Triple Spook: Three Wild Places. Three Wild Stories. Three Spooky Chills

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Hey there, if you like true crime stories, and you
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love being in the great outdoors, you have come to
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the right place. Welcome to Crime Off The Grid. Welcome
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everybody to another episode of Crime Off The Grid. I'm Tara.
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And I'm Nancy.
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And we are continuing our spooky season scary stories. You know,
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we asked you listeners to either share a spooky story
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or send us a story for us to check out.
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And many of you did just that. So we appreciate
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you sending these to us. This first one I'd not
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heard of before. And it's from the Grand Canyon. A
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friend of the show, her name is Lisa. She sent
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a message through our website, crimeoffthegrid.com. She said, Hi, ladies.
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Love listening to your episodes. I worked in Grand Canyon
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as a seasonal, and I had been told this story,
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although I never experienced anything paranormal. I know people who have.
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Check out The Wailing Woman of Grand Canyon. Well, Lisa,
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we did check that out, and we hope this is
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the one that you were referring to. We're going to
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preface this story by first discussing a legend known as
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La Llorona. So L-A, capital L-L-O-R-O-N-A, and that's Latin American
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Spanish for the crying woman, the weeping woman, the wailer.
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La Llorona is a vengeful ghost in Hispanic American folklore
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who is said to roam near bodies of water, mourning
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her children that she drowned in the river. Whoever hears
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her crying is said to either suffer misfortune or death,
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or become extremely unsuccessful in life. I don't think I
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would want to run across that.
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You know, there's a lot of stories. I was trying
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to think if I had heard this one, but I've
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heard a different one about a husband and a wife.
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So this is kind of, yeah, this is kind of
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strange because I'm not sure I've heard this.
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Yeah. The lore of La Llorona is well known in
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Mexico and the southern United States, which includes the Grand Canyon.
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La Llorona embodies themes of loss and maternal grief prevalent
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in many Hispanic cultures. Folklore warns children to avoid the
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river at night as La Llorona might snatch them away. Okay,
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does that sound familiar to you? That little thing right there,
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where do we talk about that, Nancy?
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That is, isn't that the, is that the kushtaka that's
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in Alaska?
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It's one of those in Alaska that we talk about.
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I get them all. What's the kalupalik? What's that?
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Oh, that's it. That's it. It's the colupal.
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Yeah, the colupal.
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That snatches the children. Everybody's being snatched. Snatches the children
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away that go near the water.
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Yeah, so stay away from the water. And again, I
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think that's one of those things where we've been lying
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to children since the beginning of time to get them
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to do what we want them to do. Well, the
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most prevalent ghost story in the Grand Canyon, according to
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Arizona Public Radio. is that of a young woman who
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traveled there with her husband and her son shortly after
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the Grand Canyon Lodge, which is on the north rim
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of the Grand Canyon. That was built in 1928. And
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according to the legends, back in the 1920s, when the
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Grand Canyon Lodge was being built, a woman moved into
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the building with her husband and son. And it doesn't
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say what I found. I saw three different sources, nothing
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says that they were working there. Was her husband working there,
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or why were they moving into there? I'm not sure.
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But her husband and son decided to go hike what
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is now known as the Transept Trail, T-R-A-N-S-E-P-T, but encountered
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treacherous weather on their way, and they lost their footing
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on some of the steep cliffs of Because remember, back
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in the 1920s, there's not railings. They don't have stairs
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or anything like that. I mean, you could get close
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to the edge, and especially in terrible weather, I can
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imagine that you could fall to your death pretty easily.
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So the mother and wife of the deceased was struck
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with uncontrollable sorrow. Day and night, she scoured the canyon edge,
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searching tirelessly for her lost love and son. Unable to
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find them, she decided to join them in the afterlife
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and hung herself that night in the lodge.
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Okay, so this is one of those, remember when you say,
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I don't want to get too close to you at
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the edge because if you slip and fall, I might
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go down, you might grab me and go down, I'll
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go down with you. I think that's what happened here.
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Yes, the kid may have slipped and the husband tried
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to catch him and then they both went down together.
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For sure. The transept trail is a scenic hiking trail
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in the north rim of the Grand Canyon following the
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rim of a narrow side canyon known as the transept.
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Stretching approximately three miles round trip, the trail winds through
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ponderosa pine forests and offers occasional views into the rugged
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canyon below. It connects the Grand Canyon Lodge area with
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the north rim campground, passing through quiet woodland that can
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feel surprisingly isolated despite its proximity to the lodge. With
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its towering trees, deep shadows, and glimpses into the canyon's depths,
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it's a beautiful but atmospheric setting, one that provides an
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evocative backdrop for the legend of the Wailing Woman. Now,
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in 1932, the newly built lodge caught on fire and
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witnesses claimed to see the dead woman's face in the flames.
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Former park ranger Andrea Lankford wrote in her book, it's
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titled Haunted Hikes, that a specific door at the lodge
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refuses to stay open because the ghost of the woman
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always slams it closed. She said, quote, whenever the caretaker
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opens that door, the wandering woman slams it shut. And
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by the way, Andrea was a park ranger at the
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Grand Canyon, and we had her on Crime Off the
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Grid sharing another criminal incident with us. And so she
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was great to have on our show. But she's got
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some street cred when she's talking about this.
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For sure she does.
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Yeah. So if she said in her book that that
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door was opening and shutting and closing, she knows what
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she's talking about.
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That's right.
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Some visitors have reported hearing the sounds of a crying
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and wailing woman along the transept trail, while others say
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they've actually seen her ghost dress in a white dress
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with blue flowers. And I don't know. I didn't see
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anything that what the significance of the blue flowers was.
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But maybe it's something that she picked along the way
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on a regular basis. I don't know. But apparently there
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are a lot of people who saw her or claim
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to have seen her, saw her with blue flowers. Sadly,
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on July 13th, 2025, so just last year, there was
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a big fire that swept through the North Rim of
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the Grand Canyon again. The Dragon Bravo fire came burning
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through the Grand Canyon Lodge, destroying it again and much
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of the surrounding cabin district.
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I wonder.
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If there have been any more sightings or strange occurrences
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at that site, you know, of the demolished Grand Canyon
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Lodge or even still on the transept trail, I'd like
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to hear if, you know, is that still happening?
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If anybody sees anything, right?
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Or was the ghost released, you know, after the new
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lodge was built? Or I don't know when they built
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the next lodge. So at first... I didn't read that.
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I guess I should have looked that up, Nancy. It
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burned in 1932. And when did they build this other
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lodge that was so beloved? People loved going to this lodge.
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And then it just burned again from this big wildfire.
