Latest / Crime and Horror / This-place-will-make-you-SPIRAL-into-MADNESS

Transcript

This-place-will-make-you-SPIRAL-into-MADNESS · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: In late July of nineteen eighty eight, two hunters were
0:03
Speaker 1: walking up this steep mountain trail in Colorado looking for
0:06
Speaker 1: a place to set up for the day. And as
0:08
Speaker 1: they were walking, they eventually left the trail then began
0:11
Speaker 1: kind of meandering through the trees looking for a clearing,
0:15
Speaker 1: and at some point they spotted a clearing up ahead.
0:17
Speaker 1: But in this clearing there was this really bright white
0:20
Speaker 1: thing at the base of one of the trees, and
0:23
Speaker 1: so the two hunters they walked up to investigate what
0:25
Speaker 1: this white thing was, and when they saw it, they
0:28
Speaker 1: both knew immediately that this was something no one was
0:32
Speaker 1: supposed to see, and so after the hunters took a
0:34
Speaker 1: mental note of where they were on the mountain, they
0:37
Speaker 1: turned around and rushed back down to town to tell authorities.
0:41
Speaker 1: But before we get into that story, if you're a
0:43
Speaker 1: fan of these strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
0:47
Speaker 1: then you come to the right place, because that's all
0:49
Speaker 1: we do, and we upload once a week, So if
0:52
Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, the next time the like button.
0:54
Speaker 2: Is at work, secretly sneak into their.
0:56
Speaker 1: House and train their new puppy to bark at shadow
1:00
Speaker 1: and pee behind the washing machine. Also, please subscribe to
1:03
Speaker 1: our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't.
1:06
Speaker 2: Miss any of our weekly uploads.
1:07
Speaker 3: Okay, let's get into today's story.
1:23
Speaker 1: On the afternoon of June fifteenth, nineteen eighty eight, a
1:26
Speaker 1: man named Keith reinerd drove down the main street of
1:29
Speaker 1: a tiny town called silver Plume, which is located in
1:33
Speaker 1: the rocky mountains of Colorado. In his car was everything
1:36
Speaker 1: Keith would need to live for.
1:38
Speaker 2: The next three months.
1:39
Speaker 1: Silver Plume was the kind of place that most people
1:42
Speaker 1: would just pass by on the highway without even considering stopping.
1:46
Speaker 1: It was kind of a no name town in the
1:48
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere. In the eighteen hundreds, it had been
1:51
Speaker 1: a booming mining town. However, now all but one hundred
1:55
Speaker 1: and forty of its residents had either died or moved away.
1:58
Speaker 1: In fact, silver Plume was considered a living ghost town
2:02
Speaker 1: because of how close it was to being totally abandoned.
2:05
Speaker 1: But this emptiness and kind of middle of nowhareness was
2:09
Speaker 1: exactly what appealed to Keith about this town. Keith was
2:13
Speaker 1: forty nine years old and lived over one thousand miles
2:16
Speaker 1: away to the east in a suburb of Chicago. Illinois,
2:20
Speaker 1: and Keith had a great life. He was married with
2:22
Speaker 1: two kids, a boy and a girl. He had a
2:24
Speaker 1: good job working for a newspaper covering high school sports,
2:28
Speaker 1: and he had a beautiful house. But for Keith, he
2:31
Speaker 1: felt like as good as his life looked on paper,
2:34
Speaker 1: it was missing something. There was one thing he had
2:37
Speaker 1: always wanted to do, but had always put off doing,
2:40
Speaker 1: and that was to write a book. And not just
2:42
Speaker 1: any book, a book that lots of people were going
2:45
Speaker 1: to read, a great American classic. That's what he wanted
2:48
Speaker 1: to make. But there was just one problem. Keith had
2:51
Speaker 1: no idea what this big book was going to be about,
2:55
Speaker 1: and that was why he had come to Silver Plumb.
2:57
Speaker 1: Keith had taken a three month leave from his job
3:01
Speaker 1: and left his wife and his kids and the city
3:03
Speaker 1: all behind to come out to this town to hopefully,
3:06
Speaker 1: in this new, peaceful, quiet environment, find the inspiration he
3:11
Speaker 1: really needed to not only discover what this book would
3:14
Speaker 1: be about, but to sit down and actually write it.
3:18
Speaker 1: Keith's wife had not been happy about this plan, him
3:21
Speaker 1: kind of being gone for three months, not providing any income,
3:25
Speaker 1: not helping with the kids, but she could tell Keith
3:28
Speaker 1: really felt like he needed to do this, and so
3:31
Speaker 1: she gave him her blessing. After arriving on Main Street
3:35
Speaker 1: in silver Plume, Keith looked up and he saw KP
3:38
Speaker 1: Cafe off to the right. It was a weathered old
3:41
Speaker 1: building that looked like it was straight out of a
3:42
Speaker 1: cowboy movie. And this cafe was exactly the landmark that
3:46
Speaker 1: Keith had been looking for, and so he pulled his
3:48
Speaker 1: car over on the side of the road.
