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S2E8: The Mysterious Death of Jon Young · Blood Trails

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Speaker 1: This episode contains graphic content and discussion of suicide. If
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Speaker 1: you or someone you know need support, call or text
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Speaker 1: nine eight eight.
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Speaker 2: When an eighty year old archaeologist and lifelong hunter was
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Speaker 2: found dead inside his burned out home, the fire marshal
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Speaker 2: called it a possible homicide, but suspicions weren't enough for
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Speaker 2: the family of doctor John Young. They needed more, and
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Speaker 2: yet the story of their father and grandfather was lost, forgotten,
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Speaker 2: and in some cases ignored altogether. In this episode of
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Speaker 2: Blood Trails that changes. On January seventh, twenty nineteen, Kevin
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Speaker 2: Young picked up his phone and took a call that
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Speaker 2: would change his life.
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Speaker 3: As I remember, it was probably around two three o'clock
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Speaker 3: in the afternoon. I received a call from my brother
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Speaker 3: stating that he got a call from the.
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Speaker 4: Shurf's Parma at Towos that my father's house was on.
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Speaker 3: Fire and they didn't know where he was at, but
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Speaker 3: that is suburban was parked in front of the garage doors.
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Speaker 2: This was concerning, but it was also strange. Kevin's father,
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Speaker 2: doctor John Young, lived in an adobe house in the
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Speaker 2: town of Taos, New Mexico. Doctor Young had been an
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Speaker 2: accomplished archaeologist before he retired in the early two thousands.
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Speaker 2: He had built his adobe home in part to pay
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Speaker 2: homage to the native people and cultures he'd spent his
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Speaker 2: career studying in the American Southwest. He knew and he
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Speaker 2: taught his sons that adobe homes are highly fire resistant.
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Speaker 2: They almost never burn. But Kevin's brother reported that their
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Speaker 2: father's home was engulfed in flames. Kevin was living in
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Speaker 2: Arizona at the time, so he packed up his truck
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Speaker 2: and made the six hour drive up to Taos.
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Speaker 3: The fire was just still smoldering at the time, and
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Speaker 3: the fire marshall was there in his vehicle, and so
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Speaker 3: I met with them and talked to him a little bit,
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Speaker 3: and they said that they still hadn't determined where my
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Speaker 3: father was at.
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Speaker 2: Doctor young Chevy Suburban was parked outside, and the fire
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Speaker 2: investigator mentioned that the driver's side door of the car
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Speaker 2: and the front door of the home had been open
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Speaker 2: when the firefighters arrived.
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Speaker 3: So they said they couldn't go in and check for
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Speaker 3: him until in the morning when the fire was down
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Speaker 3: enough and they could determine that it was safe to
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Speaker 3: enter the building enter his house.
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Speaker 4: And so I stayed my truck overnight there.
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Speaker 2: For the next twelve hours, all Kevin could do was
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Speaker 2: sit in his truck and watch the flames consume the
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Speaker 2: house he and his father had built by hand.
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Speaker 3: They started searching the house probably around ten o'clock in
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Speaker 3: the morning, and then he came out a little bit later, and.
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Speaker 4: They said they had found some remains in the house.
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Speaker 2: The body had been burned beyond recognition, but Kevin confirmed that,
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Speaker 2: like so many old men, his father always.
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Speaker 5: Carried a small part pocket knife.
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Speaker 2: They found that pocket knife beside the corpse in the garage.
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Speaker 3: They're fairly certain, but they wouldn't say that it was
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Speaker 3: his remains until they could do an autopsy.
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Speaker 2: That initial autopsy confirmed that Kevin's father had died in
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Speaker 2: the fire. The medical examiner found soot in his lungs,
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Speaker 2: which indicated that he'd been breathing while the.
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Speaker 5: Fire was burning.
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Speaker 2: But they also found something else.
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Speaker 4: When they did do the autopsy.
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Speaker 3: There was a hole in his skull that looked like
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Speaker 3: a bullet hole entry going in, not coming out.
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Speaker 2: It looked like Kevin's father had been shot near his
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Speaker 2: ear on the left side of his head. What's more,
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Speaker 2: the fire investigator, a guy named Jimmy vee Hill found
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Speaker 2: that the fire had likely not been an accident.
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Speaker 3: Jimmy, during his investigation later that day, said that he
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Speaker 3: had determined that there was at least five areas of
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Speaker 3: acceleration of possibly seven.
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Speaker 2: In other words, someone had dumped gasoline or lighter fluid,
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Speaker 2: or or something else around the inside of doctor Young's house.
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Speaker 2: The fire had started in the master bedroom and then
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Speaker 2: spread to consume the entire structure. It was so hot
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Speaker 2: and so intense that it took firefighters the better part
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Speaker 2: of twenty four hours to put it out, even before
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Speaker 2: the medical examiner found what looked like a bullet hole
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Speaker 2: in doctor Young's skull. These findings convinced the fire investigator
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Speaker 2: that what happened to the eighty year old had been intentional.
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Speaker 2: Jimmy wrote in a sworn affidavit that he believed quote,
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Speaker 2: this incident and the sequence of events are highly suspicious,
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Speaker 2: making this death a possible homicide.
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Speaker 3: There's just too much evidence in my mind that's leaning
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Speaker 3: towards somebody else did this.
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Speaker 2: Of course, it's one thing to be suspicious. It's another
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Speaker 2: thing to prove a crime was committed and then prove
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Speaker 2: who did it. It was tough to imagine why anyone
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Speaker 2: would want to murder an elderly man living by himself.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Young didn't have any enemies, at least none that
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Speaker 2: Kevin knew about. But he did have a forty five
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Speaker 2: year career as an archaeologist, a career that allowed him
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Speaker 2: to collect enough rare and interesting artifacts to fill his house.
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Speaker 2: Ceramic items, copper pots, and even ancient crystals were proudly.
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Speaker 5: Displayed throughout the Adobe home.
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Speaker 2: Kevin couldn't help but wonder if some of those artifacts
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Speaker 2: became the spark that lit a flame of animosity towards
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Speaker 2: his father and eventually led to his horrific, fiery death.
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Speaker 2: It was a mystery Kevin dedicated himself to solving, but
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Speaker 2: as the days and weeks dragged on, he had the
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Speaker 2: sinking feeling that, for reasons he couldn't explain, he was
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Speaker 2: the only one still seeking justice for his father. I'm
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Speaker 2: Jordan Siller's and this is Blood Trails the Mysterious Death
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Speaker 2: of John Young, Part one, A Modern day Indie. John
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Speaker 2: Young grew up in Florence, Arizona, in the nineteen forties
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Speaker 2: and fifties and earned a doctorate in anthropology from the
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Speaker 2: University of Arizona in nineteen ten sixty seven. But even
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Speaker 2: before his formal training, Kevin says his father had a
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Speaker 2: knack for finding lost things in the dirt.
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Speaker 3: My uncle tells a story about how they used to
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Speaker 3: walk around out in the desert all the time, and
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Speaker 3: my dad had a knack for finding artifacts, you know,
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Speaker 3: arrowheads and stuff, and.
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Speaker 4: He talks about them.
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Speaker 3: They go out hunting, they shoot their twenty two's, and
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Speaker 3: my dad saw something in the distance and shot at it.
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Speaker 4: And when they went over.
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Speaker 3: To check it out, it was a pot. And as
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Speaker 3: they dug up the pot, it was a whole pot.
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Speaker 3: And my uncle still has that pot on his fireplace
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Speaker 3: in a New River where he lives, and they're sitting
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Speaker 3: on a shelf with a bullet hole in it. And
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Speaker 3: so he tells stories about how they could go out
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Speaker 3: in the desert and he could take a shovel and
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Speaker 3: throw out in the air, and when it landed he
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Speaker 3: could go dig it up and there'd be an arrowhead
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Speaker 3: or pottery or something.
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Speaker 2: You can see why when I first heard about doctor
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Speaker 2: Young in his case, I thought he sounded like a modern.
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Speaker 5: Day Indiana Jones.
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Speaker 2: And while I don't think the real life archaeologist ever
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Speaker 2: had to evade a runaway boulder or fighting ninja's in Cairo.
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Speaker 2: He nonetheless led a fascinating life.
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Speaker 4: Primarily Southwestern history.
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Speaker 3: Is very interested in Native American culture and history, and
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Speaker 3: so he spent a lot of time doing that. I
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Speaker 3: remember when we were really young they did it. My
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Speaker 3: mom and dad did a dig and globe. He used
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Speaker 3: to do summer digs and teach summer digs over in
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Speaker 3: Fort berg One in Taos in Mexico.
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Speaker 4: So we go there for the summer.
