Latest / Luke's English Podcast / S1E23 - Interview with Jeni Decker_ Host of Down and Away_ Missing Person Case of Michael John Olson(M4A_128K)

Transcript

S1E23 - Interview with Jeni Decker_ Host of Down and Away_ Missing Person Case of Michael John Olson(M4A_128K) · Luke's English Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: On Tragedy. We cover cases that involve real people and
0:03
Speaker 1: real events. Episodes may include discussions of violence, criminal behavior,
0:09
Speaker 1: and loss. We share these stories to honor those impacted
0:12
Speaker 1: and to raise awareness, but they may not be suitable
0:15
Speaker 1: for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Today, we're pleased
0:45
Speaker 1: to welcome a very special guest to the podcast, Jenny Decker,
0:48
Speaker 1: the creator and host of Down and Away. Jenny is
0:51
Speaker 1: a talented storyteller and investigative podcaster who dives deep into
0:55
Speaker 1: missing persons, cases and unsolved mysteries. Since launching Down and Away,
1:00
Speaker 1: Jenny has covered dozens of cases, bringing them to new
1:04
Speaker 1: audiences with empathy, persistence, and a journalist's eye for detail.
1:09
Speaker 1: One of the cases she has covered extensively and with
1:12
Speaker 1: great care is the disappearance of twenty year old Michael
1:15
Speaker 1: John Olson, who vanished from West Palm Beach, Florida into
1:18
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen seventy nine along with his maroon Pontiac
1:22
Speaker 1: Grand Prix. Jenny has spent countless hours researching, interviewing, and
1:27
Speaker 1: piecing together the details of Michael's story, bringing awareness to
1:31
Speaker 1: a case that his family has fought for decades to
1:34
Speaker 1: keep alive. Today we'll hear her insights on this case
1:38
Speaker 1: and take time to discuss and explore some of the
1:40
Speaker 1: unanswered questions that still surround Michael's disappearance. Today we are
1:46
Speaker 1: speaking with Jenny Decker. Jenny is the host of the
1:50
Speaker 1: podcast Down and Away, and she did a three episode
1:54
Speaker 1: series on the missing person's case of John Michael Olson.
1:57
Speaker 1: And thank you for joining us today.
2:00
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.
2:01
Speaker 1: Before we talk about your work on Michael John Olson's
2:05
Speaker 1: case and on your podcast, tell us about you and
2:08
Speaker 1: what brought you to podcasting.
2:10
Speaker 3: So I guess I was around twenty thirteen. I lived
2:14
Speaker 3: in a small town in Michigan called Reed City, and
2:18
Speaker 3: I was working on a fiction series and doing some
2:21
Speaker 3: research on it for locations because I wanted to set
2:25
Speaker 3: the story, the fiction story, in a real place. And
2:30
Speaker 3: so I was doing some research into some of the
2:32
Speaker 3: old buildings and stuff in Red City, and I came
2:35
Speaker 3: across a message board and it was about a murder
2:41
Speaker 3: that had occurred there in Red City, and so you
2:45
Speaker 3: know the course. Then I get distracted and I dropped
2:47
Speaker 3: the fiction stuff and I'm reading this whole thread and
2:52
Speaker 3: it was an actual homicide that had occurred in a
2:55
Speaker 3: small mom and pop type of hardware store in Read City,
2:58
Speaker 3: and so I got, you know, very into it and
3:02
Speaker 3: I ended up covering the case. I ended up writing
3:04
Speaker 3: a book about it, and that was the very It
3:07
Speaker 3: actually ended up being the second season I did on
3:09
Speaker 3: the podcast on Podcasts, But that's basically what got me
3:13
Speaker 3: into it because that was the first time I ever
3:15
Speaker 3: sent a FOID request. It was just one of those
3:17
Speaker 3: things where you gather information more and more and more,
3:20
Speaker 3: and then you're like, well, now I've got to do
3:23
Speaker 3: something because I've got all this information, and you know,
3:25
Speaker 3: that's what I did. And because it was such a
3:27
Speaker 3: small town, everybody knew about the case, and it was
3:30
Speaker 3: one of those things where I could walk around and
3:32
Speaker 3: talk to everybody while my kids were at school.
3:34
Speaker 2: So that's where it began.
3:36
Speaker 1: And so tell us specifically about down and Away and
3:39
Speaker 1: what kinds of cases you cover on that podcast.
3:42
Speaker 3: So I when I started the podcast, what I wanted
3:46
Speaker 3: to do. My focus was trying to figure out why
3:48
Speaker 3: cases go cold because I'm you know, I didn't really
3:51
Speaker 3: I didn't know a lot about anything.
3:52
Speaker 2: I didn't know a lot about law enforcement.
3:54
Speaker 3: I did not know even you know as far as
3:57
Speaker 3: police reports, didn't really understand, you know, how they work
4:00
Speaker 3: and what you can glean from them and what maybe
4:03
Speaker 3: you can't glean from them, or what other documentation you need.
4:06
Speaker 3: So I wanted to learn why cases go cold. And
4:10
Speaker 3: then I only focus on unsolved homicide and missing person's cases,
4:14
Speaker 3: and I generally only take cases that are, you know, seventies, eighties, nineties.
4:19
Speaker 3: I don't do many in the two thousands. I've taken
4:21
Speaker 3: a couple because law enforcement, you know, offered that I
4:24
Speaker 3: could work on them, But other than that, I try
4:26
Speaker 3: to stick to the really old ones. And I generally
4:29
Speaker 3: don't like to take a case unless I can get
4:31
Speaker 3: a fair amount of documentation on them. But if oftentimes
4:35
Speaker 3: i'm missing person cases, you don't there isn't a lot,
4:37
Speaker 3: you know. It's just one of those things where you
4:39
Speaker 3: can get in you ten or twenty pages and that's it.
4:41
Speaker 3: But generally I like to do the deep dives where
4:43
Speaker 3: it's more than one episode, and cases that you're not
4:48
Speaker 3: going to have ever heard about because they're local to
4:50
Speaker 3: me or local to my state.
4:52
Speaker 1: Can you tell us how you learned about Michael John
4:56
Speaker 1: Olson's disappearance and what really stood out to you about
5:00
Speaker 1: that disappearance as you went through your series.
5:03
Speaker 3: Well, so, if I'm remembering correctly, I was looking at
5:08
Speaker 3: some other missing persons, and then a lot of times
5:10
Speaker 3: when you're doing that, the other missing persons in counties
5:13
Speaker 3: come up, and I think I saw Mike's case and
5:15
Speaker 3: then sort of set it aside, finish what I was doing,
5:18
Speaker 3: and I reached out to Page, and what sort of
5:22
Speaker 3: stood out was that this kid had really not been
5:26
Speaker 3: in Florida that long and then suddenly he goes missing,
5:29
Speaker 3: like very short time, and he was so young, him
5:33
Speaker 3: and his car being missing. All of that together, you know,
5:37
Speaker 3: made a situation where I thought, you know, it stands
5:40
Speaker 3: out in that you're likely looking at someone who with
5:44
Speaker 3: his car went into the water. But after speaking with
5:48
Speaker 3: Page and looking at the reports, I thought maybe not.
5:51
Speaker 2: I don't know.
5:52
Speaker 3: So I wanted to figure out as much as I
5:54
Speaker 3: could track down as many of the people, many of
5:56
Speaker 3: the guys that I could, his friends and then the
5:58
Speaker 3: friends at the golf club, and so that's what we did.