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I'm so disappointed because I've been, I was, had been
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to the Grand Canyon before it burned, but we, we
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were there at the time of year that it wasn't,
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the North Rim wasn't open, so we couldn't even go
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over there. But boy, it was, The pictures I've seen
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are just, it was beautiful, and I really wish I
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could have seen that.
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I think you broke a lot of hearts when that
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burned through that Dragon Bravo fire. Well, numerous individuals have
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claimed to see La Llorona near the Colorado River, describing
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her as a ghostly figure dressed in white. I don't
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know if that one is believed to be the same
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as the Wailing Woman on the North Rim. I don't
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really remember. La Llorona in Legends and Lore refers to
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a woman who lurks near water after drowning her own children.
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As for the wailing sounds on the North Rim, there
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are these boring people, there's always got to be these
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boring people that said, oh no, that's probably coming from
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a mountain lion because I don't know if you've ever
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heard the sound of a mountain lion. I have not
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in real life. Or I don't think I have. I
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may have. But It sounds very eerie. And they make
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all kinds of different sounds, those mountain lions do. But
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that doesn't explain the sightings. You know, you could have
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like a mountain lion out there doing their crazy calls
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that sound like kitty cat to somebody wailing. But still,
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people claim to have seen this woman in white with
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the blue flowers. Quote, she cries over her loss, wailing
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in the cool wind, forever grief-stricken. Forever looking for her
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child and lover, the Wailing Woman, or Wandering Woman, of
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the Grand Canyon is said to have haunted the North
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Rim for nearly a century. And that was written by
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the Arizona Public Radio.
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That's kind of crazy, isn't it? I mean, if you
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were to be out there and hear it, especially if
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the wind's blowing, you're like, what did I just hear?
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That's pretty crazy.
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Well, that opening and closing of that door kind of
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sold me on it. I mean, people can hear all
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kinds of things. I do feel like there might be
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more information about, yeah, we've got this mountain lion who's
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out here on a regular basis. I mean, maybe this
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is just so sparse how many people have actually seen it.
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They said they've seen a woman in white with blue flowers.
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Maybe there really aren't that many reports, but I don't know.
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Be interesting. Yeah.
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Yeah, I don't know either.
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You would think, like, if it was regularly a mountain
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lion that all these people were hearing, that there would
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be information.
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Somebody would see a mountain lion, I think.
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You would think, or, you know, the researchers, resource people
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may have even collared it and would know if there's
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a mountain lion. Because if there's a mountain lion hanging
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around a developed area... That is a concern. Right, right.
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So you think they might have trapped it.
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And they would be all over that.
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Yeah.
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This next story was sent to our email from a
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listener named Sarah. Sarah wrote, and I quote, When I
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was a young park interpreter, my first job was in
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the Boston Harbor Islands, which was a state park at
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the time but is now a national recreation area. One
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of the islands, George's Islands, was a prison for Civil
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War prisoners from the South, and there is a ghost
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story about the Lady in Black. Check it out, she's
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telling us. She said she never spent a night on George's,
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but it had a spooky feel to it. She said
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that she camped on Lovells and Bumpkin Islands as part
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of her job, an awesome first job. And she says,
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love the podcast, Sarah. Thanks for the story recommendation. Let's
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talk about The Lady in Black. The location is Boston
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Harbor Islands National and State Park. It's a combination national
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recreation area and state park situated among the islands of
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Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. The park is made up of 34
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islands and peninsulas and is managed by the Boston Harbor
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Islands Association. Partnership. 34 islands. That's pretty crazy. That's a lot.
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At the entrance to Boston Harbor is George's Island. Fort
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Warren was built there in the 1840s and completed in 1850.
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The Granite Fort is a pentagonal in shape, so it's
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shaped like a pentagon, and was constructed with facilities such
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as a barracks, ammunition, magazine, Storehouses, hospital, kitchen, mess rooms,
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jail cells, and a battery of heavy guns that faced
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the sea. During the Civil War, Fort Warren was used
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as a prison for the Confederate soldiers and disloyal citizens.
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Alexander Hamilton Stevens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America,
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was the most famous person imprisoned at the fort.
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Who was the president of the Confederacy? Do you know?
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I do not know.
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I should know that. I'm from Tennessee, and we think
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that we're still won the war.
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Then yes, you should know that. I should know that.
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I don't think I've ever... The island was an inhospitable place,
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and Confederate soldiers found the cold weather unbearable in comparison
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to their southern homesteads. During winter... Union soldiers had allegedly
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seen mysterious shadows when patrolling the lonely beaches of the island,
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and such occurrences are likely what led to this well-known
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ghost story. The Lady in Black is said to be
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a ghost on George's Island, a young woman in black
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robes that wanders about the grounds. She is believed to
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be Mrs. Andrew Lanier, wife of Confederate soldier that was
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imprisoned there in 1861. Mrs. Lanier received a letter from
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her husband that he had been imprisoned at Fort Warren.
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She was compelled to free him, making an epic journey
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from Georgia to Hull, Massachusetts, and to the home of
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a Confederate sympathizer. Hull is only about a mile away
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from Georgia's island. Mrs. Lanier would observe the fort for
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with a spyglass, and on a stormy night in January 1862,
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she rode across to Georgia's island and went ashore. She
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cut her hair short and dressed as a man and
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brought with her an old pistol and a small pickaxe.
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I mean, this was some bad ASS woman. Yeah. Getting
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on the ocean, going across to an island in the dark. Yeah.
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Rowing a boat during a storm. I mean, come on now,
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over a mile.
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And they always have a pickaxe. They seem to always
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have a pickaxe in these kind of stories.
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That's right. The tool of the day. Back in the day.
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She made her way to the dungeon cells and from
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outside the fort signaled to her husband by whistling an
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obscure southern tune to which he signaled back. Mrs.
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You think it was that one?
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It could have been that one. Again, you would probably
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know that. Mrs. Lanier was able to squeeze through the
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slit window of his cell and was then hidden by
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the Confederate soldiers.
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I don't think I could slip through the slit of
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the window. I would have to get anorexia to try
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to get through that.
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That's right. That's right. With the use of the pickaxe,
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the soldiers dug a tunnel to the center of the
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fort And then they were going to overtake the guards
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and obtain weapons. The tunnel took several weeks to dig.
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And on the eve of finishing the tunnel, a sharp
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blow of the pick had alerted a guard. So they
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must have hit a rock or something that pinged that
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the guard was like right there. The alarm was sounded
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and the tunnel quickly discovered. As each of the Confederate
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soldiers was removed from the tunnel, a tally was taken.
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When all the prisoners were accounted for, Mrs. Lanier was
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to spring from the tunnel and capture the Union officer
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with the old pistol.
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That she had. I mean, that is bold to talk about. Like, oh,
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I'm going to capture this Union soldier, hold him hostage
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until he lets my husband go or something. I know.
