Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Charles Horvath pt. Two

Transcript

Charles Horvath pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:27
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of our series about the
0:30
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine disappearance of Charles Horvath, which is a
0:33
Speaker 1: special one because it takes place in Jules's home province
0:36
Speaker 1: of British Columbia. As a brief recap from last week's episode, Charles,
0:40
Speaker 1: even though he was born in Canada to his British mother,
0:43
Speaker 1: Denise Allen, he spent most of his life being raised
0:46
Speaker 1: in England, but then decided that he wanted to go
0:49
Speaker 1: on a backpacking trip across the country which would last
0:52
Speaker 1: several months. But sometime in May of nineteen eighty nine,
0:55
Speaker 1: his mother suddenly lost all track of him. She didn't
0:57
Speaker 1: get any letters, phone calls or postcard yards, even though
1:01
Speaker 1: they were planning to meet together in Hong Kong that August,
1:04
Speaker 1: but Charles never contacted her to arrange about making the trip,
1:08
Speaker 1: so Denise finally took the initiative to travel to British
1:11
Speaker 1: Columbia herself perform her own independent search for initially did
1:15
Speaker 1: not get too much help from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
1:19
Speaker 1: but she did eventually find out that he was last
1:22
Speaker 1: seen in a campground called the Tiny Town Tent and
1:24
Speaker 1: Trailer Park, where he left some of his personal belongings behind,
1:28
Speaker 1: but there was no evidence of what happened to them,
1:32
Speaker 1: so when we picked this up, it's in nineteen ninety two.
1:34
Speaker 1: Denise has made another trip to British Columbia to perform
1:37
Speaker 1: her own independent search for Charles, but while staying at
1:40
Speaker 1: a motel, she wound up getting an anonymous note slipped
1:43
Speaker 1: under her door which read, I seen your ad in
1:46
Speaker 1: the paper looking for your son. I seen him May
1:48
Speaker 1: the twenty sixth. We were partying and two people knocked
1:51
Speaker 1: him out, but he died. His body is in the
1:53
Speaker 1: lake by the bridge end quote. Well, surprise, surprise, Denise
1:57
Speaker 1: could not really get the RCMP to help, for at first,
2:01
Speaker 1: she began to speculate that this bridge might have been
2:03
Speaker 1: the Okanagan Lake Bridge, which is also known as the
2:06
Speaker 1: Kelowna floating bridge, which ran over Okanagan late as part
2:10
Speaker 1: of Highway ninety seven and was fairly close to the
2:12
Speaker 1: campground and her motel. So since the police were reluctant
2:16
Speaker 1: to perform a search of river, Denise got the help
2:19
Speaker 1: of the Canadian Search Center for Missing Children, who agreed
2:22
Speaker 1: to launch a private search effort and got a team
2:25
Speaker 1: of volunteered divers to search near the Okanagan Lake Bridge,
2:29
Speaker 1: belonging to an organization from Vancouver called International se Search,
2:33
Speaker 1: who used a mini submarine with a submersible camera, and surprise, surprise,
2:38
Speaker 1: after the search started getting some publicity in the media
2:41
Speaker 1: and the RCMP knew that they were probably going to
2:43
Speaker 1: look pretty bad if they did not helped, they finally
2:46
Speaker 1: agreed to participate in the search effort.
2:49
Speaker 2: Well, when it comes down to optics, it appears that
2:51
Speaker 2: like they were going to do the very least that
2:54
Speaker 2: they had to do initially because we just didn't see
2:58
Speaker 2: much action, really had to advocate for Charles, and so
3:04
Speaker 2: when the public gets involved and when there's eyeballs and
3:07
Speaker 2: fingers pointing at the RCMP in this specific case, it's
3:12
Speaker 2: clear that that is the impetus or the motivation that
3:15
Speaker 2: they need to actually do what needs to be done
3:19
Speaker 2: or what some might say is their job.
3:22
Speaker 1: Yes, we talked about this a lot in our last
3:24
Speaker 1: episode that Denise literally cannot do a search for over
3:27
Speaker 1: a year after Charles went missing because she could not
3:30
Speaker 1: get the RCMP to do anything. From England. They pretty
3:33
Speaker 1: much said, well, he's twenty years old, he's an adult.
3:35
Speaker 1: If he doesn't want to cock to his mother anymore.
3:38
Speaker 1: It's his legal right. But of course, once Denise did
3:40
Speaker 1: her search and found out that he left all of
3:43
Speaker 1: his personal belongings behind at this campground, she began to
3:46
Speaker 1: suspect that, no, he did not disappear voluntarily, he was
3:49
Speaker 1: likely the victim of foul play because he would just
3:52
Speaker 1: not cut off all contact. And of course this note
3:56
Speaker 1: seemed to confirm her theory because they were alleging that
3:59
Speaker 1: he was killed after during an incident at a party.
4:02
Speaker 1: So they searched for five days in the lake were
4:04
Speaker 1: unable to find anything, but Denise suddenly received a second
4:07
Speaker 1: anonymous note delivered to her hotel room which said, quote
4:11
Speaker 1: you were searching at the wrong end of the bridge
4:13
Speaker 1: end quote. And once again, it was delivered there by
4:16
Speaker 1: a taxi driver who claimed he had been given a
4:18
Speaker 1: tip by an unidentified young man to drop the note
4:22
Speaker 1: off at a room, but was unable to offer much
4:24
Speaker 1: information or a description to figure out who did this.
4:28
Speaker 1: And sure enough, the diver started searching the opposite side
4:31
Speaker 1: of the Okanagan Lake bridge and wound up coming across
4:34
Speaker 1: a human body about forty meters deep in the water,
4:38
Speaker 1: which was brought to the surface, and it was decomposed
4:41
Speaker 1: at first, so they couldn't tell who it really belonged to.
4:44
Speaker 1: But surprise, surprise, this body did not actually belong to Charles.
4:49
Speaker 2: That's not that surprising to me. If it's the bridge
4:52
Speaker 2: that I'm thinking of, it's a pretty high bridge, and
4:55
Speaker 2: it would be a site where I would think that
4:59
Speaker 2: people would possibly choose to end their own lives, or
5:02
Speaker 2: potentially if somebody was murdered and somebody wanted to make
5:08
Speaker 2: a quick disposal of a body like what was described
5:12
Speaker 2: in the note, pretty much right, If the body is
5:14
Speaker 2: in the lake and it's close to the bridge, then
5:16
Speaker 2: we could deduce that the body was likely, potentially Charles's
5:20
Speaker 2: body was thrown off of the bridge. So it wouldn't
5:24
Speaker 2: surprise me. It's sort of like the Golden Gate Bridge
5:27
Speaker 2: in San Francisco, how so many people choose to end
5:30
Speaker 2: their own lives there. If you see bodies by a bridge,
5:33
Speaker 2: it's not all that surprising. I mean, if you came
5:37
Speaker 2: up with six bodies or something like that, it might
5:39
Speaker 2: be like WHOA. But I don't know, I don't really
5:42
Speaker 2: find it all that odd or atypical. Just when I'm
5:45
Speaker 2: picturing the bridge in my head.
5:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely correct, because obviously this was nineteen ninety
5:51
Speaker 1: two when DNA was still in infancy, so they had
5:53
Speaker 1: to use Charles's dental records, and it turned out the
5:56
Speaker 1: body was not him. It actually belonged to a man
6:00
Speaker 1: named John Edgar Dixon, a resident of Colonna, who had
6:03
Speaker 1: gone missing in May of nineteen eighty five when he
6:06
Speaker 1: was sixty four years old, and he went missing after
6:09
Speaker 1: escaping from a psychiatric institution, and the authorities determined that
6:13
Speaker 1: his death was probably a suicide. They saw no outward
6:16
Speaker 1: signs of foul play, but they just found it weird
6:19
Speaker 1: that Denise got two sets of notes telling her to
6:22
Speaker 1: look on the other side of the bridge and lo
6:24
Speaker 1: and behold, they wind up finding another body. So Denise wondered, maybe,
6:28
Speaker 1: like if this person might have had knowledge of Dixon's
6:32
Speaker 1: suicide or disappearance and was trying to do like a
6:35
Speaker 1: weird subterfuge to get him to look for his body,
6:37
Speaker 1: or if it was just nothing more than an odd coincidence, because,
6:40
Speaker 1: like you said, some bridges people like to jump off
6:43
Speaker 1: them for suicides, So maybe the person who write the
6:46
Speaker 1: note just had no idea that this other body was
6:48
Speaker 1: going to be there.
6:49
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm refresh my memory. What year is this that
6:52
Speaker 2: they're doing the search?
6:53
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety two?
6:54
Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety two, okay, so this would have been seven
6:56
Speaker 2: years after Dixon went missing.
6:59
Speaker 1: Correct, Yeah, that's correct.
7:01
Speaker 2: So if this person who is writing the note, would
7:05
Speaker 2: they really wait seven years? Is that the way that
7:09
Speaker 2: you're going to go about doing it? Wouldn't you just
7:10
Speaker 2: write an anonymous note? Would it need to be connected
7:13
Speaker 2: to Charles? Perhaps you could have just written a note
7:16
Speaker 2: about Dixon and said something to make them search that area.
7:20
Speaker 2: I don't know why you would wait and why the
7:23
Speaker 2: timeline would be so protracted. So I'm personally more inclined
7:26
Speaker 2: to believe that is somebody that does have inside knowledge
7:29
Speaker 2: about what happened to Charles. And just because the lake
7:33
Speaker 2: is vast, it's a big lake, and so I think
7:36
Speaker 2: that it's pretty easy to miss a body, and things
7:40
Speaker 2: happen when a body decomposes over time, So there's no
7:44
Speaker 2: guarantee that where that body dropped into the lake is
7:47
Speaker 2: where that body would be recovered. So I don't know
7:51
Speaker 2: what's going on here, but I am inclined to believe
7:53
Speaker 2: that this is somebody who potentially genuinely has knowledge about
7:59
Speaker 2: what happened to charl Arles and feels guilty on some
8:02
Speaker 2: level because they're giving multiple tips to authorities and when
8:07
Speaker 2: they did their first initial search saying like no, like,
8:09
Speaker 2: you're not in the right place. So I think that
8:13
Speaker 2: the body likely could have been there at some point,
8:15
Speaker 2: but searchers missed it.
8:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do agree. This is a very large lake.
8:20
Speaker 1: So even if Charles did go off the bridge at
8:22
Speaker 1: some point, it had been three years since he was
8:25
Speaker 1: last confirmed to be alive, so easily could have floated elsewhere.
8:28
Speaker 1: And I'm always struck by the fact that the person
8:30
Speaker 1: who wrote the anonymous notes specifically put the correct date
8:34
Speaker 1: when Charles was last confirmed to be alive, made the
8:36
Speaker 1: twenty sixth I mean, you can't say that they say
8:39
Speaker 1: with one hundred percent certainty that they had inside knowledge
8:42
Speaker 1: because at the time Charles's disappearance was getting a lot
8:45
Speaker 1: of coverage in the newspapers, which would have printed the
8:48
Speaker 1: date he was last seen. And also the fact that
8:51
Speaker 1: Denise had appeared on the local news and had specifically
8:54
Speaker 1: said that she set up a missing person's headquarters at
8:56
Speaker 1: this motel. So even someone who was just trying to
8:59
Speaker 1: do a mean spirited, practical joke, would probably know that
9:02
Speaker 1: Denise was there, So that doesn't necessarily mean that they
9:05
Speaker 1: knew something about Charles's disappearance, but it is pretty compelling
9:09
Speaker 1: because this was when he was last seen Made the
9:12
Speaker 1: twenty six, nineteen eighty nine, and he was last seen
9:16
Speaker 1: staying at a campground that was known for having some
9:19
Speaker 1: rough characters, so it is possible he could have attended
9:21
Speaker 1: a party and been killed. I know that they spoke
9:25
Speaker 1: to Phil Flett, who was the owner of the campground,
9:28
Speaker 1: who still had Charles's some of his personal items in
9:31
Speaker 1: his possession years later, and claimed that he disposed of
9:35
Speaker 1: most of them after Charles's disappeared, and he denied any
9:38
Speaker 1: knowledge about a party or an incident where anyone was
9:40
Speaker 1: killed on the evening of May the twenty six, nineteen
9:44
Speaker 1: eighty nine. But of course, even if he is telling
9:46
Speaker 1: the truth, something still could have happened without his knowledge
9:49
Speaker 1: when he wasn't there.
9:50
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like I personally don't think that the
9:54
Speaker 2: letter writing or the note was a cruel prank. I
9:58
Speaker 2: would think like if you were just going to you
10:00
Speaker 2: a prank, you would prank them like the one time
10:03
Speaker 2: and say like, oh, the body's in the lake, and
10:05
Speaker 2: then they search it and it's like, oh haha. I mean,
10:07
Speaker 2: I don't know who would find that funny, but I
10:10
Speaker 2: know that there are people out there who do that.
10:12
Speaker 2: But the tone of it seems to be more serious
10:16
Speaker 2: in nature. And so if it was somebody just looking
10:19
Speaker 2: to insert themselves into the investigation, we would likely know
10:22
Speaker 2: who they are because they would want the attention, which
10:24
Speaker 2: we often see in cases. But here this is somebody
10:28
Speaker 2: who is anonymous, and it doesn't seem like it's something
10:33
Speaker 2: so fantastical. It seems believable. So maybe they didn't have
10:37
Speaker 2: inside knowledge, Maybe they had second hand knowledge. Maybe it
10:40
Speaker 2: was just somebody had said to them like, oh my gosh,
10:43
Speaker 2: I witnessed what happened to Charles. He was you know,
10:46
Speaker 2: he died at this party and he was thrown off
10:48
Speaker 2: of the bridge. And then this person had this knowledge
10:51
Speaker 2: and it was eating away at them. So they had
10:55
Speaker 2: to do something to intervene, and so that was telling
10:58
Speaker 2: law enforcement to search, and so they were obviously frustrated,
11:03
Speaker 2: if this is the case, frustrated with the first search
11:06
Speaker 2: knowing that Charles's body wasn't discovered, So they're giving even
11:10
Speaker 2: more specificity when they're saying the actual area of the
11:13
Speaker 2: bridge and that they were wrong where they were searching.
