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S3E1: The Disappearance of Noel Dalluge · Blood Trails

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: It was Halloween night, 1986, and Noel Daluge and his
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: friends were looking forward to a weekend of hunting, partying,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and celebrating a successful football season. But by early the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: next morning, Noel had disappeared. The remaining high school seniors
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: were left wondering where their friend had gone and whether
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: some of them knew more.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Than they were letting on.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: That's next on Blood Trails, brought to you by Tecova's.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: The woods of Aiken County, Minnesota were full of hunters
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the weekend of October 31st, 1986. One of them was
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: another high school senior named Jim Riley, who'd made the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: two-hour drive north from St. Paul with a buddy. Jim's
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: family owned a hunting cabin about 30 miles from where
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Noel was staying with his friends, and Jim was listening
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to the radio when he heard a troubling report.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: All of a sudden, it came on the radio. North St.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Paul student lost in woods. And that's, of course, where
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: we all went to school. After hearing that, I thought, man,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: we got to do something. So we listened on the radio,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: my buddy and I, some more, and nothing came up.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: So I went in my truck and we drove to
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the neighbor's house and found out more from them and
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: actually found out who it was that was lost. And
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: it was a gentleman named Noel Daluge. He was a
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: really good kid, kind of a class clown, really fun guy.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: But I remember just maybe a week before, he had said,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: how do you go out in the woods bear hunting
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: in the dark? Aren't you afraid? And I said, no,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: not really. Everything out there is pretty much more afraid
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: of you. And so we had that conversation, and I
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: had that flashback when I heard it was him missing.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Jim was immediately concerned, so he called his dad for help.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: He said... Listen, Jim, go up there, talk to the sheriff,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: tell him to get one of the local houndsmen. Don't
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: let people walk in the woods. Don't do anything. Keep
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the scent down and just run him down. Well, here's
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: an 18-year-old kid, you know, senior in high school, goes
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: and talks to the sheriff and tells him that. And
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: his words to me were, we've never lost a person
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: in this county. We'll be just fine.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I doubt the sheriff at the time, a guy named
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Bill Sobey, appreciated a high school kid telling him how
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: to do his job. But his words still echo in
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Jim's mind, and knowing what happened in the days and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: months that followed, it's easy to see why.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Noel and his.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Friends had driven up to their cabin on Friday, and
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Noel went missing the next day. By Sunday, Jim decided
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to drive over and talk to those friends himself.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: But I'll never forget, I told him, I said, hey,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: you guys got to come clean. If anything happened, if
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: anything strange went down, you need to come clean right now.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And one of the kids, I never forgave him for this.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: He said, just go home, Joe Hunter. Don't be telling
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: us what to do. We're in enough crap already. All
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, I can't talk to them. They're not
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: saying anything. And I grew up with all these guys.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: They're not telling me a word. They must have decided
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: they weren't talking to anyone.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Jim's friends wouldn't talk to him for reasons he didn't
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: understand until much later. But they did talk to law enforcement,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and the story they told was strange, in more ways
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: than one. Meanwhile, the sheriff launched a search effort for
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the missing boy that ballooned to include hundreds of people.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Several other kids stayed at my family's place, and then
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: we drove up every day to help. They brought in
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the National Guard, and they brought in Black Hawk helicopters.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And they searched and searched and searched.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Everybody was just grasping at straws on what to do
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: and trying to contact people. Everybody was just, I mean,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: miffed and mortified.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: That's Noel's older brother, Matt. He told me that when
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the search efforts came to a close, Noel's family didn't
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: know what to do. They didn't believe everything the sheriff
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: or the boys were telling them, but they had no
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: idea how to find their son and brother.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, I just remember my mom crying a lot.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: I remember my dad trying to stay strong for the
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: rest of us, but grasping at straws. He would turn
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: to us kids and just say, does anybody have any ideas?
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Is there anything we can do? I don't know. You know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: at one point he just finally said, I don't know
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: what else to do.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: As time passed, the rumors swirling around Noel's disappearance became
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: all the family had of their loved one. But those
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: rumors brought neither comfort nor closure. People whispered about hard drugs,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: strange cars, missing shotguns, and stolen evidence. They pointed fingers
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: at shadowy figures in the woods, the other boys at
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the cabin, and even at Noel himself. The family wanted answers,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: but they didn't know which rumors to believe and which
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: might be intentionally leading them in the wrong direction.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: She also said she opened up his glove box and
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: Noel's mosquito netting was in there. And he got mad
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: and said, don't ever open that again.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: I believe someone at the cabin knew something happened to Noel.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: I don't know who would want him dead, though.
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: It becomes a whirlwind and really fast, I'm telling you.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: You know, the woods tells a story. Scavengers, clothes pulled apart.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Something's going to tell a story. There's going to be clues.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Something's missing with this one.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Sillars, and this is Blood Trails, The Disappearance
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: of Noel Daljouge. Part One, Homecoming King. Noel's case has
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: received very little media attention since he disappeared nearly 40
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: years ago. That's partly due to the fact that there's
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: been very little to report. The sheriff at the time
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: didn't offer many details, and those involved were all teenagers
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: whose parents discouraged them from speaking to the media. But
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: those teenagers have grown up, and two of them agreed
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: to talk to us about why they went to the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: cabin and why they went to the hospital. what happened
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: when they got there, and how they think Noel vanished
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: off the face of the earth.
• 6:33
  Speaker 6: When this year ended and we had gone further than
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: anybody else had gone years as far as into the
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: playoffs with our team, it was the concept, hey, let's
• 6:44
  Speaker 6: get together, let's do something.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: That's one of the nine high school seniors who were
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: there with Noel. We're calling him Steve, though that isn't
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: his real name. Steve describes the group of guys as
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a hodgepodge, They all knew each other, but they didn't
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: hang out in a group on a regular basis. What
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: united most of them was the North St. Paul High
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: School football team. One of the players, a guy named Mike,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: suggested the trip to a few of his teammates, and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: it didn't take long for word to spread around school.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: The cabin was owned by Mike's family, so he decided
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: to limit the group to 10. Girlfriends weren't allowed to come,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and Steve says there were other boys who wanted to
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: be there but couldn't. The point is, while they hoped
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to do a little partying before hunting Saturday morning, the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: event was always meant to be low-key.
• 7:30
  Speaker 6: I don't think it was ever intended to be like
• 7:32
  Speaker 6: a blowout. It wasn't, you know, for anything more than
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: just to kind of go relax and enjoy and celebrate,
• 7:39
  Speaker 6: I guess, you know, that time of the year and
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: finishing the season, I guess, and winding down our senior year.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Knowing how the trip was planned makes Noel's inclusion even
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: more noteworthy. Noel was on the soccer team, not the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: football team. He was good friends with some of the guys,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: but not all of them. Most kids in Noel's position
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have earned an invite, but he had a quality
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that I think you'll agree is rare among 17-year-olds.
