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Patreon December Sampler: Patricia Meehan · The Path Went Chilly

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Pathwent Chili for this month's bonus
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Speaker 1: Patreon minisode I'm Robin, I'm Jules.
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Speaker 2: And I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this month's case.
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Speaker 3: April twentieth, nineteen eighty nine, McCone County, Montana. While driving
0:17
Speaker 3: on the wrong side of a rural highway, thirty seven
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Speaker 3: year old Patricia Mihan gets into a collision with another car.
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Speaker 3: After staring blankly at the other vehicle's driver, Patricia walks
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Speaker 3: out onto the prairie and disappears. During the next few months,
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Speaker 3: there would be numerous sightings of a disoriented woman resembling Patricia,
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Speaker 3: leading to speculation that the trauma of the car crash
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Speaker 3: caused her to develop amnesia and forget who she was,
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Speaker 3: But in spite of an extensive search, Patricia is never found.
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Speaker 1: After that The Path Went Chili. So today we are
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Speaker 1: going to be covering a case which was featured on
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Speaker 1: Unsolved Mysteries, the nineteen eighty nine disappearance of Patricia Mihan.
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Speaker 1: This is considered to be one of the most haunting
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Speaker 1: missing person's cases ever featured on the show because the
1:06
Speaker 1: victim vanished under such unusual circumstances. After getting into an
1:11
Speaker 1: accident with another car on a rural highway, Patricia Mihan
1:14
Speaker 1: approached the other driver and gave her a blank stare
1:17
Speaker 1: without saying anything, before she walked out onto an open prairie.
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Speaker 1: That in itself would be creepy enough, but what makes
1:24
Speaker 1: the situation even more unusual is that the accident took
1:27
Speaker 1: place nearly four hundred miles away from where Patricia lived,
1:31
Speaker 1: and no one knows what she was doing there. To
1:33
Speaker 1: begin with, it seemed apparent that Patricia was suffering from
1:36
Speaker 1: some serious mental health issues at that time, and there
1:39
Speaker 1: was fear that the accident may have caused her to
1:41
Speaker 1: lose her memory and forget who she was. However, that
1:44
Speaker 1: also meant there was a possibility she was still alive
1:47
Speaker 1: and aimlessly wandering around somewhere. While most missing persons cases
1:51
Speaker 1: have eyewitnessed sightings of the victim, the authorities in this
1:54
Speaker 1: particular case believed that the sightings of Patricia were very credible,
1:58
Speaker 1: so when the Unsaw Mystery segment originally aired, there was
2:01
Speaker 1: hope that Patricia might be watching the show and decide
2:04
Speaker 1: to come forward, but this never happened, and unfortunately, she
2:08
Speaker 1: has still never been found.
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Speaker 2: This one's really eerie because she's so far away from home.
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Speaker 2: Four hundred miles is an incredibly long distance. And then
2:16
Speaker 2: we know that she was also suffering with mental health
2:19
Speaker 2: issues prior to the car crash, So then once she's
2:22
Speaker 2: in this car crash, it does make sense that that
2:24
Speaker 2: could exacerbate or worsen those effects. And like you said, Robin,
2:29
Speaker 2: that it makes it probable that she was struggling and
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Speaker 2: couldn't remember maybe who she was. Maybe she's still alive
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Speaker 2: wandering around. But it also makes her an incredibly vulnerable
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Speaker 2: victim for someone who might encounter her realized that she's
2:43
Speaker 2: not kind of in her own faculty, she's disoriented. It
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Speaker 2: makes her very vulnerable to other people hurting her as well.
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Speaker 4: Robin, what was the case we just covered.
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Speaker 3: The name is eluding me right now, and it was
2:55
Speaker 3: the one where it was a truck driver and we
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Speaker 3: theorized maybe there was a mental health condition, but he
3:00
Speaker 3: walked off into the woods and he was never found.
3:04
Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that was Devin Williams. And he was a guy
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Speaker 1: who was going on a cross country truck trip because
3:09
Speaker 1: he was a truck driver, but then came into this
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Speaker 1: forest in Arizona that was way off his route, and
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Speaker 1: he left the truck and was started acting very strangely
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Speaker 1: in front of all these witnesses before he disappeared. And
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Speaker 1: in that case, they did find a partial skull fragment,
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Speaker 1: but they were unable to figure out how he died.
3:26
Speaker 1: But it's been suspected that he had some sort of
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Speaker 1: unexplained mental health issue that caused him to drive there
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Speaker 1: before he disappeared and then died of exposure.
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Speaker 3: Our story begins in Montana in nineteen eighty nine. Our
3:40
Speaker 3: central figure is thirty seven year old Patricia Mihan, who
3:43
Speaker 3: originally hails from Pittsburgh but now lives in Bozeman and
3:47
Speaker 3: is employed as a ranch hand who works with horses. However,
3:51
Speaker 3: everyone who knows Patricia believes that she has become noticeably
3:55
Speaker 3: depressed and withdrawn. Even though she loves children and initially
3:59
Speaker 3: planned to have a career in daycare, Patricia seems saddened
4:03
Speaker 3: by the fact that she's reached the age where it
4:05
Speaker 3: may soon wind up being too late for her to
4:07
Speaker 3: have children of her own. On April nineteenth, Patricia called
4:11
Speaker 3: her parents to tell them that she was under a
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Speaker 3: great deal of stress and inquired about the possibility of
4:17
Speaker 3: moving back home to Pittsburgh to live with them for
4:19
Speaker 3: a while. Her parents agreed to this, and Patricia scheduled
4:23
Speaker 3: an appointment with her psychologist for the morning of April
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Speaker 3: twenty first, in order to discuss the whole change. Patricia
4:31
Speaker 3: did not like to fly, but her parents did not
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Speaker 3: like the idea of her driving over eighteen hundred miles
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Speaker 3: to Pittsburgh, and she agreed to talk about.
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Speaker 4: It with them.
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Speaker 3: After her appointment on April twentieth, Patricia called her landlord
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Speaker 3: to say that she would be gone for a while
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Speaker 3: before leaving her apartment in Bozeman, and he would later
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Speaker 3: describe her as sounding very hyper and not making much sense.
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Speaker 1: At around eight fifteen pm that evening, Patricia was driving
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Speaker 1: east down Highway two hundred through McCone County, in a
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Speaker 1: desolate rural area seven miles southwest of the small town
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Speaker 1: of Circle. This location was nearly four hundred miles away
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Speaker 1: from Bozeman, and Patricia was inexplicably driving on the wrong
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Speaker 1: side of the road When another car approached her, Patricia
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Speaker 1: nearly wound up having a head on collision with this vehicle,
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Speaker 1: which swerved out of the way. However, there was another
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Speaker 1: car behind that one, and even though the driver tried
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Speaker 1: to pull off the road, Patricia still wound up crashing
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Speaker 1: into her. The driver was left dazed but not seriously injured,
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Speaker 1: though she would end up witnessing a strange sight. After
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Speaker 1: she exited her vehicle, Patricia emerged from her own car
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Speaker 1: and walked towards the wreckage, where she proceeded to stare
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Speaker 1: down at the driver. She was described as having a
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Speaker 1: blank look in her eyes and gave off no reaction
5:43
Speaker 1: to the situation at all. Without saying a word, Patricia
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Speaker 1: walked away from the road, climbed over a fence, and
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Speaker 1: stared aimlessly at the accident seen again. She then walked
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Speaker 1: out into the open prairie and subsequently disappeared into the night.
