Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Trevor Deely Pt. One

Transcript

Trevor Deely Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:25
Welcome back to the Pathway, Jillie, I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
0:30
I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. December eighth, two
0:36
thousand, Dublin, Ireland. After spending a rainy evening at a staff Christmas
0:42
party, twenty two year old Trevor Deeley walks to his place of employment,
0:47
the Bank of Ireland Asset Management headquarters. Trevor chats with a coworker and grabs
0:53
an umbrella, but after leaving the building and passing by nearby atm he never
0:59
arrives at his apartartment and is not heard from again. CCTV footage would show
1:03
a man dressed in black coming into contact with Trevor that night, but no
1:08
one knows if this had any connection with his disappearance, and no trace of
1:12
Trevor is ever found after that. The path went Chile. So today the
1:19
Pathway Chile will be covering what is our first case from Ireland, the two
1:23
thousand disappearance of Trevor Deey. In fact, this may be the most famous
1:27
and puzzling missing person's case in the history of that country. This is one
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of those haunting disappearances in which there is existing footage of the victim's last no
1:37
movements before they seemingly vanished into thin air. Trevor Deeley was a young employee
1:42
with the Bank of Ireland Asset Management who stayed up late attending a staff Christmas
1:47
party, but shortly after three thirty am, he decided to stop by his
1:52
workplace before heading back to his apartment. However, Trevor never arrived, and
1:56
even though investigators turned up footage of him walking past a seat ECTV camera at
2:00
an ATM on his route home, what happened to him next is anyone's guess.
2:06
For over two decades, one of the biggest leads in this case was
2:08
a mysterious individual known only as the man in Black, who was seen briefly
2:14
chatting with Trevor when he stopped by his workplace. Forty minutes later, CCTV
2:19
footage captured a man in black walking past the same ATM camera almost immediately after
2:23
Trevor did, but investigators cannot be certain if this was the same man who
2:29
was previously seen chatting with Trevor, or if he had any involvement in his
2:32
disappearance. I originally covered this one on the trail went cold nearly six years
2:37
ago, but there has been a recent development in the case, so I
2:40
thought we should revisit it. On the Pathway Chile. This is one of
2:45
those cases that has so much of an eerie vibe to it that you have
2:49
Trevor who's at a Christmas party for his business and then he is saying,
2:53
Hey, I'm going to stop by work for some reason at three point thirty
2:58
and encounters a man in black, Robin, can you tell me more about
3:02
is this guy inside his employment place? Is he seen outside talking to him?
3:08
Yeah, he's seen outside the gates of the headquarters talking to Trevor before
3:13
he walks away. And then, as we're going to talk about later,
3:15
forty minutes after Trevor leaves, you see another man in black walking past the
3:21
same CCTV camera that Trevor passed by. So the wondering was this the same
3:25
man who was outside the bank and could he have been following Trevor and is
3:29
he the reason that Trevor disappeared. It's so bizarre because if it is the
3:34
same man, it's almost when you think about the timing. It's three point
3:38
thirty in the morning after a Christmas party and this man in black is talking
3:42
to him outside his place of employment. My question in the back of my
3:45
head is is it someone from work or someone who's familiar with him being at
3:49
work and comes to, let's say, talk to him or confront him,
3:52
because they also had just left the Christmas party and then they follow him where
3:55
he's going. Yeah, because that's the weird thing is that no one should
4:00
have known that Trevor was going to stop by his workplace at that hour of
4:03
the morning, because they should have automatically assumed he would just head straight home
4:06
from the party. So if that's the case, how did this man know
4:11
he was going to be there and could he have followed him or is it
4:13
just a coincidence that he happened to be there and he has no connection to
4:16
the case. Our story begins in Ireland in two thousand and Our central figure
4:23
is twenty two year old Trevor Deey. Trevor originally hails from the town of
4:28
Noss and was born to parents Michael and Anne Dealey. He is the youngest
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of their four siblings and has an older brother and two sisters. Trevor now
4:38
lives in Dublin, sharing an apartment with two female flatmates and is employed at
4:43
the headquarters of the Bank of Ireland Asset Management, more commonly known as the
4:46
BIAM. He works for their IT department and by all accounts, is considered
4:53
a model employee with a strong work ethic and is well liked by everyone who
4:57
knows him. In November this year, Trevor left on vacation for a lengthy
5:01
trip to Alaska before he returned to work on Wednesday, December sixth. The
5:06
following evening, he attended a staff Christmas party, which involved traveling to multiple
5:13
locations with his coworkers. They started off by attending a reception at a club
5:17
called Copper Face Jacks, before they moved to a Hilton hotel on Charlemont Place
5:21
for the main party. After remaining there for several hours, they decided to
5:27
go to a nightclub on Leeson Street called Buck Whaley's, and of course,
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Trevor and coworkers consumed a lot of alcohol throughout the course of the night.
