Latest / True Crime and Wine Time / S6 E22 The Parachute Mystery_ What Happened to Stephen Hilder_ Part 2

Transcript

S6 E22 The Parachute Mystery_ What Happened to Stephen Hilder_ Part 2 · True Crime and Wine Time

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to true crime and Wine Time. I'm Terry and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Mama. Tonight we are uncorking the truth one of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the darkest crimes and breaking it down together with.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: You, one case, one conversation, and one or maybe two
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: glasses of wine. It's taking a job. It's time to
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: get comfortable and double check those rocks before we distarn.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So let's take a stip and dive in. Hello Terry, Hello,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: how are you.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I'm doing great? How are you?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I'm good better today. But you are becoming a little
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: star everywhere. Go on YouTube.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: There you are, there, I am.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And then I hear you're on YouTube again tonight.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what's that the rinds making the rounds. I
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: love it so that.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I said, I love that y'all are getting our Lama
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: out of her shell and our Buffy.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I know it's a big deal.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I mean it's a big deal. In Buffy, I called
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you our Buffy. I didn't call you my buffy.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I didn't get you our Wedy that she is well,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: so happy to be here again for another Thursday night
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: with you all. Love that for us.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just was like, wait a minute, it is Thursday.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: It's Thursday. It's literally been the longest week ever, Like
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: every aa has felt like three days in one day.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But a lot has happened today. But anyway, before we begin,
• 1:51
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• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, we're perky that we are.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I mean we are. We got Parky part with following
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  Speaker 2: pod get noticed. So, Terry, why don't you tell us
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: what we will be covering tonight?
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So tonight we are covering the part two of the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Parachute Mystery, the Steven Hill, their story and guys, I
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: go back and forth.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're gonna start going back and forth.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I go back and forth, back and forth. And tonight
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I threw the bottle away already, but I poured myself
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: a really big glass of Josh Rose, oh, because I
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: had opened it on Tuesday night, and I've allowed myself
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: one glass to night.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Well that's pretty good. Let you go. That's a big
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: class though. I see that glass glass that fits a
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: whole bottle.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Last night I didn't have a glass, so tonight I
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: really had two glasses and it was so, what are
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: you drinking?
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: You already had a bottle today, right, Yeah, I have,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: don't judge me. I have one for tonight and then
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: one in the fridge for the after show. I have
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: to go to after this. So tomorrow is gonna be
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: a rough day over on couch cord with Lama. No tonight,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I am drinking, winking out scatto. It's pretty good. I
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: forget where BE got this, but it's a storm California
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: wine and it's it's eight percent, so not too bad.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't even know, don't know what mine is.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Let me pull it out of my new wine shaped
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: wine glass shaped trash can.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: That's true. Terry did get twelve mine. Oh wow, oh girl,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: that's okay, glass bed, that is a hefty glass.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I can show everybody for you know, those that you
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: know want to see it. All you've got to do
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: is go over to Facebook or Discord and you can
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: see pictures.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: That's true. It's a giant wine glass trash can, because
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: of course it is. It's not pink, right, well, all right,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: well yet it's not pink yet, Terry. I'm waiting for
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: the day when you're like, well, some glitter just spill
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: on it. I don't know.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: The litter may happen, but it won't be pink.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: It won't be pink. Okay, all right, all right, you
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: all heard it here first, ladies and gents. All right,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Well with that, let's get into the story of Tonight's case,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Part two.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Part two.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I know so.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: In our first episode, hopefully you've all listened or watched,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: we looked at the life and final moments of Stephen Hilder,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a twenty year old offster cadet with a passion for skydiving.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Stephen and his team Black Rain had just performed the
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: best jump of their lives at hillbald Hilbodolsto. How do
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you say this again? Hip Adolstoe hip Walstoe Airfield that works,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: scoring a record nineteen points in the competition. After breaking
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: formation at four thousand feet, Stephen's teammates lost sight of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: him in the clouds and he never made it to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the landing zone.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Ugh so sad. Now Chief Instructor Paul Hollow found Stephen's
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: body in a nearby cornfield. He had impacted the ground
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: at one hundred and twenty five miles an hour. It
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: was immediately noticeable that this was no accident. Both Stephen's
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: main parachute and his reserve had been sabotaged. The straps,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the very lifelines of the rig had been cleanly severed
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: with a blade. Now Stephen was sent into the sky
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: with equipment that had been turned into a death trap.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: And the question isn't just how it was done, but
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: it's who would want a talented young cadet debt. Who
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: would want that?