6:01
Speaker 3: I mean, as soon as I hooked up with Paige,
6:02
Speaker 3: we were sort of off and running, and then we
6:04
Speaker 3: had you know, this long email chain that included people
6:08
Speaker 3: from the club, us family members.
6:11
Speaker 2: I mean there's a lawyer on there. You guys are
6:12
Speaker 2: on there now.
6:13
Speaker 3: I mean it's a lot of people back and forth, banning,
6:16
Speaker 3: you know, batting ideas around and hoping that we can
6:19
Speaker 3: come up with something and get some answers for this family.
6:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
6:22
Speaker 1: And so we have had an opportunity, just like you did,
6:27
Speaker 1: to talk with a lot of the same people in
6:30
Speaker 1: this case. And there are some things that just seem
6:34
Speaker 1: sort of conflicting to us, and so we wanted to
6:36
Speaker 1: sort of talk through some of those things with you
6:38
Speaker 1: to see if maybe you can reconcile them for us,
6:41
Speaker 1: or if maybe you also had the same sort of
6:43
Speaker 1: conflicting kind of things.
6:45
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, Like one of the things that came up
6:47
Speaker 4: is as we're going through things, is where do we
6:50
Speaker 4: know that he was in an apartment and then then
6:53
Speaker 4: he moved out to you know, to hotel rooms. He
6:57
Speaker 4: was kind of go from hotel room to hotel room
6:58
Speaker 4: for a while, and then he had plans to move
7:01
Speaker 4: in with Brad as at least one of those guys
7:04
Speaker 4: to another apartment to share the cost. From what we
7:06
Speaker 4: can gather, he was in there for eight days. Why
7:08
Speaker 4: would he leave for eight days? And no one seems
7:11
Speaker 4: to have the answer for that. He was in eight days.
7:12
Speaker 4: We would assume first and last month rent is paid.
7:16
Speaker 4: So ideally, I would think that moving into these hotel
7:20
Speaker 4: rooms would have cost money, costs more money than just
7:22
Speaker 4: staying where he was until the new apartment was arranged,
7:26
Speaker 4: you know.
7:27
Speaker 2: So where he was staying.
7:28
Speaker 3: So he gets to Florida with his brother on the
7:31
Speaker 3: fourteenth of November in nineteen seventy nine, and then they
7:36
Speaker 3: spend a week together, and they stay at this holiday
7:38
Speaker 3: motel on Okachobee by the Florida Turnpike. And then once
7:43
Speaker 3: his brother leaves on the twenty first, So the week
7:46
Speaker 3: they spend together, once his brother leaves, he sort of
7:49
Speaker 3: he's at this village green apartments for a little while,
7:51
Speaker 3: and then he's the next week, the week that he's
7:54
Speaker 3: going to start working. He's jumping around and the only
7:57
Speaker 3: thing that Page and I could come up with is
7:59
Speaker 3: that he's looking for the cheapest place to stay, you know,
8:02
Speaker 3: because we also know that his I think his parents
8:07
Speaker 3: sent him some rent money that he had just have
8:10
Speaker 3: to check. I believe it was seven hundred dollars right
8:12
Speaker 3: at the time of his him going missing, So that
8:16
Speaker 3: was the only thing that we can think of. And
8:17
Speaker 3: I don't think the family really knew why he was
8:18
Speaker 3: jumping around either. It's curious to me too. I was curious.
8:22
Speaker 3: They were able to put together a sort of you know,
8:25
Speaker 3: a calendar of the dates, but we the only thing
8:29
Speaker 3: that we could come up with was that he wanted
8:31
Speaker 3: to you know, he was trying to figure out the
8:35
Speaker 3: cheapest thing. And remember where he was staying was not
8:39
Speaker 3: as not close close to where he was going to work,
8:42
Speaker 3: So maybe he was jumping around trying to find places
8:44
Speaker 3: that were closer here and there. You know, it's hard
8:47
Speaker 3: to it really is hard to tell because we just
8:48
Speaker 3: don't know. We don't know why he was jumping around
8:50
Speaker 3: like that.
8:51
Speaker 4: It was just interesting to me, like when we spoke
8:53
Speaker 4: to Jeff that you know, that episode actually according to
8:56
Speaker 4: the date, this is going out as technically publishing tomorrow.
9:00
Speaker 4: And one of the things that we talked to Jeff
9:02
Speaker 4: about was he moved him into an apartment, and we're like,
9:06
Speaker 4: did he choose to break his lease to do this hopping?
9:08
Speaker 4: Which is why I kind of came up with did
9:11
Speaker 4: he pay first in last month's rent? And then leave,
9:13
Speaker 4: And was there something to motivate him to walk away
9:15
Speaker 4: from that money to do this hopping other than the
9:18
Speaker 4: longer drive or was that it?
9:21
Speaker 3: You know, and we don't know if he had the
9:23
Speaker 3: Village of Green apartments could have been a place where
9:25
Speaker 3: they allowed for like weekly stays or something. It could
9:29
Speaker 3: Maybe it wasn't. I don't know. I don't know if
9:31
Speaker 3: it was an apartment that was an actual apartment complex
9:35
Speaker 3: or those types. Sometimes in Florida they have, you know,
9:38
Speaker 3: those short stay places. Maybe it was one of those.
9:40
Speaker 3: It could have been.
9:41
Speaker 4: You know, Yeah, I've been researching. Yeah, great, that's great.
9:45
Speaker 4: I've been researching that lately and trying to figure out
9:47
Speaker 4: more about it, even finding out that there is no
9:49
Speaker 4: such thing as the Village Green Apartments. It was actually
9:51
Speaker 4: a nickname for this condominiums in the area, and they
9:55
Speaker 4: definitely were not as close as the Howard Johnson's motel
9:58
Speaker 4: that you know, Chase stayed out was that was just
10:00
Speaker 4: south of the golf course.
10:03
Speaker 3: So they were condominiums. You're saying, the Village Green were
10:05
Speaker 3: condominium So maybe it was that he couldn't get like
10:10
Speaker 3: an apartment there because the normal cost to rent the
10:13
Speaker 3: place for you know, to live, there would have been more.
10:16
Speaker 3: I mean, if he was trying to find a place
10:18
Speaker 3: to live with Brad, it sounds to me like they
10:20
Speaker 3: wanted to chip in expenses, you know, And that makes
10:23
Speaker 3: sense because these guys aren't They're not making that much money,
10:26
Speaker 3: you know, So it was probably that he wanted somewhere
10:30
Speaker 3: that he wouldn't be going through money, I would imagine
10:32
Speaker 3: as quickly, especially if he's going out and doing things socially.
10:36
Speaker 3: You know, he hadn't have did he even pick up
10:39
Speaker 3: a paycheck. I don't believe even Pad picked up or
10:41
Speaker 3: maybe one paycheck. He hadn't, no, because he was only working.
10:44
Speaker 3: If he works one day and then there was Thanksgiving,
10:47
Speaker 3: he hadn't even had a full paycheck. So my guess
10:50
Speaker 3: would be he's moving around trying to figure out the
10:53
Speaker 3: best the best buy, the best bang for his book,
10:56
Speaker 3: closeness to where he's working, but also if you get
10:58
Speaker 3: right on the turnpike and go somewhere or you know,
11:01
Speaker 3: cost wise.
11:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm absolutely that's it was one of those things
11:04
Speaker 4: we were trying to line it up because I was like,
11:06
Speaker 4: I got concerned. I was like, if he did pay
11:09
Speaker 4: if if I say that this assumed this was a
11:10
Speaker 4: place that you had to, you know, at least sign
11:12
Speaker 4: a lease at Why would he walk c incy money?
11:16
Speaker 4: Was he inter fear of something? Was he trying to
11:17
Speaker 4: get away from some of that? No one's asked that
11:19
Speaker 4: question on.
11:19
Speaker 2: No, it's a really good question. Yeah, it's a really
11:21
Speaker 2: good question.
11:22
Speaker 4: I liked your comment as well because what I can
11:24
Speaker 4: add to my research is was this a place that
11:26
Speaker 4: you could rent by evening or by week? I haven't
11:30
Speaker 4: actually asked that question. It took me a while to
11:32
Speaker 4: figure out what the true apartment arey was.
11:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that used with them this week, So
11:38
Speaker 1: hopefully they'll give me a call, but they have super
11:40
Speaker 1: limited hours right now.
11:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it'll be good to hear.
11:43
Speaker 3: You know, I'll be looking forward to what you find
11:45
Speaker 3: out about that, because that's it's not something I even
11:47
Speaker 3: had thought of. So that's good because it was the
11:49
Speaker 3: week before. So but you know, it is things that
11:51
Speaker 3: happened before are important because just like you know, the
11:54
Speaker 3: next week he got a ticket, a speeding ticket, and
11:57
Speaker 3: we don't.
11:57
Speaker 2: Even know if he was in the car Loan or not.
11:58
Speaker 3: We don't know he was in Fort Lauderdale, right, So
12:01
Speaker 3: we don't know alone what he was doing, you know,
12:03
Speaker 3: and those are the days leading up to him going missing.
12:07
Speaker 4: Yeah. One of the things that we've kind of learned
12:09
Speaker 4: to start doing, based on some of the experts we've
12:10
Speaker 4: talked to already, is they remind us when we when
12:13
Speaker 4: we had a conversation about a different case, that you know,
12:16
Speaker 4: whenever something happens to someone, that's the finality of what occurred,
12:20
Speaker 4: not the beginning. Yeah, and so therefore it's really important
12:23
Speaker 4: that you go back a week, go back a month,
12:26
Speaker 4: and try to figure out what steps led to that event,
12:29
Speaker 4: and that would sometimes give you a clue, which is
12:30
Speaker 4: why Lisa made fun of me. I got kind of
12:32
Speaker 4: fixated on this whole apartment idea. So that's been the
12:35
Speaker 4: cornerstone of a lot of my research lately.
12:37
Speaker 3: H No, but it's good because that's not something any
12:40
Speaker 3: of us have looked into yet. So that's what you
12:42
Speaker 3: want to do. Focus on the stuff it hasn't been
12:44
Speaker 3: dug into. I think that's great. I think you should
12:46
Speaker 3: keep going with that.
12:46
Speaker 4: Absolutely. So one of the other questions is in at
12:49
Speaker 4: Lisa pointed this out to me. I'm not the golfer
12:51
Speaker 4: she is, and so we talk about the golf bag
12:54
Speaker 4: being at the hotel room, you know, and if you're
12:57
Speaker 4: playing golf and you belong to a golf club, you
13:00
Speaker 4: would the most likely leave your bags at the club.
13:02
Speaker 4: And the only reason you have him is if you
13:04
Speaker 4: went and what's going to play, like a different course
13:07
Speaker 4: or something. But you're also new and I know, I
13:10
Speaker 4: look at my I was explaining her today based on
13:12
Speaker 4: my fly fishing experience. For instance, if I was going
13:14
Speaker 4: to fly fish a new area, I would fish that
13:16
Speaker 4: area over and over and over until I got really
13:18
Speaker 4: really good at that area. And I would assume he
13:21
Speaker 4: probably wouldn't want to play another course yet, because he
13:24
Speaker 4: needs to be an expert of the course he's at
13:27
Speaker 4: to help whatever clients are coming in. So the fact
13:30
Speaker 4: that the bag wasn't at the golf resort is strange
13:33
Speaker 4: to us.
13:34
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree.
13:35
Speaker 3: The only thing I can think of is, we know
13:37
Speaker 3: he golfed that day, okay with some of the guys
13:39
Speaker 3: from work, So what if they're done with golfing, and
13:44
Speaker 3: rather than having to go back to wherever he would
13:46
Speaker 3: dump the golf bags, he just popped it in his
13:49
Speaker 3: car and they were going to head out to go
13:51
Speaker 3: to that pizza play. It was a pizza joint where
13:53
Speaker 3: they would stop. It was close to the president before
13:56
Speaker 3: they headed out. That would be my only thing. Or
13:58
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about golf either, But is there
14:01
Speaker 3: anything you need to do to maintain your golf clubs
14:04
Speaker 3: in between games?
14:05
Speaker 2: I don't know. So those are the only two things
14:07
Speaker 2: I can think of, is there.
14:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of like when people like clean their guns. Right.
14:14
Speaker 1: It's not as you don't have to take things apart,
14:18
Speaker 1: but sometimes particularly well, your irons and your woods are
14:21
Speaker 1: going to have these sets of lines where you strike
14:23
Speaker 1: the ball, and sometimes people will spray those and clean
14:26
Speaker 1: those off because they don't want grass and dirt and
14:29
Speaker 1: things in those. I'm sure there's a particular word for
14:32
Speaker 1: those little lines on the clubs, but I mean, yes,
14:35
Speaker 1: there is something, and you want to, you know, keep
14:37
Speaker 1: them clean. However, like he would have played golf twice, right,
14:41
Speaker 1: maybe three times since he got there, and I'm sure
14:45
Speaker 1: the opportunity and the equipment that you would want to
14:49
Speaker 1: use to clean those clubs, well, that's already at the
14:51
Speaker 1: course because that's part of the job for a caddy.
14:53
Speaker 1: A caddy has to clean the clubs of the people
14:56
Speaker 1: that he's caddying for, so, like all that stuff's going
14:58
Speaker 1: to be at the course. I hear what you're saying,
15:01
Speaker 1: Like maybe they were in a rush, right, it was
15:03
Speaker 1: opening night for the kennel club. Maybe they needed to
15:06
Speaker 1: get there at a certain time, and instead of put
15:09
Speaker 1: his clubs where they were supposed to be at the course,
15:11
Speaker 1: let's just go straight to our cars. I just think
15:14
Speaker 1: that's so strange because this was like his thing, right,
15:17
Speaker 1: These were the most important thing to him, and the
15:20
Speaker 1: safest place for them to be is at the club.
15:24
Speaker 1: So I just I'm like, why are they there?
15:26
Speaker 2: I agree?
15:27
Speaker 3: And not only were they not, they weren't in his car.
15:29
Speaker 3: They were in his room. Yeah, so it's not like
15:32
Speaker 3: he said, let me lock him in my car until
15:34
Speaker 3: I can get him back to work.
15:35
Speaker 2: He brought them into his room.
15:37
Speaker 3: That that question we need to look at when we're
15:40
Speaker 3: also looking at that missing shave bag, that dot bag
15:43
Speaker 3: that his dad asked about, because would he have kept
15:46
Speaker 3: that that's missing? So would he have kept that in
15:50
Speaker 3: the car if he wouldn't have even kept his you know,
15:53
Speaker 3: his golf clubs.
15:55
Speaker 2: In the car.
