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Madeleine McCann : What Really Happened? · Lost: True Crime and Mystery.

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a single moment where time fractures. A split second
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: between the life you know and the nightmare that never ends.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, May 3rd, 2007. The air in Praia da Luz,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a tranquil resort town nestled on Portugal's sun-drenched Algarve coast,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: is warm, salty, and quiet. It's the kind of place
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  Speaker 1: families travel to when they want to forget the world.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: whitewashed villas, cobblestone paths, the gentle lull of the Atlantic
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: crashing against the cliffside. Among the holidaymakers are Kate and
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Jerry McCann, two doctors from Leicestershire, England, visiting with their
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  Speaker 1: three young children and a group of close friends. At
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: apartment 5A of the Ocean Club Resort, bedtime arrives early.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Three-year-old Madeline, with her striking blue-green eyes and a unique,
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  Speaker 1: unmistakable dark strip on her right iris, lies nestled under
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a thin sheet. She's wearing short-sleeved pink Eeyore pajamas. Next
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to her, her toddler twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, are
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: sound asleep in two travel cots. Madeline hugs her favorite
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  Speaker 1: soft toy, a pink plush cat. Everything is still, safe, peaceful.
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  Speaker 1: Or so it seems. Around 8.30 p.m., Kate and Jerry
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  Speaker 1: head down to the resort's open-air tapas restaurant. It's roughly
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  Speaker 1: 55 meters away, a short two-minute walk across the central
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  Speaker 1: pool court. They leave the apartment unlocked so they can
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  Speaker 1: easily slip back inside to check on the children without
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  Speaker 1: waking them. Every half hour, one of the adults leaves
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  Speaker 1: the table, walks back to the apartment, opens the door, listens,
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  Speaker 1: and checks. At 9.05 p.m., Jerry walks back. He opens
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  Speaker 1: the door to 5A. He notices the bedroom door is
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a little wider open than he left it, but he
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: listens closely. The room is calm. He sees the twins sleeping.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: He steps back out. Then comes 10 p.m. Kate gets
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: up from the restaurant table to perform the next routine check.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: She walks up the path, slips through the patio door,
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  Speaker 1: and walks toward the bedroom. She steps inside. A draft
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  Speaker 1: catches her off guard. She steps inside. A draft catches
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: her off guard. The window shutter, usually pulled tight, is
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: pushed completely up. The window is open. The curtains are
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  Speaker 1: billowing gently in the ocean breeze. Kate looks at the beds.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: The twins are still breathing softly in their cots. She
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  Speaker 1: turns to Madeline's bed. It's empty. The pink cat toy
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  Speaker 1: is still sitting on the pillow. But Madeline is gone.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: That moment... that absolute heart-stopping realization, was the beginning of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: what would become the most heavily reported missing person case
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: in human history. Welcome to Lost. I'm your host, Sookie,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: and this is the story of Madeline McCann. When a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: child vanishes into thin air, the first hour is crucial.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Every second counts. Every footprint, every shadow, every open window
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  Speaker 1: is a piece of a puzzle that is rapidly degrading.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: When Kate McCann realized her daughter wasn't in her bed,
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  Speaker 1: panic didn't set in like a slow wave. It struck
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like a sledgehammer. She ran back into the courtyard, her
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: screams shattering the calm night air of Praia da Luz.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Madeline's gone. Someone's taken her. Within minutes, the resort exploded
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  Speaker 1: into frantic activity. Resort staff, holidaymakers, and the McCanns' friends,
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  Speaker 1: affectionately dubbed by the media as the Toppa Seven, fanned
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: out across the complex. Hmm, think about that scene for
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a second. Over 60 people calling out a three-year-old girl's
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  Speaker 1: name in the pitch dark, walking across the gardens, searching
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the beach, opening trash dumpsters, peering down dark alleyways. On paper,
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  Speaker 1: it was an act of desperate human empathy. In reality,
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  Speaker 1: for forensic investigators, it was a catastrophe. Dozens of people
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  Speaker 1: walked through apartment 5A before forensic officers even arrived. Doorknobs
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  Speaker 1: were touched. Crime scene integrity was completely destroyed. And to
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: make matters worse, the local Portuguese police, the Polícia Judiciária,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: were understaffed and unprepared for a high-profile abduction case of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: this magnitude. Border controls weren't alerted immediately. Ports weren't sealed
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: for hours. The highway connecting Portugal to Spain, just a
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  Speaker 1: short drive away, remained open and unmonitored for precious, irreplaceable hours.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: By sunrise on May 4th, the news had crossed the
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  Speaker 1: English Channel. By midday, Satellite trucks had parked right outside
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  Speaker 1: apartment 5A. And by that evening, Madeleine McCann was no
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: longer just a missing little girl from Leicestershire. She was
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a global headline. In any missing persons investigation, timeline is king.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: What happened between 8.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on May 3rd?