3:50
Speaker 2: He got out, he stretched, and then he began walking
3:53
Speaker 2: towards this cafe.
3:54
Speaker 1: This cafe was the big hangout spot in Silver Plume
3:57
Speaker 1: for all of its one hundred and forty residents, and
4:00
Speaker 1: the reason Keith knew this was because his best friend
4:02
Speaker 1: from high school, Ted Parker, owned KP Cafe. Ted had
4:06
Speaker 1: actually been the person who inspired Keith to come to
4:10
Speaker 1: silver Plume in the first place. He had told him
4:12
Speaker 1: about how peaceful and serene this place was the best
4:16
Speaker 1: environment for a writer. And when Keith had told Ted
4:19
Speaker 1: that that sounds great, I'm going to do it. I'm
4:21
Speaker 1: going to come to Silver Plume, Ted had told him
4:24
Speaker 1: that he also owned the store right next to KP
4:28
Speaker 1: Cafe that used to be a bookstore, but the previous
4:31
Speaker 1: tenant who ran the bookstore, had talked about some big
4:33
Speaker 1: European vacation he was going on and then had just
4:36
Speaker 1: kind of vanished. And so for months now this storefront
4:40
Speaker 1: had been vacant, and so Ted had told Keith that
4:42
Speaker 1: while he was in town, he was more than welcome
4:45
Speaker 1: to work and write out of this vacant bookshop. And
4:48
Speaker 1: so Keith, after walking up to the front window of
4:51
Speaker 1: KP Cafe, he looked inside and didn't see Ted, and
4:54
Speaker 1: so he decided he would take a moment and walk
4:56
Speaker 1: over to this vacant bookshop that would be his office.
5:00
Speaker 2: So he went next door.
5:01
Speaker 1: He pulled out the key that Ted had already sent
5:03
Speaker 1: him in advance. He unlocked the door and he went inside,
5:06
Speaker 1: and right away Keith was struck at what he saw.
5:09
Speaker 1: I mean, the place was full of books. Some piles
5:12
Speaker 1: of books were higher than his head, and many of
5:14
Speaker 1: the books looked rare and expensive. And Keith's first thought was,
5:18
Speaker 1: why did this guy who used to run this store
5:21
Speaker 1: just abandon all of this? This had to cost a
5:24
Speaker 1: lot of money, But Keith was far too excited about
5:27
Speaker 1: the next few months and getting this book done that
5:29
Speaker 1: he didn't really think too hard about whatever the previous
5:32
Speaker 1: owner had done, and instead he just began to daydream
5:35
Speaker 1: about what the next few months would be like.
5:37
Speaker 2: And how this book was going to turn out.
5:39
Speaker 1: And as Keith was thinking about his big book project,
5:42
Speaker 1: Ted actually came into the bookstore, and when the two
5:45
Speaker 1: friends saw each other, they ran up to each other
5:47
Speaker 1: and embraced, and then before long the two of them
5:50
Speaker 1: had gone outside and began walking around Silver Plume, just
5:53
Speaker 1: chatting and catching up. And eventually, after chatting and walking
5:56
Speaker 1: around for a really long time, the pair left silver
6:00
Speaker 1: and wound up walking onto this hiking trail that went
6:03
Speaker 1: up into the woods. Now, years earlier, Ted and Keith
6:07
Speaker 1: had both been aviod hikers an outdoorsman, but now, I
6:10
Speaker 1: mean Keith had put on some weight and he really
6:13
Speaker 1: wasn't a big hiker anymore. But Ted didn't really know that,
6:16
Speaker 1: And so Ted he's leading this hike up this trail
6:18
Speaker 1: as they're still kind of chatting and making light of things.
6:22
Speaker 1: But Keith, as he was struggling to keep up, was
6:24
Speaker 1: getting more and more anxious about this hike, and he
6:27
Speaker 1: also had a deep fear of heights, and this trail
6:30
Speaker 1: appeared to go really high up this mountain, but Keith
6:33
Speaker 1: kept telling himself that, you know, he was here in
6:35
Speaker 1: Silver Plume as much to write this book as he
6:39
Speaker 1: was to kind of have a little more adventure in
6:41
Speaker 1: his life, and so he just kept on trudging along
6:44
Speaker 1: after Ted. But eventually Keith just could not handle how
6:48
Speaker 1: high up they were getting. He was totally terrified of
6:50
Speaker 1: being able to see the valley way down below, and
6:53
Speaker 1: so he had a sort of panic attack where he
6:55
Speaker 1: lunged and grabbed a nearby tree and hugged it like
6:59
Speaker 1: it was the only keeping him from falling off the mountain.
