Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Peter Bergman Pt. One

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Peter Bergman Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Welcome back to the Path with Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
0:34
I'm Ashley. Let's die right into this week's case. June sixteenth, two
0:40
thousand and nine, Ross's Point, Ireland, the body of a man who
0:45
appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties is found washed up on
0:49
a beach, and his cause of death is believed to be a cute cardiac
0:53
arrest. Four days earlier, the man had arrived in the nearby town of
0:58
Sligo and into a hotel under the name Peter Bergman, but it turns out
1:03
this name was fake and he carries no identification. Investigators believe that he traveled
1:10
to Ireland from another country, and you CCTV footage to track his movements in
1:15
the days prior to his death. When they are unable to uncover Peter Bergmann's
1:19
true identity. After that, the Path went Chile. So a few weeks
1:26
ago, our podcast traveled to Ireland to cover the unsolved disappearance of Trevor Dealey,
1:30
so I figured we should go back there to cover another mystery. This
1:34
time it involves an unidentified John Doe. The two thousand and nine death of
1:38
a man known only as Peter Bergmann. While the story has garnered a lot
1:44
of publicity in Ireland, it does not appear to be that well known in
1:47
North America. The victim in question was a middle aged man who traveled to
1:52
the town of Sligo and checked into a hotel under the name Peter Bergmann,
1:56
but of course it was eventually determined that this was not his real name.
2:00
He stayed there for the next three nights before traveling to the nearby village of
2:04
Ross's Point, where his body would be discovered on a beach the following morning.
2:08
While it does not appear there was foul play involved, the exact circumstances
2:13
of how Peter Bergmann died are still unclear, and since he was heard speaking
2:17
with an accent which sounded like it might be Austrian, his reasons for traveling
2:22
to Ireland to begin with are still a mystery. There is evidence to suggest
2:27
that he spent his last days gradually disposing of all personal items which might have
2:30
helped reveal his true identity, as is possible he wanted to be completely forgotten
2:36
about after he died. However, if that was his intention, the exact
2:39
opposite result took place as Peter Bergmann has since become one of Ireland's most heavily
2:45
discussed mysteries, and there have been numerous theories presented about his possible identity and
2:51
backstory. In spite of the publicity of this case is generated, no one
2:54
who recognizes this man has ever come forward, So we're going to explore all
2:59
the different themes on today's episode. So a few questions for you. It's
3:04
two thousand and nine, and of course this is over in Ireland, it's
3:07
not here in the US. But our policy, and it has been for
3:09
quite a while, is you now need your ID card, you need a
3:15
credit card that matches your ID card, and all of these kind of precautions
3:20
as you check into a hotel or motel. Is that not the case?
3:23
Was that not the case in two thousand and nine in Ireland? It should
3:27
have been, but for some reason he was able to check in without proper
3:30
ID and a credit card. And we'll discuss this more later on. But
3:34
people have compared this to another case that was on the Netflix version of Unsolved
3:38
Mysteries about a woman who checked into a fancy hotel in Norway under the name
3:43
Jennifer Fairgate in nineteen ninety five, but it turned out the name was fake
3:46
and she's never been identified. And people were saying, in that case,
3:50
that was nineteen ninety five, and you still needed a credit card to check
3:53
into a hotel. So it's another case where they're just inexplicably wondering why didn't
3:58
the front desk staff do its job and allow these people to do this?
4:02
That is insane. Now do we know for a fact that he didn't have
4:04
a fake ID that said Peter Bergman, Uh, not that I know of.
4:09
No. Actually he might have, but they haven't really revealed that.
4:12
But if he did, he didn't have it on him when he was when
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he died. Okay, because I was going to say that would even suggest
4:17
even bigger things going on, because it's easy to walk in and say this
4:21
is my name if no one's asking for proof of that. We do see
4:26
that when people are trying to check in, you know, and no one
4:29
know that they're in that hotel, like a famous celebrity, but they're checking
4:32
in under their legal name or under a representative's legal name, and then their
4:38
name is simply booked under a fictitious name. But here it seems like they
4:42
didn't do due diligence to see who Peter actually was. And what's really really
4:47
interesting to me is that I'm assuming there is a sketch or a picture of
4:51
this individual, and like you said, no one has come forward to say
4:55
that looks like our missing family member. Well, not just a sketch,
4:58
but CCTV foot like actual images and photos of the real guy what he looked
5:02
like, and he still has not been identified. Our story begins in two
5:08
thousand and nine in Ross's Point, Ireland, a small seaside village with a
5:13
population of just under nine hundred people, which is located in County Sligo next
5:18
to the Atlantic Ocean. At around six forty five a m. On the
5:23
morning of Tuesday, June sixteenth, a father and son duo came across the
5:27
body of a middle aged man who'd been washed up on one of the village's
5:30
beaches and was lying face down in the sand. He appeared to be in
5:35
his late fifties or early sixties and had closely cropped gray hair and a waterproof
5:41
Quarts watch on his left wrist. He was dressed in purple stripes beeto type
5:46
swimming trunks with underwear overtop of it at a navy t shirt which was tucked
5:50
into them. This prompted the duo to contact the Guardie, which is the
5:56
name of Ireland's police force, and when the medical examiner or at the scene,
6:00
the victim was officially pronounced dead. Some additional articles of clothing included black
6:06
shoes, dark socks, a sleeveless Tommy Hillfiger jumper, a black leather jacket,
6:13
a black leather belt, and neatly folded dark navy trousers were found on
6:17
a nearby rock and presumably belonged to the victim. Curiously, it turned out
6:21
that the labels in every piece of clothing had been cut out. The various
6:27
pockets of each piece of victim's clothing contained a number of items, including an
6:31
envelope containing one hundred and forty nine euros worth of notes and coins, a
6:36
packet of tissue, fifty five milligrams of aspirin, hands of plast sticking plasters
6:43
which are adhesive bandages, and a wrap bar of hotel soap. However,
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no form of identification for this man could be found anywhere. What's incredibly odd
6:54
is that he has this speedo on, meaning that he almost intended to go
7:00
or that he was going to jump or do something that involve the water,
7:02
but then also had his clothes on over it. And what's in his pockets
7:08
doesn't seem to be every day things that you would place in your pocket.
