Latest / Crime and Horror / They went looking for a lost city in the Brazilian jungle - MrBallen

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They went looking for a lost city in the Brazilian jungle - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Our two stories today are both about people who believed
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Speaker 1: in something so strongly that it informed every single choice
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Speaker 1: they made, and unfortunately for them, those choices led them
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Speaker 1: down very dangerous paths. But before we get into today's
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Speaker 1: two stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark
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Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, and you've come to
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Speaker 1: the right place, because that's all we do, and we
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Speaker 1: upload two, three even four times every week. So if
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Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, the next time the like
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Speaker 1: button sneezes in public, instead of you know, politely saying
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Speaker 1: get into today's stories. One afternoon in November of nineteen eighty,
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Speaker 1: twenty eight year old John Reid sat at a table
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Speaker 1: on a hotel Veranda in the tiny village of Barcelos, Brazil,
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Speaker 1: which was a two day boat ride up a river
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Speaker 1: from the Amazon Jungle's largest city of Manaos, And sitting
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Speaker 1: across from John was the legendary chief of the Uga
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Speaker 1: Mongolula tribe, Tatunka Naara. Now John had been in Barcelos
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Speaker 1: for about ten days now, and in that time he'd
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Speaker 1: already spoken to Tatunka many times. But still it was
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Speaker 1: like every conversation they had gave John this incredible sense
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Speaker 1: of awe. He really felt like his whole life had
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Speaker 1: been leading up to this exact moment of being here
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Speaker 1: in Barcelos about to go on this grand adventure. So
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Speaker 1: Barcelos and Tatunka were very far away from where John
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Speaker 1: had grown up. I mean, this was a very foreign place.
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Speaker 1: John grew up in San Francisco, California, but even growing
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Speaker 1: up in those suburbs as a kid, he had always
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Speaker 1: dreamed of coming here and literally meeting Tatunca. So it
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Speaker 1: was like surreal he had really done this. And if
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Speaker 1: things from here on out went the way John hoped
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Speaker 1: they would, he might never have to even go back
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Speaker 1: to America because John was on a bona fide quest.
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Speaker 1: John was in Barcelos to be the person who finally
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Speaker 1: found the long lost city of Akacor. Now, there was
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Speaker 1: almost no record of the city ever actually existing, except
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Speaker 1: for in one book called The Chronicle of Akacor, which
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Speaker 1: was by this author and journalist named Carl Bruger. Carl
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Speaker 1: wrote that Akacor was the capital city of a twelve
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Speaker 1: thousand year old civilization similar to the Incas or ancient
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Speaker 1: Egyptians in that they'd lived thousands of years ago and
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Speaker 1: had a big empire and an extremely advanced civilization for
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Speaker 1: their time. But according to Carl, Akacor and its people
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Speaker 1: were way better because they were descendants from actual gods.
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Speaker 1: When the Europeans eventually came to the Amazonian jungle, the
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Speaker 1: people of Akacor did not get wiped out because they
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Speaker 1: went underground, and it was there underground that they rebuilt
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Speaker 1: their capital and literally hid their civilization from the modern world.
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Speaker 1: And in fact, the legend said that they actually still
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Speaker 1: live there now, guarding a treasure that had been given
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Speaker 1: to them by the gods. Now most people called Carl's
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Speaker 1: book complete fiction and said that its author just sort
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Speaker 1: of made it up to make money. But John hadn't
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Speaker 1: paid any attention to the naysayers, and any possible doubts
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Speaker 1: that he had had had completely disappeared the moment he'd
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Speaker 1: finally met Tatunka. So Tatunka was not only a famous
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Speaker 1: chief who knew the Amazon like the back of his hand,
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Speaker 1: but more importantly, at least to John, he'd actually been
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Speaker 1: interviewed in Carl's book, than he was said to be
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Speaker 1: the one known person who'd actually been to Akacor who
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Speaker 1: was still alive. And here Totunka was in the flesh,
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Speaker 1: sitting across the table from John, in all his Amazonian glory.
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Speaker 1: He wore just a loincloth, and he had that same
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Speaker 1: turtle tattoo that the book described. So John knew he
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Speaker 1: was the guy. He was the chief he'd been looking for.
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Speaker 1: And to John, if Tatunka was real, well, then surely
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Speaker 1: everything else in that book was real too. Right now,
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Speaker 1: though neither John nor Toatunka were saying anything, which was
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Speaker 1: unusual because normally their meetings were very animated, as Tatunka
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Speaker 1: regaled John with all these amazing stories about Aka Kor
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Speaker 1: and what it was like there in his very heavily
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Speaker 1: accented English. But hearing these stories hadn't been enough for John,
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Speaker 1: who really wanted to know where Akacor actually was so
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Speaker 1: that he could actually see it with his own eyes. Now,
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Speaker 1: so far, Tatunka had not told John where it was.
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Speaker 1: He'd said that the people of Akacor wanted to stay hidden.