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Speaker 3: I remember our playpen was a kiva that they had accavated,
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Speaker 3: and then they put Sean and my brother and I
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Speaker 3: in there, and we'd just sprushed around the walls and
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Speaker 3: my brother found a bone flute in the wall at
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Speaker 3: one time.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Young moved to Taos full time in nineteen seventy
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Speaker 2: with his wife, who was also an anthropologist, and his
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Speaker 2: two sons. He worked as a director for the Kit
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Speaker 2: Carson Memorial Foundation and then as an staff archaeologist for
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Speaker 2: the Carson National Forest.
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Speaker 3: And part of his job was to whenever they're going
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Speaker 3: to put in a road or logging road or something
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Speaker 3: like that, it was his job to walk that and
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Speaker 3: make sure that they weren't gonna go through any ruins
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Speaker 3: or just you know, destroy any sites or anything like that.
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Speaker 2: He spent countless hours in the deserts of the American
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Speaker 2: Southwest searching for and trying to preserve artifacts of the
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Speaker 2: people who lived there long before the Europeans. But he
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Speaker 2: also spent time on those arid landscapes just enjoying the
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Speaker 2: great outdoors.
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Speaker 3: He loved to take us duck hunting and quail hunting,
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Speaker 3: and he's he and his brother, my uncle Rob Young
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Speaker 3: was actually he retired from game and fish and they
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Speaker 3: used to go have Alina hunting and we used to
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Speaker 3: as kids follow them around. We'd go, I'd go with them,
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Speaker 3: and when they shoot some ducks and they're out middle
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Speaker 3: of one of those stock tanks or something, we'd have
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Speaker 3: to swim out there and get the ducks and bring
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Speaker 3: them back. If we couldn't splash them back and the
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Speaker 3: wind wasn't blowing. Surprising life after going into some of
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Speaker 3: those tanks.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you're pretending like you didn't make me do it.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
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Speaker 2: That other voice you hear is Austin Young, Kevin's son
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Speaker 2: and doctor Young's grandson. Austin is now a fishing and
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Speaker 2: hunting guide in Charleston, South Carolina. But he grew up
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Speaker 2: hunting the same patch of public land his great grandmother
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Speaker 2: hunted before him.
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Speaker 6: Our family has hunted the same blm land out there
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Speaker 6: for I mean up to his mother, Grandma Betty, she
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Speaker 6: was hunting. I got her twenty gauge, so she passed
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Speaker 6: that down to me when she passed away.
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Speaker 7: And that's John Young's mother.
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Speaker 6: But she was out there in the desert hunting the
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Speaker 6: same land that Grandpa John would hunt, and then he
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Speaker 6: showed us how to hunt it.
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Speaker 3: And yeah, you're the fourth generation hunting those tanks.
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Speaker 2: The Young's love for hunting and fishing started in the field,
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Speaker 2: but as we at meat Eater always appreciate, it continued
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Speaker 2: into the kitchen or in this case, the barbecue pit.
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Speaker 3: We always did a pit barbecue, and it started out
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Speaker 3: in in Florence and grew so big that we had
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Speaker 3: media there and all kinds of people that we didn't
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Speaker 3: even know, you know, that would show up to barbecue.
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Speaker 3: But we've they'd always have like aveline. We've had mountain lion, rattlesnake,
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Speaker 3: you know, el dear. Obviously, all kinds of different game
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Speaker 3: that we cook in the pit barbecue. So that's one
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Speaker 3: thing that both my uncle and my dad just loved
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Speaker 3: to do and host. And I was part of the
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Speaker 3: family and the growing up, and Austin even got to
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Speaker 3: partake in a little bit of that.
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Speaker 2: But later in the years, the Young family was close
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Speaker 2: and doctor Young included Kevin and his brother in his work,
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Speaker 2: his hunting and his construction projects.
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Speaker 3: The house he's talking about that burnt down, and it
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Speaker 3: was a true mud adobe house. So every single adobe
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Speaker 3: that was in that house was made by hand by
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Speaker 3: my mom and my dad.
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Speaker 4: Myself, my brother.
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Speaker 3: All the vegas in the ceiling where we skinned them
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Speaker 3: with drawn knives.
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Speaker 4: Then he had.
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Speaker 3: Split ceedar up there. All that seater was split by hand.
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Speaker 3: So it was quite a chore. It it was adventurous.
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Speaker 3: It took us about about a year to build it.
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Speaker 3: When we moved into it, it wasn't complete yet, so
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Speaker 3: there was there wasn't any plaster on the mud adobe's
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Speaker 3: And the first night that we spent in the house,
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Speaker 3: my brother and I they had a bedroom set up
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Speaker 3: in the garage and wood burning stove that was made
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Speaker 3: out of a fifty gallon drum, and you have to
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Speaker 3: keep that burning all night long, because otherwise.
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Speaker 4: You wake up and it's you know, five degrees out.
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Speaker 3: Well, the first night we slept there, it snowed and
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Speaker 3: we woke up and we had snow on her bids
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Speaker 3: because it blew in through the cracks and the walls
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Speaker 3: and stuff.
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Speaker 4: So it was quite an adventure.
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Speaker 2: That garage Kevin and his brother slept in was the
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Speaker 2: same garage their father died in four decades later. That
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Speaker 2: house was a fixture in the Young family, and its
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Speaker 2: destruction added an extra note of tragedy to doctor Young's death.
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Speaker 2: But what was even more disturbing is that something about
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Speaker 2: that fire didn't make sense, and Austin could sense it
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Speaker 2: right away.
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Speaker 6: My dad called me while the fire was going on
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Speaker 6: to tell me, you know, Grandpa's house is on fire,
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Speaker 6: and I said, well, how bad? And he said, it's
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Speaker 6: fully involved. And so my first thought at that point
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Speaker 6: was that there was something wrong. You know, an adobe
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Speaker 6: house shouldn't be burning like that. It would take a
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Speaker 6: really long time someone should notice or something, you know.
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Speaker 6: And then as it started going on, I realized, you know,
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Speaker 6: there was definitely something wrong. If his truck was parked there,
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Speaker 6: all the details that my dubd is able to give
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Speaker 6: to me just everything seemed wrong.
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Speaker 2: Austin had this feeling before he knew anything about accelerants
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Speaker 2: or bullet holes. But once the fire investigator began looking
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Speaker 2: more closely at the burned out scene, he confirmed that
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Speaker 2: the archaeologist father and grandfather almost certainly didn't die in
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Speaker 2: a tragic accident. The problem was no one knew who
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Speaker 2: was responsible for the fire or the investigation into who
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Speaker 2: started it. Part two, Falling through the Cracks. The first
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Speaker 2: person I wanted to talk to about this case was
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Speaker 2: the fire investigator, Jimmy Vee Hill, and I'm going to
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Speaker 2: spend some time here explaining what happened because it's important
13:46
Speaker 2: to the story, and what I'm about to say became
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Speaker 2: an unfortunate theme in reporting this episode. Jimmy told me
13:53
Speaker 2: he'd be willing to do an interview, but he first
13:55
Speaker 2: had to get permission from a public information officer or
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Speaker 2: PIO at the New Mexico State Fire Marshall's office. In
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Speaker 2: this case, that was a woman named Danielle Silva. I
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Speaker 2: first texted Danielle on Friday, January twenty third of this year.
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Speaker 2: She called me back four days later and said she'd
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Speaker 2: be willing to help, but first wanted to get in
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Speaker 2: touch with local law enforcement in Taos. Jimmy had given
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Speaker 2: an interview to the media back in twenty nineteen, so
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Speaker 2: his suspicions about the fire were already public knowledge. But
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Speaker 2: I've learned that public information officers are, in general a
14:28
Speaker 2: paranoid bunch, so I wasn't surprised at her caution. But
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Speaker 2: when I tried calling and texting Danielle over the subsequent weeks,
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Speaker 2: she usually didn't respond. On the rare occasions she did,
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Speaker 2: it was just to say she was still working on
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Speaker 2: it and needed more time. Finally, on April twenty eighth,
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Speaker 2: which if you're counting, is three months after my initial contact,
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Speaker 2: she said via text quote, I still don't see enough
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Speaker 2: info on our end to feel.
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Speaker 5: Comfortable with the interview.
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Speaker 4: Now.
