Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 303 - Mysterious Disappearances...

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

So many of us have thought about disappearing and starting a new life somewhere else. It's a common psychological phenomenon. When life feels too overwhelming - when you feel trapped in a situation you desperately want out of - how fun is it to fantasize about leaving it all behind? Reinvent yourself! Be you've always wanted to be - who you know you could be - if you were just given a fresh start. But very few of us actually do disappear and attempt this. Luckily for today's show, a lot of people have actually tried to pull this off. We don't know much about many people who have done successfully... all we know about them is that they went missing. But the ones who've tried to disappear and failed - to abandon their families, collect a life insurance payout, evade the law, etc., only to eventually get caught, their stories tend to be fascinating. And we'll share many of those stories with you today and more! Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Donation:  The Bad Magic Charity for July is The National Compassion Fund. Their mission is to give funds to the victims of mass casualty crimes, such as mass shootings and terrorist attacks. Donation amount TBD. To find more or donate yourself, please visit www.nationalcompassion.orgTICKETS FOR HOT WET BAD MAGIC SUMMER CAMP!  Go to www.badmagicmerch.comWatch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/R1EjVfJgudYMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Have you ever thought about disappearing? It's not many of us occasionally have a seductive fantasy that life would be so much better if we simply started over somewhere else, reinventing ourselves, began a new life. For many of us, these kinds of fantasies provided totally normal, temporary and consequence-free relief from everyday stresses like bills, mortgages, student loans, interpersonal conflict, raising kids, etc. Emphasis on fantasies here. Very few of us actually do try and start an entirely new life.

For the very few of us to go for it though, what enduring mystery it can create for the rest of us. Right, they did it. They actually did it. We're still curious, so intrigued. Why did they do it? Where did they go? How did they manage to pull it off?

Who else was in on it, if anyone? Were they simply lucky, super smart, especially devious, courageous, some combination of the above. Every once in a while we get these questions answered when the mystery gets resolved. The person shows back up. Other times, the reappearance just adds further layers of mystery. And then there's another kind of mysterious disappearance.

There are people who don't choose this appear, but for some reason they just do. Maybe mental illness, amnesia, perhaps something else entirely, maybe something paranormal, or at least we wonder about the paranormal, which can be terrifying. We wonder if they could just up in this appear,

could that same thing happen to us? Is the hold we have in our lives, maybe not as strong as we think, can crazy shit just weird, unexplainable, mysterious shit, just happen to us at any time. Right, QX files, or Twilight Zone music. is that the known dangers of the world around us aren't scary enough.

We're going to cover all kinds of disappearance stories this week as our proud noble curiosity guiding Patreon spacelords have chosen to suck on the topic of mysterious disappearances and equally mysterious reappearances. Though some stories we'll cover here today will include only disappearances and some speculation as to where those people may have gone and why. Taking a deep dive into the many reasons why someone might one day just up and vanish from amnesia to avoiding a shady past to try to make some money off insurance claims from stories of disappearances both ancient and modern.

We'll see that we meet sacks have a long history of envisioning what our lives might be like if well they were different lives altogether. And then acting on these thoughts. We'll look at some tales of Nazis who escaped from Germany to South America, some of whom were found by Nazi hunters and secret services, people who have maybe tried to disappear, but played it off as amnesia when they were found, and even more mysterious people who simply just left for no apparent reason.

We are a strange species. And an incredibly determined and innovative species sometimes, even in our modern society where it seems impossible to have not let to trace in some form, search histories, text messages, GPS data, etc. Some of us are still finding ways to mysteriously disappear. How? Well, sometimes because you met someone who's made a career out of circumventing modern technology and helping others disappear.

We're gonna cover that side of things too. So many fascinating stories on today's strange ancient modern explained and unexplainable, where the hell did they go and how the hell can we not find them mysterious disappearances and reappearances addition of TimeSuck? This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, Meat Sacks. Welcome to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, a master of Sucker, Suck Nasty, Papa John's Marketing Director, Meat Sack Meat Taste Tester, and you are listening to, Suck Nasty, Papa John's Marketing Director, Meet Sack, Meet Taste Tester,

and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Luciferina, Praiseable Jangles, and where are you, triple M? Don't mysteriously disappear on us. Happy Fourth of July, fucking nailed this holiday. Actually got it on time. Just two quick announcements and then so much mystery. Celebrate our recent episode 300 by drop an asset

until you mysteriously disappear. Or just check out the new space cowboy collection in the store. Featuring three new shirts inspired by the 300th asset episode, we've got the many faces of Dante, AI generated faces using input queries like hallucinate, dream, nightmare. Also, I forgot how to whistle tea.

A fun illustration of the moment. I began my journey And we also have the space cowboy a tea and mug featuring a still from the episode where I realized it words with no longer hold her shape Fun episode. I can't wait to see what episode 400 brings Maybe a really sweet topic like a really nice topic covered with a head full of Molly You guys can watch me cry so much. Oh, maybe just smoke some weed I have to think about, you know, what will feel the most entertaining at the time. Maybe totally sober for the first half, followed by a friend asking me questions at the end about what I just covered while

I'm out of my mind on something. For now, head on over to badmatchichmurch.com. Check out this hilarious collection now for our July charity. In light of recent mass shootings, we wanted to donate to the victims of mass casualties and we decided to donate to the national compassion fund. Their mission is to give funds to the victims of mass casualty crimes such as mass shootings and terrorist attacks, donation amount, TBD. On the meantime, if you'd like to donate or learn more, learn more, please visit national compassion dot org.

I don't claim to know exactly how to prevent more tragedies, which I knew that. That would be a discussion for a different podcast topic in another day also, but I do know that the victims and families can always use our help. And now onto a topic that is less of a topic and more of a pretty broad category with lots of stories within it to curate

into some form of an interesting episode. Last week's episode was so much easier story structure wise, right? Playing goes up, playing goes down. People get hungry, some people get eaten, some people work really, really hard to stay alive, built in intrigue, easier narrative, Papa Johns. I promise I won't beat that stupid gag to death this way.

That was it. It's done. I think it's done. Talking about mysterious disappearances, there's so many reasons as to why someone would disappear. Political reasons, crime related reasons, mental illness, amnesia. It's impossible to say that one disappearance is like any other. Added to that fact is that for many of these, we just don't know all or most or even much of the information. Well, it's because the person who disappeared truly can't remember it is lying

or due to some other factor like bad historical record keeping. But we have plenty of info for some very memorable disappearances. I'm like, what the hell were you thinking? And just like, I can't believe we did that. On today's episode, we'll cover a lot of these different kinds of stories. But first, we'll spend some time just talking about how

and why people disappear, like how much harder it is to disappear in the modern age of technology, and why disappearing seems to have been a compelling urge for a variety of meat sacks throughout all of human history. Then we'll dive into our categories of disappearing stories, covering political disappearances, disappearances due to amnesia or mental illness.

Those are fucking terrifying to me, a crime and fraud, and people who for some reason just wanted to get away from it all, said, fuck it, and then just did just that. And then we'll take one last look at the people me a crime and fraud and people who for some reason just wanted to get away from it all said fuck it and then just did just that. And then we'll take one last look at the people who tried to disappear but failed miserably. In terms of structure, this episode will be more of a series of vignettes, sort of like our episodes on Greek or Norse or Egyptian or Celtic mythology, but without all those fucking torturous god names and super confusing God monster, how much acid were they dropping

when they thought they shit up things? No gods or supernatural beings today, just mostly silly goose humans. Old dingaling meat sacks, gosh dang, humans who either seemed unnaturally determined to reinvent their lives, or to completely fuck up their lives, or to forget their lives, et cetera, et cetera.

And sometimes there is no explanation of what that'll happen to some of the humans we'll be talking about, truly a mystery. So let's get into it. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Because of the highly connected world, we now live in. It's hard to think of anyone ever truly disappearing, isn't it? I mean, it is for me.

Sure, it might have been possible in the 1800s, or really any century before that, in telephone, security cameras, digital footprint, we're now constantly generating all the time, just didn't exist. Even last week's guys were found after crashing in one of the most remote areas of the Andes in 1972. I mean, they didn't just disappear.

I mean, yeah, they would have been found alive if not for their own hard work and perseverance, but their skeletons would have been found in the summer. Had they not made it out? Prior to the 20th century, even in the early 20th century, I think it would have been pretty easy in many ways to assume a new life if you really wanted to. And a lot of people did use to just disappear,

abandon their family, just start over somewhere else, somewhere else. Right, think about how things were before photographs, government issued IDs, right, want to start a new life? Just fucking leave. Don't tell anyone where you're going. Tell the fam you're going out for some milk and cigarettes and then just keep on walking. Just keep on driving past the store.

Find some train tracks. Hop on the rails. Go on a horse and ride. Just keep bounce from town to town. Change your name. The way you dress your hairstyle. Don't take a little further. Be a little more confident. You're not going to be found, learn a new language, make it

across a border, multiple borders, settle down in a new country, press the changeo, you're a new person, invent a backstory now to keep your cover from being blown, maybe your whole family died in a fire, maybe they were a stomped death in a mule stampede or something, anything, maybe you're an orphan, join the circus, and then fled for your life after getting caught having sex with the bearded lady by her husband, the world's strongest man, or the fucking Clivey Rode. I don't know. Whatever doesn't lead you to having to pretend to have a family that someone new in your life is gonna want to meet at some point. For much of human history, if you were able to make

it to a new land, maybe even just one state or even one town over and just start to tell them people you were a different person, they had no way to verify if you were lying or telling the truth. With no public records on the internet, with no internet and no social media pages to stock, they could never prove that you're lying. Showbies, that's how you do it in Hollywood.

You have a big time producer, spanking fat, bad bottoms, even peanut butter. Right, have a fisty a little bit of that. You used to be able to, yeah, just to start over so easily. What a lucky time to be alive, lucky bastards. I want to be honest, I think about leaving my family literally every day.

Especially on days when I spend a lot of time with them, you know, I'll be shooting hoops with my son Kyler playing, you know, catch with a softball, my daughter Monroe, and it just, it takes everything I have, not to just turn and run. Maybe throw the ball as hard as I can, and then when they turn and run to get it, I turn and run in the oppositeball, my daughter, and row, and it just, it takes everything I have, not to just turn and run. Maybe throw the ball as hard as I can, and then when they turn and run to get it, I turn and run in the opposite direction, and I just keep running and running and running until

I collapse, and then I hide, and then I get up and run again, and I just keep running. Throw away my cell phone, ID, everything. Just hide out in the woods, sneaking to someone's house at some point, use their iron to burn off my fingertips Right, so I don't have fingerprints anymore. I find a cave or something to hide in live off eating bugs and berries drink creek water Risk blow my butt hole off with some kind of horrible stomach virus. Just just go feral, you know I'm not saying that will be easy living But anything would be better than staying with my family, right? You get it

I mean, have you ever seen videos of my wife, Lindsay? Holy fuck! Sometimes when we've been out to dinner and she goes to the bathroom, I just get up and I start to leave. I just haven't had the courage yet, you know, just get my truck and just fucking drive, man. Just drive anywhere she can't find me.

Just drain our savings, head to Mexico with a suitcase full of cash, buy a small shack and some little off the grid-grid, tiny-ass village live on Guava Juice and chicken tacos and cocaine and just not have to fucking hear or talk anymore, you know, just live somewhere anywhere where I'm not constantly thinking, would you shut the fuck up? Right? Somewhere I just don't have to also look at these two stupid really ugly dogs all the time and just feel sad about having to own them. Why are my dogs so fucking ugly?

Why does God hate me? God, I'd love to wake up and bed and just not see Penny and Gigi's stupid fucking faces anymore. Go wag your tail somewhere else. You good for nothing, parasites that contribute nothing to our family. J.K., if you don't know, I co-host another podcast, I care to ask my wife Lindsay. And I love her. I love my kids.

And I love my fluffy little squeeze of weasels. That was just fun for me to do. Just imagine a brand new lister here in this podcast for the first time. And maybe at first I was kidding. And then after a while I was just be like, Jesus Christ, man. Yeah, they can hear this. You selfish prick. Anyway, let's go over. That was fun. At least for me. Let's go over a few people disappearing and reappearing back when that was easier to do. For example, just how easy it was to reinvent yourself prior to last century. We have to look no further than the strange story of AV Lumbertein.

This guy ran a whole scam over and over based on some reinvention. In the spring of 1859, AV Lumbertein, or at least a man going by the, sounds like a made-up name of AV Lumbertein, would walk into a hotel, according to various newspaper accounts from Salem, Oregon, across country to Richmond, Virginia, and many other places in between. It appeared very depressed as he requested a room. Once settled in, he'd ring a bell for assistance, and when someone would arrive, Lambert, he would point to an empty bottle on the table labeled two ounces of ladenum and call for a clergyman. Right?

People later rushing to his bedside to help him once word, oh, this got out, would find a suicide note. Then these people thinking they were about to save a man on death's door with some of the doctor, administer medicine to induce vomiting, nurse him back to health as he recovered, because he wasn't actually sick. And then finally, weirdly enough, they'd give him money. And he'd con them into thinking,

if he's only given a little help, he'd finally have a life-worth living. At some point over the course of his manipulative life, Lamrittein realized this scam was a cash cow. No one knows if someone taught him this scam or if he came up with it himself. But somewhere he learned the strange grift and he disappeared and reappeared time and time again to keep pulling this shit off. Over and over is one Brooklyn reporter explained, he is restored with difficulty and sympathetic people raise a purse for him and he departs. In this way Lambertine was making his way across Ohio,

raising 25 bucks in Dayton, 40 bucks in Sandusky, etc. Always departing according to a later newspaper account from Ohio, with the free pass on the railroad to attempt suicide to some other place. Dude lived a life of manipulating the kindness of strangers for his financial gain, using nothing more than a bottle and a label. As far as I know, he was never caught, never outed for being a dirt back. The days of pulling off a scam like this, at least in most first world countries,

at least over and over, might be gone for the time being. At the very least, it's way harder now. Nowadays with so much technology, you can't just keep reappearing as a scam artist, whatever, over and over again like that, with companies monitoring how we spend time online, with our GPS technology embedded in

the many apps we use every day, the ability to track credit card purchases, dig through someone's online history, figure out what they were thinking, almost impossible to hide from people who really want to find you. But it's still something many of us think about. Dr. Ziev Levin, a New York University NYU psychiatrist and professor who specializes in personality disorders. Actually, he says, this is a pretty widespread impulse. He's quoted in the Elizabeth Greenwood book, Plain Dead, a journey through the world of death

fraud, and saying, there's this fantasy that many of us have that if we move to a different place, our lives would be different. It's not unusual for people to say that things are terrible in New York. So if I move to Australia, things would be better. I think there are universal fantasies we have about wishing we were somewhere else, and someone else. Taken to an absolute extreme, erasing your life assumes that you will then be reborn as something different. If I died while I was alive, I could come back as something other. Dr. Levinson's tendency of avoidance disguised as a daydream of starting new life as an evolutionary

trick that prevents us from confronting and examining the uglier parts of ourselves. He says, we are structurally designed to not want to look at what's upsetting. What an interesting thought. I want to repeat what he said there. I really like that. We are structurally designed to not want to look at what's upsetting. You can apply that to so many things. Why do people stay in abusive relationships? Why do people make incredibly self-destructive life choices and then seem to refuse to learn from them and repeat their mistakes? Why do some people blame everyone else when

clearly the problem is them? In many cases, because they don't want to look at what's upsetting. They don't want to get introspective, examine aspects of themselves that might make them feel weak or stupid or selfish or cruel, et cetera. So much easier to avoid and to escape, at least you can see them easier. As you'll see today, even when people get away with,

you know, disappearing for years, for uh, you know, uh, disappearing for years, for decades, you know, with escaping their old lives and starting new ones, they often get caught eventually and really have to pay the piper. The vast majority of people looking to start over in some sense don't actually literally disappear though. They don't take it to that extreme of a place. They may make lifestyle changes and decide to become a new me, but they don't actually become a new person. Lucky for us with this episode's subject matter for entertainment value, some do take it to a very extreme

place though. Every year, people all around the world do actually make the decision to just walk out the door with no plan sometimes, return, no desire to ever be found by anyone in their current circle of family, co-workers, acquaintances and friends. The exact number of people who do this, of course, is not known. You have to take the number of missing people in the US and then figure out what percentage of them are missing intentionally. On average, 90,000 people are missing in just United States

at any time. How many of those people are not dead, not being held against their will somewhere, not in some drug-induced stupor, or haze of amnesia, or mental illness, but are instead happy to be missing. Right, they wanted to be missing. How many of it successfully disappeared and then reinvented themselves somewhere else? Is someone, you know, listening right now, one of those people I wonder? According to one 2003 British study, two thirds of missing adults make a conscious decision to leave. Is the percentage really that high?

That's fucking crazy. Applying that to the US number of missing people, could up to 60,000 US citizens not actually be who they say they are, or I mean, I guess doesn't always have to be a reinvention, but they just left intentionally their lives. Never met someone who you suspect is not who they say they are.

Never found that out about anyone. I kind of, two people kind of like that earlier in my life. I met two mysterious comics in Salt Lake City around 15 years ago when I was working the Wise Guys Comedy Club in West Valley pretty often. Blake Bard was one guy's, what he went by, and another guy named Alex, wasn't his real name either, but we thought it was. Can't remember his fake last name. A few years after meeting Blake, I found out that his real name was Curtis. Didn't find his last name. I don't after Medium Blake, I found out that his real name was Curtis. Didn't find his last name.

I don't even know if Curtis actually was his real, he said, I'll actually my real name's Curtis, but I don't even know if that's true. Blake was a stage name, and he was one mysterious dude. He didn't really know about his life outside of the comedy world. He wouldn't share a lot.

He'd just kind of keep it vague, and you could tell he was doing that. No one seemed to have met any of his non-comedy friends or his family or even like, you know, Bindu's house. And he hung around the scene for probably, I don't know, about five years. And then one day, just vanished, just poof, it was gone.

