0107 | Rogue Wave

♪ Crown coins to C.O. ♪ Winning never sounded so good. What would you do if you won big? At Crown Coins Casino, real people win real prizes every single day. Hi, this is Michael from Dallas, and I won 40K and finally renovated my home. Visit crowncoins.com, sign up in seconds, enter code Crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus. You may win up to 10,000 sweeps coins. Crowncoins.com, that's C-R-O-W-N coins.com. No purchase needed. Code Val for new users on Void were prohibited by law. 18+ terms and conditions applied. Crown coins to C-R-O-W. This is a studio, both, and production. If you'd like to support this show and get ad-free episodes for as little as $2 a month, go to patreon.com/studio, both, and. I don't see it. I know you've talked about closure and things like that, but I don't see it from that point of view. That's not how you're looking at it. No, because hypothetically speaking, someone else is missing. Would everybody rather just believe that they're just missing or think that something horribly terrible happened? I feel better off thinking they're on a beach somewhere in Mexico than knowing they were horribly raped and murdered. Well, nobody needs to hear it. People don't need to hear it. This is True Crime bullshit. I'm your host, Josh Hallmark. And this is a serialized story of Israel keys. Here's what we know about Israel's Washington State couple. They were either taken from or buried in Washington. They were buried in or near a valley. It was a male, female couple. One of them was killed with blunt force trauma while is was trying to subdue them. This double homicide took place after the birth of his daughter in October of 2001, but before July 2006. And these were likely his second and third homicides. The FBI has also stated that Isis victims range an age from their late teens to the elderly. And this was likely the first of several attacks or attempted attacks on couples. He seems to have a thing about couples, even if it's all made up. He seems to have a thing about killing couples. And so you would definitely want to look at his background. What's the deal with couples? What's he so angry about? And we do have him certainly with a girlfriend with him. He had a child, but he was in another relationship with a woman. So it wasn't as if he had resentment against couples because he was failing. But there certainly is something about couples that draws him and speaks to something in his fantasy life. And I wish I could tell you we haven't answered that, but I don't because a lot of his background is pretty murky. We have general broad strokes, but we really don't have specifics as to how to link. We have three distinct couples related to his victimology. And it's important to try to figure out what that's about. And it's hard to do that 'cause he's dead. And his family's not speaking much about it. But there's something there because that's a very unusual victim type. - The frustrating thing about Israel keys is that most likely we will never know absolutely who his victims were unless we find their remains. And even then, we may never know for certain. We can speculate, but there is no absolute in speculation. However, sometimes in true crime, speculation can reinvigorate law enforcement and sometimes even reopen cases. So much like in all other things true crime, the ethics of speculation can be a bit murky. All that said, there are handful of missing persons I strongly believe to be victims of keys. And this is the story of two of those missing people. Depot Bay sits on the Oregon coast, 350 miles south on Highway 101 from NIA Bay. It's where state and high school students Camille Volendroth and Eugene Hyatt vacationed with Eugene's family for Thanksgiving in 2001. Eugene had just turned 18 and Camille's 17th birthday was just several weeks away. Eugene's family had rented a condo at the Thundering Shores condominiums, less than a quarter mile down Highway 101 from the Boiler Bay State Park. Boiler Bay is a rugged and rocky beach full of tidal pools with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. The park itself sits above the bay on a small peninsula along the highway. As a scenic viewpoint, with several scattered picnic benches, a public bathroom and a parking lot for about 20 cars. The only real beach access in the area is about a quarter mile north along the highway at an unmarked gravel highway turn off. It's fairly discreet in that you can't see the beach from the highway, so you'd have to know it was there to find it. At around 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, November 21st, Eugene and Camille told Eugene's grandfather, Earl, that they were thinking about taking a walk to the tidal pools near Boiler Bay, just north of the condo. When Earl got into the shower shortly thereafter, he could still hear the couple talking, but by the time he got out, they had left the condo. Earl figured they wouldn't be gone long because they had plans to go to the store together