Latest / Crime and Horror / CCTV captured his final sighting, then he VANISHED... - MrBallen

Transcript

CCTV captured his final sighting, then he VANISHED... - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: In the early morning hours on a Saturday in 2013,
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Speaker 1: a man dressed all in black hid in the shadows
0:05
Speaker 1: on a side street in downtown Antwerp, Belgium. The man
0:09
Speaker 1: had lost track of how long he'd been there, but
0:11
Speaker 1: he didn't care. He'd hide in the shadows for as
0:13
Speaker 1: long as he had to, waiting patiently for the perfect
0:16
Speaker 1: moment that he knew was going to arrive eventually. And
0:20
Speaker 1: then finally, stumbling footsteps approached, and the man crouched down
0:24
Speaker 1: and got ready. But before we get into that story,
0:28
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1:06
Speaker 1: today's story. After midnight on Saturday, October 19th, 2013, a
1:28
Speaker 1: 23-year-old man named Odey Egilus stood at the bar in
1:32
Speaker 1: a packed dance club in Antwerp, Belgium. The bartender slid
1:35
Speaker 1: two shot glasses across the bar towards Odey, and he
1:38
Speaker 1: grabbed both of them, he held one, and he handed
1:41
Speaker 1: the other to his friend, Kevin Rodriguez Fuentes, who's standing
1:44
Speaker 1: right behind him. It was Kevin's birthday. So Odey raised
1:48
Speaker 1: his shot glass and shouted happy birthday in Spanish over
1:51
Speaker 1: the pounding dance music, and then the two young men
1:54
Speaker 1: slammed back their drinks. O'Day had moved to Antwerp, Belgium
1:57
Speaker 1: from Spain about six months earlier when he had gotten
1:59
Speaker 1: a job as a computer engineer. When he'd arrived, he
2:03
Speaker 1: hadn't known anybody, but he'd met Kevin at a beer festival,
2:06
Speaker 1: and the two of them had gotten along right away.
2:09
Speaker 1: And Kevin was from the area, so he'd introduced O'Day
2:11
Speaker 1: to a bunch of his friends and shown them the
2:13
Speaker 1: best spots to hang out in the city, and the
2:16
Speaker 1: two had gotten very close very quickly. Now, standing at
2:19
Speaker 1: the bar after, you know, taking their shots... Kevin tapped
2:22
Speaker 1: on O'Day's shoulder and he pointed out at the dance
2:24
Speaker 1: floor and he grinned because there was a group of
2:27
Speaker 1: young women about their age all dancing together out there.
2:30
Speaker 1: And so the two young men, they headed out to
2:32
Speaker 1: the dance floor to go speak with these girls. And
2:34
Speaker 1: from this point on, the night really became a blur
2:37
Speaker 1: for O'Day, who kept going back and forth from the
2:40
Speaker 1: dance floor back to the bar for more drinks. But,
2:43
Speaker 1: you know, despite that, O'Day was having a great time.
2:46
Speaker 1: It was really nights like this that made him feel
2:48
Speaker 1: like Antwerp was his new home. But he also knew
2:52
Speaker 1: if he stayed out much longer here, he might end
2:54
Speaker 1: up passing out right on the dance floor. So O'Day
2:57
Speaker 1: and Kevin and some friends they had just met on
2:59
Speaker 1: the dance floor stumbled out of the club and into
3:02
Speaker 1: the city. When they got out there, the streets were
3:04
Speaker 1: pretty empty. And so O'Day reflexively pulled his phone out
3:07
Speaker 1: of his pocket and looked at the time. Now, his
3:09
Speaker 1: vision was fuzzy, but even still... you know, one-eyeing it,
3:12
Speaker 1: he could see that it was close to 4 a.m.
3:14
Speaker 1: And given the fact that it was so, so late,
3:17
Speaker 1: basically it was the next day at this point, he
3:20
Speaker 1: just told the group good night, and then he turned
3:22
Speaker 1: around to start walking home to go to bed. The
3:26
Speaker 1: next morning, O'Day's friend, Kevin, woke up with a pounding headache.
3:31
Speaker 1: His eyes fluttered open, and he looked around, and he
3:34
Speaker 1: let out a sigh of relief because he was safely
3:36
Speaker 1: in his bedroom in his apartment in Antwerp. He had
3:38
Speaker 1: been so drunk by the end of his birthday celebration
3:41
Speaker 1: the night before that he literally didn't remember getting home.