And you couldn't find any info about him online. And that was also weird. He didn't have social media accounts, you know, when those were starting to get going. I hung out with him a ton of times. As did several other comics I still stay in in touch with no one knows where he went Might have died just might be somewhere else living under a different name the other guy Alex crazier store He vanished after local comics found out he was not who he claimed to be he said he was some guy in his mid 20s

I remember you know I saw him several times you would do guest sets sets, I'd watch him do his jokes, there were some good jokes. Used to the open mic at, you know, wise guys when it was in the West Valley probably weekly. And then he started dating a local comic in her early twenties. They dated for a few months. And then one day she came across something,

it's been a while I can't remember exactly. I think maybe an ID, piece of mail, different name than his name, led to a bunch of questions that eventually led to her finding out that he was not who he said he was Not as old as he was he wasn't his 20s. He was in his early 40s I will say that he didn't look like he was in his 20s. I even question him about his age once I was like come on man, and he said he has some kind of vague condition that made him look older Must have gotten nervous when I brought up his age. Once exposed for being an imposter,

he just vanished. Didn't want to answer people's questions and never seen again, never hurt from again by any local comics as far as I know. No one I've talked to in the years since has any clue where he went. Both Blake and Alex, whoever they really were, did they just enjoy being able to be someone new

in a local comedy scene? I can see how there would be a thrill to that. Make strangers think you're someone you wished you were instead of who you are. I still wonder sometimes, you know, who they are or were in real life. Strange, right? You can still legally change your name in most nations. That's a good way to kind of like reinvent yourself somewhere. Get a new name, new ID, credit cards that match that name, move to a different area, open up a new social media profile or profiles, you can probably trick a lot of people

for a long time. Unless some PI comes looking for you, unless you're really hiding from something, some kind of legal ramifications or some kind of stalker or somebody of a bandage or something, unless you slip up and reveal yourself, I mean, who's gonna find out? It's all bullshit.

So maybe not so hard to disappear today in some ways, you know, depending on your circumstances. And how many people may currently be doing just that in the US, right? Is the number anywhere close to 60,000? I mean, I doubt it, but even if it's a thousand, two thousand, three, that's so weird. The problem with determining any reliable statistics regarding this is that in general, for those who consciously decide to leave their old lives, the public will only hear about the failures, the ones who get caught. We have no idea what the success rate is. Since a coalition against insurance fraud, a national alliance of consumer groups, public

interest organizations, government agencies, and insurers began keeping records in 1990, 564 cases of life insurance fraud have been reported. So we know at least, you know, over 500 people have tried to fake their own death. Uh, this average out so roughly 23 cases per year to get flagged. Not exactly an epidemic, but two dozen industrious people, faking their deaths, getting caught every year, speaks to a lot of folks with equal parts drive, greed, and poor planning skills. And then there are the one with good planning skills, right? The ones we don't hear about, how many of those are there?

How many people actually do successfully fake their own deaths every year? How many people each year successfully disappear intentionally without the desire to commit insurance fraud? It's almost impossible to say. So let's turn to another question. Why do these people disappear intentionally? People go missing do so with an endless variety of motives

from what we might call good to bad, pure to impure intentions. Some are running from their own transgressions, Ponzi schemers, bail jumpers, deadbeat parents, insurance scammers, dreaming of a life in a tropical paradise without having to work. There are those who are involved in crime, the federal government's witness security program provides new identities for endangered high profile witnesses, but thousands of other people who testify in lower profile cases, they're out on their own to face potential retribution or flee to a new safe for identity. But many people who abandon their lives do so for non-criminal reasons, relationship breakups, family pressures, financial obligations, or just a simple desire for reinvention.

And then there are the people trying to escape the unwanted attention of stalkers, obsessive expouses, psychotically disgruntled clients or employees. And for many of these people, though not all, it seems to be that they truly feel like their lives are separated between before and after, like they're a completely new identity once they go into hiding. As I mentioned earlier, the human impulse to leave it all behind and start over is apparently very old. I imagine this going back to caveman, cave woman days, right? Grog fucks up, gets caught, shitting where the tribe collects their drinking water or I don't know, fucking chief uggs wife.

Maybe accidentally burns an important idol that represents the tribe's god of sustenance or something. And then off he goes to try and find a new clan of cave people to live with rather than be beaten to death with clubs. And now he is Grug. No, who's grog? I'm drug. Last of my tribe, damn saber to tigers. Wipe that everyone else. I would a bummer. Okay, let's get into some documented history now.

Let's talk about some historical disappearances of ancient ones. A story from the Talmud, our Talmud, the central text of rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology written between 205,000 CE features Rabbi Johan and Ben Zakai, uh, faking his death so that he can escape Jerusalem during the Jewish rebellion against the Romans in the first century CE. Pretend you are sick and let everyone come to visit you, bring something rotten and place it with you and they will say you died. Right? Faken death.

But a lot of people used to disappear back then, reappear. Some revolts brewing, some new crazy ass kings in power, time to bounce, time to rebuild your life in a new kingdom. Okay, now, speeding way up to the 17th century, a life on the high seas would give many of the opportunity to disappear as pirates, such as, Jocquote de la Haille. Assuming you quote was a real person. Some think her story is just folklore.

Oh, let's assume it's true for today. Jocquote was born in modern day Haiti, around 1600 CE, according to legend, orphaned as a young girl left to take care of her disabled brother. And then she was like, fuck my brother. Now my problem and turn to piracy. Not so sure about the fuck my brother part, but she did suppose he turned to piracy and partnership with another female criminal and doleville aka and God wants it from France. I love and God wants it. That's interesting. She put together a little rag tag crew and targeted small boats plundering their treasure and sit

well with other pirates. Sooner price was put on her head and a bid to get them off their back while at the same time escaping the authorities, a juke-quote faked her own death. And then you quote, tried to pass herself as off, herself off as a man allegedly did so for several years. However, her striking beauty, flowing bright red hair eventually gave her away. And then now she became known as back from the dead red, pretty cool pirate nickname. A quick return to leading hundreds of outlaws and dozens of boats. She supposedly even managed to establish a free Buddha Republic, taken over a small Caribbean island, and it was there so the legend goes where she died defending her pirate utopia

from attackers. So maybe she existed. Now let's look at someone who was definitely real. May have faked their death to disappear and then reappear. Rumors of long suggested that Emperor of Russia, Alexander I, Zara Russia's stages death in 1825 became a holy man, Fiodor Kusmich, also known as Fiodor Tomsky. A theory was that he wanted forgiveness for any role he may have played in the

assassination of his father, Pobl the First, in 1801, or in benefiting from the work of others in the slain the Tsar. Alexander died December 1st, 1825, with the age of 47, contracted a cold, which developed into typhus, from which he died in the southern city of Taganrock, or did he? The monk, something he became, appeared in the Siberian city of Tompskin 1837, many wondered exactly what his backstory was, kept him mysterious, and then lived there untilpskin in 1837. Many wondered exactly what his backstory was. Captain Mysterius, and then lived there until his death in 1864. A famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy would write,

even when Monk Fiedor Kusmich was alive, he came to Siberia in 1836, and lived for 27 years in various places there. There were strange rumors about him that he was hiding his real name in position, and that it was Emperor Alexander I. After the Monk's death, these rumors only spread and became stronger. Not only common people believed him but many from the elite including the royal family of Zara Alexander III. The reasons for these rumors were the following.

Alexander died unexpectedly. He did not suffer from any disease before. He died far away from home in a remote place of Taganrog. And when he was put in the coffin, many who saw him said that he changed a lot. This is why the coffin was quickly sealed. Back to Kusmich and why he was thought to be Alexander, first of all, the monks height and appearance, so much like the empires. The people, especially servants who confirmed Kusmich was Alexander, who saw Alexander or his portraits have found them really identical. The age was the same. Same kind of round shoulders. This is still Tolstoy here, a speculation.

Secondly, this Kusmit who used to say that he was a homeless man who does not remember his family new foreign languages and was in a noble way, gentle with others, which clearly meant that he was the person with a high position in society. Thirdly, the monk never told his name and positioned to anyone, but sometimes he clearly behaved in a way that he was higher than other people. Fourthly, before his death, he destroyed some papers, but one sheet remained. It was a coded message signed with the initials A and P, which supporters of this theory see as standing for Alexander Pavlovich, his full name. Fifthly, despite all of his faith, he never fasted.

When an arch-priest tried to persuade him to follow his duty of a believer, he said, if I had not confessed the truth about myself, the heavens would have been surprised. If I had confessed it, the earth would have been surprised. Sixthly, he had the same unusually and majestically-tot scrotum of the Tsar. His testicle carriage was widely known to be completely wrinkled and blemish-free and beautiful to behold. His chicken skinned apple bag had been a national treasure. What was the chance that this mysterious monk could also possess a hairy berry basket

as perfect and smooth as Alexander's? And of course he didn't say that six-part. I just wanted an excuse to say chicken skinned alpha back. Because it really makes me smile. I'm going to go for a came up with that. Well done. This connection between Zahar and Monk could have all been gossip and speculation, but new analysis by Svetlana, Samia Nova, president of Russian Graphological Society, suggests

strong similarities between the hand writings of Alexander I and the mysterious monk. Possible to science could soon confirm that the two men were one of the same. That a Russian czar, without leaving Russia, really did mysteriously disappear and reappear under a new identity. If you weren't famous like a czar, pretty easy to fake your own death in 1800s, as easy as placing in a bituary in the local newspaper. One woman took advantage about E.S. was to get back at a boyfriend, and some woman she

thought he was fond of. In 1879, 21-year-old Ida M. Eddie placed her own obituary in two Boston area newspapers, saying she had died of heart disease, replete with lurured details of belabored breathing and coughing up blood. Then on the morning of the obituaries publication, she furiously called up the newspaper, called him out for not fact checking her death. She was very much alive. Ida then falsely accused Jenny Bessom of riding her obituary. Ida said she'd organized a subterfuge because a young man had transferred his affections from Miss Ida Eddie to Miss Jenny Bessum and that the former had since endeavored to win him back by composing malicious forged letters written

to herself, purporting to have come from the latter. Basically, Aida made Jenny look like a huge home record. Let her boyfriend think that she was dead for a couple of hours. When it was easy to make people think that you were dead. But then she got in trouble. When police investigated the story, they found the animus of the whole affair appears to have been a desire to destroy Miss Bessam's reputation. And then Ida admitted to the hoax and was fined a whole hundred bucks. Despite it being easy to fake your own death, a lot of people still used to get caught for being a little too lazy about the whole situation. Need to probably keep a low profile for a while. Move far away if you want people to keep thinking you're dead. In 1913, French police investigated the strange case of a wealthy contractor who built numerous

Mediterranean style mansions dotting the Riviera. The contractor son of Parisian playboy had run up steep debts and his father's name. My son Kyler ever somehow runs up steep debts. My name, he better disappear. And around the time debt collectors came for the money this guy just happened to die. His heart gave out. The contractor's obituary ran in the local paper. A funeral procession departed from his gigantic villa, Star of the Sea, and marched to the

village cemetery, where his empty coffin was buried. She went to later, friends, spotted the contractor live and well, crossed the street and cans. Others reported sightings, other reported sightings came from a niece. Another place is along the Mediterranean coast of France. When authorities announced that they planned to dig up the coffin, a villager came forward, said he'd gotten instructions for the funeral from the contractor that nobody would be found. The whole thing was bullshit.

Dude, almost pulled it off. Maybe she had moved out of the area. Right? You know, maybe if you're going to fake your own death, don't stick around so close. Don't be so public. In addition to going over numerous additional intentional disappearances like the ones we just mentioned today We'll go into a more going forward and more depth Disappearances planning carried out. What about people not willingly walking out of their lives But instead forgetting who they are, forgetting who they were.

People disappearing without realizing that they were walking out of their form of lives thanks to amnesia or memory loss. Disassociative amnesia is a terrifying condition which a person cannot remember important information about their life. This forgetting maybe limited to certain specific areas like a thematic or may include much if not all of the person's life history and or identity, a general amnesia. In some rare cases called Disassociative Fugue, a subtype of Disassociative amnesia, the person may forget most are all of their personal information, name, personal history, friends. May sometimes even travel to a different location adopt a completely new identity. I wonder how close I came a few weeks back on acid to wander off into new life, where I introduce myself to people as a space cowboy

with a whistling handicap. According to the Cleveland Clinic, grade healthcare system, instances of disassociative amnesia are rare. It affects about 1% of men and 2.6% of women in the general population. And those were not reassuring numbers to come across. Like when I heard rare,

I was hoping for way fucking smaller. Like one in a million or something. One out of every hundred dudes coming down with this. Two to three out of every hundred women. That sounds way too common. Luckily instances of amnesia can last anywhere for minutes to hours, to days, weeks, months, years, rare cases. They can be permanent. But oftentimes, you know, you know, you know, to start a whole new life, most of the time not permanent or even long lasting. Memories while returning gradually or suddenly. And that makes me feel better.

Losing your memories and identity permanently. I mean, hopefully that is more like a one in a million or one in 50 million, 100 million, some kind of thing of currents. What I found even more surprising with this associative amnesia than how common it is, is that it's not often triggered by head injuries. I mean, a massive head injury can for sure lead to permanent amnesia. General amnesia where your brain is damaged in a way, you just can access memories or

identity, emotional shock or trauma, though, such as being a victim of a violent crime, that is generally what causes disassociative amnesia. Extreme stress can trigger it, and that is fucking concerning. I don't like that at all. That you can possibly stress yourself out so much that in some kind of rare defense mechanism mode, your brain is like, nope, fuck this way too stressful to be Tony from purier right now. Middle age general contractor with overdue loan bills coming out of his ass, nine kids, and three X wives. No, thank you.

Let's try being Madison from Savannah. A teenage Instagram model with a bang and only fans account. Obviously, an identity shift is not gonna work quite like that. You don't just suddenly take on a wildly different backstory you have no control of. Funny though, for me to imagine a middle-aged stressed out male general contractor doing nude pictorials for his only fan account,

as if he's a 19 year old female Instagram model. Still it is fucking crazy to think that a certain amount of stress can lead you to actually forgetting who you've always been. Sometimes permanently, not surprisingly, rates of disassociative amnesia tend to increase after events of full of lots of trauma like natural disasters and during war. And a very unfortunate Frenchman found in Leon in a Leon railway station in 1918 was unable to remember who he was did not recognize his surroundings or recall how he'd got there. One of a group of 65 severely traumatized soldiers who had been returned to France by German officials and he had no paperwork to confirm his identity. This poor bastard was shuttle between

the silums and then when a hospital administrator shared his picture in newspapers 1922, 300 different families proposed that he was their missing relative. Too many, I did not help with his fucking confusion. Psychiatrists remained unconvinced that they're pleased with anything other than wishful thinking and the man remained unidentified and unclaimed. He was finally identified 12 years after being found just lived as like I don't know the fuck

I am for a dozen years and then 1930 he was identified as octave mignon But he never recovered from the trauma he suffered in the war and never regained his lost memories to other people knew He was who he was but he didn't remember who he was supposed to be which is so sad When it comes to unintentional disappearances, mental illness often also plays a role. People struggling with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or anything that causes hallucinations or psychotic breaks, you know, can't always communicate

their thoughts clearly or understand that others are what others are saying to them. And sometimes they retreat to their minds, get lost. Others have grandiose ideas and just can't make sound judgments. Sometimes they want or too far from home or other secure surroundings, they end up homeless or missing. Others have grandiose ideas and just can't make sound judgments. Sometimes they want or too far from home or others to curse surroundings. They end up homeless or missing.

Usually they're found over the course of a few days, weeks, months or years, but sometimes they're never found. You might know one of these people, right? You might at least have seen one, seen some, maybe someone in your neighborhood when you're you know, you've seen them living on the streets, talking to people who aren't there, blatantly mentally ill. They might have, they might have a family across the country. This still doesn't know where they are.

They might be a, or have been a manager, teacher, nurse, whatever, someone stable with a good job, helping provide for the family. And then one day they had some sort of psychotic break, ended up on the streets, fell in a, with a crowd of people who introduced him to hard drugs, maybe they compounded their problems, further confused them.

And maybe another day they were elucid enough to get on a bus or ride the rails with somebody, now they compounded their problems, further confuse them, and maybe another day they were elucid enough to get on a bus or ride the rails with somebody, now they're on a street corner in LA, instead of back home in Toronto or someplace, with no real idea of who they are, where they are, or how to take care of themselves. Innsensives like this, rare, but they do happen. And so sad.

Sometimes these people are elderly, suffering from dementia, other mental disabilities, you know, Alzheimer's, something like that. And many of these cases, silver alerts can be put out to find them. A silver alert, if you don't know, is like an amber alert, except instead of missing children, it concerns missing adults with dementia and other mental disabilities. The scope of the alert varies by state, most specifically persons over 65 who have been medically diagnosed by a medical professional

as having a mental disability are eligible for this. Some states recognize persons of any age with a mental disability under the silver alert kind of mandates for their area. One of the first nationally recognized cases that laid the groundwork for this alert was disappearance of Maddie Moore in 2004. She was a 68-year-old Alzheimer's patient from Atlanta. After Maddie's body was located eight months later, only 500 yards from her house where she disappeared. The Citi of Atlanta

invented Mattie's call as a concentrated effort to support responders and search of missing adults with dementia. With dementia Alzheimer's, there's at least a prediction that something like this might happen, you can take more kind of safety precautions, keep a closer eye and loved ones, try and help ensure they don't wander off. Different story with schizophrenia, psychotic breaks, sudden on sets of amnesia, especially, that can happen quickly and completely unexpectedly. The homeless and missing service for persons with mental illness is a program within the national alliance for the mentally ill that can help with these cases.

A force dedicated to helping find these people. A task force dedicated. If you're mentally ill, love one is missing for more than three days, you should request law enforcement to enter their name onto the FBI's NCIC list as an endangered adult to begin the process of getting federal assistance to locate them.

