ENOUGH: I’m Exposing What’s REALLY Happening in National Parks

I'm exposing what's really going on inside National Parks, and I'm going to do it by telling you three horrifying and true stories that Park Rangers want you to forget about. And by the way, this is not a new phenomenon, it's been going on for decades, and this will not be the last episode where I expose what's happening to hikers and visitors alike in American National Parks. So be sure to hit the follow button so you don't miss the next one, and please help us reach our ambitious goal of hitting 1,000 5 star reviews. We have a long ways to go, but if you all take two seconds to leave a 5 star review right now, I know we're going to get there. On October 21st, 1996, Park Ranger David Brenner was conducting some routine aerial surveillance over Death Valley National Park when he noticed an incredibly strange sight down on the ground. In the Valley of Annville Canyon, there was a seemingly abandoned minivan, I mean, just sitting there. So he sees this from the sky, and as soon as he saw it, by the way, this Ranger knew that something had to have gone wrong, and that this vehicle needed to be investigated immediately. And so he landed his small plane nearby, and he walked over to check out this van. Now, as I mentioned in the intro, the area that this minivan was located in is incredibly remote, it's rugged, and especially in the summertime, I mean, it's extremely dangerous. I'm sure many of you already know this, or perhaps you've heard this, but Death Valley is known for being literally the hottest place on Earth. It's totally unforgiving, and it's claimed many, many lives over the years. So back to this minivan, it turned out to be a green Plymouth Voyager, and the road that it was found on, I mean, you can't even really call it a road, I mean, it was basically an abandoned path that had not been used in years. The road was also located within a designated wilderness area, which meant that vehicles were prohibited from traveling on it. And with that said, however, it's not exactly unheard of for folks to ignore the law and ride there like recreational or four-wheel drive vehicles in these remote areas. Obviously, that does happen. Again, this wasn't a side-by-side, this wasn't a four-wheeler. I mean, this vehicle didn't even have four-wheel drive, it was just a standard minivan. It was like a soccer mom van, essentially, right? It's pretty much the last type of vehicle that you would expect to find on a long-sense abandoned remote dirt road. Whoever had driven the van to this location must have been either extremely skilled at driving or extremely lucky to have made it that far down the abandoned path. I mean, by conventional wisdom, it would have seemed pretty much impossible for this van to be where it was without it basically being air-dropped by a plane or a helicopter or something. But obviously, that's ridiculous. It was clear at the scene that the van had not been air-dropped and had somehow traveled through the rough terrain all the way until its final resting place. And we know this because three out of the four tires on the van were completely flat, and it was just stuck there in the sand. So Ranger Brenner, who found this van, recorded the license plate, he reported it, and it's at this point in the story that the details behind this mysterious van began to unravel, at least some of these details. So they ran the plates of this abandoned minivan, and they found out that it was a rental. In fact, it had actually been reported stolen out of Los Angeles by its owner, which was dollar car rentals, and it was reported stolen about a month-ish before it was discovered. So naturally, the question is, who were the last people to have the car before it disappeared, and the last people that had rented it were actually a group of German tourists. They were 34-year-old Egbert Rimkiss, his 11-year-old son, George Weber, Egbert's 28-year-old girlfriend, named Cornelia Connie Mayer, and then her four-year-old son, named Max Mayer. Now the Germans had been supposed to return the rental car on July 26th, but despite not doing this, not returning it, the rental car company actually waited over a month before they finally reported it stolen. So the fact that they never returned the car was obviously very concerning, but what was even more concerning potentially was that the Germans had booked a return flight out of Los Angeles on July 27th, but they never boarded this flight. They never showed up, and no other flight records or any indication that they had left the United States was ever found. So using the very few clues available to them, the authorities began piecing together the German group's timeline, I mean they were trying to understand how their vehicle had ended up in such a remote and desolate place. So they did all this research, and here's basically what they found. The Germans had landed in Los Angeles on July 8th, rented that minivan, and then spent about a week sightseeing around San Clemente, California. They actually found a camera roll, like a film camera roll inside the van, and so they developed those photos, and through this investigators discovered that the Germans had traveled to Los Vegas next, and then they went on