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Speaker 1: You know, their survival depended on it, and so he
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Speaker 1: was not going to give up their location. But today
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Speaker 1: John feel that something was different, because just a few
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Speaker 1: minutes ago, John had asked Tatunka again about literally going
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Speaker 1: to Acacor, And now Tatunka had been very quiet for
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Speaker 1: a very long time, like he was thinking about whether
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Speaker 1: or not to finally reveal its location. And so John
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Speaker 1: patiently waited, and as he sat there in this really
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Speaker 1: intense silence, it was like he could almost feel Tatunka's
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Speaker 1: deep wisdom oozing off of him in waves. And then finally,
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Speaker 1: in his soft, very fragmented English, Tatunka began to speak.
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Speaker 1: Almost nine years later, on an evening in the spring
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Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty nine, John's sister, thirty five year old
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Speaker 1: Sandy Reid, pulled into the driveway of her San Francisco
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Speaker 1: area home and got out of her car to check
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Speaker 1: the mailbox. Sandy had just gotten back from her sales job,
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Speaker 1: and she was tired and bleary eyed as she reached
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Speaker 1: into the box and sort of mindlessly pulled out a
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Speaker 1: stack of mail. But as she began sorting through the mail,
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Speaker 1: the return address on one of the envelopes made her stop.
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Speaker 1: It was a letter that was postmarked from Germany, and
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Speaker 1: Sandy didn't know anybody who lived in Germany, and so
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Speaker 1: she really wasn't sure what to expect as she quickly
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Speaker 1: ripped it open, but as her eyes scanned the lines
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Speaker 1: on the page, her hands began to shake uncontrollably. The
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Speaker 1: letter was from a German detective who said that he
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Speaker 1: was writing about her brother, John and that they were
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Speaker 1: sure something bad had happened to him. So John, Sandy's brother,
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Speaker 1: had gone to Brazil almost a decade earlier to find
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Speaker 1: the lost civilization of Acacor, and Sandy and her parents
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Speaker 1: hadn't heard from him since he left. Now, during the
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Speaker 1: first few weeks of John's trip, he'd written letters fairly regularly,
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Speaker 1: but then his last message had come in in late
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty and after that nothing. Now, of course, Sandy
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Speaker 1: had been worried about her brother, but she also hadn't
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Speaker 1: been that surprised he had gone radio silent, because Sandy
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Speaker 1: and her parents were well aware of that John was
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Speaker 1: obsessed with Akacor, and not just that he wanted to
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Speaker 1: go on this adventure find this this lost city in
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Speaker 1: the jungle. And then never come home. He wanted to
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Speaker 1: stay in the jungle, and so the kind of figure that,
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Speaker 1: you know, maybe he found Acacor, or maybe he just
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Speaker 1: found another village somewhere, But either way, the way they
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Speaker 1: looked at it is John likely wanted to start a
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Speaker 1: new life somewhere else, somewhere in the jungle, and that's
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Speaker 1: probably what he had done. So for nearly a decade
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Speaker 1: that sort of became their line of thinking. But now,
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Speaker 1: as Sandy is reading this letter, it was like suddenly
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Speaker 1: her understanding of what was going on with her brother
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Speaker 1: was totally and instantly fractured. Now she was both panicked
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Speaker 1: and also totally confused about the idea that one, John
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Speaker 1: was in trouble and two like, why is the German
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Speaker 1: police looking for her brother? Why is that happening? Why
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Speaker 1: aren't American police looking for my brother? But as her
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Speaker 1: eyes frantically scanned the page, she learned why. The detective
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Speaker 1: said they were invested the death or disappearance of John
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Speaker 1: and at least three other people, including a German citizen
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Speaker 1: who apparently had been lured into the Amazon by a
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Speaker 1: particular book about a place called Acacor. Now, this book,
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Speaker 1: according to the detective was complete junk. It was a
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Speaker 1: fabrication acacor, not a real place, but the detective believed
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Speaker 1: that someone was killing the people who came looking for it. Now,
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Speaker 1: the detective said they had tried to investigate, but the
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Speaker 1: Brazilian officials were being very uncooperative and he wasn't actually
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Speaker 1: allowed to go to Brazil to collect evidence to try
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Speaker 1: to figure out what happened to her, and so basically
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Speaker 1: he was stuck. But he wanted her to know they
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Speaker 1: were looking into her brother, and so by the time
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Speaker 1: Sandy finished reading this letter, she felt like, well, I
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Speaker 1: have to do something. You know, if the German police,
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Speaker 1: if they can't go to Brazil, maybe I can. Sure enough.
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Speaker 1: Later that's the same year. In June, Sandy arrived in
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Speaker 1: the city of Manous in the Amazon, then checked into
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Speaker 1: her hotel. She knew from John's letters from ten years
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Speaker 1: ago before he disappeared that this was the general area
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Speaker 1: he had been, and so her plan was, sort of
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Speaker 1: roughly speaking, to search the city, turn it upside down
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Speaker 1: and see what she could learn. Now, obviously this was
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Speaker 1: a big undertaking. Manouse is a big place, but Sandy
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Speaker 1: at this point was all in on this mission. Sandy
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Speaker 1: didn't really know why, you know, for ten years basically
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Speaker 1: she had no idea what happened to John. But it
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Speaker 1: was like now she felt like she was being called
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Speaker 1: to do whatever she had to do to go find
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Speaker 1: her brother. So she had quit her sales job, emptied
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Speaker 1: her savings account, bought a flight here, and brought along
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Speaker 1: a tape recorder like an audio tape recorder, so that
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Speaker 1: she would basically, you know, not miss anything, talk to
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Speaker 1: everybody and learn whatever she could and track it. And
9:52
Speaker 1: her plan basically was to just spend all her time
9:55
Speaker 1: interviewing locals recording what they say to try to figure
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Speaker 1: out if anybody knew about John or Acacor. But almost
10:02
Speaker 1: as soon as she actually began doing this on the
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Speaker 1: ground in Manouse, she realized how hard it was going
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Speaker 1: to be. I mean, it had been almost a decade
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Speaker 1: since her brother had gone missing, so when she met
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Speaker 1: with the Brazilian law enforcement, they had virtually no details
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Speaker 1: about his disappearance and really couldn't tell her anything useful.