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I know, right?
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Right.
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She's a feisty one. Mrs. Lanier succeeded in surprising the officer.
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I cannot believe that.
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But he slapped the pistol from her hand.
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Oh, so she surprised him. She didn't succeed in actual.
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She succeeded in surprising him.
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Yeah.
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Right. But then he slaps the pistol out of her
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hand like, oh, surprise is on you, I guess. The
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pistol went off and the bullet struck and killed her husband.
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I know.
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What are the odds of that?
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Yeah.
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As punishment for her deeds, Mrs. Lanier was condemned to
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death by hanging. Her final request was to be given
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female clothing and a search of the fort produced nothing
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but some old black robes. She was executed in those robes.
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The body of Melanie Lanier was buried in that gown
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on the grounds of the island. Her spirit has remained
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restless with the guilt of that filled her when she
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killed her own husband, and she is now reported to
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wander about the island. Countless other bodies are said to
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be buried on the island, and sightings of ghosts are abundant.
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Maybe that's why Sarah never spent the night on George's Island,
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and I don't blame her.
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I wouldn't blame her either. In the months following her death, Mrs.
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Lanier's image was seen aimlessly wandering around Fort Warren, Witnessed
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in the same black robe, she longingly moves about mourning
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her husband. Soldiers have even reported seeing and feeling her
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saddened soul among them. That's kind of, that would just
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00:18:36.130 --> 00:18:40.009
be kind of scary though too. Over time, sightings of
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her have only increased in frequency. She eventually became known
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as the Lady in Black. Her dark and heavy gown
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swaying in the harbor's breeze as she searches in vain.
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These days she has been seen standing atop the entrance arches,
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staring down those who enter. She's even known to chase
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unsuspecting soldiers away from the fort, her anger spurring her actions.
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Wow. So that's apparently reported in these modern days that
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she's chasing soldiers. Are there soldiers there? What are soldiers
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doing there?
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I don't know. She's Still hanging out.
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Or maybe they're ghost soldiers. Are they ghost soldiers that
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they see?
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I don't know.
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Being chased away from the fort. Hmm. No, that's interesting.
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It just says soldiers, so maybe it is because they
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did say a lot of people have died there. Yeah.
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I would not be surprised. Well, I would say this
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is documented in several different places, and some of them
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seemed pretty historical. We're putting all of our references in
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00:19:47.970 --> 00:19:50.299
our sources. We do this with every episode at the,
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in the show notes, but so you can check some
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of those out for yourself. But I am kind of,
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I don't know, stricken or the fact that, you know,
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she came over there dressed as a man. She probably
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only had the clothes on her back and she wanted
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some dignity and knowing she was going to hang. She
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wanted some dignity and she wanted women's clothing, but they
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didn't have any. And I gave her the closest thing
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to that, which was a black robe.
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Yeah. And that's what she's hanging on in today is
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wearing a black robe.
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Right. So always take an extra pair of clothes with
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you when you go to break somebody out of jail.
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Moral to that story? I don't know.
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That's right. I was just going to say the moral
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to the story is.
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Well, it seems like You know, when we tell ghost stories, even, Nancy,
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we have another one coming up, I think, just before Halloween,
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two stories that we've told in Yellowstone. But almost every story,
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it seems that we find, you know, in our national
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parks or anywhere else, really, they always tend to take
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place from the previous century or centuries, you know, like 1800s, 1700s,
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early 1900s. Right. Even earlier. But our next story is
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from a recent incident that occurred just outside the boundary
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of Yosemite National Park. And no one called this in,
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but we first learned of this story. Nancy and I
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were on the show Locations Unknown. I don't know if
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you've ever heard of them, but they talk about strange
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disappearances that happen in national parks and forests. And so
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we were on their show. They discussed this case. And
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then we kind of, you know, were the commentary for
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them on this case. But that's the first time we
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heard about it. And so I don't know if many
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of you listening Had a chance to hear that episode
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from Locations Unknown, so since you didn't, if you didn't,
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we're going to discuss it on Crime Up the Grid.
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On July 2nd, 2020, hikers, or another source said maybe four-wheelers,
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in the Sierra Nevada came around a bend on a
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rough forest road and found a campsite in the trees
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that looked like it had been through a storm. The
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found campsite was near Johnson Meadows in the Sierra National Forest.
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There were belongings and supplies that were scattered around, and
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there were documents that were found. And authorities then were
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able to contact the family and learned the name of
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the person who's had documents, and that was Sandra Johnson Hughes.
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And they believed she was the occupant of the abandoned campsite.
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And the tent was down. There was a backpack turned
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out onto the ground. Its contents were strewn about a
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wide stretch of grass. There was clothing, unopened cans of food,
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loose papers. And by the way, that included her social
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security number and birth certificate. And I was a little
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struck by that. I do have one other incident in
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00:22:39.759 --> 00:22:43.299
Yellowstone that occurred where there was a body half eaten.
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And with that partially eaten body by animals, there was
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a birth certificate and social security number and other important papers.
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00:22:53.890 --> 00:22:56.630
So I think that's just interesting for somebody to take
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00:22:56.670 --> 00:22:57.289
that camping.
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00:22:57.740 --> 00:22:59.970
Well, maybe, you know, we always tell people don't leave
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important documents in your car.
395
00:23:01.990 --> 00:23:05.410
Yeah, that is true. Maybe she had that in her car. Yeah,
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00:23:05.589 --> 00:23:07.750
that's a possibility. And she's like, okay, I don't want
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00:23:07.769 --> 00:23:11.819
to leave that in there. Well, no one was there
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00:23:11.970 --> 00:23:14.119
anywhere around this campsite. And from the look of it,
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00:23:14.519 --> 00:23:17.440
no one had been there in days. It was not
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00:23:17.500 --> 00:23:19.880
the sort of scene hikers expect to come across in
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00:23:19.900 --> 00:23:23.230
the backcountry. So they marked the spot there. And then
402
00:23:23.269 --> 00:23:26.309
they drove until they had cell service and called the
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00:23:26.470 --> 00:23:29.440
Madera County Sheriff's Office to report it. So this is
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00:23:29.480 --> 00:23:33.759
technically outside of Yosemite, and Madera County had the jurisdiction there.
405
00:23:34.299 --> 00:23:37.660
Sandra was now believed to be missing following the discovery
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00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:41.119
of her disheveled campsite. She was last in contact with
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00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:44.990
her family just a week earlier on June 26. Sandra
408
00:23:45.029 --> 00:23:48.369
had recently moved from Hawaii to California. Well, there you go, Nancy.
