Sword and Scale Nightmares - The Tourist

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

When recent college graduates Kelsey Chang and Eva Liu decided to take a celebratory trip to Europe before starting their careers, neither young woman could have prevented the horrors that awaited them when they got to Germany. It’d be a trip that would change their lives forever.

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When you're young, you feel invincible. Mortality is a half-baked concept pushed into the furthest recesses of our mind. It's simply incomprehensible that we won't be here forever. Of course, this pattern of thinking is inherently risky. This mentality is the reason that teenagers, and well pretty much everyone under 25, has to pay a lot more for car insurance. The insurance companies know you're a risk. You engage in risky behavior. Risky business, if I want to date myself a little bit there. if I want to date myself a little bit there. It's also the reason the leading cause of death in people ages 12-25 is unintentional

injury, most notably accidental poisoning and car accidents. While it is true that we tend to put ourselves more at risk in our younger years, it's not all bad. This impulsivity often results in some of our fondest memories, our most exhilarating experiences, often times things we would never even dare to think of doing again 20 years later. In the beginning of the summer of 2023, 21-year-old Eva Lu and her friend, 22-year-old Kelsey Chang, were living out their youth adventurously.

After graduating from their shared university, both with flying colors and numerous accolades, they decided to take an international trip. Neither young woman could have done anything to prevent the tragedy that awaited them. Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares. True crime for bedtime. Where nightmare begins now. Eva and her twin sister were both born on October 30, 2001 in Guangzhou, China. The city, which is also known as Canton, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China, according to Wikipedia, that is. They were adorable, identical babies,

bouncing around together hand in hand as soon as they could walk. These two girls were clearly very intelligent, and they did everything together. From an early age, their philosophy was, there is no point to doing everything yourself when you have someone who can do part of it. This meant that even when it came to things like piano lessons, They'd be doing it together. Eva played the left hand and Alice, her twin, played the right. The Lou family eventually made the decision to move to Waterloo in Canada before finally settling in Naperville, Illinois in 2013. Moving to two different countries in the formative years can be a bit destabilizing. But Eva had her family. When Eva got to high school, she didn't attend public school.

She was smart enough to get into the esteemed Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. A STEM boarding school, basically. Though you have to pay no tuition to attend this school, getting admitted is highly competitive. Eva started processes very similar to the college application process when she was just 13 years old. To get into IMSA, you have to show that you've got a strong combination of academic achievement, passion for science, technology, engineering, and math, and the ability to thrive in a residential school. 13-year-old Eva sent in two essays,

a list of her STEM activities and achievements thus far. And remember, she's literally just completed middle school at this point. She also submitted three evaluations on her performance done by her former middle school teachers, a form from her former school counselor, the last two and a half years of her official grades and her official SAT and or ACT scores. I mean, damn. Most people take the SAT or ACT in high school and use it to get into college. Eva was taking it in middle school and using it to get into high school. After all the application business was out of the way, Eva got in.

The boarding school was where she met one of her closest friends, Kelsey Chang. Eva is described as being decisive and open, which drew a lot of people to her. It wasn't hard for her to make friends. Eva and her friend Kelsey were model students and model citizens. Eva, her twin Alice, and Kelsey Chang went on to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Eva's sweet nature meant that she volunteered to give tours of the school to new students, and she made her dormitory the homeiest place on campus. Eva loved to bake, and she often made fun treats for her dormitory neighbors. Eva's favorite thing

to make was cakes, pouring her heart into every single one of them. I mean, this young woman kept chocolate in her dormitory drawers just in case anyone was having a bad day and needed a treat. She was a sweetheart. Her twin sister Alice even remembers walking into their shared dorm one night and seeing Eva tutoring a fellow student while simultaneously consoling another who had curled up under Eva's bed. In just four years at the University of Illinois, Eva managed to complete not only a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, but also her Masters. She graduated with honors in May of 2023 and had just finished up an internship with Microsoft,

where they guaranteed her a job. She was set to start in July. While many kids are out partying their grades into the dirt, Eva gave herself no breaks except for this one month period between college graduation and the start of her new career. Eva loved to travel, so she and her friend Kelsey began making plans to take a tour of Europe. They were determined to make the most out of the short time they had before their lives really took off. So it's June of 2023 and Eva and Kelsey are getting ready for this trip. They are so excited.

They're planning to see lots of the spots they have on their bucket lists, including the famous Disney Castle, which attracts more than a million visitors every year. The sprawling white 19th century palace sits on a hill within the foothills of the Alps in Bavaria, the south of Germany. The Neuschwanstein Castle is its real name, meaning New Swan Stone. And it was the inspiration for the castle you see before the start of every Disney movie. Before they start pushing woke crap on you. Okay, okay, relax, relax.