11:16
Speaker 2: So I don't know, it's just something about it seems
11:20
Speaker 2: like it's genuine to me. What do you think, Well.
11:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that you're correct that if it was
11:26
Speaker 1: just a joke, they would have written one note and
11:28
Speaker 1: not bother with a second. But that says to me
11:31
Speaker 1: that they were probably watching the search effort took place
11:33
Speaker 1: and just wanted to direct them to the other side
11:36
Speaker 1: of the bridge. And if they do have inside knowledge,
11:39
Speaker 1: then that tells me that they probably personally witnessed Charles
11:42
Speaker 1: get thrown off the bridge, rather than just hearing about
11:44
Speaker 1: it secondhand, because unless they were there, how would they
11:47
Speaker 1: know which side of the bridge that he was tossed off?
11:50
Speaker 2: I mean, unless somebody was like very specific with the
11:53
Speaker 2: story that they told. But I think if somebody's telling
11:57
Speaker 2: you secondhand information about what they witnessed, you're less likely
12:01
Speaker 2: to feel the emotional weight of that. But if you
12:04
Speaker 2: yourself witness something, or maybe you knew the person, then
12:09
Speaker 2: I think that that really could weigh heavily. But if
12:12
Speaker 2: it's just some stranger it might be more abstract and
12:15
Speaker 2: you'd be less likely to need to tell law enforcement
12:20
Speaker 2: the details that you know. And I know that would
12:22
Speaker 2: vary depending on the individual and how empathetic they are
12:27
Speaker 2: and how much guilt they're going to feel by knowing
12:30
Speaker 2: something like that. Are they able to compartmentalize? I don't know,
12:34
Speaker 2: but it just it feels real to me, and so
12:38
Speaker 2: I just think, knowing how big this lake is, that
12:40
Speaker 2: it is so possible that his body is there, that
12:44
Speaker 2: it was there, and that it just wasn't found.
12:47
Speaker 1: That makes sense to me because Charles's disappearance to not
12:49
Speaker 1: get any publicity in nineteen eighty nine when it originally happened,
12:53
Speaker 1: and was finally getting all this media attention in nineteen
12:55
Speaker 1: ninety two, So of course, so it makes sense that
12:57
Speaker 1: they had a guilty conscience that they would wait that
13:00
Speaker 1: much time in order to provide information, even though they
13:03
Speaker 1: didn't want to out themselves and reveal who they were.
13:06
Speaker 1: But once again, this whole incident did not paint the
13:09
Speaker 1: RCNP in a flattering light because when they first found
13:12
Speaker 1: the body, they were inclined to believe that it was
13:14
Speaker 1: Charles and actually told Denise that, and she was left
13:17
Speaker 1: so devastated that she had to be hospitalized, and the
13:21
Speaker 1: police convinced her to commit herself into a hospital, but
13:24
Speaker 1: she did not even realize until afterwards that they had
13:27
Speaker 1: convinced her to check into a psychiatric ward. And before
13:32
Speaker 1: the body was even identified, the coroner kept trying to
13:35
Speaker 1: pressure Denise into signing a death certificate for Charles because
13:39
Speaker 1: they were just so certain it was going to turn
13:40
Speaker 1: out to be him that even some of the local
13:42
Speaker 1: media outlets were saying that Charles had been found, But
13:45
Speaker 1: of course it turned out to be John Edward Dixon,
13:48
Speaker 1: So they pretty much just put Denise through all this
13:51
Speaker 1: distress for nothing. It almost seemed like they were trying
13:53
Speaker 1: to push forward their narrative that this was a suicide,
13:56
Speaker 1: that Charles had jumped off the bridge into the water
13:58
Speaker 1: himself could finally close the case, but of course when
14:02
Speaker 1: it turned out not to be him, it only made
14:04
Speaker 1: them look even worse than they did before.
14:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like they're more concerned with managing public
14:10
Speaker 2: perception than they actually are with discovering what happened to Charles,
14:15
Speaker 2: and therein lies the problem. I'm sure that the RCNP
14:18
Speaker 2: and all the people who likely were working at that
14:21
Speaker 2: time have turned over and that it's a new culture,
14:24
Speaker 2: and I can only hope that they're much more involved
14:26
Speaker 2: when it comes to missing persons, because I think we
14:29
Speaker 2: just saw a general trend in the eighties and nineties
14:32
Speaker 2: where they didn't take missing persons nearly as serious as
14:35
Speaker 2: they do today. So part of it is just the
14:38
Speaker 2: passage of time helps with that. And it's also still
14:41
Speaker 2: a challenge when you have somebody who is from a
14:44
Speaker 2: foreign country who goes missing in another country, and we
14:48
Speaker 2: talked about this before, is law enforcement going to prioritize
14:52
Speaker 2: looking for that person with the same fervor that they
14:55
Speaker 2: would somebody who is like a naturalized citizen or like
14:59
Speaker 2: born in that country. So a Canadian who's missing versus
15:03
Speaker 2: you see British.
15:04
Speaker 1: He's technically was born in Canada, but he spent most
15:06
Speaker 1: of his life being raised in England, Okay.
15:09
Speaker 2: So it becomes more complex for Denie trying to search
15:13
Speaker 2: because there aren't any family members who are local. So
15:19
Speaker 2: it is like, you know, the squeaky wheel that gets
15:21
Speaker 2: the grease, and it becomes rather difficult to advocate when
15:25
Speaker 2: you are trying to do so from another country, and
15:28
Speaker 2: so you only have a limited amount of resources in
15:31
Speaker 2: law enforcement, and you're going to allocate those resources where
15:35
Speaker 2: you feel they're needed, and where they're needed or they're
15:39
Speaker 2: perceived to be needed, is where the most noise is
15:42
Speaker 2: being made. So it just becomes this almost fruitless endeavor
15:47
Speaker 2: because if there's nobody advocating for somebody missing or murdered,
15:51
Speaker 2: will they get that attention? And I know you and
15:54
Speaker 2: I have talked to Ashley about this because she'd worked
15:57
Speaker 2: at a police department, and I think doing victim's advocate stuff,
16:01
Speaker 2: is that what she was doing? I think so, yeah, yeah,
16:04
Speaker 2: And I believe that the people that made the most
16:07
Speaker 2: fuss were the ones that got the most results, and
16:10
Speaker 2: that shouldn't be that way. It should be all equal.
16:13
Speaker 2: But that is the reality of the investigation. And I
16:17
Speaker 2: think that pretty much goes he doesn't really that transcends country,
16:21
Speaker 2: I'm sure, and is most police departments, our CMP, whatever
16:26
Speaker 2: agency is handling a case. It's what type of pressure
16:29
Speaker 2: is coming from the family and what type of pressure
16:32
Speaker 2: is coming from the public.