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Speaker 1: And when Sandy spoke to local residents, all she heard
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Speaker 1: were endless rumors with no actual evidence. And on top
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Speaker 1: of that, all the rumors she heard sort of contradicted
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Speaker 1: each other. Some said a white man matching John's description
10:32
Speaker 1: had just recently been seen on the outskirts of Manous,
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Speaker 1: But then another person claimed John had been shot years
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Speaker 1: ago and his bones had been found deep in the jungle.
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Speaker 1: And then yet another person said, Nope, none of that's true.
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Speaker 1: What really happened is John found a tribe in the Amazon,
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Speaker 1: not the people of Acacorp, but another tribe and he
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Speaker 1: had decided to just live with them. Now. Even though
10:54
Speaker 1: all this information she was getting was sort of all
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Speaker 1: over the place, there still was one common reaction that
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Speaker 1: almost everybody Sandy spoke to had fear. Each time Sandy
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Speaker 1: asked about Akacor, people would sort of clam up like
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Speaker 1: they were scared of it. Now they all clearly knew
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Speaker 1: about it, and most of the time when she brought
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Speaker 1: it up, she was warned to sort of leave it alone, like,
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Speaker 1: don't talk about that, and that in some ways looking
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Speaker 1: for Akacor could get her in trouble or even killed.
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Speaker 1: So as the days wore on, Sandy just felt herself
11:25
Speaker 1: feeling more and more confused and anxious, and each night,
11:29
Speaker 1: as she laid in her hotel bed, she wondered if
11:31
Speaker 1: she should just give up, that this was impossible. But
11:34
Speaker 1: then it was like every night, after she'd drift off
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Speaker 1: to sleep, she would have a dream about John. It
11:39
Speaker 1: was like he was haunting her, and he would say
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Speaker 1: to her in these dreams that Acacor was not what
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Speaker 1: he thought it would be. So just about every morning
11:47
Speaker 1: when she woke up, she'd have this sort of refound
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Speaker 1: sense of purpose and she would continue to look for
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Speaker 1: her brother, but it just kept going nowhere. However, during
11:57
Speaker 1: her last few days in manouns based basically on finances,
12:00
Speaker 1: like she was running out of money and would have
12:02
Speaker 1: to go home soon. During that time period, she heard
12:06
Speaker 1: another rumor, and that was that John had gone into
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Speaker 1: the jungle to find Acacor, but he hadn't gone in
12:14
Speaker 1: there blind. A local chief named Tatunka had told John
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Speaker 1: how to get there. Now by this point, Sandy had
12:22
Speaker 1: spent three weeks in Manaus in its surrounding areas and
12:26
Speaker 1: really felt completely overwhelmed. I mean, she really hadn't made
12:29
Speaker 1: much progress anywhere. There was definitely a sense of fear
12:33
Speaker 1: around Acacor, and she was even starting to feel that
12:36
Speaker 1: that like looking into this could potentially get her into trouble,
12:39
Speaker 1: and in many ways, hearing about this new person, Tatunka,
12:43
Speaker 1: whether they were real or not, it actually made her scared.
12:47
Speaker 1: She would love to learn what he knew, to go
12:49
Speaker 1: find Tatunka and see if he knew where her brother was,
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Speaker 1: but there was also a part of her that just
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Speaker 1: feared even pursuing this lead. It was like, all of
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Speaker 1: a sudden, Brazil just felt too overwhelming for her, and
13:02
Speaker 1: so after learning about Tatunca, Sandy's reaction was actually to
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Speaker 1: pack up and leave. But after leaving Brazil, Sandy did
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Speaker 1: not just, you know, fly to California and give up
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Speaker 1: on the search for her brother. She just decided to
13:15
Speaker 1: look for her brother, sort of in a roundabout way.
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Speaker 1: She had heard from a local in Brazil that there
13:20
Speaker 1: was a Swiss tourist who might have seen John in
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Speaker 1: the jungle, and so after Sandy left Brazil, she went
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Speaker 1: to Switzerland and spoke to this tourist, and then after
13:29
Speaker 1: speaking with that tourist, she flew to Germany and she
13:32
Speaker 1: met with that detective who had sent her the initial
13:35
Speaker 1: letter she got, But neither the tourist nor the German
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Speaker 1: detective had any new information, so by the end of
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Speaker 1: all that, Sandy still had no answers, and by this
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Speaker 1: point she also had no money. She had completely drained
13:48
Speaker 1: her savings account trying to find her brother and it
13:50
Speaker 1: had not worked. Now Sandy considered just going home. I mean,
13:54
Speaker 1: she was broke, she was scared, and really she hadn't
13:57
Speaker 1: actually gotten anywhere in her search for her brother. But
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Speaker 1: there was still one lead that she had not investigated,
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Speaker 1: and that was Tatunka. Because basically it just felt too scary.