to Death Valley National Park. By the time they got there, the date was July 22nd, which is quite literally the hottest time of the year in the hottest place on Earth. Inside of the minivan investigators also found a few opened and unopened bottles of Bud Ice Beer. They found some camping equipment, they found a few bank cards, and they found several empty, completely empty containers for water. They continued to piece together the Germans timeline, and thanks to a few remote log books the group had signed out in the National Park, investigators were able to determine that on July 23rd, the Germans had tried to drive an extremely rough road over Mengel Pass. We don't know exactly what happened here, but we do know that they couldn't make it, and so they eventually changed directions, and headed down into Anvil Canyon, which is where their vehicle eventually gave out on them. The estimated temperature for the area that day was a high of 107 degrees Fahrenheit, or roughly 42 degrees Celsius. By October 23rd, as investigators were still piecing everything together mind you, a search was finally launched, or more likely at that point, I think it would be safe to say it was a body recovery mission, unfortunately, and on this search, it didn't take very long before another important clue was discovered, and searches probably felt that they would be closing out the mystery of the Death Valley Germans very quickly at this point. On this search, they found an empty bud ice beer bottle, roughly 1.7 miles east of where the minivan was abandoned. The scene kind of looked like someone had sat down next to this bush, probably to try to get some shade, because again this is the desert, it's super hot, there's no trees or anything is my understanding, so they sat down, and maybe they drank this beer, or they had it with them, and then they just kind of left it there. This recovered beer bottle was matched with the other beer bottles that were found in the minivan, so they didn't believe it was a coincidence, they were pretty confident that it was left there by somebody who was in that van. Though this was definitely a promising initial clue, it was pretty much the only clue that the first search discovered. And by the way, this first search was a massive effort. I'm talking over 200 people searching multiple helicopters, I mean they had horses, and they spent roughly equivalent to $150,000 in today's money, and yet no sign of the Germans was found. So this case is obviously super strange so far, and just very perplexing, and because of that, it received quite a bit of news media attention at the time, and because of that, in the years that followed 1996, a number of search and rescue teams, as well as just private individuals, conducted their own unofficial searches. On these searches, a few potential clues were found, mainly a discarded sleeping bag, and two alleged German canteens, but these clues were never definitively tied to the missing Germans. And so as tends to happen in cases like this, as the case grew colder and colder and more time went by theories and speculation obviously grew stronger and stronger. One theory was that Ekber Rimkiss wanted to sneak onto the nearby China Lake Naval Airweapon Station, and in the process of doing this, he basically ended up being disappeared by the government after maybe seeing something that he shouldn't have, I don't know about that. Another theory was that they ran into some sort of foul play while driving through the backcountry. and then their bodies were disposed of and the van was ditched as a result. Again, I don't know. Some people even believed that they were abducted by aliens. I mean, I'm telling you, there was all sorts of wild stuff going around. In fact, one of the most popular conspiracy theories, I guess, if you could even call it that, was that the Germans had pulled off an elaborate scheme to, like, stage their disappearance and then run off to start new lives. Apparently, Egbert had been going through some, like, custody troubles with his ex-wife back in Germany, which I guess would have given him a possible motive to run off like this. And he also apparently had been talking a lot before he disappeared about, like, up and moving to Costa Rica or something. So I don't know. There were all these theories and, you know, the case was getting a lot of attention, but no, like, hard evidence or even soft evidence for that matter of any of these conspiracy theories existed. But with that said, there is, of course, one more theory that could have explained the disappearance of the Death Valley Germans. And this theory wouldn't have been popular with the folks, you know, going through these wild theories and stuff, but it was probably the most obvious explanation. This theory held that the Germans had simply made some bad decisions, gotten lost as a result then the van broke down and then they had no choice but to try to walk through the desert back to safety and, well, they died while doing that. However, skeptics argued that this was basically impossible because of how thoroughly the area had been searched following their disappearance. I mean, if they were still in the desert within walking distance, of course, from the abandoned van, surely they would