Okay, whatever the reason, avoiding punishment for a crime, amnesia, interpersonal conflict, the desire to get away or your mind unraveling, it is still possible to disappear today. More so than I thought at the start of this talk, actually, according to Frank A. Hurn, one of the world's top privacy experts and the co-author of how to disappear, erase your digital footprint, leave false trails, and vanish without a trace. A manual for those who want to do just that, it is still possible

to disappear in the modern age. It's very hard. Frank got his start in this industry as a skip tracer, a type of investigator that locates people and uncovers their most intimate information. There's a difference between a private investigator and a skip tracer. The private investigator has to be licensed. Skip tracers can extract hard to get information for police, PIs, lawyers, anyone else with enough cash, because they are often concerned themselves with pesky details such as warrants or laws. I've never heard of Skip Tracers before one of our full-time researchers,

Sophie Evans, found out about them researching this topic. As a Skip Tracer, Frank is tracked down deadbeat dads and missing witnesses, has access to checking accounts of financiers suspected of inbezzling money. He's done this oftentimes by simply just calling people up and being charming, leading him to get information from higher places such as the FBI in some instances or Scotland yard according to him. He's access all kinds of privileged information by posing to someone else, providing false

pretenses, such as posing as a UPS delivery man, a routine he's dubbed as pretexting. Like if a client wanted the phone records of a cheating spouse, for example, Ahernd would simply pick up the phone, call the company, pretend to be the cheating spouse himself and just ask for the call history. Well, he says that it's still possible to disappear in our digital age, faking your death and get in the way with that is damn near impossible. He wrote in his book published in 2010, if your purpose is to defraud an insurance company, there are guys who are paid to check you out. He explains grave robbing, finding a kid who died at the young age. That doesn't work today. 20 years ago, you can walk into a social security office and just say, I've never worked,

but I just got a job, but I need a card. And they would give it to you. If you had fake, a fake birth certificate, death records are now connected to social security records, but I need a card. And they would give it to you. If you had fake a fake birth certificate, death records are now connected to social security records, but it didn't used to be like that. Frank explains that by faking your death, you're doubling your chances of being discovered now. When police pull you over for a broken taillight, a whole different crime could come to light.

And now we're into the more involved stories, with that little bit of setup. This was exactly what happened. This whole taillight situation to Benny Wentz. This was exactly what happened. This whole tail light situation to Benny went. This is, I love this story. I mean, this guy's a fucking idiot. Dushbag, but fascinating story. Benny would have been presumed dead since staging his drowning off the coast of Daytona Beach, Florida, 1979. This guy was involved in our Coddx ring and he got swept up in paranoia. Believe the cops were on

to him. Probably doing way too much coke. You do too much blow. You will get so paranoid. I've never done near that much coke, but a friend of mine was doing a lot of it for a while. And just got so paranoid. It was pretty funny. You know, if you're not him.

Just so convinced for a while that black helicopters were circling around his apartments. I mean, we walked a Starbucks. He thought black helicopters were falling as they were not. He's convinced his girlfriend was a narc, trying to help the police catch him. Like people around him were involved in coming kind of sting to take down this random user who doesn't even deal. You know, this is dealer wanted to kill him, etc. I like you just talking craziness.

None of what he was saying was true. None of them made any sense. It was just a coke talking. He stopped using and then called way to fuck down Within a few weeks anyway, coke up 37 year old Benny was vacation of the beach with his fiance Patricia Hollingsworth and Probably listen to a little coke devil on a shoulder. He decided to just swim the fuck away from his life just Just to literally just I'm just just swim and just go somewhere else. He's swimming about a mile down the shore. Beyond the breakers, vanished from view and he had $6,500 stuffed into his swim trunks. That's all he took with him. He

merged from the water dried off about a t-shirt at a nearby store. Not long after, Holland'sworth reports him missing to beach patrol and while she doing this, he's hitching a ride with a trucker to Ozark, Alabama. Just fucking catch a ride with a random trucker that happens to be going to Ozark, and then he just stays there. This is a little town of about 15,000 people. He opens up a business selling NASCAR merchandise,

and he'll be there for about 20 fucking years. Going by this random navy made up called William James Sweet. He leaves a grieving fiance behind and a young daughter fucking deadbeat dads starts an entirely new life. He gets married. I don't know how he did the wedding certificate because he didn't get new identification. He is new wife who really doesn't know him. They have a son that he names after his alias

William James suite junior Jr. So a junior but not really, which is weird. Never files for you had a new ID under this alias. And then after 20 years, he's pulled over a wall on a trip in North Carolina, where he'd moved a reasoning with his new family. He's pulled over for not having a dollar 50 light bulb over the license plate of his car. And he can't produce a driver's license because he doesn't have one. He's been getting away with this for so long And he can't produce a driver's license because he doesn't have one. He's been getting away with this for so long. I can't imagine the stress I would be under.

And then he's booked in jail as John Doe. Once in jail, the whole truth comes out, but there is no law against swimming away from your family like a dickhead and letting them assume you're dead. So he actually wasn't charged with anything. It's not illegal to be an asshole. Police did notify his poor daughter

who was four when he disappeared. Have been searching for a dad. She wasn't sure was even alive for, you know, years. This piece of shit wouldn't talk to reported after the story came out, not known if he reconnected with his daughter. When a reporter for CNN tried to find out left of voicemail, he returned the call, asked what an interview with him would be worth to you. Then told the CNN doesn't pay for interviews. He responded, unless you want to pay for it, don't come up here. You're wasting your time. There are no trespassing signs on my property.

And he does look like a guy based on photos who speaks like that and then you hung up. Fucking cool guy. His wife apparently was quote, distraught, devastated when told the truth about a recording law enforcement yeah i bet i was a very least that his daughter went to ozark and just confronted him in barrett in the store what a fucking weasel he didn't have a warrant out for him he wasn't in any trouble just just worried that he might get in trouble

maybe didn't want to pay child support something to i don't clearly didn't care about his fiance or his kid. Just let both his daughter and fiancee assume he was dead because you know, just like, I've got too crazy. You know, I thought the police might be after him. And fuck it. Let's just start things over in Ozark. Interesting to note, right, that there's no law on the books against faking your death or

disappearing. Not unless you do it for fraud reasons like auxiliary crimes done in the process of faking your own death. Disappearing can get you into trouble like authenticating details that bolster the credibility of a designe to quote Frank A. Herne. You blow up your house, you chop your fingers off, you leave your fingers behind. That's a crime. If somewhere down the line you find out they paid your wife $100,000 in insurance, that's a crime. If you've even tried to rent a bike or apply for a

library card with another identity, and especially if you try to cash in a life insurance policy, now you're committing crimes, right? Now you're committing fraud. But to simply pretend that your old identity is dead, if you're not avoiding a crime and doing so, that's not a crime in and of itself, which surprised me for some reason. Another weird story along these lines. People, man.

Petra Pazitska. Petra Pazitska. Uh, German woman pulled off a fully legal fake death for over three decades. Before her true identity was rediscovered in the fall of 2015. Uh, Pazitska, there we go. Was a 24 year old computer science student in 1924 and then she disappeared.

She was last seen boarding a bus in a bronze chic. In the bronze chic,ieg, her disappearance, I don't know why I feel I need to do that. Her disappearance triggered a massive manhunt and of course no one finds her. Investigators sought help from a popular crime she ought to try and find her in 1985. A year earlier, a 14 year old girl

had been murdered in the vicinity of her home, right? Near the time she disappeared, she disappeared. Police wanted a petriot's disappearance was connected to this murder, thanks to some tips, a carpenters apprentice, 19 year old known as Gunter K, is arrested, confesses to murdering the 14 year old, and then also confesses to murdering Pasitka,

which he did not do. Clearly his fashion was coerced, and now Petra was declared dead. Probably should have come out of hiding to say that she wasn't murdered by Gunter, but if he did kill the other girl, I had to fucking, but then 30 years later, at 55 years old, a petro reappeared when she alerted police to a burglary taking place at her douche-douche-dourth home. When police asked for identification, she introduces

herself as a Mrs. Schneider, but then doesn't have any documents to confirm that identity. And ends up caving, the police she's petra Pasitka Investigators then find out she had spent the past 31 years Bouncing around between different German cities without any government ID without any bank accounts paying for everything in cash Sources are vague when it comes to how she made money authorities just said through elicit work, which could mean so many things Why did she go into hiding? She refused to give any motive for disappearance.

She only told the police she wanted nothing to do with her family and no contact with the public. Since she committed no life insurance or identity fraud, not charged with any criminal offense for disappearing. And why go through all that trouble? Like what was she hiding from? Also with both her and the last guy who literally swam away from his life,

I just do love that detail. I mean, he must have planted a little bit, because he had money with him, I mean sure, but that's weird. That's weird. And I guess it's kind of smart, you know? They say you're gonna drown. I just understand how they didn't at least

get in trouble for something like tax fraud or something, because they're making money. There's no way they're paying taxes, right? After being found, Petra did have to register herself with German authorities as being alive. It doesn't help locate people like Petra or old disappearance expert, Frank Aherne. Aherne, I don't know why I just want to call him Aherne.

Frank Aherne, the body seems fine, Frank A-Hern. Also has helped people disappear in the past. So he doesn't just explain, you know, how people disappear, I think he's looked for disappearing people, but he's also helped people disappear, charging up to $30,000 per case for his services. How he's done it is legal. He says that his clients usually want to disappear

for one or two reasons, money or violence. Occasionally he says, disappearances can be filed into the category of love, like when the husband or wife wants to run away with some other woman or man. There's not their spouse, but he says, that's pretty rare. He estimates it between 2001, 2012. He helped around 50 people disappear. He claims to have never helped people with offshore banking,

but instead sets his clients up as virtual entities. So they can have money, make money, but stay after grade. He'll help them fund a money and do, you know, to fund their livelihood from phone bills to rent under a limited liability company in LLC, which depending on the state can be set up with varying degrees of anonymity, along with a variety of other undetectable methods such as prepaid cell phones and credit cards. Frank can make his clients invisible without them having to ever assume a false identity. So, we can do it legal. His process follows three steps. First step is misinformation, which means destroying any information available from closing

bank and phone accounts for removing your name from online databases. Then he creates disinformation or false leads to throw off pursuers. So if some waitress client of his, for example, is departing for Kansas in February, Frank starts diverting traceable leads to her going to Chicago in January. He'll have her place calls to realtors, utility companies, restaurants, they might be hiring.

So if anyone starts looking for, they'll assume she's in Chicago. Once Frank, in this example, is sufficiently engineered enough false leads and set her up the next place, he calls the woman to say it's go time. And he'll have her flee, leave behind almost everything. Sometimes bringing only one back. The woman might then also hire a PI to do surveillance,

make sure anyone she's trying to avoid isn't following her, hasn't caught onto her plans. And of course, one will then take an indirect route to Kansas by, for example, buying a bus ticket to Chicago to go with that story, doing it with a credit card, and then paying for her Kansas ticket with cash. Once in Kansas, you'll have to find work off the books, getting paid in cash. This shit is not easy. Takes a lot of money to set all this in motion, then once you get to where

you're going, your ability to make money while remaining invisible is now limited. That's all, yeah, just so much work. I feel the only reason to do this is when you feel like your life is truly in jeopardy and extreme danger if you don't do this. To keep in touch with love one's left behind, Frank Devise's code, and I guess you know, if you wanna avoid going to prison for the rest of your life or something.

Frank Devise's code's in the form of Craigslist postings and classified ads. This is pretty ingenious. So like if someone wants to get in touch with a, with a disappeared woman, they'll look up, say, 1974 Cadillac Seville with white wall tires and switched the last two digits of the phone number in the ad to call her prepaid cell phone. Some little code they work out, even all these steps are taken. Frank says that completely erasing a digital

footprint is now impossible, but you can almost do it. He does something he calls stretching the footprint, which is almost as good. Basically, he creates stand-ins between him and his client, so many of them that tracking all this way, nearly impossible to track them. For example, if you need to email someone hide and say Romania, he gets one person from a circle of third-party people in all different parts of the world who work as assistants for companies like Odesk, a freelancing service, who then have prepaid cell phones to call someone and say, South Korea. The South Korean person gets the email read to them by one of the contacts. They then email it to someone in Norway who then shuts down that email account, opens

up a new one, emails it to Romania. It's laborious, it's not perfect, but the average person can't follow this trail. And even law enforcement likely can't. They would need to spend a lot of time and energy to track all this down, time that the disappeared persons then used to disappear again. If they catch on to anyone pursuing them. Mudding up one's digital footprint is only part of hiding though. You have to also be careful about what clues you can be leaving physically, like footage caught on a security camera.

One way Frank hides his client's physical footprints is to get them a burner phone. He finds random people on the street pays them to go buy the prepaid phones, making sure neither his face nor his clients face ever shows up on security camera footage associated with his act of buying his phone. All this probably sounds like a huge pain in the ass because it is. There is a reason many people don't actually go through with running off to live a new life. Even if they're living situation, not exactly what they might have hoped for, it is a tremendous pain in the ass, a huge amount of hassle and stress. And many people still get rediscovered after all this. One mistake, right, getting pulled over for a tiny

light bulb being out or panicking when it comes to finding identification after calling the police, can alert authorities to who you really are. It's fascinating stuff. Now that we've dirted our toes into a few examples, set some of the reasons people disappear and how they sometimes end up reappearing, let's dive further into the world of mysterious disappearances.

No time stock timeline today. Instead, we're just grouping these vignettes into broad categories. First up is political disappearances, which we will get to after today's mid-show sponsor break. Thanks for listening to those deals. Even if you're living someone who are new identity it left behind your old life.

Why not still use our landing pages and sales codes to save some money. Now back to the topic. Mysteries disappearances have been happening for political reasons practically since society was invented. All the way back in the 8th century BCE, the very beginning of Rome would see its own disappearance.

Legends says Rome was founded by twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who were evidently also raised by She Wolf as in an actual wolf. Most historians think the She Wolf was actually a sex worker since ancient Roman sometimes called them she wolves. According to legend in 753 B.C. the brothers founded Rome then Romulus ruled it for nearly 40 years then one day Romulus went down to the temple of Vulcan to talk to some senators and promptly disappeared. There are a couple different versions of how he disappeared and one a cloud engulfed him and he was never seen again in another

a solar eclipse shrouded the world in darkness and when the sun reemerged, Romulus was gone. Some dude named Julius, Proculus, excuse me, who said he'd encounter Romulus wearing really shiny armor said that Romulus told him he'd actually been a god all along and now it's time for him to go back to the heavens. According to Roman lore, the Romans of the day figured that was a plausible, you know, explanation. And the matter was settled. Dude, he's went back to live in the clouds as a God. After getting the empire rolling, okay, what's not to understand? More likely, Romulus was assassinated by senators who then concocted the whole disappeared in the cloud story to cover up their murderous deed. Romulus

would not be the first state statementmen to disappear, and all likely to ignore, of course, the last. By the time Julius Caesar came to power, 60 BCE, the Romans were well on their way in the quest for expansion and world domination. One of the first territories on Caesar's list was Beljika, where modern Belgium is today. Caesar introduced himself to the Belji by conquering them and selling a bunch of them into slavery. So not the best first impression for them. A few years later he sent his legion into the region to establish winter quarters and was defeated by a Gallic Germanic tribe led by a king named Ambiarux.

Ambiarux, the king led a series of assaults on the Romans, one of which resulted in 6,000 dead Romans. However, the tribe was fairly small and within a year, you know, Caesar had put down their uprising for good. He could just send more soldiers. After his last stand, M. B. Aurex was seen running off into the forest with some guards and then never heard from again. And according to legend, his people resettled among other German tribes. As far as history remembers, the Romans never did track him down.

So he successfully disappeared. Hail! How are the fuck you say that guy's name? Today the Belgians consider him a hero. Statue of him sits in the city of Tangerin, believed to be the historical side of his tribe. Now it's moved to the 15th century. Emperor Constantine the 11th who ruled over the Byzantine Empire from 1404 to 1453 also disappeared mysteriously or at least just disappeared. He would be the last Byzantine emperor. In the 1450s, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II began directing all his resources to capture

Constantinople and was successful. During the event that would become known as the fall of Constantinople, Ottoman besiegers vastly outnumbered the Byzantines and their allies, between 60,000 and 80,000 soldiers fought on land, accompanied by 69 cannons. Mehmed's strategy was straightforward, which uses fleet and siege lines to blockade Constantinople on all sides, while relentlessly battering the walls of the city with cannons. By the end of May 1453, after a week's long siege,

the Ottomans invaded the city's walls, and Constantine XI would jump into the fray with his soldiers, apparently preferring to go out a hero, then submit to the Ottomans, what happened next? It is unclear if Constantine actually died. In some version of the story, he avoided capture by asking one of his soldiers to kill him, and others he escaped by boat. This maybe they escaped, maybe they died thing, would be recurring theme throughout not just Western history, maybe they escaped. Maybe they died thing would be recurring theme throughout not just Western history, but

global history. In pre-modern China, Jin Wang was the second emperor of the Ming Dynasty, just 21 years old when he came to power in 1398. And during the first year of his reign, he took out several rival princes to consolidate his power. But then when he tried to take out his uncle, the Prince of Yan has uncle immediately staged rebellion. And the war lasted four years. And then when the Prince Yon attacked the capital and burned down

Jinwans palace. Sadly, when Jinwans saw his uncle coming, he just hid in the palace, and he was still in there when it all burned to the ground. Or was he, da da da da da. As with these other ancient stories, there was some we thought he'd actually escaped. The body that Prince John presented his proof of his nephews demise was charred beyond recognition. So really, good of anyone. Said that the real Prince John lived out his days as a monk in a nearby monastery. Maybe. Now it was fast forward to the 20th century.

Talk about those motherfuckers, those disappearing Nazis we mentioned. I'm already covered how Adolf Eichmann, for fled Germany, for Argentina, and was captured by the Mossad, Israel's secret service in the second part of our Holocaust series. He was just one of the many Nazis who would disappear to South America. After the war, thousands of Nazi officers, high ranking party members and collaborators, including many notorious war criminals, escaped across the Atlantic, finding refuge in South America, particularly in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. Argentina for once, for one, as we also talked about in that second holocaust suck, already home to hundreds of thousands of German immigrants and had maintained close ties to Germany during the war.

After 1945, Argentine president Juan Perrin himself drawn to fascist ideologies and listed intelligence officers and diplomats to help establish rat lines or escape routes via Spanish and Italian ports for many in the third Reich. Just like the US gave certain Nazis whose valuable knowledge could strengthen the US military a pass on their involvement in war crimes with Operation Paperclip or Argentina gave Nazis a pass if a parent thought they could strengthen his nation. Thousands of Nazis and their collaborators poured into the continent as some sympathetic and sophisticated network developed, easing the transition for those who came after.