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00:23:48.390 --> 00:23:50.450
She probably had a lot of things in her vehicle
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00:23:51.029 --> 00:23:54.259
from her Yeah, she could have. And she was camping
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00:23:54.299 --> 00:23:57.839
alone in the Sierra National Forest. Her family said she
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was experienced outdoors and had wilderness survival training. She had
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00:24:02.700 --> 00:24:04.960
been on a solo camping trip in the National Forest
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00:24:05.059 --> 00:24:08.160
just south of the Yosemite National Park boundary. And after
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00:24:08.200 --> 00:24:12.440
her campsite documents were found on that July 2nd day, officials,
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00:24:12.759 --> 00:24:15.700
when they contacted Sandra's family, they learned that her last
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00:24:15.720 --> 00:24:20.160
communications with her family was on June 26th. Sandra had
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00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:22.680
called her family and told them, yeah, you know, I'm
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00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:25.660
headed for a solo camping trip in the Sierra National Forest,
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and I might work my way north, all the way
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up toward Yosemite. The way she put it to them,
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she was quarantining in the National Forest, riding out the
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00:24:35.230 --> 00:24:38.750
pandemic away from other people, which, you know, was not
424
00:24:38.789 --> 00:24:41.670
a bad idea. Think about this. This is like, we
425
00:24:41.710 --> 00:24:45.890
were in peak. Everything was crazy, scary. Things had already
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00:24:45.910 --> 00:24:49.650
started to shut down. Schools had closed earlier. In 2020,
427
00:24:49.650 --> 00:24:51.990
and I mean, really, what a way to do that.
428
00:24:52.190 --> 00:24:54.460
I'm just going to go into the woods by myself,
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get away from people. She sounded excited about it, and
430
00:24:58.440 --> 00:25:00.160
she said she'd be in touch in a few weeks
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00:25:01.059 --> 00:25:01.880
once she got back out.
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00:25:02.539 --> 00:25:06.059
Sandra was 53 years old that summer, a few weeks
433
00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:11.950
shy of her 54th birthday. She was about 5'3, and
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00:25:12.009 --> 00:25:16.630
although her hair was naturally brown, she had recently dyed
435
00:25:16.690 --> 00:25:19.940
it blue. She was not a novice in the woods.
436
00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:24.180
In college, she had studied outdoor recreation, and at one point,
437
00:25:24.579 --> 00:25:28.160
she had wanted to become a park ranger. She ended
438
00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:32.009
up becoming an accountant, which is kind of far the same.
439
00:25:35.849 --> 00:25:39.029
But the outdoor skills stayed with her. Family and friends
440
00:25:39.109 --> 00:25:42.230
said she was a woman who could handle herself in
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00:25:42.269 --> 00:25:46.859
the wilderness. She had backpacked, and camped alone for days
442
00:25:46.980 --> 00:25:49.640
at a time and knew what she was doing out there.
443
00:25:51.039 --> 00:25:54.259
Over the weeks after Sandra dropped out of contact, she
444
00:25:54.339 --> 00:25:57.859
was seen twice by strangers who had no idea a
445
00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:01.619
woman was missing. In a part of the forest where
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00:26:01.660 --> 00:26:05.869
you almost never meet another person, both times ended the
447
00:26:05.910 --> 00:26:09.289
same way. She was there, and then she was gone
448
00:26:09.329 --> 00:26:12.690
before anybody could reach her. On July 4th, near the
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00:26:12.950 --> 00:26:17.000
Chiquito Lake, And I did look that one up, but
450
00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:23.279
it's C-H-I-Q-U-I-T-O. Trailhead. A group of hikers passed a woman
451
00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:27.160
standing off to the side by herself, barefoot, in a
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00:26:27.240 --> 00:26:31.309
black shirt and blue jeans, with a bruise on her face.
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00:26:31.980 --> 00:26:35.549
She stood quietly looking off into the distance, making no
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00:26:35.630 --> 00:26:38.170
move to wave the hikers down or ask for help,
455
00:26:38.769 --> 00:26:43.579
as if she were waiting for something. They offered assistance anyway.
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00:26:43.940 --> 00:26:47.059
She declined it and stayed where she was, so they
457
00:26:47.099 --> 00:26:50.480
walked on. Only when they got back to the parking
458
00:26:50.519 --> 00:26:53.740
lot and saw the missing person flyers with Sanders' blue
459
00:26:53.809 --> 00:26:58.109
hair on them did they understand who the barefoot woman
460
00:26:58.230 --> 00:27:02.150
had been. By the time deputies reached the spot, she
461
00:27:02.230 --> 00:27:06.059
was gone, with no sign of which way she had gone.
462
00:27:06.519 --> 00:27:09.869
Well, her car turned up the next day. July 5th,
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00:27:10.180 --> 00:27:15.069
several miles north of the campsite near the Chiquito Creek trailhead.
464
00:27:16.130 --> 00:27:20.289
The Silver Saab had struck a tree, apparently at a
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00:27:20.349 --> 00:27:23.710
low speed, probably under 20 miles an hour, by the
466
00:27:23.730 --> 00:27:27.750
investigators read, but slow enough that the airbags never deployed.
467
00:27:28.390 --> 00:27:31.950
Then the car slid down an embankment into a ravine
468
00:27:32.650 --> 00:27:36.390
and lodged there on a stump. There was no blood inside.
469
00:27:36.970 --> 00:27:39.849
But her belongings had been pulled out of the car,
470
00:27:40.650 --> 00:27:43.740
thrown across the forest floor and around it. And it's
471
00:27:43.960 --> 00:27:47.319
the same way that the campsite had been emptied as
472
00:27:47.400 --> 00:27:51.019
if someone had gone through everything looking for one particular thing.
473
00:27:51.059 --> 00:27:52.839
You know, you're looking in your glove box and you're
474
00:27:52.859 --> 00:27:55.049
pulling everything out of it. And I bet Nancy doesn't
475
00:27:55.069 --> 00:27:57.710
have anything in her glove box except exactly what's supposed
476
00:27:57.730 --> 00:28:03.069
to be in there. We've got ketchup packets, napkins. What
477
00:28:03.150 --> 00:28:05.750
is this thing doing in here? Anyway. That would be us.
478
00:28:05.769 --> 00:28:07.769
I bet you do. I bet you do.
479
00:28:08.430 --> 00:28:11.460
Investigators did not believe Sandra was hiding from them. They
480
00:28:11.539 --> 00:28:15.700
thought she was probably hurt or confused or both and
481
00:28:15.740 --> 00:28:17.799
that she might come back to her own car. So
482
00:28:17.819 --> 00:28:20.779
they left the Saab where it sat and taped a
483
00:28:20.900 --> 00:28:24.630
bright note to the windshield asking Sandra to call the
484
00:28:24.650 --> 00:28:27.490
sheriff's office if she saw it and telling her that
485
00:28:27.509 --> 00:28:30.329
the family was worried about her. I mean, that's kind
486
00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:32.130
of cool. They didn't just immediately call a tow truck
487
00:28:32.170 --> 00:28:36.480
and get that out of here. I don't know exactly
488
00:28:36.500 --> 00:28:38.079
where it was, if it was on a main road.