have been found, right? Well, according to a man named Tom Mahood, the answer to that question was, no, not necessarily. Tom Mahood theorized that the bodies were still, in fact, out there. In over 10 years after the case had gone cold, he set out on foot himself to prove it. At the beginning of the video, I told you this was like two different stories wrapped up into one. Well, this is the start of the second part, I guess, of this overall story. Tom Mahood was a private citizen who, in 2008, became oddly obsessed with the case of the missing Death Valley Germans. My understanding is that the case inspired him to join a local volunteer search and rescue team called Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit, like the year after he discovered the case where he then began honing his search skills and also picking the brains of other members of the search and rescue team about the case. Tom Mahood then spent most of 2009 researching about the Germans and their disappearance, hoping that he would somehow uncover some new information that hadn't been readily available in the media and at this point online. Mahood felt as though something was missing in the public reporting about this case. He just felt like there had to be more, something just wasn't right. And so he just started digging. He dug and dug, he spent countless hours pouring over topography maps of the area before finally setting out to visit the minivan site himself in October of 2009. Tom Mahood was able to obtain the GPS coordinates of where the van was found and also he was able to get the coordinates of where the empty bottle of beer was found further down the trail. He parked at the remote and volcanic and then he set out like I said earlier on foot through this desolate desert. He eventually reached the location of the van which had long since been removed by the way obviously and he then climbed up to a vantage point to take some photos later saying quote, "As I climbed up on the bank of the wash to the south to take overall pictures, it suddenly struck me that Egbert probably did the same thing and was at the same spot on the bank to get an overview of where they were." It was a very eerie feeling. Tom Mahood then continued on to the bottle site before eventually returning back to his car, handed up hiking about 12 miles in 7 hours and this is some hard hiking by the way. And even though he was exhausted by the end, this initial visit to the desert would prove to be incredibly useful for him. He didn't discover any new clues necessarily, but simply just placing himself in the exact same spot that the Germans had been before they disappeared, this is incredible. It allowed him, in a sense I guess, to kind of put himself in their shoes. He quote, "soaked up the ambience of the area and he also took a first hand look at what the Germans were dealing with when their van eventually gave out on them." A few days after Mahood returned home, his hike through the desert ended up paying off big time, because suddenly, a very promising theory, one that fit with all the known information in all the clues, well, it kind of just jumped out to him. Tom Mahood said quote, "On October 29th, only two days after my hike, I was at home looking at an overall map of Death Valley. Like viewing one of those optical illusions where an image suddenly pops out, everything just fell into place and became visible." I suddenly saw a way the Germans could have ended up in Anvilcanyon through a series of reasonable honest mistakes. So he comes up with this theory, and by the way, this theory was incredibly detailed and honestly, incredibly complicated, especially if you're not really familiar with this area. So there were basically two unknown questions that Mahood had to kind of formulate a theory around. These questions were number one, why did the Germans van end up where it did? In second of all, what the hell happened to them after the van broke down. Mahood knew that the Germans had purchased a Death Valley guidebook that apparently highlighted several routes through the desert that weren't exactly suitable for a minivan to put it lightly. We thought that it seemed likely that the Germans didn't understand how bad the roads would be, and so they kind of set out and made it all the way to Mengelpass before realizing they couldn't go any further and then turning around. But rather than just retracing the route that they came in on, they were looking at the map and decided to take a gamble in order to save some time on their trip, which caused them to eventually turn onto Anvilcanyon Road. They had been in the United States for a little while at this point. Their trip was coming to an end, but they still wanted to go see Yosemite National Park after leaving Death Valley, and they probably feared that they would run out of time to make this last trip if they had to kind of retrace their steps and drive out the way that they came in. And so, yeah, they took a gamble. They went on this road that was extremely rough, and they went as far as they could, but eventually the van's tires, they gave out, and the group was essentially stranded in the desert in the middle of the summer. The Hood believed that after the van broke down, Egbert then walked the