3:44
Speaker 1: And so now, painfully, he rolled over and grabbed his
3:47
Speaker 1: phone off the nightstand and reflexively texted O'Day, along with
3:51
Speaker 1: another friend that had been out with him the night before,
3:53
Speaker 1: asking how they were feeling. The other friend texted right back,
3:57
Speaker 1: but O'Day did not respond. But this didn't really worry
4:00
Speaker 1: Kevin that much. I mean, he's horribly hungover. O'Day has
4:04
Speaker 1: to be as well, and so he likely is just
4:06
Speaker 1: sleeping it off and he'll be in touch when he
4:08
Speaker 1: wakes up. However, all day that day, Kevin did not
4:12
Speaker 1: hear from Oday. And then the next day, October 20th,
4:15
Speaker 1: when still Kevin has not heard from Oday, he really
4:19
Speaker 1: started to get worried. But when Kevin called Oday to
4:23
Speaker 1: check on him to make sure he was okay, when
4:25
Speaker 1: he put the phone to his ear, it didn't ring. Instead,
4:28
Speaker 1: it went straight to Oday's voicemail, like his phone was
4:31
Speaker 1: turned off. And to Kevin, this was pretty unusual. Oday
4:35
Speaker 1: was usually very responsive. even with a hangover. And by
4:39
Speaker 1: this point, Kevin had given him a full day, 24
4:42
Speaker 1: hours to recover, you know, like he should be in
4:45
Speaker 1: touch by now. What's going on? So Kevin called the
4:48
Speaker 1: other friend who they'd gone out with, who had texted
4:50
Speaker 1: him back the day before to see if maybe O'Day
4:53
Speaker 1: had checked in with him. But that friend said he
4:56
Speaker 1: also had not spoken to O'Day. And so at this point,
4:59
Speaker 1: Kevin hung up and just decided to go to O'Day's
5:02
Speaker 1: house and literally physically check on him. However, when Kevin
5:06
Speaker 1: arrived at O'Day's house, he found O'Day's roommates, but no O'Day.
5:10
Speaker 1: O'Day's roommates did not know O'Day very well, so they
5:13
Speaker 1: didn't know what was sort of normal and not normal behavior.
5:16
Speaker 1: So when he had gone out for Kevin's birthday party
5:19
Speaker 1: and didn't come back, they just figured he was crashing
5:22
Speaker 1: at a friend's place or something. But to Kevin, this
5:24
Speaker 1: was unusual. To hear that he had not come back,
5:27
Speaker 1: that was not normal. He would know if, you know,
5:29
Speaker 1: O'Day was at a friend's house. And so Kevin was
5:31
Speaker 1: starting to panic. But then Kevin remembered one of his
5:35
Speaker 1: and Ode's mutual friends had recently gone out of town
5:38
Speaker 1: for a wedding. And so Kevin thought, you know, maybe
5:41
Speaker 1: that's where Ode is. He's gone with her to the
5:43
Speaker 1: wedding and that's why he's not here. And that's why
5:46
Speaker 1: he's not answering his phone. So Kevin left Ode's house
5:49
Speaker 1: and called this friend, a young woman whose name was Oyane.
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Speaker 1: He was hoping that she would have an explanation for everything.
5:56
Speaker 1: But instead, when she answered the phone, it was obvious
5:59
Speaker 1: from her voice that that she was also freaking out
6:03
Speaker 1: about O'Day. Oyane said she also had been calling O'Day
6:07
Speaker 1: nonstop over the past day or so, and she couldn't
6:10
Speaker 1: get in touch with him. And so it was becoming
6:12
Speaker 1: clear that nobody had seen O'Day since the night of
6:15
Speaker 1: the birthday party when he set off around 4 a.m.
6:18
Speaker 1: to walk home drunk from the bar. Kevin had no
6:21
Speaker 1: idea what he was supposed to do, but he felt
6:23
Speaker 1: like his friend was in trouble. So he contacted the
6:26
Speaker 1: police and officially reported O'Day missing. The following day, Monday,
6:31
Speaker 1: October 21st, Kevin sat in a small room across from
6:35
Speaker 1: members of the Missing Persons Unit of the Belgian National Police.