later that day. When the teens didn't return in time for that store run, Earl just assumed they'd lost track of time and went without them. It wasn't until 5 p.m. when Eugene and Camille hadn't returned for dinner that the family grew concerned. And at 1146 that night, Earl called 911. He told the 911 dispatcher that he feared the teens had been swept out to sea. And this fairly logical presumption, unfortunately, seemed to have given the local police tunnel vision. Well, eventually. According to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office case file, local police didn't respond to the call until the following morning. At 8 a.m., Deputy Rick Valentine made his first contact with Earl. And then immediately contacted both the Depot Bay Fire Department and the Coast Guard. Eugene and Camille were also both entered into the law enforcement data systems database as missing persons. The police did a preliminary search of Boiler Bay State Park later that day, which didn't reveal any information regarding the whereabouts of Camille or Eugene. And at 12.30 that afternoon, they released a seven sentence press release, which merely stated that the teens had gone for a walk near the tide pools at around 10 a.m. and never returned. It then described Eugene as being five foot nine and 160 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. And Camille as five foot seven and 127 pounds, also with brown hair and brown eyes. - You asking what type of people have a picker? - Yeah, what type or whether there's a way. - We didn't really have a type. I had preference, but that wasn't what's the preference. - Well, lightweight. - Is that because of attraction or because of disposal? - Yeah, it's kind of makes it easier. - Okay. - And with very little response. On Friday, November 23rd, the police sent out the following updated press release. Lincoln County Sheriff's Deputies have been unable to locate the two missing teens who had been reported missing by family members on November 21st, 2001 at about 11.30 p.m. after leaving for a walk near the ocean that morning. Eugene H. Hyatt, age 18, and Camille Volendroff, age 16, went for a walk at about 10 a.m. on November 21st, 2001 near the tide pools at Poehler Bay State Park, just north of Depot Bay. Family members notified authorities when they failed to return. Eugene Hyatt is described as five feet nine inches tall, weighing 160 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a white sweatshirt with a state in the Eagles logo on the front. Camille Volendroff is described as five feet seven inches tall and weighing 127 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a white sweatshirt and black shiny pants. At the time the teens were reported missing, they were entered into the national and state law enforcement databases as missing and endangered. Local law enforcement and fire personnel were notified as well as the US Coast Guard. The US Coast Guard has conducted a helicopter search of the area with negative results. Sheriff's Deputies are following up on any information received about the missing teens, but it received little information. It is feared that high waves surges swept the teens away into the ocean. The conditions of the surf at the shoreline in that area are extremely treacherous. Yesterday, November 22, 2001 at about 3.35 pm, a man wearing a bright yellow ranger was witnessed being swept off the rocks by a wave. A witness immediately reported the information via cell phone. The caller was still on the phone when he watched the man get back up onto the rocks. The man appeared all right. No further information is available at this time. the Coast Guard was advised at the time of the report. Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Eugene Hyatt or Cammy Vaughan dropped is asked to contact Lincoln County Sheriff's Office. Now there are few inconsistencies and oddities that stand out to me in this press release. The biggest is that according to the case files sent to me by the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, the only helicopter search ever mentioned was conducted on November 25th, two days after this press release went out. And it's entirely possible that there was a transcription error or that the helicopter search on the 25th was the second one conducted. It just seems odd that were that the case that an entire Coast Guard helicopter search would have somehow never made it into the case file. The release also mentions a man being swept off the rocks at 3.35 pm on Thanksgiving afternoon and that the man was backed up on the rocks unharmed within minutes. According to the area as tied charts at the time, 3.35 pm would have been peak high tide at a height of around 7 feet. While 10 am had one of the lowest tides of the day at around 2.5 feet, and while I am by no means a title expert, it seems very unlikely that two people could be swept off the same rocks and disappear into the sea at low tide. When at high tide the following day, a single person recovered