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Speaker 4: This is a.
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Speaker 2: Tragic rea reality when you start thinking about that, she's
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Speaker 2: basically begging her parents to let her come home at
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Speaker 2: age thirty seven, So you know her struggle is real,
6:10
Speaker 2: it's heavy, it's deep. She has a plan and something
6:13
Speaker 2: she wanted to do with her life, which was work
6:15
Speaker 2: in childcare. It sounds like she also wanted to be
6:17
Speaker 2: a mom, but felt a lot of pressure of kind
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Speaker 2: of her biological clock ticking. And so when she is
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Speaker 2: talking to her parents and you're saying, I can't fly,
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Speaker 2: but I want to drive to you. I'm feeling significant distress.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to go see my therapist. Could she have
6:32
Speaker 2: been getting into the car with this idea that she's
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Speaker 2: driving to her parents' house and just kind of this
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Speaker 2: desperate pursuit of that, and then you look at her
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Speaker 2: physical behavior and that blank stare. I don't know if
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Speaker 2: you know listeners have ever dealt with someone with a
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Speaker 2: severe mental health crisis, but I've seen in people that
6:51
Speaker 2: I love and care about and in people that I
6:54
Speaker 2: work with, where you'll see that stare where it's like you're.
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Speaker 4: Not present, you're catatonic.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, they're looking through you. They're looking off past the
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Speaker 2: reality of what's in their current view, and you can't
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Speaker 2: connect to them. You can't get through to them into
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Speaker 2: reality because they're so they're struggling so deeply in that moment.
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Speaker 2: And so that sounds like what's happening here that she
7:18
Speaker 2: was a little chaotic when she's talking to her landlord,
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Speaker 2: she's driving chaotically. Then you add a potential of some
7:25
Speaker 2: kind of head injury here. It seems like she is
7:28
Speaker 2: truly disconnected from who Patricia really is, and she's almost
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Speaker 2: caught up in this psychosis or episode that she's having.
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Speaker 3: I'm a little worried by the fact that she was
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Speaker 3: described as being deeply depressed prior, and I'm obviously not
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Speaker 3: trying to diagnose her here, but biblearr disorder is like
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Speaker 3: a pendulum, and if you swing really far to one side,
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Speaker 3: which is depression, you're often going to swing far to
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Speaker 3: the other side, which would be a manic episode or
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Speaker 3: a hypomanic episode of your bipolar two. We have the
8:02
Speaker 3: landlord describing her as being hyper, and it's really tough
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Speaker 3: to tell if it is like a manic episode or
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Speaker 3: if it's just anxiety about having to travel home and
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Speaker 3: that's manifesting as being hyper. But the catatonic stare is
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Speaker 3: also troubling. That can be a byproduct of a manic episode.
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Speaker 3: It's just not looking very good here. It seems like
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Speaker 3: thirty seven would be an age where you would have
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Speaker 3: already been diagnosed with this, But we also have to
8:34
Speaker 3: consider the time period. A lot of people didn't seek
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Speaker 3: mental health treatment like they do today. There was a
8:40
Speaker 3: lot more of a stigma attached to it. So there
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Speaker 3: is a very real possibility that there could have been
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Speaker 3: other mental health episodes or manic episodes if she was
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Speaker 3: indeed bipolar and she just wasn't treated for it and
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Speaker 3: somehow managed to come out the other side and maybe
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Speaker 3: had long periods of you mea where she actually felt,
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Speaker 3: like i'll say in quotations, normal or typical, not depressed
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Speaker 3: or manic, And so people maybe weren't aware that she
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Speaker 3: was struggling so mightily with this.
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Speaker 1: Would you happen to know how much awareness there was
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Speaker 1: about bipolar disorder back in nineteen eighty nine. Was this
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Speaker 1: a time period when people would be diagnosed with it
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Speaker 1: or was there just not much awareness about it at all?
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Speaker 3: Yes, you would be diagnosed with it, but it would
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Speaker 3: take a lot more. I think it would have to
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Speaker 3: be extremely severe. Like I'll just use my mother as
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Speaker 3: an example, because she was diagnosed i think in nineteen
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Speaker 3: eighty four. So you know, when I was like basically
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Speaker 3: a baby, she had me and within six weeks she
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Speaker 3: was in a full manic episode like psychosis.
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Speaker 4: It was really bad.
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Speaker 3: And luckily my uncle had gone to UBC med school
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Speaker 3: and where we lived was hours away, but he pulled
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Speaker 3: some strings, got her in with the best psychiatrists, and
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Speaker 3: she was in there observation for six months until she
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Speaker 3: was diagnosed and properly medicated. So that tells you kind
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Speaker 3: of what it was the landscape was like in the eighties.
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Speaker 3: I think it depends if you were in a major
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Speaker 3: metropolitan area, like say, if you're in a major city
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Speaker 3: like you know, Los Angeles or New York, and you
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Speaker 3: had the financial means or the connections to be able
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Speaker 3: to secure the right type of treatment with professionals, then
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Speaker 3: you're going to do a lot better. But I think
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Speaker 3: in nineteen eighty nine you're a lot less likely to
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Speaker 3: seek help, and even if you did seek help, you
10:35
Speaker 3: might not find the right professional who has either adequate
10:38
Speaker 3: experience or is really great at spotting the signs. I
10:42
Speaker 3: think that there's so many variables that have to line
10:45
Speaker 3: up in order to get that appropriate diagnosis and to
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Speaker 3: be put on the right medication, because it is trial
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Speaker 3: and error with bipolar. What works for one person, what's
10:55
Speaker 3: the first line treatment like lithium may not work for another.
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Speaker 2: Also really hard too, is if you think back to
11:01
Speaker 2: like when we were teenagers, if you were talking about
11:04
Speaker 2: certain careers or having different dreams and aspirations. You were
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Speaker 2: encouraged not to seek mental health help because it would
11:12
Speaker 2: be part of your medical record and you wouldn't be
11:14
Speaker 2: allowed to pursue any of those goals. So someone who
11:17
Speaker 2: might want to go into the military, or might want
11:18
Speaker 2: to go into law enforcement or federal government, if you
11:22
Speaker 2: had a health record with mental health anxiety, depression by polarism,
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Speaker 2: you were kicked out of those jobs, right or you
11:29
Speaker 2: were told hey, that's a red flag. It creates a
11:31
Speaker 2: harder barrier for you to get those careers. And so
11:34
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, struggling with anxiety and depression as
11:37
Speaker 2: a teenager. My dream was to be in the FBI,
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Speaker 2: and I was like, oh I got to this is
11:41
Speaker 2: I knew what I had to do, how many push ups,
11:43
Speaker 2: what my health had to look like. And so I
11:46
Speaker 2: remember thinking I can't ask for help, like I just
11:49
Speaker 2: need to talk to my parents and I just need
11:51
Speaker 2: to have my girlfriend help me. But I mean, I
11:53
Speaker 2: still struggle with anxiety and depression. So back then it
11:56
Speaker 2: was a shield of like don't don't get help unless
11:59
Speaker 2: you really have to, and it was almost a source
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Speaker 2: of shame, like you couldn't handle your emotions by yourself.