7:12
Why take the bar of soap from the hotel? Why have these adhesive bandages?
7:15
I mean, yes, the coins and the aspirin are every day things
7:19
that you might slip into your pocket for later in the day, but the
7:23
others don't seem to really make sense. And the labels being cut out of
7:27
his clothes does seem like he's going to this extent of saying, I'm going
7:30
to remove things that might link me somewhere or to a purchase. Yeah,
7:35
as we're going to talk about, in the days prior to his death,
7:39
this man would be disposing of a lot of his personal items, which I
7:42
believe because he didn't want anyone to figure out his identity, so he was
7:46
getting rid of all the clues. But like you said, some of the
7:48
items he did keep with him and still had autumnhen he died, such as
7:53
the bandages and the hotel soap, It makes you wonder why did he not
7:57
get rid of these items. Why did he keep these particular items around?
8:00
The hotel soap really gets me, Like, I could see how you could
8:03
have, you know, one hundred and forty nine euros and maybe even bandages,
8:07
But what would possess you if you're going out to wrap up a bar
8:13
of hotel soap and take it with you, Like, so, where were
8:16
you going that you would need this soap? Potentially? I had to giggle
8:20
when I heard about it. At first, I'm thinking hotel soap, and
8:22
I thought, come on, Ashley, I take everything that's free on the
8:26
counter when I leave and then I eventually throw it away. But I think
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it's from my grad school days where I had no money, and I'm like,
8:31
oh, free soap and shampoo and a summing kid. What is this?
8:37
Well, it initially appeared that he had drowned the ocean and washed up
8:39
on the beach. The autopsy revealed what the pathologists described as no sign of
8:45
quote unquote classical saltwater drowning, and there was no evidence he had been the
8:50
victim of foul play. However, it was apparent that the man had been
8:52
suffering from some serious health problems, as he was in the advanced stages of
8:56
prostate cancer and had bone tumors, so even if he had not died at
9:01
this time, he likely only had a few more weeks left to live.
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His right kidney was missing, and he showed signs of previously having suffered multiple
9:09
heart attacks. The man's teeth were in good condition and showed an extensive history
9:13
of dental work, as he had bridging root canals and crowns, as well
9:18
as a full gold tooth on the upper back right side of his mouth.
9:22
But in spite of his health problems, the toxicology report showed no medication or
9:26
pain killers in his system, including aspirin, even though aspirin tablets have been
9:33
found among his possessions. This meant he likely would have been experiencing a great
9:37
deal of pain at the time of his death. In the end, his
9:41
official cause of death was ruled to be acute cardiac arrest BLUs his heart,
9:46
so it looks like it was a heart attack or cardiac arrest at the end
9:50
of his life. But when he was battling cancer and he has these other
9:54
serious health issues and clearly in a state of pain, my first thought was
9:58
maybe he was going to complete suicide and he wanted to end this pain.
10:03
Cancer is one of the most cruel diseases you can suffer from, and so
10:09
that would have made sense. The aspirin, though, does allude to the
10:11
idea of was he struggling with a feeling of a heart attack coming on,
10:16
or had he had a prediagnosed kind of risk of heart attack, and so
10:20
he was taking those aspirin daily to try to prevent that from happening. But
10:24
then in the end he actually died of cardiac arrest. Yeah, there is
10:30
definitely like ample evidence to suggest that he might have been planning suicide and was
10:33
hoping to maybe drown himself by walking into the ocean, But it could just
10:37
be a coincidence, maybe that he just happened to suffer a fatal heart attack
10:43
at that exact moment when he was planning to end his own life, because
10:46
that appeared to be the exact cause of death rather than drowning. It's so
10:50
weird, like just everything about it. Cutting off all of your labels so
10:54
that nobody can find out who you are. Why would you take such measures
11:00
unless you were planning to not want to be traced, And if you're not
11:03
wanting to be traced, unless you're running to a certain location. That would
11:07
be my thought, too, ash would be that he was attempting to complete
11:11
suicide and he didn't want anyone who knew him from his life to find out
11:16
what happened to him, or to have access to the body and know what
11:20
he did. So it seems very strange, almost eerie that he would be
11:26
struck down by a heart attack at that very moment, like you just said,
11:30
Robin, when he may have been attempting to drown himself. Also was
11:33
really interesting is you have a lot of evidence of who this person is.