6:39
Speaker 1: And as soon as the officers started asking Kevin questions,
6:42
Speaker 1: it became clear that this was going to be a
6:44
Speaker 1: very frustrating meeting for everybody. Because no matter how hard
6:48
Speaker 1: Kevin tried, he literally couldn't remember much at all. His
6:51
Speaker 1: memory of his and O'Day's night out on his birthday...
6:54
Speaker 1: were really just blurry images and pieces of random conversations because,
6:58
Speaker 1: you know, he was drunk. But Kevin did manage to
7:01
Speaker 1: remember what O'Day had been wearing. He had a gray
7:03
Speaker 1: hooded sweatshirt and a black and white checkered scarf. And
7:06
Speaker 1: he also knew the area of town specifically where they
7:09
Speaker 1: had gone out. But really, that was it. And so
7:11
Speaker 1: by the time Kevin left the police station, he felt
7:14
Speaker 1: like he was really letting his friend down. And he
7:16
Speaker 1: just couldn't handle the idea that now he would just
7:19
Speaker 1: have to sit around and wait and hope police magically
7:22
Speaker 1: found him You know, when right now, O'Day, wherever he was,
7:26
Speaker 1: could be in trouble or hurt or something. You know,
7:28
Speaker 1: he just felt like he had to do something. So
7:30
Speaker 1: that afternoon, Kevin met up with some of O'Day's other friends.
7:34
Speaker 1: And together, they began hanging posters all around the city
7:37
Speaker 1: that had pictures of O'Day on them. Antwerp was a
7:40
Speaker 1: very busy city, filled with bars and restaurants that stayed
7:43
Speaker 1: open very late. So they were sure that somebody had
7:46
Speaker 1: to have seen O'Day while he was walking home. He
7:50
Speaker 1: couldn't have just disappeared into thin air. People don't do that. Meanwhile,
7:54
Speaker 1: detectives in the missing persons unit got to work. Now,
7:57
Speaker 1: Kevin had not given them a ton to go on,
8:00
Speaker 1: but knowing where in the city he and O'Day had
8:03
Speaker 1: gone out and what O'Day had been wearing did actually
8:06
Speaker 1: turn out to be quite helpful. Because with this basic information,
8:10
Speaker 1: police were able to collect CCTV surveillance camera footage from
8:13
Speaker 1: outside of the bars, restaurants, and street corners where Kevin
8:17
Speaker 1: and O'Day had been. And it didn't take them long
8:19
Speaker 1: to pick up on O'Day's trail. The investigators were hoping
8:23
Speaker 1: to find footage of O'Day getting into a cab or
8:26
Speaker 1: some other vehicle or maybe wandering into a building or
8:30
Speaker 1: even evidence that he'd been attacked in some capacity. And
8:32
Speaker 1: at first, they thought that is exactly what they'd found.
8:35
Speaker 1: Because on camera footage, around 4 a.m. on the morning
8:39
Speaker 1: O'Day disappeared, the police saw him wandering down this dimly
8:43
Speaker 1: lit side street on his own. His black and white
8:45
Speaker 1: checkered scarf really jumped out on the footage. And the
8:48
Speaker 1: police watched on video... as this man suddenly came out
8:52
Speaker 1: of the shadows and rushed O'Day. The man attacked O'Day
8:56
Speaker 1: and stole what looked like O'Day's wallet right out of
8:59
Speaker 1: his pocket, and then the man took off running. And
9:01
Speaker 1: as disturbing as it was, the footage did not actually
9:04
Speaker 1: surprise the investigators very much. While Antwerp was not a
9:08
Speaker 1: particularly violent place, it was a big city, and drunk
9:11
Speaker 1: people wandering home at night did occasionally get mugged. However,
9:16
Speaker 1: what the investigators saw next on the surveillance footage did
9:19
Speaker 1: completely shock them. Because after the mugging, O'Day had pulled
9:24
Speaker 1: himself together and kept heading down the street. And on
9:28
Speaker 1: footage taken a few minutes later from a different camera,
9:31
Speaker 1: the police saw O'Day still wandering on his own when
9:34
Speaker 1: suddenly two new men rushed up, attacked O'Day, took his phone...
9:40
Speaker 1: And then they ran away. Meaning, in the span of
9:43
Speaker 1: just a few minutes, O'Day had been mugged twice by
9:47
Speaker 1: three different people. And none of the investigators had ever
9:50
Speaker 1: seen anything like that. It was like something you'd expect
9:53
Speaker 1: to see in a movie or a TV show about
9:55
Speaker 1: a guy cursed with bad luck or something. But, as
9:58
Speaker 1: bizarre as this was, investigators now had something to go on.
