Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Charles Horvath Pt. One

Transcript

Charles Horvath Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:32
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path with Chili. I'm Robin and
0:35
Speaker 1: Ashley is away again this week. Hopefully she'll be back soon,
0:37
Speaker 1: but until now we will follow our usual formula where
0:40
Speaker 1: I will share the details of a case with Jewls
0:42
Speaker 1: and she will give off her live reaction and thoughts.
0:45
Speaker 1: And this week we're doing one from her neck of
0:48
Speaker 1: the woods where she lives in British Columbia. So, Jewles,
0:51
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of the disappearance of Charles Horbath.
0:54
Speaker 2: No, I haven't heard of this case, and I really
0:57
Speaker 2: always can appreciate a local case, especially one where there
1:02
Speaker 2: isn't a resolution or there's a lot of questions surrounding it.
1:05
Speaker 2: So I'm particularly I hate to use the word excited,
1:09
Speaker 2: but enthused to hear the details of this case since
1:13
Speaker 2: it's one that I don't think that I've ever heard
1:15
Speaker 2: of before.
1:17
Speaker 1: Well, it was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and I did
1:19
Speaker 1: it on the Trail Went Cold a couple years ago.
1:21
Speaker 1: And I'm actually Facebook friends with Charles's mother, Denise Allen,
1:24
Speaker 1: who is one of the best advocates I've ever seen.
1:26
Speaker 1: She's been fighting for answers for thirty seven years now,
1:30
Speaker 1: and sadly she still hasn't got one. But Charles Horvath
1:33
Speaker 1: was technically born in Canada, but he spent the most
1:36
Speaker 1: of his youth being raised in England, which is where
1:39
Speaker 1: his mother was from, and then he decided to leave
1:42
Speaker 1: on a backpacking trip across Canada. But in May of
1:45
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, while he was in British Columbia, he
1:48
Speaker 1: suddenly just stopped communicating with his mother. And of course
1:51
Speaker 1: it's an absolute nightmare when you have a loved one
1:53
Speaker 1: go missing in a foreign country. Because there's so many
1:55
Speaker 1: jurisdictional issues, it's hard to pinpoint the last time he
1:59
Speaker 1: was confirmed to be a lot so over the years,
2:01
Speaker 1: his mother, Denise has made many trips from England to
2:04
Speaker 1: Canada to search forum and has uncovered evidence to suggest
2:08
Speaker 1: he might have been the victim of foul play, but
2:11
Speaker 1: unfortunately still doesn't have any conclusive answers.
2:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like there's a particular niche kind of
2:19
Speaker 2: true crime type of a case where it is somebody
2:23
Speaker 2: who goes missing in a foreign country, and it's I
2:27
Speaker 2: used to listen to I think I've mentioned it before
2:29
Speaker 2: this podcast. It was all about this specifically, and it
2:32
Speaker 2: was called the Unknown Passage and I listened to it
2:34
Speaker 2: around like COVID time, like twenty twenty, twenty twenty one.
2:38
Speaker 2: I haven't listened to it in years, but I always
2:40
Speaker 2: found it really fascinating and really heartbreaking because, like you said,
2:46
Speaker 2: trying to fight for and trying to advocate for a
2:49
Speaker 2: loved one in a country that isn't yours, and you're
2:52
Speaker 2: often being met with like a brick wall because it
2:57
Speaker 2: feels like I'm sure to love ones that I alreadies
3:00
Speaker 2: just don't care and the way that they would if
3:02
Speaker 2: it was an actual citizen of that country.
3:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's going to be a lot of mistakes by
3:07
Speaker 1: the police in this case, who did not take it
3:09
Speaker 1: seriously at first. And it just harkens me back to
3:11
Speaker 1: a much different time because this took place in nineteen
3:14
Speaker 1: eighty nine, when we did not have Zoom, we did
3:17
Speaker 1: not have cell phones, we did not have Skype or
3:19
Speaker 1: email where you can communicate with someone who was on
3:22
Speaker 1: another section of the globe. I mean you and I, like,
3:25
Speaker 1: you're in British Columbia, I'm in Ontario and we talk
3:27
Speaker 1: every week to record a podcast. And we met each
3:30
Speaker 1: other for the first time while you were living in Malaysia,
3:33
Speaker 1: but back in nineteen eighty nine, the only way you
3:35
Speaker 1: can communicate was with very expensive long distance phone calls,
3:38
Speaker 1: by mailing postcards and letters. And what happened with Charles's
3:42
Speaker 1: mother is that she suddenly stopped hearing from him and
3:44
Speaker 1: started getting worried. But by the time they could get
3:47
Speaker 1: the police to launch a missing person's investigation, it had
3:50
Speaker 1: been nearly a year since she last heard from them.
3:52
Speaker 1: So it's just such a heartbreaking time to think that
3:55
Speaker 1: there was. If you had a loved one go missing
3:57
Speaker 1: in a foreign country back then, it was just so
3:59
Speaker 1: hard to find them again.
4:01
Speaker 2: Like we've covered enough cases during this time period where
4:05
Speaker 2: there was no cell phones and you see loved ones
4:08
Speaker 2: wonder what happened to their person, and that person disappears
4:13
Speaker 2: in the same country and it's hard enough to know
4:16
Speaker 2: where they went, who they met with, what could have
4:19
Speaker 2: potentially happened unless they left some kind of deliberate trail.
4:24
Speaker 2: Then you have a loved one go to a different country,
4:27
Speaker 2: and the difficulty factor multiplies by like one hundred because
4:32
Speaker 2: you're looking at cultural barriers, language barriers, distance, financial barriers.
4:38
Speaker 2: It's like the barrier to entry to be able to
4:41
Speaker 2: thoroughly investigate. The disappearance of a loved one is so
4:45
Speaker 2: big that so many different families aren't even able to
4:49
Speaker 2: achieve that level of advocacy that you're talking about with
4:52
Speaker 2: Denise Allen because of all those barriers that I mentioned.
4:56
Speaker 2: So I find it so admirable that she's a to
5:00
Speaker 2: fight for her son and able to fight for justice
5:03
Speaker 2: and find out what happened here, because did not have
5:06
Speaker 2: answers is the absolute worst thing. How can you begin
5:10
Speaker 2: to grieve when you can't close the circle?
5:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, because these days she can still post on social media,
5:16
Speaker 1: she can still appear on podcasts or spread awareness of
5:18
Speaker 1: the case. But thirty seven years ago, in nineteen eighty nine,
5:21
Speaker 1: when Charles originally went missing, she just did not have
5:24
Speaker 1: those options. She would physically have to travel to another
5:27
Speaker 1: country and physically hand out missing Persons flyers to try
5:31
Speaker 1: to find answers, which was just so much more difficult.
5:34
Speaker 1: And I keep thinking that if Charles had gone missing today,
5:36
Speaker 1: you could do stuff like track his cell phone to
5:39
Speaker 1: see his last known movements, but unfortunately, back then it
5:42
Speaker 1: just wasn't an option. So at the time he went missing,
5:46
Speaker 1: Charles Horrbath was twenty years old. He had been born
5:49
Speaker 1: in the town of Coconaur, Ontario, to his mother, Denise Horvath,
5:54
Speaker 1: who had emigrated from England to Canada in order to
5:57
Speaker 1: work as z nany for a family, and she wound
5:59
Speaker 1: up eating a Hungarian slash Canadian citizen named Max Carroleyhrbath.
