Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 73: Vanished At Summer Camp // Dark Summer Series

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Bonnie Bickwit vanished with her boyfriend from a summer camp in Upstate New York in 1973, during a summer where a serial killer was terrorizing the area. And in 1991, Jared Negrete was left behind by a troop leader on a hike, and then never seen again. The last photo left of him may hold a chilling secret. Be sure to subscribe to Heart Starts Pounding on Youtube! This episode is sponsored by LiquidIV. Turn your ordinary water into extraordinary hydration with Liquid I.V.® Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V.® when you go to liquidiv.com and use code HSP at checkout This episode is also brought to you by Miracle Made. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to TryMiracle.com/hsp and use the code HSP to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF.  This episode is also sponsored by Better Help. Stop comparing and start focusing, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/staycurious today to get 10% off your first month. Subscribe on Patreon for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to ad-free listening and bonus content. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to ad-free episodes and bonus episodes when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror. We have a newsletter now! Be sure to sign up for updates and more.

It was a sunny day at Camp Wellmet in the Catskill Mountains of New York, one of the biggest sleepaway camps in the country. Over 1,000 children ran around in the sunshine and dined in the cafeteria on summer favorites like Gorilla Balls, Wellmet Mish Mash, Rocky Mountain Toast, and Bug Juice, a red fruity punch. The camp was described as dirty by staff, but as rustic by their pamphlets. Really, it was a bare-bones place that didn't have fancy activities like horseback riding or archery. No, instead, old canoes floated on the lake, kids made crafts out of popsicle sticks, and extra special activities included

the incredibly inexpensive Sleeping Under the Stars. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was still beloved by every camper that went. But that summer, 1973, had a dark underpinning. As counselors rolled out of Camp Well-Met in their cars for their days off, the radio offered a different perspective of their sun-soaked summer. Teens were disappearing in upstate New York. Just a few days prior to the start of our story, the body of a young man named Daniel Porter was found by police with four stab wounds. He had gone missing with his girlfriend

a few days before that. And a few days before they went missing, a 16-year-old girl named Alicia Hawk disappeared in Syracuse about a two and a half hour drive from Camp Wellmet. It's hard to say how much of those stories were on the mind of one of Wellmet's head staff though, as he waited for counselor Bonnie Bickwit to return to the camp on July 29th.

The 15 year old had been a camper there for years, though this was her first year on staff. She was supposed to be at work that day, but she didn't show up. And as the day went on, Bonnie was nowhere to be at work that day, but she didn't show up. And as the day went on, Bonnie was nowhere to be found. It seemed like her boss wasn't too worried though, because he continued on with his day and didn't alert anyone that Bonnie just never showed up. But if he turned on the radio, He would have heard another story. The story of how that day, four campers in Wells, New York, just a few hours from Well

Met, had all been tied to trees when an unknown assailant approached their campsite with a knife. And one of them had been murdered. There was something dark brewing in upstate New York that summer in 1973, and Bonnie Bickwit may have just found herself in the middle of it. Welcome back to our Dark Summer series here at Heart Starts Pounding. I'm your host, Kaelin Moore. So we just had a short break here at Heart Starts Pounding. I'm your host, Kaylen Moore. So we just had a short break here at Heart Starts Pounding, but I hope you were all able

to catch up on bonus episodes on Patreon and Apple subscriptions, and my new show The Attic over on YouTube. I loved hearing from some of you during this break. I had a lot of people sending me episode ideas and just strange articles in general, so thank you for that. I also received some really lovely reviews from you all, which I'm so grateful for. If you haven't had a chance and you're able to, please rate and review the show wherever you listen.

It really, really does help. I also want to take a second here to say that my friend Silas over at the Creeptime Podcast, just let me know that he's doing a live show in Vegas on September 13th for Creeptime. So if you're a fan of the show and you can make it to Vegas you should definitely hurry because the last time I checked there were only a few tickets left and I think you can head over to creeptime.com for more info on that. So every summer from ages 16 to 22, I worked at summer camps.