10:01
Speaker 1: They didn't know if these muggers, the three men, were
10:03
Speaker 1: connected in some way, or if this had truly been
10:06
Speaker 1: two random, unconnected muggings. But O'Day's cell phone and wallet
10:10
Speaker 1: had been stolen by these guys. So they could track
10:13
Speaker 1: O'Day's cell phone data and also his credit card info,
10:16
Speaker 1: and the investigators hoped... That would then lead them right
10:20
Speaker 1: to O'Day's attackers and they could figure out what their
10:23
Speaker 1: affiliation was and why they targeted O'Day and hopefully where
10:27
Speaker 1: O'Day is now. The investigators' plan took a few days,
10:37
Speaker 1: but it did pay off in a big way. By
10:39
Speaker 1: tracking O'Day's credit card, investigators discovered that somebody had attempted
10:44
Speaker 1: to use one of his cards at an ATM in
10:47
Speaker 1: the city. And so they pulled surveillance footage from that
10:49
Speaker 1: ATM to identify the first mugger. Then by using cell
10:53
Speaker 1: phone tower data and CCTV footage along the route where
10:57
Speaker 1: they saw his cell phone was taken, investigators were able
11:01
Speaker 1: to identify the other two attackers involved in the second mugging.
11:05
Speaker 1: And so now they believe they just needed to talk
11:08
Speaker 1: to these thieves to figure out where O'Day was. Fast
11:11
Speaker 1: forward to October 29th, 10 days after O'Day's disappearance, and
11:16
Speaker 1: he still is nowhere to be found, officers from the
11:19
Speaker 1: missing persons unit interviewed these three muggers separately. The police
11:23
Speaker 1: made it clear that they had a pile of evidence
11:25
Speaker 1: here that showed they mugged O'Day shortly before he vanished,
11:30
Speaker 1: so there's no point in trying to deny it. They
11:32
Speaker 1: know what they did. And none of the muggers did
11:34
Speaker 1: try to deny it. In fact, all three men admitted
11:38
Speaker 1: that they had jumped O'Day on the street, And they
11:41
Speaker 1: told the police exactly what they had stolen. But they
11:43
Speaker 1: insisted their attacks, the two muggings, were not coordinated at all.
11:48
Speaker 1: They just happened to have gotten to Oday within a
11:50
Speaker 1: few minutes of each other. And then even more importantly,
11:53
Speaker 1: they also all insisted that they had nothing to do
11:56
Speaker 1: with Oday's disappearance. All they did was rob him. That's it.
12:00
Speaker 1: As the investigators listened to these muggers talk, all they
12:03
Speaker 1: could do was stare in disbelief. The idea that three
12:07
Speaker 1: muggers had randomly committed two attacks on the same man
12:11
Speaker 1: within minutes of each other, and that their victim had
12:14
Speaker 1: then disappeared in what, yet another unrelated incident? Seemed almost comical.
12:20
Speaker 1: But no matter how hard the police pressed these guys,
12:23
Speaker 1: they all completely stuck to their stories. Which was, we
12:27
Speaker 1: mugged him, and then we ran away, and we never
12:30
Speaker 1: saw him again. The police arrested and held all three
12:33
Speaker 1: men in connection to the robberies that they admitted to doing.
12:37
Speaker 1: But their goal, despite what these men have said, was
12:40
Speaker 1: to find enough evidence to still charge them with the kidnapping,
12:44
Speaker 1: or maybe even murder, of Oday. But then, a new
12:47
Speaker 1: piece of surveillance footage surfaced from a new camera. And
12:51
Speaker 1: this new footage actually showed Oday moments after the second mugging.
12:55
Speaker 1: And on this footage, investigators didn't see any of the
12:59
Speaker 1: muggers dragging O'Day away or something. Instead, just like the
13:03
Speaker 1: muggers said, they really did take off after that second mugging.
13:07
Speaker 1: And just like he'd done after the first attack, O'Day
13:10
Speaker 1: dusted himself off and just kept on walking down the
13:13
Speaker 1: street and out of the camera's range. But he was alone.