6:04
Speaker 1: And it was a very like quick relationship because only
6:07
Speaker 1: three days after they originally met, Max proposed marriage to
6:10
Speaker 1: Denise and they got married a short time later, and
6:14
Speaker 1: Denise wound up becoming pregnant with Charles when she was
6:17
Speaker 1: only nineteen years old, but because she was feeling homesick
6:21
Speaker 1: the couple, she convinced Max to move back to England
6:24
Speaker 1: with her when Charles was only five weeks old, but
6:28
Speaker 1: shortly after they arrived, the marriage soon fell apart and
6:31
Speaker 1: Max in Denise divorced after only having been married for
6:34
Speaker 1: ten months.
6:36
Speaker 2: I mean, that's really sad, but it's not surprising given
6:39
Speaker 2: how like nineteen years old, having a child, being married,
6:43
Speaker 2: and also when you factor in that they didn't know
6:47
Speaker 2: each other for very long before they decided to get married.
6:50
Speaker 2: So the idea that this could be a long term
6:54
Speaker 2: marriage and it would be a happy one, there's always
6:57
Speaker 2: a possibility, but it feels like the probability is fairly low,
7:00
Speaker 2: so this conclusion could have likely been predicted, and at
7:04
Speaker 2: least Denise at this point is back in England, closer
7:07
Speaker 2: to friends and family.
7:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess we can be grateful that they didn't
7:11
Speaker 1: get divorced while she was still in Canada and was
7:13
Speaker 1: pretty much stranded there. And this did work out in
7:16
Speaker 1: her favor because it turned out when Max moved to
7:18
Speaker 1: England with her, he did not have a correct visa,
7:21
Speaker 1: so he actually had to return to Canada, which meant
7:24
Speaker 1: that Denise automatically got full custody of Charles, but she
7:28
Speaker 1: was quite happy to raise him as a single mother,
7:30
Speaker 1: and even though she described Charles as being kind of hyperactive,
7:34
Speaker 1: they had a very close relationship growing up, and Denise
7:37
Speaker 1: eventually got remarried to her second husband, Stuart Allen, and
7:41
Speaker 1: that marriage lasted for the rest of his life before
7:44
Speaker 1: Stuart passed away many years later. But interestingly, Charles's birth
7:48
Speaker 1: name was actually Carolee John Horbath, which was his father's
7:53
Speaker 1: middle name, but when he went to school, the teachers
7:56
Speaker 1: apparently could not get his name correct. They just kept
7:58
Speaker 1: calling him Carol, So I think at one point a
8:02
Speaker 1: teacher accidentally called him Charles, and then Denise just decided,
8:05
Speaker 1: you know what, they never get his name right anyway,
8:08
Speaker 1: and it's the name of his father, whom I'm divorced from.
8:10
Speaker 1: Now I'm just going to call him Charles, So that's
8:12
Speaker 1: pretty much what she called him for the rest of
8:14
Speaker 1: his life.
8:16
Speaker 2: I feel like, given the time period, it probably was
8:19
Speaker 2: a solid choice because a name like Carol Lee could
8:23
Speaker 2: have incited a lot of bullying from other children, so
8:27
Speaker 2: Charles feels like a safer choice. I think now people
8:31
Speaker 2: have bolder names, but the timeframe didn't really call for
8:36
Speaker 2: names like Carol Lee that were assigned to young men
8:40
Speaker 2: or boys.
8:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it looked like it was two separate names,
8:43
Speaker 1: Carol and Lee. But the actual spelling out of it
8:45
Speaker 1: is kaarl Y, which is a Hungarian name. But obviously
8:50
Speaker 1: they weren't going to accept that back in England during
8:52
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. So in nineteen eighty eight, right after
8:57
Speaker 1: he turned twenty years old, Charles decided that he wanted
8:59
Speaker 1: to return turned to Canada since it was technically his
9:02
Speaker 1: birth country, and go on a lengthy backpacking trip from
9:06
Speaker 1: one side of the country to another, and his mother
9:08
Speaker 1: agreed to purchase him a plane ticket as his birthday gift,
9:12
Speaker 1: and Charles would travel to Montreal in September of that year.
9:15
Speaker 1: So he lived in Montreal for a few months, working
9:18
Speaker 1: odd jobs for himself. He actually became a model for
9:21
Speaker 1: a time period, and Denise even made a trip to
9:24
Speaker 1: Montreal in December in order to see Charles participate in
9:28
Speaker 1: a fashion show, but unfortunately, after she returned to England,
9:32
Speaker 1: she would never see him in person again. She would
9:34
Speaker 1: still maintain contact with Charles for the next five months,
9:37
Speaker 1: but unfortunately when she left Montreal, she had no idea
9:41
Speaker 1: that this was the last time she was ever going
9:43
Speaker 1: to see her son.
9:45
Speaker 2: Okay, so on a side note, I just wanted to
9:47
Speaker 2: look since Robin had mentioned that he was modeling. I
9:50
Speaker 2: looked up and the first photo that came up feels
9:53
Speaker 2: like such an eighties photo. He's apparently very fond of
9:58
Speaker 2: this Levi's five oh one show shirt that he's got,
10:00
Speaker 2: because there's some photos of him wearing like a gray suit.
10:04
Speaker 2: He's looking very like Rico Suave posing with his thumb
10:07
Speaker 2: and his belt. He just looks like a sweet guy
10:10
Speaker 2: and he's got like this cheeky, cute smile. He just
10:14
Speaker 2: looks like a lovely human being. So, and there's a
10:17
Speaker 2: picture of him with what who I assume is his mom,
10:20
Speaker 2: Denise Allen, and they just look so happy together and
10:24
Speaker 2: she looks so proud. So I can imagine that it
10:27
Speaker 2: must have been just devastating for Denise to lose because
10:32
Speaker 2: this is her only child.
10:33
Speaker 1: Correct, Yeah, she never did have any more children.
10:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that must have been the hardest thing. You
10:38
Speaker 2: should never have to lose a child, whether they disappear
10:42
Speaker 2: or they pass away before you, as a parent passes away.
10:46
Speaker 2: It's just one of those cruel things in the universe.
10:50
Speaker 2: So my heart really breaks for Denise.
10:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. I never really thought of that about that, but
10:55
Speaker 1: that photo you're referring to is often been shared on
10:57
Speaker 1: his missing posters where he's holding his jacket over shoulder,
11:00
Speaker 1: and I just realized, yes, that is a modeling post
11:02
Speaker 1: so totally for Fits's persona when you find out that
11:05
Speaker 1: he actually got paid to model for a brief time period.
11:09
Speaker 1: So by nineteen eighty nine, Charles started traveling the country.
