Latest / Crime and Horror / Unsolved mystery caught on camera Missing 411 (Part 7)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Every year, hundreds of people go missing inside of national
- 0:03Speaker 1: parks and forests all over North America. Of those hundreds,
- 0:06Speaker 1: there's always a few that baffle investigators because either they
- 0:10Speaker 1: go missing under very strange circumstances, like they were right
- 0:14Speaker 1: in front of someone, they were talking to someone and
- 0:16Speaker 1: then you know in a second they're gone, or where
- 0:19Speaker 1: they're discovered doesn't make any sense, that they've covered a
- 0:22Speaker 1: distance that is too far for them to have covered,
- 0:24Speaker 1: or they're in locations that are just physically impossible to
- 0:27Speaker 1: get to. One man is making it his mission to
- 0:30Speaker 1: research these very strange disappearances. His name is David Politis.
- 0:34Speaker 1: He's a former police detective. He covers all of these
- 0:37Speaker 1: cases in his book series called Missing four one one.
- 0:40Speaker 1: I went out and bought all of them. They're incredible.
- 0:43Speaker 1: He has a YouTube channel called the canam Missing Project
- 0:46Speaker 1: that's linked below in the description. And so today I'm
- 0:48Speaker 1: going to share three missing person cases that have all
- 0:51Speaker 1: been covered by David Politis in Missing four one one,
- 0:54Speaker 1: and hopefully by the end of this video you're just
- 0:56Speaker 1: as interested in the Missing four one one phenomenon that
- 1:00Speaker 1: David Politis has brought to light, and hopefully you'll go
- 1:03Speaker 1: over to his channel, the Canon Missing Project, and you'll
- 1:05Speaker 1: give them a follow because he has poured tens of
- 1:08Speaker 1: thousands of hours into this. Without David Politis, there would
- 1:12Speaker 1: be no Missing four one one project, and many people
- 1:15Speaker 1: that go missing would just be forgotten about. So shout
- 1:18Speaker 1: out to David Politis for keeping their memories alive and
- 1:21Speaker 1: keeping the public engaged in something that is truly baffling
- 1:25Speaker 1: and needs more attention. But before we get into today's stories,
- 1:28Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
- 1:31Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you come to the right
- 1:34Speaker 1: channel because that's all I do, and I upload three, four,
- 1:36Speaker 1: even five times every week. If that's of interest to you,
- 1:39Speaker 1: then please sneak into the like Button's house and replace
- 1:42Speaker 1: all of their salt shakers with sugar. Also, please subscribe
- 1:45Speaker 1: to my channel and turn on all notifications. You don't
- 1:48Speaker 1: miss any of my weekly uploads. All right, let's get
- 1:50Speaker 1: into today's stories. So just a couple of weeks ago,
- 2:05Speaker 1: early on July twenty fourth, twenty twenty, an eighteen year
- 2:08Speaker 1: old woman named Giafuda, who was living with her parents
- 2:12Speaker 1: in Seattle, Washington, wakes up in their home goes downstairs,
- 2:15Speaker 1: says good morning to her mother and to her father.
- 2:18Speaker 1: She has a sip of a seltzer water, and then
- 2:20Speaker 1: she heads out to her car and says, okay, I'll
- 2:22Speaker 1: see you tonight, and she drives off. Gia's mother said
- 2:24Speaker 1: that because of the quarantine, all of Gia's college classes
- 2:27Speaker 1: had been moved online, and Gia didn't like doing all
- 2:30Speaker 1: of her work in the house. She felt trapped, and
- 2:32Speaker 1: so her routine consisted of getting up early and heading
- 2:35Speaker 1: to Bellevue College, which is just outside of Seattle, where
- 2:39Speaker 1: she could do some work in their library, do her
- 2:41Speaker 1: online courses there, and then come back sometime in the evening.