11:39
His teeth, the fact that there were very unique dental features where he has
11:43
the gold tooth, and he has other indications that there's a unique root canal,
11:48
there's crowns, there's bridges, and then you have the idea that he
11:52
had cancer. So if you're advertising this is the body we found, we
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found a man. He had progressed prostate cancer. He had aspurn with him,
12:01
perhaps indicating that he was at a high risk of a heart attack,
12:05
which is what eventually killed him. These are the dental features that we you
12:09
know, we know that this individual had. You would think that someone would
12:13
easily say, oh my gosh, that's our dad, that's my brother,
12:16
that's my coworker, and for no one, and then you have the CCTV
12:20
for no one to have said that, it blows my mind. I get
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it might be an international kind of you know, cross countries of origin from
12:30
this individual to Ireland, but still you would think that someoneould say that's our
12:35
man, we know him. Question for you, Robin, do you know
12:39
if they did any radio carbon testing on the teeth or the bones. I
12:43
haven't heard that. No. I mean it's possible they did. But if
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they, if that's what happened, they never released that information publicly. But
12:50
I have seen that in other cases involving unidentified decedents, So I'd be surprised
12:54
if they didn't try that here because that would at least give them an idea
12:58
of where he grew up and maybe an idea of like a range of places
13:03
that he could have lived within the last year or two. Yeah, because
13:07
we did a Patreon Minnesota while back about a deceded named little miss Panasofki who
13:11
was found murdered in Florida in nineteen seventy one, and they did some carbon
13:16
testing to determine that she may have hailed from Greece, So that's the reason
13:20
why she's possibly never been identified in the United States. So yeah, that
13:24
would be a good idea for them to do on this guy, if they
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haven't already. Since the decedent could not be identified and no one came forward
13:33
who recognized him, investigators attempted to backtrack his movements, as he frequently showed
13:39
up on CCTV footage in the days prior to his death. It turned out
13:45
that he first showed up in the area on Friday, June twelfth, when
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he arrived at the nearby town of Sligo, located about eight kilometers southeast of
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Ross's Point. Prior to that, the man was captured by cameras at the
13:58
ulsterbus depot in the city of Darry Oh my god, I love Dairy Girls.
14:01
Have I watched it? So good? It's so good? Is that
14:05
a show sat in Ireland? Yes, it's so good. Hongyan cheek really
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funny, kind of a little raunchy and playful. At the time, he
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was wearing glasses and dressed in a black leather jacket, with a small bag
14:18
slung over his shoulder and a smaller black bag in his hand. He initially
14:22
boarded a bus and asked if it would be traveling to Sligo, and when
14:26
he learned it wasn't, he subsequently boarded the correct bus, which left the
14:31
depot at four pm. CCTV footage would capture him arriving in Sligo at six
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twenty eight pm, and he proceeded to climb into a tax into a taxi
14:41
and asked the driver to take him to a cheap hotel. The driver first
14:46
took him to a hotel on Connelly Street, which turned out to have no
14:48
vacancy, so he was next taken to the Sligo City Hotel on Key Street
14:54
at six point fifty two. He rented out rooms seven oh five for three
14:58
nights and registered under the name Peter Bergmann. Of course, it would later
15:03
turn out that Peter Bergman was a fake name, but that's how we'll refer
15:05
to him from now on. Do we have any details about the quality of
15:11
this hotel and kind of what their operating standards were, because I know that
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one of the issues the police have in law enforcement have here in the US
15:18
is that when you were in a little seedier areas and you have a lot
15:24
of motels that are very, very inexpensive, they're by the hour. One
15:28
of the issues is that they don't follow protocol set for hospitality industries. Right.
15:33
They're not checking IDs, they're not getting a proper documentation of people checking
15:37
in. They don't pay attention to what ages people are when they're checking in.
15:41
So is it possible when he requested that cab driver to take him to
15:46
a cheap location that he was taken to an area where they simply if you
15:50
paid them, they did not care what protocol they followed. Yeah, that's
15:54
a good point, because I haven't heard of the Sligo City Hotel being CD
15:58
per se. Like from the photographs I've seen, it doesn't look like a
16:02
rundown place, and I haven't heard anything about habit like rough clientele. But
16:06
that could be why he selected a cheap hotel because they didn't check identification and
16:11
he was able to check in without a credit card as well, which he
16:15
probably wouldn't be able to do if he had gone to one of the more
16:18
classier, fancier hotels. And like, who knows, maybe he said something
16:23
like, oh my gosh, like I've misplaced my wallet, but I have
16:26
cash on me and let me just try to find where it is or whatever
16:33
he said, and then they were like, okay, well we'll take your
16:36
credit card when you leave or if you have any extra charges, and then
16:41
you can show us your identification at the point that you find your wallet.
16:44
I could see him coming up with some kind of excuse, especially if it
16:48
wasn't like he's not staying at Hilton or something like that or four seasons where
16:53
they're absolutely going to require your credit card and identification. If it is just
16:57
this cheap hotel, might have a staff member who's more likely to make an
17:03
exception, especially if it's this older guy, and you're kind of like,
17:06
okay, no one's really going to take him, so let's just make an
17:08
exception. We'll let him come in. We're likely not going to get caught
17:12
for this, and he's paying cash up front, so you know, if
17:15
nobody finds out, it's not a big deal. Yeah, the very no
17:18
one would find out. But then it turns out this would become the center
17:22
of one of the biggest mysteries in Ireland. So I wonder if the clerk
17:26
who checked him in wound up keeping their job. The rate was sixty five
17:30
euros per night, and Peter Bergman paid for it in cash, but like
17:33
we said, he was never asked to provide any identification. When he wrote
17:37
his name in the register, he listed his address as eight Stisen fifteen Ving
17:44
forty four seventy two. Now Veing just happened to be the German language name
17:48
for Vienna, Austria, but the problem is that this address did not exist.
17:53
Some sources say that there is no such street as Aint Stetterson in Vienna,
17:57
while others state that the address led to a vacant lot. While four
18:02
four seven two was meant to be a postal code, it also did not
18:04
exist, as Vienna uses a four digit system where all the numbers begin with
18:10
one instead of four. Everyone who heard Peter speak described him as having what
18:15
sounded like a thick Austrian or perhaps German accent, and he spoke English very
18:19
well. After spending the night at the hotel, Peter would be captured visiting
18:23
a nearby post office at ten forty nine am on the morning of Saturday,
18:27
June the thirteenth. He would purchase ten eighty two cent stamps and was also
18:33
given air mail stickers. But while it was never conclusively determined if Peter mailed
18:37
any letters, these stamps were not found among his possessions after he died.