• 8:05
  Speaker 6: Back in the day, you know, right, if you're on
• 8:06
  Speaker 6: the football team, you're on the football team. If you're
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: a soccer player, you're a soccer player. There might even
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: be some ribbing between the two, you know what I mean,
• 8:13
  Speaker 6: as to who's better or who's not or what sport's better,
• 8:15
  Speaker 6: that kind of a thing. But he had no problem
• 8:18
  Speaker 6: with that. He just had that personality that was very,
• 8:21
  Speaker 6: very likable, very easy to get along with. Very magnetic.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Everyone I spoke with mentioned Knoll's ability to be liked
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and accepted in any of the normally sectarian high school cliques.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: It's no wonder he was voted homecoming king by his
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: classmates just a few weeks before he went missing.
• 8:38
  Speaker 7: He was a really sweet guy. He was funny. He
• 8:41
  Speaker 7: was well-liked. He was popular.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: That's Aaron Dalyusz. Aaron married Matt Dalyusz, Knoll's brother. She
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was in the same class as Noel, and she told
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: me that Steve's assessment was spot on.
• 8:55
  Speaker 7: All the girls liked him. He was a cutie.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: He was a class clown. He played hockey, soccer, baseball.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: He loved to go fishing with his dad, brothers. He
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: was an all-around really good kid.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: He got along with everyone, whether it was his friends
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: at school or brothers at home. Here's Matt and Jim
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Riley again.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: My older brother and I used to fight a lot.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Noel was just always a nice kid that I'd say
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: he was probably more of the mediator, if anything.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I didn't know the kid to argue. He was very lighthearted.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: He didn't take things too serious. Life was fun to him.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Life was a good time for Noel.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: That lighthearted, magnetic personality made it especially difficult for his
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: classmates to accept his disappearance.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: It just started spreading through school that he was missing.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: And then every day we would go to school and
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: they would bring in a TV and they'd let us
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: watch TV to see if there's any news reports on him.
• 9:59
  Speaker 7: We would put.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Little yellow ribbons on our lockers and put the word
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: Noel everywhere.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Most of the students reacted with confusion and heartbreak, but
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: not all of them.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Somebody wrote on his locker just another dumb jock dead.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: And There's no way any of this had to do
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: with each other, but another kid had committed suicide. In fact,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: a couple of them killed themselves. And then somebody was like,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: just another druggie dad. It started like a little mini
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: war in our class.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Knoll's disappearance sparked exactly the kind of intricate conflict he
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: defied with the way he lived his life. The jocks
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and the druggies, the soccer players and the football players,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the popular kids and the outcasts. Noel became homecoming king
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and was invited on that Halloween trip because he treated
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: everyone the same.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Noel wouldn't have been that guy picking on anyone. He
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: was the guy that would make peace with everyone through
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: laughter and jokes.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Jim described the rest of the school year as weird.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Everyone had an opinion, a theory, a wild speculation. No
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: one knew exactly what to make of what happened or
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: how to treat the other boys who'd been with Noel
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that night. Even those nine classmates looked at one another
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: with apprehension, because the fact was they hadn't all been
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: together for the eight hours between Noel walking away and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the beginning of their search. Some of them had split
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: off in pairs. Others had been alone in the woods
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: for hours, hunting, or maybe something else.
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: I don't think that any of those guys have the
• 11:39
  Speaker 6: capability to do anything like that, let alone if they did,
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: to come back and behave the way that they behaved
• 11:45
  Speaker 6: if they had something to do with it.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: All the guys?
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: Well, except for what we were talking.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: About. The boys agreed to caravan up to the cabin
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: in three vehicles. Darren drove a 1984 Ford Ecoline, so
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: he took Steve, Mike, Dave, and Eric. Troy, Bob, and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Noel rode up in Troy's car, and Greg and Mark
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: rode in Greg's. These kinds of details are usually not
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: available when a case is still open, but we know
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: this and quite a bit more because we obtained Noel's
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: case file. This several hundred page document was compiled by
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the Aiken County Sheriff's Office and the Minnesota Bureau of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Criminal Apprehension. It includes notes, letters, incident reports, and transcripts
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: of interviews with all the boys. Until now, Many of
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: these details have never been made public. According to those transcripts,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the nine boys told a remarkably similar story. They didn't
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: leave the Twin Cities area until nearly midnight because Greg
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: was working a late shift at Red Lobster. The two-hour
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: drive landed them at the cabin around 2 a.m., which
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: is when the fun started.
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: At that point in time, we're how old, right? So,
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: you know, there's going to be beer involved, right? There
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: was a keg.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: There were, in fact, two kegs. The sheriff reports that
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the boys tried to hide them prior to law enforcement
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and their parents arriving on the scene. But Steve's dad
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: found the keg stashed in a shed outside the cabin,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and by the time of their formal taped interviews in
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: January of 1987, they admitted to having the booze. However,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: they all maintained that none of them got so drunk
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that they blacked out or threw up.
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we weren't belated or anything because we knew we
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: wanted to get up in the morning to go hunting.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: That's Bob Galbraith, another of the boys at the cabin
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: that night. He said the investigators were especially interested in
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Noel's alcohol consumption and state of mind. If Noel had
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: gotten drunk and then wandered into the woods with a gun,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: it's easy to imagine a tragic accident. But Bob said
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: he talked to Noel shortly before they left to go hunting,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and he didn't notice the boy acting particularly intoxicated.
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: Last time I saw him, he seemed fine. I mean,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: obviously he was probably a little buzzed, but it wasn't like, no, no, no,
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: you got to go. He wasn't stumbling around drunk type thing.
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: So he was still coherent.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Most of the boys said the same thing, except one.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Mark told detectives that Noel had been playing a drinking
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: game with Greg and was, quote, really kind of drunk.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: He later reported that Noel could barely keep his eyes
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: open and was shuffling his feet and slurring his speech.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Mark may have been the only kid willing to be
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: honest about the level of Noel's intoxication, but he also
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: may have been trying to cover for the fact that
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: he introduced another toxic substance to the party that night.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Someone brought cocaine as well. Do you remember that?
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I remember seeing it. I don't remember who brought it.
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: I also don't know if it was legitimate or not.
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: You know what I mean? I just, I don't know.
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: But I did see it at one point in time.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: That someone was Mark. He admitted to law enforcement to bringing, quote,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: one quarter of cocaine, though he doesn't specify whether that
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: was a quarter ounce or a quarter gram. So it's
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: unclear exactly how much was available that night. What we
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: do know is that four of the boys tried it. Greg, Mark, Bob,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: and Noel. Not everyone saw them snorting it, but those
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: who did all identified the same four boys. The presence
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: of cocaine adds yet another variable to this equation. and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: when I say variable, I mean it. We don't know
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: how much Noel drank or how it impacted him. We
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: also don't know how much cocaine he snorted, how his
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: body reacted to it, or whether the substance itself was
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: real or fake. It's difficult to draw any firm conclusions
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: without this information, but it wouldn't have taken much of
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: both substances to create a toxic and potentially life-threatening combination.
• 15:57
  Speaker 8: When you combine alcohol with cocaine, you get a unique
• 16:02
  Speaker 8: product that results from that combination. It's called coca ethylene.
• 16:07
  Speaker 8: It can lead to disorientation. It can lead to outbursts
• 16:11
  Speaker 8: of aggressiveness. So mood swings, very high mood swings with aggressiveness,
• 16:16
  Speaker 8: with anxiety mixed in. Sometimes people experience hallucinations.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: That's Dr. Oliver Grundman, a clinical professor at the University
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of Florida College of Pharmacy. He explained that cocaine is
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a stimulant, meaning it makes you more awake and often
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: more confident. But for a first-time user, it can also
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: make you anxious. That effect is heightened when you combine
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it with alcohol, and those effects can last for an hour,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes longer.