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Speaker 2: I've been stuck in what I call pr purgatory before,
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Speaker 2: but never to this degree. It was clear that either
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Speaker 2: I was being stonewalled, Danielle wasn't giving me the time
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Speaker 2: of day, or both. Why I'm not sure. It's not
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Speaker 2: uncommon for law enforcement to be hesitant about talking to
15:11
Speaker 2: the media about a case that wasn't solved, but as
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Speaker 2: you've seen time and again on episodes of this podcast,
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Speaker 2: they usually at least give some kind of statement. I
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Speaker 2: was never able to speak to Jimmy on the record,
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Speaker 2: but Kevin interacted with the fire investigator many times in
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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, and he was able to recall some of
15:28
Speaker 2: those conversations. I was also able to obtain Jimmy's official
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Speaker 2: report requesting a search warrant for doctor Young's home. I
15:35
Speaker 2: compared that report to Kevin's recollections to verify the details
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Speaker 2: you're about to hear.
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Speaker 3: In dealing with the with Jimmy. Over time, we spent
15:45
Speaker 3: a lot of time communicating back and forth. You know,
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Speaker 3: Jimmy came to the same conclusion that he was ninety
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Speaker 3: nine percent sure that it was homicide and not an accident.
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Speaker 2: You already heard why Jimmy believed the fire was set intentionally,
16:03
Speaker 2: but the details of that are a little more nuanced.
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Speaker 2: They tested the walls for accelerants, but those tests came
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Speaker 2: back negative. However, Jimmy concluded, based on his observations of
16:13
Speaker 2: the walls and ceiling, that the fire began in multiple locations,
16:17
Speaker 2: almost simultaneously.
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Speaker 3: They could tell by the way the burn marks were
16:23
Speaker 3: on some of the walls that still were standing. You
16:25
Speaker 3: got to remember the forger concrete. The flooring was salteel tile.
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Speaker 3: The only room that had wood flowing was my dad's
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Speaker 3: bedroom and our bedrooms on that side of the house.
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Speaker 4: The rest of the house was all concrete, salteel tile
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Speaker 4: and so on. The walls are mud.
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Speaker 3: The only thing that could burn would be the vegas
16:46
Speaker 3: and the split seedar and the ceilings. But that fire
16:51
Speaker 3: went from one end of the house to the other
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Speaker 3: within fifteen minutes.
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Speaker 2: The fire spread too quickly to be caused by an
16:57
Speaker 2: electrical short and Jimmy confirmed that the fire was not
17:00
Speaker 2: sparked by other mechanical failures or a natural event such
17:04
Speaker 2: as a lightning strike. What's more, Kevin explained that if
17:07
Speaker 2: this fire had a less nefarious cause, his father likely
17:10
Speaker 2: would have been able to put it out.
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Speaker 3: He had fire extinguishers in almost every room of the house.
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Speaker 3: He had a brand new fire extinguisher in the back
17:18
Speaker 3: of his suburban. If he came home and that house
17:21
Speaker 3: was on fire, he would have grabbed his fire extinguisher,
17:26
Speaker 3: and you know, things would have been a little differently.
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Speaker 2: The fire burned too hot and too fast to be
17:32
Speaker 2: anything other than arson, which was reinforced by the state
17:35
Speaker 2: of doctor Young's body.
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Speaker 8: His body was very badly burned, meaning that his skin
17:40
Speaker 8: and soft tissues were charred, and specifically this is relevant
17:46
Speaker 8: to the questions about the case, is that his skull
17:50
Speaker 8: had been.
17:52
Speaker 7: Exposed.
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Speaker 2: That's Lori pro, the medical investigator who conducted doctor Young's autopsy.
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Speaker 2: She explained that the fire was so intense that it
18:01
Speaker 2: burned away the skin and soft tissue on the man's head,
18:04
Speaker 2: revealing what appeared to be a bullet hole.
18:07
Speaker 8: So it was during the process of examining the body
18:09
Speaker 8: and removing workins that I came across this part of
18:13
Speaker 8: the skull that just looked really unusual to me. When
18:16
Speaker 8: I was examining the brain and the bits of the
18:19
Speaker 8: skull bone around it, I came across this area that
18:24
Speaker 8: was very curved, and you know, that's unusual for a
18:31
Speaker 8: thermal fracture to appear like that. So I was worried.
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Speaker 8: At that point, I thought maybe this person had had
18:40
Speaker 8: a gunshot wound.
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Speaker 2: Normally, a medical examiner can identify a gunshot wound to
18:48
Speaker 2: the head based on the injuries to the brain, but
18:50
Speaker 2: the fire had decomposed doctor Young's brain tissue, and Lurie
18:54
Speaker 2: wasn't able to find any other injuries such as an
18:56
Speaker 2: exit wound. To confirm that the archaeologist had been.
18:59
Speaker 8: Shot, we had a forensic anthropologist take a look at
19:06
Speaker 8: the skull and what she did was, you know, clean
19:11
Speaker 8: tissue away from the skull bones and then reconstruct it.
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Speaker 8: So she looked at the skull bones, put everything back together,
19:20
Speaker 8: and her opinion was that the unusual curved defect that
19:26
Speaker 8: I found in the skull was not consistent once a
19:30
Speaker 8: gunshot wound. I relied on her report and kind of
19:36
Speaker 8: backed off of my initial concerns about a shooting.
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Speaker 2: I obtained this report from the University of New Mexico.
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Speaker 2: In it, forensic anthropologist Heather Edgar explains that when she
19:48
Speaker 2: pieced the skull back together, she found a fragment that
19:51
Speaker 2: covers the circular defect in question. It's unlikely that particular
19:55
Speaker 2: defect was caused by a bullet, but Laurie also noted
19:58
Speaker 2: that even after we cat instruction, the skull wasn't fully intact.
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Speaker 8: I'm not sure if that defect that I identified, if
20:07
Speaker 8: that represented a gunshot wound, right, I'm not sure if
20:12
Speaker 8: it was an exitter in Trence. And again the skull
20:17
Speaker 8: was not intact, so it's certainly possible that if it
20:21
Speaker 8: was a gunshot wound that entered and exited, that one
20:25
Speaker 8: or the other could have been in a part of
20:27
Speaker 8: the skull that was not identified. It was no longer
20:32
Speaker 8: oh I see present to put back together.
20:35
Speaker 2: In other words, doctor Young could have been shot in
20:38
Speaker 2: a part of his skull that was never found by investigators.
20:41
Speaker 2: The fire had burned away definite conclusions, which is why
20:44
Speaker 2: in her official report Laurie listed the manner of death
20:47
Speaker 2: as undetermined. What was easier to say with confidence was
20:51
Speaker 2: that the location of doctor Young's body was highly suspicious.
20:56
Speaker 4: He was ways between tools.
20:58
Speaker 3: He used to like to go and help with fire,
21:00
Speaker 3: so he had more axes, he had other stuff, power
21:03
Speaker 3: tools and stuff like that, and he said that he
21:06
Speaker 3: was wedged in between some some tools.
21:09
Speaker 2: That word wedged jumped out to me, and after reading
21:12
Speaker 2: Jimmy's report, I understood why he said. Quote the location
21:16
Speaker 2: of the deceased was very unusual, as it appeared the
21:19
Speaker 2: deceased was stuffed in the far right corner of the
21:22
Speaker 2: garage in an upright position. This is speculation, but it
21:26
Speaker 2: seems like if doctor Young was conscious when the fire started.
21:29
Speaker 2: He wouldn't have just stood there and allowed himself to
21:32
Speaker 2: be burned. He would have gotten on the ground to
21:34
Speaker 2: escape the smoke, or just open the garage door. Jimmy
21:38
Speaker 2: also noted in his report quote the angle and path
21:41
Speaker 2: the deceased took to get to the entrance of the
21:43
Speaker 2: residence from the garage did not make sense to this investigator,
21:46
Speaker 2: as the vehicle was parked on the outside of the garage. Now,
21:52
Speaker 2: I'm not totally clear what Jimmy meant by this, and
21:54
Speaker 2: if I had been allowed to talk to him, I
21:56
Speaker 2: would have asked. But remember how I said, first responders
21:59
Speaker 2: found the door open when they arrived.
22:01
Speaker 5: On the scene.
22:02
Speaker 2: Jimmy seems to be suggesting that, given doctor Young's location
22:05
Speaker 2: in the garage, he wasn't the one who opened that
22:08
Speaker 2: front door. If that's true, someone else was there that day,
22:12
Speaker 2: someone who may have been involved in the archaeologist's death.
22:15
Speaker 2: That person would be difficult enough to find in good conditions.
22:18
Speaker 2: But according to Kevin, we don't even have as much
22:21
Speaker 2: information as we should.
22:23
Speaker 3: There was so many mistakes made, Like I think there
22:28
Speaker 3: was at least five fire departments that showed up.
22:31
Speaker 4: They thought it was a party. They had their families there,
22:34
Speaker 4: they had kids, they were eating McDonald's and throwing a
22:38
Speaker 4: trash on the ground.