16:33
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it is. Because they didn't do any
16:35
Speaker 1: movement on this case until Denise started putting a bunch
16:38
Speaker 1: of public pressure on it. Because they really didn't have
16:40
Speaker 1: a lot to work with. At first. All they had
16:42
Speaker 1: was a date when Charles cash to paycheck made the
16:45
Speaker 1: twenty six, nineteen eighty nine, which was the end of
16:48
Speaker 1: the paper trail for him. But we didn't have a
16:50
Speaker 1: spot that he went missing from, We didn't have any
16:52
Speaker 1: evidence of foul play, and because he was on a
16:55
Speaker 1: backpacking trick, they just could not disprove the idea that
16:58
Speaker 1: maybe he just wanted to keep traveling and break off
17:01
Speaker 1: all contact with his family. But here we are years
17:04
Speaker 1: later and all the pieces of the puzzle to coming together,
17:07
Speaker 1: because shortly after all his news about the anonymous note
17:10
Speaker 1: came out, Denise's contacted by a man named Gino Boardine,
17:14
Speaker 1: who had been staying at the Tiny Town campground with
17:17
Speaker 1: his son in May of nineteen eighty nine and actually
17:20
Speaker 1: befriended Charles shortly before he went missing. He described Charles
17:24
Speaker 1: as a very friendly man who made friends with people
17:26
Speaker 1: very easily, but also thought that he seemed a bit
17:29
Speaker 1: nighiven trusting, which is why he felt there is a
17:32
Speaker 1: possibility that he could have cross passed with the wrong
17:34
Speaker 1: person at the campground and had something bad happen to him.
17:38
Speaker 1: And Gino confirmed that the last time he saw Charles
17:41
Speaker 1: was on the same night as an all night party
17:44
Speaker 1: took place at the campground, and the following morning, when
17:47
Speaker 1: Gino woke up, he discovered that Charles's tent and his
17:50
Speaker 1: personal belongings were still there, but Charles himself was nowhere
17:55
Speaker 1: to be found. And if Gino's recollection was accurate, we're
17:58
Speaker 1: hearing about a party taking place in Charles going missing.
18:02
Speaker 1: This could lend credence to the note that something bad
18:05
Speaker 1: happened to them and they responded by disposing of his body.
18:09
Speaker 2: This is just feeling like it is the most likely scenario,
18:13
Speaker 2: and refresh my memory on the exact details of what
18:18
Speaker 2: was said to be this potential sighting of Charles. So
18:21
Speaker 2: both of us thought was likely a big mistake that
18:24
Speaker 2: it was the one that was in the club, right.
18:27
Speaker 1: There were two of them. One of them was a
18:29
Speaker 1: woman named Joey and Zebrov who had stayed at her
18:31
Speaker 1: apartment for a few days in Colonna and said that
18:34
Speaker 1: at the end of May of nineteen eighty nine, Charles
18:37
Speaker 1: came to her apartment tried to speak to her on
18:39
Speaker 1: the intercom, but she couldn't invite him up because her
18:42
Speaker 1: brother was visiting for a family reunion and they had
18:45
Speaker 1: just too much going on, and sheeva certain this took
18:47
Speaker 1: place sometime in May, which makes sense. But the police
18:50
Speaker 1: looked into the background of the brother found out that
18:53
Speaker 1: he took time off from work to visit Colonna in July,
18:57
Speaker 1: so they believed that the sighting actually took place in July,
19:00
Speaker 1: two months after Charles went missing, even though joe Anne
19:03
Speaker 1: was certain that it was in May, which would make
19:05
Speaker 1: more sense because why would Charles abandon all his possessions
19:09
Speaker 1: at the campground, disappear for two months, and then show
19:11
Speaker 1: up at Joanne's apartment in July. And then the second
19:14
Speaker 1: sighting was at a nightclub where Joanne thought she saw
19:17
Speaker 1: Charles from a distance and waved at him and he
19:19
Speaker 1: waved back. But I'm inclined to believe that she saw
19:22
Speaker 1: someone who looked like him because she didn't actually make contact.
19:25
Speaker 1: It was just a wave in the background in any dark,
19:27
Speaker 1: noisy place.
19:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, the club sighting, it could have been anybody. It's
19:33
Speaker 2: so hard to see somebody and to accurately be able
19:35
Speaker 2: to unless they're right in front of your face, to
19:38
Speaker 2: know that it is indeed that person. It's dark it's
19:41
Speaker 2: really dim. I mean you basically see outlines and to
19:46
Speaker 2: correctly identify somebody I don't know. I think Joanne likely
19:50
Speaker 2: was mistaken with the club sighting because how would Charles
19:54
Speaker 2: have been living, how would he have any resources. We
19:57
Speaker 2: know that he wasn't showing up for work, we know
19:59
Speaker 2: he didn't have any of his belongings, So to believe
20:01
Speaker 2: that he would just randomly be at this club, and
20:04
Speaker 2: then that other sighting where Joanne was saying may and
20:08
Speaker 2: it was law enforcement that looked into it and was
20:11
Speaker 2: like woll by process of deduction, it had to have
20:13
Speaker 2: been July when the brother was visiting, and when Joanne
20:16
Speaker 2: had seen Charles last, which it could have just been
20:20
Speaker 2: that somehow Joanne was conflating the two timelines when she
20:24
Speaker 2: was thinking back and thinking her brother was there, or
20:26
Speaker 2: maybe her brother just stopped by for a quick visit.
20:29
Speaker 2: I think to assume that Joanne was wrong with her
20:32
Speaker 2: timeline just because that's when the brother took time off
20:35
Speaker 2: work is a pretty big assumption.
20:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree. I think. I know eyewitnesses can
20:41
Speaker 1: be mistaken a lot, but I think that there's not
20:43
Speaker 1: going to be a two month discrepancy of when you
20:46
Speaker 1: remember that a family member is going to visit. And
20:49
Speaker 1: like we said, it just makes no sense that Charles
20:51
Speaker 1: would just disappear for two months without his possessions, because
20:54
Speaker 1: not only did he leave his tent and his clothing behind,
20:56
Speaker 1: he left behind a stash of family photographs and his
21:00
Speaker 1: passport and stuff like He's just not going to abandon
21:03
Speaker 1: that at the campground and then just go living as
21:05
Speaker 1: a transient for two months. So it does make more
21:07
Speaker 1: sense that he paid a visit to her apartment sometime
21:09
Speaker 1: in May, and then we had this party that took
21:12
Speaker 1: place at the campground and that something bad may have
21:15
Speaker 1: happened and the responsible party disposed of Charles's body. But
21:20
Speaker 1: since you mentioned the nightclub siding in two thousand and three,
21:23
Speaker 1: there would be a very weird development because the Okanagan
21:26
Speaker 1: Crime Stoppers TV show did a segment about Charles's case
21:30
Speaker 1: in which they displayed a photograph of a middle aged,
21:33
Speaker 1: gray haired man who was apparently named Bill, and he
21:37
Speaker 1: had allegedly been seen with Charles at the nightclub in
21:40
Speaker 1: Kelowna in August of nineteen eighty nine. They didn't really
21:44
Speaker 1: go into information about how exactly they received this photograph
21:48
Speaker 1: but apparently they didn't know Bill's identity, so they displayed
21:51
Speaker 1: the photo on screen, hoping that someone would that Bill
21:54
Speaker 1: himself would come forward, or someone would recognize him, and
21:57
Speaker 1: then they could track him down and question him about Charles.