- 2:44Speaker 1: And so Gia's parents assume that's what she was doing
- 2:47Speaker 1: that day. But when Gea left that morning, she did
- 2:49Speaker 1: not follow her typical COVID nineteen routine of going to
- 2:53Speaker 1: Bellevue College to do school work. Instead, she hopped on
- 2:56Speaker 1: the highway and she drove sixty miles to a very
- 3:00Speaker 1: rural part of Washington State. It's very heavily forested. It's
- 3:03Speaker 1: called Index, Washington, and she gets picked up on a
- 3:07Speaker 1: camera inside of a coffee shop where she gets a
- 3:10Speaker 1: cup of coffee and she buys a bigfoot keychain, and
- 3:12Speaker 1: then gets back in her car and drives another thirty
- 3:16Speaker 1: miles away from Seattle, away from her parents' home. It's
- 3:20Speaker 1: unclear where she's going until her car runs out of gas.
- 3:24Speaker 1: And when she ran out of gas, it was like
- 3:26Speaker 1: she wasn't prepared for it because she was only able
- 3:28Speaker 1: to turn her car and barely pull off a highway too.
- 3:32Speaker 1: It didn't look like she had intentionally parked, and it's
- 3:34Speaker 1: actually how investigators spotted it because it was jutting out
- 3:37Speaker 1: into the roads slightly. She gets out, and instead of
- 3:40Speaker 1: walking on the highway to try to get help or
- 3:43Speaker 1: trying to flag down another motorist, she grabs her cell phone,
- 3:47Speaker 1: her bible and a journal and turns and starts walking
- 3:50Speaker 1: directly uphill. There's like this mountain right next to the highway.
- 3:55Speaker 1: Then it's very densely forested, and she just starts walking
- 3:58Speaker 1: straight up this mountain. It's important to note that David
- 4:01Speaker 1: Polidas just recently came out with a video about this
- 4:05Speaker 1: case on his Canam Missing Project channel, and he says
- 4:08Speaker 1: that the area she stopped in is an area where
- 4:10Speaker 1: at least a dozen other people have gone missing under
- 4:14Speaker 1: baffling circumstances that have all been covered in the Missing
- 4:17Speaker 1: four one one phenomenon. By eleven thirty that night, Gia's
- 4:21Speaker 1: parents were starting to get very concerned that they hadn't
- 4:24Speaker 1: heard from their daughter and that she hadn't come home yet.
- 4:26Speaker 1: They started texting her and calling her, no answer, no response.
- 4:30Speaker 1: By one am, they called the police. So this huge
- 4:34Speaker 1: search is launched to go find Gia, hundreds of volunteers,
- 4:38Speaker 1: they've all these professional search and rescue people out there,
- 4:41Speaker 1: they have helicopters overhead, and almost immediately, within a few
- 4:44Speaker 1: hours of the search being launched, they find her car
- 4:47Speaker 1: on highway too, but no sign of her anywhere. The
- 4:50Speaker 1: area that she was in was actually a dead zone
- 4:53Speaker 1: for cell phone service, so they couldn't get in touch
- 4:55Speaker 1: with her, in part because they had no service, and
- 4:58Speaker 1: authorities weren't able to track her phone because there was
- 5:00Speaker 1: no cell phone receptions. They didn't have much to work
- 5:03Speaker 1: with except that they generally knew where she might be,
- 5:05Speaker 1: which is in this very thick section of the Cascade Mountains.