I loved it. It was the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. Being nestled in the middle of the woods, away from society for 8 weeks, you just really feel like you're in your own world. If you've ever been to camp, then maybe you can understand what I'm about to say next. But there is a darkness that hangs over the camping experience, whether you're aware of it or not.

For instance, every summer I'd watch as the head of the camp I worked at wields an old school TV set and a VHS player into the rec room. This was before the campers even showed up to the camp, it was just us counselors, but all of us would have to sit shoulder to shoulder on the floor and watch a video on the dangers of what could happen if you took your eyes off a child for even a moment. In just the blink of an eye they could be gone. I'm going to tell you the story of a troop leader named Dennis who had that exact experience happen to him.

But I'm also going to tell you the story of Bonnie Bickwit and how she was working at a summer camp in New York until the day that she just vanished. And after the episode on Thursday night, Patreon High Council members can join me over on Patreon for our footnotes episode, which I've started doing video because I like showing the case file I have on each episode. Basically, I show the images and video of my research to producer Matt because he normally hasn't seen it, and we go through the case together. But first, we're going to take a short break. This episode is brought to you by Liquid IV. My favorite Olympic sport is actually pole vaulting. I know I'm maybe alone in that, but it's because I competed in pole vault in high school,

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when you shop better hydration today using promo code HSP at liquidiv.com. On July 30th, 1973, the phone rings in the Brooklyn home of Ray Bickwith. She picks it up and hears a voice on the other end of the line saying they're from Camp Wellmet. Is Bonnie home? They ask. No, Ray says. She picks it up and hears a voice on the other end of the line saying they're from Camp Wellmet. Is Bonnie home, they ask.

No, Ray says, she's supposed to be with you. The camp informs her that Bonnie didn't show up yesterday and hasn't shown up today. They hadn't heard from her and wondered if she had maybe made it home. Somewhere else in Brooklyn, a woman named Shirley calls a 16-year-old boy named Stewart. Have you heard from Mitchell? she asks the boy. Mitchell is her 16-year-old son, and he's also the boyfriend of Bonnie. She hasn't heard from him in a few days either, and she's starting to worry. But Stewart's not much help, he hasn't heard from Mitchell and doesn't know where he would be. Shirley calls Ray and to her horror, she learns that Bonnie is also missing. Ray, in a panic,

drives to the Sheriff's office in Monticello, New York, the largest central village of Sullivan County where Camp Wellmet is located, to speak to the sheriff's office. They don't seem worried, however. They're just away for the summer and they'll come back, the sheriff's office tells Ray. The truth is, there were a few things about Bonnie and Mitchell's story that caused officers to not worry. On the surface, to them at least, this looked like a classic runaway case. See, the day that Bonnie was supposed to show up to camp, she wasn't arriving to work. She was coming back to collect her stuff. She had just quit her job as a mother's helper on July 27th.

That day, Mitchell had taken a two-hour bus up to Bonnie where he was going to pick her up and take her to a music festival, Summer Jam. His mother had pleaded with him not to go, she just had a bad feeling about him leaving. Bonnie and Mitchell had been dating for about a year after they met at their high school in Brooklyn. They both could be stubborn but were incredibly intelligent and successful in school. Bonnie's boss wouldn't let her take off time to attend the concert with Mitchell, though, so she quit.

She was a bit rebellious in that way. When she had something on her mind, she did it. And plus, Summer Jam was going to be one of the biggest concerts of her life. It was the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers. This was going to be her generation's Woodstock, and she and Mitchell were not going to miss it. But the concert was long over, and the two were nowhere to be found. The teens' family knew that was out of character for them. Though they were rebellious enough to travel hours away for a massive rock concert, the two were high achieving studious kids that were incredibly close with their families.