5:35
At around three twenty five am on December eighth, Trevor left the nightclub and
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initially planned to walk back to his apartment, but there was a heavy rainstorm
5:46
taking place with very high winds. Since a taxi driver's strike was taking place
5:50
in Dublin and there were no cabs available. Trevor decided to walk to his
5:55
workplace, the Bank of Ireland Asset Management headquarters at Wilton Terrace, as it
6:00
was located only a couple of minutes away. At this time of night.
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The building's rear gate would have ordinarily been locked and had a chain on it,
6:10
but the security guard had removed the chain a few minutes earlier in order
6:13
to receive a delivery, so Trevor was able to unlock the gate and let
6:16
himself inside. By the time he entered the building, Trevor was completely drenched
6:21
with rain, but he logged onto his computer to send out an email before
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meeting up with Carl Pender, a coworker who was working the overnight shipt.
6:30
The two of them had coffee and chatted together in the staff canteen, and
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even though Carl would describe Trevor as being a bit tipsy, he did not
6:38
believe he was heavily intoxicated. Trevor's main reason for visiting the office was to
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borrow one of the corporate golf umbrellas they kept lying around, which he could
6:46
carry when he completed his walk home in the rain. After grabbing the umbrella,
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Trevor exited the building at four two am. Shortly thereafter, Trebor used
6:56
his mobile phone to leave a quick voicemail for a friend. This would turn
7:00
out to be the last time anyone ever heard from him. Trevor failed to
7:03
show up for work later that day, which seemed very uncharacteristic, but this
7:08
did not immediately raise any alarm bells given that it was a Friday and Trevor
7:12
had been out drinking the night before. However, and Trevor failed to show
7:15
up for work again on Monday, December of the eleventh, this caused great
7:19
concern. Nobody had made any contact with Trevor over the weekend, and all
7:24
calls to his cell phone went unanswered. When his family went to visit his
7:28
apartment, there was no answer at the door. Since Trevor's flatmates had been
7:32
out of town on holiday, it could not be confirmed if he actually made
7:35
it back to his apartment after leaving BIAM headquarters. Trevor was subsequently reported missing
7:42
to the Guardee, which, in case you're not aware, is the official
7:46
name of Ireland's police force. This became one of the most high profile missing
7:49
persons cases in the history of the country. The Daley family would perform a
7:54
relentless search for Trevor, and thousands of leaflets and missing persons posters were distributed
7:59
by the use. This is everything lines up to be just this almost catastrophic
8:05
storm for him, no pun intending because it's pouring down rain. But he's
8:07
going to say, I know there's umbrellas at work. I'm going to try
8:11
to get into work, catch my breath, get an umbrella. He sits
8:15
and has coffee with his coworker. But those back gates they just happen to
8:20
be unlocked, which let him enter from that way. Is that where he's
8:24
going to encounter this man in black before going into his workplace or is it
8:28
after he leaves his workplace? Yeah, we're gonna discuss this momentarily, but
8:31
it's before he walks into the workplace. And what's going to happen is that
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Trevor goes inside and the CCTV foot it shows this guy walking out of frame
8:39
and no one knows what happens to him or if he did return by the
8:43
time Trevor left. See that's so bizarre. So this the events just line
8:48
up in a way that he really should have never been able to go through
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those back rear gates or be back there, except the security guard had received
8:56
this package or a delivery. And also there's a security are sitting there.
9:00
Does he not know anything? Apparently not. I haven't heard anything more about
9:05
the guard, but I presume that they question him. And that's the thing
9:07
is that Trevor, they will confirm that he left the bank and walked a
9:11
couple of blocks, So whatever did happen to him did not happen at the
9:16
bank, So perhaps the guard's testimony is completely irrelevant. Was it typical or
9:20
characteristic for the banks to have people doing overnight shifts? I think it's because
9:26
he worked in the IT apartment, So I have to assume that they had
9:30
to watch over the servers. I mean, I have a friend like that
9:33
who had a job where she would have to go into offices and work all
9:35
night just to mind the servers. And it was one of those jobs where
9:39
most of the time you're just sitting doing nothing. All you have to do
9:41
is just watch over it in case anything goes wrong. So I'm guessing that
9:46
maybe Carl Pender might have been the only person working there at that time,
9:50
and Trevor thought, well, since my friend's there, it'll be okay for
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me to grab an umbrella and I can chat with him for a while.