- 5:09Speaker 1: And so for days and days they're searching and turning
- 5:12Speaker 1: out nothing, and unfortunately, as time ticks on, the likelihood
- 5:16Speaker 1: of her being found alive is next to zero. But
- 5:19Speaker 1: seven days into this huge search where nothing has been
- 5:22Speaker 1: turned up, they have this huge find a couple of
- 5:25Speaker 1: the searchers that were miles away from where she had
- 5:29Speaker 1: gone missing. I mean, at this point, you're seven days
- 5:31Speaker 1: into the search. You have searchers combing miles and miles
- 5:34Speaker 1: of territory and there's nothing. They've found nothing. And these
- 5:37Speaker 1: searchers are up near this scenic creek where there's a
- 5:40Speaker 1: little bit of a clearing. There's this creek, and they
- 5:43Speaker 1: find in one area her jacket, her shoes, her phone,
- 5:47Speaker 1: her journal, and her bible all in one area. It
- 5:50Speaker 1: looked like she had just suddenly stripped everything she had
- 5:53Speaker 1: put it on the ground, but she was nowhere to
- 5:55Speaker 1: be found. So while this find is certainly great progress
- 5:59Speaker 1: towards discovering happened, it unfortunately sent a message to her
- 6:03Speaker 1: parents that at this point you need to brace for
- 6:05Speaker 1: the worst, because now your daughter is not only missing
- 6:08Speaker 1: and has been for a week, she doesn't have any gear,
- 6:11Speaker 1: she has no clothes, she has no phone. She's just
- 6:13Speaker 1: gone and has nothing. So the omen was very bad
- 6:16Speaker 1: at this point, but her family and the searchers were
- 6:19Speaker 1: not willing to give up, so they continued to search
- 6:21Speaker 1: this new area where all of her stuff had been
- 6:23Speaker 1: found for another two days, and on the ninth day
- 6:27Speaker 1: from when she had gone missing, they found her and
- 6:30Speaker 1: she was alive. She was sitting on a rock near
- 6:33Speaker 1: this creek. When they approached her. She was very startled
- 6:36Speaker 1: to see people coming near her. She clearly was not
- 6:38Speaker 1: expecting to be found. She was also more or less incoherent.
- 6:42Speaker 1: She believed she had only been out for maybe three
- 6:45Speaker 1: days and just had gotten lost, but they told her
- 6:47Speaker 1: she had been gone for nine days. But she was unhurt.
- 6:50Speaker 1: She has a couple scratches on her She was definitely emaciated,
- 6:53Speaker 1: but she had been drinking from the stream and eating huckleberries,
- 6:57Speaker 1: so she was taking care of herself. But she was
- 6:59Speaker 1: totally confused. She didn't know why she was there, and
- 7:02Speaker 1: when she was pressed a little bit further, she didn't
- 7:04Speaker 1: know why she drove where she drove. She doesn't know
- 7:07Speaker 1: why she walked up a very steep mountain into the cascades.
- 7:11Speaker 1: She also has no idea what happened over the first
- 7:14Speaker 1: six seven days. She only recalled the last couple and
- 7:17Speaker 1: thought that's the whole time. She had been out there.
- 7:19Speaker 1: So it's a very confusing story and one that probably
- 7:22Speaker 1: we will never get a clear answer to. This will
- 7:25Speaker 1: just become another one of the thousands of very odd
- 7:28Speaker 1: disappearances that occur all over North America, except at least
- 7:32Speaker 1: in this case, she was found alive. Tom Mesick was
- 7:39Speaker 1: this Salty Army veteran. He had served in the eighty
- 7:42Speaker 1: second Airborne Division, which is an elite paratrooper division. He
- 7:46Speaker 1: taught survival training classes, but more than anything, he loved
- 7:49Speaker 1: to hunt, and he actually hunted in this one particular
- 7:52Speaker 1: area in New York all the time with the same
- 7:55Speaker 1: group of friends. In fact, for like fifty five years,
- 7:58Speaker 1: Tom and his six hunt friends would hunt this one area.
- 8:02Speaker 1: On November fifteenth, twenty fifteen, Tom and his hunting buddies
- 8:06Speaker 1: decide to go hunt in this area and they got
- 8:08Speaker 1: a bit of a late start. They didn't get out
- 8:10Speaker 1: there till about noon. So they decided, in order to
- 8:12Speaker 1: make up for lost time, to use this technique that's
- 8:15Speaker 1: referred to as a deer drive, where you have stationary
- 8:18Speaker 1: watchers that set up on a line about one hundred
- 8:22Speaker 1: meters apart from one another, and you have a group
- 8:24Speaker 1: of drivers that kind of corral any deer or any
- 8:28Speaker 1: animals in the area and push them so that they
- 8:30Speaker 1: go past the watchers who can take a shot at
- 8:33Speaker 1: those animals. And so Tom, along with three other hunters
- 8:36Speaker 1: were made watchers, and they set up along this hillside
- 8:40Speaker 1: where Tom was all the way on the left flank,
- 8:42Speaker 1: which meant on his left were no hunters. He did
- 8:46Speaker 1: have a hunter one hundred meters to his right, and
- 8:48Speaker 1: then there was two other hunters all the way up
- 8:50Speaker 1: the hill on the right as well, but he was
- 8:52Speaker 1: on the outer flank of that line, and the three
- 8:54Speaker 1: other hunters that were going to be doing the driving
- 8:56Speaker 1: were to his right as well, behind this hill. They
- 8:59Speaker 1: were going to try to push the deer up and
- 9:01Speaker 1: over this hill down to this line of watchers. After
- 9:05Speaker 1: three hours and no luck, they haven't seen one deer.