from a fall within minutes. But more on that later. According to the case file, there was no additional activity on the case until November 25th, when helicopter and ground searches were conducted four days after their disappearance. During the search, the search and rescue team recovered a single tennis shoe about a quarter mile north from where the teens were believed to have gone missing. Eugene's stepfather id the shoe as Eugene's. And at 7.30 that night, a third press release went out highlighting the search and the recovered shoe. These would be the final press releases and search conducted. The case was suspended that day and went cold. Now, here are a few important things to note about the disappearance of Eugene and Cammy. After they left their Deepo Bay condo shortly after 10am on the 21st, they were never seen again. There were no eye witnesses who saw them at Boiler Bay State Park or anywhere along Highway 101 that day. It's about a three minute point two mile walk from the condo to the park itself. The walk would have taken them briefly down Highway 101 along a field. And then down a park exit road, which travels parallel to the highway at a decline. The majority of this road cannot be seen from the highway nor the main parking area of the state park. At the time of their disappearance, the land across the highway was all forested and considered part of Boiler Bay State Park. There's now a micro neighborhood on this land, but according to Zillow, it wasn't finished with construction until 2005. So at most, there was an empty construction site. And according to Boiler Bay's website, it sees about 530,000 visitors annually. And while I couldn't find any specific data for its month-to-month attendance, it is generally well trafficked. Based on Earl's account, the teens most likely went missing in a fairly small window between 10, 15am and noon. And more likely than not, whatever happened to Eugene and Cammy happened within the state park. It was always surprising, you know, like some situations you read about in the paper, like so-and-so disappeared, presumed boating accident, for example. They find their boat. You don't know what really happened to that person. I would let them come to me, just remote area, kind of later remote area that's not anywhere near where you live, but that other people go to as well. You might not get exactly what you're not much to choose from in a manner of speaking, but there's also no witnesses, really. There's nobody else around. And then when they disappear, a lot of times nobody's really surprised. That happens all the time. Stocking through the woods and see somebody in the woods, they don't see you. You sit there and watch them for a while, I can remember doing that from time I was 13 or 14 years old. About five months after their disappearance, the case briefly reactivated when human remains were discovered at a nearby beach. DNA tests, however, quickly ruled out Kami and Eugene as matches. And as quickly as the case was reactivated, it went cold again. All the while, on behalf of Kami's family, the Interstate Association for Stolen Children was urging the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office to keep the case open and active. Kami's family was unhappy with the investigation and wanted further explanation. It was clear that they weren't entirely convinced that the teens had been swept out to see. Here's Kami's grandmother in an interview with the local CBS news. There was a pretty big storm evidently, they think that the wave washed them off into the ocean. The Coast Guard told us that it was so rare for two people to go in the water and not one body come back out. I reached out to the Coast Guard about that clip, but they declined to comment. So I did some research of my own, and this is what I could find. In 2001, about 73% of all Coast Guard rescues were successful. Between 2000 and 2006, the lowest mortality rate amongst Coast Guard responses was for sure related incidents. Nationwide, only about 100 people drowned after being sucked out to sea and riptides every year. I also wanted to find out what exactly would have happened had Kami and Eugene been swept out to sea by some rogue wave during low tide. According to widely agreed upon analysis reported by Jamie McMahon of the Monterey Naval Post Graduate School and included in a 2010 edition of Marine Geology magazine, 90% of rip currents flow in huge circles, from the shallows, out through the breakers, and back to the shallows again, every few minutes. So based on this data, it's likely that had both Eugene and Kami been swept out to sea. Their bodies would have eventually circulated back to shore, much like the remains found nearby in 2002. So I think when Ted was asking about the owl, I think he wasn't referring to so much to you saying to someone, "Hey, if anybody asks, I was here, but more, like ahead of time telling maybe telling someone, hypothetically, you were going somewhere, but actually going somewhere else." I mean, was