33,040
Speaker 2: a luxurious eight eight lane highway. It's gravel, it's rough,

312
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:38,840
Speaker 2: but a Plymouth voyager can get on this road to

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Speaker 2: Warm Springs Mine. And in the logbook they got a

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Speaker 2: huge clue that would help track them down later.

315
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Speaker 3: Yeah, they signed it.

316
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Speaker 1: It was in German, apparently it was barely legible, and

317
00:16:50,920 --> 00:16:55,760
Speaker 1: it said we are going over the pass. Signed Connie, Egbert,

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Speaker 1: George and Max So On October twenty third, this is

319
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Speaker 1: two days after the minivan is found. They finally conduct

320
00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:07,359
Speaker 1: a big four day search looking for this family. About

321
00:17:07,560 --> 00:17:10,480
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty plus people, a couple of helicopters,

322
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Speaker 1: eight horses. A lot of these were volunteers, but dozens

323
00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:18,399
Speaker 1: of them were trained search and rescue people. Right, no slouches,

324
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Speaker 1: No slouches. Well, there was one slouch, but he didn't

325
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Speaker 1: last long because it was Death.

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Speaker 4: Valleyene exactly, and the only evidence from this four day

327
00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:31,800
Speaker 4: search was an empty bottle of butt ice and a

328
00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:34,360
Speaker 4: butt print basically in the sand next to it, where

329
00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:36,880
Speaker 4: someone had clearly sat down and enjoyed that butt ice.

330
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Speaker 1: It was about one point seven miles away from the van.

331
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Speaker 1: And yeah, clearly somebody took a little break in the

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Speaker 1: shade and had that sweet, sweet extra potent ice, beear.

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Speaker 2: Right, and they could even figure when they probably figured

334
00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:58,000
Speaker 2: it was Egbert because the size of the butt print

335
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Speaker 2: was fairly large. Well that's how I saw it described.

336
00:18:02,240 --> 00:18:04,679
Speaker 2: I think that is. I think they're just saying larger

337
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:06,840
Speaker 2: than say a woman's or a child's, which is the

338
00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:09,760
Speaker 2: only other people with them in this party. Right. But

339
00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:11,600
Speaker 2: it was on the east side of the bush, so

340
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Speaker 2: that if he was taking refuge from it in the shade,

341
00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:17,480
Speaker 2: that means that the sun would have been in the

342
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:19,919
Speaker 2: western part of the sky, so he would have been

343
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Speaker 2: sitting there in late afternoon, which seems ludicrous to even

344
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:25,560
Speaker 2: point out, but it would come into play later on.

345
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

346
00:18:27,359 --> 00:18:31,040
Speaker 1: So again in that visitor's log it says we're going

347
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Speaker 1: over the pass. The only pass near there is called

348
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:36,960
Speaker 1: Mingle Pass M E and G E L. And if

349
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:38,920
Speaker 1: you look on a map back in nineteen ninety six,

350
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:40,879
Speaker 1: before you had you know, smartphones and things like that,

351
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:43,560
Speaker 1: or people on the internet saying, hey, don't go this way, right,

352
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:48,399
Speaker 1: it looks like it's pretty possible to drive from Warm Springs,

353
00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:52,880
Speaker 1: go through that Mingle Pass into an adjacent valley, and

354
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Speaker 1: then hit a dirt road toward Yosemite, which was their

355
00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,840
Speaker 1: next destination. They didn't know that, you know, they didn't

356
00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:03,200
Speaker 1: have knowledge that it wouldn't it wasn't going to be

357
00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:06,240
Speaker 1: just like a little sort of rocky path, but something

358
00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:09,120
Speaker 1: you really really need a four by four vehicle four

359
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:11,880
Speaker 1: like full stop. It's not like, well maybe we can

360
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:15,160
Speaker 1: make it in the Plymouth Voyager, Like you can't make

361
00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:17,080
Speaker 1: it down this road with anything other than a four

362
00:19:17,119 --> 00:19:17,440
Speaker 1: by four.

363
00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:18,399
Speaker 3: And even that's dicey.