11:13
Speaker 1: Even though his father had divorced his mother, I think
11:15
Speaker 1: he still had a close relationship with Max, so he
11:18
Speaker 1: got to visit him in thunder Bay, Ontario, and also
11:21
Speaker 1: meet his half brother, Max Junior for the first time
11:24
Speaker 1: because Max had had a child, I had gotten remarried
11:27
Speaker 1: and had another son, and Charles then continued west. He
11:30
Speaker 1: spent some time staying and working in Saskatchewan and Alberta Banf, Alberta,
11:36
Speaker 1: and on April the seventeenth, while working at a hotel
11:39
Speaker 1: in banth Charles had what turned out to be his
11:41
Speaker 1: final phone conversation with his mother. Because August Charles was
11:46
Speaker 1: going to be celebrating his twenty first birthday and Denise
11:49
Speaker 1: would be celebrating her fortieth birthday because they were fairly
11:52
Speaker 1: close together, and they decided that they were going to
11:55
Speaker 1: meet up in Hong Kong to celebrate because Denise had
11:57
Speaker 1: spent a portion of her childhood living there when her
12:00
Speaker 1: own father was in the Navy. So Charles soon left
12:04
Speaker 1: Banf then traveled to British Columbia, and he told his
12:07
Speaker 1: mother that he would be in touch again to arrange
12:09
Speaker 1: their trip to Hong Kong, but unfortunately this turned out
12:12
Speaker 1: to be the last time she ever heard from them.
12:16
Speaker 2: And like now, it's a lot more common to travel
12:19
Speaker 2: to Asia, but at the time, going to Hong Kong
12:22
Speaker 2: would have been seen as like a very rare trip
12:25
Speaker 2: and a lot more exotic than it is viewed necessarily today,
12:29
Speaker 2: because I think air travel is just more widely available
12:32
Speaker 2: and a lot more people do it. But I think
12:35
Speaker 2: this would have been like a once in a lifetime
12:37
Speaker 2: mother and son trip. And I love that they're that
12:40
Speaker 2: close that they would plan a trip like that, because
12:42
Speaker 2: either one of them could go on a trip with
12:44
Speaker 2: somebody else. She could have gone with her husband, and
12:47
Speaker 2: obviously Charles could have gone with friends or significant other
12:51
Speaker 2: or something to that effect. But the fact that they
12:54
Speaker 2: chose to go together it just speaks to how close
12:56
Speaker 2: they truly.
12:57
Speaker 1: Were, because you see the ages that he was turning
12:59
Speaker 1: to twenty one and she was turning forty, and that's
13:02
Speaker 1: only a nineteen year age difference because she had them
13:04
Speaker 1: when she was so young. But I think sometimes when
13:06
Speaker 1: parents have their children at that age, they wind up
13:09
Speaker 1: becoming like close friends, not just parents, just because they
13:12
Speaker 1: seem to have a lot more in common generationally. So
13:16
Speaker 1: Charles would leave banf and travel to British Columbia and
13:19
Speaker 1: spend the last three weeks known weeks of his life
13:22
Speaker 1: in the city of Cologna, and since you're from British Columbia,
13:25
Speaker 1: I just wanted to ask you, have you ever been
13:26
Speaker 1: to Colowna before?
13:28
Speaker 3: Oh?
13:28
Speaker 2: My god, many times. Where I grew up was forty
13:30
Speaker 2: five minutes from Colonna. I grew up in Penticton, and
13:33
Speaker 2: so yeah, I spent tons of time going there. It's
13:36
Speaker 2: one of the best places to go in the summer
13:39
Speaker 2: if you've got a long weekend. It's beautiful, the lake's there,
13:43
Speaker 2: it's such a great time and you know, it's maybe
13:48
Speaker 2: now like one hundred and fifty thousand people, so it's
13:51
Speaker 2: not huge, but it's not tiny tiny. It's just a
13:54
Speaker 2: great city. So if anybody's ever visiting British Columbia, I
13:57
Speaker 2: highly recommend it.
13:59
Speaker 1: That's cool. Shame that it's associated with such a tragic case,
14:02
Speaker 1: but I'm going to be listing a lot of places
14:04
Speaker 1: here from Kolowna, and I'm curious to see if you
14:06
Speaker 1: recognize any It's kind of cool because Charles, Whenny arrived there,
14:09
Speaker 1: got a job at an amusement park called Flintstone's Bedrock City,
14:13
Speaker 1: which I'm assuming is a park that was shaped like
14:15
Speaker 1: the World of the Flintstones, which I would have loved
14:18
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Do you have any recollection
14:20
Speaker 1: of seeing a place like that when you were in Klowna.
14:24
Speaker 2: It might have been like in West Bank as you're
14:26
Speaker 2: driving kind of into Koloonna. It wouldn't have been like
14:29
Speaker 2: right in the city center or in that area. But
14:34
Speaker 2: it maybe is ringing a bell. I mean, it would
14:38
Speaker 2: have been a lot of years ago that I would
14:42
Speaker 2: have obviously been interested in going to anything Flintstones related,
14:46
Speaker 2: but it's possible.
14:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it sounded like a cool place, and that's
14:51
Speaker 1: where he worked the last couple weeks of his life. Charles.
14:54
Speaker 1: When he first arrived, he stayed in the Colonna Gospel Mission,
14:57
Speaker 1: but because he was such a charming, likable guy, he
15:00
Speaker 1: seemed to have a gift for befriending people who would
15:02
Speaker 1: just give him a place to stay because I think
15:04
Speaker 1: they thought he was harmless and very nice, so they'd
15:07
Speaker 1: be okay to let him come in off the streets
15:09
Speaker 1: and not have to stay at a mission. So for
15:11
Speaker 1: the first few weeks he stayed with a couple named
15:13
Speaker 1: Lou and Libby Sherwood before he got his job at
15:16
Speaker 1: the amusement park, and on May the eleventh, he faxed
15:20
Speaker 1: his mother a letter from a local post office in
15:23
Speaker 1: order to inform her about the cost of flights for
15:26
Speaker 1: his plan trip to meter in Hong Kong, and he
15:28
Speaker 1: said that he was going to contact her a later
15:30
Speaker 1: time in order to make the final arrangements to pay
15:33
Speaker 1: for his plane ticket. But unfortunately this never happened. There
15:36
Speaker 1: would be no more communication and so the last date
15:39
Speaker 1: that Charles was confirmed to be alive was made the
15:42
Speaker 1: twenty sixth, where he worked the morning shift at Flintstone's
15:45
Speaker 1: Bedrock City. He picked up his paycheck and then cashed
15:48
Speaker 1: it at a bank at a shopping center. But that
15:51
Speaker 1: is the last confirmed time that he was known to
15:55
Speaker 1: be alive. I mean, as we're going to talk about,
15:56
Speaker 1: there have been more sightings of Charles after this particular day,
16:00
Speaker 1: but this is the last documentation which proves that he
16:02
Speaker 1: was alive on me the twenty sixth.
16:05
Speaker 2: And like we talked about earlier, the lack of cell
16:08
Speaker 2: phone evidence and not being able to track Charles and
16:11
Speaker 2: is whereabouts. The same thing would go for surveillance as well.