18:44
That's so bizarre. Are air mail stickers? Are those the ones where you
18:48
play them on the box and it gives directions like it's fragile packaging or it's
18:53
I mean, what is an air mail sticker actually used for? Uh,
18:59
I'll have to look at U unless jewels, do you know. I thought
19:02
that it would be something that the company who's shipping it would put on like
19:07
a parcel or something like that. Right, Like, I thought if you're
19:11
going to be sending something through FedEx and they're sending something in an airplane,
19:18
they would slap that on. I didn't know you as the sender would do
19:21
that, but I really don't know. Yeah, I think it's kind of
19:23
thing the expedite if you need to send it like somewhere to another country or
19:27
something like. They're not required for international postage, but it's sometimes helpful to
19:32
put them on any envelopes and packages you receive. Yeah, like extra directions,
19:37
maybe extra guidance for the postage service. That's really interesting that all of
19:41
a sudden you have this man who's in a foreign country. He's using information
19:47
that's not accurate. Like the like the postal code, the street may not
19:52
even be real, the address surely doesn't exist except for possibly a vacant lot.
19:56
And then we know that he's preparing to try to send mail potentially out
20:00
of the country. It's almost as if is he writing letters to family members.
20:04
But again, if he was, and he mount those prior to this
20:08
day that he's enters the water, somehow, wouldn't we know wouldn't people say
20:15
I got a letter from my deceased brother for my deceased cousin and he had
20:21
cancer and took his own life. Like I just feel like if anything had
20:25
gone out that wasn't let's say just work related, wouldn't that guide people to
20:30
who this individual was. Who knows how much direction he would have given within
20:36
those letters, and how cryptic or vague he could have been. And say
20:40
they lived in like just Switzerland for example, Maybe they've never heard of Peter
20:44
Bergmann or heard of this case, and so they just think that they're getting
20:48
these letters from their loved one and they're saying, you know, I'm moving
20:52
away, I'm never going to see you again. Who knows what they could
20:55
have potentially said, But I think you're absolutely right ash that he likely was
20:59
sending the letters to somebody, because why else would you get these stamps,
21:03
And if they weren't found on his person when he died, and they weren't
21:07
with his belongings, it seems likely that perhaps he already did mail those letters.
21:12
But what did they say and did they provide any sort of clue or
21:17
direction to where he may have been ending his own life. It could have
21:22
just been I'm ceasing communication with you. We don't really know. If his
21:26
intention was to end his own life, and he went so far as to
21:29
cut his labels off his clothing so that he wasn't identified, he might have
21:33
been very cryptic in what he was saying to them, essentially some kind of
21:36
cloaked version of don't look for me. During his three night stay at the
21:44
hotel, Peter mostly kept to himself, but during that time period he would
21:48
be captured on CCTV exiting the hotel no less than thirteen times. On each
21:55
occasion, he would be shown carrying a purple plastic bag which appeared to contain
22:00
items, but he was not carrying the bag whenever he returned. It was
22:04
unclear if Peter might have folded the same empty bag and placed it in one
22:08
of his pockets, or if he just kept a large collection of purple bags
22:12
inside his room. Investigators theorized that Peter may have been using the bags to
22:18
dispose of all of his personal belongings in order to hide all potential clues to
22:22
his identity. However, a thorough check of all CCTV footage in Slago failed
22:29
to capture Peter getting rid of any items, and even though a number of
22:32
the local dumps, rubbish bins, and public areas were searched, they failed
22:37
to turn up anything which could be traced back to him. Peter's movements almost
22:41
seemed to indicate that he was aware of all the security cameras blind spots and
22:45
made the calculated decision to avoid them whenever he disposed of his belongings. Okay,
22:52
so this is still possible. That changes my idea a little bit.
22:55
You're saying that it almost was like he was aware of where these cameras were
23:00
and was going to these great links to kind of hide who he was.
23:03
Is it possible that with the prostate cancer, with potentially being near the end
23:07
of his life and having let's say, opioids or any kind of medication for
23:12
the cancer, or again just kind of having the chemical imbalances going on due
23:18
to the cancer and this heart issue. Could he have been suffering from delirium
23:22
or kind of a state of almost near dementia caused by the cancer medication or
23:29
by this near end of his life that made him think someone was after him,
23:33
which is why he had to go to these great links. I think
23:37
it's possible. I think the cancer can have a huge impact on your mental
23:41
health and just on you on all of your different hormones and your neurology.
23:47
Every single aspect of your brain is going to be affected, not specifically by
23:52
the cancer, but likely by whatever medication he was taking, whether it was
23:56
chemo or radiation, and then just this feeling of impending doom. Their rates
24:03
of the incidence of depression and anxiety in people with cancer is far higher than
24:08
the general population. So the idea that he could have even been in a
24:14
state, like you said, of psychosis, that is possible because I can't
24:18
imagine when you're facing death and you know that that is the end, how
24:25
difficult that would be to grapple with. And we don't know his interpersonal relationships
24:30
or his support network so I don't think that we could discount the possibility that
24:34
he was having some kind of mental health crisis. That is true because we've
24:38
talked about how we think it's a calculated attempt to get rid of his identity,
24:42
to get rid of all clues to his identity, so that no one
24:45
would know who he was when he died. But if he was not in
24:48
the right frame of mind, it could be. An alternate explanation is that
24:52
he just thought people racked for him, like he was just paranoid, because
24:56
the cancer was just causing some mental health issues, so everything in his own
25:00
mind made sense to him, even though maybe didn't make any sense to the
25:03
outside world. So on Sunday, June the fourteenth, Peter left the hotel
25:08
between eleven and eleven thirty am and climbed into a taxi cab. According to
25:14
the driver, Peter pulled out a map and asked him to recommend a quiet
25:18
beach where he could go for a swim. After he recommended Ross's Point,
25:22
the driver took him to the two beaches which were located there. When they
25:26
arrived, Peter only climbed out of the taxi for a few moments to look
25:30
at the area before he got back in and asked the driver to take him
25:33
to the Sligo bus station. During the ride, Peter asked how often buses
25:37
traveled to that beach, and he also mentioned that he was from Austria.