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  Speaker 1: Two key sightings on that fateful night came to dominate
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the early narrative. And for years, they pulled investigators in
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  Speaker 1: two completely different directions. The first sighting came from Jane Tanner,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: one of the friends dining with the McCanns that evening.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: At roughly 9.15 p.m., Jane left the restaurant to check
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  Speaker 1: on her own children. As she walked down the street
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  Speaker 1: near Apartment 5A, she reported seeing a man walking away
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  Speaker 1: from the resort area. He was carrying a young child
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  Speaker 1: in his arms. Jane described the child as wearing light-colored pajamas.
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  Speaker 1: The man was walking quickly, as if trying to avoid detection.
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  Speaker 1: For years, Tanner Mann was considered the prime suspect. the
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  Speaker 1: mysterious snatcher caught in the act. But here is where
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: real life gets stranger than fiction. Years later, during the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: UK's Scotland Yard Review, Operation Grange, investigators made a staggering discovery.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Tanner Mann wasn't an abductor at all. He was an
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  Speaker 1: innocent British holidaymaker carrying his own daughter back from a
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  Speaker 1: resort creche, a massive red herring that consumed the investigation
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: for years. So what about the second sighting? Around 10 p.m.,
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  Speaker 1: an Irish family, the Smiths, were walking back to their
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: holiday apartment near the ocean. They passed a man walking
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  Speaker 1: toward the beach. He was carrying a blonde, barefoot child
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  Speaker 1: in light pajamas, resting her head on his shoulder. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't look like a tourist. He looked uncomfortable, determined, moving
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  Speaker 1: briskly toward the dark. When police later created facial composites, e-fits,
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  Speaker 1: of the man described by the Smith family, the results
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  Speaker 1: were chilling. They showed a man with brown hair, sharp features,
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  Speaker 1: staring blankly ahead. Who was he? And where was he
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  Speaker 1: taking her? As weeks turned into months, the story of
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  Speaker 1: Madeleine McCann transformed into a cultural obsession. Every tabloid newspaper
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom and across Europe ran her face
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: on the front page daily. The McCanns mounted a massive
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: international media campaign. They met the Pope. Public figures like
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: David Beckham appealed for help. Millions of pounds flooded into
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: a search fund But behind the scenes, the Portuguese investigation
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: was taking a dark, cynical turn. Lead detective Gonçalo Amaral
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: began looking at the evidence, or lack thereof, with an
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: increasingly suspicious eye. He found it hard to believe that
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  Speaker 1: an abductor could enter a closed apartment through a window,
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  Speaker 1: carry out a three-year-old child, and leave zero physical evidence behind.
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  Speaker 1: No fingerprints on the window frame. No foreign hairs. No
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  Speaker 1: disturbed dust. And then came August 2007. British police brought
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  Speaker 1: in two specially trained sniffer dogs to search apartment 5A
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  Speaker 1: and the McCann's rental car. Eddie, a victim recovery dog
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: trained to smell human cadavers, and Keela, a blood detection dog.