9:56
One of the first steps in the investigation involved check the footage from the CCTV
10:01
cameras located outside BIAM headquarters, which would turn up a very intriguing clue.
10:07
Starting at three h five am, the CCTV footage would show an unidentified man
10:13
dressed in black standing by a pillar next to the rear gates, and for
10:18
reasons unknown, he remained there for nearly half an hour. But then at
10:22
three point thirty four, after the man appeared to be receiving a quick call
10:26
on his cell phone, Trevor arrived and walked past him. At the time,
10:31
Trevor was talking on his cell phone with Carl Pender, so he never
10:35
acknowledged the man in black, but then the man immediately started following Trevor.
10:41
Now there was a separate camera overlooking a second rear gate behind the building,
10:46
which was twenty feet away from the first one. Twenty seconds after Trevor passed
10:50
the man in black, the CCTV footage from the second camera would show this
10:56
man walking ahead of Trevor before he came to a stop near the second gate,
11:01
which seemed to indicate that he passed Trevor during that brief window of time
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after Trevor finished his phone call, the two men appeared to engage in a
11:09
brief conversation before Trevor unlocked the gate and walked into the building. According to
11:15
Carl Pender, Trevor never mentioned anything about his conversation with the man in black
11:18
during the time they chatted. A few minutes after Trevor went inside, the
11:24
man walked across the road out of frame and could no longer be seen when
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Trevor left the building and exited through the gate at four h two. So
11:33
that kind of blows my idea that maybe this was someone from the party who
11:35
had followed him there. He had actually been at the gate prior to Trevor
11:41
coming and is almost lingering there before almost having this interaction where he wants to
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get Trevor's attention or ask him something, or see where Trevor's going. Is
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it possible that this person is like just trying to seek shelter in the really
11:56
bad weather, and like maybe they're hoping that somehow saw one's going to come
12:00
along and they're going to be able to catch a ride. That might be
12:03
possible because maybe that was the conversation he had with Trevor. Can I follow
12:07
you into this place and I can get shelter, But I'm sure Trevor said
12:11
no, this is a secure banking facility. I can't let strangers inside,
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and that's why he walked away, and Trevor just thought, well, this
12:18
interaction is not worth mentioning to Carl. But yeah, I don't think he
12:22
was specifically targeting Trevor because he was there a half hour earlier, and there's
12:26
no way he could have predicted that Trevor would decide to stop by his workplace
12:30
at that time of night. And maybe the call he received on his cell
12:33
phone was somebody who's coming to pick him up, and then that's why he
12:35
left right around the same time as Trevor. That is possible he could have
12:39
gone to a spot where there were no cameras and was picked up out of
12:43
frame. So after Trevor left BIAM headquarters, he would be captured one more
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time by CCTV cameras. At four fourteen am, CCTV footage showed Trevor passing
12:54
by an ATM at a branch of the Bank of Ireland located at the corner
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of Addington Road and Baggett Street Bridge. This was approximately a fifteen minute walk
13:03
away from Trevor's apartment in Ballsbridge, but no one knows what happened to him
13:09
afterward. However, thirty seconds after Trevor disappeared out of frame, the CCTV
13:13
footage showed a man dressed in black passing by the ATM and heading him the
13:18
same direction, But since the footage was not very clear, no one could
13:22
be certain if this was the same man in black scene standing outside BIAM headquarters
13:28
over a half hour earlier. Even though a public plea was sent out for
13:31
this man to come forward, no one ever did. It's thirty seconds after
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he passes by. If it is the same man, that man went across
13:39
the street and out a frame and waited for Trevor and then is getting incredibly
13:45
close on his tail when he's only fifteen minutes away from his house. It
13:48
is also possible it's not the same person. But in a pouring down rainstorm
13:54
at four fourteen in the morning, what are the chances that you have two
13:58
men all dressed in black? Trevor at the same time. It's a taxi
14:03
strike though, and it seems like they're in an area where there's lots of
14:05
pubs and bars, so it is possible. Oh yeah, definitely, like
14:11
circumstances were different, and doublin at that because of the taxi strike and how
14:15
we're going to talk about. That's just one of the many pieces of bad
14:18
luck for Trevor, because if there hadn't been a strike, he just would
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have taken a cab home and none of this would have happened. The CCTV
14:26
camera at the ATM captured Trevor right after he'd crossed Baggett Street Bridge, which
14:31
overlooks the Grand Canal, so authorities looked into the possibility that Trevor could have
14:37
fallen off the bridge into the water and drowned. A thorough search was performed
14:41
of the canal, along with the other waterways connected to it, but it
14:46
turned up no trace of Trevor's body. According to the head of the GUARDIESE
14:50
sub Awquay unit, who performed a search, if Trevor had fallen into the
14:56
canal, he almost certainly would have been found, but since Trevor had already
15:00
crossed the bridge the last time he was seen on the CCTV footage. Why
15:05
would he have turned around and gone in the opposite direction. The authorities also
15:09
searched the River Dowterer, another body of water Trevor would have had to cross
15:13
on his route back to his apartment, but nothing was found there either.