Sorry, I won't do it again, promise. The castle was also featured in the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is much better than the book written by a grifter in Baltimore with a similar sounding name. Perhaps, most notably, this behemoth of a palace was used during World War II in Hitler's attempts to build himself a, quote, Führer's Museum. Full of stolen artworks and valuables and Nürschwassdien Castle was declared the headquarters, housing over 20,000 stolen items. The castle has tours inside of course,

but because it's perched on top of a hill that rises about 660 feet above the Hohenzwangau Valley, the best views of the massive palace are from a bridge and hiking trail on the other side of the valley. Imagine a V shape. On one side you've got your castle and on the other is the bridge and the hiking trail. And the two face each other with the valley in between. Eva and Kelsey are staying in this little hotel near the castle. So they drive over to start their tour, eventually ending up at the start of the hiking trail

that takes visitors to the historic Marion Brook Bridge, which they must cross before they can get to the part of the trail offering the best views. So they're walking along taking pictures amongst the beautiful trees and other tourists. This is a well-known tourist hotspot and it's one of those special places that just constantly has people from all over the world buzzing around the grounds. Kelsey and Eva, being English speaking Americans, are just like the rest of us. If you've ever been on vacation to a non-English speaking country,

you know how another American's voice sticks out in the crowd. So the girls hear someone speaking English, which is a welcome familiarity on this trip to Europe. The guy is super friendly and they strike up a conversation with him. His name is Troy Bowling. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. There's not a lot of information about the correct pronunciation. But he's only a few years older than the girls and he lives in Lincoln Park, Michigan. Only a four and a

half hour drive from where Kelsey and Eva live. It is truly a small world after all. Troy works for an oil rig so he's got a schedule that has him working for a period of time and then off work entirely for a period of time. He loves to travel so during this stretch of time off, he chose to travel to Germany, somewhere he'd always wanted to see. Troy tells the girls about a spot he's just been to, up ahead on the trail a bit further.

There's one spot everyone knows to be the best place for pictures. There are no trees or anything obstructing the view of the castle and it's where everyone goes for selfies. YOLO. So Kelsey and Eva happily trot along after him as he leads them to that spot. When they get there, as you may be thinking if you've ever seen the movie Hostile, the friendly smile on Troy's face quickly turns to a malicious, evil expression. And he lunges at Eva, obviously trying to sexually assault her. Kelsey acts fast and tries to get Troy off of her friend, but he grabs her by the neck

squeezing harder and harder, his eyes bulging out of his skull before flinging her off the side of the cliff into the valley. He then turns his attention back to Eva. He again tries to resume his sexual assault but ends up pushing Eva over the side of the cliff as well. Both girls fall nearly 165 feet. Just to give you a better idea, the Statue of Liberty from the ground to the tip of its torch is 151 feet. On her way down, Calcia is stopped by some trees,

holding on for dear life as Troy flees from the scene deeper into the woods. Authorities would then launch a full-scale search effort to find him. Tourists walking around the outside of the castle can see this hiking trail and the unfolding catastrophe from across the valley. And they watch with confusion and horror. Some even filming with their phones as the Fusen Mountain Rescue lowers someone down by rope to grab Kelsey from the log she was clinging onto. Kelsey is alive. She's got some injuries, but they airlift her

to the nearest hospital. Eva, on the other hand, isn't so lucky. Eva Liu is dead. And Troy Bowling is being carted out of the wooden hiking area in handcuffs by German authorities. 30 year old Troy Bowling was not at all who you might picture lurking on a hiking trail waiting for victims to rape and murder. No, Troy was your average white guy. To Neuschwanstein Castle he wore a t-shirt, work jeans, work boots, and a baseball cap from Yellowstone National Park,

another excursion he'd been to just two weeks prior. His long straggly goatee and soul patch jutted out in all directions, as he posed for a toothy, smiled selfie, sticking up the peace sign for his internet friend in Thailand. Just like his other trips, he had been sending photos to his pen pal, a young woman named Chanita, someone he'd met on Discord, for people who play an obscure MMORPG game called Simple MMO. It's like a weird simplified online version of Dungeons and Dragons, but there are no graphics.

It's just text-based. What a psychopath. Apparently Troy liked to play not only this online game, but he also enjoyed traditional Dungeons and Dragons with a group of friends in person. This guy really likes D&D. What is it about Dungeons & Dragons and weirdos, anyway? I don't get the correlation. But it sounds like he had several concurrent games going on at any given time, both online and in real life.

Troy and his friend, Chanita, connected after Troy came upon one of Chanita's streams. She was live streaming her artwork process on Discord and chatting with viewers. And she says Troy liked her energy, whatever the fuck that means. They talked here and there and became close friends over the course of two months. Mostly talking on the phone, but sometimes texting back and forth.

That's exactly what Troy was doing on his Yellowstone trip in early June, and this trip to Germany two weeks later. On June 13th, when he arrived with a tourist visa in the small town of Uberstoft, he sent Chanita photos of the room he had rented for his stay saying, I just got here, was getting the tour around, all five minutes of it. Just upstairs there are a few other rooms on the same floor as me. Troy just happened to be staying at the same hotel Eva Lu and Kelsey Chang were at. The room itself looked cozy and well maintained, and it seemed to have a good view, being on

an upper floor. At 4.15pm, Troy said to his friend, very sleepy. This is perfect nap weather right now. Later that night at around 7pm when Chanita asked Troy what he was doing, he said, just saved a butterfly because it got stuck in my room. I'm back to uploading my pictures to Imgur. Don't have many from Germany so far. Also, I took a nap and I still want to sleep more. But if I do, then it'll be 2 a.m. and I'll be wide awake.