• 16:45
  Speaker 8: There are reports of people consuming alcohol and then taking cocaine.
• 16:50
  Speaker 8: And this unique product, cocaethylene, then gets relatively quickly into
• 16:56
  Speaker 8: the brain and is just much stronger in creating an
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: altered mental state in general. Hallucinations can be often more
• 17:07
  Speaker 8: in the form of feeling guilty, That somebody is observing
• 17:11
  Speaker 8: you or somebody is following you, almost a delusional state
• 17:17
  Speaker 8: where you feel like you're being followed or you're being
• 17:19
  Speaker 8: hunted or somebody is after you.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Knoll's age means his body was likely able to process
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: these substances more quickly than an older person. So it's
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: possible that the worst of these effects had worn off
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: by the time he ventured into the woods. But even
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: moving from the warm cabin to the cold woods could
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: have exacerbated his condition.
• 17:41
  Speaker 8: Now when you go from an indoors warm environment into
• 17:45
  Speaker 8: a very cold outdoors environment, the cold air is constricting
• 17:49
  Speaker 8: your blood vessels. That interplay of the environment and the
• 17:53
  Speaker 8: cocaine and alcohol combination can exacerbate potentially even a myocardial infarction.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: A myocardial infarction is also known as a heart attack.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: This side effect is more often seen in frequent users
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: who OD, but it's not the only potential complication.
• 18:11
  Speaker 9: Dr.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Grunman explained that while a cocaine high usually lasts only
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: 30 to 60 minutes, the crash afterwards can make people
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: suicidal or take risks they wouldn't otherwise take. In another timeline,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: this story ends here. High on drugs and alcohol, Noel
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: wandered into the woods by himself and hit his head,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: suffered a heart attack, or fell into the swamp. This
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: is tragically a possible scenario, and I'm sure investigators were
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: tempted to write off Noel's disappearance as exactly that. But
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: they had a problem. Try as they might, they couldn't
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: find the missing teenager. They had no idea where Noel
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: was or what killed him. In fact, they couldn't even
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: confirm that he was dead at all. What's more, they
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: kept hearing the same troubling reports from the boys who
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: were at the cabin. one of the teens, didn't seem
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: as concerned about Noel's disappearance as the others. He'd been
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: alone for large portions of the day, and he insisted
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: on searching for Noel by himself. When the other boys
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: were asked whether any of them could have done something
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to Noel, most pointed the finger at the same kid.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: That's next, after the break. Part 3. The Morning Hunt
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: You might assume that after a night of drinking, the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: boys would have opted to delay the next morning's hunt.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: But an 18-year-old has never met a hangover he can't
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: muscle through, and all but four of the boys went
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: out into the woods the next morning. They started getting
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: dressed and preparing their gear around 5 a.m. Noel had
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: brought his shotgun and planned to go grouse hunting. Mike
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: said he advised Noel to hunt around Robert Lake, where
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Noel had bagged a bird the year before. Matt says
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: his younger brother wasn't a diehard hunter, but he'd been
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: grouse hunting on several occasions.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: We'd go up to northern Minnesota and walked through the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: woods and tried to shoot grouse. We also pheasant hunted.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: We shot squirrels and rabbits, shot a little bit of everything.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: He was a good hunter and good with firearms.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Several of the boys told investigators that Noel had found
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: some hunting gear that was already at the cabin. He
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: donned the cold-weather camo clothing along with what was described
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: as a hat with mosquito netting. Bob recalls seeing Noel
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: right before he left and wondering why he chose to
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: wear that netting.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: He came by when I was laying in bed and
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: I was like, what the hell are you doing? I
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: don't even remember what he said, but he just was
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: gone pretty much minutes later. And like, why are you
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: going out like that?
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I think this mosquito netting would be more aptly described
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: as a face covering, like the kind worn by turkey
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and deer hunters. But it struck several of the boys
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: as odd because there are no mosquitoes in Minnesota in
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: late October and Noel was hunting grouse, not deer or turkeys.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It's a strange detail and it becomes even more important
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: later in the story. One explanation, Steve said, is that
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Noel was just trying to get a laugh.
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: If there was a pink cowboy hat, right, he'd have
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: been the one to put the pink cowboy hat on
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: to kind of, you know, get somebody to crack a joke,
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: to put a smile on their face kind of a deal.
• 21:30
  Speaker 6: And that's how I viewed it. He was being Noel.
• 21:33
  Speaker 6: He was being squirrely, kind of funny.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Whatever the reason, Noel grabbed his shotgun and, as best
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: we can tell, left the cabin around 5.45 a.m. This
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is an estimate because not only could the boys not
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: agree on when Noel left, they couldn't even agree on
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: if anyone saw him leave at all. Eric told detectives
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that no one saw Noel leave, but Dave says he
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: saw Noel walk out the bathroom door of the house.
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: I'm pretty sure we all made a pact that we'd
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: all go out with at least a buddy. And it
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: was strange for him to go out by himself.
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: I don't think he was leaving to go leave to
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: be by himself. I don't think that that was ever
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: the intent. But at the same time, at the time,
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: I didn't think it was strange because I just figured
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: he was just ready sooner than everybody else.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Mike, Bob, and Eric had brought shotguns for grouse hunting,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: and they came out of the cabin just a few
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: minutes later. But then Darren's dog got loose, and it
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: took them five or ten minutes to catch it. Steve
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: points to this moment as the reason no one really
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: knows when or why Noel left by himself.
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: Fumbling trying to get the dog back and all the
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: hustle and bustle of all of that. And the next
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: thing you know, everybody comes back later and nobody ever
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: connected with him. Was that intentional on his part? Boy,
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: I find the behavior, if that's the case, and now
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: looking back at it as a parent, doesn't add up.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: After they got the yellow lab back into the house,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the trio of grouse hunters walked down the driveway to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the road. It was here they found something strange. Eric
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: told investigators that they spotted Noel's gray baseball hat lying
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: on the ground at the end of the driveway. They
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: knew it was his. Several of them said they saw
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Noel wearing it, and they identified it as having a
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: ProKennex logo on the front. Noel had only left about
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: 10 minutes prior to his classmates, so it was an
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: odd find. They didn't have any reason at the time
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to think it might be important, so Eric picked it
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: up and they went on their way. As they were walking,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: they heard a gunshot. It was still dark, so this
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: was prior to legal shooting hours. There were other hunters
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: out in the woods, but the boys agreed that they
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: heard the shot shortly after finding the hat. Anyone who's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: tried to estimate the direction and distance of a gunshot
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: knows how difficult that estimation can be. But at the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: risk of mixing metaphors, the fog of time has muddied
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: these waters even further. When Eric was interviewed again in 2004,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: he said they heard multiple gunshots that morning, two shots
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: around sunrise and two about.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: An hour later.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: When I asked Bob about these shots, he said he
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: didn't remember them at all.