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Nobody? Nobody? Now, when Detectives Superintendent Colin Andrews the Humberside
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Police arrived at the cornfield, it was like a like
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: any crime scene had been to He spoke to Chief
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: instructor Paul Hollow, who was very blunt that this was
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: no accident. It was a murder.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Now, skydiving experts were called were called in to perform
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: a forensic examination of the gear, and what they found
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: was chilling. The sabotage was executed in two distinct invisible layers.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: The first is with the main parachutes. A long strip
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: of webbing called the brindle, connects the small pilot chute
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: to the metal pen that keeps the main parachute container closed.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: We talked a lot about how things were done in
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: part one of this story, which was very interesting to
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: learn the mechanics of the parachutes.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: It is, it is, and I want every you to
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: start and think about it. Your backup plan and your
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: backup plan are both sabotaged.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Now the killer had cut this bridle completely. They then
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: tucked the seven ends back into the elastic sleeve. To
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the naked eye and even to Stephen during his pre
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: flight check, everything looked perfect. This was intentional, guys. When
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Stephen reached appointment altitude and threw his pilots chute into
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the wind, it caught the air as expected, but it
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't attached anything, there was no tension to pull the pin,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: so the main parachute stayed locked inside its bag.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Now the second layer of sabotage was with the reserve parachute.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Now every skydiver is trained for a total malfunction. When
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: the main fails, you cut away and you pull the reserve,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: and Stephen did exactly that. The white reserve parachute successfully
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: did launch into the air.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: But the four webbing risers, the heavy duty straps that
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: connected the canopy to the harness, had also been sliced,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: so the moment the reserve parachute called the wind, the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: severed straps gave way. The parachute simply flew away into
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the clouds, leaving Stephen in a free fall. He could
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: no longer.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Stop, so they determined that this nightmare likely began around
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: four thousand feet at terminal velocity, Stephen would have had
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: between ten to twenty seconds from the moment he realized
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: his mane wouldn't open to the moment of impact. That
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: is such a short period of time, but like the
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: longest period.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: To say, I bet you that twenty seconds fell fast,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: but also forever.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Now it was enough time to follow every emergency procedure
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: he had ever learned. It was also enough time to
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: realize that his equipment, the gear he trusts with his life,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: had been turned against him.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it just the thought of that just makes me.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: The investigation reached a sobering conclusion. This was not the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: work of a random vandal or a panic to amateur.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: The cuts were made in places that were impossible to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: see during a standard safety check. Discovering the damage to
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the reserve risers would have required physically tugging on them,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: a move that is actually discouraged in the sport because
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: it can disturb the packing job.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you would have had to have known
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: what you were doing. So basically, whoever did this understood
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: the internal mechanic mechanics of a parachute rig as well
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: as Stephen did. The police weren't looking for a stranger.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: They were looking for someone who had likely shared a
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: drink with Stephen at the bar the night before, someone
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: who might have watched him board the plane, and someone
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: who was almost certainly a member of the tight knit
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: skydiving community.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: As Detective Superintendent Andrews looked around the airfield at the
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: nearly one hundred people present, he realized the killer was
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: likely still there watching the investigation unfold, perhaps even offering
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: condolences to Stevens's devastated teammates.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Now, the investigation was massive, as police questioned all seventy
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: eight competitors and twenty staff members. In a rare show
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: of total cooperation, Every single person on the airfield agreed
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: to provide a DNA sample then to determine if a
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: serial saboteur was at work, Andrews ordered every reserve parachute
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: on the site to be open and inspected.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to just have to say that is amazing
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: when you stop and think about that many people saying,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: take my DNA. I'm fine with it, because so many
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: people are scared of DNA that they're like, oh nobody.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: They all were like, do what you need to. It
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: says a lot about their community, a.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Lot about their community. But also they didn't know if
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: they were targeted too, you know, like I'm sure every
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: single person once they realized like holy crap, they were
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: all worried that maybe their packs.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And that's why I'm glad that they check them all out.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: But now for the skydivers, this was a massive undertaking,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a reserve shoot can only be repacked by certified professionals.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: The results were chilling, as none of the other rigs
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: had been touched. This wasn't a random act of chaos.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Stephen Hilder had been the so intended target.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Now to understand how the crime was committed, investigators turned
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: to John Hitchin, an expert from the British Parachute Association.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: When police asked him to cut a sample of the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: riser webbing for testing, they first handed him a pair
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: of standard kitchen scissors. Hitchin struggled with those. The heavy
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: duty material was designed to withstand thousands of pounds of force,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: so I would hope that they wouldn't work.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He then reached for a hook knife. The hook
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: knife is a specialized tool, a small plastic handled device
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: with a protected razor sharp blade. It's designed to slice
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: through thick webbing and lines in a split second during
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: an emergency. Every skydiver on that airfield had one integrated
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: into their harness. Police were now looking at nearly one
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: hundred potential murder weapons that were already scattered across the
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: drop zone.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Thanks it's a lot, investigators moved their focus to the
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: rowdy party from Thursday night. They seized every roll of film,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: every digital camera, and every scrap of video footage from
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: the BCPA bash. They were looking for a flash of anger,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: heated argument, or a suspicious figure lurking near the kit room, But.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: What they found was the exact opposite. The footage showed
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a community in high spirits. There were no visible fights,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: there was no obvious tension. Stephen appeared as he always did,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: being the center of attention, singing karaoke in a leather
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: dress and laughing with his friends.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Now, when police asked about a motive, they hit a
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: brick wall. Stephen wasn't a low regular with deep seated
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: grudges at Habalsto. He was a guest, and to most
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: he was simply a good lad who was talented, enthusiastic,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: and pretty well liked.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Police now had a pool of almost a hundred suspects
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and over two hundred pieces of evidence. On paper, it
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: looked like an open and shutcase that would be solved
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: within days. But guys, they were wrong. The forensic trail
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was about to lead them into a may's DNA contamination
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and a suspect list that would eventually strike far too
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: close to home now.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: On Sunday, July sixth, less than forty eight hours after
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: the tragedy, the plane engines roared to life again. In
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: a poignant tribute to Stephen, The skydiving community took to
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: the air, including Stephen's teammates Adrian and David, but the
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: sport I had fundamentally changed. A new somber ritual was
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: born before boarding, as every jumper now gave their reserve
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: risers a strong, firm tug as a desperate check for
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the sabotage that had claimed Stephen's life.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't trust that, what about you?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably not. I would have.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Jumped out of a plane a couple of days later.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: No, but considering how much like Stephen loved it like