And one of the very worst to come over after was Joseph Mengele, the angel of death, a doctor who led some of the most horrifying experiments ever conducted at Auschwitz. An SS officer, Mengele was sent at the start of World War II to the Eastern Front to repel the Soviets and receive an iron cross for his bravery in service. After being wounded and declared unfit for active duty, he was assigned to the Auschwitz death camp. There he used the prisoners, particularly twins, pregnant women, and the disabled, such a fucking, especially, eel monster, as human science experiments. Quick reminder of how monstrous this dude was.

One witness to his horror described after the war, how mangola ripped an infant from his mother's womb, hurled it into an oven, because it wasn't a twin as he had hoped and he was frustrated. Another witness recounted how mangola kept hundreds of human eyes from people he'd experimented on, pinned to his fucking lab wall, quote, like a collection of butterflies.

He's definitely worth doing a full episode on someday, one of our evil profiles. So we'll only cover his evil briefly today. After World War II, Mengele spent three plus years in hiding in Germany, bouncing around from safe house to safe house, 1949 with the help of a Catholic clergy member, the angel of death fled Italy to Argentina where he owned

a mechanical equipment shop. There he remarried under his own name and At Uruguay in 1958, so I guess not on Argentina. He made it to Uruguay 1958 remarried there under his own name The doctor went on to live in various Buenos Aires suburbs in Argentina Then after hearing of fellow Nazi Adolf Eichmann's capture went underground first in Paraguay then in Brazil When he changed his name. West Germany had sent extradition requests to Argentina for him. They dragged their feet claiming the review is necessary because the doctor's crimes had

been quote political. Nazi hunters pursued him for decades, never caught him. Mengele drowned off the Brazilian coast in 1979, filled by a stroke at the age of 67. Because he'd operated under an assumed name in Brazil, his death wasn't verified until his remains were forensically tested at 1995. All the evil shity did. And sadly, he got away with it successfully disappeared. Had to live in hiding for many years, had to bounce around from country to country, but lived the life of a well-to-do doctor in South America for many years until he died. Another high profile Nazi who successfully

disappeared in South America was Walter, Walter Ralph. Walter Ralph. Ralph was instrumental in the construction and implementation of the mobile gas chambers responsible for killing and estimated 100,000 people during World War II. According to the United Kingdoms, right, MMI-5, you know what? I never, I recognize I read it and I'm like, yeah, it's a spy agency, but then I'm like, is it, is it M, Logan, do you ever know if it's M 15 or M I five?

I always thought it was M I five. I think it is M I five. Okay, apologies if I, we're wrong. But I think it's M I five, intelligence agency, Ralph oversaw the modifications of trucks, the diverted their exhaust fumes into airtight chambers and the back of vehicles, capable of carrying as many as 60 people. We talked about these in the airtight chambers in the back of vehicles, capable of carrying as many as 60 people.

We talked about these in the Holocaust suck. I think the first one, in that two part of the trucks were driven to burial sites along the way victims could be poisoned or as fixated from the carbon monoxide. I think we talked about the second episode. Now that is a super important detail right now. But after Perth's getting Jews in Tunisia during 1942 and 1943,

Ralph Oversawg is stoppo operations in Northwest Italy. right now. But after purse could induce in Tunisia during 1942 and 1943, Ralph oversaw Gestapo operations in northwest Italy. There as in Tunisia, Ralph gained a reputation for utter ruthlessness and became infamous for the indiscriminate execution of both Jews and locals. That's how you know that you're a, uh, especially horrific piece of shit when you stand out amongst felonautsies for cruelty. Luckily Allied troops arrested Ralph at the end of the war, but then unluckily he escaped from an American POW camp and hid in some Italian cons, comments. After serving as a military advisor to the president of Syria in 1948, he fled back to Italy, then escaped Ecuador in 1949 before

settling in Chile where he lived under his own name. Their Ralph worked as the manager of a King crab cannery and actually spied on behalf of West Germany between 1958 and 1962 was on the government payroll clandestinely. His whereabouts and not-sehunters then became known after he sent a letter requesting that his German naval pension be sent to his new address in Chile. He is arrested in 1962 in Chile but freed by the country's Supreme Court the following year. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet repeatedly resisted calls from West Germany for Ralph's extradition. He reportedly worked for Chile as an advisor to the Chilean secret police. A documentary filmmaker found interview him in Santiago in 1979 and then Ralph died in

Chile in 1974 at the age of 77. Numerous German and Chilean mourners at his funeral gave Nazi salutes and loudly chanted HILLE HITLER. Wow, that went on in fucking public in 1994. Fuck was going on down in Chile. Another really bad dude disappeared from Europe following World War II, then reappeared in South America and lived a long and prosperous life. Another dude who got away with doing a lot of bad shit. Some escape Nazis did eventually face justice though.

They disappeared for a while but didn't get to keep living the free life until the end of their days. Nicknamed the white death for his proclivity to wear a white uniform and carry a whip. Sounds like a real peach. The Austrian born Franz Stongel worked on the Acti and T4 Euthanasia program under which the Nazis killed those with mental and physical disabilities. We talked about that in that Holocaust view partner.

The T4 program was basically the blueprint for the Holocaust. Franz later served as the commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps in German occupied Poland. More than 100,000 Jewish people believed to have been murdered during his tenure at Sovi Boer before he moved to Treblinka, where he was directly responsible for the Nazis' second deadliest camp where 900,000 approximately Jews were killed. Or concentration camp victims were killed, mostly Jews. After the end of the war, a stangle was captured by the Americans, but escaped to Italy from an Austrian prison camp in 1947, assisted by a Nazi-Sempatizing Austrian bishop, Stangle

traveled to Syria on a Red Cross passport before sailing to Brazil in 1951. He was employed by Volkswagen and Sao Paulo under his own name, when he was arrested in 1967 after being tracked down by Simon Weisenhall or Weisenthal, Holocaust survivor well-known Nazi hunter. X-Retition to West Germany, extra-dited to West Germany, Stango was tried and found guilty of the mass murder of 900,000 people, sentenced life in prison, and then died a heart failure in 1971 at the age of 63. So only spent four of his 63 years in prison, but you know, it was God.

So I guess better than nothing. Similarly, Joseph Schwammberger, an SS commandant in charge of three labor camps in the Jewish ghettos of Nazi Occupied Poland, was captured by Argentine officials in 1977 when he was 75 after an informant responded to the German government's $300,000 reward. He returned to West Germany in 1990 to stand trial. When it says the trial said they had seen, uh, shwamen burger, throw prisoners onto fucking bonfires. God damn killed Jews kneeling beside mass graves. No morning and, uh, slam children's heads against wall, simply because you didn't want

a way to pull it on. So he's, uh, real piece of shit. 1992 at the age of 80, he was found guilty to seven counts of murder murder 32 cases of accessory to murder sentenced to life imprisonment. Uh, Schwabberger died in prison in 2004 at the age of 92. And again, hate that for almost all of his good years, he got away with it and successfully disappeared. I guess some just says, uh, better than no just says, it's so weirdly. He did like that much stuff and then just went on to like, you know, just a living South America and I don't know, just kind of have I'm sure some what some semblance of a of a normal life. Yeah, just working it to fucking for Volkswagen Picture like that guy in the in the break room. Somebody's a dick to him and you just picturing just fucking slam in their head into the wall

Right, I've I've done it before I don't know what accent that was. Tales of disappearing Nazis have influenced historical legacy of Adolf Hitler. Some, man, and not the sharpest knives in the drawer, let's be honest. Still believed that the Nazi leader did not in fact commit suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945. Instead, his leading theory goes he escaped to South America as well, lived out the rest of his life, unpunished, for his unfathomable war crimes. We can actually trace his disappearance and reappearance rumor back to a single source, Joseph Stalin, the Soviets learned of Hitler's death the day after

his suicide. The chief of staff of the German army, Hans Krebs, went with a piece proposal to the Soviets and formed them of the furorous suicide. The meeting failed when the Soviets demanded unconditional surrender. Krebs would always be loyal to his boss committed suicide that same afternoon. The highest Soviet authority in Berlin, general George, ah, uh, George Zoukov, uh, then ordered the news of Hitler's death to be put on the front page of the red star. The newspaper of his troops, he wanted his soldiers to know as soon as possible about his achievements, to reward them with the news. Carl Donets also communicated it to the German people by radio. But three weeks later, Stalin told the American envoy that Hitler had actually escaped, said, you know, Stalin said he was in Spain or Argentina.

Meanwhile, Zuckoff in Germany now begins to repeat Stalin's story. This believed that Stalin's motivation was to, uh, so uncertainty, so that the other victorious nations wouldn't know what next steps to take while the Soviets did while they moved in and took over a portion of Germany and other formerly Nazi occupied territories. F**k in Russians! They've been successfully tricking us Americans for so long. This rumor was also advantageous to Stalin because if Hitler were still alive, there was always a possibility to return.

Therefore, according to Stalin's propaganda machine, there was no room for contemplation or soft measures. The shadow of the escaped Hitler allowed Stalin to convince others to apply harsh sanctions, be inflexible with Germany and the remnants of Nazism. The British became concerned enough about this rumor that they sent a secret service agent in the historian Hugh Trevor Roper to reconstruct the facts and obtain as much testimony and evidence as possible to try to ascertain if Hitler was still a livernot. Trevor Roper produced a report that definitively determined Hitler had definitely died by suicide. The report was published as a book shortly afterward, leaving most people satisfied

you know that Hitler was definitely dead killed himself in his bunker. Those scholars now agree that Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, carried out a suicide pact in that bunker. Rumors of Hitler's survival, you know, wouldn't go away after the war, largely because officials never publicly identify the couples remains. In early 2014, the FBI declassified more than 700 pages of tips and notes on investigations into whether Hitler, like other lady Nazis, escaped to South America. Those reports started circulating in the months after Joseph Stalin's big fib. That silly, strong pony boy. The reports of possibilities as varied as they were contradictory. Rumors had reached the agency that he had been killed to the bunker. I had escaped from Berlin by air or Germany and by escaped in a submarine.

Others claimed he was living on an island far from the Baltic and a fortress in the Rhineland in a Spanishyanland in a spanish monastery or in a south american camp they've been claimed to have seen him uh... living among criminals in albania swiss journalists to clear the hitler and eva brown resided in bavaria and a soviet news agency sent a cable state in the hillar was found in doublin uh... he was uh... uh... wearing women's clothing there for some reason

uh... over the years the version that gained more strength and almost monopolize conspiracy theories was that hitler managed to escape from the bunker and the Red Army siege and together with Ivan Braun, reach Argentina to live amongst a bunch of other Nazis. Some say that a helicopter took him to Austria, that a plane took him to Barcelona, where he's able to board a submarine across the Atlantic that deposited him in Patagonia. Others argue that he took a land crossing to Spain, then got on a submarine, ignoring that it would, you know, be impossible to cross half of Europe in 1945. And reality, two German submarines indeed

did arrive in Argentina after the war, but not to deliver Hitler. They just went to avoid surrounding to British forces. In the 1960s, the rumor that Hitler was still alive, this rumor wreaked havoc on one really unlucky Argentinian man's life, which is why I wanted to include it in this series of vignettes.

In 1969, Albert Ponca turned 80 years old. He was a German minor who had been retired for several years, just an average older man who had been arrested about 300 times in the previous 25 years for bullshit reasons. He was arrested over and over again because he looked a lot like Hitler. When I first came across his info, I immediately thought, why did he just shave off his little hiller stash right after the first few arrests? But he didn't actually have a little hiller stash. I wish he did for entertainment value though. Right? I wish he was just bringing on himself. Why do I keep getting arrested? How do I look like the furrow? What this this tiny mustache?

And the one can have a tiny mustache is is it a swastika on band anyone can just happen to like the shape and the colors Is it the constant talking about vision to kill all the Jews and even can think these things now? He wasn't anything that stupid. He just like bone structure facial features body type age, etc Just like really unfortunately looked a lot like Hitler that stupid. He just like bone structure, facial features, body type, age, etc. Just like really, unfortunately, looked a lot like Hitler. His resemblance to Hitler was so striking that he said someone to announce him basically every time he appeared in public. And he would be arrested and interrogated by the authorities over and over again. When he turned 80, he publicly pleaded to be left alone, to be allowed to live his old age

in peace. He told the press, uh, I'm fed up with being taken for that other fellow, uh, I'm not a retired furor fucking sucks for him, but that's so funny to me. Like what a fucking curse. What a weird curse. Like just to really look like some random piece of shit, like one of the worst pieces shits and to live where that person supposedly escapes, you know, off to like, imagine like living into Mexico down in the Caribbean, someplace that Epstein supposedly like when he, his

death was fake, according to some conspiracies might have, you know, bounced out to and also looking exactly like Jeffrey Epstein, just catching shocked stairs, stink guys every time you're out in public, right? Shocked glances. I mean, would you eventually just snap and start making crazy announcements, just when you walk into restaurants, bars, et cetera? Hey, I'm not him, everybody.

Not a kiddie, diddler. Not a teen masseuse, fucker, okay? Let's just get that out of the way. Speaking of massages, I imagine walking into a Cleveland massage parlour right now, looking exactly like DeShawn Watson. Just looking exactly like a dissaunt was in just like exactly like disgrace browns quarterback shan was in the walking r i a a easy easy i'm not the shan was in

not gonna keep allegedly brushing my dick up against the during the massage trying to talk to the suck it not that guy one more to this fun for me imagine shan with a cr bakery, looking exactly like Putin. I know Tim, I know Tim, I'm not strong pony boy. I love Ukraine.

Yay, blue yellow flag, grain and stuff. I like it. I'm more than made in my point. I keep kicking deadpone, I stop now. Now let's look at so much more modern disappearing political figures. There are still figure heads, disappear all the time fleeing their criminal

You know fleeing their crimes against humanity. Excuse me One such person is Fulgens Kai Shuma Kai Shima was born in 1960 became a Rwandan Hutu militia man during the 1994 Rwandan genocide He was the inspector of the judicial police at the time of the genocide He was the inspector of the judicial police at the time of the genocide. During the 1994 Rwanda genocide, I also noticed the genocide against the Tutsi, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the East Central African nation of Rwanda, murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. And Kai Shima played a big role in this. He would be charged by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and extermination, all crimes against humanity. This was particularly due to his role in the April 16th, 1994 massacre at Nyanji Church. In the days leading up to the massacre, 2,000 Tutsi civilians, women, men, children, elderly, sought refuge inside this church. Initially, malicious surround the church launched an attack, including throwing hand grenades into the packed building. While many were wounded and killed, the refugees remaining resisted and force the attackers to retreat, like in tough bastards, but then determined to murder these innocent civilians, local leaders, including Kaishumi, now brought in a fucking bulldozer to the church. And the bulldozer was used

just to demolish the church with the refugees still inside and more than 1500 innocent people are crushed to death. The few survivors who escaped hunted down and killed. And before Kai Shuma could be brought to justice, that fucker disappeared. Reportedly, Kai Shuma is now living in South Africa and UN prosecutors have blasted that country's government their leaders for refusing to apprehend him. So, we got away with it. Reminds me of a former SUCC subject, General SUCC subject, General Buttnake. The early 2000s, we see the vanishing of many high up members of extremist networks

in the Middle East. People like Siph Aladel, former Egyptian colonel and explosive expert declared wanted in 2003 for his part in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya. Adel was a member of the advisory council of Alcada and a member of its military committee providing military training to members of Alcada in Egyptian Islamic jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan. Since Alcada's military chief Mohamed Eight was killed in 2001 or OT possibly couldn't find a pronunciation guide for him. Journalist reported that Adele was likely his successor in that role. But that year he would flee from Afghanistan to Iran.

Perhaps getting released from detainment there in 2010, then returning to Iran maybe in 2011. He may still be residing in Iran. We're not sure. The rewards for justice program, U.S. Department of State is offering a reward of up to $10 million for info leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Sife Al-Adel. Not a money. Not all political disappearances happen as a result of war criminals fleeing their crimes.

Sometimes they involve journalists who just disappeared after reporting on subjects that went against a, you know, government's ideology. Like Russian journalists, Akadi Babchenko. In 2018, Babchenko was found lying faced down on the floor of his apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine, blood seeping through his t-shirt. He was quickly driven away by an ambulance, pronounced dead, delivered to a morgue. But in reality, the three bullet holes were fake, and the blood was from a pig. The day after his, quote, death, he turned up at a news conference in Kiev, presented by

Ukrainian authorities where a room of journalists awaited details of the murder. He apologized to his wife and others for what he put them through. Oh fuck, yeah, I bet he had to apologize to his wife. The rules orchestrated by Ukrainian security service was designed to expose and alleged murder plot in which Kremlin officials ordered a Ukrainian middleman $40,000 for Bob Chanko's real assassination. Bob Chanko had been informed about the plot to kill him and decided to get one step ahead of him.

After the news broke, Bob Chanko tweeted to say he would die at 96 after dancing on Putin's grave. Obviously, Russia's strongest pony boy didn't care for that. Russia's foreign ministry condemned the stage assassination, called it obviously just another anti-Russian provocation. spokeswoman maria zaharova described the operation as a masquerade done for propagandistic effect. she added that russia was happy that bob chanke was alive saying i wish you were always like that sure sure you do um let's turn now to our second major category of disappearances. crime crime not not committed by Nazis. I find this

is probably my favorite little section here. For many of the people who disappeared, they haven't been high ranking Nazis or state leaders on the run for many of them, simply trying to commit non-genicidal crimes that are on. Many of these crimes, financial in nature, like the crimes of Samuel, Israel the third, saga, this guy's situation was. Israel looked to be a true financial tycoon. A native of New Orleans, grandson of a well-known commodities trader on Wall Street, he started Bayou Hedge Fund Group in 1996. Quickly became a rising star, massing money from some of the most respected investors on

Wall Street based on the firm's trading track record. But there was one problem. The firm didn't have any actual profits. In truth, Bayou Hedge Fund consistently lost money. The firm's accounting firm, which confirmed Israel's numbers and letters to investors, was also fictitious. Israel and his partners created the accounting shop at a thin air, including the stationary logo.

As it turned out, things with Bayou were in such bad shape that at the end of 1989, Israel looked for help from his friend and partner, Dan Marino. He figured if that rocket armed mother fucker could throw for over 5,000 yards in 1904 for the Miami Dolphins. If he could throw for over 60,000 yards in the NFL before the age of 40, surely he could turn a sinking hedge fund around, right?