22:01
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever found him. I have read
22:03
Speaker 1: on a blog that the RCP eventually found out who
22:06
Speaker 1: Bill was and learned that he was from Edmonton, Alberta,
22:09
Speaker 1: but had passed away, so they never got the opportunity
22:12
Speaker 1: to question him about Charles's case. But I kind of
22:15
Speaker 1: wish we had more details about this because we're both
22:17
Speaker 1: inclined to believe that the nightclub sighting is false. But
22:21
Speaker 1: apparently this guy named Bill had been seen with Charles
22:24
Speaker 1: at the nightclub and thought he would have vile information
22:27
Speaker 1: about the case. But it sounds like this is just
22:30
Speaker 1: probably nothing more than a red herring.
22:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, just because I'm less inclined to believe that that
22:37
Speaker 2: nightclub sighting is accurate, I'm more inclined to believe that
22:41
Speaker 2: this whole Bill connection and everything associated with it is
22:45
Speaker 2: likely a red herring.
22:46
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking. But there is one more lead
22:48
Speaker 1: involving Bill, so he just will not go away. It
22:52
Speaker 1: involves a guy named Tony Gallup. In May of two
22:55
Speaker 1: thousand and one, he actually got charged and convicted of
22:58
Speaker 1: the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of a five year
23:01
Speaker 1: old girl named Jessic Coopman's. This took place in Lethbridge, Alberta,
23:06
Speaker 1: but back in nineteen eighty nine, Gallup was living in Cologna,
23:10
Speaker 1: and during Denise's investigation, she found out that Charles had
23:14
Speaker 1: briefly befriended him Adam Marina somewhere and spent some time
23:18
Speaker 1: hanging out with him, and Denise evens met Gallup personally
23:22
Speaker 1: and spoke with them in nineteen ninety two, long after
23:24
Speaker 1: he got charged with the murder of this five year
23:26
Speaker 1: old girl. They never found any evidence to indicate that
23:29
Speaker 1: Gallup was personally involved in Charles's disappearance, but he apparently
23:33
Speaker 1: told investigators that he once saw Charles go out on
23:36
Speaker 1: a boat trip with an unidentified gray haired man, and
23:41
Speaker 1: apparently they were looking into the possibility that this man
23:43
Speaker 1: could have been built because he also had gray hair,
23:46
Speaker 1: and they never figured it out. So I don't believe
23:49
Speaker 1: Tony Gallup had any involvement in Charles's disappearance because sexually
23:52
Speaker 1: assaulting and murdering a five year old girl is a
23:55
Speaker 1: lot different than doing the same thing to a twenty
23:57
Speaker 1: year old male, and it might just be a coincidence
24:00
Speaker 1: that he wound up being connected to these two separate cases.
24:03
Speaker 1: But once again, we have this lead about Charles being
24:05
Speaker 1: seed with an unidentified gray haired man, and you have
24:08
Speaker 1: to wonder does this have any significance or did he
24:11
Speaker 1: just cross pass with someone and then something else happened
24:14
Speaker 1: to him afterwards.
24:16
Speaker 2: This is feeling like very fugitive, one armed man coded,
24:20
Speaker 2: doesn't it.
24:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. Yeah, the mysterious bill. Does he have
24:23
Speaker 1: anything with it?
24:25
Speaker 2: I know it's very odd. I don't know, it seems odd,
24:28
Speaker 2: but it seems very strange. But like you said, the
24:32
Speaker 2: type of offender that is going to victimize a five
24:35
Speaker 2: year old girl versus like a grown man are typically
24:40
Speaker 2: two different offender profiles.
24:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So it could be possible that Charles cross
24:46
Speaker 1: paths with this guy, he hung out with them, and
24:48
Speaker 1: is just a coincidence, Like they just didn't know that
24:50
Speaker 1: this guy would be involved in the murder of another
24:52
Speaker 1: girl that happened many years later. But yeah, even if
24:56
Speaker 1: Charles was legitimately seen with a gray haired man. That
24:59
Speaker 1: doesn't have necessarily mean this person had anything to do
25:02
Speaker 1: with his disappearance, because Charles was described as such a likable,
25:05
Speaker 1: friendly guy that he could befriend strangers really easily. So
25:09
Speaker 1: it's reasonable to assume that during his time in Colonna
25:11
Speaker 1: he could have briefly been friends with some gray haired man,
25:14
Speaker 1: but then they went their separate ways and it has
25:16
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the case.
25:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, since you shared that early on that
25:21
Speaker 2: Charles had a way of like that he had first
25:24
Speaker 2: initially started staying at the mission, but he had people
25:28
Speaker 2: that he would meet along the way and they would
25:30
Speaker 2: invite him to stay in their homes. And I think
25:32
Speaker 2: that just speaks to what like a outgoing and kind
25:38
Speaker 2: person that Charles was, and that he had a certain
25:40
Speaker 2: level of charisma and that he charmed people enough to
25:44
Speaker 2: have them like we know that he didn't mean any
25:47
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't, he wasn't malicious in any way,
25:50
Speaker 2: but to have people drop their guards and to say
25:53
Speaker 2: come into my home, come stay with me, that is
25:56
Speaker 2: such a vulnerable position to be in. So it just
25:59
Speaker 2: speaks to the type of person that Charles was. So
26:02
Speaker 2: did he have a friend with gray hair? It is possible.
26:05
Speaker 2: I'm sure he had a lot of friends while he
26:07
Speaker 2: was in Colona.
26:08
Speaker 1: It's true. It is kind of crazy to see that
26:10
Speaker 1: he was only in Coloonna for about a month before
26:12
Speaker 1: he went missing. Yet there were so many people who
26:14
Speaker 1: came forward to say that they interacted with him and
26:17
Speaker 1: say nothing but good things about him. But I just
26:19
Speaker 1: that just kind of speaks to his personality. So the
26:23
Speaker 1: case got featured on Unsolved Mysteries in nineteen ninety four
26:26
Speaker 1: and they were hoping that if there was a chance
26:28
Speaker 1: that Charles was still alive out there somewhere, he would
26:31
Speaker 1: come forward or someone would know where he is. But
26:34
Speaker 1: unfortunately this did not materialize, and over the next three decades,
26:38
Speaker 1: Denise would make no less than fifteen trips from England
26:41
Speaker 1: to Canada to search for Charles. But this came a
26:44
Speaker 1: great personal expense to herself because she had owned a
26:48
Speaker 1: hair and beauty salon in England, but she was forced
26:51
Speaker 1: to sell it after she retired, and she also had
26:54
Speaker 1: to refinance the mortgage on her home until she ultimately
26:57
Speaker 1: wound up losing it. So wound up taking such a
27:01
Speaker 1: great emotional and financial toll on her, but she just
27:04
Speaker 1: had the mindset that until I find out what happened
27:06
Speaker 1: to my son, I'm not going to give up, and
27:09
Speaker 1: would just make these trips I think until like the
27:11
Speaker 1: late twenty ten. So she was doing it for nearly
27:14
Speaker 1: thirty straight years until she finally reached the age into
27:17
Speaker 1: her seventies where she said, I just cannot handle this mentally, physically,
27:21
Speaker 1: or financially anymore.