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Speaker 2: So even if it wasn't by polar as a mental
12:06
Speaker 2: health in general, I think was just viewed so differently
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Speaker 2: with such a negative lens. At the time.
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Speaker 3: When the mcconne County Sheriff's Office were notified about what
12:18
Speaker 3: happened and arrived to the scene, they searched Patricia's car
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Speaker 3: and noticed some clothes and other items inside. This suggested
12:25
Speaker 3: she was in the midst of taking a trip somewhere,
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Speaker 3: and the only item Patricia would have had on her
12:30
Speaker 3: when she left was her purse. The police searched the
12:33
Speaker 3: prairie and about three quarters of a mile from the
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Speaker 3: crash scene, they were able to find a trail of
12:38
Speaker 3: size six tennis shoe tracks, which probably belonged to Patricia,
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Speaker 3: but these tracks soon came to an end. For the
12:45
Speaker 3: next five days, an extensive ground and air search was
12:48
Speaker 3: conducted of the area, but other than her shoe tracks,
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Speaker 3: no trace of Patricia could be found. It was established
12:56
Speaker 3: that a hay truck had been parked about a half
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Speaker 3: mile away from the accident scene before it was driven
13:01
Speaker 3: away a short time later, so it was theorized that
13:04
Speaker 3: Patricia might have stowed away on the truck without the
13:06
Speaker 3: driver's knowledge, or that she was picked up after hitching
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Speaker 3: a ride somewhere.
13:11
Speaker 2: I almost feel like it would be more the hitch
13:13
Speaker 2: hiking route for me. The landscape kind of hard to
13:16
Speaker 2: wrap my head around. It said she walked off into
13:19
Speaker 2: this almost prairie like open field kind of area, so
13:22
Speaker 2: there's not a whole lot of places for her to quote,
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Speaker 2: disappear into if she's just wandering around aimlessly, which leads
13:28
Speaker 2: you to think something like the truck or getting someone
13:30
Speaker 2: to pick her up would be possible. But remember the
13:33
Speaker 2: state that she's in. If you were picking someone up
13:37
Speaker 2: and you drove around and this person really is not
13:40
Speaker 2: connected to reality, is as someone that you would feel
13:43
Speaker 2: safe getting into your car or feel like there might
13:46
Speaker 2: be a problem down the road if you give this
13:48
Speaker 2: person a ride.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And another possibility which you brought up in the
13:54
Speaker 1: opening is if it could have been someone with nefarious
13:56
Speaker 1: intentions who saw that she was a vulnerable person to
13:59
Speaker 1: be taken adage of, so as possible that if she
14:02
Speaker 1: hitched a ride with the wrong person, she could have
14:04
Speaker 1: become the victim at foul play. At some point, when
14:07
Speaker 1: Patricia's family was contacted by the authorities about her disappearance,
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Speaker 1: They had no idea why she was driving nearly four
14:13
Speaker 1: hundred miles away from Bozeman. While it was possible she
14:17
Speaker 1: was heading towards Pittsburgh, her parents ru under the oppression
14:20
Speaker 1: that she would not be traveling to see them until
14:22
Speaker 1: after her appointment with her psychologists the following day. Regardless,
14:27
Speaker 1: Patricia's parents and brother would spend the next few months
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Speaker 1: traveling around the Pacific Northwest in order to distribute over
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Speaker 1: two thousand Missing Persons flyers, and it wasn't long before
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Speaker 1: reported sightings of Patricia started popping up all over the place.
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Speaker 1: Many of the alleged sidings of Patricia took place at
14:43
Speaker 1: truck stops in Montana or Washington State, but it seemed
14:47
Speaker 1: like whenever the authorities or her family were notified about them,
14:50
Speaker 1: she would hitchhike out of the area before they could
14:52
Speaker 1: arrive at the scene. But the most consistent detail from
14:56
Speaker 1: these sidings was that Patricia looked confused and disoriented. Initially,
15:01
Speaker 1: it was suspected that she might have fled the scene
15:03
Speaker 1: of the accident to avoid potential legal trouble, but the
15:06
Speaker 1: accounts of these sightings told a different story. For example,
15:09
Speaker 1: on May fourth, two weeks after the accident, a police
15:12
Speaker 1: officer believed he saw a woman resembling Patricia at a
15:15
Speaker 1: Harty's restaurant in Laverne, Minnesota, where she reportedly sat in
15:19
Speaker 1: a booth drinking water for five straight hours until the
15:22
Speaker 1: restaurant closed. Afterward, the woman then walked to a nearby
15:26
Speaker 1: twenty four hour diner, and when the officer approached her
15:29
Speaker 1: and tried to question her, she would not give her name,
15:32
Speaker 1: though she did claim she was from Colorado before then
15:35
Speaker 1: saying she was from Israel.
15:37
Speaker 2: And the problem there is that law enforcement also did
15:40
Speaker 2: not have tools and still doesn't have the tools needed
15:43
Speaker 2: to help someone who they believe is struggling with a
15:45
Speaker 2: mental health crisis. There's such limited resources of what you
15:49
Speaker 2: do when you suspect someone is struggling, right when you
15:52
Speaker 2: don't have proof and you don't have documentation, and then
15:55
Speaker 2: you don't have community resources to refer them to because
15:58
Speaker 2: it's kind of out of his person you especially back
16:01
Speaker 2: in the eighties and nineties, that law enforcement didn't really
16:04
Speaker 2: handle mental health right. They handled criminal behavior that came
16:09
Speaker 2: as a result of mental health, but weren't in the
16:12
Speaker 2: position to assist in that scenario and so oh man,
16:16
Speaker 2: it's like Patricia's almost just one step ahead of everybody,
16:19
Speaker 2: and yet she's not even quite sure where she's stepping to,
16:22
Speaker 2: Like she's not aware of who she is or where
16:24
Speaker 2: she's at in this whole process.
16:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. Like, this woman had not broken
16:29
Speaker 1: any laws, and she did not appear to be a
16:31
Speaker 1: danger to herself, So there was really nothing else that
16:34
Speaker 1: the officer could do besides ask her a few questions.
16:37
Speaker 1: And of course, this is one of those sightings that
16:39
Speaker 1: took where the officer did not realize it could have
16:42
Speaker 1: been Patricia Actil after the fact, because at the time
16:45
Speaker 1: he questioned this woman, he had not heard about her case,
16:47
Speaker 1: and it was only after he saw a photo of
16:49
Speaker 1: or a short time later that he realized this might
16:51
Speaker 1: be the same woman I saw.