25:41
After Peter was dropped at the bus station, he later returned to the hotel
25:45
and requested a late checkout the following morning. At one oh six pm on
25:49
Monday, June the fifteenth, Peter finally checked out and left. He was
25:55
described as wearing a black leather jacket, longsleeved pale blue shirt, a sleeve
26:00
list Tommy Hill figure jumper, and dark trousers. Even though most of these
26:03
articles of clothing were later found on the beach, the long sleeved blue shirt
26:07
was never recovered. Peter was also seen carrying the same shoulder bag and handheld
26:12
bag he had with them when he arrived in Sligo, as well as a
26:17
purple plastic bag. When he left the hotel, Peter was captured on CCTV
26:22
walking down Quay Street to the Quayside Shopping Center, where, for unknown reasons,
26:26
he waited in the doorway for several minutes before walking away again. At
26:30
one sixteen pm, I am a little concerned because remember he does have his
26:37
speed out and underwear on underneath of these clothes when he's discovered, and we
26:44
do find these other articles of clothing around. But that day before, when
26:48
he's taken to the beach just very temporarily, just very quickly, what could
26:52
that have been for. Was he discarding something and the water? Was he
26:56
scoping out where he might try to go the next day? And how far
27:00
were those locations from where his body was actually discovered. I think he was
27:04
scouting the location, because I don't think he got out of the taxi long
27:07
enough to dispose of anything. I think if he was planning suicide, that
27:11
maybe says, I want to find a nice beach, and this looks like
27:15
a nice place where I can come back tomorrow and then possibly walk into the
27:18
water to take my own life. So yeah, he was definitely planning something,
27:22
but we'll just never really know why he chose that particular beach. Maybe
27:26
I don't know if he had any past familiarity with it, or maybe he
27:30
just thought this looks like a nice place. I'll be at peace here when
27:33
I die. At one thirty two pm, Peter was shown arriving at the
27:38
Sligo bus station, where he stopped at a small cafe in order to cappuccino
27:44
and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Curiously, by this point, Peter
27:48
was only carrying the purple plastic bag and the black shoulder bag, but the
27:52
smaller black bag he was seen holding at the hotel was no longer in his
27:56
possession and has never been found. After he sat down at the table to
28:02
eat, Peter pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and wrote something
28:06
down on it before he proceeded to tear it up and toss it into a
28:08
nearby rubbish bin. When he finished eating, Peter soon asked an employee about
28:14
the next bus to Ross's Point, and he proceeded to purchase a one way
28:18
ticket before the bus left at to forty pm. Starting at four that afternoon,
28:23
no less than sixteen witnesses would recall seeing Peter at the same beach he'd
28:29
visited in Ross's Point the previous day. These sightings would be spread out over
28:33
the course of nearly eight hours, and Peter was seen walking and pacing along
28:37
the beach. Some of the witnesses reported him standing in the water in his
28:41
bare feet with his trousers rolled up to his knees, and at various points
28:47
he was seen with a black bag strapped over his shoulder. The lask and
28:51
Firm sighting was from a woman who saw him at eleven fifty pm and said
28:55
he was still carrying the purple plastic bag and had his glasses on at the
29:00
time. The high tide was scheduled to arrive on the beach within the next
29:03
half an hour, and by the following morning, Peter's dead body would be
29:07
discovered. In spite of all the articles of clothing and personal items he left
29:12
behind on the beach, the black shoulder bag, the purple plastic bag,
29:17
and Peter's glasses could not be found anywhere. This is wild, so okay,
29:22
there's a lot of people who watch him for hours upon hours, or
29:26
at least many people who saw him over the course of these hours pacing the
29:30
beach. So part of me feels heartbroken for him that if he was trying
29:36
to take his own life, that he's almost I mean, obviously it's daytime,
29:40
so he doesn't want to do anything to arouse suspicion, but it's almost
29:44
like trying to mentally prepare himself for that. But then there's still an opportunity
29:51
or a bizarre chance that something happened to him, Like I mean, can
29:56
I know a heart attack and cardiac arrest are different, but is it possible
30:00
that an assault could cause him to go into cardiac arrest? He wasn't in
30:04
good health anyway. Is it possible that being scared or overwhelmed by someone who
30:10
arrived at the beach could have made him have that attack? I guess you
30:15
can't rule that out. I mean, the investigator said that there were no
30:18
obvious signs of foul play, but if it's just an incident where someone like
30:22
yells at him or something or touches him and doesn't leave any noticeable bruises or
30:26
marks, it could be a case where they just indirectly caused his heart to
30:30
fail and caused him to die from cardiac arrest, which I don't know if
30:33
that would technically count as a homicide, But I guess you can't discount the
30:37
idea that there was another person present when Peter died, And who knows,
30:41
maybe they could have even stolen some of these items that were missing and never
30:45
accounted for. Of course, the investigation and failed to uncover any passports or
30:52
records for anyone under the name Peter Bergmann which matched this man's age or description
30:56
in Europe, North America or South America. While as DNA and fingerprints were
31:02
obtained and circulated among various agencies, no match could be found. When the
31:07
man known only as Peter Bergmann could not be identified, he was buried in
31:11
an unmarked grave in Sligo Town Cemetery in September of two thousand and nine.