- 9:08Speaker 1: They start to also comment on the fact that there
- 9:10Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be any wildlife at all. No squirrels,
- 9:14Speaker 1: no birds, no anything. There's just silence, which is very
- 9:18Speaker 1: odd for this area. And when you consider that this
- 9:21Speaker 1: group has hunted this area for fifty five years, they
- 9:25Speaker 1: have a really good understanding of what normal looks like.
- 9:28Speaker 1: And before anything happened with Tom. They were already talking
- 9:31Speaker 1: about how strange that was. Also one of the watchers
- 9:34Speaker 1: who was right next to where Tom was, about one
- 9:36Speaker 1: hundred meters away, he recalled hearing a very distinct sound,
- 9:41Speaker 1: like a wishing sound or a snapping sound, coming generally
- 9:44Speaker 1: from where Tom was, but he didn't think much of
- 9:46Speaker 1: it at the time. That is until they got back
- 9:49Speaker 1: to their cars after calling off the hunt because they
- 9:51Speaker 1: had been unsuccessful, and everyone's there except for Tom, and
- 9:55Speaker 1: they go back out. They're yelling for Tom. They're wondering,
- 9:57Speaker 1: did he fall down, Like, okay, let's rate because everybody
- 10:00Speaker 1: had radios. There's no answer from Tom. They're searching the
- 10:04Speaker 1: area where he was. They start shooting their rifles into
- 10:06Speaker 1: the air. They can't find him, and they think, okay, well,
- 10:09Speaker 1: we don't know what he's doing, but this guy is
- 10:11Speaker 1: super confident he was healthy. Let's just go to the
- 10:14Speaker 1: cars and wait for him. And so they're sitting at
- 10:16Speaker 1: the parking lot, which is not very far from where
- 10:18Speaker 1: they were hunting, and this is an area they always
- 10:20Speaker 1: parked in, and this is an area they always hunted in,
- 10:23Speaker 1: so they knew that Tom knows where they're gonna be
- 10:26Speaker 1: and so they sat there waiting and waiting and he's
- 10:28Speaker 1: just not showing up. So eventually the hunters call it
- 10:31Speaker 1: in to the rangers that he's gone missing. A massive
- 10:34Speaker 1: search is launched for Tom. I mean they are combing
- 10:36Speaker 1: this area. They got helicopters, professional search teams, they're looking
- 10:40Speaker 1: in lakes, they're looking under logs, they're looking everywhere, and
- 10:43Speaker 1: there's not a shred of evidence of Tom. They can't
- 10:46Speaker 1: find his walkie talkie, they can't find his gun, there's
- 10:49Speaker 1: no clothes, there's nothing. He's just disappeared. On the fourth
- 10:52Speaker 1: day of the search, the FBI shows up and they
- 10:55Speaker 1: get involved in the search, which didn't make any sense
- 10:58Speaker 1: because why is the FBI getting involved four days into
- 11:02Speaker 1: a search for an elderly hunter where there's no sign
- 11:05Speaker 1: of foul play. Why are they getting involved? It didn't
- 11:08Speaker 1: really add up. And all they would tell Tom's wife
- 11:11Speaker 1: is that they believed that something was off about this
- 11:14Speaker 1: case and that's why they were there, but they couldn't
- 11:16Speaker 1: elaborate unless more information came in. But nothing ever shows up.