that. Oh, right. Yeah. Take trips to Eastern Washington, say I was going to see old friends or go to see the old place in Eastern Washington. McGorgan. Well. Despite please from Kami's family, the case remained cold until late 2004. When in September, a friend of Kami's was at a bachelor party with her boyfriend. While there, she was flipping through a magazine and saw the photo of a girl who looked strikingly like Kami. She showed the photo to her boyfriend to agree, and the pair took the magazine to Kami's mother and grandmother, who were convinced the photo was in fact Kami. They reached out to Carmen Fontana of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, also known as Nick Mac, where Carmen began working with Lincoln County Sheriff's Officer Ralph Tury. Fontana and Tury identified the photo from SFX magazine as being an ad for strip clubs, dating services, and phone girls. The ad listed the girl's name as Cindy and included a Portland area telephone number and the caption, "Notty or Nice." Very open-minded. Fontana was able to track the phone number back to four different Portland area businesses, magical moments, four play entertainment, Karen L. Jones and Associates, and American Christian Enterprises. Tury ran an additional search of the phone number and found that it was listed to a Gary Mullen in Portland, Oregon. Tury also found the website for four-play entertainment, which featured photos of nude women who were available for play. Tury wasn't able to find the woman who looked like Kami or anyone named Cindy for that matter. On September 9, Tury called the number listed in the ad in SFX magazine. When a woman answered, he asked to speak to Cindy. The woman merely told him to call back in five to ten minutes and then hung up on him. When he called back, the same woman answered only this time on what appeared to be a mobile or cordless phone, as the connection sounded distant. Tury explained the nature of his call and told the woman about the ad. She said she would get in touch with Cindy and have him call her. Cindy never called. Later that day, Tury contacted Gary Mullen. Mullen stated that the image of Cindy in his advertisement in SFX magazine was a stock image, and that he had obtained it from SFX magazine about two or three years prior. Mullen explained that the publisher of SFX hires people to pull images off of the internet to use as stock photos for ads. Mullen said that he no longer had the imprinted image that tells where and when the image was first obtained, but referred to Tury to the publisher of SFX, Christopher Lloyd Barron. Tury called Lloyd Barron the following morning and left him a voicemail. And before ever hearing back from him, he called Fontana at Nick Meck and let him know that they'd hit a dead end and were closing the case. And on September 15th, the case was officially closed by the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office. [Music] Winning never sounded so good. Hi, this is Michael from Dallas and I won 40K and finally renovated my home. You may win up to 10,000 sweepscoins. CrownCoins.com, that's C-R-O-W-N Coins.com, no purchase needed. 18+ Terms at Edition Splash. [Music] Christopher Lloyd Barron called back the next day. He said that the photos are generally stock images obtained from all over the internet, but that he had a computer program that could get a lot of the identifying information off of the photo, and that he would locate as much info on the photo and the girl in it as possible. However, this call didn't prompt the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office to reopen the case. And there's no further information or communication with Lloyd Barron included in the case file. [Music] I did, however, track down Christopher Lloyd Barron and emailed him. He responded almost immediately, saying, "Sorry, Josh, nothing remains on that search. Often advertisers would give us picks to use. I suspect it was in the Escort section and I had no input on that. Best of luck." I also reached out to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, and as of today, January 17th, I have yet to hear back. And with that, the girl who was definitely swept out to sea, or maybe sex traffic, was definitely essentially forgotten by law enforcement. And while the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office responds to this as incredibly frustrating, it's not entirely without reason, and I am being very generous when I say that. Most American victims of sex trafficking are runaways and other at-risk youth. The average age of American sex trafficking victims is 12 to 14. And most of those victims are recruited through coercion and manipulation. These statistics don't in any way exclude kidnappings, but those are more the exception than the rule, which shouldn't ever, in any way, prevent a thorough police investigation. In my opinion, though, the photo of Cindy doesn't even look like Cammy. And then what about planning like the Washington State over those highly planned