15:56
Speaker 3: I mean, he's got him in his clubs in his room.
15:58
Speaker 3: The only thing I could think of was, yeah, he
16:01
Speaker 3: worked with him that day. So obviously it's a good question.
16:04
Speaker 3: Why were they at the apartment why, I mean at
16:07
Speaker 3: the motel? Why did he take them? It is definitely
16:10
Speaker 3: a good question. And I tell you what, we should
16:12
Speaker 3: ask Brad and see and Dave and see if either
16:17
Speaker 3: of them have any thoughts about that.
16:19
Speaker 4: M h.
16:20
Speaker 2: They might they might have some thoughts.
16:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, just based on the layout of the club, Like
16:26
Speaker 3: maybe they'd say, okay, whatever, the last whatever it's called
16:29
Speaker 3: green or whatever is far from the thing, and he
16:31
Speaker 3: didn't want have to walk it back we were We
16:33
Speaker 3: wanted to, you know, maybe they will be able to
16:35
Speaker 3: offer some.
16:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're definitely going to fall up on that one
16:36
Speaker 4: because we we we've talked. She and I've talked about
16:38
Speaker 4: that one quite a bit. Another one that comes up,
16:41
Speaker 4: and it's interesting. It depends on who you ask and
16:43
Speaker 4: what piece of paper you read. But people have given
16:47
Speaker 4: this information on who was driving that doesn't line up.
16:50
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's Mike was driving around and they were dropping
16:52
Speaker 4: Jim off. And sometimes when I hear the story, it's
16:55
Speaker 4: Jim was driving around and they were dropping Michael Wall.
16:58
Speaker 1: You're talking about the night he disappeared, correct, Yeah, right,
17:00
Speaker 1: And first of all, I think Mike would have had
17:03
Speaker 1: the nicer car.
17:04
Speaker 3: He would have had the one, if I'm not mistaken.
17:07
Speaker 3: I heard that Jim had a van. So and as
17:12
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, I tend to think that Mike
17:16
Speaker 3: was driving because Jim may have tended to drink and
17:21
Speaker 3: didn't want to be the one driving, because I had
17:23
Speaker 3: heard from Rick Jensen that there had been an incident,
17:28
Speaker 3: a dui incident at one point as well in the van,
17:31
Speaker 3: or an accident or something.
17:33
Speaker 2: So having said that, my guess would be that.
17:36
Speaker 3: Mike would be driving because Jim didn't want to drive,
17:40
Speaker 3: you know, either one to drive.
17:42
Speaker 2: But that again is just a guess. We don't know.
17:44
Speaker 2: And he's saying that.
17:47
Speaker 3: Now he was at Mike's hotel room with him, and
17:51
Speaker 3: he had his car at that point, right, he must
17:53
Speaker 3: have followed him to Mike's hotel room, and because then
17:57
Speaker 3: he had to drop it off at the church at
17:59
Speaker 3: some point. So that I find interesting because if in
18:03
Speaker 3: fact they were going to go from the club, he
18:07
Speaker 3: had to bring you know, he wanted to get his
18:08
Speaker 3: car closer to home, so he was bringing it to
18:10
Speaker 3: they went over to Mike's Why did they you know,
18:15
Speaker 3: he could they could have left in mics from the motel.
18:17
Speaker 3: They didn't do that. And my guess is because Jim
18:20
Speaker 3: wanted to get it closest to his house so that
18:23
Speaker 3: he could just go home later in the evening. If
18:25
Speaker 3: but that would mean that they knew, you know, kind
18:28
Speaker 3: of where where their night was going to be, all
18:30
Speaker 3: revolving around that small area, you know, kind of going
18:34
Speaker 3: to the track and then those two bars. But if
18:38
Speaker 3: I were to guess, I would say this is because
18:41
Speaker 3: you know, Mike was driving, and rather than drive around
18:43
Speaker 3: a big old van and you know you're going to drink,
18:46
Speaker 3: let the new guy drive around instead.
18:48
Speaker 1: And he's already maybe on the hook for one DUI,
18:50
Speaker 1: so let's right at the driving.
18:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure if that happened before or after,
18:56
Speaker 3: but I did hear that there was at least one incident,
18:59
Speaker 3: so you know, that would indicate that might be the reason.
19:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:03
Speaker 4: One thing we played around with I was looking at
19:05
Speaker 4: the church parking lot in relation to the track, the
19:08
Speaker 4: golf club, the golf club as well as the Howard
19:12
Speaker 4: Johnson and I was really just fascinated by why did
19:17
Speaker 4: they park there? Like what, it's not really the best
19:20
Speaker 4: spot to choose, And so I started researching what that
19:23
Speaker 4: parking lot it was used for back in nineteen seventy
19:26
Speaker 4: nine outside of the church, and found out that it's
19:29
Speaker 4: actually considered an overflow parking for the kennel Club. And
19:33
Speaker 4: this was opening day for the kennel Club. So it
19:36
Speaker 4: made me wonder if that's literally legitimately why it was there,
19:40
Speaker 4: Why did they park there? And it's because they couldn't
19:42
Speaker 4: get parking closer to the kennel Club.
19:43
Speaker 3: And it's possible, but like Dave parked at the kennel Club,
19:47
Speaker 3: so I don't know if they didn't have parking, because
19:50
Speaker 3: his recollection was that, you know, they met inside, so
19:53
Speaker 3: they would have parked, and he didn't mention parking at
19:55
Speaker 3: the church. He parked at the kennel Club. Because I
19:57
Speaker 3: even asked him when I interviewed him, do you guys
19:59
Speaker 3: know if you met Do you remember if you met
20:01
Speaker 3: up in the parking lot? He said, he, you know,
20:03
Speaker 3: couldn't be sure, but his guests would be that they
20:06
Speaker 3: met up inside, and so maybe it was, you know,
20:09
Speaker 3: but even then, even if it was, Jim's house was
20:13
Speaker 3: so close that if he didn't want to drive at all.
20:16
Speaker 3: Why not say Mike dropped my let's drop my car
20:18
Speaker 3: at my place, and then he would be assured to
20:21
Speaker 3: not have to drive at all, because if he dropped
20:23
Speaker 3: off the house, you know. So it's it's a it's
20:27
Speaker 3: an interesting question.
20:28
Speaker 4: I was trying to rationalize that too, and the only
20:30
Speaker 4: thing I could come up with if if I'm if
20:32
Speaker 4: I'm right, I mean, and I may not be right
20:34
Speaker 4: about why they parked there, but I was trying to
20:36
Speaker 4: rationalize it, and I was like, I don't know what
20:38
Speaker 4: time the other guys got there, and if they got
20:40
Speaker 4: there earlier, did they had better luck with parking?
20:42
Speaker 3: That absolutely could be That is that's that could have
20:45
Speaker 3: been absolutely the reason why they did that.
20:48
Speaker 2: Yep.
20:49
Speaker 1: So let's keep talking about the kennel club. Okay, So
20:54
Speaker 1: here's another inconsistency is around if Mike one or lost
21:01
Speaker 1: money at the kennel club, because we're hearing both.
21:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, police report, as you know makes any better than us,
21:08
Speaker 4: indicates that he lost fifty dollars.
21:10
Speaker 3: That's right, right, Yeah, And that report is dated December fourth,
21:14
Speaker 3: days later, right. So but the morning actual mourning that
21:21
Speaker 3: the everyone at work found out about Mike not being there.