7:02
Speaker 1: And when Ted turned around and saw Keith, he rushed
7:05
Speaker 1: over to him and said, don't worry, everything is okay.
7:07
Speaker 1: He convinced him to let go of the tree, and
7:09
Speaker 1: then very carefully, Keith and Ted walked back down the
7:12
Speaker 1: trail back into town, and when they got down there,
7:15
Speaker 1: Ted would tell Keith he was so sorry for putting
7:17
Speaker 1: Keith in such a stressful position, and Keith kind of
7:20
Speaker 1: brushed it off and said, you know, it's totally.
7:21
Speaker 2: Fine, you know, no big deal.
7:23
Speaker 1: Even though this panic attack was very embarrassing for Keith,
7:27
Speaker 1: he wound up just kind of shifting his mental focus
7:29
Speaker 1: to getting settled into this new life he was going
7:32
Speaker 1: to be.
7:32
Speaker 2: Living for the next few months.
7:34
Speaker 1: And so along with this office space in this old,
7:37
Speaker 1: abandoned bookstore that Keith would be using, he also rented
7:40
Speaker 1: a small apartment in the little church in town.
7:43
Speaker 2: And very quickly Keith developed a sort of daily routine.
7:46
Speaker 1: He would get up early in his apartment and he
7:49
Speaker 1: would make his way over to the bookstore and he
7:51
Speaker 1: would sit down at his computer and he would write
7:54
Speaker 1: all day. But even though Keith was doing a lot
7:57
Speaker 1: of writing, it was not productive writing. It was mostly
8:01
Speaker 1: Keith sitting down trying to come up with the topic
8:04
Speaker 1: for his book.
8:05
Speaker 2: Not being able to do it.
8:06
Speaker 1: And then he just sort of drifted off and began
8:08
Speaker 1: doing journal entries and writing snippets of poetry, and then
8:11
Speaker 1: before long the day was over and he had accomplished nothing.
8:14
Speaker 1: And so at the end of June, roughly two weeks
8:17
Speaker 1: after Keith had arrived in town, he was sitting at
8:20
Speaker 1: his computer one morning inside of the bookshop, unable to
8:22
Speaker 1: write anything productive, and he told himself, you know what,
8:26
Speaker 1: I got to do something to break out of this
8:28
Speaker 1: writer's block. Writer's block is when writers kind of hit
8:31
Speaker 1: a psychological wall and just can't seem to be creative.
8:34
Speaker 1: They can't write. And so Keith decided, in order to
8:37
Speaker 1: kind of get out of this funk, that he would
8:39
Speaker 1: go back up into the mountains again. He would face
8:42
Speaker 1: his fear of heights, and he would get to the summit,
8:45
Speaker 1: and that clean mountain air and all the nature around
8:47
Speaker 1: him would kind of bring him back to reality and
8:50
Speaker 1: give him the inspiration he would need to just write
8:54
Speaker 1: this book. And so Keith turned off his computer, he
8:57
Speaker 1: left the bookstore. He went back to his apartment in
8:59
Speaker 1: the church.
9:00
Speaker 2: He packed some sandwiches and some.
9:02
Speaker 1: Water into a backpack, and then he walked from the
9:05
Speaker 1: church apartment to the nearby trail that would lead out
9:08
Speaker 1: of Silver Plume and up into the forest and into
9:11
Speaker 1: the mountains.
9:11
Speaker 2: It was a hot day that day, but as soon as.
9:13
Speaker 1: Keith was underneath the shade of all the trees, it
9:16
Speaker 1: was very cool, and the sounds of the birds and
9:19
Speaker 1: the insects and other animals all around him was very calming.
9:22
Speaker 1: But very quickly, Keith's hike went from very peaceful and
9:25
Speaker 1: relatively flat to very intimidating and very steep.
9:30
Speaker 2: But Keith, he was determined to do.
9:32
Speaker 1: This hike he felt like it was a critical step
9:35
Speaker 1: in the creation of this book, and so he just
9:38
Speaker 1: kept on going, one foot after another, huffing and panting
9:41
Speaker 1: and making his way up this incredibly steep trail, and
9:44
Speaker 1: it was like with every step he took he felt
9:47
Speaker 1: braver and braver, and suddenly he was able to look
9:50
Speaker 1: down at the valley below and not feel as frightened.
9:53
Speaker 2: And then at some point, as he was walking up,
9:55
Speaker 2: he saw.
9:55
Speaker 1: All these scratch marks on a tree that were obviously
9:58
Speaker 1: from a mountain lion. But instead of Keith feeling scared,
10:02
Speaker 1: he felt more brave. He felt excited. He felt like
10:04
Speaker 1: this is what he came here for, this book and
10:07
Speaker 1: adventure kind of coming together in this moment. Finally Keith
10:11
Speaker 1: made it to the top of this trail and he
10:12
Speaker 1: found this incredible clearing that looked down over the town below.