It didn't make sense that they just disappeared. The police, however, thought that was definitely the case. It was 1973. Kids were running away all the time to join the hippie movement. Plus, there wasn't a lot of services for missing kids. Vases wouldn't be put on milk cartons for another 10 years and amber alerts wouldn't be a thing for another 20. So the two mothers were told to wait and see if their kids came back. But the truth is, Bonnie and Mitch never even made it to the concert. Mitchell had spent the $25 he brought with him on the trip up to meet Bonnie. With no money, the couple decided to hitchhike right from outside the camp she worked at to the show,

which was about 150 miles away. The last time they were seen was when someone from the camp gave them a short ride in their truck and dropped them off. The two thanked him and then set off to find another ride for the next leg of their journey. NYPD assured Mitchell's father that they would notify other police agencies throughout the state of his son's disappearance. But get this, they never did. This inhibited the investigation from the get-go and they lost valuable time. The teens were just labeled as hippie runaways. Hitchhikers on their way to a music festival that took off afterwards. So after being shut down by Sullivan County,

Schuyler County, and the New York Police Department, the families launched their own investigation. They started doing all of the legwork while the police did nothing. Bonnie and Mitchell's families papered upstate New York and Sullivan and Schuyler County with thousands of flyers with descriptions of Bonnie and Mitch in the hopes that someone who had been traveling to Summer Jam had seen them.

They also took out ads in underground newspapers targeted at teens that their kids might see, asking Bonnie and Mitchell to please reach out to them. When that didn't work, they hired a private detective who checked in on hippie communes, local cults, and obscure religious sects like Hare Krishna and the Mooneys Unification Church in case the teens had gotten mixed up or seduced by the alluring alternative lifestyle community movement of the 70s. Mitchell's sister even approached the famous cult, Children of God, to see if they had any information or interactions with Bonnie and Mitchell,

but the cult members told them they hadn't seen the kids. The families looked everywhere they could with the little resources they had. The police were still not providing any aid. In fact, it seemed like they were completely preoccupied with something else that was happening. Right after the teens went missing, one of the largest manhunts in New York history was taking place. On July 29th, a man approached four young adults that were camping in Wells, New York, which is in Hamilton County, also upstate. He was 37 years old with glasses,

and on him was a hunting rifle and a knife. He told them that his orange Volkswagen hatchback had run out of gasoline and asked if they could help him. And what happened next was a nightmare. The man pulled out the rifle and had the group march down a logging road where he tied them all to trees. Then he proceeded to torture and kill one of them, 18-year-old Filip Dombluski. The others in the group, 19-year-old David Freeman,

20-year-old Nicholas Fiorello, and 23-year-old Carol Ann Malinowski were able to untie themselves and found help. For the next 12 days, police throughout the state set up checkpoints on almost every road looking for an orange Volkswagen. It belonged to serial killer Robert Garrow, who was guilty of at least four murders of young people, most of them girls that summer.

When police finally caught him on August 9, the families of Mitch and Bonnie wondered if he was tied to the disappearance of their children. He was, after all, responsible for the deaths of Daniel Porter and his girlfriend, another young couple in the area. Bonnie and Mitch, in a way, matched his victims profile. But without any law enforcement aid, there wasn't much they could do, and the case started going cold. In 1998, it was revealed that most of the information police had on the case had been destroyed.

The small amount that was collected included dental records of the teens and notes that were taken at the time. It was also revealed that almost no witnesses were ever interviewed, no one from Bonnie's camp was spoken to by police, and none of their friends were questioned. It wasn't until almost 30 years later that the case had any renewed interest when the TV show Missing Persons ran an episode about the couple. A 51 year old Rhode Island man named Alan Smith turned on his TV to see footage from the Summer Jam rock concert,

not realizing it was an episode of Missing Persons. Intrigued by the concert footage, he left the TV on, only to see pictures of Bonnie and Mitch flash on screen. Once he saw Bonnie with her long, wavy brown hair and wide smile, he was taken back to 1973. He recognized the couple, so he made multiple long-distance phone calls to the number at the end of the episode until he finally got through. He remembered something about them, and he had to let police know.

Smith believed Bonnie and Mitch were the couple he met in 1973 in New York. He claims they were all hitchhiking home because they weren't able to get anywhere near the concert. He remembered the girl wore a bandana or scarf on her head, and Bonnie's sister confirmed that she often wore a scarf. Alan and the couple needed a ride, and together they stood on the side of the road until a car slowed down and picked them up. The type of car? An orange Volkswagen. During their journey, he remembered the drivers stopped on the side of the road to let them all out so they could jump in the Susquehanna River and cool off before they finished their journey. According to Allen, he

watched as Bonnie jumped in the rough water and started flailing. Mitch jumped in after her, but the two were swept away by the current. Allen believed the driver would call the police, so he never reported it. He also had been smoking weed that day and was nervous about dealing with the cops. So when police hear this story in 2000, they're a little bit skeptical. They check the records of bodies found in the Susquehanna River around that time, and they never find any two people who matched Bonnie and Mitch's description. They said it was typical for drowned victims to surface in that river, and that it was

unlikely that they wouldn't have ever been recovered. So maybe Alan was getting some details mixed up. Or maybe there was something he was hiding from the police. He was, after all, smoking weed and nervous to talk to cops that day. But there was one part of the story that stood out to them. The Orange Volkswagen. At that point, in the year 2000, Robert Garrow had been dead for 22 years and he had never confessed to killing the teens even though he had confessed to other crimes he committed after he was arrested.

So last year, 2023, was the 50th anniversary of the couple's disappearance. And Bonnie and Mitch's surviving family members hoped that the 50th anniversary would drum up some interest in the case. Stewart, Mitch's best friend, thinks that police need to seriously investigate if Robert Garrow could have had anything to do with the disappearance of his friends. If you have any information on what happened to Mitchell and Bonnie, have any information on what happened to Mitchell and Bonnie, Stewart still operates a website dedicated to collecting information on the two. You can email him at stewart.michellandbonnie.com. That's M-I-T-C-H-E-L-A-N-D-B-O-N-N-I-E.com. More after a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Miracle Made. I sleep terribly in the summer.

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Thank you Miracle Maid for sponsoring this episode. On July 19th, 1991, a scoutmaster named Dennis hiked with his troop up the side of a mountain near San Gorgonio in California. The troop consisted of six middle school boys who belonged to the Mormon Church in San Bernardino, and now that school was out and summer was in full swing, the troop offered programs like this hike for scouts. It was supposed to be a fun but challenging climb up to the summit of the mountain where the boys could look out at all they had accomplished in their 15-mile or 24-kilometer trek. The only problem, Dennis thought

as he looked out at all the boys, was that not every 12-year-old was in the best shape for the trek. Five of them laughed and ran around as they effortlessly trekked up the mountain, them laughed and ran around as they effortlessly trekked up the mountain. But one boy, Jared Negretti, was having a hard time. Earlier that morning, the group had packed up their campsite by Dry Lake and moved it a mile up the mountain to a new camping location. Today, they were set to trek up the last, albeit most challenging part of the summit. Most of today's hike was going to be above 10,000 feet or 3,000 meters, meaning oxygen would be thinner and the already steep and rocky climb

was going to be more taxing. Jared seemed like he was already exhausted from the mile ascent with his packs this morning and he was struggling to keep up with the group. Just then one of the boys suggested they race to the top of the mountain and the others shouted in agreement. Off they ran, bounding over the big rocks in the path and skillfully maneuvering through the slim parts of the trails. Dennis followed the boys up the last stretch to the summit when they finally reached the peak. Around them was a 360 degree view of San Bernardino.

Other hikers stood around snapping pictures and posing by the sign that displayed their accomplishment. It was an awe-inspiring view for the boys to witness. They made it up just before sunset. The only problem was not everyone was there. Jared had not made it to the top. That's when two hikers pulled Dennis aside. They told him that they had passed a boy scout further back who was really struggling and kept wandering off the path.

That was definitely Jared, Dennis thought. He thanked the hikers for letting him know and told them that he'd be picking the boy up on his way down. If the hikers had passed him, he must not be that far down the mountain, Dennis assumed. And so the other five boys were rounded up and they all started their descent. Dennis imagined where Jared would be in his head, but as they got closer to the area, Jared was nowhere to be found.

Maybe he just turned around and tried to get back to their camp. But no matter how far the troop hiked, Jared wasn't anywhere. Details of what happened next are a little hazy, but we know that at 1.30 a.m. an emergency call was finally placed to police to inform them that Jared was missing. He was last seen by the hikers around 6.30 p.m. The police were not able to start their search for another two hours,

meaning that nine hours would go by from the time Jared went missing to when the search for another two hours, meaning that nine hours would go by from the time Jared went missing to when the search for him began. What followed was search parties, largely led by volunteers setting out to search as much of the mountain as they could, covering about 45 square miles. People searched on foot, on horseback, and his parents even circled the area in a helicopter, shouting his name out on the bullhorn. They vowed that no stone on the mountain would remain unturned. Searchers were made aware of the last thing that he was wearing, green pants, glasses,

high tops and a tan shirt. Actually, a few days passed with no sign of the boy. But emergency services wouldn't give up just yet. There was still a chance that he was alive. There was fresh water on the mountain full of fish. It was possible to survive alone up there. Plus Jared was known to always have a snack on him. That could potentially hold him over. But they also started to fear the worst. See, sometimes when children are lost, they'll freak out and think that they'll get in trouble if they're found, so they'll hide from search parties intentionally. Searchers also worried that in a panic, Jared may have tried to take a route straight down the mountain and back to civilization,

even if it was off of a path. We know from the last people who saw Jared that he was having trouble staying on the trail. They even told him to stay on the path as they passed, worried that he may hurt himself. But also, a big issue searchers faced was that where Jared was last seen was near the resting place before the final summit up the mountain, meaning there was a chance that Jared took off on the wrong trail. There is a small break in the search, however, on July 22nd,

when footprints matching Jared's are found three miles away at the 10,000 foot peak of the High Creek Trail, heading back down a trail from the big peak the boys raced to. The footprints don't really seem to go anywhere though, so they don't offer much help other than showing that Jared was there and that he had potentially stayed on a path to get to this peak. The search continues, occasionally aided by troop leader Dennis. It seems like an unspoken agreement amongst everyone that this wouldn't have happened if Dennis had paid better attention. Jared's parents tried to take some of the blame off of Dennis, saying that perhaps their son bent down to tie his shoe and leaving him behind was completely

unintentional. However, another parent confirms that the boys were racing and Dennis did take off with them. Scout rules, at least at the time, said two important things. One was that the slowest hiker sets the pace, and two, troop leaders should be too deep. Typically there were two troop leaders assigned to a group like this, and for this trip there actually originally were. But the day of the hike, the second leader called out. Dennis, not wanting to cancel the trip for the kids and confident in his 15 years of involvement with the Boy Scouts,

decided to keep the trip on. But though Dennis claimed to be an expert hiker, he had only worked with this particular troop for five months. And though scouting taught the boys basic survival skills, it was nothing compared to what someone would need to survive in the mountains for days on end. The sheriff's deputy noted that every day Jared was missing, his chance of survival drastically dropped. A study done by Oregon Health and Science University found that 99% of people found alive during search and rescue missions were found within the first 51 hours of being reported missing. That means if Jared was reported missing at 1 30 a.m. on July 20th, 51 hours later it was 4 30 a.m. on July 22nd. That was the day that Jared's footprints were found. So when those footprints are ultimately ruled

to not lead to anything on July 24th, Jared's chances of being found alive are under 1%. But the community was not ready to give up on the young boy just yet. And the search continued. People were hopeful. They shared stories of miraculous survival tales like how a man in California stayed alive once for 39 days in the wilderness,

surviving on bugs and moss. Maybe they ignored the fact that the man was a former Marine, with far more survival training than young Jared. By July 28th, over a week had passed and some of the searchers were starting to feel like they wouldn't find Jared alive. They were still blanketed across the mountain when all of a sudden one of them calls out that they found something. Other searchers run over to the area at the bottom of a slope near a river where they see a few snack wrappers, a beef jerky, and a camera.

The area isn't on any trail. It looks like Jared may have slid down on his bottom and the contents fell out of his pockets. The camera is sent in to process photos. Maybe there's something useful on there. But what they find instead is haunting. 12 photos were developed from Jared's camera. Most were images of the Mount San Gorgonio landscape, trees, hillsides, a photo of a mountain peak in the distance, but it was the last photo that was taken on the camera that chilled investigators and still haunts

searchers to this day. After a short break. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Comparison is the thief of joy, they say. And I'm definitely guilty of comparing my life to others. I don't know about you. My husband even laughs at me sometimes because I'll just bring up a random person who has nothing to do with my life at all and I'll compare myself to them.

But he has some really great advice that he tells me, which is decide what winning means to you and then just enjoy the game. And that's what therapy can do for you. It can help you focus on what you want instead of what others have. And then when you know what you want, you can just enjoy the ride and not worry what others think. I've really benefited from therapy and I really think it's important that there's flexible therapy out there for people, which is where BetterHelp comes in.

It's designed to work with your schedule and if you don't vibe with the licensed therapist you get matched to, you can switch at any time for no cost. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash stay curious today and get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash stay curious. For the final photo on the camera, Jared turned the lens towards himself. It's a close-up of his face. His arms were maybe not long enough to get a fuller photo. Instead, we just see his eyes and nose illuminated by a bright

flash, indicating that it was night when the photo was taken. In it, his eyes are slightly squinted, maybe from the brightness of the flash, though some think he may be afraid of something. Though this camera was found, no more traces of Jared would be. And the search was eventually called off a little more than a week later, 19 days after Jared was first reported missing. Authorities believed there was at that point a 0% chance he was still alive. To this day, no one knows what happened to Jared. Some people believe he fell to his death shortly after going missing.

The camera was found off of a trail, so maybe Jared was trying to get down the mountain the fastest way possible and fell or ran into an animal. Logan Clark has a different theory though. He was a private investigator hired by the Negrettis who believed Jared was kidnapped. In his investigation, he came across two other people in the area who said they had been kidnapped or nearly kidnapped. One was a 10-year-old boy who was able to get away from his captor on September

7th of that same year, and the other was a man in his late 20s who was abducted and buried up to his neck. He was able to escape three days later. Other, very important parts of those stories are missing, however. Like, what did the abductor look like? Was it the same abductor? And did anyone else see that person on the mountain the day that Jared went missing? Police have largely discounted this theory. Jared's remains have never been found, and most believe that they're still on the mountain. His parents blame the Scouts and the Mormon church, though neither of them were ever charged with any crime. Instead, Sheriff deputies spoke to Scout leaders to teach them more safety protocols to make

sure no child ever went missing under their care again. Dennis was moved from his position to a state supervisor role. Many who are interested in this case go back to the last photo of Jared. What can be learned from just two eyes and a nose? Is his brow furrowed? Is he afraid? Is there something behind him? What clues does this photo hold? And will it ever help someone locate him? And will it ever help someone locate him? They always told us it can happen in an instant. One moment you turn your back on your campers, and the next thing you know, one is missing.

But in the case of Jared Negretti, it seemed like that wasn't the case. Dennis knowingly walked away from his camper, and brushed it off when others brought up concerns about Jared struggling on the trails. If the group had more patience and stayed together, we probably wouldn't be wondering what happened to the boy today. As for Bonnie and Mitchell, last year authorities dug up a site near where the concert was after they received a tip.

They found a 55 gallon drum filled with just rocks. It's disappointing, but it seems like they're still looking into this case. But after all these years, memories are fading and those involved are getting older. Time is not on the side of the investigators and hopefully with the little renewed interest in the case they can finally find out what happened to Bonnie and Mitchell. This has been Heart Starts Pounding written and produced by me, Kaylyn Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kaylyn Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also

produced by Matt Brown. Additional research by Marissa Dao. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.