489
00:28:38.220 --> 00:28:39.940
I'm going to guess it was not on a main
490
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:43.599
road because they'd have call after call after call. Here
491
00:28:43.640 --> 00:28:48.569
there's an abandoned crashed car. A sheriff's spokesman said basically
492
00:28:48.589 --> 00:28:50.890
the same thing to reporters that week. Sandra had been
493
00:28:50.930 --> 00:28:53.890
seen on foot by others since her car was found,
494
00:28:54.890 --> 00:28:57.029
which was reason enough to believe she was still alive
495
00:28:57.109 --> 00:29:01.119
out there. A week later, on July 12th, searchers found
496
00:29:01.160 --> 00:29:04.269
her sleeping bag. about two and a half miles farther
497
00:29:04.349 --> 00:29:07.690
north near Spotted Lakes, right on the border of Yosemite
498
00:29:07.730 --> 00:29:11.279
National Park. In countries so rugged, there were no roads
499
00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:14.859
or trails into it. Now that's really strange, you know,
500
00:29:14.980 --> 00:29:17.109
for it to look like somebody had slept in it,
501
00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:20.680
not just dragged by animals. You're nowhere near a trail.
502
00:29:20.900 --> 00:29:23.509
It didn't say how far was the nearest road or trail,
503
00:29:24.009 --> 00:29:26.130
but you're not near any of that. And so it's
504
00:29:26.170 --> 00:29:28.609
kind of, it's a very strange thing to see. The
505
00:29:28.650 --> 00:29:30.730
bag looked as though it had been slept in recently.
506
00:29:31.089 --> 00:29:34.309
There was no other trace of her. And on a map,
507
00:29:34.900 --> 00:29:37.519
it formed almost a straight line running south to north.
508
00:29:38.069 --> 00:29:41.400
The ruined campsite and then the crackdowns car six miles up,
509
00:29:41.559 --> 00:29:43.359
and then the sleeping bag two and a half miles
510
00:29:43.400 --> 00:29:46.279
beyond that, like this straight line going north, pointing like
511
00:29:46.319 --> 00:29:50.329
an arrow towards Yosemite. Exactly the direction Sandra had told
512
00:29:50.349 --> 00:29:53.509
her family she might go. She appeared to be walking
513
00:29:53.549 --> 00:29:57.230
without gear, without food, and most likely without shoes when
514
00:29:57.549 --> 00:30:01.380
through incredibly challenging terrain full of bears and mountain lions
515
00:30:01.519 --> 00:30:02.380
and steep drop-offs.
516
00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:07.319
Then, on August 9th, more than a month after her
517
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:11.440
campsite and vehicle were found, two hunters driving a remote
518
00:30:11.539 --> 00:30:15.640
road near Besor Road and Portuguese Creek came around a
519
00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:19.990
corner and saw a woman leaning against a tree. She
520
00:30:20.029 --> 00:30:22.710
was thinner than the woman on the flyers, but they
521
00:30:22.730 --> 00:30:27.230
were certain it was Sandra, wearing overalls, and a floral
522
00:30:27.329 --> 00:30:30.730
shirt now, different from the clothes she was last seen in,
523
00:30:31.150 --> 00:30:34.690
drinking from a water bottle. She gave them an odd
524
00:30:34.789 --> 00:30:38.849
wave and kept to herself, making no move to signal
525
00:30:38.890 --> 00:30:43.130
for help and showing no sign of distress. When they
526
00:30:43.190 --> 00:30:47.039
realized later who she was and who they thought she was,
527
00:30:47.819 --> 00:30:51.559
and they reported it, deputies searched the spot and found
528
00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:57.480
nothing to show anyone had been there. The search that
529
00:30:57.539 --> 00:31:00.640
followed ran for about two weeks and drew help from
530
00:31:00.700 --> 00:31:04.599
across the state. Deputies and volunteers came in from several
531
00:31:04.660 --> 00:31:08.500
surrounding counties. The California Air National Guard put up a
532
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:12.680
Black Hawk helicopter over the search area, flying at night
533
00:31:13.099 --> 00:31:18.200
with thermal imagery cameras, and search dogs worked the ground below.
534
00:31:19.269 --> 00:31:23.369
Teams on foot covered a vast stretch of forest and
535
00:31:23.450 --> 00:31:27.410
back roads before the effort was scaled back. On July 20th,
536
00:31:27.970 --> 00:31:32.460
the searchers turned up nothing. No Sandra and no trail
537
00:31:32.500 --> 00:31:36.680
of breadcrumbs showing which way she had finally gone. What
538
00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:40.039
her relatives kept telling anyone who would listen was the
539
00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:45.059
same thing Denise said in public. Sandra was meticulous. She
540
00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:48.519
respected the land and she would never in her life
541
00:31:48.660 --> 00:31:52.240
have left a campsite looking the way that that one looked.
542
00:31:54.140 --> 00:31:58.970
Then the weather changed drastically. On September 4, 2020, the
543
00:31:59.109 --> 00:32:03.990
Creek Fire ignited in Fresno and Madera counties and grew
544
00:32:04.109 --> 00:32:08.509
into one of the largest wildfires in California history, burning
545
00:32:08.690 --> 00:32:13.160
for months and not fully contained until late December. It
546
00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:18.559
tore through the country where Sandra had last been seen,
547
00:32:19.019 --> 00:32:24.559
changing the terrain, dropping trees, and burning away whatever evidence
548
00:32:24.700 --> 00:32:29.029
might still have been out there was gone. Her car
549
00:32:29.130 --> 00:32:33.490
strangely did not burn. It sat untouched through the fire,
550
00:32:33.630 --> 00:32:36.940
and deputies finally hauled it away that fall once it
551
00:32:36.980 --> 00:32:39.440
was clear she was not coming back for that car.
552
00:32:40.700 --> 00:32:44.200
Yeah, that's crazy. A year passed, and then the case
553
00:32:44.259 --> 00:32:50.400
went cold. On July 21, 2021, a family from California
554
00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:53.980
drove an off-road vehicle up into the same mountains for
555
00:32:54.019 --> 00:32:58.609
an afternoon of sightseeing. heading toward the summit of Shuteye Peak,
556
00:32:59.210 --> 00:33:03.539
some five miles south of Johnson Meadows. They had their
557
00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:07.700
three young children along. About halfway up, they pulled off
558
00:33:07.799 --> 00:33:10.799
at a flat stretch beside a small meadow to eat lunch.