10:16
Speaker 1: And in this clearing was a monument to a man
10:19
Speaker 1: named Clifford Griffin, who had died at this exact spot
10:23
Speaker 1: one hundred years earlier. Keith knew Clifford's story back in
10:27
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven, when silver Plume was a booming mining town. Clifford,
10:32
Speaker 1: who was a mine owner, came up to this exact
10:34
Speaker 1: spot in the mountains to play his violin, and then
10:37
Speaker 1: after playing it for a bit, he stopped and dug
10:40
Speaker 1: a grave, stood on the edge of it, shot himself
10:43
Speaker 1: and fell into the hole. No one knew why he
10:46
Speaker 1: did that, But within a couple of years the mining
10:49
Speaker 1: industry came to a halt in Silver Plume, and everybody
10:53
Speaker 1: just kind of vanished, and very quickly rumors began to
10:57
Speaker 1: swirl around the people who remained in Silver Plume. How
11:00
Speaker 1: you know, their town must be cursed, and maybe it
11:03
Speaker 1: was connected to what happened.
11:04
Speaker 2: To poor old Clifford.
11:06
Speaker 1: After staring at this monument for a few minutes, Keith
11:09
Speaker 1: turned his attention to lunch. He pulled out his backpack,
11:12
Speaker 1: took out a sandwich, and he began eating. And as
11:14
Speaker 1: he ate, he looked back at this monument and he
11:17
Speaker 1: thought of another strange Silver Plume story, except this one
11:21
Speaker 1: hit much closer to home. It was about the man
11:23
Speaker 1: who used to run the bookstore where Keith now did
11:26
Speaker 1: all of his writing out of. This man's name was
11:29
Speaker 1: Tom Young, and it would turn out what Keith had
11:31
Speaker 1: heard about Tom when Keith first arrived in Silver Plume was.
11:35
Speaker 2: Not entirely correct.
11:36
Speaker 1: You know, Keith had been told that Tom had been
11:38
Speaker 1: talking about this European vacation, and so the consensus was that,
11:42
Speaker 1: you know, he had left.
11:43
Speaker 2: Town and gone to Europe and just not come back.
11:46
Speaker 1: But the reality was, once Keith began asking around a
11:49
Speaker 1: little bit over those first couple of weeks he was there,
11:52
Speaker 1: was that Tom actually had been talking about this big
11:56
Speaker 1: European vacation, but then had walked into the woods, up
12:00
Speaker 1: into the mountains where Keith was right now, where this
12:02
Speaker 1: monument was, and Tom had just vanished, apparently in these mountains.
12:07
Speaker 1: Tom apparently had been a very quirky guy who had
12:10
Speaker 1: come to Silver Plume in the nineteen seventies to kind.
12:13
Speaker 2: Of start a new life for himself. He had been
12:16
Speaker 2: teaching high school students.
12:17
Speaker 1: In Denver, but he apparently didn't really like doing that
12:20
Speaker 1: and wanted to start over, and so that was what.
12:22
Speaker 2: Drew him to Silver Plume.
12:23
Speaker 1: And in Silver Plume, residents always saw Tom, along with
12:27
Speaker 1: his best friend Gus, his black Labrador retriever, walking around
12:31
Speaker 1: town playing fetch, but instead of using a ball, Tom
12:34
Speaker 1: would throw a chewed up doll's head. And then on
12:37
Speaker 1: September seventh, nineteen eighty seven, so roughly nine months before
12:42
Speaker 1: Keith arrived in silver Plume, Tom and his dog Gus
12:46
Speaker 1: had gone for a hike in the woods where Keith
12:48
Speaker 1: was and then vanished. Now, at first people assumed that
12:52
Speaker 1: because Tom had been talking a lot about going on
12:56
Speaker 1: this European vacation right before he vanished, that that must
12:59
Speaker 1: be where he went. But when people checked his shop,
13:02
Speaker 1: they saw all of his books were still in there.
13:04
Speaker 1: It did not appear like he had packed things up,
13:06
Speaker 1: And when the sheriff lopped into it, he couldn't find
13:09
Speaker 1: any evidence that Tom had ever bought any plane tickets
13:12
Speaker 1: to go to Europe. And so no one really knew
13:14
Speaker 1: what happened to Tom.
13:16
Speaker 2: It was like this big mystery.