15:18
In fact, the umbrella Trevor was carrying could also not be found, nor
15:22
were any of his personal items, including his mobile phone. Trevor's sister,
15:26
Michelle, had called his phone at least four times over the weekend after he
15:31
disappeared, even though her calls started going straight to voicemail on Monday, December
15:35
eleventh, Michelle seemed to recall that the phone still rang when she attempted to
15:41
reach Trevor over the weekend. This is very concerning because if he had been
15:46
let's say, he had been attacked on the street, I don't think that
15:50
he would have been able to maintain that umbrella in his hands, and I
15:54
don't think an attacker would have scooped up that umbrella to get it to go
15:58
with Trevor's body or with Trevor same thing with his cell phone. If he
16:03
was he you saw him talking on his cell phone a couple times that night.
16:07
If he was holding his phone and got into an altercation, he probably
16:11
would have dropped it and it would have stayed in that location. Those are
16:14
things that are visible. Someone would have seen them and been able to link
16:18
them back to Trevor after he had been reporting missing. But it's almost like
16:22
he either got picked up or he went home and left again. But there's
16:27
no sign of that. It's very It just doesn't allude to the fact that
16:33
this person's following him and then would attack him on the street. We don't
16:36
see anything of Trevor's do you guys think too that, like you would necessarily
16:41
see a scene from a struggle. Because this was the year two thousand,
16:45
I think that people would be more apt to scoop up a cell phone that
16:49
they found on the street because pass codes weren't what they are today, and
16:53
you'd be more likely to be able to unlock that phone and use it or
16:56
sell it. So somebody might just come across a phone on the ground and
17:02
they're not going to assume that somebody's been abducted. They're just going to think,
17:04
oh, someone dropped their phone mine. Now, yeah, that's what
17:08
I'm picking as well, and it's possible, like if Ashley's theory is true
17:14
that maybe he accepted a ride for someone, then he would have taken the
17:17
umbrella and his phone into the car with them, and whoever had them could
17:22
have disposed of them at a later time, and that explains why they're not
17:25
kind found lying on the ground somewhere. But your theory is apt as well
17:29
that it's possible that if he did drop it, someone could have just scooped
17:32
it up and took it with them, because it was a couple of days
17:34
before anyone even noticed that Trevor was missing. I suppose the same thing with
17:40
the umbrella too. If it's a pouring rainstorm and you come across an open
17:42
umbrella lying on the ground and no one's around, Shoot, I guess I'll
17:45
just take it and use it. Yeah, exactly, especially if you don't
17:48
have an umbrella. I think there's just like so many hidden variables here that
17:53
either option sounds like a good option, given the fact that we've got so
17:56
little information at this point. So interestingly enough, if Trevor had continued on
18:03
his route home, it would have required him to walk down Northumberland Road,
18:07
an area known as the Embassy Belt, since it houses the embassy buildings for
18:11
the United States, Italy, and the Czech Republic. During his initial search
18:15
for Trevor on December of the eleventh, his brother Mark Daley spoke to one
18:18
of the guards standing outside the US Embassy and learned that President Bill Clinton would
18:23
be visiting the following day. According to the guard, the entire surrounding area
18:29
was thoroughly inspected over the weekend by the President's advanced security team in order to
18:33
prepare for his impending visit. This involved searching all existing trash bins and manholes,
18:38
and nothing was found to suggest foul play had recently occurred there. In
18:42
other words, if something happened to Trevor on his route home and his body
18:47
was hidden anywhere in the surrounding area, the security team likely would have found
18:51
it. However, a potential problem is that, since Trevor had not yet
18:55
been reported missing at the time this security suite was performed, the team destroyed
19:00
potential evidence without even realizing it. That's very scary that you would have such
19:06
a massive event like the President of the United States coming and you have his
19:10
security team doing a thorough investigation of the area to make sure that it's safe.