22:39
Speaker 3: They traveled everywhere, so they destroyed any potential evidence of
22:44
Speaker 3: what could have helped us.
22:47
Speaker 4: Footprints in the snow, stuff like that.
22:50
Speaker 3: One thing that Jimmy told me talking with the different
22:52
Speaker 3: fire departments is they showed up with all the equipment.
22:56
Speaker 3: They could have gone into that house and they could
22:58
Speaker 3: have searched for my dad.
23:00
Speaker 4: Didn't do that. Jimmy said.
23:02
Speaker 3: They peered in through his bedroom windows, and her comment was, well,
23:05
Speaker 3: his beds.
23:05
Speaker 4: Made, He made his bed every morning. What's that have
23:10
Speaker 4: to do with him being in the house or not
23:12
Speaker 4: being in the house.
23:13
Speaker 2: Remember, Kevin was unseen before the fire had been put out,
23:17
Speaker 2: so he saw with his own eyes how the firefighters
23:19
Speaker 2: were acting. But Jimmy's statements are secondhand. So I reached
23:23
Speaker 2: out to the Taws County Fire Department to get their reaction. Unfortunately,
23:27
Speaker 2: much like with the new Mexico State Fire Marshal's office,
23:30
Speaker 2: no one agreed to speak to me. If they had,
23:33
Speaker 2: they might have argued that they didn't know the fire
23:35
Speaker 2: would end up being suspicious. They're trained to put out fires,
23:38
Speaker 2: not collect evidence or preserve a crime scene. Normally, that
23:41
Speaker 2: would be a task for detectives with the Tows County
23:44
Speaker 2: Sheriff's office, but according to Kevin, that didn't happen either.
23:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Sheriff's department didn't do anything. So I went
23:51
Speaker 3: to the Sheriff's department. I talked to him, you know,
23:54
Speaker 3: I said, one thing I was concerned about is I said, look,
23:58
Speaker 3: why didn't you guys take control of this scene?
24:00
Speaker 4: And they said, we were.
24:01
Speaker 3: Only there to direct traffic, traffic on a dirt road.
24:06
Speaker 4: Are you kidding me?
24:08
Speaker 3: And they said, oh no, the fire marshal was in charge.
24:11
Speaker 3: I told Jimmy that. I said, Jimmy, they're blaming you.
24:13
Speaker 3: They said you should have taken control of the saint.
24:16
Speaker 4: And yeah, he was.
24:18
Speaker 3: Very shocked by that that the Sheriff's department said, all
24:21
Speaker 3: they were there to do was direct traffic.
24:25
Speaker 2: Really, if this strikes you as hard to believe, given
24:30
Speaker 2: the evidence of foul play we've covered so far, join
24:33
Speaker 2: the club. I was sure Kevin was mistaken, so I
24:36
Speaker 2: reached out to Taos County Sheriff Steve Mira. Sheriff Mira
24:40
Speaker 2: didn't agree to a recorded interview, but we did have
24:42
Speaker 2: a brief phone conversation. Incredibly, he confirmed what Kevin told me.
24:47
Speaker 2: He said he never opened a case on doctor Young's death.
24:50
Speaker 2: He said they were just unseen to direct traffic and
24:53
Speaker 2: the investigation was handled by Jimmy with the Fire Marshal's office.
24:57
Speaker 2: I took what the sheriff said to Danielle Silva, the
25:00
Speaker 2: PIO for the State Fire Marshal. She said, via text, quote,
25:03
Speaker 2: we only look for cause and origin of a fire,
25:06
Speaker 2: so we wouldn't be the lead on a fatal fire
25:09
Speaker 2: without a law enforcement agency. When I reiterated what the
25:12
Speaker 2: sheriff said, she doubled down. She said the sheriff was mistaken,
25:16
Speaker 2: implying that they weren't responsible for investigating doctor Young's death.
25:21
Speaker 2: Regular listeners of this podcast know that I try to
25:23
Speaker 2: give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt. Most officers
25:26
Speaker 2: are competent professionals trying their best, and they're sometimes unfairly
25:30
Speaker 2: criticized when a case goes cold. But this case never
25:34
Speaker 2: went cold because it was never opened in the first place.
25:37
Speaker 2: That's why, seven years later, covering the story feels a
25:40
Speaker 2: bit like dealing with corporate customer service. Everything is someone
25:44
Speaker 2: else's job, someone else's department. But we're not talking about
25:47
Speaker 2: a medical bill or a new phone plan. We're talking
25:50
Speaker 2: about murder. The idea that a potential homicide could basically
25:55
Speaker 2: fall through the cracks is almost unbelievable. But as far
25:58
Speaker 2: as I can tell, that's exact exactly what happened. Whatever
26:02
Speaker 2: or whoever killed John Young, the system that was supposed
26:05
Speaker 2: to answer that question chose not to ask it. This
26:10
Speaker 2: story might end here, but thanks to Kevin, it doesn't.
26:13
Speaker 2: He had his own suspicions about what happened to his father,
26:16
Speaker 2: so he decided to take matters into his own hands.
26:23
Speaker 2: Part three. The Artifacts. Kevin couldn't think of anyone who
26:29
Speaker 2: might have wanted to kill his father, but his mind
26:31
Speaker 2: kept going back to an interaction he had just a
26:34
Speaker 2: few weeks before doctor Young was killed.
26:37
Speaker 3: For Christmas, I got my dad two corps of firewood
26:40
Speaker 3: to burn this fireplace.
26:42
Speaker 4: BoNT itr From's Hickory Apache family.
26:45
Speaker 2: The hickorya Apache are a federally recognized tribe whose territory
26:49
Speaker 2: comprises about eight hundred and eighty thousand acres in north
26:52
Speaker 2: central New Mexico. The tribal headquarters are a two hour
26:55
Speaker 2: drive from Taos. But this family had relatives living in
26:59
Speaker 2: the Pueblows just outside town.
27:01
Speaker 3: And my dad loves to talk about, you know, the
27:05
Speaker 3: artifacts and the things that he has, and the history
27:07
Speaker 3: and the digging and all that. So he took the
27:11
Speaker 3: wife and took her around, gave her to her stuff
27:14
Speaker 3: and talked to her about everything. And she comes out
27:18
Speaker 3: and she starts helping me unload some of the wood,
27:21
Speaker 3: and eventually she tells me.
27:23
Speaker 4: She goes, you know, we're not supposed to be here.
27:25
Speaker 4: I said, oh, really, why?
27:27
Speaker 3: And she goes, well, because some of the artifacts your
27:29
Speaker 3: dad has in his house have our ancestors spirits in him. Well,
27:34
Speaker 3: your dad's an anthropologist, right, And I said yeah, And
27:36
Speaker 3: she goes, do you know how your dad is able
27:39
Speaker 3: to have some of that stuff and keep it? And
27:42
Speaker 3: I said no, you'd have to ask him. I know
27:44
Speaker 3: he used to do trips to Zunie and stuff, and
27:48
Speaker 3: he trade with the.
27:49
Speaker 4: Elders in Zuni.
27:50
Speaker 3: I know he did a lot of trading, but I
27:52
Speaker 3: didn't know exactly how I got him around.
27:54
Speaker 4: I was able to keep him.
27:55
Speaker 2: The implication of these questions was clear, But Kevin told
27:58
Speaker 2: me this woman wasn't act being aggressive or insulted.
28:02
Speaker 4: No, she wasn't angry or upset.
28:04
Speaker 3: It was just explaining that this is something we shouldn't
28:08
Speaker 3: see or that we shouldn't be around. It's not like
28:10
Speaker 3: she immediately rushed out or anything, because he even came
28:13
Speaker 3: in the house after we were done unloading the wood
28:16
Speaker 3: and stayed with us for another hour talking.
28:20
Speaker 2: Doctor Young invited the couple and their kids to share
28:23
Speaker 2: some refreshments.
28:24
Speaker 4: We're all sitting around his table talking and having a
28:28
Speaker 4: good time.
28:28
Speaker 3: And then when they got ready to leave, my dad said,
28:30
Speaker 3: you know, hey, you guys ever come back into town.
28:33
Speaker 4: I want to.
28:34
Speaker 3: I want you to come and eat with me. So
28:39
Speaker 3: they all said, oh, yeah, we'd love to, and everything
28:41
Speaker 3: was fine.
28:43
Speaker 2: The interaction was largely positive, but for Kevin it was
28:46
Speaker 2: also unsettling, and the timing of it, just two weeks
28:49
Speaker 2: before doctor Young's Adobe home burned down, nagged at the
28:52
Speaker 2: back of Kevin's mind. When he started doing more research
28:55
Speaker 2: into the history and beliefs of the Hikoria Apache, he
28:59
Speaker 2: came across some thing that he believed connected those beliefs
29:02
Speaker 2: to his father's death.