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: that is kind of like probably I imagine what he
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: would have, you know, yeah, wanted.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, and if they say, if you've got to die,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: die doing much love. But man, what a way.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: I thought it was just still so kind in short
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: short time for them all to do that. But then
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: you see how scared they are at the same time,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: because remember we just said they're not supposed to tug those.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Right, and that helps you, right, as a community, mourned.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: The police search for motive. They scoured Stephen's life, interviewing
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: his family, his friends, and his squirrelfriend Ruth. They looked
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: for any spark of jealousy or resentment, but their results
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: were very lackluster.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: The most anyone could say was that Stephen could occasionally
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: be cocky or arrogant. I mean he's about twenty year old, Like, okay,
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: and you're a boy Like who wasn't cocky and arrogant
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: at twenty? I was in we all are in a way.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: But those personality traits were not uncommon either in a
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: high stakes, adrenaline fueled sport. I mean you kind of
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: have to be I have they do this over two
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: hundred times? Right?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Now. Stephen's mother Mary, Oh breaks my Heart perhaps summed
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: him up best, describing him as an extraordinary son and
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: an infuriating lab Who is I Mary love was the sky.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: That's a mom who gets it.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: That's a mom who gets it. Yeah. I mean we
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: love our kids, right, but overre I was like, oh
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: some times some times? Now, who isn't.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: The detectives hoped were a DNA breakthrough, but the laboratory
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: results were a mess of contamination. The cut risers were
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a touch DNA nightmare. Investigators had found genetic material from
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Stephen himself, the certified reserve packer who had last handled
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the gear, and first responders who had recovered the body.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like Lacita was going to be a
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: mess and they were definitely messy. There is also secondary
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: transfer from the aircraft, where jumpers sit in such close
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: proximity that DNA can easily leap from one harness to another.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: So with no clean profile to chase the the investigation
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: began to stall, and a week after the death there
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: was still no suspect.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: In a desperate bid for Leeds, the police sent an
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: apology or an appeal to all four thousand active skydivers
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: in the UK. Did you hear that there are four
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: thousand people that make the decision to jump out of
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a perfectly good plane? Okay? They asked for rumors, for confessions,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and most jarringly, they asked if Stephen had ever mentioned
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: taking his own life.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Now, the suggestion of suicide felt like an insult to
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the people who were with him. He was the first,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: he was the life of the party. Just hours before
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: the jump, he had also activated his cypress before takeoff.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And most of all, he didn't just fall. He put
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: up a fight. He fall owed his emergency procedures to
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the letter, attempting to deploy a reserve that had already
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: been rendered useless.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: The pressure begins away heavily on those closest to him.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: David Mason, his teammate, who had performed the final safety
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: check on Stephen's gear before they boarded the plane, was
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: consumed by guilt. He had patted the rig and given
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the good to go signal, seeing nothing wrong. Experts stepped
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: in to defend him by saying that the sabotage was
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: so surgical, so well hidden beneath the flaps of the harness,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that no standard pre flight check could have ever detected it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: So by July twelfth, twenty twenty, or two thousand and three,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: oh my goodness, it's a long ago, the headline in
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the times were grim. There was no person of interest,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: and the skydiving world was gripped by a cold, paralyzing fear.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: If it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't a suicide,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: then a killer was still walking the hangars, and the
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: police feared that having succeeded once they might strike again.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: For three months, the investigation into Stephen Hilder's death had
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: been quiet. Then on October twenty second, two thousand and three,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the silence was broken. Detectives announced that two men had
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: been arrested on suspicion of murder.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: When the names were finally released the following day, the
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: shockwaves decimated what was left of the community's trust. Suspects
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: weren't outsiders or rivals. They were Adrianne Blair and David Mason,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Stephen's own Black Rain teammates, his fellow cadets, and his
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: closest friends.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: As news of the arrests spread, the rumor mill of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the drop zones went into overdrive. Whispers of a love
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: triangle begin to circulate. But more concerning was the stories
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: of David's past behaviors.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: In one notorious incident, David had reportedly pulled Stephen's pilots
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: choote while the rig was on the ground, causing the
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: main parachute to tumble out of its bag. Now, to some,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: it was a harmless, albeit immature prank designed to mock
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Stephen for leaving his gear unattended.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: To others, it was a sacrilegious violation of the jumper's
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: code that you never ever touch another person's rig. David
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: maintained that these pranks were his way of pointing out
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Stephen's hypocrisy of lecturing others on safety while leaving his
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: own life sustaining equipment unsupervised.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, we all make mistakes.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, and they're twenty year olds.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: So Adrian and David were held for forty eight hours
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: as investigators pushed for a breakthrough, but the smoking gun
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: remained elusive. Without enough concrete evidence to secure a conviction
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: from the Crown Prosecution Service, both men were released on
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: conditional bail. In the eyes of the law, they were free,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: But in the eyes of the skydive community they were pariots.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: That's and they're going through grief. The one had guilt
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: because he did the final check. I mean, that's a
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: lot of.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Stuff.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Now their home drop Zone, the place where they had
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: spent hundreds of hours training, told them they were no
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: longer welcome. Many struggled to reconcile the images of cold
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: bloody killers with the men who had just shared the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: perfect jump and a championship win with Steven. If they
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: had killed him, they had done so while looking him
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: in the eye, thousands of feet above the earth.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Now, just as the focus on the teammates reached its peak,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: a new twist emerged. On November seventeenth, police arrested a
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: third person and unidentified twenty four year old man from Leeds.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: This suspect was linked to the Leeds University Skydiving Club,
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: a group that was present at Helbosto during the week
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: of the competition. Yikes.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: However, the mystery only deepened. The man's name was never
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: released and his specific connection to Stephen remained a secret.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: And like Adrian and David, he was questioned and released
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: on bail without being charge. And guess what, guys, to
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: this day, they still haven't told us that guy's.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Name, m M, which I mean, I don't know if
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: that's because they realized what they did to Adrian and David.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, they should come out and say we made a mistake, right, everybody.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Wondering, right? Like okay? All right? Now, the investigation was widening,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: but instead of finding a clear killer, the police were
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: merely collecting a list of young men whose lives were
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: being dismantled by suspicion. The Blue Skies were long gone
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: replaced by a legal limbo that offered no closure for
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Steven's family and no safety for the jumpers still in
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: the air.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine all of those jumpers, you know, still jumping,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: doing what they can to check, you know, their thought
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: right before they jumped had to be is this going
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: to be my last time?