- 11:20Speaker 1: Even though Tom was a bit older, he literally taught
- 11:24Speaker 1: survival classes. He was the guy teaching other people how
- 11:27Speaker 1: to survive in the woods. He also has been hunting
- 11:30Speaker 1: in that particular area for fifty five years. How is
- 11:34Speaker 1: it that he in no way was able to signal
- 11:37Speaker 1: that something was wrong, and that all these people, including
- 11:40Speaker 1: the FBI, can't find any trace of him. It just
- 11:43Speaker 1: seems like something is off. I had got to agree
- 11:45Speaker 1: with the FBI on this one. In twenty thirteen, fifty
- 11:52Speaker 1: one year old Dale Stelling decided to take a trip
- 11:55Speaker 1: from Texas, where he lived with his wife and his parents,
- 11:58Speaker 1: up to Colorado. He was an abbott doorsman and he
- 12:01Speaker 1: had always wanted to go hiking and camping in Colorado.
- 12:05Speaker 1: So he, his wife, and his parents load up the
- 12:09Speaker 1: RV and they start making their way up to Colorado.
- 12:12Speaker 1: On June ninth, as they're making their way to Colorado,
- 12:15Speaker 1: their RV breaks down in New Mexico. Even though they
- 12:18Speaker 1: were eager to get to Colorado, Dale saw that where
- 12:21Speaker 1: they had broken down was near the Mesa Verde National Park,
- 12:25Speaker 1: and he thought, well, we weren't planning this, but let's
- 12:27Speaker 1: just stay here for a night and go check out
- 12:29Speaker 1: the park tomorrow. Then we'll get the RV fixed and
- 12:32Speaker 1: we'll be on our way to Colorado. And so they
- 12:34Speaker 1: all agree they stay the night, and the next morning
- 12:36Speaker 1: they head over to Mesa Verde National Park. It was
- 12:38Speaker 1: a very hot day that day, and Dale's wife was
- 12:41Speaker 1: overweight and not very healthy, and his parents were very elderly.
- 12:45Speaker 1: So when they got to the park, they ended up
- 12:47Speaker 1: just sitting at the visitors center, and no one really
- 12:49Speaker 1: wanted to actually go walk around. But Dale was an
- 12:52Speaker 1: avid hiker and he didn't like the idea of just
- 12:54Speaker 1: sitting around all day. And so at some point Dale
- 12:56Speaker 1: just says, Hey, I'm going to go stretch my legs
- 12:58Speaker 1: and walk this trail here or down to the abandoned
- 13:02Speaker 1: city ruins. There was the city that had been built
- 13:04Speaker 1: into the cliff that lots of tourists would go check out.
- 13:08Speaker 1: And so his wife and his parents they don't bat
- 13:09Speaker 1: and I they say, okay, we'll see in a little bit,
- 13:11Speaker 1: and Dale was off. Dale made it seem like it
- 13:14Speaker 1: was going to be a very quick trip, and so
- 13:16Speaker 1: when he didn't return in two hours, his family decided
- 13:20Speaker 1: to tell rangers and say, hey, you know, our husband,
- 13:23Speaker 1: our son, he went hiking down that trail there towards
- 13:26Speaker 1: the ruins, and we haven't heard from him. We can't
- 13:27Speaker 1: get in touch with them on the phone. You know,
- 13:29Speaker 1: can you guys go look for him. The rangers actually
- 13:32Speaker 1: were not concerned at all. They said that we've never
- 13:35Speaker 1: had anybody go missing for more than a few hours here.
- 13:38Speaker 1: It's pretty hard to get lost, you know, there's lots
- 13:40Speaker 1: of tourists here, well marked trails. Just give it a
- 13:42Speaker 1: couple more hours and he doesn't show up, then we'll
- 13:45Speaker 1: go out and look for him. But after about an
- 13:46Speaker 1: hour and they still hadn't seen him. His family really
- 13:49Speaker 1: pressed the issue with the rangers and they would go
- 13:52Speaker 1: looking for Dale, and of course they can't find him.