19:15
But if they don't know what to look for, Robin, you nailed
19:17
it, how would they actually protect information or data or things that they're not
19:22
even aware that they should be looking for. Right, it wouldn't be contextually
19:26
relevant to them at the time. But I'm leaning towards this idea that maybe
19:32
he did get an offer for a ride, like, hey man, where
19:34
are you going? Just you know, three blocks that way? Well,
19:37
hop in, this is crazy. The rains too, you know, is
19:41
too strong right now, hop in and let us give you a ride,
19:44
and then he doesn't make it home. If he had gone home with wet
19:47
clothes and change his clothes and then decided to leave again, you'd think there'd
19:51
be some sign that he had been there. He had been traveling for three
19:55
weeks prior to coming home the night before, so you would think something indicate
20:00
to his flatmates that he had come home from the party. What he had
20:03
been wearing at the party would have likely been changed and on his bed or
20:07
in the dirty clothes, because he would have changed out of the wet clothes,
20:11
So it doesn't seem like he actually made it through those doors. And
20:17
as long as the person was charismatic enough and not scary. You wouldn't need
20:23
to struggle with him to get him in the vehicle. All you'd have to
20:26
do, like you said, is offer, hey, do you want to
20:29
ride, and barring the person doesn't look like they'd be a serial killer,
20:33
I think most people in that situation, given the options or lack thereof,
20:40
would go Okay, yeah, like this sounds like a good option. And
20:44
so yeah, it's entirely possible that somebody was just opportunistic and came across Trevor.
20:49
Yeah, that certainly is possible. And getting back to Ashley's point,
20:52
they never did find any evidence that Trevor made it to his apartment. I
20:56
mean, I suppose it's possible because his flatmates were out for the week,
21:00
so they would never be able to confirm or deny it. But like you
21:03
said, they never found any clothing laying around to indicate that he changed and
21:07
I don't think they found any evidence that he had used his key or anything
21:11
like that. And I'm sure he would have been captured if there were any
21:14
other CCTV cameras in the vicinity of his apartment. So yeah, I agree,
21:18
he probably never made it there. There would be no major developments in
21:22
the case during the next several years, and it seemed like Trevor had just
21:26
vanished into thin air. In twenty seventeen, a forensic enhancement was done to
21:32
the CCTV footage of Trevor in hopes of getting a better glimpse of the mysterious
21:37
man in black seen standing outside the gates of the BIAM headquarters, as well
21:41
as the man seen walking thirty seconds behind Trevor when he passed by the ATM.
21:47
But even after the enhancement, investigators could not conclusively determine if both men
21:52
were the same person. In spite of this, one hundred thousand dollars euro
21:56
reward, which had been provided by an anonymous donor, was offered for information
22:03
well in August of that year, the Guardie announced that they had received a
22:07
promising new lead and were performing an extensive search a three acre wooded site in
22:11
the Chapel Lizard area of South Dublin, located approximately eight kilometers from where Trevor
22:18
was last seen. An informant had come forward with information alleging that a member
22:22
of a well known criminal family from the Krumlin suburb had confessed to him about
22:26
shooting Trevor before burying his body inside a Draine and Chapel lizard. This man's
22:33
story was that Trevor had been beaten and put inside the trunk of a car
22:37
before he was brought to a house and threatened a gunpoint. Apparently the person
22:41
responsible was just trying to scare Trevor and didn't have any intention of killing him.
22:45
But the gun discharged and Trevor was shot dead by accident. Okay,
22:51
what's interesting is that they have this come out after they show the CCTV footage.
22:56
There's this link and there's a reward, right obviously, but there's this
23:00
link that the informant is saying, Oh, I know what happened to this
23:03
kid? Do we think it has anything to do with the man in black?