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: As the winner of two thousand and three set in,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the trail was freezing as fast as the British weather.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: On December fifth, Stephen's parents made another heartbreaking public appeal,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: desperate for a breakthrough. At the same time, rumors of
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: disagreements between Stephen and other sky of divers during the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: competition week began to leak from the police department. However,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: those leads turned out nothing.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I was there.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like how you're muted now.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: By January two thousand and four, detectives had interviewed over
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: twenty five hundred people. They even set up a mobile
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: police station at the British Parachute Association's annual General meeting,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: hoping that in a room of four thousand skydivers, someone
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: might let a secret slip over a drink. But they
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: walked away with nothing, no motive, no witness, and no
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: new evidence.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: With the murder theory going nowhere, they returned to a
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: theory that had previously they had discarded. Suicide investigators began
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to reinterview everyone, but this time the questions were different.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Instead of looking for a killer, they were looking for
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a reason Steven might have wanted to die.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: His father, Paul, described Stephen as a man full of
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: future plans. His mother, Mary recalled their last long conversation
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: as perfectly normal. Not a single person at the drop
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: zone reported a change in his mood. Sorry, I've said
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the word mode a lot this week because of my
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: other show, So I was like, I really wanted to
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: be like, but that's yeah.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I heard you moving and I was like, yeah, mama's moving.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm so sorry. Let's just I'll start that over again,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: because that was probably not appropriate. It's mother, Mary recalled
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: that their less conversation as perfectly normal. Not a single
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: person at the drop zone reported a change in his mood.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: His teammates were also adamant that a man who fights
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: for his life in free fall is not a man
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: looking to end it.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you did that yourself, why would you
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: do that? Why would you go through those steps.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I'll save that for our conversation uh later.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: You know, you could have had to change of plan.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Changed.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: That's true. It does happen. It happens.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: It does more often than we realize.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, more often than we realize. But we'll get to
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: our theories towards the end tiers.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So, however, the police found what they considered cracks in
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: his perfect life. They know Otis noted that his obsession
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: with the sport was beginning to cannibalize his studies and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: his personal relationships. To the police, it looked like a
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: life out of balance, but the skydivers said it just
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: looked like someone who was a dedicated jumper.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Now. The pressure on Adrian and David, however, did not
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: let up. On March tenth, two thousand and four, in
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: a sudden escalation, police conduct surprise oh sorry. On March ten,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: two thousand and four, in a sudden escalation, police conducted
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: surprise raids on both of their rooms. The most damning
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: find was on David's computer. It was a daft obituary
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: for Stephen, written in a humorous, satirical tone, but the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: investigators found it to be cold, disturbing and a potential
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: sign of a guilty conscience or a lack of remorse.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: David argued that the police simply didn't understand Drop's own culture.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: In the high risk world of skydiving, dark humor is
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: a survival mechanism. The obituary was meant for a skydiving
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: magazine as a final irrevenant tribute to a friend who
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: loved a laugh.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, listen, if you guys are not telling funny
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: jokes and things at my funeral, I'm going to come
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: back to haunt you, and I won't be nice about it.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: You know, I should know not to come to my
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: funeral because there's going to be glitter everywhere.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Hunting glitter everywhere. I wanted to be.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Glitter thrown everywhere. It's gonna be so much pink. It's
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: going to be worse than still Magnolia's wedding.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: I can see how from the outside people could see
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: it differently, but you know, there is you do have
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: to find sometimes you have to find the humor in
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: things to get through that kind of grief, just you know.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: And if I don't think it's that weird, but I'm
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: also that kind of person, so I could see other
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: people mine.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Aren't cops on the crime scene, you know, make some comments,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: but they have to do it to take their brain
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: off of what they are seeing because what you're seeing
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: is shocking them. So they need something.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: To yeah, for sure, for sure. Now, two weeks after
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: the raids, the investigation took its most abrupt turn yet.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Adrian and David were called in and told they were
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: no longer suspects. Isn't that great? They were officially cleared,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: but cleared didn't mean unharmed.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: The three month ordeal had effectively ruined their lives. Adrian
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Blair dropped out of school and moved to Canada, seeking
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a fresh start far away from the whispers of the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: UK skydiving scheme. David Mason retreated into a strictly private life,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: never speaking publicly about the case.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Again, I don't blame him, I don't blame him at all. Yeah. Now,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: the police had spent nearly a year chasing the inner circle,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: only to end up back at square one. As the
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: teammates moved on, the investigation focused its full weight on
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: the one person who couldn't defend himself, Stephen Hilder. If
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: his friends didn't kill him, the police were becoming convinced
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: that Stephen must have done it himself.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: The suicide theory was met with immediate resistance from the
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: skydiving community, but in investigators begin to build a psychological
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: profile to answer a knacking question why such an elaborate staging.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Now, several fairies emerge to explained the complexity of the sabotage,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: one being the religious factor. Stephen had recently converted to
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Roman Catholicism, in a faith where suicide is a grave sin,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: a stage murder might have been a way to protect
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: his soul or at the very least his reputation, which
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest, doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: But I'm not a very religious person.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: But okay, well, but if God forgives you of your
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: sins and you've suicide, he's going to forgive you for
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: I think we lost you there, terr Oh, y'all lost me?