- 13:55Speaker 1: But they found a number of tourists that had seen
- 13:58Speaker 1: him on the trail that he said he was going
- 13:59Speaker 1: to be on. They'd even talked to him. He was
- 14:01Speaker 1: a very energetic, charismatic guy, and they would say that
- 14:05Speaker 1: he seemed like he was just another tourist enjoying his
- 14:07Speaker 1: time at the park. There's nothing odd about his behavior
- 14:10Speaker 1: at all. And he was walking towards the area where
- 14:13Speaker 1: he had told his family he was going. While that
- 14:16Speaker 1: information was certainly useful, they still couldn't find Dale, and
- 14:19Speaker 1: they were really fighting against the elements on this one.
- 14:22Speaker 1: You know, the temperatures were over one hundred degrees fahrenheit
- 14:25Speaker 1: and had been all day, and Dale didn't have any water,
- 14:28Speaker 1: so they really had a limited amount of time to
- 14:31Speaker 1: find him. So within twenty four hours there's this huge
- 14:34Speaker 1: search that's launched for Dale. And interestingly, in the first
- 14:38Speaker 1: twenty four hours of the search, a woman was at
- 14:40Speaker 1: the park and was walking along the trail that Dale
- 14:44Speaker 1: was on, and she remembers hearing a weak male voice
- 14:48Speaker 1: yelling for help, and so she kind of looked over
- 14:51Speaker 1: the edge she couldn't see down below her. She was
- 14:53Speaker 1: on a bit of a cliff, fearing that if she
- 14:55Speaker 1: went to look she might fall and become a victim.
- 14:57Speaker 1: She went back to the rangers and said, hey, here's
- 15:00Speaker 1: the area I was in. I heard someone yelling for help.
- 15:03Speaker 1: You should go check it out. And the rangers said that, actually,
- 15:06Speaker 1: we've been getting that report. We got that report yesterday,
- 15:09Speaker 1: but when we went to look in that area, we
- 15:12Speaker 1: can't find anything. There's no one over there. So while
- 15:15Speaker 1: it seems very likely that that person calling for help
- 15:18Speaker 1: was most likely Dale, we don't know for sure because
- 15:22Speaker 1: they were never able to locate who was asking for help,
- 15:25Speaker 1: And to this day we have no idea where Dale is.
- 15:28Speaker 1: There's been no shred of evidence to indicate where he went.
- 15:32Speaker 1: He just vanished. If you enjoyed today's story, if you
- 15:35Speaker 1: haven't already, please sneak into the like Button's house and
- 15:38Speaker 1: replace all of their salt shakers with sugar. Also, please
- 15:41Speaker 1: subscribe to my channel and turn on all notifications. You
- 15:43Speaker 1: don't miss any of my weekly uploads. So I'd love
- 15:46Speaker 1: to get your reaction to these three stories. What do
- 15:49Speaker 1: you think happened and why? And I'll do my best
- 15:51Speaker 1: to get back to as many of you as I
- 15:52Speaker 1: possibly can. If you're interested in learning more about the
- 15:55Speaker 1: missing four one one phenomenon, as documented by David Politis
- 15:59Speaker 1: than you, you should check out David Politis and his
- 16:01Speaker 1: team at their YouTube channel, the can Am Missing Project.
- 16:05Speaker 1: I've also provided links in the description below to all
- 16:07Speaker 1: of their work. Also, I have a missing four to
- 16:10Speaker 1: one to one playlist that you can save and watch
- 16:12Speaker 1: that as well. If you have a story suggestion for
- 16:14Speaker 1: me to use on this channel, go to our subreddit
- 16:16Speaker 1: which is just mister Balin. It's linked below. It's a
- 16:19Speaker 1: place where you can drop your story suggestions, and if
- 16:21Speaker 1: I intentionally use your suggestion, I will absolutely credit you.
- 16:25Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me, you
- 16:26Speaker 1: can direct message me on Instagram. My username is John
- 16:29Speaker 1: Balin four one six. Also, I'm very active on TikTok
- 16:32Speaker 1: where my handle is mister Ballin. So whether I see
- 16:35Speaker 1: you on Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, some combination, just know
- 16:40Speaker 1: I'm incredibly thankful for your support and until next time,
- 16:43Speaker 1: see you