16:15
Speaker 2: We're going to see a lot less like closed circuit
16:18
Speaker 2: cameras that there would be in businesses everywhere. Now, like
16:23
Speaker 2: you couldn't walk down a street without having a lot
16:26
Speaker 2: of surveillance footage of you, like, even in a residential
16:29
Speaker 2: area today, But back then it was a different landscape
16:34
Speaker 2: as far as security and surveillance goes.
16:37
Speaker 1: That is true because I think that they probably when
16:40
Speaker 1: he catched his check at the bank, they probably would
16:42
Speaker 1: have had a security camera if it happened today, that
16:44
Speaker 1: they could display just to show what Charles looked like
16:47
Speaker 1: the last time he was confirmed to be alive, But
16:49
Speaker 1: unfortunately we just didn't have that back during this time period.
16:54
Speaker 1: So I like, like I mentioned, Charles constantly kept in
16:56
Speaker 1: touch with his mother throughout his trip, but for the
16:59
Speaker 1: next couple months, Denise did not receive any letters, postcards,
17:02
Speaker 1: or phone calls or faxes, which was very out of character.
17:06
Speaker 1: And by the time August rolled around, Denise still hadn't
17:09
Speaker 1: heard from Charles about arranging the Hong Kong trips, so
17:12
Speaker 1: she was starting to become incredibly concerned, so she finally
17:15
Speaker 1: decided to contact the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order
17:19
Speaker 1: to officially report Charles missing. But I'm sure it won't
17:22
Speaker 1: surprise you to hear this, but the RCMP didn't do
17:25
Speaker 1: anything at first because Charles was technically a legal adult,
17:29
Speaker 1: and the police told her that if he wanted to
17:31
Speaker 1: break off all contact and go missing on his own,
17:34
Speaker 1: then he totally had the right to do so, and
17:36
Speaker 1: because there was no evidence that he had been harmed
17:39
Speaker 1: or the victim of foul play, there was nothing they
17:41
Speaker 1: can do. And one of the officers flat out told
17:44
Speaker 1: Denise if he didn't want to call his mom, he
17:46
Speaker 1: didn't have to end quote.
17:49
Speaker 2: I seriously hate this so much, and we've encountered this
17:53
Speaker 2: a million times on these cases, and it always makes
17:56
Speaker 2: me harken back to what was it the irresistible allure
17:59
Speaker 2: of the carnival. Yep, they could be doing so much more,
18:04
Speaker 2: but it feels so lazy to assume that every time
18:08
Speaker 2: somebody goes missing that you can't do just like a
18:10
Speaker 2: cursory search, just do the very bare minimum in order
18:15
Speaker 2: to make these parents or loved ones feel better. It
18:19
Speaker 2: boggles my mind, and I think we've just seen such
18:22
Speaker 2: a shift in the attitude towards missing people, particularly young people,
18:27
Speaker 2: has changed so much over the years, especially when we
18:31
Speaker 2: look back at cases like this in retrospect, it seems
18:34
Speaker 2: almost barbaric to treat a family member in such a capacity,
18:38
Speaker 2: but it seems pretty normalized for the time it was.
18:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I realized that the police would not have
18:45
Speaker 1: had much to work with because obviously there was no
18:47
Speaker 1: evidence of what happened to Charles at this point. But
18:50
Speaker 1: there were other options. I know of another trip wherein
18:53
Speaker 1: American went missing while traveling through Canada, and even though
18:57
Speaker 1: they didn't really know where to look for, the police's
19:00
Speaker 1: solutions was to place ads in the local newspapers saying
19:04
Speaker 1: so and so if you're if you're still alive out there,
19:07
Speaker 1: please call your parents' number here, just to let them
19:09
Speaker 1: know you're all right. And that could be a thing
19:12
Speaker 1: where if he did disappear voluntarily, there's a chance he'll
19:14
Speaker 1: read the newspaper and then just realize, oh, my parents
19:17
Speaker 1: might be worried. I better call them. But here they
19:20
Speaker 1: didn't even try to do that, because that just seems
19:22
Speaker 1: like a logical thing to do when it's someone who
19:24
Speaker 1: what was missing on a backpacking trip, just send out
19:26
Speaker 1: a message getting him to call his mother.
19:30
Speaker 2: What boggles my mind, though, is the priorities of law enforcement.
19:35
Speaker 2: Like some of these places like Colonna isn't somewhere that's
19:38
Speaker 2: riddled with crime, so I find it odd that nobody
19:42
Speaker 2: would even bother looking into a missing person and just
19:46
Speaker 2: assume that he just went off on his own. He
19:50
Speaker 2: had a job, but seemed like he was anchored there.
19:53
Speaker 2: He had met friends, he was charismatic, so it would
19:58
Speaker 2: seem atypical to just break off all contact. You're not
20:01
Speaker 2: dealing with a lot of murders there, I don't think
20:03
Speaker 2: at the time there was like a lot of gang
20:05
Speaker 2: violence or anything. And so what are you dealing with?
20:09
Speaker 2: Petty theft? And you're obviously not dealing with disappearances in
20:13
Speaker 2: the right ways, So like, what are you actually doing?
20:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much nothing. And as we're going to find out,
20:20
Speaker 1: the police finally start to perform an investigation when Denise
20:23
Speaker 1: makes a trip to British Columbia and uncovers some new
20:26
Speaker 1: leads and evidence herself, and they're like, well, now we
20:28
Speaker 1: have something to work with. I guess we'll start looking
20:30
Speaker 1: for Charles. But it is a recurring theme sometimes in
20:33
Speaker 1: these missing persons cases, where the victim's family member winds
20:36
Speaker 1: up doing the leg work and then the police finally
20:38
Speaker 1: decide to get involved. So Denise actually waited a whole
20:43
Speaker 1: year without hearing anything from Charles and was obviously starting
20:47
Speaker 1: to panic, but she couldn't get the RCaMP to do
20:49
Speaker 1: any sort of investigation, so she decided that I have
20:53
Speaker 1: to travel all the way to a British Columbia myself
20:56
Speaker 1: in order to search for my sons. So she went
20:58
Speaker 1: over there and juw nineteen ninety with her mother Edith,
21:02
Speaker 1: and they wound up staying at a hotel in Colonna
21:04
Speaker 1: called the Pandosi Inn. Because that was the last time
21:08
Speaker 1: she heard from Charles is when he faxed her from Colonna,
21:12
Speaker 1: and by pure coincidence, it turned out that the last
21:14
Speaker 1: location where Charles was known to have stayed was located
21:17
Speaker 1: directly across the street from the hotel, because after speaking
21:21
Speaker 1: to some local residents, Denise learned that in May nineteen
21:24
Speaker 1: eighty nine, right before he went missing, Charles had stayed
21:28
Speaker 1: at a campground called the Tiny Town Tent and Trailer Park,
21:31
Speaker 1: which was located on Lake Shore Road near Okanagan Lake,
21:35
Speaker 1: and he had been staying in a tent there, which
21:37
Speaker 1: had been given to him by a local charity. According to Denise,
21:41
Speaker 1: when she first arrived at the campground to inquire about Charles,
21:44
Speaker 1: she spoke to a resident named Kevin Trent Egan, who
21:47
Speaker 1: seemed very nervous and evasive and said that she would
21:51
Speaker 1: need to speak to the manager when he arrived to
21:53
Speaker 1: find out any information. So the manager named Phil Flett,
21:57
Speaker 1: arrived and when Denise spoke to him and showed Charles's photograph,
22:02
Speaker 1: he did remember him, claiming that one year earlier Charles
22:05
Speaker 1: had been staying there, but then he disappeared from the
22:08
Speaker 1: campground and left most of his personal belongings behind, including
22:11
Speaker 1: his tent, sleeping bag, and all of his personal items.