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Oh there you are, You're there, Ago, it was just
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: frozen on my end. I'm not there of All.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I said was that I think if God forgives you
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: of your sins, he would forgive you of that sin too.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: On that and I don't know how you're supposed to
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: like hide something up, you know, from Yeah, a deity
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: that is like that. But okay, I don't know. But
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: that's just one of several theories. So let's hear another theory.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Another theory was the insurance factor. By making his death
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: look like a criminal act, he ensured his parents would
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: still be eligible for life insurance payouts that are often
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: avoided by suicide. Some experts suggested the sabotage was a
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: way to lock himself in. By cutting the gear before
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the jump, he removed the possibility of a last minute
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: change of heart once he was in the air.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: And now insurance policies have changed that way of thinking.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: You do have to it has to be a couple
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: of years, oh, the policy. But at that time that
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: pretty much was very accurate, right, and that is something
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: that many people have done. So it holds a little
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: bit more possibility, I suppose. Now the laboratory results, previously
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: a mess of contamination, began to whisper a more personal story.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Investigators found steven sweat near the slashed main. Brittle and
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: more tellingly, tiny fibers from the cut webbing were found
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: on Stephen's clothing underneath his jumpsuit. While experts argued these
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: could have been transferred doing a during a routine gear check.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: The police saw them as evidence of the sabotage happening
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: while Stephen was dressing, which I don't know. It doesn't
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: do much for me if.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: We remember where their packs were out in the common room.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's dressing in the common room. Yeah,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: you know, but that's me. But the most significant piece
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: of evidence, however, had been sitting in the police evidence
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: locker for months, a pair of ordinary kitchen scissors. They
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: had been found in the locked trunk of Stephen's car.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Initial tests had dismissed them because of a misunderstanding. The
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: expert we talked about earlier, who had struggled to cut
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the webbing with a different pair of dull scissors, led
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: police to believe that only specialized hook knife could do
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the job.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Now, when the lab revisited stephens scissors to them, the
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: truth came out. Scissors were in excellent condition and sliced
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: through the webbing easily. There are also microscopic fibers from
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: the parachute risers found on the blades, and only one
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: person's genetic profile was found on the scissors, and that
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: was Stephen Hilder's.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to just hold my thought here. Scissors
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: were found in his locked trunk. The keys had been
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: left dangling in the ignition on the surface. This could
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: mean anyone at the air filled could have accessed the car. However,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: there were no fingerprints found on the vehicle at all, not.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Even Stevens, which is weird.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: So I'm sorry. There are some things here that make
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: you go hmmm.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: It's kind of weird for somebody that was sleeping in
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: their car.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: And it's your car.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Now. In the world of skydiving, this wasn't necessarily a
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: sign of a profetational hitman. Okay, all right. At thirteen
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: thousand feet the air is freezing, and many jumpers wear
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: gloves regularly. Someone, whether Stephen or a phantom killer, could
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: have moved through the dropstone and gloves without raising a
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: single eyebrow.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: The evidence was mounting, but it was pointing towards a
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: conclusion that Stephen's loved ones refused to accept. The young
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: man who had just shared a record breaking jump with
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: his friends was now being framed by his own equipment
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: as the primary suspect in his own death.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: The investigators continued to dig into light into the life
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: of Stephen Hilder and what he had left behind. They
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: were looking for a breaking point. What they found was
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: a mounting pile of quiet pressures that Stephen rarely discussed
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: with anyone.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Stephen was reportedly struggling at the Royal Military College of Science.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: He was convinced he had failed his exams, a belief
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: that weighed heavily on his future as an officer cadet. Ironically,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the college later confirmed his belief was a mistake. He
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: hadn't failed, but the perception of failure may have been
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: enough to drive him to stare.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Now. Skydiving is a rich man's sport, and Stephen was
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: chasing it on a cadet's salary. He had amassed over
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars in debt, much of it fueled by
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: high end equipment like the black and gray rig he
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: was wearing when he died. Things had progressed to the
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: point where he was bouncing checks in the military mess
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: all and facing disciplinary action from his superiors.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: They can kick you out of the military for bouncing
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: a check. I didn't know that.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't know that either, But yeah, I can.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Get in serious trouble and I was like, what didn't pay? Amar?