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Speaker 1: She'd abandoned it and left for Switzerland and Germany. But
14:12
Speaker 1: Sandy felt like now if she never went back to
14:15
Speaker 1: Brazil to speak with him, she would never get any
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Speaker 1: real answers. It felt like Tatunka was the key and
14:21
Speaker 1: she had been cowardly. She needed to go back there.
14:24
Speaker 1: She needed closure. So she went back to America, but
14:27
Speaker 1: she only stayed long enough to earn some quick cash
14:29
Speaker 1: cleaning houses so that she could finance another trip to Brazil.
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Speaker 1: On June twenty first, nineteen ninety so, about a year
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Speaker 1: after she had made her first trip, Sandy did return
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Speaker 1: to Brazil. She took a small plane to the village
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Speaker 1: of Barcelos, which she had learned was where Tatunka lived
14:45
Speaker 1: this time, though she brought some backup with her, a
14:48
Speaker 1: documentary producer and also a reporter. She felt a lot
14:51
Speaker 1: safer coming here with a group, but also she did
14:54
Speaker 1: want to draw attention and resources to eventually help her
14:58
Speaker 1: with her brother's case. When they landed at the Rundown Airport,
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Speaker 1: Sandy and her small team deboarded and walked straight into
15:04
Speaker 1: the tiny village. In the time that she had been
15:06
Speaker 1: back in America earning cash, Sandy had done some research
15:10
Speaker 1: on Barcelos, so she knew by now that Carl Bruger's
15:13
Speaker 1: book The Chronicle of acacor the book that you know
15:16
Speaker 1: John had been so interested in that led him on
15:19
Speaker 1: this quest, had really spawned an entire economy in Barcelos.
15:23
Speaker 1: Since Taurus came to talk to Tatunka and to try
15:26
Speaker 1: to find it, you know, he was in Barcelos. But
15:28
Speaker 1: as far as Sandy could tell, the tourist boom had
15:32
Speaker 1: not done much for the village of Barcelos. It was
15:34
Speaker 1: dirty and the houses were all very run down shacks.
15:38
Speaker 1: She'd read that only about three thousand people lived there,
15:41
Speaker 1: and between all of them they only had one phone.
15:44
Speaker 1: And so as the group wandered around looking for a
15:47
Speaker 1: friendly face to give them directions. Sandy spotted a woman
15:50
Speaker 1: who was hanging her laundry up on a line outside
15:52
Speaker 1: her home, so Sandy approached her and asked if she
15:55
Speaker 1: knew where Tatunka lived, and the woman immediately nodded, which
15:59
Speaker 1: Sandy exc Because Sandy had not just read up on Barcelos,
16:03
Speaker 1: she now knew a lot about Tatunka as well, and
16:05
Speaker 1: she knew that basically everybody in this area knew his name.
16:09
Speaker 1: He was a renowned chief who had once led an
16:11
Speaker 1: expedition for the famous explorer Jacques Cousteau, and he was
16:15
Speaker 1: a hero too. One time he had saved the lives
16:18
Speaker 1: of a dozen Brazilian soldiers after their plane had crashed
16:21
Speaker 1: in the Amazon, So the country's secret service was actually
16:25
Speaker 1: in Tatunka's debt. And also, of course, Tatunka was interviewed
16:29
Speaker 1: extensively in the chronicle Lebaka cor that book and was
16:33
Speaker 1: the only known person who'd actually been to the city
16:36
Speaker 1: and knew its location. But more recently, Tatunka had settled
16:40
Speaker 1: into a quieter life and was running a hotel and
16:43
Speaker 1: giving boat tours to visitors along the Rio Negro, and
16:46
Speaker 1: so Sandy got directions to Tatunka's hotel from this woman,
16:50
Speaker 1: and as Sandy and her team began heading deeper into
16:53
Speaker 1: the village to go meet the sky Sandy felt a
16:56
Speaker 1: mix of excitement and also fear. I mean, there was
16:59
Speaker 1: just something sort of heavy about finally meeting this guy. Eventually,
17:03
Speaker 1: the group came to what appeared to be a very
17:06
Speaker 1: isolated looking hotel surrounded by a wooden gate, and inside
17:10
Speaker 1: of the gated area, up on the veranda of this
17:13
Speaker 1: hotel was this very lean, shirtless man with a turtle
17:16
Speaker 1: tattooed on his chest, and Sandy knew immediately from the
17:20
Speaker 1: tattoo that that was Tetunka. As Sandy and her crew
17:24
Speaker 1: opened the gate and walked towards Tatunka, she pulled out
17:27
Speaker 1: a photo of her brother and held it up along with,
17:30
Speaker 1: you know, an explanation of why she was there. And
17:32
Speaker 1: Tatunka at first just kind of listened and watched as
17:35
Speaker 1: they approached him, but then as he began to hear
17:38
Speaker 1: what she was saying, he smiled and in broken English,
17:41
Speaker 1: he told Sandy he was surprised she hadn't come sooner,
17:44
Speaker 1: but Sandy didn't return his smile because as she stared
17:48
Speaker 1: at Tatunka, all she could think of was how wrong
17:52
Speaker 1: everything was. Tatunka's face, the way he spoke, the way
17:56
Speaker 1: he carried himself, none of it made any sense at all.