23:07
Or do we think it's more motivation from the reward even if it's not
23:11
true information. Well, I was going to talk about the informant actually said
23:14
that he didn't care about the reward, that he only wanted to do the
23:18
right thing and provide a resolution for a Trevor's family, even though they never
23:22
found any evidence to support a story. So, looking at the media coverage
23:26
from twenty seventeen, I do think that police took this guy seriously, but
23:30
they just didn't find any evidence. So the suspect was not publicly named,
23:36
but the GUARDI confirmed that he had an extensive criminal history in the drug trade
23:40
and some of his associates were alleged to have been involved in running street prostitution
23:44
in the Begott Street area around the time of Trevor's disappearance. It's worth noting
23:48
that in June of nineteen ninety eight, a twenty one year old sex worker
23:52
named Shanade Kelly have been stabbed fourteen times and her body was found on the
23:56
banks of the Grand Canal off Begatt Street, close to where Trevor was last
24:00
seen. Well. It's believed that Kelly was murdered on the orders of a
24:04
drug dealeror she owed money to. There was never enough evidence to make a
24:08
rest and her murder officially remains unsolved. The informant who came forward with the
24:14
information about Trevor claimed he was not interested in the one hundred thousand euro reward,
24:18
but just wanted to clear his guilty conscience. The guard he spent six
24:22
weeks searching and excavated the site at Chapel Lizard but failed to turn up any
24:27
evidence that Trevor had been buried there. But at an odd turn of events,
24:32
a handgun and a consignment of heroin and cocaine worth over eighty thousand euros
24:37
was found buried at the site. It's believed that the location had been used
24:41
as a stash area for criminals, but authorities do not think the gun or
24:45
the drugs have anything to do with Trevor's case. Let me ask you this,
24:49
do we know if Trevor has any recreational use of drugs or would have
24:55
had a reason to run into people who are involved in this criminal enterprise?
25:00
Anyone knows of Like everyone said that he was just like a good guy who
25:03
always stayed out of trouble, and even if he did like drugs, it
25:07
probably was something more like marijuana. And he does not strike me as someone
25:11
who had an interest in hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. So I mean,
25:15
I guess it's anything. Anything's possible. He could have bumped into someone
25:18
to try to purchase drugs out the street, but if he did have an
25:22
interest in that, he kept it well hidden well. On the twenty three
25:27
year anniversary of Trevor's disappearance. Only a few days before we recorded this episode,
25:33
there would be a significant announcement the mysterious man in black seen walking past
25:37
the ATM camera had finally been identified. Details are vague about how this happened,
25:45
but the Guardie once again attempted a forensic enhancement of all the CCTV footage
25:49
from the case and hired the services of a UK based company who specialized in
25:55
this. They apparently did such a good job at enhancing the quality of the
25:59
footage that investigators were able to identify the man in black. His name has
26:03
not been released publicly, but after reinterviewing him, the GUARDI officially ruled him
26:07
out as a suspect. They do not believe he was involved in Trevor's disappearance
26:12
and it was nothing more than a coincidence that he just happened to pass by
26:17
the ATM camera shortly about thirty seconds after Trevor did. But what's particularly frustrating
26:22
is that this man apparently provided a statement to the GUARDI during the early stages
26:27
of the investigation, so they did have his name on file, but for
26:30
whatever reason, this information seemed to be overlooked and forgotten about for two decades.