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: You are kind of like turning robody and stuff.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Am I mm hmm, Okay.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Your camera's blurry. There we go. Okay, I think you're back.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I think you're back and its fine. Yeah, there you go, Okay,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: it's fine.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Then his relationship with Ruth had actually ended, though she
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: described their breakup as mutual and casual. The loss of
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: that support system added another layer of isolation during the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: week of a competition.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Detectives also look closer to the timeline of the competition week,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: specifically that Tuesday trip to the gas station. Stephen had
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: driven miles out of his way to a specific station
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: to buy snacks bypassing several closer options, and when the
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: police examined his car after the fall, the tank was
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: nearly empty, meaning he hadn't even stopped for fuel. It's
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: just weird. But also, you know.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I have a son. I don't know if he does
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: this now that he's older, but back in his twenty
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: two or three dollars because he's like, I don't sit
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: here in pump gas. Yeah, they're really so.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: So.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: While some speculated this might have been at Cladestine clandestine
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: meeting to buy drugs. No illegal substances were ever found
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: in his system or in his belongings, but it still
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: remains a strange unexplaining detour INA's final days, which I
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: don't find weird.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: He went to get snacks, right, so. The portrait of
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Stephen Hilder soon split into two conflicting versions. To the investigators,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: he was a man in a corner. They saw a
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: habit of not worrying, of not worrying until the problem
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: was directly in front of him. They believe the debt,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: the academic stress, and the relationship troubles had finally collided
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: at Hibbalsto, leading them to fulfill a dark prophecy. He
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: had once shared with his friends that if he ever
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: ended it, he would do it while jumping.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: What kind of well to those who knew him, like
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: his best friend, is it any better? Well, we'll make
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: work Okay, Sorry guys. If I'm so crazy, I'm fully loaded.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: His best friend, Jason Saunders, his theory was a character assassination.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Jason insisted that in their last conversation, Stephen was vibrant
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and full of goals.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Friends argued that his comment about dying while skydiving wasn't
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: a suicide note, but a testament to his passion. Like
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: a sailor saying he wanted to die at sea, Stephen
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: was simply saying he wanted to spend his final moments
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: doing what he loved most.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: The police believed they had a motive, his debt and
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: his failure, as well as the murder weapons scissors, but
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: they were still missing one thing that defines a suicide,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the undeniable intent of a man who t truly wanted
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to leave the world behind and the tight knit world
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: of the drop zone, the debate was just beginning.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Nearly ten months after the silence fell over the cornfields
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: of Habalstow, Detective Superintendent Colin Andrews made an announcement that
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: pleased to almost know one. The police were officially dropping
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: the murder investigation. The case was reclassified as an unexplained
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: death ooh.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: While the detectives felt they had reached a dead end
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: with the evidence they had, the skydiving community was far
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: from satisfied. As am I to them, the conclusion felt
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: like a surrender. One jumper summarized the collective frustration online,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: accusing the police of simply being stumped by a world
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: they didn't understand, insisting that no skydiver, especially one as
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: passionate as Stephen, would ever choose such a violent public exit.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: In March two thousand and five, the case moved to
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: its final legal stage, the Coroner's in quest. Coroner Stuart
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Atkinson presided over a hearing that attempted to find a
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: definitive label for Stephen's final moments. His ruling reflected the
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: baffling nature of the evidence.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Murder was ruled out and there was no concrete proof
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: that a second party had accessed the gear, but he
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: also rejected the possibility of suicide, as the coroner could
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: not say with absolute certainty that Stephen possessed the intent
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: to end his own life. The final verdict was an
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: over finding open finding. It was a legal we don't know,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: leaving the truth suspended somewhere between thirteen thousand feet and
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: the ground.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Well. The headlines eventually faded, a shadow remained over the
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: UK's drop zones. If the police were wrong. If Stephen
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: had been murdered, it meant a killer was still walking
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: among them, and with only nineteen drop zones in England
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: at the time, the math was chilling, and we're not
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: great at math, but we know that that's not great, Okay,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: not great. Every time a jumper yeared up, there was
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: a one and nineteen chance they were sharing a plane
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: with a murderer.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: For years, skeptics argued that such sophisticated sabotage was the
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: stuff of movies, not reality, but history would prove them wrong.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, three years after Stephen's death,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: else Klopman's was convicted in Belgium of murdering her romantic
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: rival by sabotaging her parachute, in a manner hauntingly similar
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: to the Holder case.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Then there was the twenty fifteen nether Von incident at
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Stephen's own home drop Zone, Emil g Chellaire's attempted to
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: murder his wife by sabotaging her rig, though she miraculously survived.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Siler's was sentenced to life in prison.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: These cases proved that the impossible sabotage of a parachute
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: rig was viable was a viable, if rare, method of murder. Yet,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: despite these parallels, the mystery of Stephen Hilder remained frozen
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and three.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Today, the scissors and the and the nineteen point jump
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: remain part of skydiving lore. Stephen's parents, Paul and Mary,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: still hold on onto the hope that a witness or
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: a conscience stricken peer might one day come forward with
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: the final piece of the puzzle.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: But until that day comes, the community continues to jump,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: carrying with them the new ritual of their riser tug
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: in the memory of the young cadet who loved the
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: sky too much to leave it. They close every tribute
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: with the same four words, a toast to those who flew,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: and a reminder of the gravity that waits for us.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: All blue skies, Black death.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Excellent. Now, if you or someone you know is suffering
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: from suicide, please reach out there. There is help out there.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: You are not alone in that at all, and there
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: are helplines everywhere. I believe in the States. It is
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: nine eight eight, and it'll help you. A trust name,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: A lot of people have been there, and you're not alone,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: not alone at all. Talk to somebody. It does help
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: well with that. Next time on True Crime and Wine Time,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: we're going to be getting into the store the story
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: of Michelina Lewandowski, who is buried alive and she was
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: buried alive and survived. So join us next Thursday for
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: that compelling story. That one is. So we're going to
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: be in the UK again two weeks in a row. Oh,
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: be sure to join us for that.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, So closing thoughts, we skipped over those.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: We didn't skip over them. We didn't skip over them. Well,
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: now that we're done recording the podcast, Uh, we can
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: get into some more conversations about it. I thought that's
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: what we were doing.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, I missed that because we needed together. It's okay
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: because I would have given them along the way instead
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of holding them. I thought we were just holding questions.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess we could do that too, So.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Double as just figure it out.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: Congratchet, Hh, we're going to talk about closing arguments.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because they held onto it.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, and go.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I have reasonable doubt for suicide. But the one thing
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I want to know, the person, the certified person who
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: packed his backup shoot, did they investigate him?