No, not that, Dan Marino. Israel did turn to an accountant who happens to be named Dan Marino, though. And together the device planned to hide the financial problems. They created their own independent auditing company, one ran by Hall of Fame quarterback, expert NFL analyst, Dan, fucking marino, fuck yeah, bro, noise. Or one ran by accountant, Dan Reno, who probably sucked a football. By his up to the financial statements, attracting investors whose money would be used to pay

earlier clients. So, you know, a Ponzi scheme now. Things seem successful, but they're very stressful, not actually profitable because the firm is, you know, they're not like netting real money. And in 2004, then a new person arrives on the scene as to all this craziness. They seemingly have all the answers to Israel's problems. Israel's new friend tells him that there's a secret, there are secret government projects financed by select banks available on an invite only basis. If you were able to buy into these programs, if you got invited, you were guaranteed an incredible rate of return. This new contact actually told Sam that he was an XCIA officer involved in black ops, lots of super secret, super secret spooky shit. Sam buys his hook line and

sinker to the tune of millions and millions and millions of dollars. The scammer has now just been scammed. Part of the con involved the contents of a mysterious Federal Reserve box offered to Israel as collateral. Supposedly, it was from World War II and contained more than $100 million in Federal Reserve bonds.

By there's a problem with this. The Federal Reserve issues notes, not bonds. The box was a total fake. Israel should have maybe done a quick web search before wiring more than $150 fucking million to this con man, all of Ba'yu's remaining money. This sets off an FBI investigation, or essentially all the rest of the money.

This sets off an FBI investigation who originally believed that Israel was the victim. And he was kind of not really also a victimizer, primarily, the more questions the feds ask, the more they realize something's off at a bio. On July 27, 2005, with pressure mounting, Israel sends a surprise letter to investors announcing he's shutting bio down

and will send refund checks to investors. But, of course, you know, bio has no money to send. And federal investigators are now closing in on their case against Israel and some of his scam cohorts like college hall of fame member NASCAR investor, one of the 10 greatest quarterbacks in NFL history as determined by a panel of coaches and media members and possibly one of the 10 greatest Americans ever, Dan motherfucking marino. Woo! Dan say, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. Or, Dan really shitty account marino. It's just fun to yell stuff like that sometimes. In total, Sam Israel and Bayou built investors

out of more than $300 million in less than a decade. Israel decides to cooperate with the authorities now in hopes of a lenient sentence. But then, along with partner, Dan, not the cool one marino, he ascends to 20 years in prison, order to pay the $300 million in restitution. $300 million he doesn't have or know how to make. Suddenly, the only good option in his life he can think of is to disappear. June 9, 2008, the day the Israel is supposed to report to prison, began serving as 20 years

sentence. He never shows up. Authorities then find his GMC envoy abandoned on the bridge or on a bridge over the Hudson River, scrawled out of pollen on the abandoned SUV's hood are the words Suicide is painless. The title of the theme song for both the movie and TV series mash. Real quick real quick tangent. Did anyone else know that that was a fucking name of the theme song for one of the most critically acclaimed TV shows of all time. I watched this show as a kid, loved it, literally never picked up on how dark the lyrics were to this song. Listen, it's a great song, but listen to a bit of this. far by sea. Visions of the things to be. The pains that are withheld for me. I realize

and I can't see. That suicide is painless. It brings on many changes. Never notice that. Suicide is painless. Oh man, crazy. Anyway, at first it seems to investigators like Israel jumped into the water below and in his life. But when divers failed to find a body in the river, they doubt Israel died by suicide. After a bit of digging, Israel's girlfriend, Debra Ryan, is arrested, later the same months

for 80 and abedding his escape before she's released on bail. Under intense questioning, Ryan admits to helping him escape. That she and Israel parked an RV loaded with Israel's belongings near Bear Mountain Bridge, the day before his disappearance. Sam Israel was eventually tracked down to a campground in Granville, Massachusetts and surrendered to authorities July 2, 2008. He did not disappear for very long at all. He just made it out, I'm confirming that, yeah, yeah, 2008, 2008, just made it a couple of weeks. As a consequence, he's further sentenced on July 15, 2009 to an additional two years in prison.

His girlfriend ascends to three years probation. Today Israel is serving as a sentence at federal correctional institution, button or low in button on North Carolina, as early as possible release date September 12, 2027. Pulled off a massive Ponzi scheme for a while could not pull off faking his own death. For the average citizen who tries to fake their death and disappear, the clear criminal aim is usually insurance fraud. In July of 1997, the New York Times read an article, ran an article titled, Fake Death Subroad or a Growing problem for insurers.

The article described a man named Javier Moso, who was driving his car on a country road in South America with his brother Ernesto. They apparently get run off the road by bus, flipped, rolled down nearby ravine. Javier managed to crawl out of the wreckage alive Ernesto, not so lucky, died in Javier's arms, or at least that is what Ernesto's wife, Maria Magdalena Santos and Javier Moso told the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, which had insured Ernesto Moso's life for half a million dollars. As confirmation of the death, Maria Santos sent the small Minnesota insurer a death certificate

issued by the city morgue in the Colombian town of Santa Marta. When an investigator came calling, Javier Moseau provided a long and tragic account of his brother's death, showed him a stone vault and the San Miguel cemetery. Sorry, sorry, San Miguel. Oh, yeah, almost gives me every time still long habit there. San Miguel, uh, yeah, cemetery with Ernesto Moseau's name inscribed on an ornate bronze plaque. Ernesto seemed for all the world dead and gone. But of course he wasn't. Soon turned out that the death certificate had been forged.

The story made up in the vault where Ernesto's ashes supposedly rested was just rented. Apparently doing shit like this was growing trend. According to the Times article, in the 1990s, more and more residents of the US had ties to foreign countries where it was easier to fake deaths. And as American insurance companies were extending their global reach, they'd started aggressively selling policies in countries with less than rigorous standards for record keeping and documentation. Most of these fraud cases, a central threat is a trip abroad, preferably to some place trying to cope with an upheaval like a earthquake, flood, perhaps a civil war, meaning the

records of major life events like deaths are few and far between. Ronald W. Pointext, or the director of Florida's Division of Insurance fraud, has pointed out that in Haiti, medical examiners are not required to view a body before issuing a death certificate. I provided that three people swear

that a death has occurred. I promise he's dead. He promises he's dead, and she promises he's dead. So hand over the certificate. So it's hard to say whether or not these people are still living. In the case of Ernesto Morzo, who'd been visiting Columbia from his new home in Miami

where he and his wife were for an import export company, he did soon turn up alive. As a result of the work of a private investigator, Ernesto Morzo was jailed briefly in Columbia for forging the signature of the Santa Marta more director But that was it as far as punishment went and as far as American journalists know no one ever went after a Javier Moseau You guys never collected the money, but they also really didn't get in trouble for trying to collect the money It seems like a good way to encourage more people to try this kind of shit

Another similar case is that of Jose Lantigua, who tried to fake his debts in South America to collect 6.6 million in life insurance, because he owed millions in debt. Throughout the fraud, Lantigua spun an incredible web of lies about how his military team had taken out a drug cartel leader. Wasn't true. Told his wife he had been diagnosed with a fatal brain disorder, another lie, and advised a business investor that he needed half a million dollars immediately for life-saving medical care.

He flew to Venezuela to purchase a debt record from a corrupt doctor who never examined him, but provided proof that Lantigo's corpse had been cremated in exchange for a bribe. With help from his wife, Lantigo eventually made it back to the U.S., they settled in North Carolina, got the money, briefly, but then had it taken away when they got caught. Lantigo was caught when he tried to apply for a passport and use the identity of a man who did not resemble him at all and was already in a federal database. That raised red flags for the State Department, who alerted investigators who tracked a couple down,

captured them. Lantigo was sentenced to 14 years in prison. So he did get quite a bit of trouble. Now for my favorite of these stories. Another case of attempted insurance scam, that of British teacher and prison officer John Darwin. Darwin born August 14th, 1950 in Hartlepool, England. He studied biology and chemistry at university,

got married in 1973 to Anne Stevenson. Darwin then went on to teach science and mathematics for 18 years, then became a prison officer. That is a weird job transition. You know, just go, they low these children. They don't want to learn. They're disruptive and disrespectful. I hope they end up in prison. If only they were there now, I could at least sleep

better at night knowing that they were being punished. Wait a minute. What if I got a job at prison now and worked around people who may be used to be the kids I taught, who are in prison being punished. That sounds simply delightful. Darwin and his wife are doctors receptionists, also ran a business renting bedsits and county Durham with 12 houses. Bed sit, I've not heard this before, actually. The form of accommodation, common in some parts of the UK, consisting of a single room per occupant with all occupants typically sharing a bathroom.

Bed sits are included in a legal category of dwellings referred to as houses and multiple occupation. So kind of a, kind of like a hostel. Darwin and his wife ran into debt after purchasing two houses in Seaton, Kuru, Quaint Little Seaside Resort Town in December 2000. And the debt led Darwin to talk about faking his own death, to claim the insurance by early 2002. And he would attempt that in March. Darwin was seen paddling out to sea in his canoe March 21st 2002 at Seaton, Kuru. Later that same day he's reported as missing after failing to report to work. A large scale

sea search takes place during which 62 square miles of coastline or search by hundreds of people. No sign of Darwin though a double ended paddle is retrieved from the sea near Seaton crew the following day. The next day, March 22nd, the wreckage of his canoe is found. Unusual though, the North Sea is a very calm, was and rescues were puzzled. The Darwin could have gotten into trouble in those conditions. Of course, he actually didn't get into trouble. During the years that Darwin was presumed dead, he lived for some time in a bed sit next door to his family home. He's hid there. Then secretly moved back in with his wife and in February of 2003.

Meanwhile, a death certificate was issued stating that Darwin had died March 21, 2002, the day he went missing. This allowed his wife to claim his life insurance, 250,000 pounds, paid out from Unot Direct Insurance Management Limited. It appeared as if the scam worked and I guess it did for a while, but Darwin wasn't as good at playing dead as he thought. Sometime that year, a tenant of the block of bedsit flats

that Darwin's owned, that the Darwin's owned, Lee Wadrop recognized Darwin and asked him, aren't you supposed to be dead? To which Darwin replied, don't tell anyone about this. Wadrop will later say that he didn't go to the police

because he did not want to get involved. In 2004, the Darwinist decided to move abroad considering Cyprus. So he's still getting away with it. John Darwin applies for and obtains a passport using the fake name John Jones, but using his true home address. And this fucking works for a while. November of 2004, the couple of visit Cyprus to investigate buying property there. And for the next several years, Darwin continues to travel, meet people, tell some people his name is John Williams. When at home, he spends

most of the time on the internet ends up meeting one from Kansas and US. So he flies out, has a fucking affair with, right? Dude's having international affairs under this alias, goes back to the UK, then Gibraltar, then El Perto, the Santa Maria, to view a 45,000 pound 42 foot catamaran, the he considering buying March 9th 2006 Darwin signs a planning objection to a neighbor's building work using a false name getting a little cocky now right he's been living like this for too long gonna go to the authorities while living under a fake name to Nark on someone else you know good way to get caught faking your your death for insurance money but he

doesn't get caught for that at this time. Meanwhile, Darwin and his wife now begin considering Panama as a possible place to live. Couple flies to Panama, July 14, 2006, for their photograph by a Panamanian property agent. And the resulting photograph is posted on the internet. March 2007, the couple returns to Panama, forms a company called Jaguar properties in order to buy a two-bedroom apartment,, El Dorado for 50,000 pounds. Following month and returns to the UK to sell her home while Darwin remains in Panama and May of 2007, the couple purchased a 200,000 pound tropical estate in the village of Eskabal

Panama near the Panama Canal with the intention of building a hotel that they can run daily canoe trips out of. They're fucking killing it. John and Anne visit Panama again in July 2007. run daily canoe trips out of their fucking killing it. uh... john and visit pantomlog and july's thousand seven they stay for six weeks then also in the uh... the summer two thousand seven visa laws change in pantomlog and uk citizens uh... identities now have to be verified by uk police in order for them to continue getting pantomagnian visas

uh... knowing that uh... this john jones alias isn't a past this level of security darwin decides now to return to the UK under his real name and claim that he's had amnesia this whole time. So on December 1st, 2007, Darwin walks into the West End Central Police Station in London, claims a, I don't know, what the fuck was going on the past five years. His wife Anne shows up, you know, she gets called, comes down, expresses surprise. Joe, Elay, I can't believe you found my missing husband. The fucking balls on these two.

Just pick another fucking country to go to. Living that instead of doing this risky shit to try and live in Panama. Pretty quickly becomes clear what's happening. The Daily Mirror, one of the U.S. UK's biggest publications, begins to circulate a picture they'd obtained of Anne and Darwin and Panama. Prove in the Darwin had not been dead or missing.

The photo was very easy to find, right? It was featured on a fucking website, move to Panama dot com. The picture they knew got put on the internet earlier. So they got way too cocky. They forgot to lay low. Number one rule, when faking your own death for insurance, so fraud, fucking lay low. Do not attract unnecessary tensions yourself. The police now just arrest Darwin in his son Anthony's house.

July 23rd, 2008, John and Anne Darwin both convicted of fraud. John Darwin faced an additional charge late into his fake passport ends up sentenced to six years and three months in prison. And Darwin, who was described by the police as a compulsive liar, was sentenced to six years and six months. By July of 2015, the pair no longer had any assets having repaid a total of 541,000 pounds, just a little over all the money they'd gotten from the insurance But July 2015 the pair no longer had any assets having repaid a total of 541 thousand pounds just a little over all the money they'd gotten from the insurance scam and used to buy property in Panama So they had a good run for a little while, but now they're middle-aged and fucking broke and

You know like known convicted con artist while John Darwin certainly didn't have amnesia Let's now look at people who may have truly had it and disappear. This is a terrifying section Let's now look at people who may have truly had it and disappeared. This is a terrifying section. Excuse me. One of the central questions we brought up earlier was the question of amnesia and its role in mysterious disappearances, its disappearances in general and stories of the disappearances of variety. Amnesia sticks out as the worst possibility to me. Another mystery.

We can wrap our heads around how some of my committed crime and need to go on the lamb or even become so dissatisfied with their life that they decide to start over, but the idea that our memories, right, someone argue the very core of what makes us us could disappear, leaving us to leading us to a whole new identity harder to fathom. It seems like something at least to me that only happens in movies, but unfortunately not. Yeah, something could happen to our brains to make us not us is such a terrifying possibility. What makes MNJ even more complicated in these stories is that it's sometimes hard to tell whether or not the person who disappeared actually had MNJ or if that's, you know, what

they decided to blame their disappearance on when their old life caught up with their new life. Seeing as MNJ can be temporary, such as in, uh, after a head injury and subsequent brain healing, it can be hard to tell whether or not someone ever had a knees at all. It can be tested for medically, but not with 100% certainty, and the right person can fake it. In testing for MneJ, healthcare providers test the patient's memory by talking with them, observing how well they encode the information that the healthcare provider gives them, and whether or not they can recall that information.

They also use information about a patient's memory from the people who know the patient in daily life, their friends, family, etc. To determine the cause of MNG, a doctor may order blood tests to check vitamin B1 levels, B12 levels and thyroid hormones. They may order imaging tests such as an MRI or CT scan to look for signs of brain damage, such as brain tumors or stroke, and EEG may be ordered to check for seizure activity, and a spinal tap may be ordered to check for brain infections or infections, excuse me, as the cause of memory loss. Of course, all of this was nearly impossible before a modern medicine to check for, but also since stress can bring amnesia on, not

necessarily physical trauma, not showing any physical origin for the amnesia does not prove that you don't really have it. So again, the right con origin for the amnesia does not prove that you don't really have it. So, again, the right con artist could fake amnesia and use their fake amnesia as a seemingly valid reason for a mysterious disappearance. That all being said, let's check out our first probably real amnesia story. I think definitely real. I don't understand why this person would fake it.

Just a few hours before he disappeared, August 30th, 1902, Dr. William Horatio Bates, a wealthy and influential ophthalmologist, an eye doctor in New York City, wrote a hurried letter. It was delivered to his wife, Ada Seaman Bates, who was out of town visiting her mother.

Letter said, my dear wife, I am called out of town to some major operations. I go with Dr. Forge, an old student, to do a mastoid, some cataracts, and other operations. He promises me a bonanza. Too bad to miss the horse show, but I am glad to get so much money for us all. I am in such a flurry. Do not worry. I will write details later. Yours lovingly, Willie. Well, this letter was weird for a variety of reasons. Bates was already a wealthy man. So why the excitement about all the money? Why all the hustle to leave? At the time,

Bates was at the height of his career. In his early 40s, he was handsome, well off, respected, often consulted by their physicians and unusual cases. He had degrees from Cornell and the College of Physicians and Surgeons have been an attending physician at the Bellevue Hospital and the New York Eye in Firmary. He taught ophthalmology for five years at the New York Postgraduate Medical School in Hospital. So it was incredibly confusing when he disappeared after sending this weird letter and he didn't even write to say where he was or when he be back. When her husband failed to resurface after several days, Mrs. Bates began a frantic

search, inquiring with family friends across the US and Europe. Mr. Bates was a prominent Mason, so she enlisted the support of the local Masonic Society. I eat double worshippers! Come on! Which, you know, used her demon contacts to, you know, circulate his picture amongst the underworld, or just circulate his picture around the world in a regular way. Eventually, letter arrived from Britain, reporting that a man fitting the doctor's description was found working as medical assistant at the chairing cross hospital in London after having first been admitted there as a patient. Friends who saw him reported that Bates was haggard, thin, and his eyes were deeply sunken. Bates later said he had even starved at various points in the previous six weeks. Even those bank account

back in the US would have allowed him to live in luxury anywhere for years. Mrs. Bates boarded the next ship for England but there wasn't much about happy reunion when she when she made it there. Her husband showed no recollection of his previous life. Did not recognize his own wife. I don't know why you bother Madam. He reportedly told her we are strangers. The doctor was reluctantly persuaded to join Mrs. Bates at the Savoy Hotel for a period of rest and recovery. There he dimly recalled being called away from New York to board a ship and perform an operation on some with a brain abscess. Confused but relieved, Mrs. Bates planned to stay in London for as long as necessary

for her husband to recover from this ordeal, and for some further memories of his previous life to surface again, but that would not happen. Just two days after he moved into this avoid, Dr. Bates walked out of the hotel and disappeared again. After he walked out of the Savoy, that autumn day, his wife now spent years tirelessly searching for him up and down Europe and the east coast of America. She died reportedly embracing a portrait of her husband in 1907. How fucking sad. Years after she died, Dr. Bates did reappear in North Dakota now. 1910 Dr. J. E. Kelly, a good died, Dr. Bates did reappear in North Dakota now. 1910, Dr. J. E. Kelly, a good friend of Dr. Bates

from his New York days, happened to be passing through Grand Forks, then a town of 12,000 people. Kelly recognizes his old friend who had set up a small ophthalmology practice for himself in the town at some point after his appearing eight years earlier. Eventually, Dr. Kelly persuades Bates

to return to the New York, despite Bates' complete lack of memories about his previous life there. Weird to me that he didn't remember living in New York, but did remember how to practice ophthalmology. The two ophthalmologists now go into practice together. A newspaper article later reports, in the window of the house at 117 West 83rd Street, hanging two, uh, hang two neat white lettered signs. The one reading Dr. J. E. Kelly, the other Dr. W. H. Bates. Here living quietly with his old friend and gradually building up a practice as he did years ago, Dr. Bates, now 51 years old, is starting his career a new. Bates never recovered his memories of his previous life in New York City or so he said,

uh, wrote one associate. It was as if he had a chunk of his mind removed in New York City or so he said. Uh, wrote one associate. It was as if he had a chunk of his mind removed like a slice of watermelon chopped away and eaten by an invisible monster. Jesus Christ, who wrote that fucking HP Lovecraft? It's terrifying. Uh, Bates went on to serve as an intending physician at the Harlem hospital and eventually remarried. But there was one thing about his life that didn't continue as normal.