18:00
Speaker 1: It would turn out those dreams Sandy was having where
18:03
Speaker 1: her brother John would appear to her and tell her that,
18:06
Speaker 1: you know, Acacor was not like he thought it would be.
18:09
Speaker 1: It would turn out that was correct. Akacor didn't exist. However,
18:15
Speaker 1: it was not just a fake city created by that author,
18:19
Speaker 1: Carl Bruger to sell his book. No, it was something much,
18:23
Speaker 1: much weirder than that. That whole book was based almost
18:27
Speaker 1: exclusively on the stories of Tatunka, the legendary Amazonian chief
18:32
Speaker 1: who Sandy was now meeting, you know, in front of
18:34
Speaker 1: this weird hotel. But Tatunka, the man standing in front
18:38
Speaker 1: of Sandy, was not chief of anything. In fact, he
18:42
Speaker 1: wasn't even Amazonian. In reality, this man parading around as
18:47
Speaker 1: Tatunka was just some random German man named Gunther Hawk
18:51
Speaker 1: who had fled Germany for the Amazon to avoid paying
18:56
Speaker 1: child support to his ex wife in the nineteen sixties.
18:59
Speaker 1: But when he arrived in the Amazon. He wanted to
19:01
Speaker 1: blend in, but he didn't speak the language, and he
19:04
Speaker 1: had this this heavy German accent. So what do you do? Well,
19:09
Speaker 1: he created a whole made up story about a long
19:12
Speaker 1: lost civilization that he supposedly descended from, you know, Acacor.
19:16
Speaker 1: The Acacor story was designed by this guy just to
19:20
Speaker 1: keep him from having to pay child support. The problem
19:24
Speaker 1: was the Acacor story, the legend he created worked too well.
19:29
Speaker 1: Gunther managed to convince local and even national authorities that
19:34
Speaker 1: he was an actual indigenous person, and then faithfully he
19:39
Speaker 1: also convinced this writer, Carl Bruger, that he really was
19:43
Speaker 1: from this lost civilization and sort of inadvertently created an
19:48
Speaker 1: entire tourism industry based on Acacor. And so when Carl's
19:53
Speaker 1: book came out, Gunther found himself in a mind to
19:56
Speaker 1: keep his tourist revenue stream afloat. He had to keep
20:00
Speaker 1: pretending that Acacor was real and he knew where it was,
20:03
Speaker 1: while also never letting anybody get there. And both Sandy
20:08
Speaker 1: and the German police believe that to protect this secret,
20:11
Speaker 1: Gunther killed any tourists who insisted on actually visiting Acacor,
20:18
Speaker 1: including Sandy's brother John Reid. Gunther Hawk has never been
20:23
Speaker 1: charged with murder and denies ever hurting anyone. John Reid's
20:27
Speaker 1: body was never found. The author, Carl Bruger, was shot
20:31
Speaker 1: to death in nineteen eighty four in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
20:34
Speaker 1: and rumors still circulate about who killed him and why.
20:37
Speaker 1: And as of twenty twenty four, gunther Hawk was confirmed
20:40
Speaker 1: to be alive and still living in Barcelos and still
20:44
Speaker 1: insisting that Acacor is real. To this day, explorers still
20:49
Speaker 1: traveled to Barcelos to try and find it. On the
21:08
Speaker 1: night of November fourteenth, nineteen ninety four, fifty six year
21:12
Speaker 1: old DeWitt Finley drove his pickup truck up a snowy
21:15
Speaker 1: single lane highway in the Oregon Mountains. It was late,
21:18
Speaker 1: but DeWitt was incredibly alert and it was taking every
21:21
Speaker 1: ounce of his concentration to not crash. It was snowing really,
21:26
Speaker 1: really hard, and the road was incredibly icy. Not to mention,
21:30
Speaker 1: DeWitt was towing a camper van behind his truck, and
21:33
Speaker 1: the van was sort of sliding around and causing DeWitt
21:36
Speaker 1: to feel really unbalanced as he drove and so as
21:38
Speaker 1: he's driving along, you know, white knuckling here, all he
21:41
Speaker 1: could think about was how having taken this route was
21:44
Speaker 1: such a bad idea. So DeWitt was a traveling salesman
21:48
Speaker 1: and he sold fancy camper vans, which was why he
21:51
Speaker 1: had one on the back of his truck, to drive
21:53
Speaker 1: it around from city to city and to show it
21:56
Speaker 1: off to potential new customers. He'd just been in the
21:58
Speaker 1: Oregon coastal town of Koup and was now driving to
22:02
Speaker 1: Grant's Pass, which was in the southern part of the state. Now,
22:05
Speaker 1: the drive should have only taken about two and a
22:07
Speaker 1: half hours, but DeWitt had decided to take a longer,
22:10
Speaker 1: more scenic route that cut through the Mountainous National Forest.