16:54
Speaker 3: The day after the sighting in Laverne, a woman matching
16:57
Speaker 3: Patricia's description was seen at a trust and Sioux Falls,
17:01
Speaker 3: South Dakota, drinking coffee and laughing at herself. A female
17:05
Speaker 3: truck driver crossed paths with her in the restroom well,
17:08
Speaker 3: she was staring at herself in the mirror, and when
17:10
Speaker 3: the driver asked the woman her name, she replied, quote,
17:13
Speaker 3: I don't know. Later that night, Patricia was spotted at
17:16
Speaker 3: another truck stop over two hundred miles away in the
17:19
Speaker 3: town of Murdo, South Dakota, but this time she was
17:23
Speaker 3: arguing with a male companion. The most interesting sighting occurred
17:27
Speaker 3: on May nineteenth, when Patricia was seen by two waitresses
17:30
Speaker 3: at a Perkins restaurant in Bozeman, only a few miles
17:34
Speaker 3: from where she lived. She came in at around eight
17:37
Speaker 3: thirty am to order coffee in a cinnamon roll and
17:40
Speaker 3: told the waitress she was in a hurry because she
17:42
Speaker 3: needed to go shopping. But then she remained in the
17:44
Speaker 3: restaurant for around two hours and spent most of her
17:47
Speaker 3: time either talking to herself or just staring blankly. When
17:51
Speaker 3: she left, she paid the two dollars tab entirely in change.
17:55
Speaker 3: In addition to circulating her photograph, Patricia's family also brought
17:59
Speaker 3: a video time of her with them to show people
18:01
Speaker 3: who had seen her. When the waitress and Bozman watched
18:04
Speaker 3: the tape, they were very certain the woman they saw
18:07
Speaker 3: was Patricia.
18:09
Speaker 2: This case is very much different than other missing person
18:12
Speaker 2: cases because where you do have eyewitnesses and everyone knows
18:15
Speaker 2: our concerns with eyewitnesses. You usually have one or two
18:18
Speaker 2: that say they sell someone similar to her, and we
18:21
Speaker 2: talk about confirmation bias and these kinds of things. But
18:23
Speaker 2: here you have people from all over the country who
18:27
Speaker 2: are almost following a trail of her behavior and her whereabouts,
18:33
Speaker 2: and they're all very consistent. They're all describing a catatonic stare.
18:38
Speaker 2: They're describing someone whose words don't match her behaviors, like
18:41
Speaker 2: I'm in a hurry, I have to go, But then
18:43
Speaker 2: she sits there for two hours, she's talking to herself.
18:47
Speaker 2: She isn't rational or making any sense when people confront her.
18:51
Speaker 2: And so when you look at this, to me, it's
18:54
Speaker 2: kind of crazy how many people, even new to come
18:58
Speaker 2: forward and share these stories. They're pretty convincing.
19:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that not all of them were Patricia,
19:04
Speaker 1: because I'm kind of skeptical that she traveled two hundred
19:07
Speaker 1: miles in the same night from Sioux Falls to Murdo,
19:10
Speaker 1: South Dakota. So possibly one or both of them are mistaken.
19:14
Speaker 1: But it is quite interesting that they're also consistent, because
19:17
Speaker 1: it's one thing if you just see someone from a
19:19
Speaker 1: distance and think they look like a missing person, but
19:22
Speaker 1: when they're exhibiting strange behavior, they're going to leave more
19:25
Speaker 1: of an impression. And then you hear about a missing
19:27
Speaker 1: woman who had also been beheating strangely before she disappeared,
19:31
Speaker 1: and then you can understand why it seems like such
19:33
Speaker 1: a compelling match.
19:35
Speaker 3: I don't know if either of you or the listeners
19:37
Speaker 3: have ever known somebody when they're in a state like this,
19:41
Speaker 3: they are so incredibly vulnerable. So it really worries me
19:45
Speaker 3: knowing you know, from like a lot of the truck
19:47
Speaker 3: stop murders that have happened, and a lot of sex
19:50
Speaker 3: work and drugs that goes on at these different truck stops,
19:55
Speaker 3: how vulnerable Patricia would be if she was in a
19:59
Speaker 3: state where she it was basically, had had a psychotic break,
20:02
Speaker 3: if she had amnesia, if she was having a manic episode.
20:06
Speaker 3: Any of these things would leave her open to those
20:08
Speaker 3: with nefarious intentions. And if any of these sightings are her,
20:13
Speaker 3: I'm just so worried for whomever came across her and
20:17
Speaker 3: if they had good intentions or not, especially when.
20:21
Speaker 1: All these reports talk about her were like staying in
20:23
Speaker 1: places like coffee shops and truck stops for hours at
20:26
Speaker 1: a time, just sitting there. So if someone was in
20:28
Speaker 1: there with the nefarious intentions just saw this woman just
20:31
Speaker 1: talking to herself, staring blankly in a booth, they would
20:34
Speaker 1: probably say, well, maybe I'll offer this woman a ride,
20:37
Speaker 1: and then they would take advantage of the situation. The
20:41
Speaker 1: sightings would continue for over a year, and an interesting
20:44
Speaker 1: development occurred in August of nineteen ninety when a transient
20:47
Speaker 1: woman with a strong resemblance to Patricia was arrested for
20:50
Speaker 1: littering in Idaho. The officer who arrested her was initially
20:54
Speaker 1: certain that she was Patricia, so much so that one
20:57
Speaker 1: newspaper prematurely purported that it was her her. However, a
21:01
Speaker 1: fingerprint check soon confirmed that the woman was someone else.
21:05
Speaker 1: But if some of the other sightings were accurate and
21:07
Speaker 1: Patricia was out there somewhere in a disoriented state, how
21:10
Speaker 1: could this have happened. Well, given that Patricia had been
21:13
Speaker 1: going through a very stressful time in her life, this
21:16
Speaker 1: letter psychologist to theorize that the accident had caused her
21:19
Speaker 1: to develop amnesia and forget who she was. Either she
21:23
Speaker 1: suffered a head injury or the trauma of the incident
21:26
Speaker 1: and the fear that she might have killed someone in
21:28
Speaker 1: the crash triggered something in her brain and caused her
21:31
Speaker 1: to deliberately block things out. This meant she was now
21:34
Speaker 1: wandering the country as a transient with no memory of
21:37
Speaker 1: her past life.
21:38
Speaker 2: So this one woman gets ruled out as not being Patricia, right,
21:42
Speaker 2: even though this officer is pretty certain. But we do
21:45
Speaker 2: know established mental health of Patricia, and again, she was
21:50
Speaker 2: struggling mightily. Before she got in that car. She was
21:54
Speaker 2: asking her mom and dad, can I drive back to you?
21:57
Speaker 2: And they're like, I don't know if she needs to
21:58
Speaker 2: be driving. She needs to fly, but she's scared to fly,
22:02
Speaker 2: And so there could have been that just kind of
22:05
Speaker 2: panic where she got in her car and she said,
22:07
Speaker 2: I have to get to my parents. They don't understand.