26:37
That is incredibly frustrating. One of the things that I find so fascinating
26:42
when I'm in when i'm working cold cases or i'm helping and I'm looking through
26:48
case files, is I'll say, hey, did anyone link this piece of
26:49
material to this piece of material? And it's the idea that there's so much
26:55
information but also no information at all, that it's very difficult to provide any
27:00
kind of organization or structured to a case file. Right There's things that you
27:04
don't logically link to events that there's no context to put them in. And
27:10
so when I would go back years later, coming with a fresh perspective,
27:15
not having any kind of preconceived ideas, not having talked to witnesses or interviewed
27:21
family or anything like that, if you're just looking at the file years later,
27:25
you are able to see different things. If more information has been learned,
27:29
you're able to start to connect those puzzle pieces. But at the moment
27:33
when you have we really don't even know where Trevor is. There's probably so
27:37
many tips and leads and interviews and witnesses. It sounds maddening that there'd be
27:42
no link, but it is very hard to say how do you make those
27:45
links when there's so little to actually pull together a story. I don't know
27:51
if that makes sense, but it's daunting. There's tiny, tiny bits of
27:53
breadcrumbs everywhere, and when you step back years later, sometimes you can build
27:59
those breadcrumbs into something, But at the time it just seems like, just
28:02
drop it in the file, Just drop it in the file, And so
28:04
so many things do get overlooked like this. Well, this sort of thing
28:08
does happen a lot like An infamous example of this from recent years is the
28:12
Delphi murders, where the man they've arrested for the crime, Richard Allen,
28:17
it turned out he had spoken to I think a Forest services officer on the
28:19
day of the murders, placing himself in the area during the time period of
28:23
the crime. But his statement was kept in a file for something like five
28:27
years before anyone took a fresh look at it, and it finally paved the
28:30
way to his arrest. And this may be a thing here, where this
28:34
guy gave a statement just saying he was in the area, it was forgotten
28:37
about, and while the details are vague, I guess maybe when they looked
28:41
at the footage, somebody put two and two together. Maybe they thought,
28:45
hey, he kind of looks like this guy I remember, and then they
28:48
found this guy's name in the file, They reinterviewed him, and then finally
28:52
ruled him out as being involved in Trevor's disappearance. Now, thanks to the
28:56
forensic enhancement of the CCTV footage, investigators were finally able to determine with absolute
29:03
certainty that the man in black scene passing by the ATM camera was not the
29:08
same man in black captured in CCTV footage outside BIAM headquarters when Trevor arrived there
29:15
at three thirty five am. This man has still never been identified, and
29:19
while there's nothing to indicate that he was involved in Trevor's disappearance, investigators would
29:25
still like to track him down and question him so he can at least be
29:27
ruled out as a suspect. Trevor's family have described the identification of the second
29:33
man in black as a quote unquote bittersweet moment, because even though it answered
29:37
one of the case's biggest questions, it essentially brought the investigation back to square
29:42
one. If this man did not play any role in Trevor's disappearance, then
29:47
what actually happened to him. Well, after twenty three years, he continues
29:51
to remain a missing person, So I guess you could say the path went
29:56
chilly. What is really interesting is that first man actually doesn't doesn't have as
30:03
strong of a tie to Trevor as the second man in black, because remember,
30:08
he's the one who actually sees Trevor prior to Trevor going into his workplace
30:14
to have a cup of coffee to send that email, and then that man
30:18
leaves the frame of the closed circuit television and so when you are looking at
30:23
the man at the ATM machine, that's somebody who might have been one of
30:27
the very last humans to actually see Trevor. And so, as frustrating as
30:33
it is that we don't know who that first man in black is, knowing
30:37
that he's not the same person as the man in black at the ATM machine
30:41
almost makes him kind of pointless in my mind. It is true because there
30:47
is technically no other CCTV footage of this first man in black, because if
30:51
he had been the same man walking past the ATM camera, you could think,
30:55
well, he was hanging around outside waiting for Trevor to leave, and
30:59
then he followed him all the way to that spot. But now that we
31:02
know that the guy at the ATM was a completely different person with no connection
31:06
to the guy at the bank, then yeah, it does seem that he's
31:08
pretty much a red herring. But they at least one who identify him and
31:12
questioning him, so they could be one hundred percent certain he was not involved,
31:17
or at least be certain that he didn't see anything suspicious which could shed
31:19
light on Trevor's disappearance. So Trevor Deely's disappearance is definitely a prime example of
31:26
the most baffling type of missing person's case in which there is virtually no evidence
31:30
to work with, and it's easy to see why this has become one of
31:33
the most famous mysteries in the history of Ireland. If I had to name
31:37
some American missing person's cases which were equivalent to this one, the best examples
31:42
I could think of are the disappearances of Brian Schaefer and Brandon Swanson. Much
31:48
like Trevor's story, both of these cases involved young men who went out for
31:52
a night of drinking and partying and then just vanished off the face of the
31:56
earth. What's particularly frustrating here is how differently things could have turned out for
32:00
Trevor if not for a series of unfortunate circumstances. For instance, if there
32:06
hadn't been a taxi strike in Dublin, Trevor simply could have taken a cab
32:09
home that night and arrived safely. If it wasn't for the massive rainstorm,
32:14
Trevor may not have felt the need to take a detour to his workplace to
32:16
grab an umbrella. If his two flatmates were out of town on holiday at
32:21