27:24
Speaker 2: That's really sad. It's just a sad case overall because
27:29
Speaker 2: for Denise, Alan Charles was your only child, right, yeah, exactly,
27:33
Speaker 2: she was so to have that happen, and to have
27:38
Speaker 2: your baby be in another country, to be so far away,
27:42
Speaker 2: to be advocating, and to be pushing up against the
27:46
Speaker 2: RCMP trying to get results. I can only imagine how
27:50
Speaker 2: much of a toll that would take on Denise, and
27:53
Speaker 2: just you're going in circles and there's no way that
27:56
Speaker 2: you can close that loop until you find out what
27:59
Speaker 2: happened to your baby, and so over time that would
28:03
Speaker 2: just be so mentally, physically, spiritually taxing on a person.
28:09
Speaker 2: You're friends with, Denise, right, like you know Denise.
28:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, not too well, but I am Facebook friends with
28:14
Speaker 1: her and a community with communicated with her a few
28:16
Speaker 1: times about this case. And I mean, if I had
28:18
Speaker 1: gotten to meet her something like ten to fifteen years ago,
28:21
Speaker 1: she probably like would have been more active and been
28:23
Speaker 1: doing more interviews on podcasts. But she's now seventy seven
28:26
Speaker 1: years old and has pretty much reached the point where
28:29
Speaker 1: it's just too much of a toil on her to
28:30
Speaker 1: keep making these trips and keep doing interviews about her
28:33
Speaker 1: missing son.
28:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. I get that, and I can respect that, And
28:38
Speaker 2: I respect whatever path family members choose to take, whether
28:41
Speaker 2: it's one of doing less or one of doing more,
28:45
Speaker 2: because everybody does what they're capable of doing given the
28:49
Speaker 2: amount of grief that surrounds a missing loved one. So
28:54
Speaker 2: to do what Denise did for so many years into
28:58
Speaker 2: an advanced age, I mean, and she's seventy seven now,
29:01
Speaker 2: but like all of those years advocating for Charles, I
29:05
Speaker 2: just I really commend her for having the commitment and
29:10
Speaker 2: the wherewithal to be able to plow through such emotionally
29:15
Speaker 2: arduous territory.
29:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't
29:19
Speaker 1: even know about this case because the RCNP was not
29:22
Speaker 1: inclined to perform an investigation, and it was not until
29:24
Speaker 1: she started making these eleven twelve hour flights from England
29:28
Speaker 1: and going to the media and doing her own independent
29:30
Speaker 1: searches that people started hearing about this case. What was
29:34
Speaker 1: also rough for Denise is that she kept getting like
29:37
Speaker 1: false hope and uncovering new leads which made her think
29:39
Speaker 1: that she might eventually get a resolution. She made a
29:42
Speaker 1: trip to British Columbia in twenty fifteen in which she
29:46
Speaker 1: told the me this was going to be her final
29:48
Speaker 1: trip because she just couldn't handle it financially and emotionally anymore.
29:52
Speaker 1: But then she started getting new developments and new tips
29:55
Speaker 1: and decided to keep returning to British Columbia to look
29:58
Speaker 1: into them. Her final clip trip to Colowna took place
30:01
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen because she was contacted by a person
30:05
Speaker 1: who had once been engaged to a former resident of
30:08
Speaker 1: the Tinytown campground, and this resident allegedly claimed that they
30:12
Speaker 1: overheard an incriminating conversation in the showers about how Charles
30:17
Speaker 1: had been killed and his remains were dumped into the
30:19
Speaker 1: septic tank at the Tinytown Campground. So Denise traveled back
30:23
Speaker 1: to Colowna tried to find this person. She was unable
30:26
Speaker 1: to find the individual who allegedly said this, but she
30:29
Speaker 1: did track down this person's fother but he was not
30:32
Speaker 1: helpful at all. He wouldn't tell her anything and specifically
30:35
Speaker 1: stated quote that it wasn't worth his own life. So
30:39
Speaker 1: it sounds like there was some sort of cover up
30:41
Speaker 1: that still had people in fear, even though this tip
30:43
Speaker 1: came by nearly thirty years after Charles went missing, and
30:47
Speaker 1: Denise actually contacted the RCNP to see if they could
30:50
Speaker 1: check this septic tank and maybe look for DNA to
30:53
Speaker 1: see if there was anything that belonged to Charles or
30:56
Speaker 1: if his remains might still be in there. But unfortunately
30:59
Speaker 1: this is still never occurred.
31:02
Speaker 2: I can't remember what case it is. It was a
31:04
Speaker 2: lot of years ago. I remember watching maybe it was
31:07
Speaker 2: on like Investigation Discovery or something, and a body was
31:11
Speaker 2: found in a septic tank and it was like fairly
31:14
Speaker 2: well preserved, all everything was there. It's sort of like
31:19
Speaker 2: encasing a body in concrete that you're going to have
31:24
Speaker 2: all of the bones are going to remain, everything is
31:27
Speaker 2: going to be there. So I don't know if that's
31:30
Speaker 2: necessarily the best place to dispose of a body, because
31:34
Speaker 2: it would be pretty easy to recover if you have
31:36
Speaker 2: the right tip and law enforcement that's willing to search.
31:40
Speaker 2: But if you're looking at people like from what we've
31:43
Speaker 2: had described of the residents of the Tiny Town campground
31:46
Speaker 2: and how evil it is, we can only imagine that
31:50
Speaker 2: there's a lot of drug use in partying and those
31:53
Speaker 2: type of activities happening, especially if we're to go on
31:57
Speaker 2: like what the tip was with what happened to Charles
32:00
Speaker 2: is likely due to people partying, drinking, potentially doing drugs.
32:05
Speaker 2: So those people don't always make the smartest decisions when
32:10
Speaker 2: it comes to a lot of things, but particularly body disposal.
32:14
Speaker 2: You would think what is going to be the quickest
32:16
Speaker 2: and easiest, and if you've got to access to a
32:19
Speaker 2: septic tank, that might seem like a good option. But
32:23
Speaker 2: I would also think that throwing a body over a
32:25
Speaker 2: bridge might seem like a better option because it's farther away,
32:29
Speaker 2: if you've got access to a vehicle to be able
32:31
Speaker 2: to do that.
32:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, these two who tips contradict each other, though
32:36
Speaker 1: I guess it is possible that they could have temporarily
32:38
Speaker 1: put him in a septic tank at first and then
32:40
Speaker 1: dumped his body into the river. I don't know if
32:42
Speaker 1: that this is the case you're thinking of, But there
32:44
Speaker 1: is a fairly famous case from Canada about an unidentified
32:48
Speaker 1: John Doe who was found in a septic tank in
32:50
Speaker 1: Alberta during the nineteen seventies and earned the nickname septic
32:54
Speaker 1: tank Sam. But thank lease, yes that's the one that's
32:57
Speaker 1: probably it. They have thankfully identified him as real name
33:00
Speaker 1: is Gordon Sanderson, because that's a pretty demeaning name for
33:03
Speaker 1: an unidentified deceded. So I'm glad he got his identity back.