29:04
Speaker 3: One of their biggest fears is and I don't know
29:08
Speaker 3: if it's a fear or just you know, a belief
29:10
Speaker 3: or whatever is when somebody dies, they will burn down
29:15
Speaker 3: their house with all the contents in it, including their
29:18
Speaker 3: favorite horse.
29:19
Speaker 2: Kevin didn't think that the couple who delivered the firewood
29:22
Speaker 2: was responsible for the fire. At the same time, he
29:25
Speaker 2: couldn't help but wonder if they had told others of
29:27
Speaker 2: the artifacts in his father's home and those people had
29:31
Speaker 2: decided to take action. Kevin didn't have any proof that
29:35
Speaker 2: this happened. It was just a theory, and one that
29:37
Speaker 2: relied on knowledge of a culture that can easily be
29:40
Speaker 2: misunderstood from the outside. So I reached out to doctor
29:44
Speaker 2: Jeff Blythe, a historic preservation officer for the Hickoria Apache Nation.
29:49
Speaker 2: Doctor Blythe declined to sit down for a recorded interview,
29:52
Speaker 2: but he did comment on the record. He told me
29:54
Speaker 2: that while he sympathizes with the Young's position, he cautioned
29:58
Speaker 2: against drawing definite conclusion from the Apache woman's comments. He
30:02
Speaker 2: said it is common in the archaeological record for homes
30:05
Speaker 2: and possessions to be burned upon abandonment or death, but
30:09
Speaker 2: he pointed out that the practice is far less common today.
30:12
Speaker 2: It's also not done until after a person has already
30:15
Speaker 2: died and the deceased isn't inside the home. He did acknowledge, however,
30:20
Speaker 2: that artifacts are intrinsically related to the place they come from.
30:24
Speaker 2: He said, quote, there is concern about things following the
30:27
Speaker 2: artifacts when they're taken that are unhealthy. Modern archaeologists are
30:32
Speaker 2: supposed to take this concern into account, and many do
30:35
Speaker 2: analysis in the field and then rebury those items. We
30:38
Speaker 2: don't know where doctor Young acquired the artifacts in his home,
30:42
Speaker 2: but seeing them in that location could have surprised and
30:45
Speaker 2: potentially upset his apache visitors. Of course, there's a huge
30:50
Speaker 2: gap between upset and homicidal. Kevin isn't totally sure what
30:54
Speaker 2: to make of his theory, and frankly.
30:57
Speaker 5: Neither am I.
30:58
Speaker 2: I've visited Taos many times. It's a popular summer destination
31:01
Speaker 2: for folks here in Texas, but the opinion of a
31:04
Speaker 2: tourist doesn't mean much. So if you live in this area,
31:07
Speaker 2: I'd be curious to hear what you think. Whatever the
31:09
Speaker 2: truth is, Kevin's interaction remains one of the only leads
31:13
Speaker 2: that was actually followed. Kevin said that Jimmy took it seriously,
31:17
Speaker 2: and he even interviewed the couple in question, but he
31:19
Speaker 2: didn't get anywhere, so Kevin decided to hire more help.
31:23
Speaker 1: I got called in on this a little bit after
31:26
Speaker 1: the police had been over there and had done whatever
31:31
Speaker 1: they were doing, and so I kind of got in
31:33
Speaker 1: a little bit late.
31:35
Speaker 2: That's David Frazy, a private investigator Kevin hired to look
31:38
Speaker 2: into his father's death. David spent a career as a
31:41
Speaker 2: professional investigator, first as a lieutenant with the Bernolio County
31:45
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department, where he retired after twenty seven years. Then
31:49
Speaker 2: he trained police in the Middle East for seven years,
31:52
Speaker 2: and today he's running to be sheriff.
31:53
Speaker 5: Of Torrance County, New Mexico.
31:55
Speaker 2: I say all this to explain that David isn't what
31:58
Speaker 2: you might call a mal coop private. He's investigated his
32:01
Speaker 2: share of homicides and he'd been working as a PI
32:04
Speaker 2: for three years when Kevin called him. His first task
32:08
Speaker 2: was to find the couple who had delivered firewood and
32:10
Speaker 2: asked them to sit down for an interview. I asked
32:13
Speaker 2: David how the pair seemed when they finally spoke to
32:16
Speaker 2: him at the Hickoria Apache Police station in Dulse, New Mexico.
32:20
Speaker 1: The male was not very talkative. He just wanted to
32:27
Speaker 1: keep quiet, and it was almost like he didn't want
32:32
Speaker 1: his wife to talk. But she was being a little
32:35
Speaker 1: more voiceful, and she would answer my questions, but would
32:40
Speaker 1: offer nothing more than just whatever I asked for. And
32:46
Speaker 1: it was like, we're not afraid of anything, you know.
32:49
Speaker 1: It's kind of like they knew that it was not
32:51
Speaker 1: going to go anywhere. We weren't going to find anything,
32:53
Speaker 1: and they were very they felt confident in themselves that,
32:57
Speaker 1: you know that they could just give me a little
33:00
Speaker 1: tidbit of information and send me on my way and
33:02
Speaker 1: it would be it would be forgotten.
33:05
Speaker 2: David asked the pair about their visit to doctor Young's house,
33:08
Speaker 2: and the woman readily acknowledged touring the home and seeing
33:11
Speaker 2: copper pots that reminded her of those in her grandmother's house.
33:14
Speaker 2: She said she could tell they were ancient by the
33:17
Speaker 2: way they were made. She also noticed a crystal that
33:20
Speaker 2: doctor Young had displayed on some sheepskin.
33:23
Speaker 1: There was just one specific piece of crystal is what
33:28
Speaker 1: they were very, very concerned with. That it was the
33:32
Speaker 1: one thing that the medicine man had to have in
33:37
Speaker 1: order to heal people.
33:39
Speaker 2: According to David, the woman stated that the crystal was
33:42
Speaker 2: the most powerful item in the home, and medicine men
33:45
Speaker 2: used similar items to see the spirits of ancestors who
33:49
Speaker 2: are causing medical problems. She also mentioned that these crystals
33:53
Speaker 2: must always stay in the possession of those healers. I
33:58
Speaker 2: read the report David prepared for Kevin, which included some
34:01
Speaker 2: contact information for the couple in question. I sent multiple
34:04
Speaker 2: emails to the address provided, but haven't heard back as
34:07
Speaker 2: of this recording. I'm not naming them because they've never
34:10
Speaker 2: been accused of a crime and there isn't any hard
34:12
Speaker 2: evidence that they were involved at all. They denied telling
34:16
Speaker 2: anyone about what they saw in doctor Young's home, but David,
34:19
Speaker 2: like Kevin, believes they told someone else who was responsible
34:23
Speaker 2: for the fire. I think Kevin and Austin recognized how
34:26
Speaker 2: these accusations might be perceived, and they understand that telling
34:30
Speaker 2: this story exposes their father and grandfather to criticism. But
34:34
Speaker 2: they insist that doctor Young possessed the artifacts in his
34:37
Speaker 2: home not with a sense of entitlement, but with a
34:39
Speaker 2: sense of deep appreciation for what they represented.
34:43
Speaker 7: He was very much in appreciation of the culture.
34:46
Speaker 6: And everything that they did, and their connection to the
34:49
Speaker 6: outdoors and how they lived, and I think he tried
34:52
Speaker 6: to actually emulate it in his own life by living
34:57
Speaker 6: way out there in Towson in an adobe house that
35:00
Speaker 6: felt made right out of the earth too, and surround
35:04
Speaker 6: himself with the things that he really appreciated. So he'd
35:08
Speaker 6: not just liked sharing it with people, but it's spilt
35:10
Speaker 6: over into his home and everyday live too.
35:14
Speaker 2: Kevin might be right about the Apache family who delivered
35:16
Speaker 2: firewood to his father's home.
35:19
Speaker 5: Or maybe not.
35:20
Speaker 2: Whatever actually happened, part of the reason we don't know
35:23
Speaker 2: is the lack of action from local law enforcement. I
35:26
Speaker 2: asked David about his interactions with the Taos County Sheriff's office,
35:29
Speaker 2: and he spoke from his decades of law enforcement experience.
35:33
Speaker 1: Their investigation was almost nonexistent. I thought they would put
35:39
Speaker 1: somebody on it as an investigator. I didn't see that.
35:43
Speaker 1: Why they did not want to get involved.
35:46
Speaker 7: I don't know.