13:17
Speaker 1: And so as Keith was standing in this clearing near
13:20
Speaker 1: this monument thinking about Tom and his story, Keith began
13:24
Speaker 1: to realize there were a lot of similarities between him,
13:27
Speaker 1: Keith and Tom. They both as adults, had come to
13:30
Speaker 1: Silver Plume, this kind of random place in the middle
13:33
Speaker 1: of Colorado, to get a sort of second chance in life,
13:36
Speaker 1: and they both worked out of the exact same storefront,
13:40
Speaker 1: and Keith had done some additional digging on Tom when
13:43
Speaker 1: he heard about this mystery and learned that they were
13:45
Speaker 1: almost the exact same age. Their birthdays were separated by
13:48
Speaker 1: one day. Also, Keith discovered that he and Tom had
13:52
Speaker 1: served in the military at almost the exact same time
13:55
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties.
13:57
Speaker 2: And so as Keith was.
13:58
Speaker 1: Going over all these strange Quinns incidences and weird similarities
14:02
Speaker 1: between his life and Tom's, suddenly Keith stopped chewing a
14:06
Speaker 1: sandwich and just quickly packed everything back up. He turned
14:09
Speaker 1: and began running down the trail going back towards town.
14:12
Speaker 1: And as he ran, Keith smiled because he realized he
14:16
Speaker 1: had just discovered what his great American classic novel was.
14:19
Speaker 2: Going to be about. It was going to be about Tom.
14:23
Speaker 1: For the entire month of July, all Keith did was right.
14:27
Speaker 1: He was in his office seven days a week, type
14:29
Speaker 1: and away, and then at night when he went back
14:31
Speaker 1: to his apartment, his neighbors would see the lights on
14:34
Speaker 1: all night long. At the end of July, so by
14:36
Speaker 1: this point Keith has been living in silver Plume for
14:39
Speaker 1: about a month and a half. Two hunters from Silver
14:42
Speaker 1: Plume began hiking up that same mountain trail that led
14:45
Speaker 1: up into the mountains and into the forest that Keith
14:48
Speaker 1: had gone on recently and found his inspiration for his novel.
14:51
Speaker 1: And so these two hunters they're making their way up
14:53
Speaker 1: the trail, and at some point they leave the marked
14:56
Speaker 1: trail and began kind of meandering through the trees. And
15:00
Speaker 1: as they're walking, they're kind of looking for a clearing
15:02
Speaker 1: to set up for the day, and at one point,
15:04
Speaker 1: one of the hunters happens to look up and he
15:06
Speaker 1: sees there's this really bright white thing sitting at the
15:10
Speaker 1: base of a tree in a clearing. And so these
15:12
Speaker 1: two hunters make their way up to this bright white thing,
15:16
Speaker 1: and as soon as they're looking down at it, they
15:18
Speaker 1: realize they have very likely stumbled on a crime scene.
15:21
Speaker 1: At their feet was this green tarp that was partially
15:24
Speaker 1: exposing this white skeleton underneath. And when they pulled back
15:29
Speaker 1: the green tarp a little bit, they saw it was
15:31
Speaker 1: a human skeleton and a dog skeleton kind of lying
15:35
Speaker 1: next to each other, as if the two of them
15:37
Speaker 1: had lied down and died there. But what was immediately
15:40
Speaker 1: apparent to these two hunters is that both the human
15:44
Speaker 1: skull and the dog skull had gaping holes in them,
15:47
Speaker 1: like they had been shot, and several feet away from
15:50
Speaker 1: the skeletons was a rusted pistol, and so these two hunters,
15:54
Speaker 1: after staring at the scene in front of them for
15:56
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds, they took a mental note of
15:59
Speaker 1: where they were on the mountain, and then they turned
16:01
Speaker 1: around and headed back down to town to.
16:03
Speaker 2: Tell the sheriff.
16:04
Speaker 1: And when the sheriff went up with his deputies to
16:07
Speaker 1: go search the scene themselves, they very quickly identified that
16:11
Speaker 1: these remains belonged to.
16:13
Speaker 2: Tom Young and his dog Gus.
16:15
Speaker 1: And the sheriff also found out that that pistol that
16:18
Speaker 1: was found several feet away from the two skeletons had
16:21
Speaker 1: been purchased by Tom just a few days before he
16:24
Speaker 1: had vanished, And so the sheriff decided that what must
16:28
Speaker 1: have happened is Tom brought his dog up into the
16:30
Speaker 1: mountains and after shooting his dog, Tom turned and shoot himself.
16:34
Speaker 1: This was a suicide case closed. But this explanation didn't
16:38
Speaker 1: make any sense to the people of Silver Plumb. First
16:41
Speaker 1: of all, Tom loved his dog Gus. Gus was basically
16:45
Speaker 1: like his child because Tom didn't have any other family,
16:48
Speaker 1: and so why would he hurt his dog. Also, Tom
16:52
Speaker 1: was not acting remotely like someone who was going to
16:55
Speaker 1: commit suicide. In the days leading up to his death,
16:58
Speaker 1: people saw him at the grocery store or buying a
17:00
Speaker 1: whole bunch of groceries. He talked endlessly about how excited
17:04
Speaker 1: he was about this big European vacation.