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: Me and my buddy were kind of like shooting at
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: dead trees on the ground, but we made sure no
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: one was around us. But other than that, I didn't
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: hear no gunshots.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: The trio of grouse hunters walked around for about an
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: hour until they started to get cold. They built a
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: small fire, but soon decided they'd rather be sleeping than hunting,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: so they went back to the cabin around 7 a.m. Meanwhile,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Greg and Darren had taken out their bows to look
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: for deer. They went to separate stands about 80 yards apart,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: but both reported falling asleep. Darren said he woke up,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: climbed down, and went back to the cabin around 7 a.m.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Greg also claimed to have walked back to the cabin,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: but we don't know what he did after that. In
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: his original written statement from 1986, he said he slept
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: until about 10.30 a.m. and went grouse hunting. However, when
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Greg was re-interviewed in 2005, he claimed that he slept
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: until around noon. He didn't mention hunting anymore that morning,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: but according to a summary of the interview, said that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: when he woke up, the boys began wondering what had
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: happened to Noel. His account is even more sharply contradicted
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: by Troy, who claimed in 2004 that Greg didn't return
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: to the cabin until around 2 p.m. You can see
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: how difficult it was for investigators to construct a coherent timeline.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: They had to rely on the memories of nine high
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: school seniors who, at the time of the events in question,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: were working through varying levels of intoxication.
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: At that point, because everybody's spread out into pairs or
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: whatever the case may be, not everybody's coming back at
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: the same time. You and I might come back, let's say,
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: at 10 o'clock or 10.30, and then somebody else comes
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: back at 11.15, and you've got these different groups coming
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: in at different times.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: But the question of who did what and when, and
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: who was alone for what length of time, was at
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the heart of this investigation. Detectives did their best to
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: construct a timeline of that day's events, and when they did,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: they realized that what happened that afternoon raised the most
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: serious red flags. Part four, the afternoon search.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: My first thought was, you know, where the hell did
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: he go? He probably lost somewhere in the woods and,
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: you know, maybe tripped and hurt himself. No one can
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: hear him. He got knocked out. I mean, who knows
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: what could happen out there?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Bob told me they started looking for Noel Saturday morning,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: but the reports indicate that the first questions began swirling
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: around lunchtime.
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: It took so long that day to develop the fact that, oh, shit.
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: Nobody's seen him, right? He hasn't came back and nobody
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: else has ran into him to put, to get everybody
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: back together at the same time, so to speak, and
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: then get everybody to understand or to realize that that's
• 26:57
  Speaker 6: the case. That's a long part of the day that
• 27:00
  Speaker 6: that goes on to where you don't really realize that.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Mike, Darren, and Mark told investigators that Noel's absence was
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: on their radar when they went out to look for
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Grouse that afternoon. Greg also said he went grouse hunting
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: in an area he thought Noel would be, but returned
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to the cabin after, quote, a couple of hours. By
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: 3 p.m., Darren returned from the woods and decided they
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: should begin a more formalized search. Darren told detectives that
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: all the boys participated in the search that afternoon except
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: for Greg, who Darren said had gone hunting, and Bob,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: who stayed at the cabin. They continued searching, and as
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the sun dipped below the horizon, they began to consider
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: calling law enforcement. There was some discussion on this point,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: given the alcohol and drugs in the cabin, but to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: their credit, the boys did the right thing. The Aiken
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office reported that at 6.18 p.m. on Saturday,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: November 1st, they received a missing persons report from Greg.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Steve told me that the deputies who responded to that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: initial report seemed unconcerned. Trails and roads cut through much
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: of that area. They assumed that even if Noel had
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: gotten himself turned around, he'd eventually find a road and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: make his way out.
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think that that's why the sheriff felt
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: so strongly. Maybe he was doing that just to kind
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: of appease us too, but, you know, hey, we've had
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: other people get lost up here, you know what I mean? Expect,
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: you know, us to come knocking back on the door
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: later tonight, bringing him back to you, and he's not
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: going to be well. He's going to be cold. He
• 28:27
  Speaker 6: might be a little bit confused. You know, understand that
• 28:30
  Speaker 6: he's had a tough day kind of a thing.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Up to that point, none of the boys reported any
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: kind of arguments among the group. But as they sat
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: around in the cabin waiting for news of their friend,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the tension reached a breaking point.
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: Everybody talking, you know, as collectively as a group is,
• 28:46
  Speaker 6: you know, oh my God, you know, what if he
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: doesn't come back? You know, what if the sheriff's wrong
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: as the hours are going by? We're all basically just
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: sitting around and kind of talking through the sheer magnitude
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: of what's like unfolding. Oh my God, you know, what
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: if even the parents are coming up and all this
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: other stuff and the reality starts slamming you into it.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: All the boys shared Steve's concern, except, allegedly, one. Dave
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: told deputies that Greg cooked spaghetti that night and was
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: cracking jokes like nothing was wrong. The other boys were
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: already wondering about the fact that Greg had been absent
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: during the initial search that afternoon. When he finally returned
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: from hunting, rather than join in the worry, he was
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: excited to show the other boys the black squirrel he'd
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: shot with his. 22. He continued to act unconcerned through
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the evening, even though he was closer to Noel than
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: any of the other brothers. and a fellow member of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the soccer team.
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: Everybody handles things a little bit differently. I get that.
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: But there was never a time where that shifted to
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: be in line with everybody else's worrisome in behavior and
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: posture and all those things.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: That contrast between Greg's attitude and the general vibe in
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the cabin eventually resulted in Greg and Steve exchanging some
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: heated words.
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: I mean, him and I got into it the first
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: night and he just comes on glued nose to nose
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: with me over it, which was something that I think
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: everybody thought was odd. Nobody else is acting like that.
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: You know, everybody else is underneath the same stress. We're
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: all in the same boat. You know what I mean?
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: As far as our parents being there. missing a friend,
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: you know, not knowing all of the same stressors that
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: are going on. But there's a completely different reaction.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Greg's odd behavior continued into the next day. The sheriff
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: opened a formal search on Sunday. He sent more deputies
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: to the scene who instructed the boys on how they
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: could help. Mark and Dave were walking through the woods
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: with Greg when all of a sudden Greg said, quote,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you two get the hell out of here. I don't
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: want you guys around me. When Dave and Mark asked
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: what was wrong, he replied that he wanted to go
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: look for Noel by himself. He gave Mark the keys
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to his car and told them to send someone to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: look for him if he wasn't back by morning. Dave's
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: account of this incident made its way to the other boys, who,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: it's safe to say, were extremely suspicious. Here's Bob.