roughly 1.7 miles down Anvilcanyon to try and like formulate a plan, I guess. And on this walk, he eventually stopped to try to sit in the shade next to this little bush and apparently drank a beer. He then left the bottle at this location and hiked back to the van, which is where the group apparently would have spent the night. He believes that the group spent at least one night at the van because catholes were found nearby, which if you don't know what that means, it basically means they'd been digging holes to go to the bathroom, which indicates that they were at that location for at least some extended period of time. So that explains why they ended up where they did, where the van broke down. But it doesn't explain where they went next or what happened, how they disappeared. And so let's get into that part of Mahood's theory now. Mahood believes that Egbert noticed the China Lake Naval Weapons Center on his map of the Death Valley area. Now in Germany or just in Europe, in general, I guess, military installations like this are routinely patrolled on foot. And so Egbert would have assumed that if he could reach China Lake, he would encounter soldiers or guards, something like that that could help out the stranded family. And this is obviously a very reasonable assumption for an international traveler in the US. But unfortunately, there were basically two main problems with this assumption. Most of all, the China Lake Naval Weapons Center's property was not patrolled. And second of all, it was a treacherous nine mile off trail bushwack in order to get there on foot. And with limited information at their disposal, the Germans probably underestimated just how dangerous this trek would be. And thus, the morning after they crashed the van, they locked it, and then they headed south on foot through the scorching desert into the last area that had not been searched after their disappearance. So that's essentially all of Mahood's theory. Again, I kind of dumbed it down a little bit and you can read that blog to learn more. But after coming up with this theory, he plotted out a few potential southbound routes that the Germans might have taken on foot. And then, on November 11th, 2009, Mahood and one of his fellow search and rescue buddies named Les Walker set out on a multi-night journey to try and cover these tracks. Tom Mahood had his theory at this point and so this trip was now the time to put it to test. So the men spent the first day kind of hiking in and finding and gathering water and then setting up like a base camp to kind of come back to every night and so they do this and then the next morning they wake up and they just started searching right. They were eager to cover as much ground as they could in the limited amount of time that they had. They picked one of the routes and then the two men spread out you know roughly a hundred yards away from each other too far to talk you know and so they each had these little radios that they used to communicate. The area that these two men were trying to cover was absolutely massive. So massive in fact that Mahood immediately realized that it would take multiple trips to search as he was kind of looking out over all this terrain and also just in case you needed a reminder the men were miles away from any established trail in an area so remote that there was likely only a few people in history that had ever laid eyes on what they were looking at. The only reason that I even mentioned that is because I just think it's important context to show just how miraculous the next series of events I'm about to tell you about were. So again this is like the very first morning of the search. They get up they start searching around 7 a.m. and then not even two hours later at 8.43 a.m. Tom Mahood heard a radio message from Walker that would blow the mystery of the Death Valley Germans literally wide open. Les Walker had found a discarded wine bottle and this bottle looked quite old. Then Walker found a few pieces of scrap paper and on them were words that were written in you guessed it German and then shortly after this discovery Walker announced over the radio quote Tom we have some bones here at this point Tom Mahood quickly raced down to join Walker and as he was doing this as he was moving over to kind of intercept his location Walker found a wallet and inside this wallet was multiple ID cards and they all bore the name Cornelia Mayor. This confirmed that the two men acting on Mahood's theory had indisputably solved a massive piece of the Death Valley Germans mystery. The men continued searching around and they did find a few more items which included another bud ice beer can that matched the ones that were found in the van and then after all these discoveries obviously they were really onto something and so they decided at this point to hike out and report their findings to the authorities but before they left they actually grabbed Cornelia's IDs in order to prove what they had discovered so they hiked out through this incredibly difficult terrain and eventually they reached their vehicle and they just started speeding straight towards the nearest ranger station. The men would then report their findings and within days the site of those remains would be swarming