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Well, they said they did. I know, but that really means.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: But we don't know what that means. But I have
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: reasonable doubt on all of the options. What about you?
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: You know, I go back and forth with it. I
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: think I understand why suicide is up there, because listen,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: everybody acts differently when it comes to that moment. That's
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: very true. No one's story is the same, no one
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: anything is the same. And you can be great to
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: everyone that knows you, looking like you're great, everything's great,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: and then it's not it and sadly happens a lot.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: But that said, Stephen loved this sport and to do
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: that in a way that could jeopardize the sport that
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: he loved and give it a rep mutation like that
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: does bring me pause. I'm not saying it couldn't be. Listen,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: people aren't always in their right frame of mind, and
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: I understand that. I very much understand that.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Of friends. I can't get past it. If he's friends,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: would he do that to them?
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, listen, obviously people are not in their right
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: from right mind. You make those decisions, you know, they're
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: just not and that's just how it is. That's the
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: truth of it. But I don't know if that's like. Honestly,
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: I lean more towards I think somebody did have something
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: about like going on against and whether he even knew
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: it or not. I mean, look, you had a team
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: that scored nineteen points. All right, nineteen points. We learned
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: that ten points? Oh man, you and your type it girl?
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: All right, I know I can switch back to my
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: quiet keeping that I got your nails done. I was
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: putting a note to myself to remember to do something.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, But when you have a team that scores that high,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: which we just learned, is very impressive. You know, I
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: don't know a lot about this world we've learned together
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: covering this case because I particularly don't care to ever
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: know about it. I'm never going to go skydiving and
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: never will. But I can't I can very much say
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: that it's never happening unless you're giving me like one
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars or something that I might I don't know.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: I'll take the challenges some of these offering that up.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, guys, if anybody wants to give Lama
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars, he'll jump out of a plane.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: But like he went jumping. I thought he jumped on Wednesday.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: He did, and then he put his rig in the room.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: That's what I said. His room. His rig was so room.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: How could he be getting dressed and have the fibers
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: because they it is sound like, oh, we think he
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: did it right beforehand. But that's why I said he
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know. There's just a lot of things that
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: don't add up. And I feel absolutely horrible for his
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: loved ones, his parents and their family to just not
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: have any type of answer, and.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: His friends who to this were kicked out of a
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: drop zone. Their whole lives were changed because of this.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: But again, I mean, look, we just talked about two
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: cases where this it does happen, it has happened after
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: the fact, and that's just the ones they knew about,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: you know, the ones that they were able to observe
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: that happening. And who's to say it didn't happen.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Time to add third backpack, another pack, Gotta have a
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: third one, gotta have plan A, Plan B, and Plan C.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: I guess yeah. I mean it does bring me some
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: pause that Stephen did go for the reserve parish shoot
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: because he would know that it wouldn't have worked. But
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: your body also reacts very quickly without thinking, So like
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: that's the thing with this memory, you're trained to just
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: exactly Because we talked about him and his team doing
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: muscle memory exercises of their dair formation formation. Thank you. Yes,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: that's the what I was looking for. So it's just
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It's very hard to say how I
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: feel about it. I think I think there's a lot
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: on both sides.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Just because doubt on both sides.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Though, just because they didn't find anything that it could
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: be somebody else doesn't mean anything. It was a very
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: large crime scene, it was a very contaminated card crime scene.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: The sweat DNA that doesn't mean anything to me when
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: it's somebody's own STU that they've used however many times,
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: and we know he's done two hundred jumps, so like
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: I doubt it was with the same rig. But still,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: you know his stuff's going to be all over everything.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: So that's I'm still undecided either way. It sounds like
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: a young person that a lot of people adored is
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: gone for whatever reason, that maybe everyone should be here
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: no matter which way it ended up going down, and
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: maybe someday there will be answers and maybe there won't be.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: But you know, if he was struggling and he was
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: in pain, then I hope he's at peace today. Either way,
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I hope he's at peace.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: So agreed. Now, would you have anything you'd like to say?