22:09
Speaker 2: They don't want me to get in the car, but
22:11
Speaker 2: I have to. And so even when people are warning
22:14
Speaker 2: her like these behaviors aren't safe for you, I'm worried
22:18
Speaker 2: for you, I feel like in that moment, she was
22:21
Speaker 2: making plans erratically to get out of her current situation
22:25
Speaker 2: and make her way back to her parents, which is
22:27
Speaker 2: why this is so heartbreaking. She knew where she needed
22:30
Speaker 2: to be to be safe, and it's like she was
22:32
Speaker 2: just trying to get there, and that crash, like you said,
22:37
Speaker 2: stimulated something, It activated something. Did it make what she
22:41
Speaker 2: was already experiencing worse? Did it give her timbering amnesia?
22:45
Speaker 2: Did it give her a concussion? What was it that
22:48
Speaker 2: might have exacerbated her already desperate mental health situation?
22:54
Speaker 1: And it makes me wonder what she was going to
22:56
Speaker 1: do if she had not gotten into a crash at
22:58
Speaker 1: that particular spot, Because if she was traveling to Pittsburgh,
23:02
Speaker 1: was she really planning to drive the full eighteen hundred
23:04
Speaker 1: miles without stopping? Because I could actually see someone in
23:07
Speaker 1: a manick state doing that where they just feel they
23:10
Speaker 1: have to get there as quickly as possible, that they
23:12
Speaker 1: will drive all night if they have to in order
23:14
Speaker 1: to arrive at their destination.
23:17
Speaker 3: Well, no one could ever track Patricia down. The number
23:20
Speaker 3: of reported sightings of her in the years following her
23:23
Speaker 3: disappearance would reach five thousand. Another interesting development occurred in
23:28
Speaker 3: twenty eleven when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police released a
23:32
Speaker 3: composite sketch of an unidentified female victim whose partial skullf
23:36
Speaker 3: fragment had been found near a creek in Mission, British Columbia.
23:40
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety five, DNA testing would link the skullf
23:43
Speaker 3: fragment to human remains discovered on the farm of notorious
23:47
Speaker 3: Canadian serial killer Robert Picton. When the sketch of this
23:51
Speaker 3: victim was shared on the Webslooth's forum, some posters thought
23:54
Speaker 3: that she bore a striking resemblance to Patricia Mihan, and
23:58
Speaker 3: given that she went missing in the Pacific Northwest, they
24:01
Speaker 3: wondered if perhaps she crossed the border into Canada and
24:04
Speaker 3: cross paths with Picton. A tip was submitted to the RCMP,
24:09
Speaker 3: but it doesn't look like the lead ever went anywhere. Unfortunately,
24:12
Speaker 3: in spite of all the sightings of Patricia, she has
24:15
Speaker 3: still never been tracked down or confirmed to be alive,
24:19
Speaker 3: and her current whereabouts continue to remain unknown.
24:23
Speaker 1: So I guess you could say the path went Chile.
24:27
Speaker 2: So, Robin, you deal a lot with these missing person
24:29
Speaker 2: cases and unsolved cases. Is five thousand a lot of
24:33
Speaker 2: reported sightings to see for someone. I just feel like,
24:36
Speaker 2: when you look at the span of space and time
24:40
Speaker 2: for someone who is has gone missing, five thousand reported sightings,
24:46
Speaker 2: that seems like a really high number of people knowing
24:49
Speaker 2: of her case, understanding that there's an issue, and then
24:52
Speaker 2: making a report that they feel like they interacted with her.
24:55
Speaker 1: That does seem like a large amount. Yes, I mean,
24:59
Speaker 1: I know that missing persons cases are going to get
25:01
Speaker 1: a lot of like useless tips that wind up being
25:04
Speaker 1: ruled out, where someone will say I saw such and
25:06
Speaker 1: such walking down a street in the distance, and I
25:09
Speaker 1: think it might have been this missing person, but there's
25:11
Speaker 1: nothing to work with. But I would be curious to know,
25:13
Speaker 1: like what percentage of these five thousand sightings involved someone
25:17
Speaker 1: who recalled seeing a woman who appeared to be in
25:20
Speaker 1: a vulnerable condition, who was staring blankly or talking to herself,
25:24
Speaker 1: because that just seems oddly specific if you have that
25:27
Speaker 1: many sightings of some of a woman matching Patricia's description
25:31
Speaker 1: acting strangely a short time after she got into that
25:35
Speaker 1: car accident and may have triggered something in her head.
25:38
Speaker 1: So that's why I, even though in a lot of
25:41
Speaker 1: these missing persons cases I rule out eyewitness sightings, this
25:45
Speaker 1: one I just cannot be sure, just because of like
25:47
Speaker 1: the specific details these witnesses have provided.
25:52
Speaker 3: I kind of discount the idea that she would be
25:55
Speaker 3: in Canada unless somebody smuggled her across the border. Anybody
26:00
Speaker 3: has ever gone by car across the border from the
26:03
Speaker 3: US to Canada. It's not exactly an easy thing to do,
26:06
Speaker 3: and you're certainly not going to be able to do
26:08
Speaker 3: it without a passport.
26:10
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that security was a lot more
26:12
Speaker 1: laxed back in nineteen eighty nine, and you could cross
26:16
Speaker 1: the border without one sometimes. But if Patricia's acting strangely,
26:20
Speaker 1: then I guess she would capture the border guard's attention
26:23
Speaker 1: and they might ask for identification. But I haven't heard
26:26
Speaker 1: much of any eyewitness sightings of Patricia in Canada or
26:30
Speaker 1: British Columbia. They've mostly been relegated to the US, so
26:33
Speaker 1: I do tend to agree that this skull fragment that
26:36
Speaker 1: was found in British Columbia does not belong to her anyway.
26:40
Speaker 1: If you ask any Unsolved Mysteries fan about the Patricia
26:43
Speaker 1: Mean segment, the first thing that will probably pop into
26:46
Speaker 1: their head is her self portrait, which is one of
26:48
Speaker 1: the most iconic images ever featured on the show. After
26:52
Speaker 1: she went missing, Patricia's family found a role of undeveloped
26:55
Speaker 1: film in or camera and after developing the photos, discovered
26:59
Speaker 1: a self port Patricia had taken of herself in a mirror,
27:02
Speaker 1: which I guess would be the nineteen eighty nine equivalent
27:05
Speaker 1: of a selfie. It's a pretty haunting photograph, and when
27:08
Speaker 1: you look into Patricia's eyes, you can only imagine what
27:11
Speaker 1: was going on in her head at that point. Apparently
27:15
Speaker 1: she had a similar look in her eyes, which she
27:17
Speaker 1: stared at the other motorist before disappearing. But as memorable
27:21
Speaker 1: as this segment is, the reason we couldn't devote a
27:23
Speaker 1: longer two part episode of the case is that there
27:26
Speaker 1: really isn't too much to analyze. We know that Patricia
27:29
Speaker 1: got into an accident, wandered off, and disappeared, but the
27:33
Speaker 1: only unanswered question is what happened to her. It's pretty
27:37
Speaker 1: clear that Patricia was suffering from depression and dealing with
27:40
Speaker 1: serious mental health issues at this time. I'm also pretty
27:43
Speaker 1: certain she was single, as some of the articles about
27:46
Speaker 1: her case reference an ex boyfriend who lived in Spokane,
27:49
Speaker 1: Washington and became actively involved in the search for though
27:53
Speaker 1: I don't know any details about the relationship or how
27:56
Speaker 1: long they had been broken up by this point. But
27:59
Speaker 1: even though Patricia's psychologists seemed to think the accident triggered
28:02
Speaker 1: her amnesia. Something was definitely off long before the accident recurred.