13:16
Speaker 1: And so now to their complete astonishment, the police had
13:20
Speaker 1: to admit that the muggers might be telling the truth.
13:24
Speaker 1: And that O'Day could have just kept wandering the streets
13:26
Speaker 1: of Antwerp for hours after he'd gotten attacked. They didn't know.
13:30
Speaker 1: But they know the muggers ran away and O'Day was alone,
13:33
Speaker 1: at least briefly after the second attack. And also, this
13:36
Speaker 1: new footage made them realize that to really conduct this investigation,
13:41
Speaker 1: they were going to need to search the entire city
13:44
Speaker 1: to see if anyone, anywhere, had seen O'Day. So in
13:49
Speaker 1: early November of 2013, about two weeks after O'Day's disappearance,
13:53
Speaker 1: Belgium National Police conducted a massive investigation throughout all of Antwerp.
13:59
Speaker 1: They visited all the bars, all the restaurants, all the
14:01
Speaker 1: clubs in the area roughly where O'Day and his friends
14:04
Speaker 1: had been out partying. But no matter who they spoke to,
14:08
Speaker 1: no matter where they went, nobody knew where O'Day was
14:11
Speaker 1: or what happened to him. But as they hit all
14:13
Speaker 1: these dead ends... The investigators' search continued, and it sort
14:17
Speaker 1: of slowly migrated north through Antwerp in the rough direction
14:21
Speaker 1: where O'Day had been last seen walking, away from the
14:24
Speaker 1: city center and towards the banks of the River Skelt,
14:27
Speaker 1: which runs right through Antwerp on its way to the
14:29
Speaker 1: North Sea. On the evening of November 7th, so by
14:33
Speaker 1: this point it is 19 days since O'Day was last seen,
14:37
Speaker 1: several detectives from the Missing Persons Unit stepped onto the
14:40
Speaker 1: deck of a very unique structure that literally floated from
14:44
Speaker 1: on the river Skelt. The structure was called the Bod Boat.
14:48
Speaker 1: That morning, police boats had been dragging the river itself
14:51
Speaker 1: and were searching the riverbanks with dogs, looking for any
14:55
Speaker 1: signs of Odeh. But the search of this river couldn't
14:58
Speaker 1: be completed without a stop at the Bod Boat. So
15:01
Speaker 1: the Bod Boat was basically a massive club, bar, and
15:05
Speaker 1: high-end restaurant that had been built into a converted ship
15:09
Speaker 1: that was moored right in the middle of the stretch
15:11
Speaker 1: of the river that police were dragging. But the biggest
15:14
Speaker 1: attraction of the bod boat was not the food or
15:16
Speaker 1: the dancing. It was the almost Olympic-sized swimming pool that
15:21
Speaker 1: had been built into the deck of the ship. And
15:23
Speaker 1: it looked like it was floating right on top of
15:25
Speaker 1: the river. People referred to it as the world's largest
15:28
Speaker 1: floating swimming pool, and it was always packed. The bod
15:32
Speaker 1: boat had a very good, very wide, unobstructed view of
15:35
Speaker 1: the city and the river. And so the detectives were
15:38
Speaker 1: hopeful that that if O'Day had passed by, someone on
15:42
Speaker 1: the bod boat likely would have been able to see him.
15:46
Speaker 1: So now, the detectives split up and began interviewing the
15:49
Speaker 1: bod boat staff and the patrons, asking if any of
15:52
Speaker 1: them remembered seeing a young man in a distinctive black
15:55
Speaker 1: and white checkered scarf on the morning he went missing. Now,
15:58
Speaker 1: at this point, pretty much everybody in the city had
16:01
Speaker 1: already heard of O'Day. I mean, his face was plastered
16:03
Speaker 1: on posters everywhere, and people really wanted to help. But
16:08
Speaker 1: as detectives talked to everybody at the bod boat, in
16:10
Speaker 1: the pool, in the bar, in the restaurant, everybody, as
16:14
Speaker 1: much as people wanted to help and thought they might
16:17
Speaker 1: have tips that could help, nobody had anything that was meaningful.