And it's chosen field of ophthalmology where he'd been viewed for years as a luminary. Bates now started peddling some weird theories. In 1917, Bates debuted a new and very unusual theory of eye care. The Bates system of eye exercises was offered for the first time in the magazine, physical culture. Three years later, Bates self-published a book of odd theories entitled,

Curr of Imperfect Eye Sight by Treatment Without Glasses. Bates methods to cure imperfect eye sight relied on a variety of concepts that contradicted several decades of ophthalmology practice. He taught that vision problems were almost exclusively caused by eye strain and nervous tension rather than problems with the shape of the eyeball or formation of the lens.

Vision issues could theoretically be reduced in their severity or even cured by performing a series and nervous tension rather than problems with the shape of the eyeball or formation of the lens. Vision issues could theoretically be reduced in their severity or even cured by performing a series of eye exercises and learning how to completely relax the mind. I wish. Would love to learn some kind of yoga move or meditative breathing technique that could let me ditch my glasses and not squint at restaurant menus when I don't have many more. Bates followers and there would be many. We're soon busy swinging their eyes from object to object,

paulming their eyeballs, attempting to visualize pure black as a method of mental relaxation. And most controversially, exposing their eyes to direct sunlight, i.e. staring into the sun, all the name of improving their vision. Holy shit. Not sure what's crazier. Him telling people to stare directly into the sun or people taking him up on

advice to stare directly into the sun. On 1929, Bates becomes a target of the Federal Trade Commission who issued a complaint against him for making false and misleading claims. Nevertheless, his methods continue to grow in popularity with people seduced by the promise of improving their eyesight without resorting to corrective measures. So weird coded to a weird story. The Bates truly have amnesia to this day. No one has arrived at a definitive theory of a definitive theory of what exactly happened to Bates during his disappearances.

Possible that he was in a disassociative fugue state or that he just made the whole thing up. Maybe he was tired of his New York life, tired of his marriage, secretly in debt, decided just to walk away claiming memory loss as a reason when he was eventually caught. He would die in 1931 before getting into any serious trouble for his horrible eye treatment programs. To me, it sounds like his life is going pretty well,

and then something in his fucking brain broke. I mean, I highly doubt he faked it just based on what I've, you know, read and what you've heard. Maybe, but it doesn't make any sense to me. How scary. The one day you can be successful eye doctor, a few weeks later, you're a starving patient in a hospital in another country with no idea of who you really are. Another case of possible amnesia would come from an unlikely source. Arguably, the most famous writer of mysteries of all time, Agatha Christie has captivated readers for a century with her novels about detectives hunting for clues

to solve mind-bending mysteries. And shortly after finding literary success for the first time, Christie became the subject of a real-life mystery in 1926 when she disappeared for 11 days and then was discovered 200 miles from where her abandon car had been found. Agatha Miller was born on September 15th, 1890, in Torquay, southwestern England, the youngest of Clara and Frederick Miller's three children.

Although she would also become a successful playwright, responsible for the longest running play in theater history, the Maus trap, Agatha now best known for the 66 detective novels, Matt 66, and 14 collections of short stories written under her married name, Christie. In 1912, 22 year old Agatha attended a local dance where she met and fell in love with a 23 year old man named Archibald Archie Christie, qualified aviator who had been posted to Exeter. Archie was sent to France when World War I broke out and then they married on Christmas Eve in 1914. While Archie continued to fight across Europe for the next few years, Agatha kept busy as a voluntary aid detachment nurse in Torquy's Red Cross Hospital.

During this time, a number of Belgian refugees had settled in Torquy, and were said to have provided the inspiration for the fledgling riders' most famous Belgian detective, Herkule, it's Piawro. Herkule Piawro. I speak to a weird fucking name. I watched a lot of videos actually of various people like talking about movies, featuring this character, like promoting it, really struggling to say this. I think that's it.

At the encouragement of her older sister Margaret Agatha wrote the first fermenting detective novels, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. She'd keep writing and publishing, eventually finding enough success to buy her family at home in Berkshire in a state name styles after, you know, styles from that novel. But not everything was good in the Christie home. Apparently Agatha and Archie fought frequently and Archie was having an affair with the secretary Nancy Neal, which is, you know, bound to cause some discord on the night of Friday, December 3, 1926. Agatha and Archie had a blowout fight. Archie packed up to stay with friends for the weekend. Agatha then left her daughter

with the maid and disappeared. Next morning, Agatha's abandoned car was found several miles away by Surrey police. The vehicle was part of submerged and some bushes, apparently the result of a car accident. The fact that the driver was missing, but the headlights were on and in suitcase and coat remained in the backseat, fueled this mystery. Both Archie Kristina's mistress Nancy Neal were under suspicion for Agatha's disappearance. In the days it followed a huge manhunt was undertaken by thousands of police officers and eager volunteers. Officials even dredged a local lake, but Agatha was nowhere to be found. The case became so popularized that fellow mystery writers, Sir Arthon Conan Doyle, originator of Sherlock Holmes, sought to help with a clear

avoidance to find Agatha using one of her gloves as a guide. Ten days later, the head waiter at the hydropathic hotel in Herogate Yorkshire contacted police with the startling news that a lively and outgoing South African guest by the name of Theresa Neal might actually be Agatha Christie. Margie traveled with the police to Yorkshire, took a seat in the corner of the hotel's dining room from where he watched his estranged wife walk in, take her place at another table, begin reading newspaper, which her own disappearance, as front page news. When approached by her husband, Agatha seemed truly puzzled, like she really didn't recognize the man she'd been married to for 12 years.

At the time, Argy declared his wife to be suffering from amnesia and possible concussion, which was later corroborated by two doctors. He'd say to newspapers, she has suffered from the most complete loss of memory, and I do not think she knows who she is. She does not know me, and she does not know where she is. I'm hoping that rest and quiet will restore her. How fucking terrible. Agatha herself claimed to have no recollection of where she is. I'm hoping that rest and quiet will restore her. How fucking terrible.

Agatha herself claimed to have no recollection of where she'd been, or what had happened during that 11 day period. Some think she had a nervous breakdown. The result of her mother's recent death and of course her husband's infidelity. Others say that the stunt was payback for Archie's affair with Nancy Niel.

Still others say that Agatha, who made a living as a writer at that time, but certainly wasn't as famous as she would one day become to the whole thing as a publicity stunt. I don't know about that though. She wouldn't even write about the disappearance when she released her autobiography over 50 years later in 1977. She seemed embarrassed by it. Maybe she really did just forget who the fuck she was for over a week.

And again, that's so scary. That is one of my worst fears. Like I've lost track of who I was a few times for no more than a few hours on hallucinogens, either too much acid or too much shrooms, but not like really totally lost. Not a fun feeling, but not totally gone. I still knew it was probably me.

And I knew I was under the influence of a mind-altering drug. This is so different, so, so much scarier to just snap and forget who you are. If I had to choose between being permanently, like between permanently, forgetting who I am, or death, oh, death, no hesitation. I mean, what are we if not the collection of our memories? Also how scary and sad to have your spouse, so they have no fucking idea who you are, or who your kids are, you know, friends, et cetera, just a wee bit stressful. Strange disappearances like these possibly motivated by amnesia still, of course, happen

today. Numerous people right now somewhere in the world have inexplicably forgotten who they are. Let's look at a more recent case than agathus. The case of, this is also fucking sad. The case of Gabriel Nagy from 1997. Let's, let's once again, weighed out into the waters of sadness because we're, we're here already. Gabriel Nagy, an Australian married father

or two kids, disappears January 21st, 1997. He never arrives home for lunch, and then his burnt out car is found on the side of the road because it was unusual for him to go anywhere without let his family know, local authorities launched an investigation to see if they can find him.

A couple of weeks later, a clue turns up when Nagi's service is long enough to withdraw money from his bank account. The investigation trail that follows soon leads investigators to a store in Newcastle where Nagi had purchased campaign supplies. But then the case goes cold. With no more clues to go on, the family is left with only questions and grief. For the next two fucking decades, no sign of Nagi ever shows up. His wife and kids set out to have him legally declared dent.

But before that could happen, a police officer does one final check through public records to see if anything might turn up to everyone's surprise it does. Nagi is still alive. Officers able to track him down and speak with him and discovers he has no memories of his past life aside from a few bits and pieces that would surface every now and again and not do much more than confuse him. During the 23 years he'd been missing. Naggy worked a series of odd, medial jobs and then became homeless, living on the street and then a pastor brought him in to be a caretaker.

The day he was found Naggy sat down, drafted a letter to his wife and daughter. Three days later, he gets a text message from his daughter, their first contact since his disappearance. Investigators have come to believe that a severe head injury caused Nagi to go into a disassociative fugue that he was not ever able to fully climb out of. 46 years of his life as a father of two and husband, just pfff, vanish. Then after a 23 year break from who he was beginning in 2010, his memory started to come back. An article from 2012 said he truly remembered who he was overall,

but a lot of specific memories still yet to return. Not totally sure based on the way the article's written, if he was back with his wife or not. I actually think I Actually think he was because she you know wouldn't declare him dead. I think she waited, but man Man our minds so important so fragile Okay, now that we look at stories of amnesia Let's look at it at perhaps an even more confusing set of disappearances people who for some reason or other just just want to leave Two more categories left people who disappear because they just want to get away and people who try to disappear and fail. Which I know a lot of these stories have kind of always been, but we'll do

a couple more failure stories at the end. Sometimes people disappear, yeah, just because they, uh, they just want to fucking start over somewhere. Like we mentioned at the top of the show, they just can't let go over persistent fantasy to live another life. Richard Hogan is one of these people. Dick Hogan, and this Richard really is a fucking dick. Dickard looked to all the world like a family man, a business owner and Indianapolis who lived a comfortable life with his wife and two sons. Friends remembered him as an energetic man who is friendly, funny, and kind, and then all of that would change. Around 1990, Dickard started acting weird. Staying home in his room for hours, not talking much.

You know, seeing depressed is why Flinda, you know, thought he was suffering from depression. She assumed it was common for middle-aged fathers to worry about work, family, bills. She didn't say much, didn't realize how much of a crazy middle-life crisis he was having. She later wished, of course, she would have checked more with him when Dickard disappears. February 10th, 1993, Linda, is it work, receives a call from Dicker. In his name, if you're a little bit confused, his name is Richard, but I'm a calm Dicker. He said he had a medical emergency and was going to the hospital. Linda offered to a company him, but Dicker was like, no, I'm good. I'm fine. I'll see you tonight. As the hours pass and Linda doesn't hear from her husband, she starts getting worried. She calls several

hospitals to see if he had been admitted. None of them say they've heard of Dickard. Then Linda starts to get really worried where the Dickard has had a major accent and is maybe in a hospital somewhere as a John Doe. With no information, she feels helpless. She looks into Dickard's belongings for clues and finds something odd. While checking Dickard's possessions, she notices that all of dickards items are, you know, home.

He didn't even take a jacket on a cold February evening. She knew something was wrong. It puzzles her. Things would soon start to make even less sense. A couple of days later, she gets a phone call from dickard. Not good news. Dickard calls her to tell her he couldn't live with her anymore. And so he left.

Before she could process his statement and react, he just hangs up. After a few hours, dickard calls again, tells her, I don't want to go to jail. I'm not coming back. And then again, before she can respond, it hangs up. Confused upset. Now, D.P. Worried Linda decides to file a police report. She doesn't even know for sure if the man on the phone is Dickard.

He's acting so weird. Over the next week, Dickard calls Linda several more times. He'll only tell her what he wants to say and then hang up. She never gets an opportunity to respond. The police tracked his phone calls, find out they're made from very different places that are far away. One is from Venezuela, one's from Aruba,

another's from Florida, it baffles everyone, how he's traveling to do this. Months then passed by with no new information. Then in May 1993, three months after he disappeared, Dickard sends a birthday card to his son Matthew. A few months later, sends another birthday card, 50 bucks to his son Douglas. What a great dad.

I mean, I know he's not around, but hey, 50 bucks is 50 bucks. So what the fuck is happening? Police are now looking for him, looking into the life he was leading before he bounced. They find his abandoned car. It has no signs of being the side of a violent altercation, doesn't really offer any clues though.

They do find out Dicker was under severe financial duress, but still no clue as to where he went. To ease some financial strain, Linda and her kids now moving with her parents. She files for divorce. The judge grants her divorce orders Dicker in absentia, of course, to pay off his debts. However, he never returns to do so. As Linda struggles to get by, police start to get suspicious of her now. They can't believe that Dicard is just randomly

completely uprooted his life. And they think she has to know something about what's really going on. They start to think that Linda and Dicard plan this incident to escape their financial burdens. And they speculate that Dicard, you know, he disappears first. Linda and the kids are gonna follow later. The police also suspect that Dicard is involved

in some illegal business transaction, but Linda keeps insisting that she doesn't know anything about this. And then around this point, the story gets even weirder. Linda starts getting paranoid. She feels like someone's following her. Her letters begin to be delivered already open. She even spots a recording device in a room. Linda thinks that either the police are doing this, or someone from Dickard's secret life is targeting her. She no longer feels safe at her parents house. She and the kids pack up, move to McCord'sville, Indiana, just a little town, an outer suburb

of Indianapolis, population about 7,500. Bit by bit she works on feeling safer. By the end of 2003, with no information on his whereabouts, the state now declares Dickard dead. And his trail goes cold for over 20 years. Then in 2016, 23 years after he disappeared, a detective contacts Linda about Dickard. Initially, it annoyed Linda that the police were again digging into the past she desperately wanted to forget, but then a detective tells her they found him and that it was time for her to get the answer she deserved.

In 1993, after Dickard left home, his mother fucker beat it for Florida. Gets Sarah, he rents a room for a man Edward Semensky or Semensky, who had recently lost his son, Terry to a fishing accident. Over the following weeks, Dickard manages to get more and more details about Terry's life and gets a copy of his death certificate. Using the death certificate, Dickard then obtains Terry's birth certificate from Ohio. With the birth certificate now in hand, he applies by mail for an Alabama driver's license,

uses the Alabama driver's license, then to obtain a Florida driver's license. Then he'll spend more than two decades living as Terry Somanski. Edson, back from the dead, kind of. Two years after disappearing in 1995, now known as Terry, Dickard Mary's woman, Mary Hickman, has another son.

They settled down in Zeffer Hills, Florida, little town of about 16,000 just north east of Tampa. This motherfucker, while his previous wife and two sons worry that he's dead, maybe living on the street somewhere, not knowing who he is, where he is, while they mourn his loss, while they suffer from his financial burdens he put them, the family in,

he's out there killing it, living it up with the new life. Go rip his balls off with jangles. He doesn't deserve him. Go find that fucking chicken skin, duffel bag, and tear to shreds. While Linda struggles as a single mom raised in two boys, Terry Dickard kills it in the real estate game in Florida soon owns multiple properties and gets himself a private pilot's license just for funsies. So how was his old life then connected to his new one in 2013? Well that year the real Terry's nephew, the one who died, wanted to know about his uncle and his family in general. So he started searching for his relatives on ancestry.com.

And on that website he finds records about Terry Somanski. Finds out that real Terry died in 1991. Then doing some online sleuthing also finds out that someone named Terry Samansky began a new life around the time his uncle died and not far from where his uncle died. Right? And connects it to this guy lived in a relative's house, lived in his uncle's father's house. He realized this motherfucker is impersonating his dead uncle, but he and his family are scared that this, you know, phony could be dangerous. What kind of person assumes a dead man's identity, so they stay silent for a little while.

But then in 2016, the nephew doesn't want to stay quiet anymore. Goes to the police, tells them everything. The police arrest Dickard Hogan in July of 2016, 23 years after he went missing. I mean, I wonder if a part of it, I've been waiting that whole time for this to happen. Initially, Dickard feigns an ignorance. Adam Lee keeps telling people he is Terry Samansky. However, he knows the police have him when they show him the original Terry's death certificate. Now the question on everyone's mind is not how he did this, but why?

Why did Dikard Houghlin become Terry Samansky? Why did he give up everything in any napless to move to Florida, start a completely new life? Initially, the police thought that Digger to run away to avoid financial burden. And from his phone calls with his wife, they assumed he got dragged into some illegal business, and then he felt that the only way out was to go away, but that's not true.