33:07
Speaker 1: But I mean, it is possible that maybe Charles remains
33:10
Speaker 1: weren't there at some point. But it makes me wonder though,
33:13
Speaker 1: like would this campground still even have the same septic
33:16
Speaker 1: tank after thirty years? So I don't know if police
33:19
Speaker 1: looked into this and found out that maybe they had
33:22
Speaker 1: changed septic tanks a long time ago. So even if
33:25
Speaker 1: they tracked it down, it wouldn't be of any use
33:27
Speaker 1: to search for Charles's DNA if it's a completely different tank.
33:31
Speaker 1: So another rumor that Denise heard is that Charles may
33:33
Speaker 1: have been murdered by members of the Hells Angels biker gang.
33:37
Speaker 1: As in May of nineteen eighty nine, a total of
33:39
Speaker 1: seventy five bikers had traveled from the United States to Falkland,
33:43
Speaker 1: British Columbia in order to attend the Falkland Stampede rodeo,
33:47
Speaker 1: and Falkland is located about ninety kilometers away from Colowna,
33:52
Speaker 1: so if the bikers traveled there from the States, they
33:55
Speaker 1: could have stopped at the tiny town campground, and there
33:58
Speaker 1: were rumors that they were there, though I don't think
34:00
Speaker 1: it's been one hundred percent confirmed, but she apparently heard
34:04
Speaker 1: the allegations that Charles may have been killed by a
34:07
Speaker 1: member of the gang who was trying to earn his patch,
34:10
Speaker 1: and it was some sort of initiation. Of course, it's
34:13
Speaker 1: nothing but rumors, but I know that Gino Bourdin described
34:16
Speaker 1: Charles as being rather naive and trusting. So if he
34:19
Speaker 1: befriended a biker gang there at the campground and they
34:22
Speaker 1: invited him to a party, it's entirely possible that they
34:26
Speaker 1: just decided to kill him for the fun of it
34:28
Speaker 1: as some sort of initiation before they disposed of his
34:30
Speaker 1: body and then left town.
34:32
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know what year it's been there since,
34:37
Speaker 2: but there is a Hell's Angels clubhouse in Kolonna.
34:41
Speaker 1: Oh, Okay.
34:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are there are members that live in Kolona, Like,
34:46
Speaker 2: so I don't know if that is like a thing
34:48
Speaker 2: that happened post you know, nineteen ninety two or ninety three,
34:52
Speaker 2: but currently yes, and for you know, since as long
34:56
Speaker 2: as I've known, like you know, the early two thousands, yes,
35:00
Speaker 2: but in the nineties not one hundred percent. So I
35:03
Speaker 2: mean it is possible. Anything is possible with this case
35:06
Speaker 2: because we just we know so little.
35:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I find this whole theory believable because
35:13
Speaker 1: it has been confirmed there was a party at the
35:15
Speaker 1: campground right before Charles went missing, so for all we know,
35:19
Speaker 1: it could have been held by biker gangs. But of
35:21
Speaker 1: course they were saying there are like seventy seventy five
35:23
Speaker 1: members of the gang, and I believe that if all
35:25
Speaker 1: of them were complicit, I think it probably would have
35:27
Speaker 1: come out by now. So it seems more logical to
35:30
Speaker 1: me that if Charles was killed at a party, it
35:32
Speaker 1: was an incident that only had maybe a handful of people,
35:35
Speaker 1: and one of them might have been the anonymous writer
35:37
Speaker 1: of the note that Denise received.
35:40
Speaker 2: But I will say, though, if you do have seventy
35:42
Speaker 2: five members of any type of gang, it's possible that,
35:48
Speaker 2: especially if they're all patched members. I would think that
35:52
Speaker 2: there would be a certain code of silence, So it
35:55
Speaker 2: wouldn't surprise me or shock me if that information didn't
35:59
Speaker 2: come to light, because talking about those types of things
36:02
Speaker 2: with people that aren't associated with you like that would
36:07
Speaker 2: be incredibly frowned upon. And so even if they have
36:11
Speaker 2: a different lifestyle now, I would just think that the
36:14
Speaker 2: type of people that they would be recruiting wouldn't be
36:16
Speaker 2: the type that would be so chatty. But I'm less
36:19
Speaker 2: inclined to believe this theory and more inclined to believe
36:23
Speaker 2: that it was likely just other residents at the chiny
36:26
Speaker 2: Town campground.
36:28
Speaker 1: That is true, because the bikers were just passing through
36:30
Speaker 1: and eventually went back to the United States supposedly. And
36:34
Speaker 1: the fact that this note was sent to Denise three
36:36
Speaker 1: years after the fact, while she was staying in a
36:39
Speaker 1: motel that was directly across the street from the campground
36:41
Speaker 1: makes me think that it was probably a local residence
36:44
Speaker 1: who was still there after all those years and really
36:46
Speaker 1: wanted to get something off their chest. But there is
36:49
Speaker 1: kind of a happy side story around this whole affair.
36:53
Speaker 1: I know that in twenty seventeen, Denise appeared on the
36:56
Speaker 1: TV show Britain's Got Talent as a member of a
36:58
Speaker 1: group called the Missing People Choir, which was comprised of
37:02
Speaker 1: family members of British people who had had loved ones
37:05
Speaker 1: gone missing. And the choir was led by Peter Lawrence,
37:08
Speaker 1: who was the father of Claudia Lawrence. And if I
37:11
Speaker 1: recall correctly, you covered that case on Riddle Me that right,
37:15
Speaker 1: I did.
37:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, that case is always really really like confounded me.
37:21
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened, and we've got such a
37:25
Speaker 2: small amount of information with that case. But yeah, her
37:28
Speaker 2: father has been an amazing advocate for Claudia.
37:31
Speaker 1: Unfortunately he has passed away in recent years, but he
37:34
Speaker 1: was a great advocate. And that's cited as an example
37:36
Speaker 1: where there's just been so much focus on the victim's
37:39
Speaker 1: personal life and how promiscuous she allegedly was and how
37:43
Speaker 1: she may have been killed because of some of her romances.
37:45
Speaker 1: But because we can't separate the rumors from the facts,
37:49
Speaker 1: there are no solid suspects.
37:51
Speaker 2: That case is heartbreaking because it's just seeped with misogyny
37:56
Speaker 2: and slutshaming. It was horrible because the public really turned
38:01
Speaker 2: on Claudia once they figured out that she had these
38:03
Speaker 2: romantic entanglements and some of the men were potentially married
38:07
Speaker 2: and whatnot. They seem less inclined to want to find
38:12
Speaker 2: out what happened to her and more inclined to put
38:16
Speaker 2: a label on her and to blame her for whatever
38:19
Speaker 2: could have befallen her, which I think is such a
38:22
Speaker 2: travesty because regardless of what a victim sex life is,
38:26
Speaker 2: they don't deserve what happened to them. And at the
38:30
Speaker 2: end of the day, who is responsible for stepping out
38:34
Speaker 2: on a marriage If that is the case, it is
38:36
Speaker 2: the man who was entered into a legal contract with
38:39
Speaker 2: his wife. It isn't Claudia's responsibility. So that case, I
38:44
Speaker 2: can only imagine what her family had to go through
38:48
Speaker 2: having to read like the British press is relentless, Like
38:51
Speaker 2: we live in Canada and our press is nothing like
38:54
Speaker 2: it is there. It's just so salacious there, the way
38:57
Speaker 2: that things are written and like so click.