21:24
Speaker 3: As soon as he didn't show up, Brad called down
21:26
Speaker 3: and said, called Jim and said where's Mike, And Jim's like,
21:30
Speaker 3: what do you mean? And he didn't show up, and
21:33
Speaker 3: so he Jim basically told him and used this word,
21:37
Speaker 3: Mike was wheeling trifectas. He was splashing the money around,
21:42
Speaker 3: so he you know, he may have went one. And
21:45
Speaker 3: you know, I did the research. There was a possibility
21:47
Speaker 3: he could have been wheeling trifectas because the number five
21:50
Speaker 3: six five six one. I believe that came out three times.
21:54
Speaker 2: So there it is. There is a possibility that he was.
21:57
Speaker 3: He picked those numbers and he was wheeling trifectors and
22:01
Speaker 3: he did win a bunch of money. But the problem
22:04
Speaker 3: is is that's not what was told to police when
22:07
Speaker 3: they reported it. What they what he said was he
22:10
Speaker 3: may have lost fifty dollars. That's not just a little
22:12
Speaker 3: and wobble. That's a opposite, that's one eight.
22:15
Speaker 4: That's yeah, that's why I hung up on that myself.
22:18
Speaker 2: Correct.
22:18
Speaker 3: It's very first thing that doesn't make sense to me.
22:20
Speaker 3: It's in fact, I'm looking at my notes and that's
22:22
Speaker 3: the first thing on top of it that doesn't make sense.
22:25
Speaker 3: So I have no answer to that because you can't.
22:28
Speaker 3: How are you gonna you know, there is no way
22:31
Speaker 3: to make sense of that when it's the opposite.
22:33
Speaker 1: So those are the things we think about, like what
22:37
Speaker 1: how do I say it? Why would a why would
22:44
Speaker 1: someone report something different than in one case than they
22:49
Speaker 1: do in another case? And what is that behavior telling
22:52
Speaker 1: us about that person?
22:53
Speaker 2: Right?
22:53
Speaker 1: And remember mine starts.
22:55
Speaker 3: To go yes because the the person reporting it is
22:59
Speaker 3: Jim and Rick Jensen. Okay, so that's he was the
23:02
Speaker 3: head pro at the time. So the two of them
23:04
Speaker 3: are the ones that talked to police right off the bat.
23:07
Speaker 3: Rick Jensen told me himself that Jim told him that
23:11
Speaker 3: he was wheeling trifecta's So I don't understand how for
23:17
Speaker 3: a couple days later we've got he may have lost money.
23:19
Speaker 3: I don't know, we don't. I have no idea how
23:22
Speaker 3: it got from one to the other. It doesn't It
23:24
Speaker 3: doesn't make sense at all. And we you know, as
23:28
Speaker 3: far as Rick was concerned, he knew nothing about may
23:30
Speaker 3: have lost fifty dollars. He was always told by Jim
23:34
Speaker 3: that it was you know, he may have won a
23:37
Speaker 3: lot of money because he was wheeling Trifecta's and he
23:39
Speaker 3: was flashing around in his cash. And when I asked
23:41
Speaker 3: Dave about that, the other guy that was there that night,
23:44
Speaker 3: he said he didn't remember anything any winning and he
23:46
Speaker 3: didn't remember any flashing of money.
23:49
Speaker 2: So there's inconsistencies, and.
23:52
Speaker 4: You have to ask your well. To me, that one's
23:53
Speaker 4: hard to get past because I think she and I
23:55
Speaker 4: have just talked about that one for hours. But I
23:59
Speaker 4: also want to know Alge that memory really starts to
24:03
Speaker 4: diminish over the years. I don't feel like there should
24:06
Speaker 4: be something that dramatically different after that kind of time.
24:10
Speaker 4: But I also one of the things that she and
24:13
Speaker 4: I've talked about is one of reason we're looking at
24:14
Speaker 4: all the different case files that we can get now,
24:16
Speaker 4: everything that was collected by his father at the time,
24:19
Speaker 4: and we're even tracking down the recordings that we think
24:21
Speaker 4: we have a beat on now to be able to
24:23
Speaker 4: listen to. Because me being coming from the data analyst perspective,
24:29
Speaker 4: I talked a lot of people about what is the
24:31
Speaker 4: source of truth, and so what we want to do
24:33
Speaker 4: is we want to make sure that we're looking at
24:35
Speaker 4: case information that was created as close to nineteen seventy
24:38
Speaker 4: nine as humanly possible correct, because even the interview itself
24:42
Speaker 4: with the person that was there forty plus years later,
24:46
Speaker 4: there's going to be things they don't remember the same.
24:48
Speaker 3: Yes, but neither of those things were occurring way later.
24:53
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what he was telling the people in
24:56
Speaker 3: the backgrounds, That's what they were being told the next day,
24:59
Speaker 3: the very nice hours after he went missing, hours after
25:03
Speaker 3: he was gone, when you didn't show up at seven am.
25:06
Speaker 3: So the stuff that I would tend to not pay
25:09
Speaker 3: attention to is what maybe was being told timelines and
25:13
Speaker 3: stuff years later, you know what I mean, Like like
25:15
Speaker 3: Gym's were a little off, but you know, who's going
25:17
Speaker 3: to remember two pm versus this? You know that many
25:20
Speaker 3: years later. You're right that you need to stick with
25:22
Speaker 3: what was happening then and what they were saying then.
25:26
Speaker 3: And because again memory gets all fuzzy, you know, after decades,
25:31
Speaker 3: and your best information is what you were you were
25:35
Speaker 3: collecting at that time. I can't wait to find out
25:38
Speaker 3: if you get these recordings, because I would know.
25:40
Speaker 4: As soon as we heard about an option for that,
25:43
Speaker 4: we started exploring it, and yeah, you know, we're we're
25:47
Speaker 4: we don't have I don't believe anything until half of
25:49
Speaker 4: my hand. But you know, we're being told that we
25:52
Speaker 4: can possibly get those recordings shipped us. And if that's
25:55
Speaker 4: the case, well we're going to have a very long
25:57
Speaker 4: weekend of listening and recordings.
25:59
Speaker 2: I bet you are.
26:00
Speaker 4: That's right, because we want to go through all of it.
26:02
Speaker 4: And but with that said, yeah, I mean you're absolutely right,
26:05
Speaker 4: because you know you even kind of you started to
26:06
Speaker 4: talk about the timelines in One of the other inconsistencies
26:11
Speaker 4: is when was Michael supposed to be at work? We've heard,
26:15
Speaker 4: well you have this.
26:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard seven, I've heard nine, and I heard
26:19
Speaker 1: whatever afternoon means, So it would be good to have that.
26:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, the report says seven that he was supposed to
26:26
Speaker 3: show up at seven. I would you know in that
26:28
Speaker 3: same narrative it says seven. I think in a later
26:32
Speaker 3: email Jim had said ten. You know, so it is
26:38
Speaker 3: I would go with what's in that initial report, what
26:41
Speaker 3: time he was supposed to be there.
26:43
Speaker 2: And go from there, you know.
26:45
Speaker 3: And in that small narrative just on the first page
26:50
Speaker 3: two of the report, there's a couple things that are
26:52
Speaker 3: confusing to me. So the other one was Jim told
26:57
Speaker 3: police that Mike told him he may be a little
26:59
Speaker 3: late to work on Saturday morning, and that something about that.