22:16
Speaker 1: So Flett said that he packed up all of Charles's
22:18
Speaker 1: belongings and put them into storage, but when Charles failed
22:21
Speaker 1: to return after several months to reclaim them, he just
22:24
Speaker 1: decided to dispose of most of them the following spring.
22:27
Speaker 1: And at this point he just had a few small
22:29
Speaker 1: items like a rosary, a tiny red paper bible, and
22:33
Speaker 1: a leather strap from Charles's boots, so he handed them
22:37
Speaker 1: over to Denise and she was able to positively identify
22:40
Speaker 1: them as items belonging to her son, So this was
22:43
Speaker 1: conclusive evidence that he stayed there, But obviously the fact
22:46
Speaker 1: that he disappeared and left all his personal belongings behind
22:50
Speaker 1: raised some major alarm Bells with her.
22:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if he went missing of his own accord,
22:56
Speaker 2: why would he leave behind all of these personal belongings
23:00
Speaker 2: when it doesn't sound like he had a whole heck
23:02
Speaker 2: of a lot with regards to personal belongings. So what
23:05
Speaker 2: little belongings she had, I would think he would treasure
23:09
Speaker 2: and he would bring with him wherever he's going. So
23:11
Speaker 2: that is a major red flag.
23:13
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. And I think this is when she finally
23:15
Speaker 1: got the police to take some action, saying that, yes,
23:17
Speaker 1: I found out the last place Charles stayed. I found
23:20
Speaker 1: out he just left abruptly. Obviously he didn't just disappear
23:23
Speaker 1: on his own. So she paid another visit to the
23:26
Speaker 1: Colonna detachment of the RCNP and they finally agreed to
23:29
Speaker 1: start an investigation. And because there was no DNA testing
23:33
Speaker 1: back then, they had to get in touch with Interpol
23:36
Speaker 1: to inquire about getting Charles's dental records because that was
23:40
Speaker 1: the only way they were going to identify him if
23:42
Speaker 1: any had dead bodies showed up in the area. But
23:45
Speaker 1: according to Denise, one of the investigators, a constable named
23:48
Speaker 1: Norm Blaney, made a very disturbing comment as he flat
23:51
Speaker 1: out told her that Charles was probably dead and she
23:54
Speaker 1: would never find his body or learn what happened to him,
23:57
Speaker 1: and stated, quote, you just do not know the evil.
24:00
Speaker 1: You just do not know how evil they are at
24:01
Speaker 1: the Tinytown campsite end quote.
24:04
Speaker 2: I'm sorry what you don't know how evil they are
24:08
Speaker 2: at the Tinytown campsite? Like what is going on at
24:11
Speaker 2: this campsite?
24:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, like we're going to find out that this was
24:14
Speaker 1: a pretty shady camp site. But of course Denise was
24:17
Speaker 1: shocked that she just mentions this to a police officer
24:19
Speaker 1: and he instantly says, your son is dead. You're never
24:22
Speaker 1: gonna find out what happened to him because this place
24:24
Speaker 1: is evil. It's like, whoa what happened to this year?
24:27
Speaker 1: If you're jumping to these conclusions right away, even though
24:30
Speaker 1: there's no hard evidence that Charles is dead and I
24:33
Speaker 1: know when this case was featured on UNSAWD Mysteries years later,
24:36
Speaker 1: and another RCMP investigator named Gary Tisbury did some serious backpedling,
24:41
Speaker 1: saying that that was Constable Blaney's personal opinion, it was
24:45
Speaker 1: not the view of the entire police force. The rest
24:47
Speaker 1: of us did not automatically jump to the assumption that
24:50
Speaker 1: Charles was dead just because he had stayed at that
24:52
Speaker 1: camp site, so I don't know if this is just laziness,
24:54
Speaker 1: but even if he legitimately believed that Charles was dead,
24:58
Speaker 1: a more tactful way, you could say that to his mother.
25:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm sorry calling a campsite or campground evil,
25:07
Speaker 2: it seems like it would definitely be his personal opinion.
25:10
Speaker 2: But I really would love to know what happened there
25:13
Speaker 2: to make him classify a place as evil. It sounds
25:17
Speaker 2: like it's cursed or it's like some kind of haunted house.
25:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does, yes, And I did some looking. I
25:23
Speaker 1: don't know of any other documented murders that took place
25:26
Speaker 1: in the campsite. I mean, I know some shady characters
25:28
Speaker 1: stayed there, but they're making it sound like it's like
25:31
Speaker 1: you said, it's haunted and there's a demon there or
25:33
Speaker 1: something like that. So it was just some very weird comments.
25:37
Speaker 1: So I know that the RCMP finally questioned people from
25:41
Speaker 1: the campground and they spoke to Kevin trent Egan, that
25:44
Speaker 1: guy that Denise had spoken to who seemed very nervous
25:47
Speaker 1: and evasive, and it turned out that he had a
25:49
Speaker 1: whole bunch of Charles's personal possessions with his belongings. He
25:53
Speaker 1: had Charles's shaving bag and two shirts which once belonged
25:56
Speaker 1: to him, and Denise said that the shaving bag had
25:59
Speaker 1: been used to carry Charles's identification and his family photographs,
26:03
Speaker 1: which would have been very useful to him, but Egan
26:05
Speaker 1: said he just threw them out because he didn't really
26:07
Speaker 1: need them, so I think that was the reason he
26:09
Speaker 1: was acting so nervous. And investigators also learned that the
26:13
Speaker 1: campground manager, Phil Flatt, had actually given two of Charles's
26:17
Speaker 1: sweaters to his girlfriend, and when she found out, she
26:20
Speaker 1: actually apologized for this and gave the sweaters back to
26:22
Speaker 1: Denise because he predented that he just threw them out.
26:25
Speaker 1: But in actuality, he's just taking these personal items belonging
26:28
Speaker 1: to a camper who took off and is just giving
26:31
Speaker 1: them to his girlfriend. So obviously that did not paint
26:33
Speaker 1: him in the most flattering light.
26:36
Speaker 2: No, that's definitely not a good look. It's giving like
26:40
Speaker 2: I'm going to give my girlfriend trophies from a murder.
26:43
Speaker 2: Like you hear of killers doing that where they give
26:45
Speaker 2: like their girlfriend like a necklace or something like that
26:48
Speaker 2: that they took off of a victim. There's something really
26:51
Speaker 2: eerie and weird about that. I mean, it could come
26:54
Speaker 2: down to somebody having a lack of resources and just
26:57
Speaker 2: taking advantage of anything. That's so I don't want to
27:01
Speaker 2: completely eliminate that as a possibility, but it's a little.