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: We were trying to split up in groups, but he
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: was like, no, I'm going to go all by myself.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: I think I know which way he went. But he
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: was very persistent about Every time we went out to
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: look for him that he wanted to go by himself,
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: which we all kind of thought it was kind of
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: odd that he would do that. And I think he
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: drove his car like way off somewhere that we weren't
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: even looking.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Greg's insistence on being alone was troubling enough, but the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: idea that he may have driven outside what would later
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: become the search area raised all kinds of alarm bells.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: We reached out to Greg, but didn't receive a response
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: by the time of this recording. He did, however, give
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: an interview to the Twin Cities Reader for an article
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that came out in July of 1987. When asked about
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the rumors surrounding him, particularly his desire to search by himself,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: he said, quote, Of course, the question of Greg's whereabouts
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: didn't emerge in the immediate aftermath of Noel's disappearance. As
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: with many of the cases we've covered, law enforcement focused
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: its initial efforts on search and rescue, not criminal investigation.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: There was reason to believe that Noel might still be
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in those woods, and hundreds of search and rescue personnel
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: scoured the area. What those searchers found, and didn't find,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: is next on Blood Trails. Part 5.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: The Bog.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Matt Dalyusz had moved out of his parents' home by 1986,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: but when he heard his brother was missing, he rushed
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: back to help with the search.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I was up there for the search. I believe this
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: happened on Saturday. I heard about it on Sunday and
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: got up there on Monday. I mean, we had the
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: National Guard out there and we walked, well, they say
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: arm in arm, but we were within five to ten
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: feet of each other at all times.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: The sheriff opened the official search on Sunday, November 2nd.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: By Monday, about 100 National Guardsmen had been called in
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to scour the area. They were joined by officials from
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the Civil Air Patrol, the Minnesota Highway Patrol, and the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Minnesota DNR, who searched alongside dozens of volunteers. The Highway
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Patrol dispatched a helicopter, and dog teams were called in
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: later in the week. Local and state governments expended considerable resources,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: but the conditions on the ground were working against them.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Temperatures hit the 40s and 50s during the day, but
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: dipped into the teens at night. Rain mixed with snow
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: later in the week, which made tracking with dogs much
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: more difficult.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: It's covered in bogs. It's covered in tamarack swamps. It
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: is rugged terrain.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: That's Jim Riley again. Jim grew up hunting this area,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and he remembers worrying about stepping through the thick moss
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: and falling into the muddy water beneath.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Boggy material floats on top of water. That water could
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: be a foot deep. It could be 15 feet deep.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: And when you fall into it, if you weren't trained
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: how to get out of it, you're going to sink.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: And if you fight it, you're just going to go
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: deeper and deeper because you're just going to slip on
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: the bog as you try to climb. You're going to
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: go down.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Some of the National Guardsmen fell through the moss during
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the course of the search. It was usually no more
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: than knee deep, but some said they fell through to
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: their chests. These searchers showed signs of hypothermia after falling
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: into the frigid water, and some had to leave to
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: seek medical attention. Due to these injuries, Sheriff Bill Sobey
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: decided to pull out the guardsmen on Tuesday. He told
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the media several months later, quote, We had made as
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: thorough a sweep as we could expect, considering the conditions
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: in there. By then, it was so cold, it was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: pretty doubtful he could still be alive if he was
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: still out there. Erin Dalyusz, Matt's wife and Noel's high
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: school friend, thought for many years that Noel had fallen
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: into the water and hadn't come back up.
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: They thought he.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Wandered off and was in a bog. That's all I
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: ever heard. It was never blamed on anyone at that time.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: I wasn't privy to those records of the interviews and stuff,
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: so I thought he disappeared in a bog is what
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: was going around school.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Matt Dalyusz, however, was skeptical even at the time that
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: this had been his brother's fate.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: I had like hip boots on and I stepped in
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: every low depression in the ground that had water in it.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: I never saw any type of bog where we were looking.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: All the areas that we looked, there was nothing that
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: went higher than maybe just below my knee. It gets
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: so thick that you can't even walk in that stuff
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: where they talk about this bog. You just never get
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: to something that you can fall through Because you can't
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: get there. It's so thick and you can't walk through it.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Matt believes that even with the cocktail of chemicals flowing
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: through his brother's body, Noel wouldn't have tried walking through
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the thick undergrowth to reach the boggy areas. He would
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: have stayed on the paths, which would have eventually led
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: him to a road.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: I don't feel that he fell in a bog. I
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: think they used it as a scapegoat to discontinue the investigation.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: And I don't believe that they ever investigated it criminally.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: There's also the question of Noel's possessions, his gun, clothes,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: and anything else he was carrying.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Where did the gun go? Where did the clothes go?
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Where is this stuff? When people freak out from hypothermia,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: we found a guy up at our place that had
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: hypothermia one time, and they drop their gun, they tear
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: their clothes off, they go running crazy through the woods.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Searchers did find a face covering similar to the kind
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Noel was wearing when he left. But when one of
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: the boys mentioned this in an interview with investigators, a
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: deputy said, quote, we're not saying that it was his.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: If that item had been found today, the sheriff may
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: have been able to pull DNA from it to confirm
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: that it was Knoll's. But based on what's in the
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: case file, it's hard to tell how confident they were
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: that they'd found one of the missing boys' possessions. It's
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: also hard to understand why searchers weren't able to find
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: even more of Knoll's things. Matt believes that even if
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Knoll had fallen into a bog, A hunter or a
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: logger would have found his shotgun by now. Jim Riley,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: who thinks there's still a 50% chance Noel fell into
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: the water, agrees.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Why my brain scrambled on this thing. It just doesn't
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: make sense. There's something missing. And like I said, the
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: only way he's in that woods is if he's in
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: a bog. And I don't know why he wouldn't have
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: floated up. Because that's what happens. Things get pushed up.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: One explanation could be that the search area wasn't large enough.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: The sheriff mentioned that the boys were hunting two 500-acre parcels,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: which is where they focused their efforts. The case file
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: also includes a map that shows the parcels they searched
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: marked with an X. Based on this map, it looks
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: like the search extended roughly two square miles to the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: north and south of the cabin around the lake. The
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: search may have expanded from there, but as you already heard,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: the sheriff pulled out the National Guard on Tuesday, just
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: two days into the search. Volunteers and dog teams took
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: over on Wednesday, but their efforts were hampered by rain
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and snow.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: We got bloodhounds out there. They said the bloodhounds got
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: on a trail and it was getting dark out, so
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: they had to stop the trail. And it's like, what
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: do you mean you stopped the trail? Well, we'll go
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: back there tomorrow morning. Well, then it had rained overnight
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: and they said that that may have washed the trail away.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Then, on Friday, the sheriff decided to suspend the search entirely.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: We were expanding the search area. Until they called the
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: search off. The reason why they called the search off
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: was because deer hunting was starting. And they said, well,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: deer hunting is just like sending another search party out
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: there because the deer hunters are all going to look
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: for them too. We just don't want anybody out in
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: the woods during deer hunting season because it's not safe.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: We were in the process of expanding it when they
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: called it off. And I do believe that we probably
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: didn't go far enough.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: The Daluges weren't the only ones who were shocked by
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the sheriff's decision. Here's Erin.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Then we heard that they were going to end the search.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: So like 40 students went up to the Minnesota State
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Capitol and they lobbied to try to get the search
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: to continue.
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: But that didn't happen.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: When the sheriff concluded that he fell in the bog,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, we didn't. accept it and we didn't want
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: to accept it, but we didn't have anything to argue
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: because we had no evidence or anything to back up
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: that something happened and we weren't the ones doing the investigation.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, we didn't know how to do that back then.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: We reached out to the current Aiken County Sheriff, Daniel Guida,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to ask if anyone on his team remembers Noel's case
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and would be willing to talk to us. Sheriff Guida
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: sent us one sentence in response. This occurred before any
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: of my staff were hired here, and the folks that
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: were involved have no desire to talk with your team.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: If they did, I would have asked them all the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: questions we've raised so far, along with a few others.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Why didn't the sheriff immediately treat Noel's disappearance as suspicious?