364
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:20,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that. Not only do you need a

365
00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:23,400
Speaker 2: four by four, you need an experienced driver who has

366
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,440
Speaker 2: who can get through this stuff too. Like you can't

367
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:28,199
Speaker 2: just put some yahoo in a four by four and

368
00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:30,879
Speaker 2: expect them to make it. It's that dicey. Maybe a

369
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:35,120
Speaker 2: winch yeah, probably, yeah, Yeah, you just like go from

370
00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:38,919
Speaker 2: Bowler to bowler winching yourself over the pass, right, Yeah,

371
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:41,080
Speaker 2: So to get to the pass, you go by the

372
00:19:41,119 --> 00:19:43,879
Speaker 2: geologist station. And remember they had the flag from the

373
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Speaker 2: geologist station. So now they're really starting to retrace their footsteps.

374
00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:52,480
Speaker 2: The problem is is the van wasn't anywhere near the

375
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:55,000
Speaker 2: road to Mingle Pass. As a matter of fact, it

376
00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:58,159
Speaker 2: wasn't really near anything that was a road, an actual

377
00:19:58,240 --> 00:20:00,280
Speaker 2: road in Death Valley. It was essentially like they just

378
00:20:00,359 --> 00:20:02,680
Speaker 2: drove through the middle of the desert, which is how

379
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:06,440
Speaker 2: they found the van. So after this four day, very

380
00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 2: extensive search by at least two hundred and fifty people,

381
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:13,919
Speaker 2: all they found was the beer bottle at the bush

382
00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:17,399
Speaker 2: and the butt print that was it. Those were the

383
00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:21,000
Speaker 2: only physical clues that they found. And you know, there's

384
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:22,720
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff going on in Death Valley at

385
00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:25,480
Speaker 2: any given time, in the whole area of southern California.

386
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:28,439
Speaker 2: So these rescue groups got called off to other stuff,

387
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:31,360
Speaker 2: and the park rangers went back about their business, and

388
00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 2: the case just went totally cold for years and years

389
00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:37,800
Speaker 2: and years, And it probably would have stayed that way

390
00:20:38,119 --> 00:20:40,560
Speaker 2: if not for a guy named Tom Hood, who will

391
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:45,080
Speaker 2: meet in a second. But in the interim that vacuum

392
00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:48,400
Speaker 2: between the end of the initial search and tom Ahood

393
00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:51,800
Speaker 2: picking this whole thing up. People just kind of came

394
00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:54,119
Speaker 2: up with their own theories to explain it because it

395
00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 2: was just so they just vanished off of the face

396
00:20:58,119 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 2: of the earth.

397
00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:01,679
Speaker 1: It seemed like, yeah, so you know, one of the

398
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:04,439
Speaker 1: I guess it was probably the most popular theory, and

399
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,399
Speaker 1: it makes sense in some ways, is that this was

400
00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:10,720
Speaker 1: an intentional disappearing, Like, hey, let's this family set it

401
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:13,439
Speaker 1: up to make it look like they've been disappeared. Because

402
00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: Egbert was he was going through a pretty rough custody

403
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,120
Speaker 1: battle with his ex wife. It was a pretty contentious divorce,

404
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:21,560
Speaker 1: and apparently there were rumors that he had talked to

405
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,439
Speaker 1: his coworkers about like kind of dropping out and moving

406
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:27,800
Speaker 1: to Costa Rica with his with his son. And so

407
00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:30,880
Speaker 1: people are like, yeah, this that they purposely disappeared so

408
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:33,080
Speaker 1: he could just get away from his ex wife and

409
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:34,440
Speaker 1: have soul custody of his son.

410
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 2: Right. One of the big problems with that is like,

411
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:39,520
Speaker 2: if you're on a trip in la you could disappear

412
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,200
Speaker 2: way more easily than in Death Valley. That's kind of

413
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 2: a dumb place to stage your disappearance.

414
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:49,080
Speaker 1: You know, well, I mean, I think staging a disappearance

415
00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:51,440
Speaker 1: there is different than disappearing you know what I mean.

416
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 2: I guess I do. What about psychos and crooks?

417
00:21:57,240 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: Sure, you know they were they were looking for me

418
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 1: Labs out there by helicopter. So the idea that there

419
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:05,200
Speaker 1: was a drug gang or just some ne'er do wells

420
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: out there, or just some random psychopath was rumors that circulated.