27:06
Speaker 1: Odd, definitely, And this is one reason that there was
27:09
Speaker 1: suspicion that the campground might have been complicit in Charles's disappearance.
27:13
Speaker 1: I know that phil Flett just said that he held
27:15
Speaker 1: on to them for several months and only gave the
27:17
Speaker 1: items away once he knew that Charles wasn't coming back,
27:20
Speaker 1: And Kevin trent Egan said that phil Flett had given
27:24
Speaker 1: him the shirts and the shaving bags, so he denied
27:26
Speaker 1: any involvement in Charles's disappearance. And I am inclined to
27:30
Speaker 1: believe that these two guys didn't have anything to do
27:32
Speaker 1: with what happened to them. They just kind of took
27:34
Speaker 1: advantage of the situation once Charles disappeared and left his
27:37
Speaker 1: items behind. But I can understand how that would look
27:39
Speaker 1: really bad because they probably figured, Hey, this guy from
27:42
Speaker 1: England who went missing, there's no way anyone's gonna come
27:45
Speaker 1: looking for them, and we're probably taken by complete surprise
27:48
Speaker 1: when Denise showed up there looking for him a full
27:51
Speaker 1: year later.
27:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can imagine that they thought, if they had
27:55
Speaker 2: something to do with it, that they had gotten away
27:57
Speaker 2: with this, and so yeah, when Denise shows up, I'm
28:00
Speaker 2: sure that they were really shocked.
28:03
Speaker 1: So finally that Charles had been reported missing. His disappearance
28:06
Speaker 1: made the local newspapers, and Denise was contacted by a
28:09
Speaker 1: Colowna resident named Joanne Zebrof, who claimed that she had
28:13
Speaker 1: befriended Charles during the spring of nineteen eighty nine, and
28:16
Speaker 1: because he was such a likable and charming guy and
28:18
Speaker 1: he was pretty much just staying on the streets at
28:20
Speaker 1: that point, she allowed him to temporarily stay at an
28:24
Speaker 1: apartment that she shared with her mother. Joanne said that
28:27
Speaker 1: the last time she heard from Charles I was after
28:30
Speaker 1: he had moved out, and he made a surprise visit
28:32
Speaker 1: to her apartment and spoke to her over the intercom.
28:35
Speaker 1: Charles said that he wanted to see Joanne, but that
28:37
Speaker 1: particular night, her brother was actually in town visiting her
28:40
Speaker 1: for a special family reunion, so Joanne told Charles that
28:44
Speaker 1: she was unable to invite him inside, and then he
28:47
Speaker 1: suddenly left. Joanne, of course became regretful because this was
28:50
Speaker 1: believed to be around the time period that he disappeared,
28:53
Speaker 1: so she was thinking to herself, if I had just
28:56
Speaker 1: invited him up, maybe things would have turned out a
28:58
Speaker 1: bit differently for him. But this has been the source
29:01
Speaker 1: of confusion because she was certain that it took place
29:04
Speaker 1: sometime in late May of nineteen eighty nine, around the
29:07
Speaker 1: time he went missing. But the RCMP would come to
29:10
Speaker 1: believe that his visit actually occurred in July of that year,
29:13
Speaker 1: about two months later, because they apparently checked with jo
29:16
Speaker 1: Anne's brother's employer and learned that he had taken time
29:19
Speaker 1: off in order to visit Joanne sometime in July, and
29:23
Speaker 1: apparently he didn't take time off work in May, so
29:25
Speaker 1: that's why they believe that Joanne was mistaken about the
29:28
Speaker 1: date and that Charles actually may have paid a visit
29:31
Speaker 1: to the apartment in July. But this just causes so
29:34
Speaker 1: much confusion because it would make sense if it took
29:37
Speaker 1: place in May, but if it took place in July,
29:39
Speaker 1: that would mean that he abandoned all of his belongings
29:42
Speaker 1: at the camp site and was somewhere else for two
29:44
Speaker 1: months before he paid his visit to Joanne. So I
29:47
Speaker 1: kind of think that the RSAMP screwed something up here,
29:50
Speaker 1: that they just made this wrongful assumption, and that Charles's
29:53
Speaker 1: visit actually took place in late May.
29:56
Speaker 2: It makes absolutely zero sense. There's no way, Like, how
30:01
Speaker 2: would he have gone for two months without any of
30:04
Speaker 2: his belongings? He had them all in one place. Why
30:07
Speaker 2: wouldn't he gather them? Why wouldn't he go back there
30:10
Speaker 2: to sleep? Where did he sleep? How was he making money?
30:13
Speaker 2: He wasn't showing up to his job, how did he
30:16
Speaker 2: get any resources? None of this makes sense. I wholeheartedly
30:20
Speaker 2: am in agreement with you that I think the RCMPT
30:23
Speaker 2: must have screwed something up because it would make much
30:26
Speaker 2: more sense if this visit happened in May but in July. Like,
30:31
Speaker 2: where was he during this time period? None of it
30:33
Speaker 2: makes any sense.
30:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the thing is that I know witnesses
30:37
Speaker 1: can be mistaken, but I think that if you have
30:39
Speaker 1: your brother come to visit you for a family reunion,
30:42
Speaker 1: you might be mistaken about the date, but you're not
30:44
Speaker 1: gonna be mistaken about the month. That's a full two
30:46
Speaker 1: month gap. So that's why I would trust Joanne and
30:49
Speaker 1: her brother that they know when they came to visit.
30:52
Speaker 1: But another complicated thing is that Joanne also thought that
30:56
Speaker 1: she had seen Charles at a nightclub called the Live
30:58
Speaker 1: Wire in odd of nineteen eighty nine. But I am
31:02
Speaker 1: inclined to think this might be mistaken because Joanne acknowledged
31:05
Speaker 1: that they never actually spoke. She just said that she
31:07
Speaker 1: saw Charles from a distance and that they waved at
31:10
Speaker 1: each other. But of course this is a nightclub. It's
31:13
Speaker 1: probably dark and noisy, so I have a feeling she
31:16
Speaker 1: probably saw someone there who looked like Charles, and sometimes
31:19
Speaker 1: dhen you're in public, you might get waved at by
31:21
Speaker 1: a complete stranger and then just waved back out of instinct.
31:25
Speaker 1: So I have a feeling she probably saw someone else,
31:27
Speaker 1: and that this sighting. Like you said, it doesn't make
31:30
Speaker 1: any sense for him to be hanging around in August
31:32
Speaker 1: when he was last confirmed to be alive in.
31:34
Speaker 2: May, and like going to a nightclub with what money,
31:37
Speaker 2: like what resources, what clothes? None of that makes any sense.
31:41
Speaker 2: And also a fact that a guy who might have
31:44
Speaker 2: resembled him in the dark waved at a girl in
31:47
Speaker 2: a club really doesn't tell if anything. Like most people
31:50
Speaker 2: are in a club to meet people, and so a
31:53
Speaker 2: pretty girl waves that, you, like, no guy's going to
31:55
Speaker 2: be like, I don't know her and just ignore her.