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Why did he wait over two months to interview the
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: boys at the cabin? And, most concerning of all, why
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: didn't he do more to pursue the one boy who
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: claimed to know where Noel might be. That's next, after
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the break. Part 6.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Greg. I think he had gotten kicked out of Tartan
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: High School, so he came to our high school, and
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: he was an absolute loose cannon. I mean, I wouldn't
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: spend 10 minutes alone with that guy. You know how
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: you have animal instincts where you just, your hair stands
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: up on the back of your neck? That was Greg.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Not everyone I spoke with was so explicit in expressing
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: their dislike of Greg. But everyone agreed that of the
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: 10 boys who went to the cabin that Halloween, Greg
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: was the odd one out.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Greg probably wouldn't have been on that hunting trip without Noel.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Steve agreed with Matt's assessment. He told me that neither
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Noel nor Greg was on the original guest list because
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: neither played football. But everyone liked Noel, so when he
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: said he wanted to go, Mike agreed. Jim also mentioned
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: that Greg wouldn't normally have been invited, but.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: I think they played soccer together, number one. And I
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: think Noel was a friend to everybody. Noel gave everybody
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: a shot.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: That was ironic because, according to Jim, Greg approached others
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: with the opposite mindset.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: I remember we had some Hmong students at our school.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: You know, they'd just come out of Vietnam. And he
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: would pick on him all the time, call him chink
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: and all this stuff. But that was Greg. He came
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: into our world from another world, another school, and was
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: just a monster.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Greg was described at the time as a troubled young man.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: According to a profile of him in the Twin Cities Reader,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Greg had gotten in trouble in junior high for, quote,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: violent outbursts, and in the wake of these was denied
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: admittance to the nearby Tartan High School. The profile goes
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: on to say that he had a temper that scared
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the other boys, which you heard Steve mention earlier. The
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Twin Cities reader sums up Greg's attitude like this. Quote,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Here's Steve.
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: My recollection is he was on a different level. He
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: believed he was on a different level than anybody else there,
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: that he was more mature or more whatever than everybody
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: and could handle things.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: It's possible the suspicions and accusations that followed Greg were
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: rooted in nothing more than personal dislike and a desire
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: to find somebody, anybody to blame for Noel's disappearance. When
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the sheriff asked the eight other boys who they believed
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: might know something about Noel, all eight named Greg. even
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: though they didn't have any hard evidence to accuse him
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of murder or of hiding Noel's body. The problem was,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: at least from Greg's perspective, the outcast of the group
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: couldn't help inserting himself into the conversation. Aaron recalls that
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: in the days after Noel's disappearance, Greg appointed himself an
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: official messenger between the other students and the search parties.
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: Greg came back and he was like, he was the
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: speaker of the group and he would tell us little
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: tidbits like, Oh, today they found Noel and he was
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: by a campfire.
• 44:12
  Speaker 7: And it was bizarre. And so we're like all getting hopeful.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: Well, it turns out, you know, 20 years later when
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: I'm with Matt and we're reading the stuff, he really
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: wasn't the spokesperson. And I think he was feeding us information.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: There were rumors about Greg at the time. Like, I
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: don't know, the Pam rumor, Aaron, that she said that
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: he had unexplained mileage on his truck.
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: I don't.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Know how she would know that, but it was a rumor.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: She also said she opened up his glove box and
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: Noel's mosquito netting was in there and he got mad
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: and said, don't ever open that again.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Pam was Greg's girlfriend at the time of Noel's disappearance.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: She had told some of Noel's friends about several concerning
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: interactions she'd had with Greg. These rumors made their way
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: to detectives, so they interviewed her the same day they
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: interviewed the other boys. We don't have a recording of
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: this interview, but we do have the full transcript. Here's
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: a recreation of what Pam said word for word. In
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: this section of the interview, she's describing a phone conversation
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: she had with Greg on Christmas Eve, 1986.
• 45:21
  Speaker 9: He got a new gun for Christmas. And he said
• 45:25
  Speaker 9: to me, it's been my worst enemy. And I said, why?
• 45:28
  Speaker 9: And he said, because I thought of using it to
• 45:31
  Speaker 9: be with my friend. And I said, how do you
• 45:35
  Speaker 9: know Noel is dead? You know, no one has found
• 45:37
  Speaker 9: him or nothing. And he said, well, I know where
• 45:40
  Speaker 9: he is. And I just, I said, why? Because I
• 45:46
  Speaker 9: didn't think I'd heard right. And he said, I know
• 45:50
  Speaker 9: where he is. And then I said, where? He didn't
• 45:55
  Speaker 9: say nothing. And I just said, don't tell me. I
• 46:02
  Speaker 9: didn't want him to tell me.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: The deputies asked Pam whether Greg was hot-headed and might
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: get angry enough to hurt someone, and Pam admitted that
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: he was. Pam explained that another time they were watching
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: a news broadcast about someone who'd been murdered.
• 46:17
  Speaker 9: And I said, God, how can people kill people and
• 46:20
  Speaker 9: do that kind of stuff? And he goes, I could
• 46:23
  Speaker 9: kill somebody if I was mad enough. I wouldn't feel guilty.
• 46:27
  Speaker 9: And he said, all you have to do is kill
• 46:29
  Speaker 9: them and smell blood and drive them up a ways
• 46:32
  Speaker 9: and throw them into the woods. And he goes.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: The transcript indicates that at this point in the interview,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Pam burst into tears. When she regained her composure, the
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: deputies asked whether she thought Greg could actually kill someone
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and hide the body. She responded by recalling a time
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: that Greg talked about killing his father.
• 47:02
  Speaker 9: He said, It's.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Important to note that at the time of this interview,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Pam and Greg had recently broken up. The deputies knew this,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: but they still took the time to interview her, and
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: based on their questions, they appear to be taking her
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: statements very seriously. And yet, they also asked Pam twice
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: whether Greg might be saying some of these things not
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: because he killed Noel or knew where he was, but
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: to make himself the center of attention. Pam agreed that
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: might be the case, as did Erin when I posed
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the question to her.
• 47:45
  Speaker 7: Yeah, 100%.