28:07
Speaker 1: There has never been any explanation to account for why
28:10
Speaker 1: Patricia was driving on a rural highway nearly four hundred
28:13
Speaker 1: miles away from her home, though since she had clothing
28:16
Speaker 1: and other items in her car, she might have been
28:18
Speaker 1: attempting the eighteen hundred mile cross country trip to see
28:21
Speaker 1: her family in Pittsburgh. Or it's even possible that she
28:24
Speaker 1: lost her memory before she crashed her car and had
28:27
Speaker 1: no idea where she was going. Let's also not forget
28:31
Speaker 1: that Patricia was driving on the wrong side of the road,
28:33
Speaker 1: and you could assume that perhaps Patricia was attempting suicide
28:37
Speaker 1: by deliberately causing a head on collision. Whatever the case,
28:41
Speaker 1: even though it was never officially confirmed if Patricia suffered
28:44
Speaker 1: her head injury in the accident, something was clearly wrong
28:47
Speaker 1: with her when she wandered out onto the prairie.
28:50
Speaker 2: I tend to lean against suicide because I feel like
28:54
Speaker 2: Patricia simply wasn't present in her mind, Like I think
28:59
Speaker 2: she was so oh so depressed, so caught up in
29:04
Speaker 2: whatever distress she was feeling, that she simply wasn't conscious
29:10
Speaker 2: of what was going on around her like, you know
29:12
Speaker 2: when you get into a car and you drive and
29:13
Speaker 2: you don't remember how you got from point A to
29:15
Speaker 2: point B, but somehow you're safely in your driveway. I
29:18
Speaker 2: feel like that's what she was doing. She was on autopilot,
29:22
Speaker 2: in distress, and she, in my mind, said, I have
29:26
Speaker 2: to get to my parents. They said, that's a good plan.
29:28
Speaker 2: That's what I'm going to do. They don't want me
29:30
Speaker 2: to drive. I'm going to do it anyway. And she
29:32
Speaker 2: makes those plans with her landlord to get out of town.
29:35
Speaker 2: And so for me, I feel like driving on the
29:37
Speaker 2: wrong side of the road.
29:38
Speaker 4: The accident.
29:39
Speaker 2: All of that is because she's not actually focused or
29:41
Speaker 2: visually present when she's behind the wheel of her car.
29:46
Speaker 3: So there are really only two possibilities here. This took
29:50
Speaker 3: place on a very cold night, so either Patricia died
29:53
Speaker 3: of exposure on the prairie and her remains have never
29:56
Speaker 3: been found, or she did manage to get a ride
29:59
Speaker 3: out of the area and spent the next little while
30:01
Speaker 3: wandering around the country as a transient. We've mentioned numerous
30:05
Speaker 3: times on this podcast that is very common for people
30:08
Speaker 3: to go missing in remote areas with their remains never
30:11
Speaker 3: being found. Even after an extensive search effort. You could
30:16
Speaker 3: easily compare this story to another case we covered on
30:19
Speaker 3: a previous minisode, and that's the death of Don Kemp,
30:22
Speaker 3: who vanished under similar circumstances on a remote prairie in Wyoming.
30:27
Speaker 3: Much like with Patricia's disappearance, an extensive ground and air
30:30
Speaker 3: search was conducted of the area, but Don's remains were
30:34
Speaker 3: never found until a completely random person just happened to
30:37
Speaker 3: stumble upon them three years later.
30:40
Speaker 2: And how many cases have we talked about, or do
30:42
Speaker 2: you guys know about where you have people that go
30:45
Speaker 2: out on these ground searches and there are extensive hunts
30:49
Speaker 2: to recover their body or to locate them alive, and
30:53
Speaker 2: it's months years later where someone says, we searched this area,
30:58
Speaker 2: and yet months day, years later they're actually found in
31:02
Speaker 2: that same search location. So it's not unheard of that
31:07
Speaker 2: people do go and they look for their remains and
31:11
Speaker 2: they're actually discovered later in a place that was quote searched.
31:14
Speaker 2: Things like an animal pulling, you know, a piece of
31:17
Speaker 2: clothing somewhere that makes it more visible, whether changing making
31:21
Speaker 2: something more present or more visible. So many different explanations
31:25
Speaker 2: for why that happens, but it's not uncommon to say
31:28
Speaker 2: we searched the area, didn't find anything, and yet doesn't
31:31
Speaker 2: mean she wasn't there.
31:33
Speaker 1: And that's the thing with the Don Kemp case, like,
31:35
Speaker 1: this wasn't a wooded area with a lot of foilage
31:38
Speaker 1: or anything. This was an open prairie where you would
31:40
Speaker 1: think that if you search hard enough, you're eventually going
31:43
Speaker 1: to find his body or some skeleton remains. Yet they
31:46
Speaker 1: still managed to miss him. So even though they did
31:48
Speaker 1: the same thing with Patricia, That's why I don't discount
31:51
Speaker 1: the idea that she did die of exposure on the
31:53
Speaker 1: prairie and they just have never found her remains.
31:56
Speaker 4: What's that case in the desert?
31:58
Speaker 3: The guy's name is Daniel and he goes missing after
32:02
Speaker 3: having what appears to be a mental health issue for crisis.
32:05
Speaker 1: Are you talking about one that we've covered or a
32:07
Speaker 1: different case?
32:08
Speaker 3: No, no, no, it's rather it's rather recently.
32:12
Speaker 1: Oh, that Daniel Robinson case.
32:15
Speaker 3: That's yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, that one was similar, right.
32:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is where he just kind of disappears and
32:22
Speaker 1: abandons his car and they still haven't found him. And
32:25
Speaker 1: the one I was thinking of was the David Stone case.
32:27
Speaker 1: Which we did on a minisod recently, where he also
32:30
Speaker 1: wandered around the desert and they searched for him, but
32:32
Speaker 1: they didn't find his remains. For a couple of years now,
32:36
Speaker 1: there were around five thousand eyewitness sightings of Patricia after
32:39
Speaker 1: she vanished, and that's an awful lot. But once again,
32:43
Speaker 1: we frequently mentioned on this podcast how common it is
32:46
Speaker 1: for eyewitnesses and missing persons cases to be mistaken and
32:49
Speaker 1: proven wrong. However, in this particular case, I think there's
32:53
Speaker 1: a decent chance that at least some of these sightings
32:55
Speaker 1: might be accurate. When you watch the Unsolved Mystery segment
32:59
Speaker 1: and read the original news articles about this case, it's
33:02
Speaker 1: interesting how the word confirmed it specifically used to describe
33:06
Speaker 1: some of these sightings. I mean, I am pretty certain
33:09
Speaker 1: that these witnesses saw a woman who looked a lot
33:11
Speaker 1: like Patricia, but I don't know how the authorities could
33:14
Speaker 1: one hundred percent confirm it was her unless the witnesses
33:18
Speaker 1: shared some specific details which were not released to the public.