27:05
Speaker 3: It confuses me because everything that I've heard about the
27:09
Speaker 3: quality of Mike at work is that he would definitely
27:13
Speaker 3: not do that after having only been there week. Like,
27:15
Speaker 3: he would not be strong, he would not go to sleep,
27:17
Speaker 3: he would just show up, you know before. He would
27:19
Speaker 3: not just he's not going to tell don't. The veracity
27:23
Speaker 3: of that concerns me because I can't imagine him saying
27:27
Speaker 3: to Jim, okay, just tell him all being a little
27:29
Speaker 3: late like that. Nothing about that feels kosher to me,
27:34
Speaker 3: you know, now who knows when. That's the other problem
27:39
Speaker 3: I have. Rather than an interview transcript where it's word
27:42
Speaker 3: for what happened, we are relying on a synopsis.
27:46
Speaker 2: Okay, so you don't even know how the question was asked.
27:49
Speaker 3: You don't know he could have said, well, you know,
27:51
Speaker 3: he may have said something about and the other thing
27:54
Speaker 3: we need to remember is there was alcohol on board
27:56
Speaker 3: the night this happened. There's no question about that. How
27:59
Speaker 3: much he can't say. But you know, when I talked
28:03
Speaker 3: to Dave, he didn't think that Mike was drinking that much.
28:06
Speaker 3: So I don't know about anyone else, but that bothered me.
28:10
Speaker 3: May he maybe in a little world. I don't understand
28:13
Speaker 3: in what context he would have said that. The other
28:15
Speaker 3: thing that I don't understand in what context he would
28:17
Speaker 3: have said is Jim said that Mike mentioned on that
28:19
Speaker 3: night that he had a twelve.
28:21
Speaker 2: Hundred mile drive ahead of me. What was that?
28:28
Speaker 3: What's the context of that? What do you mean a
28:29
Speaker 3: twelve hundred mile trip? Like he talked to his best
28:34
Speaker 3: friend earlier that day, no mention of anything like that,
28:36
Speaker 3: his family, no mention of anything like that. So to me,
28:41
Speaker 3: if he had some trip that he was going on
28:44
Speaker 3: and he said that is there no curiosity?
28:48
Speaker 2: What do you mean? Where are you going? You know?
28:50
Speaker 3: And he said he didn't know what was referring to.
28:52
Speaker 3: So these things, to me, they're not enough. Let me
28:55
Speaker 3: just put let's just say it that way. There's information
28:58
Speaker 3: with no context, and it doesn't make sense. Neither one
29:01
Speaker 3: of those things makes sense to me. So those go
29:04
Speaker 3: on my inconsistencies list. These are the things I'd want
29:06
Speaker 3: to sew up if I'm an investigator. These are I want,
29:09
Speaker 3: I want to clear these up. I want I want
29:11
Speaker 3: clarity on all of these things so that I don't
29:14
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, it's things are missing that I'm
29:17
Speaker 3: only getting part of the story, you know.
29:19
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's one of the reason we've already reached
29:21
Speaker 4: out to Jim at this point, we haven't.
29:23
Speaker 1: Heard that from that's several other people.
29:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, because yeah, there's there's so many questions, and my
29:28
Speaker 4: the person I'm the most interested in talking to the
29:30
Speaker 4: person that was with him for the entire evening that
29:33
Speaker 4: we know of. And there's also a lot of a
29:36
Speaker 4: lot of things that are said that are even flow
29:38
Speaker 4: into other people's accounts that were said well told it
29:42
Speaker 4: and by Jim. So there's a lot of that narrative
29:44
Speaker 4: that people understand that is from the same source, and
29:47
Speaker 4: so this becomes the most important source of the story, right.
29:51
Speaker 3: And then there's one more on my inconsistency list, just
29:54
Speaker 3: one more thing that along with those that we've talked about,
29:57
Speaker 3: is Okay, So wild Sides and mister g were both
30:00
Speaker 3: outside the West Palm Beach jurisdiction, Okay, and in the investigation,
30:04
Speaker 3: they have a little bit of trouble, you know. You
30:06
Speaker 3: know how it is sometimes getting two different agencies to
30:09
Speaker 3: try to work together. Sometimes that's issue it didn't sound
30:11
Speaker 3: like it was an issue. But there is something though
30:13
Speaker 3: that's important about this. So these bars were in the
30:16
Speaker 3: county jurisdiction, and in nineteen seventy five the county had
30:19
Speaker 3: rolled back the hours on the bars within the county
30:22
Speaker 3: from closing from five am to three am, So those
30:26
Speaker 3: bars would have closed at three am. So why then,
30:30
Speaker 3: is Jim dropping him off at five? Where's what happened
30:33
Speaker 3: in those two hours? If the report says the last
30:36
Speaker 3: time he was seen was on twelve to one at
30:38
Speaker 3: five am, and the two bars that he mentioned closed
30:41
Speaker 3: at three, why, what's what happened in those two hours?
30:45
Speaker 3: I mean, what's going on there that as far as
30:48
Speaker 3: far away either right, that's a big hunk of time
30:51
Speaker 3: that's missing. So that that's you know, that's another big
30:56
Speaker 3: concerns what was going on in those two hours?
31:00
Speaker 1: You know, because even with that, isn't there while he
31:03
Speaker 1: was dropped off at two, No, he was dropped off
31:05
Speaker 1: at three. No, he was dropped off at five. And
31:08
Speaker 1: if we actually think that it would be him dropping
31:13
Speaker 1: Jim off because we think that's the car that was
31:16
Speaker 1: in the parking lot at the church. So I feel
31:19
Speaker 1: like there's even inconsistency in the two three five unless
31:22
Speaker 1: you have something conclusive that I may have missed.
31:25
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I'm looking at the missing person report
31:28
Speaker 3: that says date and time so that it was last scene. Yeah, now,
31:32
Speaker 3: well that doesn't mean it's really you know, true, but
31:35
Speaker 3: it says date and time subject last seen twelve one
31:38
Speaker 3: seventy nine at five am. So if that's the time
31:41
Speaker 3: that the he originally gave to them.
31:44
Speaker 2: And what would they doing for two hours?
31:47
Speaker 3: If both of those specific specific clubs close, right, there's.
31:52
Speaker 2: Time missing, you know.
31:54
Speaker 3: And then we've got the issue with Dave saying the
31:59
Speaker 3: plan was to leave Eve the track and go to
32:02
Speaker 3: mister Geez. I went and I waited thirty forty five
32:06
Speaker 3: minutes and they never showed up.
32:09
Speaker 2: And that's been Supper occurs right now.
32:13
Speaker 3: Could Jim have said after Dave left, Hey, let's just
32:16
Speaker 3: go to the strip, Let's go to Wild Sides.
32:18
Speaker 2: Let's not you know what I mean, let's go to
32:20
Speaker 2: this club. Let's you know.
32:21
Speaker 3: Sure they could have, but he didn't tell the police that.