559
00:33:12.119 --> 00:33:14.029
As they were getting ready to climb out of the vehicle,
560
00:33:14.390 --> 00:33:19.190
their three-year-old son started talking. His parents turned around, and
561
00:33:19.230 --> 00:33:22.130
they saw him facing the open window, looking out across
562
00:33:22.190 --> 00:33:25.789
the meadow into the tree line, carrying on a conversation
563
00:33:25.890 --> 00:33:30.230
with someone none of them could see. His mother asked him,
564
00:33:30.430 --> 00:33:33.470
who are you talking to? He told her, well, there's
565
00:33:33.490 --> 00:33:35.210
a woman out in the meadow in a black shirt,
566
00:33:35.670 --> 00:33:39.710
lying face down with her legs straight up in the air.
567
00:33:39.730 --> 00:33:43.430
The woman could not talk to him, he said, because
568
00:33:43.470 --> 00:33:46.450
she was dead. This is a three-year-old, again, saying this.
569
00:33:47.210 --> 00:33:51.119
And she told him she needed their help, and he
570
00:33:51.150 --> 00:33:54.450
pointed to the spot. The parents looked where he was
571
00:33:54.509 --> 00:33:57.309
pointing and saw nothing but grass and trees and told
572
00:33:57.369 --> 00:33:59.710
him there was no one there. The boy only became
573
00:33:59.789 --> 00:34:02.089
more insistent, telling his mother she had to trust him.
574
00:34:02.450 --> 00:34:04.670
I don't know if the three-year-old said that, but something
575
00:34:04.690 --> 00:34:07.700
to the effect of, you know, trust me, bro, from
576
00:34:07.740 --> 00:34:11.380
a three-year-old, that the woman was right there and she
577
00:34:11.460 --> 00:34:14.159
needed them. Okay, but I'm a little bit struck by
578
00:34:14.179 --> 00:34:17.019
this image and how he described it. And I had
579
00:34:17.079 --> 00:34:20.369
seen this reported in a couple different areas that she
580
00:34:20.409 --> 00:34:23.510
was lying face down, but her legs were up in
581
00:34:23.550 --> 00:34:25.840
the air. I don't know what that, you know, I
582
00:34:25.860 --> 00:34:32.119
can't imagine that image. And I wonder, well, let me
583
00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:34.679
save that. Don't remind me to say what I wonder
584
00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:36.659
about this image. You know, her face down and legs
585
00:34:36.679 --> 00:34:38.590
up in the air. Okay. It just came to me
586
00:34:38.769 --> 00:34:40.369
in a second. So don't let me forget it. Okay.
587
00:34:41.030 --> 00:34:43.489
So dad got out, walked into the meadow to see
588
00:34:43.530 --> 00:34:46.469
for himself, searching the tree line where his son kept pointing.
589
00:34:47.190 --> 00:34:49.880
There was no one and no sign anyone had been there.
590
00:34:50.340 --> 00:34:52.699
The whole time he was out there from inside the vehicle,
591
00:34:52.739 --> 00:34:55.760
the boy went on watching the woman. So he could
592
00:34:55.780 --> 00:34:57.900
still see this woman. Dad's out there looking in the meadow,
593
00:34:57.920 --> 00:35:01.179
not seeing anything. And he's seeing this woman and he's
594
00:35:01.219 --> 00:35:03.449
pointing to his father like, hey, she's right beside you.
595
00:35:03.650 --> 00:35:06.250
I can see her, Dad. She's right beside you. So
596
00:35:06.269 --> 00:35:08.989
when the dad climbed back into the car, I mean,
597
00:35:09.090 --> 00:35:12.010
they were freaked out as I would be freaked out.
598
00:35:13.150 --> 00:35:13.809
I would be too.
599
00:35:13.929 --> 00:35:16.429
So they're like, okay, forget this summer. We ain't driving
600
00:35:16.469 --> 00:35:17.489
up there. Let's just go home.
601
00:35:18.139 --> 00:35:21.619
Now mom decided to put what they experienced and what
602
00:35:21.679 --> 00:35:25.659
the boy described in a Facebook post. A woman in
603
00:35:25.699 --> 00:35:29.190
a black shirt and blue jeans with blue hair. Within
604
00:35:29.230 --> 00:35:32.090
a short time, the responses came. The name of the
605
00:35:32.150 --> 00:35:35.449
missing woman none of them had heard of. A woman
606
00:35:35.570 --> 00:35:38.679
who had vanished about a year earlier within a few
607
00:35:38.739 --> 00:35:43.119
miles of that meadow, Sandra Hughes. The clothing matched and
608
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:46.469
so did the blue hair. That's amazing. I mean, that
609
00:35:46.510 --> 00:35:49.110
just kind of gives you chills. Yeah, right. Knowing that
610
00:35:49.159 --> 00:35:50.940
that three-year-old described her.
611
00:35:51.059 --> 00:35:54.159
It fears that mom sitting there going, oh my gosh,
612
00:35:54.219 --> 00:35:57.500
this is what my boy just described. Right.
613
00:35:58.420 --> 00:36:02.119
Deputies saw this post or learned about it and brought
614
00:36:02.219 --> 00:36:06.070
a lineup of photographs of several different women to the
615
00:36:06.110 --> 00:36:10.489
boy and asked him, without feeding him any information, to
616
00:36:10.610 --> 00:36:13.309
point out the woman he had seen in the medal.
617
00:36:14.090 --> 00:36:17.269
The boy went through the pictures and picked out Sandra Hughes,
618
00:36:17.710 --> 00:36:22.489
identifying her in three of the four photos he was shown.
619
00:36:23.849 --> 00:36:26.840
The next day, the boy and his father went back
620
00:36:27.340 --> 00:36:30.340
up to the mountain with the sheriff's deputies to walk
621
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:33.400
the meadow again and show them exactly where the woman
622
00:36:33.460 --> 00:36:37.079
had been. They searched the tree line like every search
623
00:36:37.159 --> 00:36:42.159
before it. This one found nothing at all. Sandra Johnson
624
00:36:42.219 --> 00:36:45.929
Hughes has never been found. Search and rescue teams have
625
00:36:45.969 --> 00:36:50.889
gone back into these mountains in the years since, revisiting
626
00:36:50.929 --> 00:36:54.090
the places where her belongings turned up, and the case
627
00:36:54.170 --> 00:36:59.380
remains open at the Madera County Sheriff's Office. So anyone
628
00:36:59.409 --> 00:37:06.159
with information is asked to contact them at 559-675-7770. All right, Tara.
629
00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:08.699
Okay.