16:21
Speaker 1: And so eventually, the investigators had to leave the bod boat,
16:25
Speaker 1: and they just spent the rest of the afternoon on
16:27
Speaker 1: the banks of the river watching the Marine unit do
16:30
Speaker 1: its work. But just like on the bod boat, there
16:33
Speaker 1: was nothing found in the river itself. On November 19th, 2013,
16:44
Speaker 1: so now one full month after Odey's disappearance, friends and
16:47
Speaker 1: family gathered publicly both in Antwerp and his hometown in
16:51
Speaker 1: the Basque country of Spain. In Spain, his family made
16:54
Speaker 1: it clear that they still hoped Odey would be alive
16:57
Speaker 1: and that this gathering was not a memorial. It was
17:00
Speaker 1: instead to show their love for Odey and to bring
17:03
Speaker 1: continued attention to his story so he could be found.
17:06
Speaker 1: In Antwerp, Odey's friends tried to convey the same message
17:09
Speaker 1: with their meetup. that O'Day had to be out there
17:12
Speaker 1: somewhere and he might be okay. We just need to
17:14
Speaker 1: keep looking. However, by the end of 2013, so now
17:18
Speaker 1: over two months after O'Day's disappearance, it became clear that
17:22
Speaker 1: the police investigation was really not making much headway at all.
17:25
Speaker 1: Police still had those three muggers in custody in hopes
17:28
Speaker 1: that maybe they would crack and they would admit that
17:31
Speaker 1: they had done something to O'Day after the muggings. But
17:34
Speaker 1: the three men had not changed their stories at all.
17:37
Speaker 1: And also, after over a month of canvassing the entire city,
17:42
Speaker 1: no new evidence had really surfaced at all. And so
17:44
Speaker 1: O'Day's friends and family really began to worry that the
17:48
Speaker 1: police might just abandon the search because there was nothing
17:51
Speaker 1: they could do. But then, starting in the early summer
17:54
Speaker 1: of 2014, so a little more than seven months after
17:58
Speaker 1: O'Day first disappeared, something incredible happened. O'Day's story went viral,
18:02
Speaker 1: and not just in Belgium or in his native Spain,
18:06
Speaker 1: but all across Europe. And this really is not how
18:09
Speaker 1: things typically played out. Thousands of people go missing in
18:12
Speaker 1: Europe every year, and most of those cases go relatively
18:15
Speaker 1: unnoticed by the media and the general public. It just
18:18
Speaker 1: is what it is. But the story of this young
18:21
Speaker 1: man who had moved to Antwerp to start his career
18:24
Speaker 1: and a new life, only to vanish without a trace
18:27
Speaker 1: after being mugged twice in the middle of the night?
18:30
Speaker 1: It just seems so unbelievable. and also resonated with people everywhere.
18:35
Speaker 1: It just felt so tragic. And so as the police,
18:38
Speaker 1: who by this point really had throttled back their search
18:41
Speaker 1: quite a bit, I mean, it's been seven months by now,
18:43
Speaker 1: as police were showing signs of just basically dropping the case,
18:48
Speaker 1: people all across the continent demanded the police not just continue,
18:53
Speaker 1: but increase their scrutiny. Look everywhere. Triple your efforts. Find Odeh.
18:58
Speaker 1: And so there's all this unbelievable international outpouring of support
19:02
Speaker 1: from this viral story. I mean, you had poets all
19:05
Speaker 1: over the world writing poems about Odeh, and you had
19:07
Speaker 1: musicians writing music about Odeh. You had charity groups coming
19:11
Speaker 1: out in Belgium and doing their own search for Odeh.
19:14
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like the whole world was rallying to
19:17
Speaker 1: get the Belgian government to act against Like, triple your efforts.
19:22
Speaker 1: Find O'Day. He's out there. And then what sort of
19:24
Speaker 1: pushed it over the edge was in October of 2014,
19:28
Speaker 1: as the first anniversary of O'Day's disappearance approached, one of
19:31
Speaker 1: the most famous soccer players in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo,
19:35
Speaker 1: played a game with images of O'Day on his jersey.
19:38
Speaker 1: I mean, his story really had reached basically everyone. And
19:42
Speaker 1: it was at this point that Belgium did act. The
19:45
Speaker 1: Belgium national police literally doubled down on their efforts to
19:49
Speaker 1: search the entire country for O'Day. They're not just looking
19:52
Speaker 1: at Antwerp anymore, they're going to look everywhere. They also
19:55
Speaker 1: enlisted the help of Interpol, an international police organization, to
19:59
Speaker 1: expand the search to other European countries. And so throughout
20:02
Speaker 1: 2014 and into 2015, investigators in Antwerp revisited bars, restaurants
20:08
Speaker 1: they had gone to during their initial canvas, and they
20:11
Speaker 1: re-interviewed people connected to O'Day. They also made public announcements
20:14
Speaker 1: to let people know they were still looking for O'Day.