33:22
Speaker 1: But it is interesting how there are multiple sightings of
33:24
Speaker 1: a disoriented looking woman resembling Patricia in different places like Montana,
33:29
Speaker 1: South Dakota, and Minnesota, and the descriptions of these sightings
33:33
Speaker 1: sound fairly similar. The siding at the restaurant in Bozeman
33:37
Speaker 1: is definitely the most credible since it was Patricia's hometown
33:41
Speaker 1: and the two witnesses who identified her also watched a
33:44
Speaker 1: videotape of Patricia. This is quite different than simply looking
33:47
Speaker 1: at a photograph, since they can study Patricia's mannerisms in
33:50
Speaker 1: the video and how she talked and compare it to
33:53
Speaker 1: the woman they saw. If this woman was Patricia, I
33:56
Speaker 1: have to wonder if there was something in the back
33:58
Speaker 1: of her mind which made her think that she might
34:00
Speaker 1: be from Bozeman, but the symptoms of amnesia prevented her
34:04
Speaker 1: from figuring out who she really was.
34:07
Speaker 2: That is really interesting that they would say confirmed. It's
34:10
Speaker 2: not as if Patricia had a really prominent facial figure
34:15
Speaker 2: or characteristic or let's say, a tattoo or something like
34:19
Speaker 2: that that made it, Oh my gosh, that's definitely her, right.
34:22
Speaker 2: We saw the large birthmark, we saw the eye deformity
34:27
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. Patricia's very normal looking. When you
34:30
Speaker 2: google a picture of her, there's nothing that stands out.
34:33
Speaker 2: She's very average for She's just a girl, and so
34:37
Speaker 2: there's nothing profoundly unique about her face, her hair, her body.
34:41
Speaker 2: That would make it where I could tell you I
34:44
Speaker 2: saw this person and you would say, one hundred percent
34:46
Speaker 2: confirmed that it was her. I do love this idea
34:49
Speaker 2: that you have two waitresses who were able to watch
34:53
Speaker 2: a video that the family provides and they can say, oh,
34:56
Speaker 2: my goodness, that's her, because you do see different things
34:59
Speaker 2: when you see facial expressions, when you see hand motions
35:03
Speaker 2: and all of these different kind of physical behaviors in
35:06
Speaker 2: a video. To confirm that, yes, we saw some of
35:09
Speaker 2: those similar mannerisms, it is a very promising lead. And
35:12
Speaker 2: then again you go, well, then what right they everywhere
35:15
Speaker 2: they went and heard that Patricia had been there? Then
35:18
Speaker 2: what where do you go from there? That's what her
35:20
Speaker 2: poor family and law enforcement were dealing with.
35:24
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm intrigued by the idea that maybe
35:27
Speaker 1: she had something in the back of her memory which
35:28
Speaker 1: made her think that Bozeman was a part of her life.
35:31
Speaker 1: And as you recall, when she first went into this diner,
35:34
Speaker 1: she said that she was in a hurry and she'd
35:36
Speaker 1: only be there a short time. But then she stayed
35:38
Speaker 1: there for the next two hours. And you wonder, is
35:41
Speaker 1: there something triggering her memory here, making your think this
35:43
Speaker 1: place looks familiar, this city looks familiar. Maybe I once
35:47
Speaker 1: lived here, but she just didn't have enough in her
35:49
Speaker 1: memory to figure out who she really was.
35:52
Speaker 3: All that being said, remember the false lead with the
35:56
Speaker 3: woman who was arrested in Idaho in nineteen ninety even
35:59
Speaker 3: though Patricia, she apparently had such a strong resemblance to
36:03
Speaker 3: her that it convinced the arresting officer and many other
36:06
Speaker 3: people until a fingerprint check was performed. So it's easy
36:10
Speaker 3: to see how all these witnesses, even those who were
36:13
Speaker 3: one hundred percent certain, could have seen another woman who
36:16
Speaker 3: looked a lot like Patricia and been mistaken. But overall, well,
36:20
Speaker 3: I do think there's a good chance that Patrician never
36:23
Speaker 3: made it off the Montana Prairie and died out there.
36:26
Speaker 3: I also believe that this might be one of those
36:28
Speaker 3: rare missing person's cases where the victim was still alive
36:32
Speaker 3: for a period of time after they vanished. That's why
36:34
Speaker 3: when Unsolved Mysteries originally aired, Robert Stack sent out a
36:38
Speaker 3: public plea for Patricia to come forward if she was watching,
36:42
Speaker 3: and even assured her that no one was harmed in
36:44
Speaker 3: the car accident and she wasn't going to face serious
36:47
Speaker 3: legal trouble.
36:49
Speaker 4: We do have.
36:49
Speaker 2: Cases where we hear, you know, years and decades later,
36:52
Speaker 2: this person realizes, oh, that that person I'm looking for
36:55
Speaker 2: is me. But like you said, Jules, it's incredibly rare.
36:59
Speaker 2: It's more likely that Patricia met to me with foul play,
37:03
Speaker 2: and that after she was struggling and making her way
37:07
Speaker 2: from different points to different points, someone said, Wow, that
37:10
Speaker 2: girl's really vulnerable and they took advantage of her. To me,
37:15
Speaker 2: at this point, someone would say, Hey, that girl that
37:20
Speaker 2: we know as Sarah really resembles this girl Patricia, and
37:23
Speaker 2: Sarah doesn't really know much about her background. Like I
37:26
Speaker 2: feel like at this point, if Patricia was still alive,
37:31
Speaker 2: someone or herself would eventually come to terms with that
37:35
Speaker 2: is very strongly related to me or this friend that
37:39
Speaker 2: I have. Just doesn't seem like she could survive without
37:42
Speaker 2: eventually having to get a job, have to find someone
37:46
Speaker 2: to bring her into their home, or to love her
37:50
Speaker 2: in some way where she wouldn't have to work. It
37:52
Speaker 2: just you couldn't just stumble around forever in the way
37:54
Speaker 2: that Patricia was doing.
37:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sadly, even though I do think it's possible that
38:00
Speaker 1: Patricia might have lived for a little while after the accident.
38:03
Speaker 1: She probably never regained her memories, and it seems unlikely
38:06
Speaker 1: that she is still alive today. It's possible that she
38:09
Speaker 1: could still be living as a transient out there somewhere,
38:11
Speaker 1: but it's difficult to be able to maintain that lifestyle
38:14
Speaker 1: for nearly thirty five years, and given the amount of
38:17
Speaker 1: hitch hiking Patricia would have had to do. It's also possible,
38:20
Speaker 1: like you said, that she could have met with foul
38:22
Speaker 1: play by an unknown party. I still remember browsing the
38:26
Speaker 1: web slues forum when that lead came up in twenty eleven,
38:29
Speaker 1: involving the skull fragment for the Jane Doe in British Columbia.