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: I think he wanted the center of attention to be
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: on him and not Noel anymore.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: That might go a long way towards explaining Greg's statements,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: but Pam had one more story to tell. When Knoll's
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: case was reinvestigated in 2004, detectives interviewed Pam again. We
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: don't have a direct transcript of this interview, but we
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: do have a detailed summary written by agents with the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The report reads, Pam talked
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: about finding what was described as a camo-colored face mask
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: in the glove box of Greg's truck. When she asked
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Greg what it was, he stated it was Knoll's. She
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: stated that Greg explained that he had found it, but
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: she could not remember where he said he found it.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: She did know that he was very upset about the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: fact that she had seen it in the glove box
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: of his pickup truck. When asked about this again later
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: in the interview, she said she doesn't remember Greg keeping
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: other hunting gear in that truck. She said the face
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: mask was gone the next time she checked the glove box,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and she felt that Greg attached some kind of sentimental
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: value to that item. Why Pam failed to mention this
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: incident in 1987 is a mystery. It's possible she didn't
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: realize the importance of that face covering. It's also possible
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: her stories are the exaggerations of an angry ex-girlfriend. Pam
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: told investigators in 2004 that Greg was abusive, and she
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: believed he stalked her even after she was married to
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: her then-husband. We reached out for clarification, but she didn't
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: respond by the time of this recording. Greg was also
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: interviewed by two deputies on January 14, 1987. The interview
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: was contentious, and the deputies were clearly suspicious. They were
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: especially interested in asking Greg whether he knew the whereabouts
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: of Noel's 20-gauge shotgun. Noel was supposedly lost while carrying
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: his 12-gauge shotgun. but his father said he also owned a.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: 20.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: The deputies believed Greg knew where it was. Greg admitted
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: that Noel had loaned him the gun in the past,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: but claimed that Noel must have taken it back. He
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: reiterated that his friend only had one gun with him
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: on that trip, and the detectives weren't able to get
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: him to change his position. When the detectives expressed disbelief
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: that Greg and Noel were good enough friends to loan
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: guns back and forth, Greg said this, quote, Noel was
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: a likable guy. If you knew him more, if you
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: had a chance to talk to him like how you're
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: talking to me right now, you guys would like him.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: And then you'd be able to understand and realize. The
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: media reported later that Greg had at first agreed and
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: then refused to take a polygraph test. His psychologist had
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: put him in touch with someone in the law firm
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: of Ron Meshbesher, one of Minnesota's most famous defense attorneys.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Greg stopped talking to law enforcement after lawyering up, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: he never took a polygraph. In the end, the Aiken
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office failed to find Noel's remains or prosecute
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: anyone for his disappearance. On January 15, 1987, one day
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: after interviewing everyone involved, Deputy Harold Lucht wrote in a report,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: If Noel did drink as much as the others said
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: he did and sniffed as much cocaine as they said,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: it is my opinion that Noel would have had enough
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol in his body to wander for miles
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: before he would have passed out or died. I do
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: not think Noel was in the area that everyone thought
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: he was. And if there was an accident and Noel
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: did die, someone did get rid of the body. If
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: this did happen, I don't feel that anyone will say anything,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: even if they do know anything. I do have mixed
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: feelings on this case, and I do not know which
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: way to turn or what else I can do. Luck's
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: conclusion is shocking, both because he admits the search didn't
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: extend far enough and that he is powerless to do
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: anything about his suspicions. Part of that powerlessness was due
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to the fact that the criminal investigation was virtually non-existent
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: for days, if not weeks. Deputies asked most of the
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: boys in their January interviews if they knew the location
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: of Noel's extra clothing because it had apparently disappeared from
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: the cabin. That and other potential evidence was never collected.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: Here's Steve.
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: You're talking about a small town department. If that would
• 52:03
  Speaker 6: have been in a metropolitan department, shit would have been
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: locked down faster than You could snap a stick at it.
• 52:08
  Speaker 6: That cabin would have been a crime scene immediately, if
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: not very shortly afterwards. It was a podunk deal.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: Even after the fact, you know what I mean? It was,
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: you know, the most that ever happened to, you know,
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: to kind of pursue any more of any story was
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: when we got back and Maplewood brought us in and
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: had us, you know, do a tape deposition. That was it.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: And it was like, okay, where's more? You know what
• 52:34
  Speaker 6: I mean? There's got to be more here. This doesn't
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: just fall off.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Part seven, two hunters and a station wagon. The sheriff's
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: office may have failed to find Noel in 1986, but
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: in 2004, they hoped to make a break in the
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: case by working with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: And the theory they told us about reopening that investigation
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: was maybe there's somebody out there that has something on
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: their chest they want to get off after all these years.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: When we reached out to the BCA, they directed our
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: questions to the Aitkin County Sheriff's Office, and you already
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: heard how they responded. But I was able to get
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: in touch with a former BCA investigator named Paul Girardi,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: who worked on Noel's case.
• 53:23
  Speaker 10: There was really nothing more investigative that we could do.
• 53:29
  Speaker 10: There was no physical evidence to test. We interviewed everybody
• 53:34
  Speaker 10: that was there that night. Nothing really changed from their story.
• 53:40
  Speaker 10: You know, there's only three ways to solve crimes. You know,
• 53:43
  Speaker 10: the suspect confesses, there's an eyewitness, or there's physical evidence.
• 53:50
  Speaker 10: We didn't have any of those.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Comparing the old statements to the new ones, most are
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: roughly the same, with a few small differences that can
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: be attributed to the passage of 18 years. All except one.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Greg agreed to be re-interviewed, and the investigators met with
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: him at a restaurant in Hinkley, Minnesota on January 12, 2005.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: They note in their report that Greg appeared relaxed, made
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: eye contact, and answered their questions directly. He reiterated most
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: of the details you already heard, with one major addition.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: He claimed that while he and Darren were looking for Noel,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: they came across two other hunters. They appeared to be
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: living in a makeshift tent or lean-to and had food
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: cans strewn across the campsite. Greg told investigators that at
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: the time, his impression of these guys is that they
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: were poachers or up to no good. He even thought
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: these poachers might be responsible for Noel's disappearance. That's the
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: kind of information you might expect deputies to chase down.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: The problem is, there's no record of Greg saying anything
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: about these hunters in 1986 or 87. What's more, Darren,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: who Greg says was with him at the time, also
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: didn't mention these guys in his interviews with law enforcement.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: He mentioned looking for Noel in a lean-to, but never
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: says anything about anyone else being out in the woods.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: We don't know why Greg didn't mention this detail in 1986.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: He claimed in 2004 that he told either a deputy
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: or another employee at the sheriff's office, but there isn't
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: any record of this in the case file I received.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I asked Paul whether Greg's new statement raised any red
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: flags for BCA investigators.
• 55:31
  Speaker 7: It's hard to say.
• 55:33
  Speaker 10: Did he not volunteer that information because no one really
• 55:37
  Speaker 10: asked him or pressed him about it? Is he making
• 55:40
  Speaker 10: it up to deflect off of him?
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: It's hard to say.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Whatever the reason for Greg's inconsistency, his claims represent another
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: major theory about what could have happened to Knoll. Knoll's hat,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: found along the road at the end of the driveway,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: points to this possibility.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: That's why we wondered if maybe he was abducted at
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: one point.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: There were other people in the woods that weekend. Darren
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: told deputies in 1987 that he'd spoken with someone driving
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: a station wagon down the road that led to the cabin.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: When Darren was re-interviewed in 2004, he said he always
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: thought this station wagon had been driving suspiciously slow. About
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: a month after Noel disappeared, he and some friends returned
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: to the area to try to identify the owner of
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: that vehicle, but they couldn't find it. Jim Riley recalls
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: hearing these rumors in the months after Noel disappeared.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: There was a couple sketchy people and, you know, the
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: station wagon or that they could literally, you know, pull
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: up and take him. Hey, are you okay, buddy? Yeah, right. No, man. Well,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: get in. Yeah. Let's go party. And then the next
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: thing you know, but. He was not going to be,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: I don't think he was in a great state of mind,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: maybe alcohol, maybe some sort of drugs, that he was
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: going to fight off abductors.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: The abduction theory is possible, and my mind goes to
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: that single shot the boys heard shortly after Noel walked away.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: What's more, Noel wasn't the only teenage hunter to go
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: missing in Aiken County. Jim remembered hearing about this other
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: hunter in the early 90s, but he always assumed they
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: found his remains. He looked up an article during our
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: call And you can hear his disbelief in real time.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: It says he entered the Savannah State Forest with his
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: father on October 15th, never to be seen again.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: No kidding. How far away is that from where Noel was?