with investigators, searchers and even FBI agents. Even more items would go on to be recovered over various trips to the site and ultimately the only DNA match on the remains was that of Egbert although it is likely that some of the bones belonged to Cornelia as well I mean that makes sense right especially given her wallet was found at the site. Unfortunately part of this mystery remains all the way up until today because the remains of the children were never found although possibly some of the bones might have appeared to be that of a child we don't really have any conclusive evidence of this but it is certainly a possibility. Mahood would end up going back multiple times after his initial discovery at first to kind of you know assist investigators since he was the one that discovered it and stuff and then later to actually search for more clues. His repeated expeditions into the back country would end up taking a toll on his health and after failing to find any new evidence particularly of the children's fate that's what he was kind of looking for at this point he eventually retired from the case. I used air quotes there because once again Mahood was not acting in any like official capacity during his searches for the death Valley Germans which by the way brings me to a very important point when Mahood and Walker first reported their discovery to the authorities they were actually given kind of an earful they were scolded essentially and the reason for this is because the government does not like the idea of private citizens going out and potentially putting themselves at risk or people that would then have to come rescue them at risk you know just trying to be the hero who solves one of these famous cold cases and I definitely understand that sentiment but with that said Mahood was an experienced hiker he had like actual search and rescue experience and training so he was definitely very well equipped for this challenge however I just got to say unless you yourself fall into that same category I cannot stress this enough you should not under any circumstance take Mahood's story as like inspiration to go out and try to replicate his actions and success again if you're like a search and rescue professional you have all this this experience then you know I can't tell you what to do but if you're not experienced in the backcountry and you do this you're very likely to get into trouble and it could also very likely cost you your life so don't even think about it ultimately it seems as though the death Valley Germans made it roughly halfway to the china lake naval air weapon station before tragically but also unsurprisingly succumbing to either like heat exhaustion or dehydration now of course we're never going to know like their exact reasoning behind you know driving the van to where they did and then all of that but I don't know I still think it's worth noting that you should definitely not ever attempt to follow remote roads that you have no information about or no intel on especially in a place like death Valley in the middle of the summer if you do venture into the wilderness here please bring tons of extra water and leave your plans with somebody just in case something goes wrong and speaking of things going wrong for our next segment you're going to hear what has to be the most unhinged death story in national park history but first make sure you hit that follow button it helps us out at Thomas Spotify and okay let's get into it August 8th 1999 this was a day that park ranger lance matteson would never forget for the rest of his life the heat was absolutely scorching in new mexico's carlsbad caverns national park and in the early afternoon ranger matteson realized that a pair of hikers were long overdue now it's not uncommon for hikers to get lost in national parks most of the time they're found alive and well and go on to make a full recovery but on rare occasions well they pass away during their ordeal often due to heat exhaustion or dehydration ranger matteson probably assumed that one of those two scenarios would play out in front of him once he located these missing hikers but much to his surprise and also to his horror the situation was much much more complicated so complicated in fact that he couldn't have even made it up if he had tried ranger matteson spotted a tent off in the distance and he approached it hoping that the two hikers were inside of it and alive he was even met with some relief when raffi kodakian popped his head out of the tent and begged for water but this relief was quickly crushed at the answer to one simple question that ranger matteson asked him referring to raffi's hiking partner and his best friend david kothlyn ranger matteson asked quote where's your buddy raffi answered quote i killed him the park ranger had stumbled upon a murder scene the likes of which nobody had ever seen before and the reason i say that is not because of how violent raffi's actions were or anything like that but rather because of his motive was it possible that by killing his best friend raffi kodakian was actually doing him a favor buckle up folks because you're about to hear one of the most confusing and honestly heart-wrenching stories in the history of backpacking folks this is