17:06
Speaker 2: And then there was.
17:07
Speaker 1: This one other thing that also made suicide seem very unlikely.
17:12
Speaker 1: When those two hunters had discovered Tom and Gus, they
17:15
Speaker 1: were partially covered by that green plastic tarp, but it
17:18
Speaker 1: looked very much like the wind and kind of nature
17:21
Speaker 1: in general had blown the tarp off of them, revealing
17:24
Speaker 1: the white bones that the hunters had seen. But what
17:27
Speaker 1: that meant is that very likely that tarp at one
17:30
Speaker 1: point had been totally covering their bodies.
17:33
Speaker 2: And so between that.
17:35
Speaker 1: And the fact that the gun was located several feet
17:38
Speaker 1: away from where Tom was, it seemed to the people
17:41
Speaker 1: of Silver Plume that probably somebody else had shot and
17:45
Speaker 1: killed both Tom and Gus, covered them up with this tarp,
17:49
Speaker 1: and then dumped the gun.
17:50
Speaker 2: Several feet away.
17:52
Speaker 1: Adding to the theory that this was a murder not
17:54
Speaker 1: a suicide. Were the rumors around town that there was
17:58
Speaker 1: this nuclear weapon production facilities somewhere near their town, and
18:02
Speaker 1: apparently they were illegally dumping radioactive materials into these old
18:07
Speaker 1: abandoned mine shafts near and in Silver Plume, and people thought,
18:11
Speaker 1: you know, maybe Tom, who had military training, he was
18:14
Speaker 1: actually in the Special Forces in the military, maybe he
18:18
Speaker 1: had gone out and done some snooping around and discovered
18:21
Speaker 1: this illegal dumping.
18:22
Speaker 2: Operation and that got him killed.
18:25
Speaker 1: When Keith heard that Tom and Gus's bodies had been
18:28
Speaker 1: discovered up in the mountains, it was absolutely devastating for Keith.
18:32
Speaker 1: Even though Keith had never actually met Tom, he still
18:36
Speaker 1: felt like he had a bond with Tom. I mean,
18:38
Speaker 1: he was obsessively writing about Tom and learning everything about him,
18:43
Speaker 1: and he also had all these similarities with Tom, and
18:46
Speaker 1: so it was a really big deal to find out
18:48
Speaker 1: that Tom and Gus were dead. But the silver lining
18:51
Speaker 1: to this tragedy was that Keith was now armed with
18:54
Speaker 1: more information about Tom and his dog, and suddenly the
18:58
Speaker 1: ending to his big novel became clear, and so Keith
19:01
Speaker 1: got right back to work. On August third, nineteen eighty eight,
19:05
Speaker 1: so a couple of days after Tom and Gus's skeletons
19:08
Speaker 1: were found up in the mountains, the town of Silver
19:10
Speaker 1: Plume held a memorial service for Tom and Keith. He
19:13
Speaker 1: would attend the service, and as he listened to the
19:16
Speaker 1: people of Silver Plume talking about Tom and how he
19:19
Speaker 1: had come to silver Plume to get this second chance
19:22
Speaker 1: at life, Keith couldn't help but feel like it was
19:24
Speaker 1: almost like he was watching his own memorial service, because
19:28
Speaker 1: Tom's life so closely mirrored his own. And then as
19:32
Speaker 1: he was listening to more and more people talk, Keith
19:35
Speaker 1: started to feel like there was.
19:36
Speaker 2: No way Tom killed himself. That can't be what happened.
19:41
Speaker 1: Something else happened to Tom, and Keith was confident that
19:44
Speaker 1: through his research and through doing this book about Tom,
19:48
Speaker 1: he would figure out what happened to him and his dog.
19:51
Speaker 1: As soon as the memorial service ended, Keith quickly slipped
19:55
Speaker 1: out and headed back to his apartment.
19:56
Speaker 2: And when he went inside, he.
19:58
Speaker 1: Looked around at all the stacks papers and maps and
20:01
Speaker 1: books that he was using to put together this novel,
20:04
Speaker 1: and he knew that out of all this chaos around him,
20:08
Speaker 1: this novel really was becoming a thing.
20:10
Speaker 2: He was doing it.