35:46
Speaker 1: If it's a lack of resources, if they don't have
35:49
Speaker 1: the expertise, why they didn't call the state police to
35:53
Speaker 1: come in. Those are questions I cannot answer.
35:56
Speaker 2: In his report, David says that the deputy he spoke
35:59
Speaker 2: with made it soundlike Jimmy and the State Fire Marshal's
36:01
Speaker 2: office insisted on taking the case. When I spoke to
36:05
Speaker 2: Sheriff Mira, he implied the same thing. The Fire Marshals
36:09
Speaker 2: had the case, he said, and they didn't want assistance
36:11
Speaker 2: from the sheriff's office. The problem is, as the spokesperson
36:15
Speaker 2: for the marshals told me, which you heard just a
36:17
Speaker 2: few minutes ago, the agency doesn't investigate homicides without law
36:21
Speaker 2: enforcement involvement. When I relayed this information to the sheriff,
36:26
Speaker 2: he didn't.
36:26
Speaker 1: Respond, only, it's not Jimmy's job. His job is investigate
36:31
Speaker 1: the fire. It boggles my mind how a sheriff would
36:35
Speaker 1: not put a detective on a homicide. I don't get it.
36:42
Speaker 1: I just don't get it. Why And for them to
36:45
Speaker 1: say it's a crime saying, but it's a fire clime scene.
36:48
Speaker 1: We give it to the fire department to do that
36:51
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any sense to me.
36:53
Speaker 2: This is even more egregious because there were leads a
36:55
Speaker 2: detective could have tracked down. As a private investigator, David
36:59
Speaker 2: was limited in what he could do. He couldn't arrest
37:01
Speaker 2: people or charge them with a crime, but his investigations
37:04
Speaker 2: still revealed several potential threads that could have been pulled.
37:09
Speaker 2: Doctor Young had neighbors. Neighbors who saw the fire called
37:12
Speaker 2: it in and told David about the individuals hanging around
37:16
Speaker 2: the house in the minutes before the blaze ignited. Part four,
37:26
Speaker 2: the burglar.
37:29
Speaker 7: In what is the.
37:30
Speaker 2: Most basic first step of any investigation, David began by
37:33
Speaker 2: knocking on the doors of all the homes around doctor
37:36
Speaker 2: Young's and asking the residents if they saw anything. One
37:39
Speaker 2: woman who will call Stacy, lived down the street from
37:42
Speaker 2: doctor Young. Around four fifteen on the afternoon of the fire,
37:46
Speaker 2: she saw four or five men in a white pickup
37:48
Speaker 2: truck parked across the street from her house. She thought
37:52
Speaker 2: they might be construction workers, but they didn't appear to
37:54
Speaker 2: be doing a job at her neighbor's house, and it
37:56
Speaker 2: didn't look like anyone was home. One of the men
37:59
Speaker 2: got out of the truck and began talking on a
38:01
Speaker 2: cell phone. According to David, he told Stacy that quote
38:05
Speaker 2: John's house is on fire and that he quote used
38:08
Speaker 2: to work with doctor John. This man could have been
38:12
Speaker 2: calling the fire department, but a sheriff's deputy told David
38:15
Speaker 2: that the fire was first reported by an unidentified girl
38:18
Speaker 2: and then by two employees with a kit Carson Electric
38:21
Speaker 2: co op. The neighbor said that these employees went to
38:24
Speaker 2: doctor Young's house and yelled, quote, is anyone there? She
38:28
Speaker 2: told David they may have been there prior to the
38:30
Speaker 2: house catching fire, and might know if the men in
38:33
Speaker 2: the truck were.
38:34
Speaker 5: Also there earlier that day. I asked David.
38:37
Speaker 2: Whether he was able to track down any of these individuals.
38:40
Speaker 1: Of course, there's limited information what she saw. I mean,
38:44
Speaker 1: we didn't have anything to go on as far as
38:46
Speaker 1: you know, even a partial plate number or you know,
38:49
Speaker 1: we just and I don't think they were even positive
38:52
Speaker 1: on The color was a light maybe a white or
38:55
Speaker 1: maybe a silver or something with a light colored vehicle.
38:59
Speaker 2: Finding four guys in a light colored pickup might be
39:01
Speaker 2: a challenge for a private investigator, but it seems like
39:04
Speaker 2: the kind of thing local law enforcement would be able
39:06
Speaker 2: to handle, especially if they started the investigation immediately. Those
39:11
Speaker 2: Kit Carson Electric employees might have been an even more
39:14
Speaker 2: promising lead. The company could have identified them easily enough,
39:17
Speaker 2: and maybe their statements would have led investigators to someone
39:21
Speaker 2: else who saw the person who started the fire. But
39:24
Speaker 2: as far as I'm aware, none of these leads were
39:27
Speaker 2: tracked down and believe it or not, they weren't the
39:29
Speaker 2: only ones. Jimmy told David that he believed a thief
39:33
Speaker 2: could have been responsible for doctor Young's death. Eduardo Rivera
39:37
Speaker 2: was a serial burglar and well known criminal in the
39:40
Speaker 2: Taos area. In twenty seventeen, he was charged with breaking
39:44
Speaker 2: and entering, residential burglary, burglary of a motor vehicle, kidnapping,
39:48
Speaker 2: and aggravated assault. Then in twenty nineteen, Rivera tried to
39:52
Speaker 2: burglarize another home. When the homeowner confronted him, he pulled
39:56
Speaker 2: out a handgun and fled. Two days after doctor Young's
40:00
Speaker 2: house burned down, he was located by state police at
40:03
Speaker 2: his home, but refused to come out. He was eventually arrested,
40:07
Speaker 2: but only after a five hour standoff with the SWAT team.
40:10
Speaker 2: Jimmy thought that maybe doctor Young had challenged Rivera while
40:13
Speaker 2: he was robbing his home, but rather than flee the scene,
40:16
Speaker 2: Rivera had attacked the elderly man, robbed him, and then
40:19
Speaker 2: burned the house down to hide evidence of his crime.
40:22
Speaker 2: It was a reasonable theory, but it had a flaw.
40:26
Speaker 3: Not one thing could I determine what's missing that had
40:30
Speaker 3: been taken from the house.
40:33
Speaker 4: It looks like everything was there.
40:35
Speaker 2: Doctor Young had a house full of priceless artifacts. But
40:38
Speaker 2: even if someone like Rivera didn't understand the value of
40:41
Speaker 2: a copper pot or a piece of crystal, there were
40:43
Speaker 2: other items in the home he would have identified as valuable.
40:47
Speaker 3: He had an AK forty seven that had one hundred
40:51
Speaker 3: round clip. He hung over his fireplace in.
40:54
Speaker 4: His bedroom with pride.
40:55
Speaker 3: He had Remington rifles, he had shotguns.
41:00
Speaker 4: You know, everything, Nothing was stolen, Nothing was taken, So
41:04
Speaker 4: why would you murder somebody and not take anything?
41:08
Speaker 2: Right, The fire made it difficult to verify that absolutely
41:12
Speaker 2: nothing was taken, But those firearms, or at least parts
41:16
Speaker 2: of them, survived the blaze, and they would have been
41:18
Speaker 2: attempting target for a violent convicted felon. When I spoke
41:22
Speaker 2: to David about this case, he reiterated what Kevin told me.
41:26
Speaker 1: Nothing else was stolen. I mean most of the things
41:29
Speaker 1: that were in the house. They sifted through all of
41:31
Speaker 1: the stuff and they were able to find most of
41:33
Speaker 1: the artifacts in the house. They found other things that
41:37
Speaker 1: was in the house that were, you know, very valuable.
41:40
Speaker 1: That there wasn't any evidence of a burglary. There was
41:43
Speaker 1: no evidence of missing property.
41:46
Speaker 2: You might argue that Rivera or another burglar was in
41:48
Speaker 2: a rush to flee the scene. Maybe he broke into
41:51
Speaker 2: the home but was unexpectedly confronted by doctor Young. He
41:55
Speaker 2: then incapacitated the elderly man and decided to run rather
41:59
Speaker 2: than steal things on the way out. But that scenario
42:02
Speaker 2: doesn't really account for the fire. Criminals often use fire
42:06
Speaker 2: to hide their crimes, but remember doctor Young was breathing
42:09
Speaker 2: after the blaze began. This would be burglar wasn't hiding
42:13
Speaker 2: a murder, So why would he take the time to
42:15
Speaker 2: set the house on fire if he was in too
42:18
Speaker 2: much of a rush to steal anything. Jimmy mentioned Rivera
42:21
Speaker 2: as a possible suspect, and, according to David, so did
42:24
Speaker 2: one of the Taus County deputies. The serial burglar was
42:27
Speaker 2: on their radar, but when David asked if he could
42:30
Speaker 2: work alongside the sheriff on the investigation, they shut him down.