38:33
Speaker 1: I was intrigued by the possibility that Patricia could have
38:36
Speaker 1: crossed the border and become a murder victim of Robert Pickton,
38:39
Speaker 1: but the odds of this are not high. However, if
38:42
Speaker 1: Patricia is still alive out there somewhere, she would currently
38:45
Speaker 1: be seventy two years old today, so I guess it's
38:48
Speaker 1: not completely impossible. So if you happen to have any
38:51
Speaker 1: information about her whereabouts, please contact the McCombe County Sheriff's
38:55
Speaker 1: Office at four oh six four eight five three four
38:59
Speaker 1: zero five. That's four oh six four eight five three
39:02
Speaker 1: four zero five, Jules Ashley, any final thoughts on this case?
39:07
Speaker 2: These are the worst kinds of cases when you talk
39:10
Speaker 2: about the risk of criminality and you talk about the
39:14
Speaker 2: family's grief. They don't know what happened to their loved one,
39:18
Speaker 2: right And like you said, Patricia be seventy two years
39:21
Speaker 2: old today, it's likely that parents and siblings are also
39:24
Speaker 2: up in age or deceased at this point. But throughout
39:28
Speaker 2: their lifetime they were wondering what happened?
39:31
Speaker 4: Where is she?
39:32
Speaker 2: And is she still alive? Is she being her?
39:35
Speaker 1: Is she safe?
39:36
Speaker 2: And so I think when you talk to survivors of
39:41
Speaker 2: missing persons and homicides and cold case murders, they'll tell
39:45
Speaker 2: you worst case scenario is that our loved one would
39:48
Speaker 2: be missing and we wouldn't have a chance to bury them,
39:51
Speaker 2: we wouldn't have a chance to bring them home and
39:53
Speaker 2: heal them, and we wouldn't have a place to go
39:56
Speaker 2: to honor them because we don't know if they're alive
39:58
Speaker 2: or deceased. And so my heart breaks that throughout their lifetime,
40:02
Speaker 2: Patricia's family never had answers. It's also so disheartening to
40:07
Speaker 2: know that Patricia wanted so badly to be better. She
40:11
Speaker 2: was aware that she was struggling with her mental health.
40:13
Speaker 2: She was seeking help at a time where that wasn't
40:16
Speaker 2: actually as common as it is now, and she was
40:19
Speaker 2: seeing a therapist. She was trying to make plans to
40:22
Speaker 2: get home to her family because her parents had created
40:24
Speaker 2: that healthy, safe environment for her, and so it's just devastating.
40:29
Speaker 2: I think she got in that car that day and said,
40:31
Speaker 2: I will be at my parents' house whether they want
40:33
Speaker 2: me to drive or not, and she never made it.
40:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, this case really breaks my heart because I know
40:40
Speaker 3: what it feels personally to be going through mental health crisis,
40:43
Speaker 3: being that I am bipolar to you, and having that
40:46
Speaker 3: feeling that you're losing control and needing that help. And
40:50
Speaker 3: Patricia reached out to her parents and was going to
40:53
Speaker 3: put herself in a safer situation where she would be
40:57
Speaker 3: under the watchful eye of her parents, and I'm sure
40:59
Speaker 3: that they could intervene and get her the right care
41:01
Speaker 3: that she needed, because being accountable to yourself at that
41:05
Speaker 3: time is something that feels impossible and we don't know
41:09
Speaker 3: exactly what she was struggling with, but we can speculate
41:12
Speaker 3: based on the behavior here.
41:14
Speaker 4: And it's just.
41:15
Speaker 3: Heartbreaking that her family doesn't have her remains. They don't
41:19
Speaker 3: know what happened. There's five thousand sightings to parse through,
41:23
Speaker 3: and I agree with both Robin and Ashley. I think
41:25
Speaker 3: that she likely was. I think there's a strong probability
41:30
Speaker 3: that she was alive for a period after her disappearance,
41:33
Speaker 3: because some of these sightings are so specific and just
41:37
Speaker 3: the details are quite granular, and they seem to be
41:40
Speaker 3: able to fit a woman who would have amnesia, who
41:43
Speaker 3: had had a car crash, who felt that connection to Bozeman,
41:47
Speaker 3: and I just don't think there would be that many
41:49
Speaker 3: other people out there who also match her description. So
41:53
Speaker 3: it is a really intriguing sighting. And I think after
41:57
Speaker 3: a certain amount of time, the more people that she
41:59
Speaker 3: would expose yourself to in a situation like hitchhiking in
42:03
Speaker 3: places like truck stops, the greater the probability that you
42:07
Speaker 3: were going to come across somebody who has nefarious intentions.
42:10
Speaker 3: So I think there is a strong likelihood that Patricia's
42:13
Speaker 3: was foul play, and unfortunately, without somebody coming forward, or
42:18
Speaker 3: without somebody giving more information or her remains being found,
42:22
Speaker 3: we just don't have those answers.
42:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually remember watching this case back on Unsolved
42:27
Speaker 1: Mysteries when originally aired. I think it was a couple
42:30
Speaker 1: months less than a year after Patricia went missing, And
42:33
Speaker 1: I was always haunted by the re enactment of the
42:35
Speaker 1: accident where they showed an actress playing Patricia walking over
42:39
Speaker 1: to the other driver and then just staring at her
42:41
Speaker 1: before walking out into the prairie in the middle of
42:43
Speaker 1: the night. And I was also haunted by the aforementioned
42:46
Speaker 1: self portrait of Patricia taking a photograph of herself in
42:50
Speaker 1: the mirror with that blank look on her face. And
42:53
Speaker 1: at the time, there was a sense of urgency to
42:55
Speaker 1: this story because they felt this is one of the
42:56
Speaker 1: few missing persons cases we profiled where there is a
43:00
Speaker 1: legitimate chance that she's still alive out there somewhere. So
43:03
Speaker 1: they're hoping that an eyewitness or perhaps even Patricia herself
43:06
Speaker 1: would be watching and be able to direct the authorities
43:09
Speaker 1: to find her. But unfortunately that just didn't appear to
43:12
Speaker 1: be the case, and no one knows what happened to her.
43:16
Speaker 1: Like we said, the chances of her still being alive
43:18
Speaker 1: today are pretty much very minuscule. But even though in
43:22
Speaker 1: the vast majority of these cases where someone wanders off
43:25
Speaker 1: into a remote area, I do believe that they likely
43:28
Speaker 1: died of exposure and the remains were not found, but
43:31
Speaker 1: this is the exception. I do think that she probably
43:34
Speaker 1: hitched a ride at some point, and that a lot
43:37
Speaker 1: of the witnesses who did see her did genuinely did
43:40
Speaker 1: see her. They were credible, and Patricia was just wandering
43:43
Speaker 1: out somewhere with no memory of who she was. It
43:46
Speaker 1: is also possible that even if she wasn't murdered, she
43:49
Speaker 1: could have died of natural causes and could be a
43:52
Speaker 1: Jane Doe somewhere lying in a morgue just completely unidentified,
43:56
Speaker 1: or maybe buried in a potter's grave somewhere. So I
43:59
Speaker 1: do hope that they have her DNA on file and
44:01
Speaker 1: that if she did die while she was out there
44:04
Speaker 1: living as a transient, they're able to get a match
44:06
Speaker 1: for her someday, because her family definitely deserves answers.
44:11
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44:13
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