22:15
Speaker 1: Except that now instead of experiencing a tranquil, peaceful drive
22:19
Speaker 1: with lush, stunning Oregon scenery, he was stuck in a
22:23
Speaker 1: snowstorm and fighting his way up a steep, heavily forested
22:27
Speaker 1: slope with a cliff on one side. Now, for just
22:30
Speaker 1: about anybody this would be a harrowing experience, but for DeWitt,
22:34
Speaker 1: I mean, he was especially out of his element. He
22:37
Speaker 1: was from sunny Los Angeles, California, Like he never drove
22:41
Speaker 1: in conditions like this, and he had only very recently
22:44
Speaker 1: moved to Montana this past summer with his fiance and
22:47
Speaker 1: two kids. And while Montana did have some harsh winters,
22:51
Speaker 1: he hadn't experienced them yet, so this was like really
22:54
Speaker 1: a novel experience. But DeWitt was a very religious man,
22:58
Speaker 1: and so as this drive was spiking his heart rate
23:01
Speaker 1: and making him so stressed out, he's white knuckling his
23:04
Speaker 1: way up this pass, all he began to do was
23:07
Speaker 1: just quietly internally pray, and for a time this all
23:12
Speaker 1: seemed to work. You know, maybe the prayer was working.
23:14
Speaker 1: He was staying on the road, he was making his way.
23:17
Speaker 1: He thought, I'm gonna get through this. But eventually the
23:19
Speaker 1: truck began to slide on the slippery conditions, and DeWitt
23:23
Speaker 1: sort of panicked and hit the brakes as hard as
23:25
Speaker 1: he could, which caused the vehicle to slide even more.
23:28
Speaker 1: And then the next few seconds were just a blur
23:30
Speaker 1: of snow and darkness and trees, and then after what
23:33
Speaker 1: felt like an eternity where he's thinking, oh my god,
23:35
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go off the cliff, his truck slammed into
23:39
Speaker 1: a snowbank, keeping him from falling off the cliff. After that,
23:43
Speaker 1: everything went quiet and still, and for a moment, DeWitt
23:47
Speaker 1: just sat there, completely stunned. His heart was hammering in
23:51
Speaker 1: his chest and his whole body was vibrating with adrenaline.
23:54
Speaker 1: But after a few minutes DeWitt calmed down enough that
23:56
Speaker 1: he was able to kind of assess the situation. You know.
23:59
Speaker 1: Number one, he didn't go off the cliff, so that
24:02
Speaker 1: was a huge win. He survived, And then he checked
24:05
Speaker 1: himself out and amazingly, he didn't appear to have any injuries.
24:09
Speaker 1: And also from the inside, it seemed like his truck
24:12
Speaker 1: was okay too. I mean, maybe he dinged up the outside,
24:14
Speaker 1: you know, from hitting the snow bank, but it just
24:17
Speaker 1: seems like he slid off the road and he was
24:19
Speaker 1: basically okay. To this felt like a miracle. He immediately
24:23
Speaker 1: felt like all that praying he had done had worked.
24:25
Speaker 1: You know, God was looking out for him and saved him. However,
24:28
Speaker 1: when DeWitt put his truck in reverse and attempted to
24:31
Speaker 1: drive out of the snow bank, his tires just spun.
24:35
Speaker 1: They couldn't get traction, and so he realized, yeah, I
24:38
Speaker 1: survived the crash, but I may not be able to move,
24:42
Speaker 1: and I am up in the middle of the wilderness
24:44
Speaker 1: of the Oregon Mountains. It's snowing like crazy, Like what
24:47
Speaker 1: do I do? Also, it's the middle of the night.
24:50
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a phone, doesn't have a radio, so
24:52
Speaker 1: he has no way to call anyone for help. He
24:55
Speaker 1: also wasn't expecting to be stuck, you know, by the
24:58
Speaker 1: side of the road, so we didn't have food or
25:00
Speaker 1: water or really any provisions. And he also hadn't seen
25:04
Speaker 1: another vehicle for a really long time, so he had
25:08
Speaker 1: no idea how frequently people used this road, especially in
25:11
Speaker 1: the winter. And also he wasn't even supposed to be
25:15
Speaker 1: on this route, so if anybody went looking for him,
25:19
Speaker 1: they wouldn't look here. However, just as you know, panic
25:23
Speaker 1: began to overwhelm him, DeWitt took a deep breath, said
25:26
Speaker 1: another prayer. You know, God had already saved him once,
25:29
Speaker 1: and DeWitt just had to trust that he would do
25:33
Speaker 1: it again. Somehow, DeWitt was able to calm down enough,
25:36
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it was his faith that he was
25:38
Speaker 1: able to sleep. However, when he woke up, it was clear,
25:43
Speaker 1: you know, one, it's still snowing outside, but worse, it
25:45
Speaker 1: had been snowing clearly all night, because his truck was
25:48
Speaker 1: now way more buried in snow. The snow literally made
25:51
Speaker 1: it all the way up to the edge of his window.
25:54
Speaker 1: It's like multiple feet of snow out there. And so
25:57
Speaker 1: DeWitt he turned his car back on and he threw
25:59
Speaker 1: it in again, seeing if maybe now he'd be able
26:02
Speaker 1: to back out, you know, pretty unlikely, but as soon
26:05
Speaker 1: as he hit the accelerator, the tire is clearly spun.