630
00:37:08.760 --> 00:37:09.219
What do you think?
631
00:37:09.239 --> 00:37:11.119
Well, let me just go back to my thought, and
632
00:37:11.159 --> 00:37:13.369
it just occurred to me. Right. first of all, I
633
00:37:13.409 --> 00:37:15.429
think Sid's a ghost. I think that boy saw a ghost.
634
00:37:15.929 --> 00:37:16.869
I think she's dead.
635
00:37:16.889 --> 00:37:17.289
I did too.
636
00:37:17.309 --> 00:37:19.360
And I think he saw a ghost. But I kept,
637
00:37:20.079 --> 00:37:23.179
when I, when we heard this story before and now, like,
638
00:37:23.320 --> 00:37:26.139
we're telling it this time, I've just tried to figure out, oh, like,
639
00:37:26.300 --> 00:37:29.900
what does he mean? Like, she's lying down and her
640
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:31.500
feet are up in the air. I couldn't figure out
641
00:37:31.519 --> 00:37:36.059
what that meant. But you know what I think? It
642
00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:39.050
makes me think, well, now I just had another thought
643
00:37:39.090 --> 00:37:41.250
that's like, well, that's not going to work. Okay. But
644
00:37:41.289 --> 00:37:43.820
that seems like Maybe a position, if you're in a
645
00:37:43.860 --> 00:37:47.920
car that goes down a ravine, that you're kind of,
646
00:37:48.199 --> 00:37:51.150
you know, almost face forward. Maybe your legs are up
647
00:37:51.170 --> 00:37:52.530
in the air. Maybe she could have been, well, I
648
00:37:52.530 --> 00:37:54.550
guess they would know if she's disregarded. My whole theory
649
00:37:54.590 --> 00:37:56.889
is just out the window. But it seems like, you know,
650
00:37:56.909 --> 00:37:59.389
you would have died kind of sort of face down,
651
00:37:59.630 --> 00:38:01.739
maybe down a ravine, your legs up in the air. Or,
652
00:38:02.260 --> 00:38:06.800
you know, gravity-wise, you know, not floating, but just that position.
653
00:38:07.340 --> 00:38:10.340
Maybe you died in that position. Right. Somehow. Yeah.
654
00:38:10.440 --> 00:38:12.699
So maybe she died and her head was downhill.
655
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:12.940
Yeah.
656
00:38:14.090 --> 00:38:16.670
Face down and her legs were up.
657
00:38:16.789 --> 00:38:17.190
Uphill.
658
00:38:17.210 --> 00:38:19.230
And, you know, maybe on a slope or on a
659
00:38:19.289 --> 00:38:22.230
rock where it looked like they were, you know, straight
660
00:38:22.269 --> 00:38:22.909
up in the air.
661
00:38:23.010 --> 00:38:23.250
Yeah.
662
00:38:23.409 --> 00:38:25.710
From, you know, from a three-year-old's vantage point.
663
00:38:25.750 --> 00:38:32.079
Yeah. But my other thought, too, was that the, I
664
00:38:32.099 --> 00:38:35.079
don't understand what's weird to me is the campsite's at
665
00:38:35.099 --> 00:38:38.309
a distance from where the car is. Was her campsite
666
00:38:38.369 --> 00:38:41.030
set up first and she was maybe driving towards town
667
00:38:41.070 --> 00:38:43.929
somewhere and that's when she got into the crash? But
668
00:38:43.969 --> 00:38:46.260
for both of them to be in disarray, let's take
669
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:48.599
one of them. Like, had she got out of her car?
670
00:38:48.860 --> 00:38:50.800
Did she have a head injury? And you don't know
671
00:38:50.840 --> 00:38:53.260
what you're doing. If you have a head injury, you
672
00:38:53.280 --> 00:38:57.449
could easily be throwing stuff out your window, looking for something.
673
00:38:57.550 --> 00:39:01.110
You're not focused or organized in your thought at all
674
00:39:01.530 --> 00:39:03.889
with a head injury. But it is weird to me that,
675
00:39:04.210 --> 00:39:07.639
you know, there's the car with, the disheveled car. And
676
00:39:07.659 --> 00:39:12.340
then there's a campsite five miles away, which was also strong.
677
00:39:12.420 --> 00:39:16.190
Everything was drawn about. So I don't know. I'm thinking
678
00:39:16.250 --> 00:39:16.789
out loud here.
679
00:39:16.809 --> 00:39:19.130
Did she get out of the car? Did she get
680
00:39:19.210 --> 00:39:22.150
out of the car for some reason? And because she,
681
00:39:22.849 --> 00:39:25.329
you know, the first time she was seen or whatever,
682
00:39:25.369 --> 00:39:27.309
had a bruise on her face. Maybe she did have
683
00:39:27.349 --> 00:39:29.829
a head injury and the car wasn't put in gear
684
00:39:29.889 --> 00:39:33.250
or park and maybe it rolled down that hill and
685
00:39:33.289 --> 00:39:35.449
then she is down there looking for something and throwing
686
00:39:35.489 --> 00:39:38.010
things around because she has a head injury I mean
687
00:39:38.110 --> 00:39:40.289
I don't know it's it's kind of weird.
688
00:39:40.110 --> 00:39:43.579
Yeah but then why is a campsite so everything you
689
00:39:43.619 --> 00:39:45.960
know all over the right yeah but then what could
690
00:39:45.980 --> 00:39:48.199
have happened to her body I don't so the whole
691
00:39:48.260 --> 00:39:52.849
thing is weird It just seems like there are way
692
00:39:52.889 --> 00:39:56.199
more questions than answers in this case. I mean, this
693
00:39:56.260 --> 00:40:01.519
is a really strange and very tragic story. I cannot
694
00:40:01.579 --> 00:40:05.599
imagine what her family has been going through for these years.
695
00:40:06.780 --> 00:40:09.219
But that boy saw a ghost. He did.
696
00:40:09.349 --> 00:40:11.349
And I wonder if.
697
00:40:11.349 --> 00:40:13.269
Anybody else, I mean, he obviously, you know, you hear
698
00:40:13.289 --> 00:40:16.190
about those people, I don't know, mediums or whatever they are.
699
00:40:16.210 --> 00:40:21.179
I see dead people. Yeah. Did you see that? Sixth Sense.
700
00:40:21.960 --> 00:40:24.539
Did you watch that movie with... Oh, you didn't watch
701
00:40:24.579 --> 00:40:27.719
that movie? With... What's his name? He was married to
702
00:40:27.760 --> 00:40:32.110
Demi Moore. He's in all those shoot-em-up action shows.
703
00:40:32.670 --> 00:40:33.010
Bruce.