42:34
Speaker 1: I went up to talk to the sheriffs. They said
42:37
Speaker 1: he wasn't in, but they would let me speak with
42:40
Speaker 1: the under sheriff. And then here came a sergeant and said,
42:46
Speaker 1: I'm what you get, Take it or leap, And I
42:51
Speaker 1: started asking him questions about the case, and it was
42:56
Speaker 1: very noncommittal. You're in my way. I wish you would
42:59
Speaker 1: leave it blew me out of my socks. To be honest,
43:02
Speaker 1: I just can't believe that. Hey, the sheriff himself wouldn't
43:06
Speaker 1: come out and discuss it, nor would the under sheriff
43:08
Speaker 1: come out and discuss it. They send a sergeant out
43:10
Speaker 1: to get rid of me. So I got no information.
43:14
Speaker 1: I got no help out of their sheriff's department.
43:17
Speaker 2: The sheriff didn't mention Rivera in my brief conversation with him,
43:20
Speaker 2: but he did allude to another explanation for what happened
43:23
Speaker 2: to doctor Young. The agency that declined to investigate, had
43:27
Speaker 2: it turned out formed a theory anyway, maybe he said,
43:31
Speaker 2: rather than falling victim to an enemy or a violent felon,
43:34
Speaker 2: the eighty year old succumbed to something darker and more
43:38
Speaker 2: difficult to explain.
43:43
Speaker 5: Part five. On his own terms.
43:47
Speaker 6: My grandfather is just one of the most interesting and
43:51
Speaker 6: fun people you can meet. But he must have got
43:54
Speaker 6: this from Grandma Betty. But he's just like an ornery fella.
43:58
Speaker 6: He's always been vocal about I'm going out on my
44:01
Speaker 6: own terms. That if I'm not going to be in
44:03
Speaker 6: a diaper, I'm not going to be incapacitated, nothing like that.
44:07
Speaker 6: And so I just had a thought, you know, like,
44:09
Speaker 6: did Grandpa like feel like it was time or something.
44:14
Speaker 2: I hope you'll forgive another movie reference, but I imagine
44:16
Speaker 2: doctor Young a bit like those old fellas in that
44:19
Speaker 2: movie Secondhand Lions. He lived a fascinating life, but it
44:23
Speaker 2: was nearing its twilight. Kevin didn't mention anything about his
44:26
Speaker 2: father having a terminal illness, but Laurie's report did indicate
44:30
Speaker 2: that he was suffering from maladies common to a man
44:33
Speaker 2: who'd taken eighty trips around the sun. He had multiple
44:36
Speaker 2: cysts on his left kidney, which was also significantly smaller
44:40
Speaker 2: than his right. Two of the vertebra and his neck
44:42
Speaker 2: refused together, which likely caused some pain and stiffness. He
44:46
Speaker 2: also had some narrowing of the middle right coronary artery,
44:49
Speaker 2: though likely not enough to cause noticeable symptoms. None of
44:53
Speaker 2: these conditions are life threatening or even abnormal, but we
44:56
Speaker 2: also don't have a great read on his mental state.
44:59
Speaker 2: He was living by himself, and it's unclear how much
45:02
Speaker 2: interaction he had with the other members.
45:04
Speaker 5: Of his community.
45:05
Speaker 2: Jimmy believed doctor Young was the victim of a burglary
45:08
Speaker 2: gone wrong, but Kevin also mentioned that the fire investigator
45:11
Speaker 2: wondered whether doctor Young had died by suicide.
45:15
Speaker 3: He came to me at the very end and said, look,
45:16
Speaker 3: I can't come up with any conclusions. You know, whether
45:21
Speaker 3: somebody came and started the fire or would rolled out.
45:25
Speaker 3: Could be that your dad tried to commit suicide and
45:28
Speaker 3: put accelerants in different places.
45:31
Speaker 2: If doctor Young decided to go out on his own terms,
45:33
Speaker 2: maybe he decided to make it a spectacle. Suicide by
45:36
Speaker 2: burning is extremely uncommon in western countries, but attempted suicides
45:41
Speaker 2: account for two to six percent of all Burn Center admissions,
45:44
Speaker 2: according to a twenty thirteen report. As we covered in
45:48
Speaker 2: episode seven of season one, people suffering mental distress don't
45:52
Speaker 2: always act in ways that make sense or choose the
45:55
Speaker 2: least painful method of ending their lives. But while Kevin
45:59
Speaker 2: acknowledges the possibility that his father took his own life,
46:02
Speaker 2: doctor Young's actions that day cut against that theory.
46:06
Speaker 3: I got hold of his credit card statement and I
46:08
Speaker 3: started following everything he did that day, and he had
46:11
Speaker 3: driven into town. He went to a restaurant called Hunan's,
46:15
Speaker 3: and he loved their peaking duck, and so he got
46:18
Speaker 3: an ordered peaking duck, and on his way home he
46:22
Speaker 3: always carried a pocket knife in his front pocket. He
46:25
Speaker 3: had opened up the knife and he was cutting pieces
46:28
Speaker 3: of the duck off and eating it. That was still
46:30
Speaker 3: inside a suburban, the knife and the food the rest
46:33
Speaker 3: of his duck, because he didn't take it in with him.
46:35
Speaker 4: He didn't go in.
46:37
Speaker 3: He stopped at the post office, he checked his mail.
46:40
Speaker 3: There was some food that stuff that he picked up
46:42
Speaker 3: at the grocery store.
46:44
Speaker 2: Kevin estimates that his father was gone from his home
46:46
Speaker 2: for about two hours and he wasn't doing anything out
46:49
Speaker 2: of the ordinary until he arrived home. Then he got
46:53
Speaker 2: out of his suburban, left his food and groceries inside,
46:56
Speaker 2: including a handgun, in the driver's side door, and went
46:59
Speaker 2: into his house. He either left the door open on
47:02
Speaker 2: the way in, or maybe it was open when he arrived.
47:05
Speaker 6: Well, he's walking around, he's eating Chinese food and he's
47:08
Speaker 6: getting groceries.
47:09
Speaker 7: He's just fine.
47:11
Speaker 3: You know.
47:11
Speaker 6: He's not going to just get groceries and Chinese food
47:15
Speaker 6: and half eat it and then decide to go out
47:17
Speaker 6: on his own. Terms, with the doors open to everything.
47:22
Speaker 2: It's an odd sequence of actions for someone who plans
47:25
Speaker 2: to set their house on fire with themselves inside.
47:28
Speaker 5: And that idea that the.
47:29
Speaker 2: Retired archaeologist would intentionally burn up a lifetime of memories,
47:33
Speaker 2: not to mention the house he built himself, is the
47:36
Speaker 2: toughest pill for Kevin to swallow.
47:39
Speaker 3: My dad, he's spent his whole life collecting this stuff.
47:43
Speaker 3: He would not burn it up. He wouldn't kill himself
47:46
Speaker 3: that one. Yeah, he'd want his family, as his kids,
47:49
Speaker 3: as grandkids to and even maybe even have some of
47:53
Speaker 3: that stuff.
47:54
Speaker 4: Given back to the different tribes or whatever. But he
47:58
Speaker 4: left no suicide note. Was no suicide note left. He
48:02
Speaker 4: left no evidence.
48:03
Speaker 2: Whether doctor Young was killed by tribal members upset by
48:06
Speaker 2: his collection of artifacts, a burglar looking for an easy score,
48:10
Speaker 2: or someone else. Kevin believes his father arrived home and
48:14
Speaker 2: was ambushed.
48:15
Speaker 3: My belief is he came home and they were probably
48:19
Speaker 3: in his house starting the fire, and he went in
48:24
Speaker 3: didn't unbeknownst. Maybe the front door was open, I don't know.
48:27
Speaker 3: Maybe he saw it was open and he went to
48:28
Speaker 3: check and see what was going on. That's why he
48:31
Speaker 3: didn't take his food. That's why he didn't take his groceries.
48:33
Speaker 4: That's you know.
48:34
Speaker 3: I don't think he thought anything was going on, and
48:37
Speaker 3: they probably ambushed him as he walked in the door.
48:39
Speaker 3: Did they hit him over the head with something and
48:41
Speaker 3: create that hole that looked like a bullet hole? Maybe
48:47
Speaker 3: maybe it was a fire. I don't know, but I
48:49
Speaker 3: never got an answered.
48:51
Speaker 2: There isn't much hard evidence in this case, but there
48:53
Speaker 2: is one piece that backs up Kevin's theory.