20:17
Speaker 1: But despite all this effort, despite really doing their absolute
20:21
Speaker 1: best to find O'Day, they couldn't find him. But then
20:25
Speaker 1: on September 18th, 2015, so one year and 11 months
20:29
Speaker 1: after O'Day's disappearance, something happened with the bod boat that
20:34
Speaker 1: changed everything. So to understand what happened, you need to
20:39
Speaker 1: take into account the literal design of the bod boat.
20:43
Speaker 1: So the bod boat really was, you know, this entertainment
20:45
Speaker 1: hub that had been installed in this decommissioned boat. But
20:49
Speaker 1: the boat is not like a boat that we think
20:52
Speaker 1: of when we think of a huge ship or something
20:54
Speaker 1: where there's multiple stories and a huge deep keel that
20:57
Speaker 1: goes beneath the surface of the water. Instead, it was
21:00
Speaker 1: more like a big floating dock, almost like a catamaran
21:04
Speaker 1: style boat where the It's sort of one level, this
21:07
Speaker 1: big rectangular square, and there really is nothing below the surface.
21:12
Speaker 1: It's more like a big floating dock. That was the
21:15
Speaker 1: bod boat. And on September 18th, 2015, the swimming pool
21:20
Speaker 1: on the bod boat began to leak. Now, remember, you're
21:23
Speaker 1: looking out at the bod boat from land, and it
21:25
Speaker 1: basically looks like a big floating dock with all these
21:28
Speaker 1: attractions on it, including a pool. And so even though
21:31
Speaker 1: you'd see the surface of the swimming pool being at
21:34
Speaker 1: level with everything else, basically right at the top of
21:37
Speaker 1: the river, well, there's a recessed portion that effectively touches
21:41
Speaker 1: down into the river. And so at some point, there's
21:44
Speaker 1: a leak that formed on the base of this pool
21:47
Speaker 1: that And the pool began taking on all this extra water,
21:51
Speaker 1: and the pool literally broke off from the bod boat structure,
21:55
Speaker 1: and it sank to the bottom of the river. Now, luckily,
21:58
Speaker 1: no one had gotten hurt when this happened, but the
22:01
Speaker 1: story had taken over the news. The bod boat was
22:03
Speaker 1: a huge attraction for people in Antwerp, as well as
22:06
Speaker 1: for tourists visiting the city. And so the city immediately
22:09
Speaker 1: began working to come up with a plan to resurface
22:12
Speaker 1: the swimming pool and rebuild the bod boat. Finally, on
22:18
Speaker 1: February 11th, 2016, so almost two and a half years
22:21
Speaker 1: after O'Day's disappearance and five months after the swimming pool sunk,
22:25
Speaker 1: two cranes attached to a boat were brought in to
22:28
Speaker 1: latch onto the base of this pool at the bottom
22:30
Speaker 1: of the river and try to resurface it. And on
22:34
Speaker 1: that afternoon, a member of the work crew stood on
22:36
Speaker 1: the boat, watching the water and helping oversee everything as
22:39
Speaker 1: the cranes slowly did their work. And as he kept
22:42
Speaker 1: his eyes trained on the water, eventually... Bod Boat's swimming pool,
22:46
Speaker 1: which was still actually mostly intact, broke the surface. And
22:50
Speaker 1: as this happened, a few of the workers let out
22:52
Speaker 1: a cheer, but something in the water caught the crew
22:55
Speaker 1: members' attention. At first, he couldn't tell what it was,
22:59
Speaker 1: but when he leaned down to get a better look,
23:01
Speaker 1: he immediately shouted for the crane operator to stop. The
23:04
Speaker 1: cranes fell silent, and with shaking hands, the crew member
23:08
Speaker 1: took out his phone and called the police. Eventually, once
23:11
Speaker 1: they put all the evidence together, This is what police
23:14
Speaker 1: believe happened to O'Day on the early morning of October 19, 2013.