Diggered is just a narcissistic fucking sociopath. He simply said he just didn't want to live with his family anymore. So instead of getting a divorce and having to pay Alamoni, you know, fuck that, he just packed up and left. And in doing so, he committed a whole laundry list of crimes, identity theft, loan default, and more. However, after reviewing the case, the police realized they can't charge him for most

of these crimes because of statute limitations. This slippery son of a bitch, he he committed those crimes over 20 years earlier. Eventually the police are able to at least charge Dicker with identity theft, and in 2017 a judge sentences him to two years from personation and identity fraud. Linda of course doesn't feel that this is quite fair. For completely unnecessarily, you know, fucking her and the kids over. So she sued Dicker for $1 point eight million dollars from paid child support mental stress and divorce proceedings and she fucking wins hail nemerod and fuck that guy but since dickered didn't have a job after his rest he had no way of paying that

money as of 2018 the then sixty five year old uh... dickered was uh... out of jail working to pay off the money he owes Linda and he'll probably be doing that for the rest of his life. Dude got away with it, what he did for a long time, but then it came crashing down a bit in the ass. Not sure if his new wife left him,

but I gotta think odds are good she did. Another story of a person who just wanted to get away, though did it in a very different way than all fake Terry real dick, is Philip Cesarrego. Philip had long wanted to be a member of the SAS, Britain's elite special air service, born in Heriford, England, to a farming family. He dreamed of the prestige of the military. 1971 at the age of 18, he enlisted in the British Army as a gunner in the Royal Artillery. After two years service in 1973, he applies to join the SAS regiment at the age of 21.

But during aptitude tests for the SES, he narrowly fails to pass due to an injury and is held over in Regiment's training cadre, Penning Physical Recovery to try again. After several months with the Regiment's training cadre, he chooses to abandon his application to join, leaves the British Army in December of 1975. But does not abandon hopes of being an army man. After the army, he works on a family farm where he grows restless, soon he finds a job using his military training as a mercenary soldier. With ex-members of the SAS, seen service as an advisor to the Sri Lankan Army in counter

insurgency warfare in 1979, and then in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the early 1980s. During the 1980s and 90s, he's involved in conflicts in the Balkans during the Bosnia War and even makes some trips to South America and South Africa. Loved military life, loved fighting, hated that he wasn't actually SAS and he had a few real life problems. He also didn't want to deal with any more. So he decides to reinvent himself. In 1991, he fakes his own death, gives the impression

that he had been killed by a car bomb in Croatia, possibly trying to get out of pain maintenance to his estranged wife and young daughter at their family home in Heriford. Afterwards, breaking off all contact with his family to maintain the rules, relocates to Belgium, living there under the assumed name of Philip Stevenson. Cesar Reggos family continues to believe that he is dead until one evening a decade later in late 2001. They don't run into him at the store, bump into him somewhere else. Now they seem on TV. This arrogant dipshit goes on TV when he's supposed to be dead. Now he's going by the name of Tom Karoo. And Tom Karoo says he's a member of Britain's secretive

and elite special air service, SES. Writing an account of his time in the Hindu Kush or Kush and other places in Afghanistan, training the Muha'Din to fight the Soviets during the invasion in late 1970s. He goes on to give tons of interviews to British evening news shows, even writes a book about his fake experiences, kind of a mishmash of some real some fake, in his book, Jihad. He claims he was the first British soldier to be sent into Afghanistan to assess the muhidin's capabilities and training because he's the fucking most important soldier in the history of the S.A.S. He writes about how he killed Soviet soldiers. Quote the butt of my deadly uh,

college to cough, press and press into my shoulder as I let go a long vicious burst of fire. A Russian special forces soldier and two Afghan regular troops clambering over the wall, only noticed me as they were poised in midair, but then it was too late. My weapon bucked and climbed as it spewed out bullets. They had no chance. All three were dying as they flopped awkwardly into the dust. He gave endless media interviews in the wake of September 11th attacks, offering his expertise

on how the Taliban would fight. Also said he was going to write a follow up book on how Britain's secretly armed uh, croats and Muslims as the former Yugoslavia was about to break up through an arms dealer who in the CIA has had suspected of involvement in the hijacking of the Italian cruise liner, a Kili Laro in 1985. But then BBC reporter George Ikin got a tip from a former member of the regiment saying that Philip wasn't who he said he was.

Reporters in Lured Philip to the BBC on the pretense of an interview George Ikin got a tip from a former member of the regimen saying that Philip wasn't who he said he was. Reporters then lowered Philip to the BBC on the pretense of an interview about Afghanistan, but then on arrival, he was aggressively evidentially confronted mid-interview by Ikin accusing it of being an imposter, who had invented a non-existent career with the special air service. Philip walked out, but the damage was done. His publishing career came to an end. Media Alice reported that after he was exposed, he was living in Belgium and impoverished circumstances, selling ex-Army surplus military materials and running survival training courses.

And despite the fact that he had engaged in active combat, enumerous occasions, very few people had any sympathy for this liar. His daughter Claire, who sets a rego had abandoned as a child, said, basically, if I'm going to be blunt about it, I think he is a twat. I love what people call these twats. He never served in the SAS.

He's just a fantasist who's trying to make money on the back of other people's reputations. There are a lot of former SAS men who have scores to settle with him, but they thought he was dead. Now they know different. And I wouldn't care if somebody killed him because he's brought it all on himself. Hot damn! She was not happy. You know, and rightfully furious. Hey, you fucking abandoned her. Uh, she added, Dad was obsessed with wanting to be in the regiment. He took the SAS selection test a couple times but failed. That really crushed him. I think he decided if he couldn't be the real thing, he would pretend. He always wore a half-moon

mustache because that was the fashion amongst all real S.A.S. soldiers at the time and walked with a slagger with his chest puffed out. He used to wear desert boots and jeans or combat trousers and a check shirt and would hang out in the pubs or S.A.S. men's rank. Asaga of Philip, uh, uh, uh, Cessarrago would come to an end in 2008. In January 2009, uh, Philip Cessarrago's badly decomposed, decomposed body was found in a rented antwerp garage where he'd been covertly living for several months. The remains have been there since the summer before, so he died in the summer 2008. His death wasn't discovered until Sessorrego's landlord came banging at the door last November

to ask why his rent had not been paid. In the garage, he found Sessorrego 55 lying with his few belongings, small cooker and a bed evidently dead from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. His body was subsequently cremated, his ashes buried in the graveyard of St. Martin's Church in Heriford. No mention of a SAS on his tombstone. Dude, you know, could have probably gotten away with the mercenary life, built on false pretenses if he just wouldn't have gone so public with his lies. Right now onto our last batch of mysterious disappearances. Now just two more examples.

Some disappearance fails. And this first one is the weirdest story from today. This is just a super, super odd story. Back in the 1700s, self-appointed Lord, you know what's the meter semen? There's a self-appointed Lord in you know what's the meter semen there's a self-appointed Lord in Timothy Dexter and 18th century American businessman and noted eccentric decided to disappear and got caught in an extremely bizarre way. Timothy Dexter was born in Maldon, Massachusetts, January 22nd 1747. The first Dexter had immigrated from Ireland to century

before. His family had little money and young Timothy received little education. He went to work as an indentured servant on a farm at the age 8. 14 he left the farm for a trullstown to work for an apprentice dressing leather for breaches and gloves. He relocated to Newbury Port sometime around 1767. In Newbury Port, Dexter bought land and married Elizabeth Frost in him. A modestly well off widow nine years older than he, Shardie had four kids in a house.

He set up shop in the basement of his wife's house, selling moose hide trousers. Fucking moose hide trousers, bro. Gotta get those new moose hide trousers. That's a, that's the trousers you need. Gloves hides and blubber. By the end of the American Revolution, he'd managed to save several thousand dollars doing this.

A lot of money at the time. And he would soon invest this money in continental currency, the first form of currency in America. It'd become almost worthless because of massive inflation. In November of 1776, $19 million in continental currency had been issued. One could still buy a dollar for the goods for a dollar in this paper. By November of 1778, $31 million more dollars had been issued, and it took six dollars in paper to buy the same amount of goods. By November, 1779, 226 million was in circulation and it would

take 40 dollars in paper money to buy one dollars worth of goods. Not worth a continental became a common phrase, used to denote the utter lack of a goods value. Realize that Americans were willing to part with the now discontinued Continental's for anything they could get, Dexter gathered up all his savings and his wife's savings, purchased boat loads of the bills for fractions of pennies on the dollar, fucking bold move. Most people thought it was idiotic. He was essentially, excuse me, man, a bargaining his entire livelihood on the chance that

this currency would somehow soon regain his value. And then it did. His huge gamble paid off big time. When the US Constitution was ratified in the 1790s, it was stipulated that continentals could be traded in for treasury bonds at 1% of face value. Since he had purchased massive amounts of this currency for far less than 1% of its face value, Dexter became instantly and astronomically wealthy. He bought a magnificent house on the state street, as well as two fucking ships.

With a couple more shrewd business investments, he made even more money, you know, using his ships and transport goods. Now he wants social acceptance and respect, prestige. He wants to cool kids of Newbury Port, the upper crust of their high society there, to embrace him as one of their own, but they don't like him because he's a fucking weirdo and he'll go mad trying to get them to change their minds. He literally now starts calling himself Lord Dexter and any kid who calls him Lord Dexter could expect a shiny quarter.

Most adults could perhaps expect dinner and drinks. Then he'd take things a step further. He created an outdoor museum on the grounds of his new lavish home with 40 garishly painted wooden statues of diverse figures such as French King Louis XVI, Adam and Eve, John Hancock, the first three US Presidents stood astride a giant arch You always had at least one statue himself of course with the following motto and grave beneath it I am the first in the east. I am the first in the west and the greatest philosopher in the western world. It's fucking humble guy. Dexter would often

repain his statues and descriptions once after a painter wrote a declaration of independence under the Thomas Jefferson statue. Dexter demanded he correct it to the correct declaration of constitution, which is of of course, not correct. When the painter was like, I think, I think my inscription is the correct one. And it was Dexter then grabs a long rifle and shoots this guy, narrowly misses him. And he repeats Constitution with a solemn tone. And then the painter obliges. Most famously, an imitation of the King of England, Dexter now hires his own poet laureate. A poet laureate. A hapless 20-year-old fucking dude he just found at the market.

Just found this guy selling fucking halibut from a wheelbarrow. It's like, you're my poet laureate. Laureate, Jesus. After learning that the great Italian poets were crowned with mistletoe, Dexter now concocts his new lyricist, a coronative parsley. That was what he had in the garden at the moment. And forces this poor son of a bitch to write and recite faunting poems that, uh, you know, paint him in a grandiose light.

It's got such a fucking weirdo. Aged no two, he publishes a 24 page book that criticizes the clergy, politicians, and randomly his wife, full of misspellings, and also had literally no punctuation. Probably should have hired an editor. He called it a pickle for knowing once. Okay. He starts handing this book out for free. At first, somehow it does grow popular,

I don't know if it's a joke or what, like you gotta check out how fucking stupid this book is. It goes through eight reprintings. In the second edition, he adds a page that consists of 13 lines of nothing but punctuation marks. With instructions for readers to distribute them as they please. I don't know if he's being sarcastic there or serious. One contemporary described this book as an egotistical opinionated course defense of Dexter written by Dexter against all enemies who were

anti-dexter. So he still doesn't get the social standing he craves. If anything he's becoming more of a social prion. So now he decides to fake his own death in 1806. He starts by commissioning a tomb, a grandiose well-ventilated room that occupied the entire basement of his fine summer home. Interesting call to convert a basement into a tomb. Don't think I've been in a house like that before or heard of one.

I'm sorry, where's your bathroom? Downstairs and take a ride, first door, next to the family tomb. Fuck. Then he hires the best chathamaker and all the Massachusetts to craft a coffin from the finest mahogany would available. So fine that upon his completion Dexter takes to sleep in it for several weeks with great comfort and satisfaction. God, he's a fucking lunatic.

With all these expensive and elaborate preparations now done, Dexter and Lista a few of his trustworthy men to organize a mock funeral and disseminate small cards with news of his death to the community. To make it even more real tells his wife and kids about it and then demands that they cry and appear incredibly distraught to make it seem more realistic. On the day of the ceremony after lots of invitations were sent out some three, some 3,000 people show up. Like the extra wanted, it was a grand affair.

We're only the fanciest wines, most exotic liquors are distributed. From below a board of wooden planks, he fucking hides down there and observes the scene with glee. Everything has seemed to be going along smoothly. His son is, quote, sufficiently drunk to weep without much effort. His daughter's head is buried in her hands, but then he panics. He sees his smiling wife, tierless.

He approaches her secretly in the kitchen and then proceeds to quote, cane her for lack of effort. This maniacs trade up a fucking beard with a cane for not fake crime at his fake funeral. And this causes a lot of commotion. Not every day that a funeral is interrupted by the person who was supposed to be dead, canning the fuck out of his wife in the kitchen for

not grieving enough. As the other guests enter the room, they're now openly greeted by supposedly dead Dexter. And this guy's complete loss is mine. The red handed idiot then proceeds to go about corralizing with his own mourners as if that's not fucking weird. As if this whole stunt never happened and it's just a regular party. Shortly after his fake funeral, after getting caught trying to disappear in some confusing misguided way to have people think he was a really important person, I guess, I don't understand any of this.

On October 26th, 1806, 59 year old Lord Timothy Dexter does pass away for real this time. And his real funeral, not well attended. He never got the level of social acceptance he wanted. And a little kicker at the end, newbie reports, board of health rejected his request to be buried in the tomb. He concocted years earlier on the grounds that it's not fucking sanitary to put a tomb in the basement of your house. Instead, the Lord has laid to rest in a quaint cemetery in the hills beneath a modest tombstone. One more now.

and quaint cemetery in the hills beneath a modest tombstone. One more now. Much more modern disappearance failure story. Also super weird. People are crazy. The case of a California woman named Sherry Papini. Sherry Papini, there we go, Sherry Papini, who claimed to be kidnapped in 2016. Like Lord Dexter, Sherry's very dumb

bullshit disappearance story would unravel. Sherry and mother too, went out in November 2016 for a jog near her home in Shasta County and then disappeared. Her husband returned home from work that day to find his wife is missing, that their kids have not been picked up from daycare. Using the Find My iPhone app, Mr. Papini locates his wife's phone and her earbuds with strands of her hair attached about a mile from their home. Then calls the police, goes into full panic mode, authorities and neighbors and readying band together on exhaustive searches for the mission woman and form a tight knit circle

of support around her husband, Keith and the couple's young kids. A go fund me account for the family raises more than $49,000. A story is covered by news outlets around the globe. Then three weeks later, Thanksgiving Day, she is found alone on interstate highway, on an in-state highway, excuse me, 140 miles from home after a truck driver spotted her there. She was emaciated, covered in bruises, burns, and rashes. She had a chain around her waist, clamps around her wrists. Her long blonde hair had been chopped off, and she gave the police a very confusing account of what happened to her.

She told investigators she had been abducted and branded by two women who kept her change in a closet. These are salons, supposedly wore masks, spoke Spanish and held her at gunpoint. Her captors had leased her to a pole inside a closet, a bucket of kiddie litter, serving as her toilet. One of them in her 40s and 50s, Sherry said, and the other in her 30s. She remembered a few highly specific details. She described the old woman as, really mean with breath that smelled like sweetened coffee.

She said she spent much of captivity changing her room with boarded up windows and that the women played loud music. Also, said the assailants were part of some human trafficking ring, told her she was going to be sold, told her she would be bought by a cop, and that her family would never find her. This information did not help police track down our captors. Wouldn't be until the spring of 2017 that investigators found a piece of evidence that would lead them to the shocking conclusion that Sherry Papini had never been abducted.

They found male DNA on sweatpants and underwear that she was wearing when she was found Thanksgiving day 2016. Soon they determined that the DNA did not belong to any female abductors, of course, right? Uh, nor did it belong to a penis husband. So whose DNA was it? Took investigators until 2019 before they could fully decode the DNA and get a match. That's when they requested a familial DNA search, technique that searches a fender DNA, uh, databases, for, you know, father, sons, brothers, et cetera, of unknown perpetrators. We've talked about that for a while now since the Golden State Killer episode. Then in March of 2020, investigators are notified

that a potential male relative of the unknown male whose DNA was found on Jesus Christ, Papini's clothing. Keep on putting another syllable in there. Had been identified. Papanini, Papanini. May I get that on my system? And that family member was related to an ex-boyfriend

of paninis. Oh, that's how you say it. You know what, it keeps reminding you of the fucking sandwich of a panini. It's Papini. Oh, there we go. Three months later, fucking sandwich lady. No, June 9th investigators collect a bottle of honest, honey green tea from the trash outside of her ex boyfriend's apartment.

The following day, a law enforcement lab concludes the DNA obtained from the mouth area of the honest, honey green tea bottle matched the unknown male DNA collected from Papini's clothing. The DNA on Sherry's pants was her ex-boyfriends. What the fuck is going on? August 10th, 2020 investigators, interview the ex-boyfriend. He admits that he had helped Papini run away because she told him that her husband had abused her. This turned out to be a natural.

After further questioning, the boyfriend said that he and Pupini had communicated over prepaid phones, concocted a scheme, a stupid scheme to pick her up and read him, driver back to his two bedroom apartment in Costa Mesa. During her stay, Pupini was purposely trying to lose weight, she chomped off her own hair, created the injuries while staying with him, including hitting herself to create bruises and burning herself on her arms, according to the later indictment. The boyfriend would even help her create some of the fake injuries.

This is so random, by throwing a fucking hockey puck at her. How do they arrive at hockey puck? So, what, should you just, like, hit me or something? Oh God, no, that's too abusive. I'm not comfortable with that. That's too up close and personal. I can put my hands on you. Why if why don't you just hit me with a bat? No!

No, that's more violent. It's still too close, too personal. Can you throw a baseball at me? Ah! I could do that, but I don't have a baseball. What do you have? I have a hockey puck. I like it.

You know what? Let me get that fucking winging around. That'll do some damage. After the hockey puck whooping, he brings a wood burning tool, or buys a wood burning tool from Hobby Lobby and brands her right shoulder. The former boyfriend allegedly told investigators he wasn't sure of Papini's intentions during her stay with him, but he believed they might end up in a romantic relationship again. Uh-huh.