31:15
This plot had specifically been purchased to very unclaimed bodies, and since it could
31:19
hold up to three people, Peter currently has another unidentified decedent buried alongside him.
31:26
In twenty thirteen, this story became the subject of a nineteen minute documentary
31:30
titled The Last Days of Peter Bergmann, which was screened at the twenty fourteen
31:36
Sundance Film Festival and also won the Best Documentary Short Film Award at the twenty
31:41
fourteen Melbourne International Film Festival. The director Kieran Cassidy has speculated that Peter may
31:48
have traveled to the beach at Ross's Point in hopes of being washed away into
31:52
the Atlantic Ocean, stating Bergmann must have wanted to disappear forever into the Atlantic.
31:59
But alas for him, the ocean rejected his body and now he lies
32:02
in an unmarked grave in Sligo end quote. In most sources I found for
32:07
this case, there was no mention of how DNA profiling was being utilized to
32:10
identify Peter. But about a month after my original trail went cold episode came
32:15
out, the Sligo detectives currently investigating this case released this statement quote, we
32:22
don't send DNA to ancestry or other sites. Well, it might advance an
32:25
area where Peter might have come from, it doesn't advance his identification end quote.
32:31
This story has ballooned into one of Ireland's biggest mysteries of the modern era,
32:36
and after nearly fifteen years, the true identity of the middle aged man
32:39
known only as Peter Bergmann remains unknown. So I guess you could say the
32:45
path went Chiley. Can we all just go back to what this detective says
32:51
that while it might advance the area where Peter might have come from, it
32:55
does not advance his identification. Today it does, right, We are not
33:00
just sending in DNA to say this is my country of origin or this is
33:05
where I'm from. We know that genetic genealogy can actually help us link to
33:10
close descendants of whoever Peter Bergman actually was. And so while we used to
33:16
not be able to have those kinds of links, the advancements have occurred so
33:22
quickly and been used for criminal cases over the last several years. Why can't
33:29
they send his DNA? And Now, I understand if this is not a
33:30
priority case because you have a lot of active cases going on, you have
33:35
a lot of cold cases with issues that need to be handled through DNA analysis
33:39
and it's expensive, but to say that you can't is problematic to me.
33:45
To say we won't given the circumstances, we won't because this is not necessarily
33:50
an urgent case. Fine, but I don't think that's a factual statement given
33:54
what we know today about potential DNA and genetic genealogy. Mom, I've literally
34:00
found her long lost sister on ancestry dot com. That's unbelievable. I guess
34:06
it would depend on the laws for certain countries, because your mom's from Canada,
34:08
right, Yeah, her sister's in the US. Okay. Because I
34:13
haven't been able to find any confirmation on this, any specific details, but
34:16
I get the impression that laws for a lot of these genealogy websites are different
34:22
in other countries in Europe, and that's why we've only used genetic genealogy to
34:25
solve cases in the United States in Canada. So I don't it sounds kind
34:30
of like a bureaucratic situation where maybe you just don't have the same rights over
34:35
there where, where people who have submitted their DNA to websites like Ancestry,
34:39
they just maybe in Europe have not consented to allow their DNA to be used
34:45
in some sort of police investigation. Because as far as I can tell,
34:47
genetic genealogy is still not being used as a tool in criminal investigations outside North
34:52
America. So if you're a true crime follower, you'll probably know that the
34:58
last six years have been a pretty amazing time when it comes to identifying John
35:01
and Jane does. There's so many cases involving decedents who have remained unidentified for
35:07
years, if not decades, but organizations such as the DNA dough Project and
35:12
Authorm Incorporated have been able to use such methods as genetic genealogy to track down
35:17
these decedans' biological relatives and figure out who they are. In many of these
35:22
cases, the public only had an idea of what the decedan looked like through
35:27
computer generated composite sketches. But what makes the story of Peter Bergmann stand out
35:31
is that he was captured on CCTV several times prior to his death, so
35:37
we know what he actually looked like. These images are easily available for viewing
35:42
online, yet no one has ever come forward to say that they recognize this
35:45
man. You may have already noticed that Peter's story has a number of similarities
35:51
to some pretty famous cases involving unidentified decedents. For instance, there's the Tomom's
35:55
shoodecase aka the mystery of the Somerton Man, involving an unidentified middle aged male
36:02
who was found dead on the Summrton Park Beach in Australia in nineteen forty eight.