32:24
Speaker 3: If that's what happened, why didn't you tell law enforcement? Oh,
32:27
Speaker 3: we were supposed to go here, we were supposed to
32:29
Speaker 3: go to this place and meet Dave. What we instead
32:31
Speaker 3: went here? So there was stuff missing from the story
32:36
Speaker 3: first given. If in fact it happened as the way
32:38
Speaker 3: he said it happened, That's what the problem is is
32:41
Speaker 3: that even if the story that he said is accurate,
32:45
Speaker 3: he didn't leave all. He didn't give them all the information. Now,
32:48
Speaker 3: was that due to the fact that they were drinking
32:49
Speaker 3: and he was so drunk he didn't remember. You know
32:52
Speaker 3: a lot of times people with old stuff simply because
32:55
Speaker 3: they were doing something they weren't supposed to be doing
32:57
Speaker 3: in the first place, and that was very being very
32:59
Speaker 3: drunk when they were out. But he wasn't driving. It's
33:01
Speaker 3: not like he did anything wrong. He wasn't the one driving,
33:04
Speaker 3: so unless he was trying not to get Mike in trouble,
33:06
Speaker 3: you know. But at the point where where the guy's missing,
33:09
Speaker 3: you think, you you know, if there's anything else that
33:12
Speaker 3: we don't know about, you think you'd say, so, those
33:15
Speaker 3: are the things that all bother me, you know, when
33:16
Speaker 3: they start to pile up. Couldn't each one of those
33:19
Speaker 3: things have an answer? Could they have something that easily explainable? Sure,
33:24
Speaker 3: But when you've got a pile of things and you
33:26
Speaker 3: don't have answers to you have to kind of take
33:29
Speaker 3: pause a minute. And while this is a case that
33:33
Speaker 3: on its surface looks very much and I'm and I
33:35
Speaker 3: think even all of us still would have when in
33:38
Speaker 3: the water as our number one because we until we
33:40
Speaker 3: can roll everything out, we can't. We've only got one
33:43
Speaker 3: place to roll out as far as I'm concerned, because
33:45
Speaker 3: we had three different dive teams that have gone in
33:47
Speaker 3: and ventures with purpose looked North Clear Clear Late who
33:52
Speaker 3: was the other one there was deep deep water Dive
33:56
Speaker 3: did the areas. And then we have who's now pretty
34:00
Speaker 3: much our go to people, Sunshine State's owner, who have
34:03
Speaker 3: gone multiple to All of these guys did multiple dates
34:06
Speaker 3: and some of them have gone over the other people's work.
34:09
Speaker 3: So except for that one area on Clear Lake, which
34:13
Speaker 3: I to this day I don't understand why it's not
34:15
Speaker 3: been cleared unless it has been and we just don't
34:17
Speaker 3: know about it, that would have been my number two place,
34:21
Speaker 3: aside from the one area behind the hojos, because that
34:25
Speaker 3: could anyone could see, Oh that could have been somewhere
34:27
Speaker 3: he slid in on the way home accidentally, could.
34:29
Speaker 2: Be in that one.
34:30
Speaker 3: But my number two is always that south section of
34:33
Speaker 3: Clear Lake that's bisected by the causeway or Okachobe on
34:37
Speaker 3: either side in case he went off to the right,
34:39
Speaker 3: or if he tried to come back or made a
34:41
Speaker 3: yui and went off on the left, I think we
34:45
Speaker 3: need an answer.
34:45
Speaker 2: We need an answer from law enforcement.
34:47
Speaker 3: Has this been cleared, Because if that has been cleared,
34:51
Speaker 3: and if you look at all the other maps and
34:53
Speaker 3: all the other sides that have been searched, I don't
34:55
Speaker 3: think any reasonable person can say he's still he's definitely
34:59
Speaker 3: in the water. I think you have to at that point.
35:01
Speaker 3: If you clear that, I think you have to start
35:06
Speaker 3: looking in other areas. You deprioritize the water searches now
35:11
Speaker 3: and start prioritizing some other possible some of the possibility
35:15
Speaker 3: and law unfortunate maybe doing that.
35:16
Speaker 2: We don't. We have no idea what they're going.
35:18
Speaker 4: True.
35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good that you brought up the vehicle, and
35:23
Speaker 1: you know what happened to the vehicle. We have a
35:27
Speaker 1: different missing person case that we've covered, and it's the
35:32
Speaker 1: same situation. We don't just have a missing person. We
35:34
Speaker 1: have a missing person and we have the truck this
35:37
Speaker 1: person was in, and so we have conversations about I
35:40
Speaker 1: know this isn't grammatically correct, but who can disappear a car?
35:44
Speaker 1: And how can you disappear a car? And so water
35:48
Speaker 1: in Florida is pretty typically used for insurance fraud things
35:53
Speaker 1: like that. And then we've talked about totally dismantling a car,
35:58
Speaker 1: which I guess in nineteen seventy nine might have been
36:00
Speaker 1: a lot easier than it is now. But you know,
36:03
Speaker 1: you go down this path of where's the car? And
36:06
Speaker 1: if we can find the car, we will likely find
36:10
Speaker 1: our missing person. And so water is a logical spot.
36:13
Speaker 1: Thus all the people who've done all the diving in
36:15
Speaker 1: that area, and I think that was the common maybe theory,
36:19
Speaker 1: and people thought, oh, we'll get down there, we'll dive
36:21
Speaker 1: these spots, we'll find the car. This will be you know,
36:24
Speaker 1: not easy, but you know that's the most logical thing,
36:27
Speaker 1: and then it doesn't happen, right, and so where is
36:29
Speaker 1: that car?
36:30
Speaker 4: I think that's what surprised people too, is because when
36:32
Speaker 4: you start thinking about Florida, even something we've learned along
36:36
Speaker 4: our podcasting journey and we started talking to these different divers,
36:40
Speaker 4: I was, you know, I was shocked at the sheer
36:44
Speaker 4: volume of cars. They're pulling out of the water. And
36:47
Speaker 4: so when you start thinking about that fact, you're going
36:50
Speaker 4: you can't ignore it. So that's why clearly being being
36:53
Speaker 4: cleared is so important. And I know I've talked to
36:57
Speaker 4: Mike and Shelley over at Sunshine, and I know they're
37:03
Speaker 4: running to a lot of logistical problems, you know, homeland
37:06
Speaker 4: security for that area of the lake, and that is
37:09
Speaker 4: the hold up. But yeah, I would love to one
37:13
Speaker 4: of the things that I talked to Shelley about that.
37:15
Speaker 4: And this is just me getting into a wild thought process,
37:18
Speaker 4: to be fair, but I started thinking about why it
37:20
Speaker 4: was quarantined off, why you're not allowed to dive it,
37:23
Speaker 4: and it's a lot of it has to do with
37:25
Speaker 4: the water rules with that particular area and the water supply.
37:29
Speaker 4: But then I'm thinking about, Okay, what about the equipment.
37:31
Speaker 4: Who maintains the equipment. Somebody's diving, so the question is
37:34
Speaker 4: who is it? And so I'm actually looking at what
37:37
Speaker 4: types of permits are being pulled on that particular watershed,
37:42
Speaker 4: because there has to be dives going on to maintain
37:45
Speaker 4: the equipment that pulls the water out of the lake.
37:48
Speaker 4: There's also environmental studies that are going on with that
37:50
Speaker 4: lake when they're most likely going into the water. I
37:53
Speaker 4: have no information on that yet. That's just that's one
37:55
Speaker 4: avenue that I've been researching, and I.
37:58
Speaker 3: Can see what that would be a problem for anyone else,
38:00
Speaker 3: But the Sheriff's department wouldn't have any way. Any should
38:02
Speaker 3: not have any problem getting past any of those issues,
38:05
Speaker 3: apartments whatever. They would know what needs to be done,
38:08
Speaker 3: why has it not been done? And my suggestion, if
38:11
Speaker 3: I were family, the very first thing I would ask
38:14
Speaker 3: them is I would get a definitive answer, have you
38:16
Speaker 3: cleared the south end of Clear Lake?