26:07
Speaker 1: He didn't move. Now it was daylight, and so he's thinking, Okay,
26:11
Speaker 1: maybe now I can look around and see a house,
26:14
Speaker 1: a building, or some sign of life somewhere in the distance,
26:17
Speaker 1: just to give me a sense of how close I
26:19
Speaker 1: am to other people. But when he looked out his window,
26:24
Speaker 1: all he could see in every direction were trees and snow.
26:28
Speaker 1: He actually couldn't even see the road anymore and had
26:30
Speaker 1: no idea where it was since he'd gotten all turned
26:32
Speaker 1: around during the crash. And so he's just like in
26:35
Speaker 1: this white out basically. And so DeWitt at this point
26:38
Speaker 1: was trying his best not to panic, and so instead
26:41
Speaker 1: he focused on you know, what do I have? What
26:43
Speaker 1: supplies do I have? Right? Now, and he sort of
26:45
Speaker 1: began looking around the inside of his truck, and he
26:47
Speaker 1: found he actually had a lot of useful stuff in here.
26:51
Speaker 1: There were some cushions and a sheet, so he could
26:53
Speaker 1: make a bed for himself to curl up in, and
26:55
Speaker 1: he could also use the truck's heater to keep himself
26:57
Speaker 1: warm and to melt snow for drinking water. He'd obviously
27:00
Speaker 1: just have to be careful not to burn too much fuel. Also,
27:03
Speaker 1: DeWitt had the camper that was attached to the back
27:05
Speaker 1: of his truck, which you would think would be great
27:08
Speaker 1: for a situation like this, you can just live in
27:11
Speaker 1: the camper until you get rescued. Except DeWitt knew this
27:15
Speaker 1: was not really a real camper. It was a demo model.
27:18
Speaker 1: It was unfurnished, There was no heat, no supplies, nothing.
27:21
Speaker 1: It was really just a shell, so not that useful.
27:24
Speaker 1: But once DeWitt was done doing this mental inventory, you know,
27:27
Speaker 1: even though in some ways he had basically realized I
27:30
Speaker 1: have very little, he actually felt a sense of calm
27:33
Speaker 1: come over him. He felt like, you know what, I
27:36
Speaker 1: have enough to keep me alive for a while, and
27:39
Speaker 1: in that time I'm going to be found. And so
27:42
Speaker 1: he would just leave it up to God to save
27:44
Speaker 1: him once again. Two days later, the storm finally let up,
27:48
Speaker 1: but even with now clear weather, the snow didn't melt,
27:51
Speaker 1: and then soon after that another storm came and dumped
27:54
Speaker 1: more snow and ice all over his truck. Also during
27:58
Speaker 1: this timeframe, DeWitt didn't see any other cars or trucks
28:01
Speaker 1: or plows, so he had a feeling that the road
28:04
Speaker 1: he had crashed on was now so clogged with snow
28:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't even usable. But even though at this point
28:11
Speaker 1: DeWitt was extremely hungry, I mean he had no food,
28:14
Speaker 1: it's been several days here, he also was warm and
28:18
Speaker 1: dry inside of his truck, and critically he was also hydrated.
28:22
Speaker 1: He'd been drinking plenty of melted snow, so he was,
28:25
Speaker 1: you know, surviving as best as he could. And then
28:27
Speaker 1: also to ward off all the negative intrusive thoughts about
28:31
Speaker 1: what could happen to him out here, DeWitt had begun
28:34
Speaker 1: to pass the time by meticulously crossing off the days
28:39
Speaker 1: in his yearly planning calendar and also writing letters. DeWitt
28:43
Speaker 1: always carried around pen, paper and envelopes inside of his workbag,
28:47
Speaker 1: which he obviously had with him, so he had begun
28:49
Speaker 1: writing to the people he loved, his fiance, his sons,
28:52
Speaker 1: and even to his boss to explain what had happened
28:55
Speaker 1: and why he had missed work. And in each letter,
28:58
Speaker 1: DeWitt did not sound scared or sad. In fact, if anything,
29:03
Speaker 1: he seemed rejuvenated. He seemed happy. He would reflect on
29:08
Speaker 1: how much love and joy was in his life and
29:10
Speaker 1: how lucky he was to have that, and he would
29:12
Speaker 1: tell the people he was writing letters to, like his
29:14
Speaker 1: fiance and sons, that he really wasn't worried. He knew
29:19
Speaker 1: he was going to be okay because God was clearly
29:22
Speaker 1: looking out for him. The days turned into weeks, but
29:26
Speaker 1: DeWitt continued to stay warm and basically comfortable and alive,
29:32
Speaker 1: even without any food. But DeWitt believed that his hunger
29:37
Speaker 1: actually was a sign that God was looking out for him.
29:41
Speaker 1: DeWitt had no idea how long somebody could live literally
29:44
Speaker 1: without eating. But after two months, you know, DeWitt had
29:48
Speaker 1: tracked the days in his calendar. Two months had gone by.
29:51
Speaker 1: DeWitt felt like I should be dead. I haven't eaten
29:54
Speaker 1: in two months, but he wasn't dead, and he felt
29:58
Speaker 1: like that was a sign God was keeping him alive
30:02
Speaker 1: for his eventual rescue. It has to be. On the
30:05
Speaker 1: morning of May twentieth, nineteen ninety five, a teenager along
30:09
Speaker 1: with his girlfriend, drove up the same mountain road that
30:12
Speaker 1: DeWitt had been on when he got into his accident.