48:56
Speaker 3: And I was walking around, I was trying to check
48:59
Speaker 3: different things out and see if I could find any
49:02
Speaker 3: evidence for Jimmy. I found what was the remaining of
49:05
Speaker 3: the pantry door and where the latch is. Somebody had
49:11
Speaker 3: tried to pry it open with a screwdriver.
49:13
Speaker 2: When Kevin says pantry, he isn't talking about a closet
49:16
Speaker 2: where food is stored. He's talking about an outside door
49:20
Speaker 2: that leads to a mudroom attached to the garage.
49:23
Speaker 4: I called Jimmy and said, hey, look, you know, I
49:25
Speaker 4: found his.
49:26
Speaker 3: Pantry door and it's got prime marks from somebody working
49:30
Speaker 3: it with a screwdriver.
49:32
Speaker 4: And so Jimmy came out.
49:34
Speaker 3: Took a look at that, took some photos, took that back,
49:37
Speaker 3: and he agreed that it looked like somebody had been
49:40
Speaker 3: working that door with a screwdriver.
49:42
Speaker 2: I haven't seen these photos myself, but David noted in
49:45
Speaker 2: his report that he was also there when this discovery
49:47
Speaker 2: was made. As a longtime investigator, he agreed with Kevin's
49:50
Speaker 2: assessment it looked like someone had at one point tried
49:54
Speaker 2: to break into doctor Young's home. That, combined with the
49:57
Speaker 2: evidence of accelerants and the hurriedly bandon SUV, has convinced
50:02
Speaker 2: almost everyone I spoke with that doctor Young's death was
50:05
Speaker 2: no suicide. Part six, Asking for Answers. I don't know
50:15
Speaker 2: who killed doctor Young. I'm not sure anyone will ever know.
50:19
Speaker 5: And that's in.
50:19
Speaker 2: Part because the people whose job it was to find
50:22
Speaker 2: out decided somewhere along the line that it wasn't their problem.
50:26
Speaker 2: In some ways, that's just as disturbing as the murder itself. Today,
50:31
Speaker 2: Kevin and Austen are the only ones actively looking for answers.
50:35
Speaker 2: Austin reached out to me about his grandfather's case because
50:38
Speaker 2: he hopes bringing attention to it will move things forward.
50:41
Speaker 6: The goal with this might be to get word out
50:44
Speaker 6: again and hear people talking about it, and maybe get
50:46
Speaker 6: someone to say something.
50:48
Speaker 2: This strategy is always a long shot, but it might
50:51
Speaker 2: be more fruitful than with other cold cases. Beyond a
50:54
Speaker 2: handful of local news articles, this case has garnered almost
50:57
Speaker 2: no media attention as far as I know now, either
51:00
Speaker 2: the Sheriff's office nor the fire Marshal put out a
51:02
Speaker 2: press release soliciting leads. There may well be people out
51:05
Speaker 2: there who know something or saw something, but don't realize
51:09
Speaker 2: that this case hasn't been solved. That's why Kevin and
51:12
Speaker 2: Austin are speaking out.
51:14
Speaker 6: It would mean a lot to me, but mainly I'd
51:17
Speaker 6: like it for my dad, because I mean, we don't know,
51:20
Speaker 6: you know, It's just just imagine if this was your father,
51:26
Speaker 6: I do think, or whoever's out there, this is something
51:30
Speaker 6: you don't want to go to the grave with and
51:32
Speaker 6: just at the very least figure out how this fire
51:35
Speaker 6: got started and how my grandpa ended up into the
51:38
Speaker 6: garage where we'd just like to know some of those
51:41
Speaker 6: facts and there's someone out there who could probably fill
51:45
Speaker 6: those gaps for us.
51:47
Speaker 2: Only about thirty five thousand people live in Taos County
51:50
Speaker 2: full time. It's a small community. Everybody knows everybody, and
51:53
Speaker 2: many are related by blood or marriage. It's also a
51:56
Speaker 2: major tourist destination, and officials are hesitant to highlight issues
52:00
Speaker 2: that might scare away that revenue. Kevin understands how these
52:04
Speaker 2: factors make it less likely that someone will speak up,
52:07
Speaker 2: but he nonetheless pleaded for that someone to come forward.
52:11
Speaker 3: This could have been your father, this could have been
52:13
Speaker 3: your brother, this could have been your uncle, And if
52:17
Speaker 3: that happened.
52:17
Speaker 4: To your family, you would want to know. You'd want
52:20
Speaker 4: to know what happened. That's all I want to know
52:23
Speaker 4: is I want to have closure.
52:24
Speaker 3: I want to know what happened to my dad. I
52:26
Speaker 3: want to know was he tortured? Was he unconscious when
52:30
Speaker 3: he burned.
52:31
Speaker 2: There is nothing left of the house doctor Young and
52:34
Speaker 2: his family built just outside Taos, New Mexico. It's just
52:37
Speaker 2: an empty lot, surrounded by the sagebrush and sand that make.
52:41
Speaker 5: Up the high Desert plateau.
52:43
Speaker 2: Most of the artifacts he collected are gone, consumed by
52:46
Speaker 2: the same fire that ended his life. But while the
52:49
Speaker 2: physical remnant of his life and work is no more,
52:52
Speaker 2: his legacy lives on, and the people he taught, the
52:55
Speaker 2: record of his archaeological finds, and his grandson, who now
52:59
Speaker 2: earns a live sharing his passion for the outdoors with others?
53:03
Speaker 2: Is that where you, Austen got your love of hunting
53:07
Speaker 2: and your passion for it? Is you know, your grandfather
53:11
Speaker 2: and your father taking out and doing that stuff.
53:14
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, there's no question.
53:17
Speaker 6: I don't know how I slipped into the profession of guiding,
53:21
Speaker 6: but it just was kind of out of desperation and
53:25
Speaker 6: thinking what do I actually love doing? And it just
53:28
Speaker 6: came down to hunting and fishing. That's what I really
53:31
Speaker 6: like doing, and that's what they introduced me to. So
53:34
Speaker 6: I think about it quite often how lucky I am
53:37
Speaker 6: to have been introduced to something like that, and that's
53:40
Speaker 6: probably the only way that I am doing what I'm doing.
53:44
Speaker 7: And just so you know, stoked for what we got
53:48
Speaker 7: going on, very lucky.
53:56
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If
53:59
Speaker 2: you have any information about this case, no matter how minor,
54:02
Speaker 2: send me an email at blood Trails at themeeater dot com.
54:06
Speaker 2: I'll make sure it gets to the right place. As
54:08
Speaker 2: a reminder, doctor John Young's house burned down on January seventh,
54:13
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, on Merlow Road, about five miles north of Taos,
54:17
Speaker 2: New Mexico. If you'd like to see images of doctor Young,
54:21
Speaker 2: Kevin and Austin and the burned wreckage of that Adobe home.
54:24
Speaker 2: Head on over to the meeeater dot com slash Blood Trails.
54:29
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to say that this is the last episode
54:32
Speaker 2: of season two. Thank you so much for listening and
54:35
Speaker 2: for all the positive feedback. I'm humbled to be able
54:38
Speaker 2: to share these stories, but I definitely don't do it alone.
54:41
Speaker 2: I've seen quite a few comments praising the production quality
54:44
Speaker 2: of this season. For that, you have Jake Birch to
54:47
Speaker 2: thank for the sound design and Ben McGonnell to thank
54:50
Speaker 2: for the video. They do an incredible job and if
54:53
Speaker 2: you haven't had a chance to watch the YouTube version
54:55
Speaker 2: of Blood Trails, you're really missing Outriva Hanson continues to
54:59
Speaker 2: work Wonders behind the scenes, making sure each episode comes
55:02
Speaker 2: out on time, and managing the new Blood Trails account
55:05
Speaker 2: on Instagram. Give it a follow if you haven't. Lastly,
55:09
Speaker 2: but certainly not leastly, this podcast would not be nearly
55:12
Speaker 2: as good without the feedback and encouragement of my wife, Hannah.
55:17
Speaker 2: If you like this podcast, you better hope we never.
55:19
Speaker 5: Get a divorce. Love you, babe.
55:22
Speaker 2: I'm already working on season three, which we'll be releasing
55:25
Speaker 2: this fall. I'm also working on a special mini series
55:28
Speaker 2: we'll publish this summer, and if there are any major
55:30
Speaker 2: updates in the cases we've covered so far, we'll release
55:33
Speaker 2: standalone episodes to make sure you're notified whenever we post
55:36
Speaker 2: something new. Be sure to follow Blood Trails on your
55:39
Speaker 2: favorite podcast platform or on YouTube. See you next time.
55:44
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there.