that time, then an entire weekend might not have passed without anyone noticing that
32:25
Trevor was missing. The Daily family are one of the most proactive families when
32:30
it comes to keeping their missing loved ones case in the spotlight, and you
32:34
have to feel immense sympathy for them. Oh, that's the it's the one
32:38
of the saddest things you have witnessed. I think when you look at these
32:40
cases, you know, for people listening to a podcast or people watching a
32:45
TV show, it's it's interesting and kind of entertaining to hear case details that
32:51
don't have any kind of personal connection to you and wondering about the human nature
32:54
behind those. But when you're a family living in it. You don't get
32:58
to turn the computer off or your phone off or the TV off. This
33:01
is constant for you. And in Trevor's case, because he's a missing person,
33:07
they're dealing with immense questions. What if he's still alive. Could he
33:13
be hurt right now? Could he be looking for us? Could we be
33:15
doing more right to make sure he knows where we are? Could he be
33:20
dead right? There's no answers for them, And so instead of just having
33:24
to grieve the missing nature of their son, they now also have to take
33:30
on roles as investigators and media personnel and you know, the sleuths themselves,
33:37
or at least public relations experts themselves, when that's not really part of the
33:43
grieving process, right. It stops them from being able to find peace and
33:47
take a deep breath in these moments. And so I feel so sad for
33:52
the idea that they have to be doing this if they want Trevor to stay
33:57
relevant. And yet it's one of the most exhausting and devas stating things that
34:00
a family can be forced to do in the midst of also trying to grieve
34:04
and heal and have any sense of normalcy in their lives. Well, you've
34:08
spoken to us about this before, ash with your experience working with cold case
34:13
detectives, that it's the families that you know are there and they're reminding the
34:19
detectives, and they're reminding law enforcement, and they're going to the media,
34:22
and they're being really loud about it. They're the ones, unless you know,
34:28
the circumstances where it's a very affluent family or something like that. But
34:31
if you've got a family that is really loud, they're going to get more
34:35
attention than somebody that sits back. So that puts an unfair burden on a
34:39
family to continually be reminding everybody about the case, when you'd hope that there
34:46
would just be an equal amount of investigation with regards to these cases across the
34:51
board, but unfortunately that just doesn't seem to be what happens. That's exactly
34:55
right, I mean, the reality is is that officers can only work a
35:00
case so hard. Detectives can only work so hard. But if they don't
35:04
have a lead, if they don't have information to go on, they're going
35:08
to go and look at the squeaky wheel that needs the grease. If they
35:13
don't have a piece of evidence to chase in any other case, and they
35:17
have a mother or a father or a sister who's begging them on a daily
35:21
basis to please give them an update. Please look into this, Please pay
35:25
attention to me. When I have the time and I'm not sidetracked by something
35:30
with a more promising piece of evidence, I am going to go to the
35:34
people who are begging me and I form a connection with It's a human nature
35:37
that's just natural. And as an aside, at the time we're recording this,
35:42
I've done a bunch of trail in Cold episodes about cases that took place
35:45
at Christmas that are still unsolved to this day. And recurring theme that I've
35:50
seen with the families of these victims is they've said that every year around Christmas
35:53
they are no longer able to celebrate it or have fun because it's a constant
35:58
reminder of what happened to their missing or murdered loved one. And I think
36:00
that's probably the same thing with Trevor's case, because he happened to go missing,
36:05
like right before the Christmas holidays when they were going to spend some time
36:07
together. So every year around December, it's a very sad time for them,
36:12
and it's been going on now for twenty three consecutive years, so I
36:15
think this would be a good time to bring it in to part one.
36:19
But join us next week as we present part two of our series about the
36:22
disappearance of Trevor Deely. Robin, do you want to tell us a little
36:25
bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has
36:30
been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
36:35
early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you
36:39
cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you join our
36:43
five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I
36:49
talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed,
36:52
so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier tier three,
36:57
the ten dollars tier. One of the features were of is a audio
37:00
commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries, where you can download an audio
37:06
file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube
37:12
and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just
37:15
provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally,
37:21
the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was the episode featuring
37:24
this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I
37:29
make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier
37:32
three. So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jules
37:36
and Ashy patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili.
37:40
We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
37:44
so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into
37:46
a series, and we're really enjoying doing those. So we hope you'll check
37:50
out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes. So I want
37:53
to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us
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on social media with a friend or durrate and review is greatly appreciated. You
38:00
can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us
38:05
on Twitter at the Pathwink. So until next time, be sure to bundle
38:08
up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul
38:13
Rich from the podcast Cold Callers comedy,