organizations? Yeah. Washington was a lot easier in a lot of ways, because once I lived out in NIA Bay, I knew all of Washington pretty well, and except I was so isolated out there, once you drive past Port Angeles, it's like hearing a new oral anyways. What's that whole park? There's a whole set of mountains right there, right? That's everything in here, Bay. Yeah, the Olympic grain, there's mountains everywhere out there. You seem adamant that there's no possible federal nexus of the Washington cases, and I'm just shocked because knowing the peninsula, like we do, there's so much federal land out there, especially with the National Forest National Parks, and you know, my understanding then would be that nothing's happened on those type of lands. Are we correct in understanding that, or? No, I just didn't. I didn't know that would qualify as a federal crime. Well, if it's a National Park or National Forest, we could have jurisdiction on a felony. So, see, all this stuff is illegal details on it, but that's good now, but that's a possibility. When is first moved to NIA Bay? He wasn't able to travel much. He didn't have much money, he had just started his new job with the McCaw Tribe, and he was about to become a father. And according to his, Tammy was keeping him on a pretty tight leash. However, Tammy could recall one week-long trip, the two took together just two months before the disappearance of Tammy and Eugene. Tammy had to travel for work to Ocean Shore's Washington. Is hadn't gotten the job yet with the McCaw Tribe, so he went along with her. In an interview with the FBI, Tammy said that she was at work during the five-day trip, and so is was left to his own devices. Ocean Shore's is a small coastal town on the Quenalt Reservation at the base of the Olympic Mountains on the Washington Peninsula. It's about equidistant between NIA Bay and Depot Bay, and just 40 miles to the east in the Olympic National Park is what could be considered the most pronounced and accessible Valley in all of Washington State. Where Highway 101 passes Lake Quenalt in the remote and isolated Quenalt Valley, across the state line and on the way from Depot Bay to NIA Bay, a valley that exists almost entirely on federal land. The thing about speculation is you never know who it's going to affect and how. And maybe is is right. Maybe it's better to believe your loved ones are sitting on a beach somewhere. I'm not sure what's worse, to believe your loved one was killed by a rogue wave, or that they're alive but only because they've been sex trafficked. But both seem significantly easier to live with than the idea that your loved one was kidnapped, brutally raped, and buried along some remote highway. I don't see it. Would everybody rather just believe that they're just missing or think that something horribly terrible happened to us? I'll tell you what the experts say. I mean the experts, you know, that's what people believe. The experts will say that they're better off knowing than missing. I know I sure wouldn't want to know that. That's what they say, that everybody's better off knowing. Well nobody needs to hear it. People don't need to hear about the horrible detail that I'm necessarily right. They want to know is my son, daughter, loved one, the dead or alive. That's what they want to know. But that's not all they're going to get. If it's tied to me, if my name's tied to it. But you control those details. I initially struggled a lot on whether to reach out to the families of Cammy and Eugene. But I don't think it's my place to share my speculation with grieving families. It seems irresponsible, unethical. I have tried to reach the FBI multiple times with no response. So my hope for now is that someone is listening. And that perhaps this speculation might reinvigorate law enforcement. Like I said, the ethics of speculation are murky. And the aftermath can be so far reaching and circuitous. They say rogue waves present considerable danger for several reasons. They're rare, unpredictable, may appear suddenly or without warning, and can impact with tremendous force. True crime bullshit is researched, written, and produced by me, your host, Josh Hallmark. Special thanks to Dr. Catherine Ramzlin for her psychological insight and Steven Papis for bringing the press release to life. This episode featured music by William Hellfire, Radical Face, Sergei Chermissanov, Laban, Kevin MacLeod, Dana Boulay, and Keaton Henson. [Music] Here's to me, I'm on the edge of my seat, bound to fall, but I'm hoping you fall into me. Here's to us, here's to the ties that I've cut, long way, here's to the eyes that I've shut. Here's to my soul, here's to the weight of my gold, here's to the words that I've sold, here's to the cold, deep in my bones, here's to my door, here's to records that no one would be for, songs that I wrote in godly. Here's to me, here's to my soul, here's to my soul, here's to my soul, here's to my soul, here's to my soul, here's to my soul, here's to my soul, here's to my soul,