Once I finish uploading the pics, I'll probably watch a movie?" He then sent her links to the photo dumps of his Imgur. Anyway, he sent her pictures of his trip to Devil's Tower in Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park. This guy had extra money from his job at the oil rig and extra time to travel because of his job schedule. Troy was a quiet, reserved, nerdy guy who lived in a small house in Michigan with his brother. The rent that he split with his sibling was only about $1,400 month, and the guy didn't have any wife or kids, so his income

was disposable. Neighbors didn't see much of either brother, only catching glimpses of them as they'd walk their cat on a leash in the garden. What a bunch of weirdos. They described both men as unfriendly and unapproachable. One person said verbatim, The family is weird. Troy would never look you in the eye when he came and went.

I'm shocked what he's been accused of. I'm scared he may have done stuff here and no one has figured it out yet. His former friends and high school girlfriend describe him as having been a chill marching band musician. He was quiet in high school, but he was an upbeat, cheerful person. No one could have ever in a million years predicted that he would go on to murder anyone. Of course, if you're cynical like I am,

you know that the quiet, chill, always-friendly person is probably the serial killer. Someone who never looks at their dark side, never analyzes internally their demons, cannot be trusted. But even Troy's international pen pal was startled by the news of what he had done. Chanita was tracked down purely with luck. A reporter must have been scrolling through Troy's public Facebook friends list before the account was locked down and clicked on Chanita's profile randomly. They decided to send her a message and unknowingly opened up a huge can of worms. The reporter had no idea Czenita had actually been talking

to Troy around the time of the murders. On June 14th, the day after arriving at Ubersdorf in the early afternoon, Troy sent Chanita a photo of the vast landscape, presumably from the bridge or hiking area, circling a small spot where he had parked. Then, just a few minutes later, he sent a series of selfies from the hiking trail showing that he had climbed a natural staircase made of tree roots. He said,

I climbed it. It went about a hundred meters up. Only tree roots and branches for steps and grabbing. Another selfie, the one with the peace sign is accompanied with a message saying, and now I get to sit here and look at these two, try to get the perfect insta. The final picture is of two men crouched on the edge of the drop-off, looking at photos they had taken of the castle, which can be seen further in the background. which can be seen further in the background. That was the last message Troy sent Chanita for approaching Eva and Kelsey and committing his horrible crimes. Chanita continued to message Troy, confused by his sudden disappearance. Her confusion was only cleared up when that reporter reached out to her on a whim. Troy Bowling was on the fringes of society.

It seems he had no real friends outside of his immediate family. Most of his social interactions occurred online or remotely with people he met online. There's a lot of those people around nowadays, many of them on Reddit. Chanita said that his logic is too intense for most people when it comes to fights. I know, that's a weird statement. I'll explain. Apparently, he had dated several people that he'd met in the same Discord that he met Chanita on, and got into numerous altercations in those virtual relationships. All things he would tell Chanita about over the phone. Though his high school friends describe him differently, Chanita describes him as short-tempered,

adding that he cursed a lot during their phone calls. It seems that either Troy's real-life friends and family didn't know his true nature, or Troy experienced a total upheaval of his personality, character, and moral compass once he reached adulthood. But it's puzzling that he managed to maintain such a cheerful demeanor during high school, then later appearing trustworthy enough to engage with Eva and Kelsey on a hiking trail in another country.

On the contrary, his neighbors perceived him as peculiar and unsociable. And his closest friend, someone he only knew online, described him as angry. Sometimes psychopaths can just turn on the charm and fool you. That's why they're so scary. After the news of this international crime involving three Americans made it back to the United States, media swarmed to Troy's house, trying to get footage and interviews with his family. When a German outlet called Troy's mother and asked what she thought of the accusations,

she basically said, Son? What son? I don't have a son in Germany. Must be a case of mistaken identity. That's one way to deal with the situation, I guess, if you've raised a murderer. For now, Troy is in German custody. In Germany, once you've been arrested and detained, authorities must bring you before a judge within 24 hours to decide whether you'll be detained even longer. Then the formal investigation begins. A judge has already ordered that Troy remain in custody pending a likely indictment. Authorities are actively pursuing charges of murder, attempted murder and sexual assault.

He will not be extradited to the United States before his case is tried in Bavaria. Perhaps something was brewing deep in Troy's mind and he finally acted impulsively on a dark desire. We may never know the real reason behind his crimes, now that it's in the hands of the German authorities. But we do know that Troy took a life that was certainly poised to make a real difference in the world. And that is truly an unforgivable crime.

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