38:19
Speaker 2: Where it is?
38:20
Speaker 3: By I mean, you need to be very specific so
38:22
Speaker 3: that there's no question where it is.
38:25
Speaker 2: You know, have you done this?
38:27
Speaker 3: And if you don't get an answer, why are we
38:30
Speaker 3: not getting an answer? You know, why why is it?
38:32
Speaker 3: And if it's not cleared, why is it not cleared?
38:34
Speaker 3: That is, let's just start with that question. That's not
38:37
Speaker 3: even muddy the water and anything else. If you're going
38:39
Speaker 3: to talk to law enforcement and you're hoping to get
38:42
Speaker 3: an answer, ask that one question and see what their
38:45
Speaker 3: response is and then go from there. You know, because
38:48
Speaker 3: sometimes when you're asking a whole bunch of stuff to
38:50
Speaker 3: law enforcement. You know, that's when you're going to get
38:53
Speaker 3: the no answer at all. But let's just start with
38:56
Speaker 3: one thing. And I know the family has reached out,
38:58
Speaker 3: you know, it's we should have answered to This is
39:00
Speaker 3: the point we should have the answer to that question.
39:02
Speaker 2: Now.
39:03
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, they're at least what they've illustrated to us
39:06
Speaker 4: is that West Palm Beach Police Department has not been
39:09
Speaker 4: super cooperative, and Sunshine States Sonar told us the same.
39:13
Speaker 4: In fact, they were told they were basically threatened for
39:16
Speaker 4: being arrested if they didn't leave the area as far
39:18
Speaker 4: as diving in certain areas, and that even going and
39:22
Speaker 4: standing next to the water in the south side of
39:25
Speaker 4: the lake equal law enforcement coming to visit.
39:29
Speaker 3: That happened to Brends that weekend that we all went
39:31
Speaker 3: down there. They were like on the way out, going
39:32
Speaker 3: to just try to do it. You know, we couldn't.
39:34
Speaker 3: They were just just going to try to, you know,
39:36
Speaker 3: go in there and just do it. And they were
39:38
Speaker 3: not there very long and the police rolled right up.
39:41
Speaker 3: So okay, that's fine, but if great, I'm glad you're
39:45
Speaker 3: protecting it. That doesn't have anything to do with why
39:48
Speaker 3: you the Sheriff's department who has a dive team that's
39:50
Speaker 3: perfectly capable of doing it. Haven't done it Unless they have,
39:53
Speaker 3: and they haven't told us. My concern is they don't
39:56
Speaker 3: want to tell they have, and they don't want to
39:57
Speaker 3: tell us because then they know it's going to send
39:59
Speaker 3: us off on another tangent, which means maybe he's not
40:01
Speaker 3: in the water.
40:02
Speaker 2: You know that then it started digging, you.
40:04
Speaker 3: Know what I mean. I don't know what else, what
40:06
Speaker 3: other reasonable explanation is there.
40:09
Speaker 2: I just it's hard. It's hard to fathom.
40:12
Speaker 3: So, you know, that is frustrating to me, and I'm
40:14
Speaker 3: sure it's frustrating to the Hulksins.
40:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:18
Speaker 4: Anyway, I guess my final question is there anything that
40:21
Speaker 4: about the case itself that you know we haven't talked
40:24
Speaker 4: about today that you think is particularly interesting and something
40:27
Speaker 4: we should you know, dig into more.
40:29
Speaker 3: You know, I can't really think of anything because we've
40:31
Speaker 3: talked here and before. I can't really think of anything.
40:34
Speaker 3: I think the only thing I would like everybody know
40:36
Speaker 3: is that I you've spoken to the family, now, I've
40:41
Speaker 3: spoken to that. We've all spoken to the family. They're
40:44
Speaker 3: a really sweet group of people. They're just grateful for
40:47
Speaker 3: any moment you'll give to them. They're just you know,
40:50
Speaker 3: they don't they don't assume anything. They're just kind and decent.
40:54
Speaker 3: And I've covered a lot of cases, and people get upset,
40:59
Speaker 3: they get choked up, they cry. This case there were
41:02
Speaker 3: more men, own adult men crying to me and Page
41:07
Speaker 3: than any other case I've ever covered. This touched all
41:10
Speaker 3: of these men so much, even the guys that only
41:13
Speaker 3: had known him a week and a half, nine days.
41:16
Speaker 3: You know that it has decimated them in some way
41:20
Speaker 3: because and really that is what ambiguous loss does. When
41:23
Speaker 3: you have no answer, it's worse almost than a definitive Okay,
41:27
Speaker 3: he died, you don't know. And I think we all hoped,
41:31
Speaker 3: I know, Paige and I that we would find it
41:35
Speaker 3: would be a water situation where we find him in
41:37
Speaker 3: the vehicle and a because that would mean that no
41:40
Speaker 3: harm befell their son at the hand of someone else.
41:44
Speaker 3: It was an accident, it was terrible. That would be
41:46
Speaker 3: the optimum answer to this, you know. But no answer
41:51
Speaker 3: is just it's you know, catastrophic to family members.
41:55
Speaker 2: There's more other words.
41:56
Speaker 3: So if anyone has any information, I would hope that
42:00
Speaker 3: you would get in touch with the West Palm Beach
42:03
Speaker 3: Police Department, Get in touch with his family, get in
42:05
Speaker 3: touch with me, get in touch with these guys here
42:07
Speaker 3: on the podcast. Whoever you feel comfortable, you know, if
42:10
Speaker 3: you have any information. The problem is that this wasn't
42:13
Speaker 3: a situation where Mike had ties with anybody here. This
42:17
Speaker 3: was he was only in town for two weeks, so
42:20
Speaker 3: he hadn't He hadn't even if you're going to start
42:23
Speaker 3: looking at foul play, he hadn't even been there long
42:26
Speaker 3: enough to upset anybody, you know, I was There was
42:29
Speaker 3: no one at work that was going to be like,
42:31
Speaker 3: you know, oh, he's stealing my job, because they all
42:33
Speaker 3: had these jobs. It was a busy time. They had
42:36
Speaker 3: to hire people from, you know, out of state. That's
42:39
Speaker 3: what it was. There was literally nothing that occurred with
42:43
Speaker 3: him at that point that anyone would have any be
42:45
Speaker 3: upset with him.
42:46
Speaker 2: So there are very limited possibilities.
42:48
Speaker 3: He's in the water, or something happened that night, something
42:51
Speaker 3: that we do not yet know, you know, those are
42:53
Speaker 3: really the only options here. He did not what he
42:56
Speaker 3: did not do, Michaelson did not leave town and start
42:59
Speaker 3: a new life. Let's just dispense with any any idea
43:03
Speaker 3: of that that did not happen. So and it gets
43:05
Speaker 3: frustrating to me when any that is even brought up
43:09
Speaker 3: that did not happen.
43:10
Speaker 2: He was very close to his family.
43:11
Speaker 3: There was no reason for him to go missing and
43:14
Speaker 3: start a new life and you know that didn't happen.
43:16
Speaker 3: So there, our possibilities are very small, and I would
43:20
Speaker 3: like to get that last bit of clear Lake ruled
43:22
Speaker 3: out so that you know, they can start looking at
43:26
Speaker 3: things that are not that you know, and I hope
43:29
Speaker 3: the Yeah, I hope that that's what they're doing.
43:38
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