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  Speaker 1: The results sent shockwaves through the world media. Inside apartment 5A,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: behind the sofa, and inside a wardrobe, the dogs barked,
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  Speaker 1: signaling the detection of cadaver scent. Weeks later, when the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: dogs were taken to inspect a Renault Scenic rented by
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the McCanns 25 days after Madeline went missing, the dogs
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  Speaker 1: alerted again, inside the boot of the car. The media
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  Speaker 1: flipped overnight. The victims were suddenly cast as the villains.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: In September 2007, Portuguese police formally declared Kate and Jerry
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: McCann are guidos, official suspects in the disappearance of their
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: own daughter. The police theory was brutal. They alleged that
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Madeline had died accidentally in the apartment, perhaps from an
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: accidental overdose of sedatives or a fall, and that her
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: parents had staged an abduction and hidden her body before
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: renting a car weeks later to move her remains. The
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  Speaker 1: public was torn down the middle. Internet forums exploded with
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: amateur sleuths analyzing every interview, every blink, every sentence spoken
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: by the grieving parents. But how solid was that theory?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the facts. Forensic DNA tests on the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: samples collected from the rental car returned inconclusive. The dog alerts,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: while dramatic, were not legally admissible evidence without bodily fluids
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  Speaker 1: or physical DNA backing them up. And the logistics of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: hiding a child's body in a crowded holiday town while
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: under 24-7 media surveillance was practically impossible. In July 2008,
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  Speaker 1: Portugal's Attorney General archived the case due to lack of evidence,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: lifting the Arguido status of Kate and Jerry McCann. Detective
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  Speaker 1: Amaral was removed from the investigation. The McCanns were officially cleared.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: but the damage was done. The case had gone completely cold.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: When the official channels stalled, the internet took over. If
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: you spend 10 minutes on Reddit forums like r slash
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: unresolved mysteries or r slash Madeline McCann, you'll quickly realize
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that thousands of people across the globe have spent thousands
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of hours obsessing over every detail of this case. When
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you strip away the tabloid sensationalism, online sleuths generally divide
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the disappearance into three distinct theories. Theory number one, the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: unplanned burglary. This theory suggests that an opportunist thief broke
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: into 5A using the unlocked patio doors to steal cash
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: or electronics. While inside, the intruder woke Madeline. Panic set in.
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  Speaker 1: To stop her from crying out, the intruder silenced her, panicked,
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  Speaker 1: took her body out through the window, and fled into
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  Speaker 1: the dark. Theory number two, the premeditated predator. Praia da
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Luz is a resort town with high seasonal turnover. In
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: the days leading up to May 3rd, several holidaymakers reported
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: strange encounters. Men posing as charity collectors knocking on doors,
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  Speaker 1: or unknown figures watching apartments from the street corners. Did
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a predator watch the McCann's routine at the tapas restaurant?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Did they know exact windows of time when the apartment
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: was left unguarded? Hmm. It's scary to think about, isn't it?
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  Speaker 1: The idea that someone was lurking in the shadows, timing
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the 30-minute checks with a stopwatch. And then there's theory
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: number three, the German connection. For over 13 years, the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: case remained in an agonizing limbo until June 2020. when
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: German authorities made an announcement that turned the entire investigation
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: on its head. In 2020, German prosecutors identified a suspect,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a convicted sex offender named Christian Bruckner, referred to in
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: court documents as Christian B. Between 1995 and 2007, Christian B.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: lived off and on in a camper van on the
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  Speaker 1: Algarve coast, just miles from Praia da Luz. He was
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  Speaker 1: a burglar, a drug trafficker, and a predator. Cell phone
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  Speaker 1: tower records placed his phone near the Ocean Club Resort
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  Speaker 1: on the night Madeline vanished, specifically between 9.10 p.m. and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: 10 p.m. German prosecutors went further than anyone had before.
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  Speaker 1: They publicly stated they believe Madeline McCann is dead and
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: that they have concrete evidence of Christian B. 's involvement.
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  Speaker 1: Yet to this day, no body has ever been recovered.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: No official murder charges have been brought against him regarding
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Madeline's case. It's a tantalizing story. infuriating dead end. A
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  Speaker 1: suspect in plain sight, but a final piece of the
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  Speaker 1: puzzle still missing. It's easy to get lost in the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: noise of this case. The legal battles, the media scandals,
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  Speaker 1: the conspiracy theories, the forensic debates. But when you strip
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  Speaker 1: all of that away, you are left with a simple,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: painful reality. On May 3rd, 2007, A little three-year-old girl
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  Speaker 1: with blonde hair and bright blue eyes went to sleep
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  Speaker 1: in a holiday apartment. She had her favorite pink toy
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  Speaker 1: tucked under her arm. She felt safe. And she never
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  Speaker 1: woke up in her own bed again. For her parents,
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  Speaker 1: time has been frozen for almost two decades. A bedroom
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  Speaker 1: in Leicestershire remains untouched, waiting for a girl who never
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: came home. Where is Madeleine McCann? Is the truth buried
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  Speaker 1: somewhere in the scrubland of the Portuguese coast? Is it
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  Speaker 1: locked away in a German prison cell? Or is it
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  Speaker 1: still waiting to be found in the memory of someone
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  Speaker 1: who saw something that night and never spoke up? Thank
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you for listening to the very first episode of Lost.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Suggie. If you enjoyed this episode, please
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: hit subscribe, leave us a review, and share the story.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Someone out there knows what happened that night. And until
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the truth comes out, we keep looking. Until next time,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: stay safe and stay curious.