Latest / Blood Trails / S1E7: Lost in the Dark

Transcript

S1E7: Lost in the Dark · Blood Trails

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode contains graphic descriptions of crime scene details. It
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: also deals with suicide. Listener discretion is advised. If you
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: or someone you know is in emotional distress or having
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: thoughts of suicide, call or text nine to eight eight
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It's free, confidential,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and available twenty four to seven.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Encountering the unexpected and inexplicable is one of the reasons
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: we venture into the wild. You never know what's going
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: to happen. On a hunt or a hike. You might
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: see something you've never seen before, or something you can't
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: quite explain. Since Jeff Gebhart was found dead in the
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: woods of northwest Georgia, family, friends, and investigators have been
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: trying to explain exactly what happened to the healthy, thirty
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: five year old hunter. All have failed.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Do you have any knowledge of his death or how
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: he died?
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: No, sir, I should know. I can wake you in
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: the eye and tell you. I'm sure don't. I'm telling
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: you everything that I know. Honestly, I know nothing about it.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: I was just trying to help him, and I believe
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: that I believe that I don't know anybody that would
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: want to heard him.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: That's Dave Smith. Dave and Jeff had met a couple
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: of years prior, and they'd struck up an instant friendship.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Both loved hunting, and in September of twenty twelve, they
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: traveled to the Clarks Hill Wildlife Management Area to participate
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: in a special rifle hunt for deer. Three days in,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: the trip turned from a hunt to a nightmare.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: I hear the two warning shots and I'm still blowing
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: the horn, and I told him, I said, well, I
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: want to go get somebody and we'll come and help
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: look for you. And so we come back out here
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: and they think they know about where he's at. So
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: we ride the roads. We ride that two or three times,
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: and we never did see him on the road anywhere.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: And that's when I called nine to one one.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: You told me earlier today that he sounded very not scared,
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: but he dressed out and you were hysterical.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Jeff had called Dave to tell him he was lost
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: and couldn't find his way back to the road. He
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: fired his rifle to help Dave locate him, and then nothing.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Jeff stopped answering his phone, and when game wardens arrived,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: they didn't let Dave venture into the dark Georgia Pines
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: to look for his friend.
• 2:21
  Speaker 6: The helicopter in about twenty minutes will be in there.
• 2:25
  Speaker 6: They spotted a flashlight on the shore on the lake
• 2:27
  Speaker 6: shore in some grass. Quickly thereafter they located the body.
• 2:33
  Speaker 6: They tried to hover the area. They could hover down
• 2:35
  Speaker 6: pretty close. They tried to hover over him to get
• 2:38
  Speaker 6: her repose, and he was unresponsive.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Jeff's body was found lying on his back. His hands
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: had been folded across his chest. His rifle and hunting
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: pack were a short distance away, and a folding pocket
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: knife was found underneath his body. When investigators arrived at
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the scene and took a closer look, they saw the
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: stab wounds eighteen in total, most entered around Jeff's heart.
• 3:02
  Speaker 7: Let me throw on something to you very quick.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: Okay, Jeff was murdered. This was no accident, This was
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: no suicide. This man was murdered, no question about it. Okay,
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: no doubt we know. And he was, like I said,
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: this was a murder. This was nothing.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Else that certainly seemed to be the case. No one
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: gets accidentally stabbed eighteen times. Whatever happened to the hours
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: between when Jeff hung up and when his body was
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: found was violent and intentional.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, Jeff was your friend, right and you know
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: from everything you told me, you guys had a good,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: strong friendship yesterday. And you know I can tell you're
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: upset over this, right.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: It really yeah, mardon mean when I knew he was lost,
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: and especially when the day if you got there and
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: he didn't want anybody going in the because I was
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: somebody took. You know, it's really bothered me, especially today
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: more what's if found out.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: What happened to Jeff on that warm September night is
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: as disturbing and perplexing today as it was during Dave's
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: tearful interview with law enforcement. Maybe Jeff met a stranger
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: who was bent on violence, Maybe he saw something he
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: shouldn't have seen, or an unknown enemy use the isolation
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: of the woods to settle old scores. Or maybe Jeff
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: succumbed to something even darker and more bizarre than the
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: ill will of another human. I'm Jordan Sillers and this
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: is Blood Trails, Lost in the Dark, Part one Nightmare.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Dave and Jeff had met about two years prior at
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Chambers Slaughterhouse, where they both worked in Blairsville, Georgia.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: We got along day I first made him hay Fame,
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: where I was working at. He was a hunter and
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: I was a hunter, so I mean we hit it
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: off and we started turrey hunting the first year, and
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: then deer season came along. We started deer hunting, and
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: then we had started hunting in this dear season.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: The recording you'll hear of Dave throughout this episode is
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: from two interviews he gave to agents with the Georgia
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Bureau of Investigation or GBI. Dave initially agreed to be
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: interviewed for this podcast, but he backed out, telling me
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: it would be too difficult to rehash what happened. Fortunately,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I was able to obtain the case file from the GBI,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: along with Dave's interviews with law enforcement. In the fall
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: of twenty twelve, Jeff and Dave had made plans to
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: hunt whitetail in the Clarks Hill, WMA, which is about
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: thirty miles northwest of Augusta. It was a three hour
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: drive from where the pair worked in Blairsville, but they
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: were able to get tags for a special rifle hunt.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: The general rifle season wouldn't begin until October twentieth, but
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: the Clarks Hill WMA offered a rifle season in September
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: to help manage the white tail population. According to game
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Warden Matt Garthwright, it was packed.