Why would you jump back in with someone this fucking crazy? Oh, I know. Sex. I would bet my life, the sex between these two was not boring. Hello, Safina. Maybe I don't know. But then things weren't working out with her hockey puck, herdling lover, like Sherry hoped they would. She wasn't any happier being away from her family. Remember that her husband actually didn't beat her. And after these stage injuries, Sherry changed her mind once she go back home to her old

life. Surely before Thanksgiving, Papini's fucking goddamn Papini informed her ex that she missed her kids and wanted to return home. So he drove her back to Northern California on Thanksgiving day, dropped her off on a country road where she was later found with that chain around her waist. Almost six years later, March 3rd, 2022, Papini was arrested and charged with making fall statements to a federal agent and mail fraud. The fraud charges stemmed from more than $30,000 in therapy and ambulance services. The prosecutor said the California Victim Compensation Board paid for.

We're fucking idiot. All together, it's estimated that Papini's little, you know, ruse cost tax payers, more than $150,000 in resources used to investigate her claims and staged the abduction. She was taken into custody at her children's piano practice, but Pini was released on $120,000 bail. During her virtual court hearing, she was told she had to surrender her passport or to participate in a psychiatric program. Yeah, good call.

But Pini pled guilty in April to align to the FBI, defrauding federal state and local governments out of more than 150 grand, currently scheduled to be sentenced on September 19th. Her disappearance, she got away with it for a while. But once again, all came crashing down upon her. Okay, now with all these stories swirling around in her heads. Let's get out of these vignettes, trying to draw some conclusions from all the insanity we just heard. Various people have disappeared throughout history for a wide variety of reasons and continue to do so. Sometimes they show back up, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they start new lives

to avoid problems and their current ones. Sometimes they literally just forget who they are and they get lost. Still hate thinking about that possibility. Sometimes people successfully lead new lives under new identities for decades before getting caught. How many don't ever get caught though? That's what I keep thinking about. I know the disappearance expert Frank Aheron says that it's almost impossible to get away with faking your own death. What about just disappearing? And then reappearing somewhere else

and establishing a new identity. I already helped people with that. You can get fake passports, other fake identification documents. If you wanna go that far, you're not worried about committing crimes, especially in the dark web. They don't always work, but how many do?

We'll never know. We'll never know how many people are pulling this shit off. Right now, is one of them in your neighborhood? Are you working with one of them? Friends with one of them? The child of one of them? Are you dating or married to one of them? And finally, if you're thinking about disappearing,

unless you are convinced you'll be killed if you don't, maybe change your mind. It sounds like an awful lot of work to reinvent yourself with someone new. It sounds like a really stressful way to live. To have to always be so careful, you're not exposed. Maybe, I don't know, just try and deal with the life you have. Face your demons and handle your fucking business.

Grab that chicken skin duffel bag, nut up. Do what you need to do to write any wrongs in your current life. Gotta love that fucking silly duffel bag, nut up, do what you need to do to write any wrongs in your current life. God, I love that fucking silly Duffel bag term. Time out for today's top five takeaways. Time, suck, top five takeaways. Number one, we have coverage to a few of the many, many stories that people who disappear and sometimes reappear under mysterious circumstances. Sometimes those circumstances tend not to be so mysterious actually. As we saw from privacy

expert Frank Ahern, there are many reasons why someone might disappear and the possibility of actually disappearing not as remote as it might seem even in our world of technology and data. In fact, sometimes you can make that data work for you, put now false lead so no one hopefully ever find you. Of course, this was all a lot easier in the past when shotty records and fewer communication networks meant that you could start over pretty much anytime, anywhere, provided your wife or somebody didn't track you down. Number two, though you could potentially disappear,

the crimes you might commit on the way to your new life could land you in a lot of legal hot water. Even though it is not actually illegal to disappear and or fake your death, it is illegal to do a lot of the things people do when they do fake their death or do disappear. You know, of course, if you try to adopt someone's identity, that's identity fraud. And if you've known for criminal reasons, like to get a life insurance payout or to avoid going to prison, that is definitely a crime.

Number three, the human urge to disappear is perhaps a very deep rooted one. And one we've been dealing with for thousands of years. It was referenced in the Talmud political leaders have been disappearing for centuries as recently as the 21st century. Once a Nazis disappeared from Germany after World War II sought refuge in South America with only some of them being brought to actual justice. Number four, Amnesia, definitely the thing is terrifying, hard to say how much of a role it plays in most mysterious disappearances. Disassociative fugue, formerly called fugue state or psychogenic fugue, is a subtype of disassociative amnesia, involves loss of memory for personal autobiographical information, combined with unexpected and sudden travel and sometimes setting up a new identity.

E. This condition happens at about 1.8% of the population, but since it's hard to confirm and test for, still up for debate whether or not it's played a role in some of the most popular mysterious disappearance cases, but it's not a for debate that John Darwin had of Nesha. He just baked his death to get an insurance payout and got photographed and Panama balling out. And my mouth is not cooperating today. Come out. Number five new info. Let's get paranormal. One area of mysterious disappearances and reappearances

I haven't talked about today. Over in the other podcast I have, with my co-host and wife, Lindsay, scared to death, we recently covered a mysterious and super unsettling disappearance and reappearance in episode 145. The strange tale of Linda Artyaga. To get the full scary version, you can listen to episode 145, you'll never escape. I'll go a little summary here though. On September 22, 2012, 53-year-old Linda Arteaga decided to go on a hike with her 56-year-old

brother Eddie Huff in the Arkansas, Ozarks, near the tiny, roughly 200-person town of St. Joe, halfway between Springfield, Missouri and Little Rock Arkansas. After leaving to find a fishing spot, over two days passed without anyone hearing a word from Linda or Eddie, and then Eddie came out of the woods. He and his sister had gotten separated and he just couldn't find her. That's what he said. Over a hundred volunteers combed the woods to find her over the next few days, they didn't, but then almost a week into this ordeal, she just wanders out of the woods and has quite the story to tell She said she had no idea how she got separated from her brother one moment. She was hiking with him dressed as she you know

You know normally describe you know like as she had you know set out that day the next she's opened her eyes as if she had been asleep or unconscious Bind herself alone and shoeless It was like her memory would simply short it out. She had no idea where Eddie was, she assumed somewhere back down the trail, worried he'd even hurt somehow. She then told police that while trying to find help for Eddie, she came across some other hikers. At first, she was relieved to find them, but then she quickly realized there was something wrong about them.

When she called out to them, they act like they didn't hear her. She screamed, she yelled, and never even turned around. Never reacted in any way. It was like she was completely invisible, unable to be heard. Later, she would wonder if those hikers had been of this world. Or if they were of this world, if somehow she was no longer of this world at that moment. She kept walking, kept searching for Eddie or someone to help Eddie. As her surreal night wore on, led to begin to see another strange sight.

As she stumbled at the brush, she now saw shadowy figures who seemed to be hiding from her in the woods. They were never close, always in the distance, always watching. Just around Ben, she'd catch a glimpse of a hand or head, only to see it slink behind a tree trunk. Sometimes she'd lose sight of these shadowy figures for minutes, but she knew they were still close by. She'd field them, field them watching her. She would say about them, these people were hiding in the bushes. They were weird people, very weird people. And disturbingly, other women who have gotten lost and never Linda disappeared have also later reported that they were followed, even chased by what they've described as not quite men.

Over the past several decades, hundreds and hundreds of hikers have disappeared and never reappeared, last scene wandering off into America's forests. How many of them were also watched by the shadowy figures that Linda and others said watch them? Did those things take any of them somewhere? Is that why we can't find some of them? Yet another way to disappear to worry about. Time suck, tough, five takeaways.

Mysterious disappearances has been sucked. I hope you enjoyed a different kind of episode. I wanna give my mouth a workout for some reason. I think it's about the people disappearing in different countries and stuff, different pronunciation types. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now for some things.

Thanks to bad magic productions, the team here. Thanks to Queen of Magic, Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins, Jesus Christ. Thanks to Logan Keith for production today. Thanks to Bitelixer for upkeep on the Time Suck app, art warlock, Logan Keith creating the merch at BadMagicMers.com, running socials with Liz Hernandez, thanks again to Sophie Evans for the initial research this week and composing the overall narrative structure for I got in there and fucking wrecked around in it.

Also thanks to all seen eyes moderating the Colton Curious private Facebook page page and finally thanks to Becky Jesse and the mod squad for making sure discord keep running smooth. And Reddit our slash time suck get over and read it and check that out so fun. Next week we're going to look into the story of Peter Nygart the Canadian Jeffrey Epstein who is still alive behind bars but still alive. Another sexual predator who is active longer than Epstein, like Epstein used wealth, power, intimidation, in a very similar way to allegedly abuse young women for literally five decades. The old creepy fucking jail now in Canada waiting trial. His story is disturbing.

He allegedly intentionally impregnated some of his victims then had them get abortion abortions Then harvested stem cells from the fetuses to try and reverse the aging process The women were impregnated for this reason he attended to impregnate very young women very very young To have their fetuses harvested like he really did very likely some dark illuminati shit and in addition talking about him I also interview a very well-known Pido Exposer who did a docu series on NIGARD. Guess you've heard of him, Chris Hanson. To catch a predator, Chris Hanson,

I almost always turned down interview requests. Now what we do here, but I really wanted to meet him and get his thoughts on why sexual predators do what they do. He gave, not surprisingly, some great insights. We've already recorded the interview that I'm excited to share with you. So check out next week's Suck. Right now, let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker updates. Starting off with a very sweet message from a very cool meat sack, Tim Young.

Tim writes, Dear Suck Master, just a note to tell you how much enjoyment I get from time suck. I love the jokes, characters, your impressions, and your podcast format. Well, thank you. I do appreciate that. I'm probably one of your older listeners. I'm 55. I live in Indiana throughout my life.

I've never really been really cool until my wife, who also is a bit socicward, and I went on vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana a couple months ago. In preparation for the trip, I needed a new sweatshirt and having just started listening to Times Up, I thought it would be neat to get a Whipple Chill sweatshirt. Before our trip, I wore a lot. In fact, my wife once said to me, you and that goddamn Whipple sweatshirt! What is big deal? I should have listened to show. I just would laugh it off. While hiking on a trip, we were on a very busy trail. We passed a group of people going the opposite way.

I was wearing my Whipple chill sweatshirt, and as soon as the group passed by us, I heard someone in the group say, did you see that dude had a Whipple sweatshirt? I wish I had one. I was on cloud nine for a moment. Because I truly felt I was trendy and cool, even if it was only briefly.

I listened to Time Soak Daily at my job. I really liked your dark humor and subject matter. I'm a space is now so I can catch him on the secret suck to Thanks for making me another meat sax feel like we're part of something and that even guys like me can be cool Thanks for all you do for this regards Tim. Tim you are fucking cool. You're a sweetheart and you're a cool sweetheart And I don't think you're one of our older listeners the age range for time suck is extremely And I don't think you're one of our older listeners. The age range for TimeSuck is extremely varied very very wide Next time your wife tees you about that sweatshirt. You know what? Just Shoot her a steely stare and scream fuck you fuck your family drink whip-o

Or laugh it off, you know or that and hope you had fun a glacier. I love that place gorgeous park I cannot wait to get outside more this summer. So keeping cool as fuck Tim. Love you man. Now a sad sucker, temporarily asking for advice. A sad sucker who will one day be a stronger, happier sucker. Marvelous Meetsack Andrew Molina writes, dear Dan, what's up master sucker? Suck nasty, wipple pimp. I've been a long time fan of comedy, got into the time, suck and scared of death over

the past year. Absolutely great shows. Thank you, thank you. I'm writing you to ask for some advice. I've recently separated from my daughter's mother after eight years together. I have pretty severe depression and anxiety. And I'm finding it difficult to get my head around

this new reality that I never thought I would find myself in. I wanted to know if you have any tips from moving on with your life, how to be okay when you have to co-parent with someone who broke your heart. Greatly appreciate any nuggets of wisdom you can give me. If you read this on the show, you'll be better. I listen every week. Three out of five stars wouldn't change a thing. Crazy entire bad magic team and keep on sucking. Andrew. Well, Andrew, what I wish I would have done

after my divorce. You know, I was pretty depressed too. Was getting to counseling. I think it went, I went once, I wanted to go to marriage counseling. That was an option. And we did like one kind of like separation counseling session. I wanted to do more than that. That was an option. I did have the option to go to myself. And then I just did not pursue that like I should have. I went once or maybe twice and didn't really deal with anything.

Um, which I would have done that. Also get into positive things you control. Think about what you can control, what you can't control. You can't control your ex's actions. What you can't control is exercise. Get your endorphins going. You can control, you know, making, doing your best ever to get some sleep.

If you're having trouble sleeping, weed gummies work for me. Melatonin works for some people. There's different like things, you know, try some stuff, try and get that, you know, sleep. Get those endorphins, excuse me. Get outside as much as possible, when the weather's good, get that vitamin D,

get some nature. And, you know, and just try not, I mean, you're gonna have time to sit around and, you know, dwell, you're gonna need some of that. Don't rush into dating, take some time to figure out who you are. Also, this is going to be really tough. For the sake of your, you know, your kid, I believe, oh man, yeah, yeah, co-parent. Yes, yes, yes. For the sake of your kid, you're going to have to,

if there's a bunch of shitty things that mom did, I don't even know if there are, just check your ego as much as possible. Make it about the kid, not about you. And I promise you, years later, if you can eat some of that stuff, it's painful to time, but you will feel better later. Like not easy to do, but just take the high road as much as possible and always just put the kid or kids first in the situation. And people will just respect that. And you will respect yourself more for doing that. Then if you go down a different path and become bitter and angry, you know, a lot of times

the divorce, people can use it as a chance to reset, figure out what went wrong, try and become a better person, use it as little like, you know, have some humble pie, but, you know, grow from it. Other people just take this angle of like, well, you know, fuck him or fuck her and don't do any introspection and do not grow and those people, I feel oftentimes are doomed to repeat the same cycle and often just become, you know, miserable, bitter people. Not that I get that vibe from you at all. But use this as a growth opportunity and you have to accept your life is just different now. And then vision you had

for yourself, you got to just accept that that's just gone. You got to let it go, which is painful. And again, counting will help with that. Love you, man. And, uh, yeah, I really hope more than anything, the, the counseling. Now for a shout out in a Cummins law situation, newly married meets sack Roger Hayes writes, sub meets sex. I want to say thank you for all amazing content. I'm writing to tell you about a Cummins law incident. My brother came over to help my fiance and I spread some bark dust. I thought this would be a great time to turn my brother on a time suck. I asked him to pick cult, serial killer, history, etc. He said serial killer. I picked a crowle episode.

Good choice. I put up my Bluetooth speaker, started this episode, three fucking times. Different people walk by with their dogs. Each time you were doing your cow fucking dire re-end. We were all laughing, which made it worse. The looks we got were priceless. Anyway, thanks again. If you read this, I would love a couple of shout outs.

My fiance and I were getting married this Saturday, the 25th. Patricia, you're the best partner of a man could ask for. One more for Aaron and Shoko Galloway. My friends, it turned me on to the whole bad magic universe. Before I go, that'll be five bucks. I can call back to Israel. Thanks Roger. Well, Roger, congrats on your wedding.

Hope you and Patricia have been having more fun with each other than YAHIM KROLE had with the sexy cow love us. My sexy cow love us. And thank you to Sikfux, Aaron and Jelgo for bringing you into this madness. Hail Lucifina to you all. Congrats, congrats, congrats. Now for a real quick note. It allows me to thank one of our Reddit moderators.

SuperSack, Kevin Cash writes, Hey, Mother Suckers, I'm one of the moderators on Reddit. If you need anything, let me know. Praise Bojangles, he'll Lucy. It's been a blast hanging out with Nimrod. Well, Kevin, I just need you to keep our subreddit fun and awesome. I pop in there, a fair amount, just peek around. So thanks for doing what you do.

Nimrod is so pleased. And one last shout out this week, because it makes people very happy, which makes me happy. Super sucker, Olivia Myers writes, greeting suck master. Hope this reaches you well. My fiance Brandon and I are huge time suck fans.

He's been listening since I started 31 years ago, JK. He has been a Dan to come and stand for years. Love your podcast. He even listens to it as our two-foll asleep. He's been doing this so long. It's just weird if we don't sleep with it on. I hear I have a decent voice for making people sleepy, which is, I would think that'd be horrible for this,

but I'll take it if it makes people happy. We've been dating for two years, come July 13th, and we met after both coming out of very difficult relationships. We really did just fine each other, and life has never been greater. He's the greatest thing to walk the earth besides both jangles and it's just a shot in the dark, but I know he'd be uber stoked to hear a shout out

on the TimeSuck podcast. It would be the greatest anniversary gift ever. But I'll have a backup gift just in case. Thank you for keeping the suck going through everything. We wish you and your wife well, enjoy everything you do and stand for, Hail Luzofina, and have a great day, Olivia. Well, thank you, Olivia. And thank you, Brandon, Hail Luzofina. have a great day, Olivia. Well, thank you, Olivia.

And thank you, Brandon, Hail Luzofina. May she bring so much light into your relationship. Here are some unsolicited relationship advice. You know what? Respect each other. Don't just assume you're right in an argument. Talk everything out. Compliment each other at least once.

Every single day. And don't phone it in when you fuck. Thanks everybody. Appreciate the messages. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Another bad magic production's podcasts has been recorded and will be sent out into

the inner webs. Maybe don't try and disappear and start a new life if someone else is weak. Definitely don't try and disappear, and start a new life for someone else this week. Definitely don't try and fake your death for insurance money. Just grab that chicken skin duffel bag, or chicken skin, labia satchel. That's mine, I just made that one. And handle your shit in the life that you do have.

And keep on sucking. I can take it or leave it. The game of life is hard to play. I'm gonna lose it anyway. This is the saddest fucking thing I've ever... I'm gonna lose in Kara some day later. So this is all I have to say. Happy is course. Suicide is painless. Suicide brings on a panic change. And changes as I contain our limit in my plea.

So, Nash, who knew, not me? Logan knew I Had no fucking idea that The opening theme song that show the lyrics were so fucking sad Oh, I gotta I gotta hit this button before here. Here. Here's what a happy fucking thing This is what this is what theme song for a show is supposed to sound like Fucking this is what this is what theme song for a show is supposed to sound like Get your fucking piece of the pie. Get your fucking piece of pie meat sacks, move it on up.