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: We sign off for the podcast.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, not really think I said it all there.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: I think we said it all there.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: So we have some great comments we can get back to.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: We do absolutely, okay, O bells. It sees on the keyboard,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Oh my bells, that's her cat.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I starred one comment because it looked like Laney
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: got her shirt and she was very excited about it.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: It's very begun. I love that. Oh oh that's right
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: from the members only that from.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: The members only. Wicked Banshee won it and gifted it
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: over to Laney and she says it's so tiny. I'm
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: so happy it's slim fit.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Nice. I'm glad you love it. I'm glad you love it.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: Glad you love it. And Laney also jumped out of
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: a plane on her thirtieth birthday.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: You would the lady, that's why you're a rock star.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Say that's why you're a rock star.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Right right? Our little our little rock star over here
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: that Terry's going to go see in a few weeks
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: performs a month.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: I'll see her on June thirteenth, so less than a
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: month now.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: And I love I have to tell the chat. I'm
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: watching as y'all are talking about music and love that
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: that conversation is going in there. And then I love Savage.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I'm smart, I can do stuff.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I can't douce job. There's that date again, I know, right, yeah,
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: oh boy.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: This was a crazy, crazy case.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Just it was interesting.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: It was interesting and in the US would probably would
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: have gotten a lot more information. That's true from over
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: there because of the privacy laws.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: That is very That's an excellent point to bring up
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: the fact that it is in the UK, and well,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of places aren't like America with our Freedom
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: of Information acts and things like that. It's much harder
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: to get information.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm working on a position for our UK office.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: And the things that you can and can't do during
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: the hiring process, an application process, it's like you even
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: though they apply online, we have to get their permission
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: to keep their resume after the interview. They help right
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: to say no and that we have to delete it immediately.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, it's interesting.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: And so I said, they have some crazy They are
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: very and I mean it's not bad. They're very into
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: protecting people's privacy.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: Go figure, that's a thing doesn't happen here. No. I
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: always find it very interesting how other countries handle the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: legal process everything like that. It's interesting to see all
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: the different ways that places can go about it, you know,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: even I mean even in even in the United States,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: it varies from state to state. Right, you ain't getting
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: shit out of California, but you go to Florida, boom,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: whatever you want. You know, so it even varies. It
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: does in our country, So.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: It does.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: I just you know, I think I don't want to
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: say that they didn't do a good investigation, because they did.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: It sounded like they did all right. They did the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: best they could. They interviewed two thousand people, I'm sorry,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: seventy eight people. But then they went to the conference
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: where there's four thousand people. I mean, they didn't when
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: any crime when the weapons also a knife, like you're
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: not there isn't.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: Right when everybody has one and everybody uses it.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, like I do only want to you know.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Say, I can't a job.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know their entire job, but compared to other
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: kinds of crime scenes, it was a difficult one. It was,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: so I know, they had the DNA stuff, but that
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: didn't That wouldn't mean anything to me if we were
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: in trial, just because the number of people and it
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: was his stuff. But also, why was there no fingerprints
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: in the car? Terry?
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: Let's to say, where are we forgetting about that there
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: was no fingerprints on the car. That's the thing that
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: gives me pause and takes me away from suicide. That's
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: the thing that just has stuck in my brain. That
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: means somebody wiped the car down.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: It's weird because if.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I if they came in fingerprint in my car right
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: now and it just got washed today, you would still
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: find my fingerprints on it. So somebody had to wipe
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: it down. And that's the part that sticks out and
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: leads me to why would you remove your fingerprints if
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: you didn't do anything?
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: And it sounds like a lot of people in the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: community also think that it was a murder. To think
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: about it, it would be easier for all of them.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: The thing that Stephen did this himself, just said they
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: took the I mean that's the easiest of the thoughts.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: Uh huh, And and they're like, m no, just a lot.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: It does it absolutely does, you know, because we all
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: want to be like, no, not us.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: That's my reasonable doubt on suicide is that who else
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: would wipe the car plan because he killed himself, his
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: fingerprints would have stolen on the car.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: He was sleeping in the car for five days. Yeah,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: you know so.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: And I don't find it weird that he went to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: a store and didn't get gas, considering out a twenty
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: year old son who would go by Reese's peanut butter
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: cups and get home on fumes and be like, oh,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: I'll get it tomorrow.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, so, well, excellent, that was a great show. Yeah,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: so I hope you all enjoyed this story. Next week's
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: you guys, Oh boy, next week is wild.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: It is wild.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: It's like all of our fears were covering in may.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Oh elbow feet, He's welcome.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, your elbow feet, You're welcome. Whatever it is you're doing,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: you're welcome.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Darn, I'm too late. You're just gonna have to be
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: part of the replay crew. And by the way, Wicked Banshee,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: I'll make sure that I don't assign my last name
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: to you anymore. Okay, it's told double h and he laughed.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: He goes, are you trying to get a cheesecake or something.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, all right, well the boys have brought home
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: food for me.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you guys, we enjoyed it. Be sure to
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: hit the like, subscribe and all that great stuff.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, excellent. Well, thank you all for being here, and
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: until next time, go forth and be amazing by guys.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Stay safe, stay aware, see something, say something, and enjoy
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: your one time.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: All right, bye friends, Bye guys,