421
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:15,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't hurt that the Barker Ranch where the

422
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:20,120
Speaker 2: Manson family hung around, is not too far away. Yeah,

423
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:21,680
Speaker 2: I guess some people are like, well, there you go.

424
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:25,080
Speaker 2: I guess there's some one hundred year old Manson family

425
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:28,879
Speaker 2: member that they ran across who killed them. Yeah, And

426
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 2: then there was a This was the probably the most

427
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:36,199
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory minded of the conspiracy theories or the theories of

428
00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:39,920
Speaker 2: what happened to them. Not too far away in the

429
00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:43,000
Speaker 2: middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere is

430
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 2: the China Lake Naval Weapon Center, which is a military

431
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:50,159
Speaker 2: testing range. I've seen top secret. It seems to be

432
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 2: quite top secret. And of course anytime you have a

433
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 2: top secret military testing facility in the middle of nowhere,

434
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 2: people are like they're doing crazy stuff there Yeah, and

435
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,879
Speaker 2: the idea was the Eggbert either being a curious person,

436
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,160
Speaker 2: was drawn to the site. This is the real reason

437
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 2: he wanted to go to Death Valley so he could

438
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:10,199
Speaker 2: sneak into China Lake Naval Weapon Center and see what

439
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 2: they were working on. Or perhaps he was a spy

440
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 2: or something like that, and that the family had gotten

441
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 2: caught trying to get into the weapon center and had

442
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:26,439
Speaker 2: either been sent to like a ghost prison or killed

443
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 2: and buried in the desert. Who knows what the government

444
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 2: will do when they're this was the technology bandied about

445
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 2: on the internet when their hybrid propulsion systems are at.

446
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,360
Speaker 3: Risk, Yeah, some random German shows up.

447
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, But also, I mean, could you get more vague

448
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 2: than hybrid propulsion? Like what's a propelling? What is it

449
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 2: a hybrid of Yeah, but it's just so like futuristic sounding.

450
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

451
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: I was driving down the highway the other day and

452
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,160
Speaker 1: I saw a pickup truck next to me that had

453
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: a I don't know what it was. It was a

454
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:06,199
Speaker 1: military green like something or other like it was in

455
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: the It was in the bed of a pickup truck.

456
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:12,439
Speaker 3: On like a on a pallette.

457
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,879
Speaker 1: But you know, it had a screen and buttons and

458
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,439
Speaker 1: it was square and it was clearly military. And then

459
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:20,919
Speaker 1: I looked at I can't remember the name of the

460
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:23,119
Speaker 1: company that was transporting it, but I looked up the

461
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: company and it said, like, you know, we manufacture things

462
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:27,679
Speaker 1: for the for the war fighter.

463
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 2: Huh.

464
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 3: I was like, what the hell is that next to

465
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:31,640
Speaker 3: me on the highway.

466
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,160
Speaker 2: Maybe it was a military issue chicken coop.

467
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 3: It might have been something.

468
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: It was probably something that silly because these guys were

469
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: just driving it in a pickup truck. There were no

470
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:41,440
Speaker 1: they didn't look armed.

471
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:42,960
Speaker 3: I mean, they may have been armed, but it's not

472
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,119
Speaker 3: like it was surrounded by humbies or something like that.

473
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 3: But it was definitely something weird to see.

474
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 2: You know, I'm curious. Hopefully one of our listeners can

475
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:52,159
Speaker 2: can tell us what that probably was.

476
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was like a trash compactor or something.

477
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is where it would have been left,

478
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 2: Like he was looking for high propulsion. They ran across

479
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 2: the meth manufacturers. He intentionally staged the disappearance. That's just

480
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 2: that was it. Like everybody was like, there were probably

481
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 2: never going to figure out what happened to him. But

482
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,440
Speaker 2: there was this one guy who I mentioned earlier who

483
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 2: found out about this. His name's Tom Mahood. He's a

484
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 2: retired civil engineer. He lives in Orange, California, and he

485
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 2: he got bored in his retirement and started looking for

486
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 2: things to do and did a whole bunch of different stuff.