the murder of david kothlyn so not only is this a morbidly fascinating story it's also a unique one among the other outdoor murder stories that i've covered on this channel and the reason for that is because there's there's a what would i do factor involved with this story if that makes sense. The line between right and wrong good and evil even, well, it's a little bit blurred. And so as I tell you this story, I want you to think objectively about what you would do if you were in this awful, awful situation. Now I personally do think there's a pretty obvious right and wrong way to handle things here, but I'm gonna do my best to save my opinions for later in the video and just tell you the facts. But with that said, as you hear this story unfold, I think that there's a pretty good chance you're gonna be left with a lot of unanswered questions. I know that I certainly am even after researching extensively for this video. I'll highlight the most obvious unanswered questions to me and I also encourage you to leave your own unanswered questions in the comment section of this video. So without further ado, let's take a virtual trip to the desert of Southern New Mexico. Let's go. Are you ready? Three, two, one. On August 4th, 1999, two best friends arrived at Carl's Bad Caverns National Park. Their names were David Kaplan and Rafi Kodakian and they were in the middle of this cross-country road trip that was supposed to take them from Boston, Massachusetts all the way to Santa Barbara, California. Once they arrived, their Kaplan was supposed to start working towards his master's degree in environmental science at UC Santa Barbara. Kodakian, on the other hand, was simply just along for the ride, right? He was along for the adventure and this was also not his first time on a cross-country road trip either. Two years earlier, he had been working as a freelance writer kind of part-time for the Boston Globe and he actually published multiple articles detailing a 10-week road trip that he had taken through at least half of the states in the United States. Now, I'm not 100% sure why these two men in their 20s chose to stop at Carl's Bad Caverns. I heard that maybe an uncle or relative had recommended it to him. If you do a quick Google Maps search, it shows that the men's route from Boston to California, Southern California, well, it would have taken them through New Mexico, but still not terribly close to where this national park is located. But then again, I don't even know why I'm speculating about this. They were on a road trip after all. The journey was the purpose here. They weren't just focused on the end destination. And so, ultimately, on August 4th, they spoke with a park ranger. They filled out their overnight camping permit, and then they drove their car to the trailhead for the now infamous Rattlesnake Canyon. Perhaps you've heard of it. Now, folks, I've never hiked in Rattlesnake Canyon before, and honestly, after hearing this story, I'm not sure that I ever want to, but my understanding is that for the unprepared hiker, it can be an extremely dangerous place. It's dry, it's windy. I mean, it's the desert after all. It's exposed, and of course, in the summer, it can be extremely hot. Now, these are all dangers that can be pretty easily mitigated, and so I'm not suggesting that any hiker, whoever takes on Rattlesnake Canyon, is like walking right into a death trap. That would be dramatic and ridiculous. But for David Coughlin and Raffi Coda Hicken, that is exactly what they were doing when they parked their car and headed out into the canyon. Because they had been driving all day, the two men got a pretty late start on their hike. They would actually end up only hiking about a mile and a half from their car before stopping to set up camp for the night. That next morning, their plan was to just simply backtrack to their vehicle, retrace their steps, and then having gotten a small taste for Carl's Bad Caverns National Park, continue their drive west towards California. But when the two men started hiking on the morning of August 5th, they quickly found themselves in a dire to put it mildly situation. They couldn't follow the trail that would lead them back to their car, lead them back to safety. They couldn't even find it for that matter. And so they found themselves hopelessly lost in the remote desert with no compass and a dwindling water supply. The pair hiked all day trying to find the trailhead, trying to find their car, but they just couldn't do it, folks. Their water supply was almost gone at this point. And they even resorted to eating cactus fruit to try to like get some sort of moisture in their mouths. This is just a desperate situation. And eventually they resigned to just spending another night in the canyon, clinging on to desperate hope that the next morning, August 6th, they would somehow find their way back. Folks, this did not happen. On August 6th, the nightmare that Kaufflin and Kodohikin were in only became infinitely worse. This was the day that they drank the last of their water supply. And they once again wandered around through the desert floor. They even climbed up to the rim of the canyon. You see, Kodohikin had thought he saw a light maybe like a headlamp or like car lights