23:22
Speaker 1: At around 4 a.m., after leaving his friends, O'Day began
23:26
Speaker 1: his walk home. And like the police already knew, he
23:29
Speaker 1: was mugged twice in a matter of minutes. But after
23:32
Speaker 1: the second mugging, he really did pick himself up and
23:35
Speaker 1: sort of collect himself. And very likely he was hurt,
23:38
Speaker 1: he was scared, and he was very drunk, so likely disoriented.
23:42
Speaker 1: doesn't know if there are more threats coming, doesn't really
23:45
Speaker 1: understand what's even happening, but he needs to get home.
23:48
Speaker 1: And we know he continued trying to walk home for
23:51
Speaker 1: some time because eventually he came in contact with a
23:54
Speaker 1: group of strangers who would eventually come forward and confirm this.
23:58
Speaker 1: But they apparently saw this guy who looked beat up
24:00
Speaker 1: and disoriented. It was Oday. And they called out to
24:04
Speaker 1: him and tried to convince him to let them book
24:06
Speaker 1: him a cab to get him home. But he was
24:08
Speaker 1: so disoriented and so drunk, he didn't even answer him
24:11
Speaker 1: and he just walked off. But at that point, he
24:14
Speaker 1: had moved fairly far north in the city, and he
24:16
Speaker 1: was getting near the banks of the River Skelt. So
24:19
Speaker 1: for reference, he had walked pretty far off course. He
24:21
Speaker 1: was not near his home. He was clearly lost. And
24:25
Speaker 1: at some point in his disoriented, scared, drunken state, he
24:30
Speaker 1: tripped and actually fell into the river. Now, the shock
24:35
Speaker 1: of landing in the water likely, you know, potentially sobered
24:37
Speaker 1: him up a little bit. But he was really, really drunk.
24:41
Speaker 1: And so even if he had tried to swim and
24:43
Speaker 1: get to shore, there was a strong enough current that
24:46
Speaker 1: it would have been fairly difficult to get out of
24:48
Speaker 1: the water. And so the current ended up pulling him
24:51
Speaker 1: all the way up against the side of the bod boat.
24:55
Speaker 1: And so once he was there, kind of pinned against
24:57
Speaker 1: the side of the bod boat, right on the side
24:59
Speaker 1: of the bod boat where that swimming pool was, he
25:01
Speaker 1: was too weak and drunk to swim out of the current.
25:05
Speaker 1: And so he's just kind of being pressed up against
25:07
Speaker 1: the wall of the side of the bod boat. until
25:10
Speaker 1: he had no more energy left to fight, and he
25:12
Speaker 1: was slowly pulled under the surface and forced underneath the
25:17
Speaker 1: bod boat, specifically to the bottom of the recess of
25:21
Speaker 1: the swimming pool, where there's not much space between the
25:25
Speaker 1: bottom of the pool and the bottom of the river.
25:27
Speaker 1: And so he basically got pulled down and got wedged
25:31
Speaker 1: right in that space, underneath the pool of the bod boat,
25:35
Speaker 1: and there he drowned. And for more than two years
25:39
Speaker 1: after his death, O'Day's body remained wedged underneath that swimming pool.
25:45
Speaker 1: And so for all that time, people are swimming in
25:46
Speaker 1: the pool, not realizing they're a couple feet away from
25:49
Speaker 1: a dead body. But then finally, the swimming pool, you know,
25:53
Speaker 1: sunk to the bottom. It was pulled back up by
25:56
Speaker 1: those cranes and attached to it at this point was
25:59
Speaker 1: O'Day's body. And that was how they found him. The
26:02
Speaker 1: muggers who attacked O'Day were ultimately convicted of robbery and
26:05
Speaker 1: and they all served approximately four years in prison. Now,
26:08
Speaker 1: the Muggers were never actually shown to have any direct
26:10
Speaker 1: connection to O'Day's death. And while authorities believe the most
26:14
Speaker 1: likely scenario is that O'Day simply fell into the water,
26:18
Speaker 1: they were never able to officially rule out foul play.
26:22
Speaker 1: O'Day's parents have called for further investigation. Thank you so
26:29
Speaker 1: much for watching today's episode. Let me know what you
26:31
Speaker 1: thought of it in the comments below. And remember, we
26:34
Speaker 1: have a whole playlist of Places You Can't Go episodes
26:38
Speaker 1: ready for you to binge right now. So go ahead
26:40
Speaker 1: and click here and give them a watch. All right,
26:43
Speaker 1: until next time, see ya.