30:14
Speaker 1: And even though it was May, there was quite a
30:17
Speaker 1: bit of snow still and the road was still quite icy,
30:20
Speaker 1: and about halfway up a particularly steep incline, this teenage
30:25
Speaker 1: kid lost control of his truck. It began to skid,
30:28
Speaker 1: and he went off the road and crashed into a snowbank. Luckily,
30:32
Speaker 1: the teenager and his girlfriend were okay, and for a
30:35
Speaker 1: minute they just sat there kind of dazed, and then
30:39
Speaker 1: the driver put the car in reverse and tried to move,
30:43
Speaker 1: but the car wouldn't move. The tires just spun. So
30:45
Speaker 1: eventually the teenager climbed out of the car to examine
30:49
Speaker 1: his vehicle to see if there was serious damage here
30:51
Speaker 1: or if he was just stuck in the snow. But
30:53
Speaker 1: when he did this, when he climbed out of his vehicle,
30:56
Speaker 1: he looked just up the road aways and off the
30:59
Speaker 1: side of the road, basically equal to where he was
31:01
Speaker 1: relative to the road was another vehicle. It was a
31:05
Speaker 1: pickup truck with a camper attached to it that was
31:08
Speaker 1: clearly half buried in the melting snow, And so the
31:12
Speaker 1: teenager told his girlfriend that he was going to go
31:14
Speaker 1: take a look in case, you know, somebody else had
31:16
Speaker 1: a wreck and they needed help. So this kid, he
31:20
Speaker 1: leaves his girlfriend and he hikes over to the truck.
31:23
Speaker 1: And when he gets there, he can't see inside of it.
31:25
Speaker 1: It's covered with too much snow. But he brushes off
31:27
Speaker 1: some of the snow, revealing one of the windows into
31:29
Speaker 1: the truck, and he looked in and for a second
31:32
Speaker 1: he couldn't quite see what was in there, but then
31:34
Speaker 1: eventually he saw it. And when he did, he just
31:37
Speaker 1: gasped and backed up. After DeWitt crashed, he was certain
31:42
Speaker 1: he was going to be rescued. He knew he was
31:44
Speaker 1: in an isolated part of this mountain. I mean, he
31:47
Speaker 1: clearly knew that, but he really believed that God was
31:51
Speaker 1: going to save him. He felt like it was God
31:53
Speaker 1: who kept him from going off the cliff, and now
31:55
Speaker 1: God was going to intervene and save him, that somebody
31:59
Speaker 1: was going to show up and rescue him effectively because
32:01
Speaker 1: of God. So because of that belief, because of how
32:05
Speaker 1: strongly he believed that. DeWitt did not get out of
32:09
Speaker 1: his truck. I mean, he got out, maybe to use
32:10
Speaker 1: the bathroom, but for the most part, he stayed in
32:13
Speaker 1: his truck. And unfortunately, had he just gotten out and
32:17
Speaker 1: really looked around, he would have seen there was actually
32:21
Speaker 1: a paved path that due to the way the winds
32:24
Speaker 1: whip on that side of the mountain, the snow doesn't
32:26
Speaker 1: stick to the ground, and so even with a huge snowstorm,
32:29
Speaker 1: he would have seen a black paved path going down
32:32
Speaker 1: the mountain side and he could have walked it down
32:35
Speaker 1: to civilization and it would have saved him. But DeWitt
32:38
Speaker 1: was so convinced that if he just waited here, somebody
32:41
Speaker 1: would save him, because God was going to save him again,
32:44
Speaker 1: he just didn't leave his truck. And then when he
32:48
Speaker 1: began to feel that incredible ache from the starvation, the
32:52
Speaker 1: fact that he wasn't dying, you know, months in with
32:55
Speaker 1: no food, it sort of built that resolve inside of
32:59
Speaker 1: him that clearly God has a plan. Clearly I should
33:03
Speaker 1: be dead right now and I am not. I need
33:05
Speaker 1: to maintain faith and I'm going to be saved. And
33:09
Speaker 1: in many ways that's beautiful. It's poetic in some ways,
33:12
Speaker 1: but it ultimately led to his death. That teenage driver
33:15
Speaker 1: who happened to get into a car accident up on
33:17
Speaker 1: that mountain road, who then saw the truck and the camper, well,
33:21
Speaker 1: that was obviously DeWitt's truck and camper, And when the
33:24
Speaker 1: teenager walked over and cleared the window and looked inside,
33:27
Speaker 1: he saw DeWitt who was deceased inside of the truck.
33:30
Speaker 1: DeWitt ultimately died of starvation, most likely on January nineteenth,
33:34
Speaker 1: which is the final day that he crossed off on
33:36
Speaker 1: his calendar. Thank you so much for watching today's episode.
33:45
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of it in the
33:46
Speaker 1: comments below, And remember, we have a whole playlist of
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Speaker 1: places you Can't go episodes ready for you to binge
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Speaker 1: right now, So go ahead and click here and give
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Speaker 1: them a watch. All right, until next time, see it