20:11
Speaker 1: He was going to get this book done, but he
20:13
Speaker 1: knew there was one more thing he had to do
20:16
Speaker 1: before he could finish this book, and that was he
20:19
Speaker 1: had to go back up into the mountains. So a
20:22
Speaker 1: few days later, on August seventh, at around four point
20:25
Speaker 1: thirty in the afternoon, Keith walked inside of KP Cafe
20:29
Speaker 1: and strolled up to the counter where his buddy Ted
20:32
Speaker 1: Parker was sitting there reading a book. Keith paid for
20:34
Speaker 1: a drink and then announced to Ted that he Keith
20:38
Speaker 1: was going to leave this cafe and go right up
20:41
Speaker 1: into the mountains again. And so as Keith told Ted
20:44
Speaker 1: his big plan for this hike he was going to
20:46
Speaker 1: go on, Ted just felt totally confused. Ted's looking at
20:50
Speaker 1: Keith knowing this guy is not a confident climber. I mean,
20:53
Speaker 1: they had gone on that one hike part way up
20:56
Speaker 1: the mountain and Keith had had a panic attack and
20:58
Speaker 1: had to go back down again. Also, at the top
21:01
Speaker 1: of the mountain it was like twelve thousand feet of
21:03
Speaker 1: elevation where the temperatures would be near or below freezing,
21:07
Speaker 1: And here Keith was just wearing a flannel shirt and jeans.
21:10
Speaker 2: He had no other equipment with him, no other warm clothes.
21:13
Speaker 1: Also, the route that Keith was describing to Ted would
21:17
Speaker 1: take at least six hours round trip, and it's four
21:20
Speaker 1: thirty pm now, and so Ted's thinking, you know, Keith
21:23
Speaker 1: is going to get trapped up in the mountains in
21:25
Speaker 1: the middle of the night. And so Ted finally says
21:27
Speaker 1: to Keith, I hope you're joking, but Keith would say,
21:31
Speaker 1: I am not joking, and in fact, I'm leaving right now.
21:34
Speaker 1: And then before Ted could even protest, Keith turned around and,
21:37
Speaker 1: while sipping his drink, just casually walked out of the
21:40
Speaker 1: store and began heading towards the mountains. And Ted, you know,
21:43
Speaker 1: he thought about stopping Keith and really talking some sense
21:46
Speaker 1: into him and getting him not to do this hike,
21:49
Speaker 1: but ultimately Ted decided to do nothing, and he told
21:52
Speaker 1: himself that he would just check on Keith the next day.
21:55
Speaker 2: And so the next morning, Ted, instead of going to
21:58
Speaker 2: his cafe.
21:59
Speaker 1: Went first the bookstore next door to see if Keith
22:02
Speaker 1: was in there. But when he got to the door,
22:04
Speaker 1: it was clear Keith was not inside, and the door
22:06
Speaker 1: was locked and everything was dark, and so, trying not
22:09
Speaker 1: to panic, Ted hopped right back into his car and
22:12
Speaker 1: he drove over to the church apartment where Keith had
22:15
Speaker 1: been staying, but again Keith was not there, and right away,
22:18
Speaker 1: Ted is like, oh, my goodness, Keith is stuck up
22:21
Speaker 1: on the mountain right now. Exactly what I thought was
22:24
Speaker 1: going to happen has happened. And so right away Ted
22:27
Speaker 1: rushed to the sheriff to tell him that Keith was missing,
22:30
Speaker 1: and after hearing what Ted had to say, the sheriff
22:33
Speaker 1: would end up launching one of the biggest search and
22:35
Speaker 1: rescue efforts in the history of Colorado. Within twenty four
22:39
Speaker 1: hours of being informed of Keith's absence, there were hundreds
22:44
Speaker 1: of people, professional searchers and just locals who wanted to
22:47
Speaker 1: help combing this mountain trail looking for Keith. There were
22:50
Speaker 1: planes overhead, there were tracking dogs.
22:53
Speaker 2: I mean, this was a really big deal.
22:55
Speaker 1: And by this point, Keith was very well known in
22:59
Speaker 1: Silver Plume, tiny place, everybody knows each other, and everyone
23:02
Speaker 1: knew that, you know, he was working on this big book,
23:05
Speaker 1: and so people were really worried about Keith.
23:07
Speaker 2: He was one of theirs.
23:09
Speaker 1: But also the townspeople were very creeped out by the
23:12
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, Keith, who they knew was very
23:14
Speaker 1: similar to Tom. They knew he was writing about Tom.
23:17
Speaker 1: They knew that Keith was working out of the same storefront.
23:20
Speaker 2: That Tom had been in.
23:22
Speaker 1: That now Keith had apparently vanished under the exact same
23:25
Speaker 1: circumstances as Tom. He had wandered into the woods, and
23:29
Speaker 1: that was it. And so it just felt like, how
23:31
Speaker 1: could they have these two people go missing in the
23:34
Speaker 1: exact same way.
23:35
Speaker 2: It just wasn't adding up.