36:07
Much like Peter Bergman, all of the labels in the Summerton Man's clothing
36:12
were removed and it seemed like he had gone to great lengths to conceal his
36:15
identity. But during the summer of twenty twenty two, it was announced that
36:21
based on genetic genealogy, the Somerton Man had likely been identified as an electrical
36:25
engineer named Charles Carl Webb. The details of Webb's death are still not entirely
36:30
clear, but he had a history of serious mental health issues, including one
36:36
previous suicide attempt. Since Webb's wife had left the abuse of marriage and he
36:40
lost four close relatives over the course of seven years, it's been theorized that
36:45
his death could have been a suicide. And who is to say that Peter
36:49
Bergmann couldn't have had a similar backstory exactly? And what else was he struggling
36:53
with where he has this cancer diagnosis. It's likelihoend his life. He could
36:59
very well all have a problematic family life or feel as though he's become a
37:02
burden on his family and feels a need to leave or to get out with
37:07
dignity, and so he's trying to, like they said, go out with
37:12
the Atlantic. But again, this is my case in point. We have
37:15
cases that are decades and decades old where we have an unidentified individual and through
37:22
this genetic genealogy we're able to identify who they are. And so my prayer
37:27
is that the databases and DNA technology in European countries and in Ireland is growing
37:34
and it's one of those things that when it becomes more accessible, that it
37:37
is used in a case just like Peters. That's what we're finding out these
37:42
that's the beauty of these databases. And so we know people over in Ireland
37:46
and Europe are doing the tests. Are they being used in criminal justice cases
37:51
or in these kind of unknown cases? Possibly not. But my prayer is,
37:54
because we know it works, why wouldn't law enforcement agencies start turning to
38:00
this as a standard practice. I mean, they've identified someone from who died
38:05
in nineteen forty eight because of genetic genealogy. Like many people thought that the
38:08
Somerton Man was going to be one of history's truly unsolvable mysteries that people like
38:14
talked about for decades. Yet here we are and they've been able to figure
38:16
out who this guy was, so anything is possible. Peter's story is also
38:22
reminiscent of two other cases involving individuals who checked into hotels under false names before
38:30
they turned up dead. If you've watched the Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix,
38:35
you're probably familiar with the story of an unidentified woman who checked into the Uzza
38:39
Plaza hotel in Norway under the name Jennifer Fairgate in nineteen ninety five. Like
38:45
Peter, she was never asked to provide any identification and booked the room for
38:50
three nights, and she would eventually be found dead on her bed after an
38:53
apparent self inflicted gunshot wound. In both the Somerton Man and Jennifer Fairgate came,
39:00
one of the most prominent theories is that they were spies, So I
39:05
suppose it's not surprising that this theory has also been presented for Peter Bergman as
39:08
well. The other famous case that we were referring to took place in September
39:14
two thousand and one and involved a young man who checked into a motel in
39:17
Amanda Park, Washington, under the false name Lyle Stevick, before he subsequently
39:22
hanged himself in the closet. In May twenty eighteen, it was announced that
39:28
the DNA dough Project had used genetic genealogy to track down Lyle's biological family,
39:34
but in the interest of privacy, all details about his true identity and backstory
39:38
have been kept secret from the public. It's been theorized that Lyle Stevick took
39:43
steps to ensure his family never found out what happened to him. And it's
39:46
possible that Peter Bergmann may have done the same thing. There don't seem to
39:52
be many reasons you wouldn't use your legal name to chuck into a hotel either.
39:55
I think you would be having a concern that somebody was after you or
40:00
dangerous, or it could be looking for you, like a domestic violent situation,
40:04
or even something bigger like a spy situation, or you have a debt
40:09
to handle and you haven't, So those kinds of issues could explain why you
40:14
would be using a false name. If you're incredibly famous, I could see
40:17
hiding under a false name so that the publicity and the notoriety's not there.
40:22
But I could also see this situation where someone says, I need to leave.
40:28
I am coming and taking this trip to complete suicide and to end my
40:31
life, and therefore I don't want my family to necessarily know that. There's
40:36
a lot of shame that people carry when they're suffering with depression like that,
40:39
or they want to end their life and their famili's fighting so hard for them
40:43
to live, especially through a cancer treatment and things like that. So I
40:46
could very well see Peter either having that kind of delirium and worry and being
40:52
on this trip and kind of not necessarily being in his right mind, or
40:57
I could also see him saying, I have a very clear plan, I
41:00
know what I want to do, but I don't want to hurt the people
41:01
who care about me, and I'm going to see if I can lead them
41:06
to believe that I've left and that I can in my life and let the
41:08
pain go away. Because we know he was suffering significantly, there just doesn't
41:12
seem to be many other options out there. I mean, there is always
41:16
a circumstance that he was being followed or watched or wanted, but the cardiac
41:22
arrest makes it seem as though he really was severely ill and he knew that,
41:28
and he knew his life was coming towards an end, and therefore it's
41:31
one of these things that makes it lean towards that suicide is the most probable
41:36
instance here. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I guess the big unsolved
41:39
mystery is why he would choose this particular town in Ireland in order to end
41:44
his life, because it was obviously he was not from the area, so
41:47
I just always wondered was he there in the past, and did he like
41:51
this place? And this is why he chose this particular area for suicide.
41:54
But until he's identified, we will probably never know, so I suppose we
42:00
need to address the question about whether or not Peter should be identified. In
42:05
June of twenty nineteen, The Irish Times released a three part podcast about this
42:09
case titled Atlantic The Unsolved Mystery of Peter Bergmann, hosted by journalist Rosita Boland.
42:16
At one point, Boland did discuss the potential ethical issues of trying to
42:21
uncover Peter's identity. If Peter took all these steps to ensure he could not
42:25
be identified, should everyone respect his wishes and let him rest in peace.
42:30
It would be one thing if foul play had taken place and a homicide investigation
42:35
was required, but there are cases in which decedents have died by suicide and
42:38
it seemed apparent that they just wanted to be left alone and forgotten about.
42:44
However, I've always personally held the belief that no matter what their final wishes
42:47
may have been, there still needs to be an investigation to find out where
42:51
they were. I mentioned this particular case on our podcast so many times that
42:55
I must sound like a broken record, but I must want, I must
43:00
once again harkened back to the Gail Delano case, which has always been a
43:02
serious influence on my opinion about stories like this. As a quick refresher,
43:08
Gail Delano vanished from her hometown in Maine, and her disappearance would be featured
43:13
on Unsolved Mysteries and Toil, a medical examiner who watched this show, recognized
43:17
Gail as a Jane Doe, whom he had found dead inside a hotel room
43:22
in Mobile, Alabama, two years earlier for reasons that are known only to
43:25
her. Gail had decided to travel there and register at the hotel under a
43:30
false name before she overdosed. It's possible she did not want her relatives to
43:36
ever find out what happened to her. And while it's true that some of
43:38
these other decedents might have been estranged from their own families, that was definitely
43:43
not the case with Gail. You could clearly tell that her family was suffering
43:47
during their Unsolved Mysteries interviews, and it would have been a major tragedy if
43:52
Gail had remained a missing person and they had to keep living with the uncertainty
43:55
for the rest of their lives. Well, it's possible that Peter Bergen was
44:00
a complete loaner with no family or friends. He may also have loved ones
44:04
out there somewhere who spent the past fifteen years not knowing what happened to him.