704
00:40:33.289 --> 00:40:34.510
Something. What can I think of that?
705
00:40:34.530 --> 00:40:34.650
Willis.
706
00:40:34.690 --> 00:40:39.730
Willis! Oh, my gosh. Bruce Willis. The Sixth Sense. You
707
00:40:39.750 --> 00:40:41.869
need to watch that. Go home before Halloween and watch
708
00:40:41.889 --> 00:40:46.460
The Sixth Sense. Sixth Sense. Anyway, this kid in it.
709
00:40:47.400 --> 00:40:52.090
I see dead people. So... It's like Clarice and the,
710
00:40:53.070 --> 00:40:57.369
you know, Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs. I told
711
00:40:57.389 --> 00:40:59.170
you I made my kids watch that. Well, I've seen that.
712
00:40:59.190 --> 00:41:01.650
I've seen Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs. And I
713
00:41:01.829 --> 00:41:07.559
actually had a listener ask me to, what is The
714
00:41:07.599 --> 00:41:08.280
Ghosts of Mr.
715
00:41:08.320 --> 00:41:08.980
Chicken? Oh.
716
00:41:09.639 --> 00:41:11.800
And so I had to explain that one and told
717
00:41:11.820 --> 00:41:13.719
them they needed to watch that show.
718
00:41:13.739 --> 00:41:14.840
Oh, my gosh. Yes.
719
00:41:14.900 --> 00:41:17.119
I think that they will watch that.
720
00:41:17.139 --> 00:41:17.340
Yeah.
721
00:41:17.769 --> 00:41:19.969
Watch that one because that is a spooky one.
722
00:41:21.159 --> 00:41:24.179
She referenced that, right? Because she asked you that because
723
00:41:24.199 --> 00:41:28.300
the last week, the previous week, when we had Ranger
724
00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:31.840
Bruce Bittner on our show, oh my gosh, that was
725
00:41:31.900 --> 00:41:32.820
such a fun episode.
726
00:41:32.840 --> 00:41:34.639
That was really fun.
727
00:41:35.139 --> 00:41:39.280
What was interesting was he himself was describing how he
728
00:41:39.340 --> 00:41:43.349
was haunted in this old historic mansion. And while he
729
00:41:43.389 --> 00:41:47.010
was on duty and you know, his first-hand account. So
730
00:41:47.030 --> 00:41:48.570
that was really cool. But the whole time he was
731
00:41:48.630 --> 00:41:53.150
describing this place and this mansion, this old historic Civil
732
00:41:53.190 --> 00:41:58.590
War-era mansion, I pictured the ghost in Mr. Chicken. And
733
00:41:58.610 --> 00:42:01.110
so I bet you did, too. I don't know what
734
00:42:01.150 --> 00:42:02.880
you had going on. I did. Yeah. So if you
735
00:42:02.889 --> 00:42:04.820
haven't already listened to that, please go back and listen
736
00:42:04.840 --> 00:42:08.460
to that. It's a really fun spooky story. Well, okay.
737
00:42:08.500 --> 00:42:12.840
We've got one more spooky story coming up. And that'll
738
00:42:12.860 --> 00:42:16.500
be it for spooky. Oh! Oh! Okay, I want to
739
00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:19.739
share this, and hopefully people have made it to the
740
00:42:19.820 --> 00:42:23.260
end here, because this is exciting stuff. We have just
741
00:42:23.300 --> 00:42:27.420
started the process in 2027. I know it sounds like
742
00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:29.000
a long ways away, but it's going to take us
743
00:42:29.039 --> 00:42:30.599
a long time to get it all together, but we've
744
00:42:30.619 --> 00:42:33.469
already started it. We are going to have, we, Crime
745
00:42:33.489 --> 00:42:39.090
Off the Grid, we are sponsoring, holding a 5K Fun Run.
746
00:42:39.289 --> 00:42:41.510
We haven't come up with a title yet. Please send
747
00:42:41.590 --> 00:42:44.150
us something, if you can think of a good title
748
00:42:44.210 --> 00:42:48.349
for our race. at West Yellowstone, Montana. It's going to
749
00:42:48.409 --> 00:42:51.469
kick off spooky season the beginning of October. It's a
750
00:42:51.610 --> 00:42:54.769
great time to come see Yellowstone National Park. I mean,
751
00:42:54.809 --> 00:42:58.730
the elk are just plentiful. It's a beautiful time to come.
752
00:42:59.230 --> 00:43:02.389
So plan your Yellowstone trip and do this fun run,
753
00:43:02.949 --> 00:43:08.860
which we're strongly encouraging costumes. It may or may not
754
00:43:08.980 --> 00:43:12.360
be spooky. It's going to be spooky, but you may
755
00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:16.780
or may not actually get scared. But We've already started
756
00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:19.519
the process with the permit and I walked with the
757
00:43:19.559 --> 00:43:23.099
Forest Service a week ago and we plotted out the course.
758
00:43:23.880 --> 00:43:27.690
That's all set. So things are in place and just
759
00:43:27.730 --> 00:43:30.489
wanted you to know, put a pencil, pencil us in
760
00:43:30.630 --> 00:43:34.429
for our spooky fun run. Next year, the first weekend
761
00:43:34.449 --> 00:43:37.449
of October, plan your Yellowstone trip. Lots of stuff to
762
00:43:37.489 --> 00:43:40.610
do in West Yellowstone, Montana, right there on the boundary
763
00:43:40.659 --> 00:43:43.480
of Yellowstone National Park. The race is going to be
764
00:43:44.119 --> 00:43:48.500
at the Rendezvous Nordic Ski Trails. So anyway, it's going
765
00:43:48.519 --> 00:43:51.559
to be fun. It's going to be spooky and lots
766
00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:53.530
of stuff is going to be going on. So we
767
00:43:53.550 --> 00:43:55.489
just wanted to kind of throw that out there. If
768
00:43:55.510 --> 00:43:59.230
you're thinking about when should I come see Yellowstone? Next October.
769
00:43:59.750 --> 00:44:00.949
That would be the time.
770
00:44:00.989 --> 00:44:04.380
That's right. Yes. So we will get everything out. I
771
00:44:04.429 --> 00:44:08.699
think we'll get a registration open up probably late winter,
772
00:44:09.860 --> 00:44:12.429
getting it started and into the spring. And so, You know,
773
00:44:12.730 --> 00:44:15.269
all the details will be coming out soon. All right. Well,
774
00:44:15.329 --> 00:44:18.510
that's it for this episode. Stay safe in wild and
775
00:44:18.530 --> 00:44:21.090
spooky places and watch out for the company you keep.
776
00:44:21.670 --> 00:44:23.610
And if you see something, say something.
777
00:44:57.480 --> 00:44:57.670
Thank you.