39:01
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I researched that one for the trail went
39:03
Speaker 1: cold several years ago and had to look through some
39:05
Speaker 1: of the British tabloids, and some of the coverage was
39:08
Speaker 1: pretty terrible. But I am glad that Peter Lawrence and
39:10
Speaker 1: Denise Allen became friends because they had very frustrating times
39:14
Speaker 1: trying to find their missing children. But the happy part
39:18
Speaker 1: about this story is that when the Missing People's Choir
39:20
Speaker 1: performed on Britain's Got Talent, they showed the photographs of
39:24
Speaker 1: all the missing victims, including Claudie and Charles in the background,
39:28
Speaker 1: and shortly after the episode aired, one of the missing
39:31
Speaker 1: victims who was displayed on the photograph, who was thirteen
39:34
Speaker 1: years old when he disappeared, actually got in contact with
39:36
Speaker 1: the authorities because he turned out to be alive the
39:39
Speaker 1: whole time. He saw himself on TV and said that,
39:42
Speaker 1: oh that's me from many years ago, contacted the authorities
39:45
Speaker 1: and came forward to confirm that he was still out there.
39:49
Speaker 1: So Britain's Got Talent inadvertently led to the resolution of
39:52
Speaker 1: one of the missing persons cases that they featured.
39:56
Speaker 2: Wow, that is something I had no idea that Britain's
40:00
Speaker 2: Kalen had quite that kind of an impact on something
40:03
Speaker 2: that goes beyond what is so frivolous as like, you know,
40:07
Speaker 2: a talent show on TV, but to actually be doing work,
40:11
Speaker 2: to be identifying missing people, that's huge.
40:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was pretty unexpected because I think there was
40:18
Speaker 1: no expectation that any of the missing victims displayed on
40:21
Speaker 1: screen were still alive after all these years. So one
40:24
Speaker 1: of the more unexpected examples I've ever find of media
40:27
Speaker 1: outlets solving an unsolved gold case. So yeah, like I said,
40:32
Speaker 1: Denise has pretty much stopped making the trips to British
40:36
Speaker 1: Columbia to search for Charles. She's currently seventy seven years old.
40:39
Speaker 1: She still posts on social media frequently to spread awareness
40:42
Speaker 1: about Charles's case, and has always said, unfortunately that her
40:45
Speaker 1: greatest fear is that she will leave this world without
40:48
Speaker 1: ever finding the truth about what happened to her son.
40:51
Speaker 1: And I do hope that, even though it seems to
40:54
Speaker 1: be a given at this point that Charles is deceased,
40:56
Speaker 1: I do hope that maybe one of these days the
40:58
Speaker 1: right person will come forward and provide the full story
41:01
Speaker 1: about what happened to them and maybe lead to the
41:03
Speaker 1: recovery of his remains. But personally, I am inclined to
41:07
Speaker 1: believe there is truth to the anonymous note that Charles
41:10
Speaker 1: got into some sort of confrontation at a party and
41:13
Speaker 1: the people who were responsible just disposed of his body
41:16
Speaker 1: by throwing me into the river, and for all we know,
41:19
Speaker 1: it may still be there, but it's in an entirely
41:21
Speaker 1: different location away from the bridge.
41:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I believe happened. And I just I
41:28
Speaker 2: wish for Denise that one thing could happen for her,
41:33
Speaker 2: that she could find out what happened to Charles, but
41:35
Speaker 2: at the very least that they could recover Charles's remains
41:39
Speaker 2: so that she would have the ability to lay him
41:42
Speaker 2: to rest however she saw fit. Because she's seventy seven now,
41:48
Speaker 2: and I don't know how. I mean, Denise could live
41:50
Speaker 2: till she's a hundred. We don't know how long she's
41:53
Speaker 2: going to live, but I would love for her to
41:55
Speaker 2: be able to be reunited with her son in that
41:58
Speaker 2: capacity before she transcends and crosses you over from this
42:04
Speaker 2: earthly plane into whatever lies beyond. Because no mother should
42:09
Speaker 2: ever have to pass away without knowing where their child is.
42:13
Speaker 2: That is just one of the most unfair things in life.
42:18
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. And it was actually not until twenty twenty
42:20
Speaker 1: where she actually got the High Court of the United
42:23
Speaker 1: Kingdom to finally declare Charles legally deceased so she could
42:27
Speaker 1: settle his financial affairs. But I do know that her
42:30
Speaker 1: plan is is that if his remains are recovered, she
42:32
Speaker 1: hopes to bring them back to the United Kingdom and
42:34
Speaker 1: give her him a proper burial in the same cemetery
42:38
Speaker 1: alongside some of his family members. So I do hope
42:40
Speaker 1: that she does get a resolution at some point. So
42:44
Speaker 1: any final thoughts on the disappearance of Charles horbat This.
42:48
Speaker 2: Case was really interesting, and especially because it was like
42:51
Speaker 2: a homegrown case for me. It's really only forty five
42:55
Speaker 2: minutes from where I grew up, and it was a
42:57
Speaker 2: case I didn't know about, and being familiar with the
43:01
Speaker 2: bodies of water on the general areas of all of
43:03
Speaker 2: these where all of these events transpired is a rarity.
43:07
Speaker 2: So thank you very much for sharing the details with me.
43:10
Speaker 1: My pleasure. I was looking forward to discussing a case
43:13
Speaker 1: from your home turf of British Columbia. So that about
43:17
Speaker 1: brings an end to our series about the disappearance of
43:19
Speaker 1: Charles Horvath. Thank you so much for your support, and
43:21
Speaker 1: we'll be back next week to talk about another case.
43:26
Speaker 2: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
43:27
Speaker 2: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
43:29
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
43:32
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
43:36
Speaker 1: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
43:39
Speaker 1: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
43:42
Speaker 1: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
43:44
Speaker 1: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 1: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
43:52
Speaker 1: the Trail went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
43:55
Speaker 1: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier free
43:58
Speaker 1: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
44:01
Speaker 1: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
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Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
44:08
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
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Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
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Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
44:18
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
44:22
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
44:25
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
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Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
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Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
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Speaker 1: Tier three.
44:34
Speaker 2: So I want to let you know a little bit
44:36
Speaker 2: about the Jules and Nashty patreons so there's early ad
44:39
Speaker 2: free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
44:42
Speaker 2: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
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Speaker 2: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
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Speaker 2: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
44:50
Speaker 2: so we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link
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Speaker 2: them in the show notes.
44:54
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
44:56
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
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45:01
Speaker 1: You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
45:05
Speaker 1: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So
45:08
Speaker 1: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
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45:13
Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy