My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 367 - High-Fives With Both Hands

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

This week, Karen covers the missing persons case of Donald Boardman and Georgia tells the story of the "Missing Boy of Somosierra,” Juan Pedro Martínez Gómez.For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This Is Actually Happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, This Is Actually Happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. Follow This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts. Music Hello. And welcome. This is my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgarath. And we're here to do a true crime podcast for you if that's what you are looking for.

Yeah. I mean, that's what we thought you were looking for. You may have been looking for my favorite murder, which is that other podcast about what could it be. Favorite things. You know, it's the Home Shopping Network podcast. They went edgy with the name. They know true crime is huge. Yeah. It was a smart idea. It's bold. You know what I mean? It's a bold thing.

So if you're here to look at bobbles. You're just trying to get a scarf to match your new sweater. Crystal scarf. You're at the wrong place. But please, please stick around. Throw that crystal scarf around your neck. Rip your jugular out and enjoy the spring. Someone in the face. You're kicky. What a kicky scarf.

When's the last time you wore a scarf? Would you say? Early aughts, I would say, when they were like trendy, you know? Or, no, yeah, maybe in the, when we were traveling. What about you? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to think. I think probably like, I know for a fact I bought an infinity scarf at a CVS somewhere on the East Coast when we were very cold. Like real cold, like Chicago cold. Chicago, I think we were, it was like D.C. maybe.

Yeah, yeah. It was one of those, we were like, wait, what? Oh, this is a thing? This is quite brisk in this city. What's going on? What do you have to share with this Home Shopping Network podcast? It's amazing that you would ask because, you know, when you were trying to, you're trying to mop your kitchen, but you're also trying to sweep your kitchen? No. Here comes the sweet mop.

Sorry, I was trying to make up something you'd see on the Home Shopping Network. I got it. My dad was in town and I realized I need a whole separate set of entertainment to please him and me. So like on Netflix, they have a new, a 2022 version of All Quiet on the Western Front, which is amazing. I was like, okay, that goes on the watch list because come on, World War One, dad movie, hell yes. We went from there to a movie called The Counterfeiters, which is from 2000, 2007. Did you ever see the movie The Counterfeiters? It's a true story.

It's so fucking good, Georgia. It's a true story of a prisoner at Auschwitz who had, who was arrested because he was such a prolific. He was like the best counterfeiter in either Poland or Germany. Maybe Germany and he was sent to Auschwitz. And within the camp, they had prisoners working on counterfeit money because part of the Nazi's plan was that they were going to inundate the British pound and the American dollar and basically make all of our money not worth anything that was part of their plan. I didn't know that.

That's cool. I mean, that's not cool. That's cool that that's a movie. It's an amazing movie. It's a mind-blowing movie. And then the next night, because then we were all into that vibe and that theme, then I was like, Dad, have you ever seen The Lives of Others, which is a 2006 movie? That movie is incredible.

Oh, so we went World War I, World War II, post-World War II. Yeah, Cold War, Stasi fucking... Stasi. East Berlin style. I got really into East Berlin after watching that like stories and such. Because did you do that thing of like, wait, I didn't realize this happened? How was this possible? Yeah, deep dive.

So crazy. Yeah. So if you've never seen any of those movies, Dear Listener, I recommend all three, especially if your dad's in town. What have you been doing? Not enough to have anything to talk about on this fucking podcast. I try so hard to find new podcasts that I like, but I only want to listen to audiobooks. But none of them are like top notch enough to talk about them on the podcast. So then I read some books too.

I'm reading yet another self-help book that I can't remember the name of. It's one of those kinds of things, you know? Is it a self-help book called When You Can't Remember the Name of the Self-Help Book? You're on this week. How to remember the things that help you remember? In a timely way. Yeah. I actually listened to, you might really like this.

We've talked about this podcast on this podcast before, but it's Cara Lowentheil's podcast, Unfuck Your Brain, which we've definitely discussed before. Right now she has two episodes. So there's two, and they're recent. One is myths about love, and the other one is myths about self-love. The reason it popped into my head is just because for the amount of self-help stuff that I consume and I know you consume, I feel like she's a life coach, but she used to be a lawyer as a podcaster, and all those things kind of combine.

She is so good at crystallizing the piece of the connective tissue between the thing that you are thinking about and how she walks you to what the actual solution in yourself is. Yeah, she makes it clear. But it's a bigger picture. It's almost like she asks you to step back and look at the way you're looking at it is actually wrong, as opposed to what's the thing, you know, I need to grind harder. I need to get up at 5 a.m. There's all the tricks that are trendy, and she's always like, this is all thinking.

You've just decided a thing. And if it's your thinking, then you can change it because that's just what you're choosing to think. And so many things are like that where it's like, there's nothing wrong with your relationship. It's just what you're just deciding there's a thing happening. So can you change the way you're thinking about it? It's just really kind of mind-blowing. I think she's better than most people at that job. It's just really like actually helpful advice.

Unfuck your brain. A host is Carl Lowenthal. I love the name too, where it's like not taking yourself too seriously. She calls herself a feminist life coach, which basically means she comes from a point of view that we all relate to, where it's like, if your goals might be a little bit different than the standard goals or what maybe you were raised thinking. It's just all that kind of breaking out of normie thoughts. It's real self-empowerment. It's really cool.

Okay, I'm checking it out. I find her so helpful. I need that. I love that your therapist sends you podcasts too. That's so modern. Well, and also I've been talking to her for so long that at this point it really is that kind of thing of like, oh, you have to hear this or like she'll say, I listened to it and it made me think of a thing we were talking about,

which is always good to get advice from lots of different directions. Especially professionals. Speaking of professionals, should we do exactly a right corner? Absolutely. Hey guys, we have a podcast network and here are some highlights from it. Over on I Said No Gifts, Bridger has a very special guest, Nicole Byer from Nailed It on Netflix, the cake making show on Netflix. I love her.

She also has the podcast Why Won't You Date Me? She's a genius, hilarious stand-up comedian. She's hosted lots of podcasts. Now she's gone on to hosting and being Emmy nominated for her television hosting. She's just, she's got it all. It's Nicole Byer. She does. Oh, and also if you're not in the fan cult, maybe you might need to know this every week.

We publish a unique mini-mini-soad, which means there's two extra hometown stories per episode. So if you can't get enough, just know that you can join the fan cult. You can get access to those exclusive mini-mini episodes, plus content like video, George and I do Q&As. We record ourselves reading the mini-soads. We give advice, but it's not as good as some. We talk a lot about food.

That's always very engaging. So go over to myfavoritmurder.com if you want to be a part of the fan cult. Yay. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on earth? What really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast,

Life is Short with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like what is the meaning of life, I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others, and that's why in each episode I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life.

We explore how they felt during the highs, and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is Short wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. It's always so much pressure when you go first. It's a little bit of pressure. It is a little like you're like the opener of the show. Yeah. Or you're like first in bed and the sheets are still cold. Oh, what a bummer. February 3rd was National Missing Persons Day,

and Namus, which is the nickname for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. That's the national database of unidentified remains and missing persons in America. According to their data, nearly 600,000 Americans go missing every year. That is wild. Closer to a million than I am comfortable with.

That's a crazy high number. Now, the good news is that most missing people are found, but on average, tens of thousands remain missing a year after their initial reports are filed, and that's a year into a case is when most police departments consider an open case to have gone cold. And at the same time, nearly 4,500 unidentified bodies are found in the United States every year.

4,500? 4,500 unidentified bodies. A year? Yep. That is so many. I know. It's so many. And linking those, John and Jane Doe's, to a missing person case,

that's referred to as giving someone their name back. That's important, often difficult work, as you told in your story about the boy in the box, Joseph Augustus Zarelli. So today, I'm going to tell you the story of one John Doe from the 80s and how he finally got his name back. Cool. The main sources I'll be using today

are multiple chat nougat times free press articles by journalist Ben Benton, an article in The Tennessean by a writer named Keith Sharon, and a Fox 29 article by Danielle Wallace. There's more sources, and they're all in our show notes. This all starts on December 16th, 1985, in Marion County, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles west of Chattanooga.

There's a fisherman walking along a stream near Interstate 24. It had been an unseasonably warm winter, and so this guy was just taking advantage of the mild weather to get in some fishing. But before he gets down to the water, he sees what turns out to be a man's heavily decomposed body alongside the stream. He immediately leaves to call the police,

and when officers arrive, they conduct a thorough search of the area, but they don't find anything that would identify the man. No driver's license, no credit card, no distinctive jewelry, and his face is decomposed enough so that they can't even make out defining features. Yeah, so the only indication of who this man might be is his clothing.

He's wearing an L.L. Bean long sleeve shirt with a blue Oxford shirt underneath it, and he's wearing, it's 1985, remember, he's wearing Jordash jeans. So one investigator would later say, quote, he was dressed like somebody who had money. But that's all they know and all they can tell. So the body's removed from the scene,

and it's examined by forensic and medical experts, and they determined that this Jondo is somewhere between 25 and 40 years old, that he's five foot 10, and that he likely died from a severe blow to the back of his head. It's no question that it's a homicide, and the experts conclude that the victim's body

has been outside for about a month when he was discovered by that fisherman. So that means that the Jondo was probably killed somewhere around mid-November 1985. Soon, Tennessee's 12th Judicial District Attorney General's Office takes over the investigation, and a 32-year-old investigator named Larry Davis is assigned to this case.

So at first, Larry's hopeful he can close the case quickly. Investigators have the man's age, roughly, his height, indications of his social class, and an idea of when he was killed. But that is not enough to move the case forward. So Larry chases down lead after lead, but he hits wall after wall. And then on top of that, detectives could not unearth

any evidence from the crime scene, not even fingerprints. So within weeks, the investigation begins to lose steam. And this Jondo's remains that investigators begin to refer to for, like, shorthand as the jordash bones that are placed into storage. But Larry Davis doesn't forget about this Jondo, and he never lets the case go. 33 years pass.

Yeah. So many of these stories. I know. That's a part of it. It's so sad, just the families, you know, the first five years waiting for an answer. Yeah. And then imagine waiting 30-something fucking years.

30 years, hopefully. And what my personal dream is, is that the popularity of true crime and the awareness that these stories that keep getting told bring to the fore, is that these systems have to get refined. Right. Because, like, Namus was, I bet you, relatively new in 1985. Yeah.

If it existed at all. I don't think it existed until the end of the 90s. Yeah. Until, like, chat rooms were existed. Right. Yeah. That essentially we can, we're staring down the barrel of, like, well, if this is the same thing we say every single time,

which is the cops didn't look at this, they didn't think of this, they didn't, whatever, that's something that, that can be in the conversation that then that gets fixed with all of that money that goes toward policing every year. Yeah. Like, maybe cut some of that out, give it to the schools, and then take the other money and put it toward actually solving

these cases and using technology and using all the stuff that we now have at the tips of our fingers to clear some of these away. Okay, so. Absolutely. So, that's the editorial sidebar. My apologies. So, now it's 2018 and Larry Davis is 69 years old.

So, he's been working as an investigator at the DA's office this whole time, but he's starting to think of retiring. But he knows the Marion County John Doe cold case. It's just still sitting there unsolved and he does not want to retire without that getting solved. For Larry, the idea of leaving his post without having completed that unfinished business is just not okay. So, he decides to try something new.

So, he asks for the removal of the bones from storage and he has them sent to an anthropologist named Dr. William Bass. Now, you know Dr. William Bass because he's a legend in the field of forensics and he's most well known for his body farm at the University of Tennessee. Yeah. Wow.

So, if you don't know what a body farm is, it's basically a school or a place that like they devote acres of land to planting different corpses and observing body decomposition so that when investigators find bodies out in the world, they can take that information and that data and like put together storylines of bodies and how they got there and what their story is. It's so fascinating and it's crazy that you could like

donate your body to science when you die and that's one of the places you could go. Yeah. And I think that's one of the most useful ones. Yeah. Yeah. Aside from obviously organ donation, which I just signed up for, I had to renew my driver's license and I was like,

oh, that's right. Dang, hit that circle. Me too. Hell yeah. Okay. So, Dr. Bass leads a crew of scientists studying the decay of cadavers on their two acre property at the University of Tennessee and the body farms led to some of the most

comprehensive research into human decomposition and it's made Dr. Bass a go-to resource in unidentified person cases. So, when Larry sends the so-called Jordash Bones off to the University of Tennessee for analysis, he is well aware that Dr. Bass is able to make important determinations about a human's life and appearance just by looking at their remains and Larry Davis's impulses are right on the money. Dr. Bass's analysis of the bones lead to a brand new

composite sketch of the Marion County John Doe and this sketch shows a man with sharp cheekbones, bright eyes and long hair who seems to fall into the 25 to 40 year old age range that was initially established by investigators. This sketch is uploaded to the NamUs database where it's accessible to anyone on the internet who wants to go there. So, all you have to do is go to NamUs.gov, you do an unidentified person search, you filter results for the state

that you're looking for, so this was Tennessee. But Larry Davis knows there's a lot of people who might not be familiar with NamUs and he wants as many people to see this picture, this new composite sketch as possible. So, he contacts a Chattanooga Times free press reporter named Ben Benton and Ben has a long career as a journalist in Tennessee and he's been on the staff at the Times free press since 2005 and throughout his career he's tackled his fair

share of articles about local crime and basically Larry assumes that Ben would be open to hearing his idea about writing up an article about this new composite sketch. So, they meet up, Larry fills Ben in on the 1985 John Doe case and Ben Benton writes the article. He leads it with the image of the composite sketch and quotes Larry saying, quote, I want to clear up this case before I die. There are loved ones out there, his loved ones, his mom and

dad were obligated to find out who these people are, end quote. And that article runs in the January 29th, 2018 edition of that newspaper. So, it's 33 years after this John Doe has been discovered and his story is being told to whoever reads the Chattanooga Times free press. So, interestingly, about 25 miles outside of Chattanooga, a Marion County resident named Barbara King Ladd is easing

into the end of her day. She's a busy stay-at-home mom who's trying to put her kids to bed and as she's doing it she picks up her phone and opens up Facebook and begins to scroll and she is stopped in her tracks by a headline that reads, Investigator still looking for clues in 1985 Marion County, Tennessee cold case death. Barbara would later say, quote, I clicked on it and read it

and then it peaked my curiosity and if something grabs my curiosity, I'll follow through it until it gets boring to me. End quote. Love it. Right? But here's what's funny, Barbara isn't particularly interested in true crime. She does not consider herself a citizen sleuth in any way.

She's just a very curious person and she has a very strong sense of intuition and there's something about this John Doe case that feels very solvable to her. It just strikes her. So, as soon as she finishes reading the article and gets her kids to go to sleep, she decides she's going to start doing some digging. So, she does a few quick Google searches for missing person

lists and she ends up on the NamUs website and once she's there, she scans the page to get a lay of the land. She goes up to the missing person's tab and that brings her to the webpage with all sorts of filters to help narrow down the searches and they include things like the missing person's name, their last known communication, location details, date, age ranges, all kinds of things. So, Barbara zeroes in on the details she knows from Ben's

article, like the John Doe's sex location and the date he was found and his possible age range. And she also looked at the composite sketch, but when she gets to the location section, which includes a dropdown list of US cities, she waits for a second and this is where she gets a weird feeling. She knows that the Marion County John Doe was found in the state of Tennessee, but she gets this instinct that she should

look in different states. And the gut tells her that the detectives who have tried to investigate this case would have investigated any and all missing person's cases in the state of Tennessee. And the river this body was found along was right near the state line. So, Barbara also knows that this was a homicide. So, she puts herself into the mind of the killer, even though

she's not into true crime. She mind hunts it, she's a mind hunter. And she would later say, quote, I thought it would be worth the effort to cross state lines to dump a body, which is very true and very common. So, Barbara first selects Georgia. Hey. And then Alabama, since the John Doe was found between the

two states. So, results start flooding the screen. Barbara taps the first result. It takes her to a dedicated page for that specific missing man. It says his full name, his personal details. It has a photograph. Barbara cross references all that information with Ben's article, compares the photograph with the composite sketch.

They look nothing alike. Barbara knows this isn't the Marion County John Doe. So, she moves on to the second name. Again, that's clearly not a match. She goes back to her search results, hits the third name on the list. This time when the page loads, there is a photograph looking back at her that is very familiar.

In fact, it looks exactly like the face from the composite sketch. Oh, my God. He has the same eyes, the long hair, strong cheekbones. Barbara immediately closes out of the webpage and texts her girlfriends in a group chat. And she says, quote, I just solved a case. Holy shit.

Oh, my God. We got her. We got her now. Three in. And she was able to find it. Three in. So, incredibly, investigators have spent over 30 years trying to identify the Marion County John Doe.

Barbara hasn't even spent an hour searching before she lands on a name, and that name is Donald Boardman. So, she's excited, of course, but she also has no idea what to do with this information. And she wants to make sure before she starts trying to tell officials about it that she's right. So, she starts looking up Donald Boardman and trying to find anything she can about him.

Donald was 36 years old at the time he went missing, which fits the John Doe's age range. And his missing person's report was filed within the exact timeframe that the investigators believed that the John Doe was killed. So, these details start lining up. So, Barbara decides to send an email to the 12th Judicial District Attorney's Office.

It's hard to say. I think it's just the District Attorney's Office, but it's a specific area. And that's, of course, where investigator Larry Davis has been working for the past 33 years or more, 33 plus years. So, she sends the email several days past. There's no response. She figures either it got ignored or just got lost in the

shuffle. So, Barbara sends a follow-up email a few more days past, but then she gets a response from Larry Davis, and he tells her he's going to look into this information. She's so thrilled that she actually got a reply, that something's going to be done. Like, she's so excited. She waits to hear.

She waits days. She waits weeks. She waits months. Three years end up going by. Holy shit. So, now it's 2021. Oh, my God. And Barbara's communication with Larry is completely dried up.

Why? So, she was trying not to step on any toes. Sure. You know what I mean? Just she's like making a suggestion. And I'm sure at some point she was like, well, I guess I was wrong. Or, you know, I don't know.

She was trying to be patient and not step on toes, but she runs out of patience. Like, sure. At the end of that time. So, in April of 2021, she decides to go ahead, and which also could have had something to do with quarantine. Like everyone's lives slowed down a lot. So, she decides to go ahead and reach out to the police department

where Donald Boardman's father reported him missing, which is the Shambly Police Department in Georgia. So, she basically goes the other direction and tries to contact someone on the other end. Smart. Very smart. So, she does it the same way. She found the story in the first place.

She opens up her Facebook app. She goes to the Shambly Police Department's page, writes them a message that includes everything she found, everything, you know, all the pictures, everything. And it also includes her picture and her name. So, she's like a contactable person. Yeah. Not just a random weird email person.

Yeah. And that was her strategy, basically. She would later say, quote, I intentionally decided to send it through Facebook. So, the person who received it would know that I was real and would also see my picture and know that I wasn't crazy. Which is like, ma'am, anyone on Facebook could be crazy. Definitely.

And is. But this plan works. A crime analyst named Lori Bradburn, who basically is in charge of that police department's social media channels, reads Barbara's message. She's instantly curious about what Barbara is talking about and all the information she seems to have. But what really sells her is that composite sketch.

It looks exactly like the photo in Donald Boardman's Missing Persons Report. Lori, thanks Barbara for her work. And then she reaches out to Larry Davis over in Tennessee and says, hey, listen up. So thanks to Barbara's persistence, Lori Bradburn in Georgia and investigator Larry Davis in Tennessee are now convinced that Donald Boardman is indeed

the Marion County John Doe. But now they have to prove it. So Lori reaches out to Donald's 71-year-old sister Debbie Boardman Anderson, who's living in Florida, and she requests a DNA sample. And Debbie is absolutely shocked to hear from investigators. She would later tell reporters, quote, for me, it was out of the clear blue sky.

I was not expecting it. There were so many things going through my mind, shock, happiness, relief, and grief, all at the same time. I was sobbing on the phone. Oh my God, I bet. Yeah. I mean, after 30-plus years of knowing nothing. Yeah.

Let me just take you through Donald Boardman's life really quick up to what happened to him. So Donald Boardman is born in South Florida in 1950. And by all accounts, he is a very laid-back, very fashionable, and very fun-loving guy. He's known to have an obsession with health food. And he was also an early adopter and really loved to tell people about CDs when they came out.

He liked them first, which I think he was probably one of those people just kind of like, look at this modern age that we live in. Yeah. So for years, Donald works for his family's very successful gift shop business, Boardman's Gifts. And he oversaw all the new store openings in Florida. Donald Marry's young.

And this is a very strange kind of sidebar factoid. But he, in his first marriage, became the son-in-law of longtime forensic files narrator Pete Thomas. That's just a coincidence? Yep. Weird. Isn't that weird? Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. The marriage ultimately ends in divorce, Donald remarries. This time to a woman he had met just six weeks before. And that relationship ends as well. No surprise. So around the same time that that second marriage ends, around 1985, Donald opens a nightclub,

but it gets shut down almost immediately because there was an issue with the business license. So at this point, 36-year-old Donald is in a real slump, but he's determined to get out of it. That same year, his business folds in 1985. He decides he needs a fresh start. So he leaves the family business, he packs up, and he moves from South Florida to Atlanta, Georgia.

He lands his dream job at a design firm, and he rewards himself by buying a brand new white Camaro. Wow. So on November 16, 1985, he calls his mom and dad back in Florida. He tells them he's going to be driving his new Camaro down the following week for Thanksgiving. And he also, just conversationally, is talking about a health food convention that's going to be in town

that coming weekend in Atlanta that he's really excited to go to. His family is very happy for him. It seems like he's turning everything around, and he's very happy in the new city with his new car and his new job, and they can't wait to see him on the holiday. When Donald's family doesn't hear from him over the weekend, they don't really think of anything of it. They know that he's busy with the health food convention,

probably having a wonderful time. But the following Monday, November 18, when they get a phone call from Donald's new employer telling them that he never showed up for work, they start to get rattled. They try to call him, they can't get ahold of him, they can't find him anywhere. So the next day, November 19, 1985,

Donald's father reports him missing with the Chambley Police Department. They handle cases in a specific part of the Atlanta metro area. And Donald's family is just hoping that there's a mix-up and Donald's going to show up and explain everything with a crazy story, of course, which is, I think, how it always happens. Because Thanksgiving is just days away.

But when the holidays come and go, and no one hears a word from Donald, this situation obviously goes from bad to worse. He hasn't called work or shown up to work, and he has not been in his apartment. Time passes with no word on his whereabouts while the Boardman family just waits and waits in agony. So Debbie Boardman has a theory

about what happened to her brother. As reported by the Tennessean, she believes he was murdered in Atlanta for his car, for the new Camaro. Probably as he was leaving the health food convention. Oh, shit. Yeah. So on November 29th, 1985,

and the police at the time must have listened either to her or put together the same theory. Because just 10 days after Donald was reported missing, the Camaro was spotted at a barbecue restaurant just outside of Atlanta. And according to Donald's case file, police arrested three very drunk people

who were getting into the car after eating at the restaurant. And when police ran background checks on each of them, they learned they all had extensive criminal records. And one of them even had an outstanding arrest warrant. Another one was on federal probation for a gun charge. So when the police interview these three people, it gets more suspicious. One of the men claims that Donald was a customer

at his auto repair business. So going off the context clues in these police reports, they refer to the man's business as a chop shop. So it's unlikely that this wasn't just a normal above board place to have your car serviced. Right. Certainly not a brand new sports car. Yeah.

So the man claims that on November 18th, the day before Donald was reported missing, he'd brought his Camaro in for repairs and never picked it up. And that's when this man and his friends started driving it around. But when detectives searched that repair shop, all the man has to show for these supposed repairs

is an unsigned invoice for $347, addressed to Donald Boardman. And it simply says, replace rear end on it. So meanwhile, investigators take the car into custody. They do a thorough search of the inside. They find Donald's credit card under one of the back seats. And they soon discover that that credit card had been used to make purchases all over Atlanta.

It had been used at gas stations, department stores, a Chevy dealership, even a motorcycle salvage shop where police are able to directly link that purchase to the three people who were found in the car. Yeah. And every single one of these purchases from this credit card was made after Donald was reported missing. So these three people become the Chamblee Police Department's

main suspects in connection with Donald Boardman's disappearance but for unknown reasons, they're never charged with any crime related to his disappearance or for the use of his credit cards or for the car theft. Ultimately, one of the suspects who already had a worn out for their arrest is sent to prison. The other two walk free. Fuck.

Yeah. And all of this is, and we have talked about this before, comes up in cases a lot when there is no body. Right. So you can't prove anything has happened to the person that everyone is worried about, the person that's missing. Right. In July of 1987, the Boardman family files a lawsuit

naming all three of these suspects as defendants. Complaint says that they, quote, knew about or participated in the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Donald Harry Boardman, end quote. But the case is ultimately thrown out due to lack of evidence tying the three people to Donald's disappearance. Police in Georgia haven't found Donald's body

so they don't know if he's alive or dead and the Boardman family and the Shambly police have no idea that while they're at that point in the case, over in Tennessee, Donald's unidentified remains are being put into storage. Damn. Oh, it's so tragic. Yeah.

So in the years after Donald's disappearance, the Boardman family struggles with not knowing what happened to their son and brother. Updates rarely come. Both of Donald's parents pass away without knowing what happened to their son. I hate it. It's horrible.

And despite her deep grief, Donald's sister Debbie does her best to keep hope alive and what choice does she have. Yeah. So when investigators finally call 30 plus years later and ask for her DNA, it suddenly feels like she was right all along. She had reason to be hopeful and she enthusiastically submits

her DNA and waits to hear what happens. And the results come back and it's a match. So the Marion County John Doe officially gets his name back and it's Donald Boardman. Donald's sister Debbie says that when she finally got that news, she was so flooded with shock, grief, and relief that she, quote, got immediate amnesia. And this is her, quote, she got immediate amnesia.

I mean amnesia, that's something you see in the movies. For two or three hours, my husband said I had no clue what was going on. Oh my God. Just shock, pure shock. She was in pure shock. I mean, like, it's amazing and it's such a change. And it's a change that it sounds like she had to go through

by herself. I mean, like she had her husband, but her family and the people that were there when it happened and she just has to process it herself. That's chilling. Yeah. So there are still many unknowns about Donald Boardman's murder case.

There's no conclusive answers on how or why he died or who killed him. The three suspects originally named have all since passed away. But the identification of Donald Boardman's remains have given his sister much needed closure. Debbie tells the Chattanooga Times Free Press that, quote, thank goodness I'm still alive. I've carried this with me since I first got married.

I'm so sorry for my mom and dad who never knew, end quote. Debbie recently received her brother's ashes and announced plans to hold a memorial for him at sea. Her hope is that investigator Larry Davis, Lori Bradburn, and of course Barbara King Lad, will all be available to attend. Oh, so Barbara got her props. She got her props? Well, yeah.

This lovely ending to Donald Boardman's otherwise tragic story shows how curious citizens can provide crucial assistance when it comes to unraveling decades old cold case mysteries. Investigator Larry Davis tells reporters that, quote, I'm so glad Barbara went to the source and gave her thoughts to Lori if she hadn't, I'd still be looking for Donald. Damn. And Barbara herself chalks it up to divine intervention.

She tells reporters that, quote, I think it's really cool how God brought us all together to solve this case. There is Larry Davis who originally investigated the case and kept it in his heart all these years. He had the idea to contact Ben to do a story to raise awareness. Then I came along and read the article. And when the case stalled in Tennessee, it was through prayer that I decided to contact Chambley Police Department.

I chose to contact them through Facebook where my message was received by Lori Broadburn. Without Lori, I don't think we would have been able to find Donald's sister. So it took all of us working together for this case to be solved and for Donald's sister to finally have some closure regarding her brother. And that's the story of how after 37 years of waiting,

the Marion County John Doe got his name back and his name is Donald Boardman. Wow. Right? Oh my God. Yeah. The chills right now. Also, she got it on the third try, Barbara.

It's wild. I want to go to NamUs immediately and start like just like scrolling. It's just so funny. She must have been absorbing something from somewhere because that idea that she immediately like took it and turned it on its head and was like, well, if they've already looked here, I'll look where no one's looking.

Yeah. She's a smart cookie. Yeah. Oh my God. Great job. Thank you. Fascinating. Okay.

So today I'm going to tell you about a case that's well known in Spain, but hasn't got a lot of attention in the United States. It's called the strangest disappearance in Europe by Interpol, which is of course the international organization that helps in global criminal investigations. It's been over 30 years since this happened and the case is still unsolved.

Today I'm going to tell you about Juan Pedro Martinez Gomez, who was also called the missing boy of Soma Sierra. Okay. So the main sources I'm using today are an L.S. Spaniel article by Marina Ochoa, an article by Skyler Ares on Medium.com, an article from the Morbid Library by CJ Lynch, and an unattributed Spain's news article and the rest you can find in the show notes.

And also we relied heavily on Google Translate because a lot of these articles were in Spanish. So forgive me if I'm saying things wrong. I won't know. Good. I'm going to go comacidee say every five minutes just to keep you on your toes. Okay.

So let's start. It's the summer of 1986. Well, I just realized these timelines kind of match up. Our story is wild. That's Hannah Crichton doing her work. She's so good at matching our stories. I love it. Summer of 1986 in the south of Spain, Juan Pedro Martinez Gomez

is a 10-year-old boy. He is an excellent student. And when Juan Pedro gets excellent grades on his report card, his father, Andreas, wants to reward him for his hard work. So Andreas works as a truck driver and he's brought Juan Pedro with him on short trips in the past. But now to reward him, he's going to take his son on a much longer trip.

Andreas has a job that will take him to the Basque region of northern Spain. Juan Pedro has read all about the Basque region in school. So he's really been wanting to visit. He's really excited about this trip. His mother, Carmen, decides to come along to keep an eye on her son. And so on June 24th, 1986, the family hops in the truck and

begins the cross-country road trip from Cartagena in the south of Bilbao in the north. I've been to Bilbao. Have you really? Uh-huh. How? Why? In the mid-90s, Greg Barron and I were sent there by ESPN2 to

co-host the Running of the Bulls. Holy shit. It took place in Pamplona. It was when I was still drinking, Greg and I drank the entire time. It was hilarious. Oh, I wish I could see that footage. I bet it's hilarious.

It's ridiculous. I mean, and also we both thought we wanted to do the Running of the Bulls on the way there. Hell no. And then I saw one of it because it happens like the whole time during this festival. It is one of the scariest things I've ever seen. I can't imagine.

It's Mayhem, cobblestone streets, 1,000-pound bulls, drunk and hungover people running in front of you. Oh, my God. You fall down and you're trampled by, you know, 10 bulls. It's so, so, so crazy. But part of the clip package they put together was all the nightmare things that have happened to people over the years. You just see people getting pulled up by the horns and flipped

into the air. Like these bulls are like not messing around. It is so frightening. I can't even tell you. That sounds horrible. Yeah. I love Spain. That's such a cool story.

Okay. So they are transporting in this truck because it is a job that he's taken. They're transporting 20,000 liters of sulfuric acid. Oh. That's over 5,000 gallons. That's enough liquid to fill a medium-sized above-ground pool. Wow.

I know. It's not wild. Have you ever been in an above-ground pool? Hell, yes. They're all over Petaluma. Oh, I've never been in one. People would just stick them out in a field. There's like a little ladder to get in.

But then once you're in, it's just like any pool. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. So the trip that they're taking is roughly 515 miles, which should take close to eight hours. Juan Pedro and his parents begin their journey at around 7pm on June 24th and drive through the night. But they make several stops along the way for gas, for food,

to rest. Their last stop is at an inn around 5.30am the next day, which is June 25th. Andreas and Carmen get coffee while Juan Pedro gets milk and a pastry. The waiter who serves them is struck by Juan Pedro's distinctive outfit, saying he's wearing matching bright red pants and a bright red shirt.

So it's confirmed that he's seen then. After their short stop, the waiter watches as the family gets back into the cab of the truck. This is the last time anyone will see any of them alive. Oh, no. So after this last stop, the family starts driving through a mountainous area known as the Soma Sierra Pass. The roads are narrow and winding with sharp turns.

And this is a big truck. I mean, it's carrying a, you know, a huge load. It's not the safest drive even for a careful driver, but around 6am Andreas strangely starts driving dangerously fast out of nowhere. He gets up to 90 miles an hour in this big truck on this dangerous road. And it's not clear why he's speeding.

No one knows why he's speeding so fast. All we know is that he was driving like this between 30 and 90 minutes and he hit several other cars in the process. So something happened. Oh, something's going on. Yeah. One car gets its mirror knocked off and another is rear-ended, but the truck doesn't stop.

As the truck speeds down the pass, Andreas hits another driver head on the cab carrying the family crumples and the whole truck flips over off the road. And there's photos of it. It's a total wreck. And the cistern of the 20,000 liters of sulfuric acid starts pouring out onto the roadway. Am I wrong?

Sulfuric acid is like you can't touch that. Yes. It's like poisonous, toxic, dangerous. Yeah, definitely. Okay. And a cloud of toxic gas immediately rises from the crash site. Kind of reminds you of that recent. The train wreck in Ohio.

Yeah. How about the fact that the train wreck in Ohio happens? That's why they went on strike. They were saying like these, all these safety precautions, everything. Yeah. Like they're cutting, they're cutting everything and that that company offered, it's the equivalent of $5,000 per person

that lives in that town. And they just did $55 billion worth of buybacks anyway. It's so fucked up. It's so fucked up. Yeah. The Spanish Civil Guard arrives quickly checking out the scene for possible survivors. Miraculously, the driver of the car that was hit head on by

Andreas, he's alive. However, Andreas' truck cab has buckled and the first responders quickly discover that Andreas and Carmen are dead in the cab of the truck. They've likely been killed on impact and their bodies have only been slightly damaged by the sulfuric acid spilling into the cab, but it's not safe for them to retrieve them from the truck until the leak is under control.

So it is toxic. You can't touch it. Thousands of pounds of lime and sand are brought in to soak up this acid and prevent it from contaminating nearby streams and rivers. So later in the day, as the crash cleanup process continues, Carmen's parents are finally called. They're informed about the accident and the death of their

daughter and son-in-law, and the first thing they say is, and the boy, police at this point haven't realized that there was supposed to be a third passenger in the truck. They didn't even know to look for a kid. Oh, my God. So of course they freak out. It's been 10 hours since the crash, and only now are authorities learning about Juan Pedro.

Oh, my God. So as soon as the Spanish Civil Guards hear about Juan Pedro, they begin to search the scene. They check the truck in the immediate area around the accident. Juan Pedro isn't there. They even sit through all the lime and the sand that they had dumped, and he's not there either. They only find two pieces of evidence that Juan Pedro was ever

in the cab of the truck at all, the sole of a child's shoe, and a cassette tape of children's music. They search the entire crash site in the surrounding area. They can't find Juan Pedro. Some experts find it hard to believe that Juan Pedro could have survived the crash at all, though we know for certain that the driver of the other vehicle survived the impact, so it's possible.

An initial thought that's very bleak and gruesome is that the sulfuric acid might have dissolved his body, leaving nothing to find, but chemists quickly dispute this. Even if his body had been completely doused in sulfuric acid, it would take days for a human body to break down, and even then there would be some evidence like teeth left behind, just chilling. So that's ruled out.

So where is Juan Pedro? Immediately investigators begin interviewing witnesses and plastering missing persons posters all over the region. At the same time the police are looking for Juan Pedro, they are also looking into the cause of the crash. Given the out-of-control way Andreas was driving, they suspect there was something wrong with the brakes. But he drove for 30 to 90 minutes like that, at that speed.

Yeah, he could have taken his foot off the gas, so it wasn't. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it was downhill or what, but there seems like there would have been a way to stop it. Yeah. Right. And when they investigate the truck, the brakes are completely intact and fine. Oh, yeah.

So the truck was in working order right up until the collision, and it's presumed that Andreas was speeding on purpose, so it wasn't the brake. Investigators are able to salvage the trucks. I'm not going to say this right. Tuck-a-graph, tuck-a-graph, which is a device that automatically records the speed and distance of a vehicle, including any stops that are made,

and they find something very strange. Between the departure from the end and up until the crash, Andreas stopped the truck 12 times. And we're not talking stopped like he pulled over to a rest stop, but stopped like stopping at a red light. So just like pauses. Huh. There's no red lights or stops on the stretcher road at all,

so that's weird. Oh. He's just stopping and then starting in the middle of the road. So that's really 12 times doing that is really odd, especially if you've been behind a truck before. If they were doing that, it would be really odd. You would think a responsible driver and a professional driver, if he was doing something like because there was a problem,

he would pull off the road. Right. He wouldn't just keep testing it out or like trying to fix it or whatever. Right. Totally. So some of the stops recorded are just two to three seconds, but the longest stop is over 20 seconds. So they just chilled there for a minute for some reason.

But stops didn't follow any known traffic patterns and the roads were clear that day. So there's no explanation for the stops. Crazy. There are several theories about what happened to cause the crash and about where one Pedro might be. Some of these theories hinge on a mysterious white van that was allegedly seen near the crash site

right around the time of the accident. Witnesses describe a mustached man and a blonde woman driving up to the scene of the accident before police arrived grabbing a small parcel out of the wreckage of the truck and driving away. These sightings are unverified. The white van is never found. The couple's never identified. And witness accounts have changed over time,

which does take away from their credibility. But the story does fit in neatly with a theory that many believe to be true, which is that Juan Pedro was kidnapped by drug traffickers. This is a pretty reasonable theory since Spain in the late 1980s was a huge hub for the international drug trade. Half of the illegal drugs entering Europe came through Spain at that time. So in 1987, the Spanish media reports that trace amounts of heroin were found in the compartment of the truck

that was storing the sulfuric acid. Oh. Yeah. This leads many to believe that Andreas was pressured into smuggling drugs against his will and that Juan Pedro was possibly kidnapped as a way to ensure he would complete a delivery. Some people believe that Juan Pedro was kidnapped during that 20-second stop. Oh.

Wow. They attribute Andreas increased speed to either being upset about his kidnapped child or that he was possibly chasing the kidnappers. Like, that makes sense, doesn't it? That makes perfect sense. Yes. They alleged that the white van and the couple who took the parcel add intrigue to the story, of course, but it's all unverified.

Juan Pedro's family believes he's still alive and that he was kidnapped before the crash. The family even reports that after going public with this idea, they began receiving threatening phone calls from a quote, very large but unnamed criminal organization. They say they went to the police, but they weren't taken seriously. The family continues to be vocal about what they see as a failure on the part of the Spanish authorities to investigate Juan Pedro's disappearance thoroughly. Another theory is that Juan Pedro was actually in the cab at the time of the crash

but was thrown from the truck and survived and wandered away. Even though many eyewitnesses to the crash saw him walk away from the truck, it's still possible that in the chaos of the moment he just slipped away unnoticed. It's believed that he might have wandered off to look for help or to find water. Maybe he had sulfuric acid on him. Some theorize that he might have gotten lost and later died from his injuries, that he is sustained in the crash, but the surrounding area has been searched many times and his body has never been found.

Some people think he might have survived but sustained a major head trauma, resulting in him becoming disoriented and losing his memory. This theory goes along with an alleged sighting of a child who looked like Juan Pedro in Madrid in May of 1987, almost a year after the crash. A man reported that he was approached by an elderly blind woman who was led by a young boy. The boy looked to be about 10 or 11 years old and the woman said she was an Iranian refugee and asked for directions to the American embassy. She said that she and her family had only been in Spain for six months.

She made it sound like the boy with her was a family member, but the boy spoke fluent Spanish in an accent that matched the region of southern Spain that Juan Pedro was from. It didn't make sense to the man that this boy had just learned the language. When he complimented the boy's Spanish-speaking skills, the old woman got visibly nervous and changed the subject. Though he didn't recognize him immediately, the man later saw a missing poster of Juan Pedro and he swears up and down that this little boy that he met who was leading the blind woman was definitely Juan Pedro. Holy shit. I mean, and then nothing comes out of this alleged sighting.

Yeah. Just imagine, like, if you're that man, even if you're wrong, the children look similar. Yeah. That would drive you insane for the rest of your life, like how frustrating. Totally. Yeah. In the years that followed that 1987 sighting, there are reports of a child dressed in red, wandering on the outskirts of several different rural towns, all in the area of the Soma Sierra Pass,

but nothing has ever come from these sightings either, which seems a little like outlandish, right, that part. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's likely we'll never know what happened to Juan Pedro or why his father crashed the truck that day. I think they were chasing the kidnappers, don't you? Yeah. And I think the drug trade makes sense. Yes. Having traced amounts of heroin in a glove compartment, or it's like, you don't put anything in there.

No. Unless you're trying to hide something. Right. And then the, like, strange man and woman who'd stopped in the white van and grabbed something out of the truck. If that's real, that is crazy. Yeah. There have been attempts to use genealogical DNA from Juan Pedro's family members to help find him, but nothing useful has turned up.

But hey, maybe it will. I mean, this stuff happens all the time. That's right. Nobody has been found alive or dead that matches the description of Juan Pedro Martinez Gomez. If he's still alive, he would be 47 years old. And as time goes on, this becomes more and more of a mystery. And I think the Spanish people are obsessed with it. And that is the tragic and strange story of the missing boy of Soma Sierra.

The idea that he was, that the father was driving a truck filled with sulfuric acid, it doesn't seem like a coincidence to me. Yeah. Like that basically he's already driving something quote unquote dangerous. So then was that part of the reason where it's like, if they kidnapped the son, knowing he wouldn't chase them because of that danger element? I don't know. It's just making my brain go a thousand miles a minute.

Or if like the crash is over here, then all of the authorities are going to be so worried about that spill. Yeah. That they're not paying attention to any other detail. Right. Something happened to him before that. And it's just a coincidence that he crashed afterwards. It's just what a weird coincidence, but it doesn't seem like that.

I mean, it doesn't seem like a coincidence. It seems like they were driving that truck like it was the movie speed. Yeah. And they were like, we have to go. Yeah. Or we can't slow down. You also wonder what if it bother would really like take his kid on a drug run. That doesn't seem very like likely, you know.

No, it almost seems like he was like an, it could be that he was an unknowing mule. And that's why they went to get that package is like, oh, we, you've been doing this for a long time. And that's why you didn't know you were doing it. Those are the people that, Right. Maybe the trucking company or something. They're never suspicious.

Yeah. So it's just like, oh, it's just in there. Yeah. That makes sense. I want that mystery to get solved. I do too. That's a nice double feature. Yeah.

Those two stories went well together. Well, great job to both of us today. High fives all around to you and I. High fives with both hands. Good job. Thank you too. Good job to all citizens loose everywhere. That's right.

Keep it up. Maybe one day we'll tell your story. Yeah. And that'd be cool. And thank you for listening. We appreciate you. And you know, even if you found us on accident, thanks for getting this far.

Hey, listen, we have a lot of the same qualities as the home shopping network. If you really think about it. Think about it hard. Think about it hard. Stay sexy. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Maren McClasham and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Follow your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurderatgmail.com. Follow the show and Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder.

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