487
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 2: But one of the things he did was desert exploration,

488
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 2: which is a very specific kind of hiking exploration, Like

489
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,199
Speaker 2: you can find yourself in real trouble really quickly in

490
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 2: the desert, So it takes it's a certain set of skills, right,

491
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 2: And so Tom Mahood had this, and he got interested

492
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 2: in the story of the Death Valley Germans, and he

493
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 2: put those two things together and he became kind of

494
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 2: obsessed with solving the whole thing.

495
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 1: That sounds like a pretty good place for a second break. Hey, yes,

496
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: where he met Tom Behood and he's going, guys, cut

497
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: to break build attention.

498
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 2: I was going to say, I think Tomahood would approve too.

499
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: All right, We'll be right back with more on Tomahood

500
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, So Tomahood is on the scene.

501
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: Like Liam Neeson, he has a particular set of skills,

502
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: and he had heard about this case in two thousand

503
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:52,199
Speaker 1: and eight. For the first time, and in two thousand

504
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 1: and nine, thirteen years after their disappearance, he said, you

505
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 1: know what, I'm taking it upon myself to figure out

506
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: what happened to this family. He went out to the site.

507
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: He went out to where the van was found. He

508
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: brought a camera. He retraced the steps all the way

509
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: to the beer bottle bush. That butt print was long gone.

510
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: I like to think that Tom maybe sat in that

511
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 1: spot and had a butt ice if he could get

512
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:18,719
Speaker 1: his hands on any. In two thousand and nine, he

513
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 1: looked around headed back home. When he got home, he

514
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: was looking at the maps, he was looking at the pictures,

515
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 1: and he said, wait a minute, I have a theory

516
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 1: about how they ended up there and where they might

517
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: have gone.

518
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and remember that four day search was really thorough.

519
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 2: Like if you read Tomhood's blog otherhand dot org, he

520
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 2: has an extensive, multi part description of this whole thing,

521
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,439
Speaker 2: the case, his search, all that stuff called Hunt for

522
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 2: the Death Valley Germans. It's totally worth reading. But on

523
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 2: this he praises the search like he's like, yes, this

524
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,959
Speaker 2: was a really good search, but they didn't search everywhere.

525
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:04,639
Speaker 2: One of the places they didn't search was south the

526
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 2: reason they didn't search south is because there's nothing there.

527
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 2: He would have to be a complete idiot to try

528
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 2: to go south. The only thing there is China Lake

529
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 2: Naval Weapon Center, and that is really remote. It's in

530
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere. Then he started to try to

531
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 2: think about why somebody would go south, and he put

532
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 2: himself in the mindset of some German tourists visiting America

533
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 2: in a national park, and that's how he ended up

534
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 2: cracking the whole thing.

535
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 3: That's right. So he.

536
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 1: Was like, they're low on money, so that's a bit

537
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: of a clue or an indicator of what they might do.

538
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, they didn't have a lot of time.

539
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: It was July twenty second and they needed to be

540
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: back to la in four days, and they still wanted

541
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: to go to Yosemite that was on their itinerary. So

542
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: there was a time crunch, there was a money crunch.

543
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: And then one of the last pictures on the camera,

544
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned obviously the last ones would be

545
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: the most instructive as to pinpointing where they were. What

546
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: they were doing was sunset and Death Valley, and the

547
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: rangers said, hey, this is we know the sunset. That's

548
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: Hannahpau Canyon on the west side of Death Valley, and

549
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: we know it was taken on July twenty second, because

550
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: it was you know, pictures were dated, and that was

551
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: the night they arrived at the park. We knew that

552
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: they couldn't afford to camp out at Furnas Creek or

553
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: get a room at that hotel. And so, you know,

554
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: like most national parks, I guess all of them, there

555
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: are places where you can back country camp for free.

556
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 3: Just you know, there are areas and.

557
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: A lot of times you have to like apply and

558
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: fill out a little thing so they know where you are.

559
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: But you can camp in the back country at Hannapac Canyon.

560
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 1: And this is just not a very touristy area as

561
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 1: far as Death Valley goes. It's the east side is

562
00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: more tourist friendly. And this is again on the west side.

563
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, hours and hours away from the welcome center. At

564
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 2: least have you been to Death Valley? I have not.

565
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 3: I did a TV commercial for a couple of days

566
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 3: in Death Valley.

567
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's huge, right.

568
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I was just in one little tiny part.

569
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 2: Of it, obviously, but it's massive.

570
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 3: Please, it looks big on a map.

571
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 2: Okay, so this clue to Hannahpau Canyon kind of showed

572
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 2: I guess being in the mindset of Egbert kind of

573
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 2: helped Tom Mahood figure out what their next move would be.

574
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 2: And so if you look at a map and you're

575
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 2: in Hannahpau Canyon and you're trying to get to Yosemite,

576
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 2: it would make sense to go this route past the

577
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 2: Warm Springs mind toward Mangle Pass right. And so he

578
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 2: knows now that he's kind of in Egbert's head because

579
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 2: it's all this stuff is kind of making sense to

580
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 2: him now why they did what they did. Ultimately, again,

581
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 2: they're trying to look for the fastest, cheapest way to

582
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 2: get to Yosemite from Death Valley. So they went by

583
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 2: the geologists cabin again not open for business at the time,

584
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 2: and Mahood essentially says that he probably thought it was

585
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 2: a visitor center or something like that, but it wasn't.

586
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 2: So they continued on and as they were driving to

587
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 2: Mango Pass, they came upon roads that were like, Okay,

588
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 2: this is not a good road. This is not even

589
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 2: a gravel road. This is kind of rough. But the

590
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 2: minivan can take it if I drive slowly if I

591
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 2: drive carefully, And Egbert was doing a fairly good job,

592
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 2: it seems. But when they got to Mengo Pass, which

593
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 2: is all they had to do was cross Mango Pass,

594
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 2: make it a little further and they could take a

595
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 2: road to Yosemite. But when they got there, they were

596
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 2: stop dead in their tracks. There was just no way

597
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 2: to pass it.

598
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, not eating that sweet sweet Plymouth Voyager. If this

599
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: episode isn't sponsored by butt Ice and Plymouth Voyager, then

600
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: we're doing something wrong.

601
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we need a time machine.

602
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: I guess it could live alongside the twenty twelve Camra probably.

603
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, the nineteen ninety six Plymouth Lager.

604
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,560
Speaker 3: It's really are your future. And then just the sound

605
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 3: of a butt Ice cat being twisted off.

606
00:31:55,720 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 2: And somebody glugging it and then hitting the ground, and.

607
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 3: So they realized that they can't get through there. There's

608
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 3: the only way to go is back.

609
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: It would have been around you know, between twelve thirty

610
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: and one thirty PM by this point, at least one

611
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: hundred and five degrees. So they backtracked to that geologist cabin.

612
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: It's still locked. And this is what I meant earlier,

613
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: when what I don't understand what at this point, I

614
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: don't understand why they didn't break into this cabin. This

615
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: is dire circumstances and get some food and water.

616
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, Tomahood explains us really well. He was saying, no,

617
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 2: these are German tourists, they're safe in America. They're in

618
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 2: a national park. To them, it was not a dire

619
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 2: situation yet that they were still on track. They were

620
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 2: just having a little trouble and the map that they

621
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 2: had was misleading them all over the place. So he,

622
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 2: being in Egbert's head, said, Egbert made the decision rather

623
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 2: than go drive all the way back to the visitors

624
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 2: center to get out of the park in a way

625
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: that you know how to do, but that's going to

626
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 2: cost you many, many hours, and it's going to take

627
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 2: a really long time to get to Yosemite. Why would

628
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 2: you not follow these roads on the map that are

629
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 2: essentially a shortcut to use. It's going to take hours

630
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 2: off of your trip. If the map shows a road there,

631
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 2: why would you not take it? And the problem is

632
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 2: their map showed them roads that either were really misleading

633
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,480
Speaker 2: and weren't really roads, or weren't roads at all. That

634
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 2: was the map that Egbert was dealing with, and that

635
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 2: was what ultimately got them killed.

636
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one thing I couldn't find was what the

637
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: gas situation was like in that car.

638
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 2: I didn't see that either.

639
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: I'd look too, because that would have really factored in obviously,

640
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: because if you've ever taken out West road trips or

641
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: anywhere in the world where there's just few and far

642
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 1: between gas stations that I mean, I almost got trapped

643
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: a couple of times low on.

644
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 3: Gas, you know.

645
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's nerve wrecking.

646
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: So we don't know the gas situation. He's in his

647
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: head speculating the stuff. Seems pretty logical to me. The

648
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 1: shortcut that they took started off pretty easy. They're almost

649
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: lured into it because they felt like, all right, this

650
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: plymouth voyager, I know this car, it can take it.

651
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: But eventually they descended into an volcanyon, and this is

652
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: where the road becomes a wash.

653
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 3: It's a dry creek bed.

654
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: Dried creek beds are you know, there's a lot of sediment,

655
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: a lot of loose gravel, a lot of sand, and

656
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: it's really easy to get stuck in one of those.

657
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 1: I've been stuck in one of those, and the only

658
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 1: way to kind of to avoid getting stuck is just

659
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: to keep that thing going forward as quickly as you can.

660
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 1: Not dangerous, obviously, but just kind of keep those wheels

661
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 1: going forward. Which you don't want to do is stop.

662
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: And it looks like that's what Egbert was doing, was

663
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 1: trying to go pretty quickly through that gravel. And that's

664
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: ultimately what how he got those tires, you know, popped right.

665
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,720
Speaker 2: How they ended up in the middle of the sand

666
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 2: up to their axle is there is a fork right

667
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 2: behind them, and the fork veered to the They took

668
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 2: the veer I think to the left and realized, oh no,

669
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 2: we want to go to the right. This left isn't

670
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 2: actually the road, and he tried to cut over through

671
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 2: the I guess median between them, and that was just

672
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 2: nothing but sam that they got stuck in. So now

673
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 2: they're stuck. And Tom Hood makes the case that they

674
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 2: still didn't view this as a survival situation. Yet this

675
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 2: is a deeply inconvenient issue that surely they could get

676
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 2: help with, right. I mean, again, they're in a national park,

677
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 2: but they're four miles from the geologist's cabin. That's something

678
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 2: they could do. But again, this is totally in the

679
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 2: wrong direction, and they're hoping to find somebody a little

680
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 2: closer to help them pull their van out of out

681
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 2: of trouble and get some new tires. So this is

682
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 2: where they think that Egbert walked off with a bottle

683
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,479
Speaker 2: of butt ice and sat in the shade and tried

684
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 2: to figure out what to do next.

685
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean clear, he'sn't worried about survival if he's

686
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 1: drinking a beer, because that will dehydrate you even further.

687
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if Egbert knew that, but he's German.

688
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: Plenty of beer over there, you would think he would

689
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,320
Speaker 1: know that. And again, in his defense too, now that

690
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: I'm coming around to this idea, he may not have

691
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 1: even known, like who knows what you can see in

692
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: the window of that geologist cabin if they were like,

693
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 1: you know, big water bottles or something within plane view

694
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: or not, So he may not have thought like, hey,

695
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: maybe we should go back there and get some rations

696
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 1: at least, because he may not have seen any again,

697
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: just speculating here, but directly south of that site again

698
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 1: is that China Lake Military base. And what Tomhood reckoned was, Hey,

699
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: maybe he knew about this base and maybe he figured,

700
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: at least it will be people there. Maybe there's a

701
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 1: perimeter fence with cameras, maybe there's some dudes patrolling the perimeter.

702
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: But at the very least, even if it's a top

703
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: secret place, we could probably go get some help or

704
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:58,879
Speaker 1: something and they could drive us out of here.

705
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, show up at the fence of a

706
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,680
Speaker 2: secret military base. They're going to come to us. Essentially

707
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense. And on the map that

708
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 2: Egbert was using, the border of the China Lake Naval

709
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 2: Weapon Center is marked off. So to him it looked

710
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 2: like that fence, that perimeter fence was just a few

711
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 2: miles walk from where they were now where the van

712
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:28,320
Speaker 2: was stuck right right. The reason why they didn't search

713
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 2: south in the initial four day search was because China

714
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 2: Lake doesn't have a perimeter fence. It's so isolated in

715
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 2: the middle of this very deadly desert that they're like,

716
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 2: if you try to hike to us, you're going to die.

717
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 2: You're so dead. We don't even need to put up

718
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 2: a fence. And so this is Tomahood figuring this out. Like,

719
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 2: if you are in Europe and you go to a

720
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 2: military installation, there's going to be a fence, it's going

721
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,720
Speaker 2: to be patrolled, and that would be a really smart

722
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 2: idea to take the shortcut to the military installation to

723
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 2: get help. Unfortunately, it was just doomed not to work

724
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 2: out because there was no fence whatsoever. And at some

725
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 2: point Egbert figured that out, and then it started to

726
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,720
Speaker 2: sink in that they were in really big trouble.

727
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tomahood wants to find at least some human remains.

728
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: At this point he's I don't want to get in

729
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: toma Hood's head, but and say like he was obsessed,

730
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 1: but he was very much into the idea of finding

731
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 1: out what happened to this family.

732
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 3: Let's just say that.

733
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 2: Yeah.

734
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: He got his friend Les Walker and said, all right,

735
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: let's get together another team. Let's go search south.

736
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 3: This time.

737
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 1: About an hour after they started this search, he found

738
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 1: an empty wine bottle under a bush. He said, here's

739
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 1: another clue. Then he found a crumpled up piece of paper.

740
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: He thought it might have been toilet paper at first,

741
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 1: it turned out it was pages from a daily planner

742
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: in German. So he said, I'm really the trail is

743
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 1: hot at this point, like literally in figure And not

744
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: too long after that, his Buddy Less radios and says Tom,

745
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:06,799
Speaker 1: we have some bones here.

746
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I guess less Walker had come to the

747
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 2: base of a cliff that was about thirty feet tall,

748
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 2: and it would make sense that this is where you

749
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 2: would find the bones of somebody stranded in the desert

750
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 2: because it was the only place that was offering shade. Yeah,

751
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 2: and the bones were strewn about, they were sun bleached.

752
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,919
Speaker 2: But the thing that gave it away that these were

753
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:34,040
Speaker 2: definitely the family, the remains of the family, Cornelia's wallet

754
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 2: was found with them, like all the credit cards had

755
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:39,479
Speaker 2: her name on it, and so Less and Tom left

756
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 2: the bones in situ, but they took the wallet because

757
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 2: they were afraid that they were going to be taken

758
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 2: for a couple of local yahoos who were trying to

759
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 2: who came up with a wild story. But now they

760
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 2: had physical proof that they had discovered the Death Valley

761
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 2: Germans and that got things moving really quickly.

762
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

763
00:39:57,040 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 1: So this was nine miles from that abandoned mini van,

764
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 1: and so to make it nine miles and that kind

765
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: of heat really speaks a lot to their tenacity trying

766
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: to get out of there and trying to save themselves.

767
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 3: Very very sad with young kids too. Yeah, I mean Max.

768
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 1: Was four years old, right, Yeah, that's just yeah, devastating

769
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:20,240
Speaker 1: to think about. There were, like you mentioned, four miles

770
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: from the border of that naval base, and they were

771
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 1: headed in the right direction, like they were kind of

772
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 1: doing the right thing to what they thought was a

773
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: reasonable idea of rescue, you know, looking back, they you know,

774
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: they got those bones DNA tested. I think they were

775
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:41,839
Speaker 1: positively matched with only Egbert, is that right, Yeah, But

776
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 1: that's not to say that it wasn't Connie. It's obviously Connie.

777
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: They there were no confirmed remains of the children. That

778
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: part is very troublesome to me.

779
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 3: Still.

780
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, the closest they found was a small shoe that

781
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 2: it was so it was so beaten up that it

782
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 2: could have been Kani's shoe. It could have been a

783
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 2: woman's small shoe, but it also could have been a

784
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 2: kid's shoe. So that's the only physical evidence they found

785
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 2: they could possibly be linked to the kids. The bones

786
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 2: were distributed all over in this kind of one site

787
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 2: at the base of the cliff, because it was there

788
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 2: was a wash I think on either side of the cliff.

789
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,800
Speaker 2: So over the course of all these years, fifteen years,

790
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 2: the rains and the ensuing torrents of water would have

791
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 2: essentially spread the bones out. I don't know that that

792
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 2: would have done anything just to the kid's bones. I

793
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 2: don't know. Maybe there were so light that they got

794
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 2: carried away and spread and dispersed even further. I'm not sure.

795
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 2: But it is sad that they never found the kid's

796
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 2: remains too.

797
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I just can't imagine anything more terrifying than

798
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: being with your family like that and slowly dying of

799
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: sunstroke and dehydration and Malnutrition's just over the course of

800
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: knows how many days.

801
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 3: You know, it's brutal.

802
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, The thing that gets me is that, like thinking

803
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 2: of what it must have been like for Egbert to

804
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 2: climb some ridge and be able to see for dozens

805
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 2: of miles and see that there was no perimeter fence anywhere,

806
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 2: and for it to just hit you then and then

807
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 2: you have to walk back and I guess tell your

808
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 2: girlfriend like, yeah, we're in trouble.

809
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 1: We salute to you Tom Mahood for picking this case

810
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:34,640
Speaker 1: up and bringing about some sort of resolution. Obviously feels

811
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: awful for his ex wife back in Germany, and you

812
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 1: know that her son was taken from her and on

813
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: this fun sort of bonding trip and never came home.

814
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 3: It was just just a very sad story.

815
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 2: It is, Yeah, And I mean that's as close to

816
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 2: saulved as it gets, and it seems pretty solid.

817
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed.

818
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 2: Well, since we don't have anything more to say about

819
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:55,879
Speaker 2: the death Valley Germans except rested in peace all four

820
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:58,479
Speaker 2: of you, I think it's time for listener mail.

821
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 3: This is about the Far Side.

822
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: We did an episode on Gary Larson's great cartoon The

823
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:06,800
Speaker 1: Far Side and got a lot of great feedback.

824
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 3: It's clearly a beloved.

825
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: Cartoon that we heard from a lot of people that

826
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 1: just really enjoyed our tribute. Hey, guys, The Parside was

827
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: also a huge part of my comedy experience in my

828
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 1: middle school to high school years. Been happy to share

829
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: it with my son, who's eleven, who laughs out loud

830
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: or sometimes says, I don't get this one. Your podcast

831
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 1: made me think about how polarizing the humor of The

832
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: par Side can be, and sometimes you just don't get

833
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: it or don't really like it. My mom always thought

834
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 1: it was such a dumb comic, but would see me

835
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:36,359
Speaker 1: laughing on and on reading the Far Side.

836
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 3: Galleries one day.

837
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,399
Speaker 1: She had the paper first and really liked the Far

838
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: Side from that day and laughed out loud and said, oh, Pete,

839
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 1: you're gonna love this one. And it was Grandma Worm

840
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: telling the little worms how Grandpa got the axe and

841
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 1: made them, you know, chopped up.

842
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 3: Into little worms. And I said, it's okay, but she

843
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 3: was insistent, don't you get it. I get it. He

844
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 3: cut himself into more worms.

845
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 1: My mom was so mad about my reaction that she

846
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 1: couldn't talk to me for a couple of hours. But

847
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: I think that's what's so brilliant about Gary Larson. Any

848
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: single cartoon could be the funny thing ever to a

849
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: particular person and not so much to another, even if

850
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:16,959
Speaker 1: they love it. Thanks so much for the show, guys,

851
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: and the countless hours that you've given to entertain me

852
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: and my family.

853
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 3: And that is from Pete. And hello to Pete and

854
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 3: your family and your eleven year old son.

855
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, hello, Pete, thank you for that. Yeah. We've got

856
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 2: a lot of people send in their favorite Far Sides.

857
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 4: Yeah it was fun.

858
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 2: Yep, thanks to everybody who wrote in about the Far Side.

859
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: And if you haven't listened to that episode yet, strongly

860
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 2: recommend it's a good one, and if you want to

861
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 2: be like Pete and send us a good email like

862
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 2: he did, you can send it off to stuff podcast

863
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.

864
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:51,879
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

865
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

866
00:44:55,760 --> 00:45:03,120
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.