or something like that. He thought he saw that on the rim the previous night. And because of this, the two men hoped that, you know, if they climbed up to this rim, if they exerted what was left of their dwindling strength, you know, they got up there that they would find, I don't know, some park rangers are at the very least some other hikers or maybe even the road that they drove in on. I wasn't there, obviously, but I can only imagine that this probably felt like their final chance at survival. But when Kaufflin and Kodohikin reached the top of the rim, they were greeted with nothing, nothing but miles of scorching desert beyond them. There were no rangers, there were no other hikers, and there were definitely no roads. And this is a very critical moment in this story because we now know from reading the journals that the two men kept at the time that at this point, they pretty much knew that they were most likely gonna die. And so they had no other option. They hiked back to their campsite and this is brutal. By the time that they reached their campsite, they were just so dehydrated that they actually considered drinking their own urine. Now from my research, I'm not sure if Kaufflin was like fully on board with this, but apparently Kodohikin did try, and he failed by the way. He wasn't able to even bring himself to swallow it. No, I'm no expert on this, I promise you that. But the general scientific consensus seems to be that drinking your own urine will not actually hydrate you. It will actually have the opposite effect. And so on the rare chance that any of you find yourself in a desperate situation like this, God forbid, don't drink your own urine. Trust me, just don't do it. When the two hikers had filled out their camping permits, they had actually been told by the people at the front desk to carry one gallon of water per person per day. But for whatever reason, the men pretty much straight up ignored this advice, and they only carried three courts of water between the two of them. This was obviously a very bad decision that they would clearly come to regret. At this point, the men had fully come to the realization that if nobody found them, if nobody located them, they were completely and utterly screwed. Let's be honest, they would have no other choice but to suffer a drawn out slow death while just laying there in their tent, being able to do nothing besides jot down a few journal entries and suffer. And so at this point, the two men, well, they wrote down their wills. One entry from Cofflin's Journal, which was actually addressed to his girlfriend, red quote, "I am an utter agony and I know you would understand. I've barely eaten and drank since Wednesday evening. Nobody is going to come." As night time was setting in the following day, both men started to become violently sick. Cofflin, in particular, was in bad bad shape. He was vomiting, nonstop, all night, probably due to how dehydrated and exhausted he was. When the sun finally rose on August 8th, it appears that Cofflin had basically had enough of the suffering in the pain. Well, at least according to Koda Hicken, that's what happened. Folks, the next series of events I'm about to describe to you are extremely disturbing. And they're basically what separate this story from other tales of survival and death in the wilderness that I've told you about. On the morning of August 8th, David Cofflin was in such agony that he apparently asked Raffi Koda Hicken, his best friend, to end his life for him. Koda Hicken wrote in his journal, quote, "David had been in pain all night long. At around five or six, he turned to me and begged that I put my knife through his chest." And to this morbid request, Koda Hicken apparently obliged. He wrote, quote, "I did." And a second time when he wouldn't die. He still breathed and spoke. So I told him that I was going to cover his face. He said, "Okay." And then, Koda Hicken wrote a chilling four word sentence. This is what he wrote. Quote. He, referring to David, struggled, but died. Now this next final sentence of Kodohikens' journal entry seems to indicate that he knew at least somewhat of the moral implications of what he had just done to his best friend. He wrote, quote, "God, his family, mine, please forgive me." So just like that, David Coflin, well, he was dead. A few hours after the supposed mercy killing of Coflin took place, Park Ranger Lance Matson was surveying the trailhead where the two men had parked their car. Ranger Matson realized that Coflin and Kodohikens' camping permit was supposed to have had them leaving the park like three days earlier, and thus something must have gone wrong. And so Matson set off down into Rattlesnake Canyon, which, you know, launched the start of the search for the two lost hikers. And pretty quickly, actually, he spotted their tent, you know, just a little bit off in the distance, which is a testament to how close the two lost hikers actually were to their car. As the Ranger approached the tent, he would have had no idea that he was about to stumble right into a mystery that people would speculate over for literally years to come. So just before he reached the tent, Rafi Kodohikin, clearly in bad shape, actually appeared out of it and said, "Please