31:58
Speaker 2: I think that like anybody way back. But like I've
32:01
Speaker 2: been in a scenario before where somebody waves at me
32:04
Speaker 2: and I'm like, are they waving at me? And I
32:06
Speaker 2: just like instinctually way back, and then you realize you're
32:09
Speaker 2: waving at somebody else and that's super embarrassing.
32:12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that type of thing does happen. And you've
32:14
Speaker 1: seen the photographs of Charles. It's not like he's really
32:17
Speaker 1: anything distinct about him. So if you saw someone from
32:20
Speaker 1: a distance who looked like him, it's be very easy
32:22
Speaker 1: to be mistaken.
32:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could just be any kind of tall, dark
32:26
Speaker 2: haired guy who's cute, right, So in the like in
32:29
Speaker 2: the dark environment like a club, it would be so
32:33
Speaker 2: easy to mistake him for somebody else.
32:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's probably what happened, because I do
32:38
Speaker 1: not believe he was alive unfortunately past May of nineteen
32:41
Speaker 1: eighty nine. So investigators did explore the possibility that Charles
32:46
Speaker 1: may have decided to disappear voluntarily, but it sounds like
32:49
Speaker 1: they were heavily influenced when they spoke to his paternal aunt, Georgiett,
32:53
Speaker 1: who lived in eastern Canada and also happened to be
32:56
Speaker 1: the sister of his father Max Georgia At that Charles
33:00
Speaker 1: had once told her that he had thought about quote
33:03
Speaker 1: unquote disappearing off the face of the earth because he
33:06
Speaker 1: wanted to carry on with his own life and he
33:08
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that his mother would never find him. Well.
33:12
Speaker 1: Denise heavily disputed this, as she always maintained she had
33:15
Speaker 1: a close relationship with Charles and said that she never
33:17
Speaker 1: got along with Georgette because she was bitter about the
33:21
Speaker 1: fact that her marriage to Max, her brother, had come
33:23
Speaker 1: to an end. So Denise actually said that Georgette was
33:27
Speaker 1: probably fabricating these claims just to spie her, which is
33:30
Speaker 1: a very cruel thing to do in a missing person's case.
33:33
Speaker 1: But her story seemed to be supported by Joe Anne
33:35
Speaker 1: because she claimed that when Charles hung out with her,
33:38
Speaker 1: he often showed photographs of him and Denise and seemed
33:41
Speaker 1: very proud of how close their relationship was. So it
33:44
Speaker 1: seemed like Georgette was just feeding ds to the police
33:47
Speaker 1: and that Charles never had any intention of disappearing voluntarily
33:51
Speaker 1: and wanting to cut himself off from his mother.
33:54
Speaker 2: That is such a cruel thing to do, Like, no
33:57
Speaker 2: matter what issues you have with anybody, feed incorrect information
34:02
Speaker 2: to law enforcement in hopes that it could potentially derail
34:05
Speaker 2: their investigation because of whatever petty beef you have. There's
34:09
Speaker 2: just no good reason to do that. To not be
34:12
Speaker 2: able to have empathy for a mother in that situation
34:15
Speaker 2: and understand that she's struggling to find her son, who
34:18
Speaker 2: she loves very much. To just be able to selfishly
34:22
Speaker 2: see your own vendetta is wild to me.
34:26
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like just I know, I think it sounds
34:29
Speaker 1: like Denny's Dodge and a major bullets divorcing from Max
34:32
Speaker 1: and not having to be married into that family. Because
34:34
Speaker 1: if you've got an in law who will act so
34:36
Speaker 1: spiteful in a missing person's case, when Denise is suffering
34:39
Speaker 1: such fear and trauma, then it's a good thing that
34:42
Speaker 1: you don't have that person as a part of your
34:44
Speaker 1: personal life.
34:46
Speaker 2: Didn't you. Oh no, you didn't have an in law
34:48
Speaker 2: like that. It was like the in law's friend, right.
34:51
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, yes, I won't use their name here,
34:54
Speaker 1: but I knew someone like that to my personal life. Yes, yeah,
34:59
Speaker 1: So police also explored the possibility that Charles could have
35:02
Speaker 1: been suicidal, and that maybe his disappearance was the result
35:06
Speaker 1: of him being off a bridge into a body of water,
35:08
Speaker 1: or maybe he decided to go end his own life
35:10
Speaker 1: in a remote wilderness area and they just never found
35:13
Speaker 1: his remains. But of course, according to everyone who interacted
35:17
Speaker 1: with Charles in May of nineteen eighty nine, he gave
35:19
Speaker 1: off no signs of being depressed or suicidal. He always
35:23
Speaker 1: came across as a very happy, go lucky guy. And
35:25
Speaker 1: then he said that he was greatly looking forward to
35:28
Speaker 1: going on their trip to Hong Kong together a few
35:31
Speaker 1: months later. And I know that you can never dismiss
35:33
Speaker 1: the possibility that someone is depressed and suicidal and completely
35:37
Speaker 1: hiding it. But I've never really jibed with that theory
35:40
Speaker 1: in this particular case, because there's just nothing in his
35:44
Speaker 1: background to make me think that I'm going to take
35:45
Speaker 1: a trip across Canada and I'm going to stay in
35:47
Speaker 1: touch with my mother and then just out of completely,
35:50
Speaker 1: out of the blue, I'm just going to go end
35:52
Speaker 1: my own life somewhere and ensure that my body is
35:54
Speaker 1: never found.
35:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, you never know what somebody is thinking and
35:59
Speaker 2: It's really hard for us to understand Charles's mental state,
36:03
Speaker 2: but it sounds like he was very close with his mother,
36:06
Speaker 2: and he was really outgoing and gregarious, and he formed
36:10
Speaker 2: relationships with other people easily. And it's not to say
36:13
Speaker 2: that everybody who owns their own life doesn't do those things.
36:17
Speaker 2: But there was just nothing outwardly about Charles that seemed
36:22
Speaker 2: to show that there was cracks there. But I mean,
36:26
Speaker 2: I will say that it must have been difficult for him.
36:31
Speaker 2: It's beautiful in the Okanagan in Kelowna in May, like
36:34
Speaker 2: if you were in a campground or in a campsite,
36:37
Speaker 2: that is not like a dire scenario, right, especially if
36:42
Speaker 2: they've got showers and stuff. The weather is like nearly
36:46
Speaker 2: thirty degrees every day, so it's not like he would
36:51
Speaker 2: have been struggling so hard as he would be if
36:54
Speaker 2: say he was in a tent and it was October
36:57
Speaker 2: or November, it would be a completely different story for
37:02
Speaker 2: the type of like mental weight that that would bring
37:06
Speaker 2: upon you, and like emotionally having to be outside in
37:09
Speaker 2: the elements it's cold, but not during May, it's gorgeous.
37:14
Speaker 2: So initially I thought maybe that factored in. Maybe it
37:18
Speaker 2: was he was living rough and that was really hard
37:20
Speaker 2: for him. But when you factor in the time period,
37:23
Speaker 2: it just doesn't really jibe for me.