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: Not far. Really?
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: 18-year-old Jamie Tennyson went missing in 1992 during a hunting
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: trip in a state forest just 30 miles from where
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Noel went missing. A search was launched, but neither Jamie
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: nor any of his possessions were ever found. Jamie's family
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't suspect foul play. His father told the Duluth News
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Tribune in 2024 that he believes his son tried to
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: take shelter from the sudden snowstorm by digging himself under
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: some tree roots or an embankment. But he was overcome
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: by the cold, went to sleep, and never woke up.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: It's a reasonable theory. Still, as in Noel's case, it's
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: tough to understand why they never found any sign of
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: the missing hunter. It's also troubling in light of Noel's
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: disappearance just six years earlier. There aren't any known kidnappers
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: who were operating in Aiken County in the late 80s
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: and 90s, but it's possible someone flew under the radar.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: This possibility is part of the reason Matt, Aaron, Jim,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: and the others agreed to talk to me.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: If someone out there You know, heard a story about
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: someone that abducted a kid and says, God, I might
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: know something. Or if it finally cracks, you know, someone
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: that may have been involved, that would just be amazing.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: On April 14th, 1987, Noel's mother, Judy Hansen, wrote a
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: letter to Sheriff Sobey. She asked whether Greg had been
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: scheduled for a polygraph, whether the dogs had been dispatched again,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: and whether divers would search the deeper sections of the bog.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: She concludes, I hate to keep bothering you, but this
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: matter cannot go unresolved. I know that it is important
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: to you also in maintaining the perfect record in Aiken
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: County thus far, that you do not give up on
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: this until every possible approach has been exhausted. I can't
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: recall a more tragic sentiment than a mother apologizing for
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: bothering a sheriff about her missing son. In the end,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: she never got a chance to learn what happened to
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: her youngest child.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: My dad went to his grave without knowing. My brother
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: went to his grave without knowing. My mom went to
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: her grave without knowing. I don't want to do that.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: I would like to know what happened. I still feel
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: like somebody knows something. whether it be one of those theories,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: and I do believe that there was some cover-up of
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: some sort.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: It's hard for either Matt or Aaron to believe that
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: anyone would have wanted to kill Noel intentionally. Greg's temper
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: makes him an easy suspect, but none of the boys
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: reported that he harbored any animosity towards his teammate. Instead,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Aaron thinks there was an accident, and one or multiple
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: of the boys covered it up.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: Either they shot him by accident, shot him on purpose, or...
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: Somebody OD'd on drugs, which would be probably Noel, obviously Noel,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: and then whoever brought the.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: Drugs or the cocaine, they're all going to be in trouble.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: So they're scared young kids, and I believe that one
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: of them knows, or many know, and that they covered
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: it up.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: No one I spoke to thought it was likely that
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: all nine boys were in on a cover-up. Someone would
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: have said something by now.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 10: Every case that I've worked on, when there was multiple
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 10: people involved, the truth ultimately comes up. Someone that's least
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 10: culpable is going to talk. One of those boys would
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 10: have talked probably that day or soon after.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: The fact that Steve and Bob agreed to talk to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: me all these years later also speaks to their innocence.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: And for the boys who were innocent, this experience has
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: never left them.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: You know, I didn't want to go to school. I
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 5: wanted to go back up there all the time and
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: help look. It was tough losing somebody and then not
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: knowing what happened to them. I do think about them
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: quite often. There's been times, too, it's almost kind of
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: like you see somebody that you kind of recognize, but
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: you don't. But then you kind of think the renderings
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: of him being right now, maybe that was the guy.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: When I was younger, it was pretty traumatic.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Steve told me he had an opportunity some time ago
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: to help search for an autistic man who'd gone missing
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: from a hunting camp in Wisconsin. Steve had just worked
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: a 24-hour shift at his job, but he and some
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: friends decided to go help.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: This is a chance to go get closure. He walked
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: away from a camp on his own and they couldn't
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 6: find him. They had the same kind of a situation,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: hundreds of thousands of people looking for him for days
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 6: and sure as shit. They called the search off and said,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: that's it. We said, no, we need one more pass.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 6: And we found them. So to say that it doesn't
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: follow you, it's something that, yeah, you're searching for. I
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 6: thought that was going to help. It did, but not completely.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: One of the hardest things for a family in this
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: situation is letting go of the belief that their loved
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: one is still out there. Matt doesn't believe Noel would
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: have wanted to run away from his family. His parents
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: were divorced, but Noel was by all accounts a happy kid. Still,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: rumors persisted that Noel had run off somewhere and started
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: a new life. That hope is a double-edged sword, but
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Matt says he now believes his brother is no longer
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: on this earth.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: When my dad was in hospice, he was on his deathbed,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: and Aaron and I sat next to my dad the
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: entire time. In the end, you could tell he's kind
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: of in between here and his next life, and He's
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: kind of just looking up with his eyes closed. He's going, oh, oh.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: And he did it for a few hours or whatever.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: And at one point I said, I just walked over
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: to him and I just said, what is it, Dad?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: Do you see Noel or something? What is it? And
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: he goes, oh, oh, like pointing like he's right there.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Duh.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: So I do believe he's probably with my dad at
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: this point.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Knoll disappeared in Aiken County, Minnesota, 115 miles north of Minneapolis-St.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: Paul.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: He was last seen leaving a cabin around Dam Lake
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: on November 1, 1986, around 5.45 a.m. If you know
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: or know someone who might know anything about Knoll's disappearance,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: get in touch with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: at 1-877-996-6622.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: I would love for someone to come forward and say,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: we screwed up. This is what happened.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 7: We know what happened. Here he is. And we can.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: Celebrate him and move on with our life and know
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: that he's in heaven.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: As we believe that's where he is.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: It's been 40 years, right? And we don't have closure yet.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: I go on a fishing trip. We toast to Noel
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: every fishing trip I go on with my buddies. They
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: were all up there looking for Noel and they're still
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: going on a fishing trip with me. So they would
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: like closure. They would like to know too. Bottom line
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: is just like to know what happened.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: you'd like to see images from this case, including photos
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: of Noel, portions of the case file and a map
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: of the area, head on over to themeateater.com slash bloodtrails
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and click on the case file for this episode. You
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: can also watch a video version of this podcast by
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: going to YouTube and searching for Blood Trails. Huge thanks
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: to everyone who agreed to talk to me for this episode.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Matt and Aaron Daluj, Bob Galbraith, Jim Riley, Dr. Oliver Grundman,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: and Steve. These aren't easy memories to relive, so I
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: especially appreciate Noel's friends and family coming forward to tell
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: me more about him. If you have any thoughts or
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: opinions about this episode or know another case you think
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: we should cover, send me an email at bloodtrailsatthemeateater.com. See
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: you next time and stay safe out there.