23:37
Speaker 1: On August ninth, so two days after Keith had gone missing,
23:41
Speaker 1: and so by this point he's still missing, Ted and
23:43
Speaker 1: some friends decided they would go to Keith's apartment and
23:47
Speaker 1: look around and see if maybe there was some clue
23:50
Speaker 1: as to where Keith went or what he was going
23:53
Speaker 1: to do on this hike. And so they went into
23:55
Speaker 1: his apartment and Ted's friends began fanning out and looking
23:59
Speaker 1: in the bedroom and looking through all the papers and
24:01
Speaker 1: documents all over the floor. And Ted sat down at
24:03
Speaker 1: Keith's computer and so Ted fired it up, and as
24:06
Speaker 1: soon as it loaded, there was just this one document
24:09
Speaker 1: on the desktop, and it was the book that Keith
24:12
Speaker 1: was writing, and so Ted clicked on it, and right away,
24:15
Speaker 1: after reading just a couple of lines, he was yelling
24:18
Speaker 1: for his friends to come over here and look at this.
24:21
Speaker 1: And one by one, each of these guys came over
24:24
Speaker 1: and they just could not believe what they were looking at.
24:26
Speaker 1: From the first page of Keith's book, it was clear
24:30
Speaker 1: the setting for his book was Silver Plume, except he
24:33
Speaker 1: renamed it White Plume. He had created all these fictional
24:37
Speaker 1: characters as well that were obviously based on real people,
24:40
Speaker 1: but had renamed them as well. But that was not
24:43
Speaker 1: what shocked Ted and his friends. What shocked them was
24:47
Speaker 1: the main character of this book. His name was Guy Gypsum.
24:51
Speaker 1: Guy Gypsum was a military veteran who had come to
24:54
Speaker 1: White Plume looking for a better life and an opportunity
24:58
Speaker 1: to be closer to nature in rural Colorado. Guy was
25:02
Speaker 1: almost fifty years old, He loved to go hiking, and
25:05
Speaker 1: he worked out of a storefront that was right next
25:07
Speaker 1: to the only cafe in town. Guy Gypsum was both
25:11
Speaker 1: Keith and Tom at the same time. Keith basically had
25:14
Speaker 1: taken Tom's life and Keith's own life and merged them
25:19
Speaker 1: to create this composite character. And when Ted and his
25:22
Speaker 1: friends scrolled to the bottom of this document, they realized
25:26
Speaker 1: that Keith had written an ending for Guy Gypsum's character.
25:30
Speaker 1: These are the final words in this document. Guy Gypsum
25:34
Speaker 1: changed into some hiking boots and donned a heavy flannel shirt.
25:37
Speaker 1: He understood it all now and his motivations. Guy closed
25:41
Speaker 1: the door and then walked off towards the lush, shadowless
25:44
Speaker 1: Colorado forests above. Five days later, the search for Keith
25:48
Speaker 1: was called off. He was never found. Some people say
25:52
Speaker 1: Keith wandered up into the mountains and accidentally died of exposure,
25:56
Speaker 1: and someday will find his remains somewhere in the forest.
26:00
Speaker 1: But others say, after reading that final line in Keith's book,
26:05
Speaker 1: that Keith did all this on purpose. I mean, he
26:07
Speaker 1: literally lived out the final part of his book. He
26:11
Speaker 1: put on his boots and his heavy flannel shirt and
26:13
Speaker 1: his jeans, and he wandered off into the lush, shadowless
26:17
Speaker 1: Colorado forest above and killed himself in order to perhaps
26:21
Speaker 1: get closer to Tom Young, the man he had kind
26:23
Speaker 1: of become obsessed with after learning they were so similar,
26:26
Speaker 1: and the man he kind of like meshed his own
26:29
Speaker 1: life with and created this weird composite character of these
26:32
Speaker 1: two lives. I mean, it seemed like a guy that
26:35
Speaker 1: had kind of spiraled into madness in writing this book
26:38
Speaker 1: and decided that death was the only way to finish
26:42
Speaker 1: the novel, and still others say, you know, maybe there
26:44
Speaker 1: really is some kind of secret illicit operation happening in
26:48
Speaker 1: or around Silver Plume. Maybe it's that radioactive waste getting
26:52
Speaker 1: dumped into the mines that you know, Tom discovered and
26:55
Speaker 1: that got him killed and Keith. In researching, Tom also
26:59
Speaker 1: discovered this illegal thing.
27:01
Speaker 2: And that got Keith killed as well.
27:02
Speaker 1: But all of those things are just theories because today,
27:06
Speaker 1: officially there is no answer as to what happened to Keith.
27:10
Speaker 2: His case is still open, So that's going to do it.
27:17
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's episode and you want to hear
27:19
Speaker 1: more stories like this one, be sure to check out
27:22
Speaker 1: our podcast called The mister Ballin Podcast, where we have
27:25
Speaker 1: hundreds of stories, many of which are exclusive to the podcast. Again,
27:30
Speaker 1: it's called The mister Ballen Podcast and it's available exclusively
27:34
Speaker 1: on Amazon Music