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: It's visited quite a good bit. That particular weekend they
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: have an early rifle hunt, which Gio's hunters come in
• 6:22
  Speaker 6: there with a rifle and hunt early before the actual
• 6:25
  Speaker 6: rifle season comes in, so a lot of people take
• 6:27
  Speaker 6: advantage of that hunt.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: The pair arrived on Thursday, September twentieth, the day before
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: the hunt opened. They planned to hunt out of portable
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: tree stands they'd brought with them. Jeff carried a Remington
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Model seven to ten bolt action rifle chambered in thirty
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: odd sixth Springfield, while Dave used a bolt action rifle
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: chambered in two seventy Winchester. They didn't shoot anything the
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: next morning, so they returned to the woods Friday evening.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: They'd set up their stands in separate areas, but apparently
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: not the right ones. They didn't see anything, or at
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: least didn't shoot anything, and Dave sent Jeff text at
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: seven thirty nine pm that said walking back. But when
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Dave got back to the truck. Jeff wasn't there.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Friday, not when he got thrown around he shot.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: One time, Jeff had gotten lost trying to get out
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: of the woods. He called Dave for help getting back
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: to the road where they were supposed to meet at
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: the truck and drive back to camp. He tried firing
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: his rifle so Dave could locate his position and guide
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: him out, but for reasons that remain unclear, he still
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: wasn't able to find the road. As he trudged through
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the woods, he ran into another hunter named Romey Taylor.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: The reports indicate that Taylor had shot a hog and
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Jeff offered to help him butcher it. Taylor told investigators
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: that Jeff was sweating, which wouldn't have been unusual given
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: tempts in the mid seventies. Taylor pointed him in the
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: right direction and he eventually found the road, and.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: That's when somebody coming down the road found him and
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: picking him up and brought him down to the bathouse,
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: and he walked on in. I'm pretty sure you said
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: it was a guy on his want and they were
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: going down to use a shower, and they gave him
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: around them later and he walked to the camper from
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: the shower house.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: If it sounds a little unusual that a thirty five
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: year old man could get so turned around trying to
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: get out of an area he just walked into a
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: few hours before, well it is. But it's also worth
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: pointing out that the Clarks Hill WMA is a dense
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: mix of hardwood and pine shot through with the westernmost
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: fingers of Clark's Hill. Lake roads weave their way through
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  Speaker 2: the forest, but you might not know you were near
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: a road, even within fifty yards of it. These were
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: also the days before on X, and the case file
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: indicates Jeff was carrying a Verizon Pantex cell phone, one
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of those devices with a sliding screen that reveals a keyboard,
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  Speaker 2: so even if he had service, that phone wouldn't have
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: been much help getting out of the woods. Whatever the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: reason Jeff got turned aroun he eventually made his way
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: back to camp. The pair had driven together in Dave's
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  Speaker 2: gold colored two thousand and four Dodge Ram, and they
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: towed a Jacob pop up camper for sleeping. They woke
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: up the next morning, but instead of going hunting, they
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: drove into the nearby town of Thompson. They stopped at
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: a gas station to fill up the truck, and then
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: picked up a few essentials for hunting in the Georgia
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  Speaker 2: back country.
• 9:22
  Speaker 8: Do you buy anything?
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Uh? We bought some thermoussail refills, and we went across
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  Speaker 4: the road to the sausage place and bought some sausage.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: It's unclear why the pair decided to skip one of
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: only three morning hunts they'd have on this trip. Maybe
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: they hadn't slept well the night before, maybe they were
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: getting eaten by mosquitos, or just didn't want to fight
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: the Orange Army on what would probably be the busiest morning.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: It might not be important, but it struck me as
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: strange that they skipped the morning hunt rather than run
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: their errands around lunchtime. Whatever the reason, they returned to
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: their campsite and went back out at four on Saturday,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: September twenty second.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: I dropped him off where he goes into his stand,
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  Speaker 4: and I went like, I don't know, it's maybe a
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: half a mile on the past where I parked and
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: go on the other side of the road.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Dave sat in his stand until it got dark, but
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: once again didn't shoot any deer. He got down, walked
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: back out to his truck and drove to where he
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: was supposed to meet Jeff along the road.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: Well, I see a flashlight coming up the road, so
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: I think it's him, so I drove to it. Well
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: it's another guy. And he said he heard somebody holler,
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: and I said, well, I haven't heard anybody. He said, well,
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: they were just righting down there.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Did gave the hunter a ride back to his truck,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: which is when he ran into two more hunters who
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: said they'd seen Jeff in the woods, and the other.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: Two guys that were there said that they had walked
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: in on him. They saw him sitting in his tree stand.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: And then I went back there and I see it
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: and he called me, and I had no phone service,
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: but when I got phone service, it said I had
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: a voicemail.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Jeff had gotten lost again trying to find the road,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: so he asked Dave to sound the truck horn to
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: try to help him determine the right direction in the dark.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Dave says this would have been about eight point fifteen
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: in the evening, and I blowed the horn.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: And he couldn't. I don't reckon he could hear it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: So he called back and said he was going to shoot,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: so he shot twice. Did you hear those shots? I
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: heard the shots. This sound like there were four or
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: five hundred yards in front of the truck.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Dave had cell phone service by this point, so he
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: was finally able to get Jeff on the phone, as
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: you already heard. He later told investigators that his friend
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: sounded stressed out, almost hysterical as he tried to describe
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: where he was.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: He said, he was in tall grass, and I thought
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: he was saying something about a fence, and then he
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: said something about mud.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Rather than wander through the woods in the dark hoping
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: to find Jeff, Dave and a few fellow hunters decided
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: the best strategy would be to drive the roads and
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: honk their horns. If you look at this WMA on
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: on X, you'll see a network of dirt roads that
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: extend through the woods like a web. Since they knew
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: the approximate area Jeff had been hunting, they figured it
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: wouldn't take him long to pop out on one of
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: those roads. But Dave said they made two or three
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: passes up and down the road and Jeff still hadn't appeared.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: He'd also stopped answering his phone and Dave was worried
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: his friend might be in more serious trouble, so he
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: called nine to one one. The first officer to arrive
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: on the scene was Corporal Mark Patterson with the Georgia
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Department of Natural Resources. The second officer was Sergeant Matt Garthwright.
• 12:44
  Speaker 6: They had done an initial search of the area on
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: This area was bordered by roads and the lake, so
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: it was a pretty contained area. Should have been easy
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: to search and locate the hunter. If he was lost
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: and instilled in good shape just walking around, it should
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: have been easy to locate him. So they'd done that initially.
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: Then when that didn't pan out, we started thinking that
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: something's wrong with him, you know, you had a medical issue,
• 13:13
  Speaker 6: or he's had a hunting accident.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: They requested air support from the Georgia State Patrol, which
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: sent a helicopter to search the area. Within about twenty minutes,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: they found Jeff.
• 13:24
  Speaker 6: Yes, they radio and told us that they had located him,
• 13:27
  Speaker 6: that he was unresponsive, and they actually directed us into him.
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: So me and Corporal Pytterson and a deputy went to him.
• 13:36
  Speaker 6: And when we got to him, he was laid on
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: his back, his legs were straight out and his arms
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: were crossed his chest, and it was apparent that he
• 13:43
  Speaker 6: was deceased.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Hunting accidents and heart attacks are the first things that
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: come to mind in this situation like this.
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that was definitely going through my mind. There was
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: a reported shot heard around dust dark, which would have
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: been a good time for somebody to mistake a hunter
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: for game in that timeframe there, so yeah, that was
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: a possibility.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: However, it quickly became clear that they were dealing with
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: something far more sinister.
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: There was some blood on his clothing, but nothing that
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: looked like a gunshot wound. There was scenarios running through
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: your head and it didn't It wasn't adding up, so
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: we knew something was off. And his gun and some
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: hunting supplies were probably i don't know, fifty yards from
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: him in some tall grass, so he had things wasn't
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: added up. We knew something was off.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Sergeant Garthrait called the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to help
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: process the scene, and he stayed with Jeff's body all
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: night until the sun came up.
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: The next morning, when daylight came, the GBI and our
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: critical reconstruction team came in and we were able to
• 14:53
  Speaker 6: go exserve the body and get a better understanding of
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: what may have took place. And while looking at the
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: bios said, we noticed blood on his clothing, and when
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: we kind of rolled him up, we found a knife
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: just right up on his right side, and that was
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: the wet one that was that was used.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Jeff's body had been stabbed eighteen times, seventeen in the
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: chest and one in the abdomen. Later examination confirmed the
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: cause of death to be blood loss from the three
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: wounds that had penetrated his heart. Not long after, on
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: September twenty fifth, Wilkes County Sheriff Mark Moore told the
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Augusta Chronicle that they were investigating Jeff's death as a homicide.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Here's Special Agent Wendell Goodman with the GBI speaking to
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Dave the day after Jeff died.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: The only thing I can tell you, I mean, we've
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: seen the body and the way this frown was committed.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: It was not somebody just happened upon him and it
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: was quick and over with. I mean, this is somebody
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: that was angry, that's money that was upset.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Finding that somebody would be the aim of the investigation
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: that followed, and it started with Jeff's friend and hunting
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: partner David Smith. Part two. Dave, the number of stab
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: wounds and Jeff's call for help strongly indicated foul play,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: and Agent Goodman and his colleagues at the GBI submitted
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: search warrants based on the probable cause that a murder
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: had been committed. One of those search warrants was sent
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: to Verizon Wireless and it asked for the text messages
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and call logs of Dave Smith. As Jeff's close friend
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and the only person he knew in the area, Dave
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: was the first person investigators looked at as a potential suspect.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Here's Agent Goodman, who took the lead on the investigation
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: for the GBI.
• 16:54
  Speaker 8: Anytime there is a death, you're looking for people initially
• 16:57
  Speaker 8: that are close to that person. They're going to be
• 17:00
  Speaker 8: your best source of information. But obviously you would circle
• 17:04
  Speaker 8: that person in its potentially being included, just because out
• 17:08
  Speaker 8: of everyone that would have been in the area, you know,
• 17:10
  Speaker 8: they're the only person that would have had a connection
• 17:13
  Speaker 8: to the victim.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Dad was also the only person who knew the approximate
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: location where Jeff had placed his tree stand, and as
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: he admitted to investigators, he was a big knife guy.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Now, I know you told me you had a lot
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: of knives, and there were something that we took home.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: I saw like a leather moon, look like a handsaw,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: a small hand saw, probably used for yeah. And then
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: you had a few knives. It looked maybe like you
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: used to clean some deers. And then uh, there were
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: a few fixed handle knives. Yeah, staging at yours. You know,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: a guy gave me that for Christmas. I've just like
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: you do, a box of the srunt. And then I
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: guess there was another button knife.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm one of these Abuton knifes, my brand and
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: knife the shop or something A lot of that if
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: they have one. At a reasonable cross.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Long, investigators found two browning knives, two unidentified fixed blade knives,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: and a buck knife in a black sheath in Dave's
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: pack truck and camper. According to the case file, all
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: of these knives were collected as evidence. Investigators believed that
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Jeff had been killed by the bloody kershaw folding knife
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: found under his body, and they were keen to find
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: out who that knife belonged to.
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: Does that look for me?
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: I really couldn't say.
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: Have you ever seen this though?
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: No, I've never saw that novel, because I do remember
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: the one he had last year. I as surrated blade
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: on the.
• 18:43
  Speaker 7: Okay, this looks like a straight edge. Do you have
• 18:46
  Speaker 7: any folding knives?
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: To folding knife everything I have or fixed flame?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Of course, it's a little hard to believe that someone
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: with a penchant for knives wouldn't own any folders. Dave's
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: adamant denial here is also a little suspicious in and
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: of itself. Investigators hadn't told him how Jeff died, or
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: that a bloody folding knife was found at the scene.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: How did Dave know to make exactly the right denial
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: in this situation. Either it's an innocent coincidence and he
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: really had strong opinions about folding knives, or he knew
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: how Jeff died because he was there. GBI agents were
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: apparently thinking the same thing. Here's agent Tony Williamson.
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: This wasn't a random killing.
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: This wasn't somebody that happened to be down there at
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: dark after dark and killed me. That that ain't happen.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: That ain't happened. And I'm will be straight up, william
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: and I want you to I want you to be
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: straight up with me. Something happened. Something happened in those woods,
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: and I think you know what happened.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: No, sir, I sure do not know what happened.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Dave had the opportunity to kill Jeff alone, with him
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: in the woods, with access to so many knives. He
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: also had the means. What agents Goodman and Williamson were
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: trying to determine was whether he had a motive.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: You guys haven't had any type of disagreements.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: We can go along good from me. Ever since we
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: met each other, you know something where you just click live,
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: you made friends, and he was he was one of
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: those tops.
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: People see, the kind of guy to pick a fight
• 20:33
  Speaker 7: if you made him.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: Yes, well let you guys, ever getting like we never got.
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: You know, you could have y'all could have.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Come upon each other down in the woods, okay, and
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: then he he could have been pissed at you, because
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: you know, he got lost and he was mad and
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: you had to defenish that. I don't know.
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: I never saw him.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: All I did was talked to him on the phone.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Dave denied killing Jeff in anger or self defense, but
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: there are many reasons for murder sex. For example, have
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: you ever known.
• 21:08
  Speaker 7: Any women that he dated, who knows.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: I've never known him dating a Roman there where we
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: live at They've always been in Florida, where he used
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: to live, or I heard him mention one last summer
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: in Atlala.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Investigators wondered whether Dave and Jeff had fought over a woman,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: but Dave denied having a steady girlfriend. There were texts
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: on Dave's phone between him and a woman named Tracy,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: but Dave said they'd been set up by someone else
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: and had never actually met. But when Dave mentioned that
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Jeff had been given a ride to the camp bathhouse
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: by another hunter, it sent investigators down another line of
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: inquiry related to matters of the heart.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Now, I know you said earlier that a guy had
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: picked up Jeff and they went to the showers, and
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: as Jeff involved.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: In all of that guy, not that I don't worry
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: he was.
• 22:03
  Speaker 7: See where I'm going, Yeah, it was.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: You haven't had any type of relationship type of moments
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: which have agents.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Goodman and Williamson returned to this line of questioning several
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: times throughout the interview. It might seem awkward or insensitive,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Neither thirty
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: something man seemed to have a steady girlfriend, and a
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: secret homosexual relationship would be exactly the kind of fraud
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: potentially explosive situation that could lead to a violent disagreement.
• 22:35
  Speaker 7: So I don't keep me straight up with it. He's gay.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: I have no idea. You say a homosexual, I have
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: no idea. I mean, I don't want to hold that
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: against anybody, even moves against me.
• 22:45
  Speaker 7: So I don't know.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: He's never talked about being another another guy.
• 22:49
  Speaker 7: Let me ask you this, and it's just, you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: we got to ask all kinds of questions, but you know,
• 22:57
  Speaker 7: are you a homosexual?
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: No, sir, I'm no. I'm not gonna judge somebody for
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: doing it.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: And have you ever been physically involved with Jeff?
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: No? I have never been physically involved with the guy.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Dave sticks to his guns as the interview progresses, but
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: it's clearly agents are baffled. It's hard to imagine a
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: stranger finding Jeff in the woods and stabbing him to death,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: but the only person who knew the victim is adamant
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: that he didn't kill his friend, and he doesn't know
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: who did.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: Man's lost. Who in the hell would kill him. Think
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: about it to put yourself on our shoes. I mean,
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: we're just trying to find out what happened. I mean
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: last time, I can't. There weren't any while men down there.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: They speculate that maybe someone killed Jeff as part of
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: a robbery, but none of Jeff's hunting gear appeared to
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: have been stolen, including his rifle, and he still had
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: his wallet in his pocket.
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: Who's gonna hat somebody in the woods, especially downa think shit,
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: who's a grown man and he got lost? Who is
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: gonna be in those woods? Who would be in those
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: woods that would.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: Do something like that? And see, I have no idea.
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: I'm the person that killed him, knew him, Isn't that right?
• 24:17
  Speaker 7: And that person is you?
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: No, sir, I didn't like kill him, do not know
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: anything about it.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: The agents really give Dave the third degree in this interview,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: and if he's innocent, it's hard not to feel sorry
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: for the guy. He's just lost his friend. He doesn't
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: have a lawyer in the room, His camper and truck
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: have been searched, and his property has been seized as
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: part of a homicide investigation. But as Agent Goodman told me,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: while Dave didn't do anything that made him look overly suspicious.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: They had to take a hard look to make sure
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: he was telling the truth.
• 24:48
  Speaker 8: You know, he is the most connected person to mister
• 24:52
  Speaker 8: gab Hart. Obviously not immediately aware of what the true
• 24:56
  Speaker 8: nature of their relationship is. Because neither person was actually
• 25:00
  Speaker 8: from the area. No one in the area knew them.
• 25:04
  Speaker 8: They were visiting specifically for this hunt, you know, So
• 25:07
  Speaker 8: we really didn't have that much to go off aside
• 25:10
  Speaker 8: from you know, those initial contacts with with mister Smith.
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: There may be some interviews that we conducted that may
• 25:17
  Speaker 8: seem a little bit you know, adversarial because we're trying
• 25:20
  Speaker 8: to get a reaction and trying to get an understanding
• 25:22
  Speaker 8: of what somebody's stances on a certain topic, or you know,
• 25:27
  Speaker 8: whether they may or may not have been involved, or
• 25:29
  Speaker 8: whether you know, there was anything tumultuous that may have
• 25:33
  Speaker 8: gone on that's you know, under the surface that nobody's
• 25:36
  Speaker 8: aware of. So, I mean, all of those things may
• 25:38
  Speaker 8: have come up here and there, you know, even in
• 25:40
  Speaker 8: interactions with mister Smith, but it was more so to
• 25:45
  Speaker 8: try to get to the truth.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: The truth in this case turned out to be stranger
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: than either of the agents anticipated what started as a
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: homicide investigation morphed into something more perplexing and difficult to
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: explain than a lover quarrel or a robbery gone wrong.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: As Agent Goodman and others followed the evidence that led
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: them to the fringes of psychology, the Roman Catholic Church,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and what Sergeant Garthright called the death hunt. That's next
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: on Blood Trails, Part three. The crime scene. With Dave
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: sticking to his story and no other likely suspects, GBI
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: investigators turned to the physical evidence they had gathered thus far.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: But if they thought it was hard to explain how
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Jeff met a murderer in the woods, they struggled even
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: more to account for what they found at the crime scene.
• 26:42
  Speaker 9: It defied forensic sense.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: That's Charlotte Perdue, a forensic scientist with Florida State University.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: She reviewed Jeff's case for an independent organization that takes
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: a second look at cold cases. She told me, it
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: was easy to see Jeff's trail through the still damp
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: lake bed, but investigators couldn't find signs of anyone other
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: than Jeff.
• 27:05
  Speaker 9: There was an area that was all very marshy, and
• 27:07
  Speaker 9: you could see all of his foot prints, and then
• 27:09
  Speaker 9: you saw where he like threw down his rifle, he
• 27:12
  Speaker 9: threw down his flashlight, so he's basically leaving like a
• 27:14
  Speaker 9: little mini trail. There was a water bottle, but there
• 27:18
  Speaker 9: was only his foot print.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Detectives confirmed that the boot prints on the damp ground
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: matched Jeff's, but they didn't find anyone else's. The scene
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: also didn't match what you'd expect to see after a
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: knife fight.
• 27:30
  Speaker 8: Mister Gabhart himself was a fairly large man. If you
• 27:34
  Speaker 8: take your average person that's really in a struggle, in
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: a fight, the scene is gonna look brutal Normally, if
• 27:40
  Speaker 8: it's gonna be like a sharp force instrument that's being used,
• 27:44
  Speaker 8: you're gonna have blood kind of I guess, for a
• 27:48
  Speaker 8: lack of better terms, it's gonna be everywhere, and in
• 27:52
  Speaker 8: this instance there was not that. Initially, you really couldn't
• 27:56
  Speaker 8: even tell what had happened until you began to feel
• 27:58
  Speaker 8: back some of the layers that mister Gabhart was wearing.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: The only blood at the crime scene was pooled directly
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: under Jeff's torso, but even this gave investigators pause.
• 28:08
  Speaker 9: All the blood ran backward, so you can tell that
• 28:10
  Speaker 9: he was laying down at the time, so someone would
• 28:13
  Speaker 9: have literally had to be on top of him if
• 28:14
  Speaker 9: they did it. He had no drugs or anything in
• 28:17
  Speaker 9: his system, so he would have been laying completely still
• 28:21
  Speaker 9: and not fighting, which would have been very unusual.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: This theory that Jeff was lying still as he was
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: being stabbed was supported by another strange fact. Jeff didn't
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: appear to have any defensive wounds anywhere on his body.
• 28:35
  Speaker 8: Well, normally, if there's a physical altercation, you're going to
• 28:39
  Speaker 8: have some type of defensive wounds. So if somebody is
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: attacking another person with a knife, normally the person being
• 28:46
  Speaker 8: attacked may put up their forearms or their hands in
• 28:49
  Speaker 8: front of them to try to block the knife. They
• 28:51
  Speaker 8: may reach for the knife, and you know, depending on
• 28:54
  Speaker 8: how they might be reaching or they're stronger, we can
• 28:57
  Speaker 8: you might find some wounds on the hands, on the forearms.
• 29:03
  Speaker 8: There were no real defensive wounds that were noted. I
• 29:07
  Speaker 8: believe there might have been a small cut, like in
• 29:10
  Speaker 8: the webbing of his hand, but it's not abnormal for
• 29:14
  Speaker 8: somebody that carries a knife, you know, to have that
• 29:17
  Speaker 8: type of cut, and I don't think it was anything
• 29:20
  Speaker 8: that I would really categorize, especially based on the overall
• 29:24
  Speaker 8: scene as a defensive wound.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: The wound on his hand also appeared to be older,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and investigators theorized it was likely sustained during his daily
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: tasks at the meat processor. He also had some superficial
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: abrasions on his neck, but these were light enough that
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: they could be explained by the rifle sling or the
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: climbing harness he was wearing. Further testing also confirmed the
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: investigator's theory about that folding kershaw knife found underneath his body.
• 29:49
  Speaker 9: They also did DNA tests on the knife that was
• 29:51
  Speaker 9: found next to his body, and it was only his DNA.
• 29:55
  Speaker 9: They also did DNA testing on all the knives that
• 29:57
  Speaker 9: were found in the camper, and they determined that they
• 30:01
  Speaker 9: did not have any I guess that were specific to human,
• 30:04
  Speaker 9: so the blood type was obviously an animal of some sort.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Whoever had done this to Jeff had left absolutely no
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: trace of their presence. They had murdered the hunter without
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: leaving blood on the knife, footprints in the ground, or
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: belongings in the dirt. It was like one of those
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Sherlock Holmes cases where the perpetrator kills someone in a
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: locked room without windows, it just didn't make any sense.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Investigators wondered whether he'd been killed somewhere else and then
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: dragged to the spot where he was found. But as
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: any hunter knows who's dragged a dead animal through the woods,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: moving a body would have left impressions in the grass
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: and dirt. None of the tall grass around Jeff's body
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: had been disturbed apart from where he himself had walked in,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: and as I just mentioned, there wasn't any blood on
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: the grass except right underneath Jeff's body. What's more, Jeff
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: himself was six foot two, two hundred and thirty nine pounds.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: They would have taken an incredibly strong person to drag
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Jeff's body any distance at all. And there weren't any
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: wheelmarks at the scene either.
• 31:07
  Speaker 9: And there was no other indication that this grass had
• 31:10
  Speaker 9: been mushed down anywhere else. Then it was like, well,
• 31:13
  Speaker 9: maybe it was carried in. Well, that would have been
• 31:15
  Speaker 9: very difficult because it was more than a half a
• 31:17
  Speaker 9: mile into the woods, so that would have been a
• 31:20
  Speaker 9: long way to carry him.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: None of this made any sense, and as you heard
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: in Dave's interview with the GBI, investigators continue to treat
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Jeff's death as a homicide, but that started to change
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: when the medical examiner sent his official autopsy report.
• 31:36
  Speaker 8: I would say that everything that really began to fall
• 31:40
  Speaker 8: into place would have been post to autopsy. Initially on
• 31:44
  Speaker 8: the front end, you look at the number and you know,
• 31:48
  Speaker 8: they may make you think this person was involved in
• 31:50
  Speaker 8: something horrific. Surely there had to be some type of
• 31:54
  Speaker 8: violent interaction between one person and another. But once a
• 31:59
  Speaker 8: medical examiner began to examine the wounds, the majority of
• 32:03
  Speaker 8: them were actually fairly superficial, fairly piercing the upper layers
• 32:08
  Speaker 8: of skin, and definitely nothing that would be fatal.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Jeff had been stabbed eighteen times, but many of those
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: wounds hadn't gone much past the skin. This wasn't obvious
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: to the death investigator on the scene, but the more
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: thorough autopsy by the medical examiner in this case, a
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: doctor named Daniel Brown, noted that only three of the
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: wounds had been deep enough to reach his heart. What's more,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: all were angled left to right. If you're looking at
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: his body from the front.
• 32:38
  Speaker 9: If someone is stabbing someone, you're going to be thrashing about,
• 32:42
  Speaker 9: so your stabs will be all at different angles. His
• 32:44
  Speaker 9: were all at one particular angle.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: I reviewed some of the crime scene photos with Charla,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: and she pointed out how Jeff's right hand was covered
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: in blood while his left hand was clean.
• 32:56
  Speaker 9: If you see here, this right hand is all bloody,
• 32:59
  Speaker 9: this one is, and there's even blood like embedded in
• 33:03
  Speaker 9: the other kindzine photos. They have close up of his
• 33:05
  Speaker 9: hand and you can see the blood all the way
• 33:07
  Speaker 9: down under his fingernails. While this hand is clean.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: There is no reason why if Jeff was attacked his
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: right hand would be bloody while his left hand wouldn't be.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: The wounds themselves were also fairly clean, meaning it appeared
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: like the knife slipped in and out without being jostled around.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: This would have been extremely unusual if Jeff had been
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: stabbed by an assailant. In that case, you can imagine
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: him moving around to try to avoid being stabbed and
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: the knife causing wider, more jagged cuts in his body.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: But these wounds weren't much wider than that Kershaw knife.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: There was one wound in his abdomen, but all the
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: other wounds were clustered together on his chest.
• 33:46
  Speaker 9: They're all in an area that he could reach. They're
• 33:48
  Speaker 9: all right handed, which Jeff was right handed, which we
• 33:52
  Speaker 9: confirmed with his brother that he was right handed.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Taking all this evidence together, the blood on Jeff's hand,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: the location and angle of the stack wounds, and the
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: absence of another person at the scene, investigators could only
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: reach one conclusion. Jeff hadn't been murdered. He died by suicide,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Part four doubts. When the GBI announced their findings, you
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: can imagine the reaction from the general public. Not to
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: mention Jeff's family.
• 34:24
  Speaker 10: I don't believe it was suicide in any way, shape
• 34:27
  Speaker 10: or form.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: That's Russell Cornell. Russell didn't know Jeff personally, but he
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: knows Jeff's family, and he's a member of the same
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Roman Catholic fraternity Jeff belonged to.
• 34:37
  Speaker 10: When a guy that has a loaded rifle toted it
• 34:40
  Speaker 10: through the woods, are you actually gonna pull utch your
• 34:43
  Speaker 10: knife and kill yourself with a knife. Isn't it easier
• 34:46
  Speaker 10: just to put a bullet through yourself.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I've heard similar objections from pretty much everyone I've told
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: about this case. Most people have been impacted by suicide
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: in one way or another, but no one has ever
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: heard of something like this. Why, as Russell asked, would
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: someone stab themselves eighteen times with a folding knife when
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: they were carrying a rifle. It's a gruesome question, but
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: it must be asked. Charla has at least the beginnings
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: of an explanation, and I should point out here that
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: she was in no way connected to the GBI or
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: the original investigation. Families of victims ask the organization she
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: works for to review cases if they believe law enforcement
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: came to the wrong conclusion. That's what happened in this situation.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: So if anything, Charla would have a bias against what
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: the GBI determined, but she largely agrees, and she has
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: one potential explanation.
• 35:40
  Speaker 9: Jeff was pretty religious and from the Catholic faith. He
• 35:44
  Speaker 9: was very active in his church. He was a member
• 35:47
  Speaker 9: of the Knights of Columbus, so he was practicing, and
• 35:52
  Speaker 9: one of the suggestions was that maybe he possibly was
• 35:55
  Speaker 9: trying to avoid it looking like a suicide.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Catholic Church has long taught that suicide is a mortal sin.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: There are nuances to this, but I think I'm on
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: safe ground when I say that if you're a Catholic
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: and you commit suicide, you're in serious danger of going
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: to Hell. The church has softened the stance in recent decades,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: but many still hear stories about the church denying Catholic
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: burials to those who die by suicide. Russell, who is
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: also Catholic, confirmed that the entire Gebhart family is devout,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: which is one of the reasons he doesn't believe Jeff
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: killed himself.
• 36:30
  Speaker 10: I just don't believe a man would go on a
• 36:32
  Speaker 10: hunting trip the way out there, especially a Catholic man,
• 36:35
  Speaker 10: because yes, there are some that have committed suicide, but
• 36:38
  Speaker 10: that's one big thing that is of mortal sin to
• 36:42
  Speaker 10: the Catholic. So most Catholics won't pick their own life.
• 36:46
  Speaker 10: I mean, that's my belief and that's my failure. And
• 36:49
  Speaker 10: if you're close with God, why would you want to
• 36:51
  Speaker 10: take your own life?
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: But what if Jeff was mentally distressed and committed to
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: ending his life. He wouldn't want his parents to be
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: worried about the eternal state of his soul, and he'd
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: want them to give him a proper Catholic burial. If
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: he killed himself in a way that made it look
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: like a homicide, he might save his parents that pain
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: and give them hope that they'd see him again in
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the afterlife. This might also explain why Jeff called Dave
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: for help getting out of the woods. If his plan
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: was to make his death look like a homicide, a
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: call for help just a few minutes prior would definitely
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: move investigators in that direction. As Charlotte noted in her report,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: the first time Jeff got lost may have actually been
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: an initial attempt at suicide.
• 37:33
  Speaker 9: Getting lost might have been an attempt or thinking he
• 37:37
  Speaker 9: was going to but then he changed his mind for
• 37:39
  Speaker 9: whatever reason.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I ran this theory past Russell, and let's just say
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: he wasn't impressed.
• 37:45
  Speaker 10: That's someone else's theory, someone else's opinion.
• 37:49
  Speaker 7: I don't think.
• 37:50
  Speaker 10: I mean, I just can't see someone doing that, Really,
• 37:52
  Speaker 10: I can't.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I also consulted doctor Jeff Kalshewsky, a forensic psychologist who
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: you may remember from episode three of this season. You'll
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: hear more from him later in the episode, but he
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: thought this plan sounded a little too elaborate for someone
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: experiencing a mental health crisis.
• 38:09
  Speaker 11: Most of the cases that I've had where suicides occurred,
• 38:12
  Speaker 11: people were at the point where living is so unbearable
• 38:15
  Speaker 11: that they're going to take their own life, and they
• 38:18
  Speaker 11: don't tailor their plan around how it will affect loved ones,
• 38:24
  Speaker 11: they just carried out. However, there are a few cases
• 38:28
  Speaker 11: I've had, for example, it's a bit graphic, but I've
• 38:33
  Speaker 11: seen a couple of cases over the years where people
• 38:35
  Speaker 11: were going to take their life with a firearm and
• 38:38
  Speaker 11: they decided to shoot themselves in the heart rather than
• 38:41
  Speaker 11: in the face because they were thinking about a funeral.
• 38:44
  Speaker 7: But that's as far.
• 38:45
  Speaker 11: As I've seen it taken in my experience. When people
• 38:49
  Speaker 11: make that plan to take their own life, what you're
• 38:52
  Speaker 11: talking about trying to make it look like a homicide
• 38:56
  Speaker 11: so that your parents won't be upset with you for
• 38:59
  Speaker 11: taking your own life. That is pretty detailed and pretty sophisticated,
• 39:03
  Speaker 11: and I would have a hard time accepting that that theory.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Russell also isn't sure why even if Charlotte is right
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: and Jeff used a knife to stage a homicide, he
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: would stab himself eighteen times.
• 39:17
  Speaker 10: Now, I can't see him doing stab it himself. I mean,
• 39:21
  Speaker 10: and that many times. This is a way. I really
• 39:24
  Speaker 10: don't believe there's a possible way, human possible way that
• 39:27
  Speaker 10: you could kill yourself like that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: This is another objection I've heard quite a bit. It
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: seems like if for some reason you want to commit
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: suicide with a knife while you're carrying a firearm, you'd
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: try to get it over with. Jeff was a hunter.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: He worked in a meat processing facility. He was comfortable
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: handling a knife, and he knew how to kill something quickly.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Why would he cause himself so much pain before finally
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: hitting his heart. There is no great answer to this question,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: but we can glean some insight from the two percent
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: of suicide victims who take their lives with a knife.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: It's a very uncommon way to kill yourself, but it
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: does happen.
• 40:07
  Speaker 9: When someone is stabbing themselves. There's what we call hesitation marks.
• 40:11
  Speaker 9: So many of this dads are almost superficial. They call
• 40:14
  Speaker 9: that like the testing what can I tolerate? That's not
• 40:17
  Speaker 9: unusual either to see those what they call the hesitation marks,
• 40:21
  Speaker 9: where they are just kind of trying to figure out
• 40:24
  Speaker 9: what can I tolerate? So the number isn't really strange.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Charlotte explained that while three of the wounds were deep
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: enough to pierce the heart, only one did enough damage
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: to cause immediate death. The other two were what Charlotte
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: described as a nick And I should point out here
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: that we're not just relying on the original medical examiner's opinion.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Charlotte's team sent the photographs and information to three other
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: doctors and they all reached the same conclusion. As difficult
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: as it was to believe, the crime scene and autopsy
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: pointed to suicide, and that conclusion was even more appealing
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: given the lack of suspects. Investigators spoke to Jeff's family
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: and friends, and none of them reported Jeff having any enemies,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: and even if he did, that enemy would have had
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: to know where he was hunting, find him in the woods,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: and stab him to death without leaving a single trace.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: One of those friends also confirmed to Agent Goodman that
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Jeff owned a folding Kershaw knife. No one else at
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the campground rose to suspicion, and Dave was also eliminated
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: from contention. Dave had voicemails and call logs to prove
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: he'd spoken to Jeff around eight thirty PM, and from
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: that time forward he was in the company of other
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: hunters who'd helped him look for his friend.
• 41:37
  Speaker 8: Based on our understanding of when the calls began to
• 41:40
  Speaker 8: be made, and with interviews with people that would have
• 41:44
  Speaker 8: been located at Holiday Park during that timeframe after he
• 41:48
  Speaker 8: had gone missing. There were people that were there camping
• 41:52
  Speaker 8: and hunting and or fishing themselves that actually wanted to
• 41:56
  Speaker 8: join in the search for mister deep Part and that
• 41:58
  Speaker 8: actually did to try to help locate him. So it's
• 42:02
  Speaker 8: my understanding very early on, like when some of those
• 42:05
  Speaker 8: calls came in, Yeah, he's going to be in a
• 42:07
  Speaker 8: company of other people there at the campground, and.
• 42:10
  Speaker 9: We had a very accurate timeline because of the other
• 42:13
  Speaker 9: hunters that also corroborated David's story that Jeff was calling
• 42:18
  Speaker 9: on the phone that he was very panicked and that
• 42:21
  Speaker 9: he kept saying he was lost.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: What's more, they weren't able to find his blood anywhere
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: on Jeff's body, or Jeff's blood anywhere on Dave's clothes.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: They searched his truck and his camper, confiscated his knives
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: and equipment, and didn't find any reason to believe that
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Dave had killed his hunting buddy.
• 42:37
  Speaker 9: So these are the footprints that were found at the scene.
• 42:42
  Speaker 9: But you can see this is David's boot and it
• 42:44
  Speaker 9: clearly does not match. And these were the only bootprints
• 42:48
  Speaker 9: that were found at the scene. They also did not
• 42:51
  Speaker 9: match to any of the boots that were in the camper,
• 42:54
  Speaker 9: because they also had additional pairs of shoes in the camper.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: With no suspects and a good deal of evidence pointing
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: to suicide, investigators sent the case file to the Tomb's
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Judicial Circuit District Attorney's office, which convened a grand jury
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: in August of twenty thirteen. They issued a decision, agreeing
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: with the GBI and the medical examiner. Jeff's death was
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: ruled a suicide, and the case has been officially closed
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: ever since. I don't know how Jeff's immediate family feels today.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: His brother Jason was open to being interviewed, but after
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a few emails back and forth, stopped responding to my messages.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: But I do know the family was at one point
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: doubtful of the GBI's conclusion, because they asked Charla and
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: her team to review the case in twenty eighteen.
• 43:40
  Speaker 9: I have not spoken to Jason since we gave our report.
• 43:43
  Speaker 9: You know, we didn't find the conclusion that he the
• 43:46
  Speaker 9: family wanted.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: However the family feels these days, It's safe to say
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: that Russell isn't satisfied.
• 43:52
  Speaker 10: It was my sin. I'd want to know who killed him.
• 43:54
  Speaker 10: It was something like that bizarre death. There's no way
• 43:57
  Speaker 10: I'm gonna accept it. Well, he went out shot buck
• 44:00
  Speaker 10: knife and he decided to cut himself all up and
• 44:02
  Speaker 10: kill himself. Somebody is guilty of this crime that they've
• 44:06
  Speaker 10: done to this man, Jeff, and it needs to be opened.
• 44:09
  Speaker 10: It needs to be a case that has looked after
• 44:12
  Speaker 10: and until it is solved.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Whether you side with Russell or the GBI is up
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: to you. But there's still one more question to ask,
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: and it might be the most important question of all
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Part five, The Darkness of the Mind. It would be easier,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: though no less tragic, if investigators determined that Jeff had
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: a secret mental health issue, if he'd shown signs of
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: depression or had some unresolved trauma in his past, maybe
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: we could square away his actions and tie them up
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: in a tidy box. But we can't.
• 44:53
  Speaker 9: No, he didn't have any mental health problems that we're
• 44:56
  Speaker 9: aware of.
• 44:57
  Speaker 8: I don't recall anyone ever communicat any potential cause as
• 45:04
  Speaker 8: far as what may have led to mister gab Hart
• 45:08
  Speaker 8: wanting to take his own life, So I would say
• 45:11
  Speaker 8: no in that instance. I don't recall anyone saying anything
• 45:16
  Speaker 8: that would correlate him to, you know, be prone to
• 45:20
  Speaker 8: being suicidal.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Even just a few hours after the incident. Dave reiterated
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: this in his interview with agents Goodman and Williamson.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: Do you think Jeffer won't hurt himself?
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: Not that I know if he never mentioned anything to
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: me about hurting.
• 45:36
  Speaker 7: His sale him.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: But he was the type of person that would have
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: anybody if they needed help.
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: But I don't.
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: I don't think you'd heard hisself.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: You haven't seen any letters, notes. If he doesn't leave
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: anything behind, you get the camp no sign.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: The Jason Foundation reports that one in five individuals do
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: not show any signs of depression before committing suicide, so
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: it's possible Jeff was depressed and unstable and was able
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: to hide it. Charlotte also points out that even though
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: the Gebharts never admitted their son had mental health issues,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: they may have been hiding or even repressing Jeff's troubled mind.
• 46:15
  Speaker 9: One of the things that we talk about in the
• 46:17
  Speaker 9: report is, and we've seen this with other cold cases
• 46:19
  Speaker 9: that we've done, is we've had people that have called
• 46:22
  Speaker 9: and said, oh my gosh, my son has killed himself,
• 46:25
  Speaker 9: and then two months later they're like there's no way
• 46:28
  Speaker 9: he would have killed himself. They're like, well, you even
• 46:31
  Speaker 9: told us so at some point you thought he might,
• 46:33
  Speaker 9: because that's exactly what you said. And one of the
• 46:36
  Speaker 9: things that the family kept saying was that he had
• 46:39
  Speaker 9: an accident, and they didn't start asking, well, who killed
• 46:42
  Speaker 9: him or what happened or anything like that. So that
• 46:46
  Speaker 9: was also part of what we thought might be unconscious
• 46:49
  Speaker 9: things that people don't think about, that maybe he did
• 46:53
  Speaker 9: have some issues that he had expressed.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Jeff's silence about his mental health issues isn't proof that
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: he didn't kill himself, but the way he did so
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: suggests a level of emotional distress that would have been
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: tough to hide.
• 47:07
  Speaker 11: The amount of pain that's occurring with stabbing yourself seventeen times,
• 47:12
  Speaker 11: you would have to be very motivated to take your
• 47:15
  Speaker 11: own life. In other words, sometimes you'll see suicide attempts
• 47:18
  Speaker 11: with stabbing where they stab themselves once but it becomes
• 47:22
  Speaker 11: overwhelming and they sort of back out of it halfway
• 47:25
  Speaker 11: through the attempt. That's not that uncommon.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: That's doctor Kolshewski again. He says seventeen stab wounds because
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I misstated the number when I spoke to him. The
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: real number is eighteen. As per Charlotte's report, Doctor Kolshewski
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: works in a group psychology practice, so he hears about
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: cases from the other doctors in his office as well
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: as his own. He told me it's extremely uncommon for
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: someone to commit suicide without showing any warning signs.
• 47:52
  Speaker 11: There's always something there once you dig a little bit
• 47:56
  Speaker 11: below the surface. They interview people in the workplace. Co
• 47:59
  Speaker 11: workers have had no idea, We had no idea, But
• 48:02
  Speaker 11: usually people that are closer, when you dig a little deeper,
• 48:05
  Speaker 11: you'll find some things that would be consistent with creating
• 48:08
  Speaker 11: a plan and carrying it out to take your own life.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Jeff's decision to take his life in such an inaccessible
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: area is also inconsistent with suicide.
• 48:17
  Speaker 11: A lot of times, if people make this plan to
• 48:19
  Speaker 11: carry out taking their own life and they want to
• 48:22
  Speaker 11: be found, a lot of them do they remain in
• 48:24
  Speaker 11: a place where it's going to be easy to find them,
• 48:26
  Speaker 11: not wandering off into the woods carrying all your stuff.
• 48:30
  Speaker 11: So so many things to me are contra intuitive to
• 48:34
  Speaker 11: a person planning and carrying out a suicide that it
• 48:39
  Speaker 11: just makes me ask so many more questions rather than
• 48:43
  Speaker 11: being able to narrow in on one theory as most likely.
• 48:46
  Speaker 11: I'll tell you what. It's one of the oddists. If
• 48:48
  Speaker 11: it was a suicide, it's one of the artist suicides
• 48:51
  Speaker 11: I've ever seen or heard of, for sure.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Matt Garthright, one of the first game wardens on the scene,
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: also mentioned a theory that makes a brief appearance in
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: SLA's report. Maybe rather than hatching an elaborate plan to
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: kill himself and make it look like a homicide, Jeff
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: had some kind of mental break in the woods.
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: The only I guess you can call it a rumor
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: that I heard was he was very scared of the
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: dark and spiders, so being lost in the woods, if
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: he did have that fear, could have resulted him doing
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: something that he would not usually have done.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: And that's my theory. Of course.
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: You know, he was lost in the thick grass area,
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: it was dark, and that may have led to his decisions.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: It's tough to predict how someone will respond to extreme
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: stress or fear. Dave reported that his friend sounded almost
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: hysterical on the phone, so it's possible he was having
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: some kind of episode. But while doctor Kalshewsky acknowledges that
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: people can have psychotic breaks, that mental instability doesn't come
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: out of nowhere.
• 49:58
  Speaker 11: He just don't, you know, walks through the woods and
• 50:00
  Speaker 11: then ten minutes later have a psychotic break and kill yourself.
• 50:04
  Speaker 11: If you were going to have a psychotic break, there
• 50:06
  Speaker 11: would be evidence before that.
• 50:09
  Speaker 10: You know.
• 50:10
  Speaker 11: The second thing is the idea that someone has a
• 50:13
  Speaker 11: psychotic break and immediately kills themselves in an elaborate way
• 50:17
  Speaker 11: doesn't fit either, because if you're talking about a psychotic
• 50:21
  Speaker 11: break where you just kind of lose it and you
• 50:23
  Speaker 11: kill yourself, now we're talking about an impulsive act. Well,
• 50:26
  Speaker 11: if this indeed was a suicide, this was definitely not impulsive.
• 50:30
  Speaker 11: Seventeen stab wounds, so that doesn't jibe either. I think
• 50:35
  Speaker 11: there's a lot of missing information here. And again when
• 50:38
  Speaker 11: I mentioned earlier, the idea of a psychological autopsy would
• 50:42
  Speaker 11: be something very important in this case if we really
• 50:44
  Speaker 11: want to understand what happened, trying to understand a person's
• 50:47
  Speaker 11: frame of mind at the time of the incident, and
• 50:50
  Speaker 11: was from gathering all that data and all that information,
• 50:53
  Speaker 11: was he in a frame of mind where he could
• 50:55
  Speaker 11: have carried out taking his own life. And if we
• 50:59
  Speaker 11: don't see that, then again, just because the wounds aren't
• 51:05
  Speaker 11: consistent with what you normally see in a homicide doesn't
• 51:08
  Speaker 11: mean a homicide did not occur.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Of course, there is one other theory, if you can
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: call it that more like a tidbit of information, and
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: you can do with it what you will. When I
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: had finished asking Sergeant garthright my list of questions, I
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: asked if there was anything else he wanted to cover.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Here's what he said.
• 51:30
  Speaker 6: This particular hunt happens every year, and for several years,
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: there's been a death on this hunt. So whether it
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: be a heart attack or you know, this situation here.
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: So it was a few years there that this hunt
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: was a kind of strange.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Really, So on this WMA, on this particular hunt, this
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: early rifle hunt, people passed away for how many years
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: in a row? Do you think?
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: I want to say three?
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: And were the others also suspicions are mysterious or you
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: mentioned a heart attack.
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: They were just there were natural health issues like a
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: heart attack.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that must have been weird for you to be
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: called out there again several years, like what's going on
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: with this hunt?
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: That's that's exactly what we were thinking, what's up with
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: this hunt? I kind of nickname him to death hunt.
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: But for the last couple of years now we hadn't
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: had any issues.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: It stopped.
• 52:22
  Speaker 6: But yeah, there was just a couple of years there
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: that you know, somebody dragging a deer out got have
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: a heart attack or or going to a stand and
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: you know, had a heart attack.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's very strange. That's very strange. Part six,
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: No good answers Asian Goodman almost didn't talk to me
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: about this case. He believes without question that Jeff committed suicide,
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: and he doesn't want to cause the geb Hearts more
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: pain and confusion by casting doubt on that conclusion, something
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: true crime podcast are pretty much always going to do.
• 53:03
  Speaker 8: You know, always still think about them. I think about
• 53:06
  Speaker 8: the time that I met with his father, and being
• 53:09
  Speaker 8: a father myself, I could only you know, begin to
• 53:12
  Speaker 8: imagine what that's like having to deal with. So I
• 53:17
  Speaker 8: would just want it to be said, you know, I
• 53:19
  Speaker 8: always still think about the family, and you know, I
• 53:22
  Speaker 8: always want to be respectful anytime you know, I've spoken
• 53:25
  Speaker 8: about this to their feelings on the situation.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: I share that priority. But the fact is this isn't
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: a case that's ever going to feel closed It's possible
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: the GBI missed something or is hiding something, but that's
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: not really what I'm talking about. Even if we acknowledge
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: that Jeff stabbed himself eighteen times, we still don't know why.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: We can speculate, but we'll never know for sure. And
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: that's really the grit that gets stuck in the craw
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: of this story. It's hard enough to explain why a
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: young man would kill himself. It's another thing entirely to
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: explain why he would do it with a pocket knife
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: on a hunt, after calling his friend for help, and
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: without showing any signs of depression. There's something we don't
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: understand about this case, and right now we don't have
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: any good answers.
• 54:18
  Speaker 8: You opening theness of it. It can be a little anticlimactic,
• 54:22
  Speaker 8: and you never did that direct answer aside from physical
• 54:26
  Speaker 8: evidence and physical evidence isn't a talking person or the
• 54:29
  Speaker 8: words of the person. And I think everybody just wants
• 54:33
  Speaker 8: some form of resolve, and in these types of cases,
• 54:36
  Speaker 8: you don't always get it.
• 54:38
  Speaker 9: Like you said, it's all speculative. And one of the
• 54:40
  Speaker 9: things we say in the report isn't the only person
• 54:42
  Speaker 9: who really knows the answers is the one person who
• 54:44
  Speaker 9: can't answer them.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. I
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: want to encourage you, like we said at the top,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: to get help if you're feeling to pray or having
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: thoughts of suicide. Hundreds and anglers are often loaners. We're
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: independent and self sufficient, but that sometimes means we don't
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: like asking for help. Don't let the fear of embarrassment
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: or vulnerability keep you from reaching out. You can call
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: the Mental Health Crisis Hotline at nine eight eight to
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: speak with a counselor. It's free and confidential, and they're
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: trained to talk about whatever you might be facing. As always,
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: you can visit the meateater dot com slash blood trails
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: to check out images related to this case. You can
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: also send us an email at blood Trails at the
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: meateater dot com if you have feedback on this episode
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: or know about another case you think we should cover.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: Big Thanks to Special Agent Wendell Goodman, Charlotte Purdue, Russell Cornell,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: and doctor Jeff Kalshewsky. See you next time. Stay safe
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: out there,