37:26
Speaker 1: It is true, I mean, to be one thing, if
37:28
Speaker 1: he had been on his own the entire time, but
37:30
Speaker 1: he had interacted with a lot of people. He stayed
37:32
Speaker 1: not just with Joe Anne, but also that couple named
37:35
Speaker 1: Lou and Libby Sherwood, and they just never saw any
37:37
Speaker 1: red flags to suggest he was a suicidal or anything
37:40
Speaker 1: like that. And we're gonna have another witness who interacted
37:42
Speaker 1: with Charles in the campground and said he was a
37:44
Speaker 1: very nice guy who loved playing with this person's son
37:48
Speaker 1: and just seemed very happy. Go luckies. And there's enough
37:51
Speaker 1: shady stuff in this case that I'm going to talk
37:52
Speaker 1: about momentarily that I do believe that his disappearance was
37:55
Speaker 1: the result of him being the victim of foul play.
37:59
Speaker 1: So over the next few years, there would be various
38:02
Speaker 1: eyewitness reports of Charles being seen hitchhiking throughout Canada, but
38:06
Speaker 1: of course none of them could be substantiated. And Denise
38:10
Speaker 1: did eventually return to England, but she decided to go
38:13
Speaker 1: back there in March of nineteen ninety two to search Colowna,
38:16
Speaker 1: and she wound up staying in the same place she
38:19
Speaker 1: had stayed the last time, the Pandosi Inn, which was
38:22
Speaker 1: located directly across the street from the Tiny Town campground.
38:25
Speaker 1: She did what she could, passing out missing persons flyers,
38:28
Speaker 1: placing advertisements in the newspapers, speaking with local residents, and
38:32
Speaker 1: also appearing on radio and television in order to spread
38:35
Speaker 1: awareness about Charles's disappearance. So it did get a lot
38:39
Speaker 1: of exposure, and all of a sudden, on March seventeenth,
38:43
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, Denise suddenly had an anonymous, handwritten note
38:47
Speaker 1: delivered to her hotel room which read quote, I seen
38:50
Speaker 1: you're at in the paper looking for your son. I
38:52
Speaker 1: seen him May the twenty sixth. We were partying and
38:55
Speaker 1: two people knocked him out, but he died. His body
38:58
Speaker 1: is in the lake by the bridge.
38:59
Speaker 2: And well, you've got to wonder if that comes from something, right,
39:05
Speaker 2: it seems really oddly specific. So if that's true and
39:10
Speaker 2: his body is in the lake, I mean, I don't
39:13
Speaker 2: know what the chances are if once a body's thrown
39:16
Speaker 2: into another body of water, especially a lake. We're not
39:19
Speaker 2: looking at an ocean where currents are moving the body,
39:22
Speaker 2: but we're also looking at things like debris and whatnot,
39:26
Speaker 2: could be, you know, holding the body down. I don't
39:28
Speaker 2: know where the body would have been disposed of, but
39:31
Speaker 2: if it was close to shore, then chances of it
39:34
Speaker 2: washing up are pretty astronomical, I would say. But yeah,
39:39
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a decent sized lake, so it's possible
39:43
Speaker 2: that if a body was taken out far enough that
39:47
Speaker 2: it may never be seen again.
39:49
Speaker 1: And the detail about the note that really sticks out
39:51
Speaker 1: to me is that they specifically say I seen him
39:54
Speaker 1: May the twenty six, which was the last day he
39:56
Speaker 1: was confirmed to be alive. Now, granted, because this was
39:58
Speaker 1: getting a lot of publicity and the date was listed
40:01
Speaker 1: on Charles's Missing Persons Flyers, it's possible if this was
40:04
Speaker 1: a hoax, they could have gotten it from there, But
40:07
Speaker 1: the fact that they were able to pinpoint the last
40:09
Speaker 1: day he was seen alive, it means that well, he
40:11
Speaker 1: could have cashed his paycheck that day, gone to a
40:14
Speaker 1: party that night, and been killed and that's when his
40:16
Speaker 1: body was thrown into the lake. So obviously Denise thought
40:19
Speaker 1: there might have been some legitimacy to this note. The
40:23
Speaker 1: note was apparently delivered to the hotel by a cab
40:26
Speaker 1: driver who said had been given to him by an unidentified,
40:29
Speaker 1: nervous looking young man that paid him a grand total
40:32
Speaker 1: of two dollars for a tip to deliver a note
40:35
Speaker 1: that was related to a missing persons case. But unfortunately,
40:38
Speaker 1: it does not sound like the cab driver got a
40:40
Speaker 1: good enough look to provide enough information about this man,
40:43
Speaker 1: and to this day he has still never been identified.
40:47
Speaker 2: Wow, that is wild, but I guess if you're just
40:50
Speaker 2: going based on like eyewitness identification looking for somebody like
40:54
Speaker 2: a cab driver, it could be pretty difficult to be
40:57
Speaker 2: super specific so enough that you're going to get something
41:02
Speaker 2: like you would from like you know, facial recognition, Say,
41:05
Speaker 2: if there was some kind of surveillance and they could
41:07
Speaker 2: zoom in and do facial recognition. Well, we don't have that.
41:11
Speaker 2: We've got eyewitness statements about the appearance of this individual,
41:15
Speaker 2: and that just isn't definitive because we know how fallible
41:18
Speaker 2: they are.
41:19
Speaker 1: And I think today, whenever you tip your taxi driver
41:22
Speaker 1: or uber driver, you do it on your phone using
41:24
Speaker 1: the app, so if someone did that, you could trace
41:26
Speaker 1: it back to them. But back then, it was just
41:28
Speaker 1: a generic looking man, young man who gave him a
41:30
Speaker 1: two dollars bill and that's not much to go on, no,
41:34
Speaker 1: so I think this would be a good point to
41:36
Speaker 1: end off on part one. In part two, we will
41:38
Speaker 1: talk more details about what happened when they search for
41:41
Speaker 1: Charles Horva's body. So I'll be sure to join us
41:43
Speaker 1: next week for a part two of our series.
41:47
Speaker 2: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
41:48
Speaker 2: about the Trail Went Cold? Patreon? Uh?
41:50
Speaker 1: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
41:53
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
41:57
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out and
42:01
Speaker 1: sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with
42:03
Speaker 1: us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars tier
42:06
Speaker 1: Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which
42:10
Speaker 1: I talk about cases which are not featured on the
42:13
Speaker 1: Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon
42:16
Speaker 1: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
42:19
Speaker 1: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
42:22
Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries,
42:26
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
42:30
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
42:33
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
42:36
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
42:39
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
42:43
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
42:46
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
42:48
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
42:51
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
42:54
Speaker 1: Tier three.
42:55
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
42:57
Speaker 3: about the Jewels and Nashty Patreon, so there's early free
43:00
Speaker 3: episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent
43:03
Speaker 3: Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're
43:06
Speaker 3: not very mini, but they're just too short to turn
43:08
Speaker 3: into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those, so
43:11
Speaker 3: we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them
43:14
Speaker 3: in the show notes.
43:15
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
43:17
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
43:19
Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
43:22
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
43:25
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at
43:27
Speaker 1: the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
43:30
Speaker 1: up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
43:34
Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers, Comedy