44:08
For this reason, I believe there is an obligation to keep seeking out
44:13
his true identity. Now, what separates Peter's story from the other cases we've
44:17
discussed is that the autopsy showed he was in the advanced stages of prostate cancer.
44:22
So no matter what it seemed like, he was not going to live
44:25
much longer than a couple more weeks. It sounds like he wanted to spend
44:30
some time in County Sligo before ending his life on his own terms. But
44:35
the big mystery is where did he come from and why did he choose his
44:38
particular location. That is a really powerful question. I actually never thought of
44:45
it from that perspective of do you let someone rest in peace and kind of
44:50
honor what it seems their wishes were. But I'm with you, Robin,
44:53
from all of the families I've worked with, and all of the professionals and
45:00
grief advocates and victim advocates. When you talk to families, they will consistently
45:06
tell you the only thing worse than what happened to my love when via homicide,
45:10
via an attack the death right would be not knowing having a missing person.
45:17
They'll tell you that, you know, I want to know the details.
45:21
I want to know what happened, because when I don't, I fill
45:24
it in myself. Right, these families have a obsession almost with wondering what
45:30
happened when you don't have an answer, than every answer is a possibility.
45:35
And so I think the kind of over overwhelming questioning you would be doing,
45:42
the way that you would just want to know why and what and how,
45:46
that you would actually have nightmaric situations in your head that you would be playing
45:52
constantly. I have to know what happened to my child. I have to
45:54
know what happened to my husband. I have to know where their body is.
46:00
Those are really important questions for someone who's grieving. And when you leave
46:05
and you disappear, the grief is significant, and the fear and the trauma
46:09
and the way that I, you know, I hypothesize what happened to you
46:15
is often far worse than the really grim, dark reality that these families find
46:19
out eventually. They want to know so to me, when I hear the
46:24
worst case scenario would be if our child was missing, the worst case scenario
46:28
would be if my husband was missing and they hadn't found his body, I
46:31
think the family needs to be informed. Speaking of broken records, I will
46:37
bring up Julia Murray again, and I know, just like Gail Delano has
46:39
been brought up a lot. I often use Julia Murray as an example,
46:44
but I just remember when she spoken to Ashley and I and she talked about
46:47
her open ended trauma of not knowing where Mora was. And in a situation
46:53
where you have somebody who wants to end their own life and they're taking all
46:58
these measures to avoid being identified, you have to ask the question of are
47:04
they in their right mental state at that point in time to make a decision
47:09
such as that that has such far reaching implications and consequences for their loved ones.
47:15
If they were at their very best mental health wise, would they make
47:21
that decision for themselves at the end? And I think the answer is typically
47:24
no. So I'm in agreement with both of you and that I do understand
47:30
when somebody ends their own life and you know that maybe there could be a
47:34
level of respect for their wishes, but I think in an overwhelming number of
47:39
circumstances, unless they're trying to escape an abusive partner or something like that,
47:45
or a situation where they were being harmed in some way, I do think
47:49
the family has the right to know because it is something that they will carry
47:52
with them forever, and at least that would provide a resolution. I agree,
47:57
And I think when suicide becomes an option, it's that life is no
48:01
longer a viable outcome for you, and a lot of times these individuals feel
48:08
that they are a burden on the people around them, that they've caused significant
48:12
distress that it cannot be healed now for Peter, if the mission really was
48:16
suicide. I also think when a fatal illness is staring you down, I
48:22
think there's been many people who have said, I want to go out on
48:25
my own terms with dignity, where I still have my faculties about me,
48:29
where I still am able to stand, I'm able to go to the restroom
48:32
by myself, I'm able to do these things, and I want to die
48:35
with dignity. So I think that in this case is probably more the case
48:39
if he was completing suicide. But you also hear of people who say,
48:44
I just I'm too much on my family, I'm hurting them, I'm a
48:46
burden. This problem is so big, I can't get over it. And
48:50
so, like you said, Jules, when you actually talk to family members
48:53
after the death of a loved one via suicide, that issue was not something
48:58
we couldn't overcome. Warakness was not something we couldn't bring light to. Right,
49:01
They're not a burden to me. Whether it's medical issues, whether it's
49:06
their mental health, whether it's something they've done to our family. It's a
49:09
problem that we could have overcome had I known, or it's something I would
49:14
have gotten help had I known, or there's someone in their life that needed
49:16
them. And so I think for Peter it might have been more medical based
49:20
and dying with dignity, which is not always allowed. You know, we
49:22
have euthanasia laws, and some states and some countries do allow for people to
49:29
choose when they're facing a disease that's going to end and death. But if
49:36
Peter didn't have that option, or if his family didn't wanted to take that
49:38
option, this seemed to be a way that he could go out with dignity.
49:43
I still think his family needed to know, so I think this would
49:46
be a good time to bring it into part one. But join us next
49:50
week as we present part two of our series about the death of Peter Bergmann.
49:54
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trailment
49:58
Cold? Patreon, Yes, I don't call. Patreon has been around for
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So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart
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