tell me you have water." Ranger Matson, obviously, prepared, did, in fact, have extra water, and he handed Kodohikin a bottle. He then chugged this water like a frat boy, chugging a beer at a party, apparently. And then, in similar fashion, actually, to how the frat boy situation might play out, he immediately vomited all over the desert floor. I guess this is kind of to be expected due to how dehydrated Kodohikin was. The Ranger actually advised him to kind of go easy on the water, you know, so that he could hold it down. And then, the Ranger asked him, "Where's your buddy?" In response to this, Kodohikin directed Ranger Matson to a pile of rocks that was sitting just a few feet away from the tent. The Ranger was confused initially, but Kodohikin's next eerie sentence explained everything. Pointing to the rocks, Kodohikin said, "I killed him." David Kotlin's lifeless body was located underneath the rocks, which Kodohikin had apparently covered him with. And so, this all unfolds, and as Kodohikin was being airlifted to the hospital, investigators began the very confusing task of piecing together what the hell had just happened. Now listening to this story, as I've told it so far, things might seem pretty straightforward, albeit a bit morally questionable, of course, but as investigators studied the scene and they put together the Lost Hiker's timeline and they also poured through each of their journals, many questions started to emerge. Was this truly a mercy killing? And if it was, how on earth did it get to that point in the first place? Now, I won't speculate any longer about the questions that investigators may have had, and instead, I'm going to share with you the questions that I have, and I have a lot of them, by the way. So many, in fact, that I'm going to be spending a good amount of time in this video, simply just pointing out how things in this story just don't seem to add up. And to be clear, I'm not saying that every single one of these unanswered questions can be attributed to Malice. In fact, I'm sure that many of them were just due to negligence and bad decision-making, but still, I'm just confused about what the hell happened during Kotlin and Cody Hikens Nightmare and Rattlesnake Canyon. So my first question is perhaps the easiest to answer, but it's so glaringly obvious that I just have to ask it. Why the hell did the men carry such little water with them when they went into the canyon? Again, when they filled out their camping permits, they were told point blank that they needed to carry far more than just three courts of water. And yes, of course, they were only planning on camping for that one night, not the three nights that they actually ended up spending out there. But still, this just seems like such an obvious mistake that I had to mention it. Why did they carry such little water? And maybe I have an answer to this. I probably do. I think it can be pretty clearly attributed to just ignorance. I mean, they just made a bad, bad choice, ignoring the Ranger's water recommendations. And my next question can probably be answered by the very same reasoning for that matter. How the hell did the men spend two days wandering around the desert and not find the trail to their car or even the car itself? According to one source I found, Coughlin and Cody Heakens campsite was on a side trail that was marked with rock carons, which led some 250 feet back to the main trail. And then this main trail was only about a mile to a mile and a half away from their parked car. Don't get me wrong. I understand it being a little confusing. Maybe they couldn't find the trail immediately or maybe it just wasn't that obvious or something like that. But with the amount of time that they spent searching for a way back to their car, it just doesn't make sense to me how they didn't find it eventually. It wasn't like they were miles and miles away from any established trail. I mean, they were so, so close to the trail and to their car. But then again, I don't think either one of these men were like super experienced hikers. And so that coupled with the confusion and the panic that dehydration brings provides a at least somewhat plausible explanation for why they couldn't find their way back, I guess. And so we'll move on. My next unanswered question is one that I don't see many other people asking about this story actually. And I will admit, there's probably a good explanation for this and I just don't know it due to lack of information, but I still have to ask, how come it took so long for the Rangers to realize that the men were missing? And let me be clear here, I'm not blaming the Rangers for this situation. I'm a firm believer that when you go into the backcountry, you and only you are responsible for your safety. Not anyone else's responsibility, but it just seems strange that the Rangers knew the two men were only supposed to be camping for one night. And yet it took three more days essentially before anyone realized that they were missing, that they were overdue. Again, I could be not getting something here and so if you have an explanation for this, please leave it in the comments, but I don't know, I just, I couldn't quite shake this question when I was researching for this story. Alright, so now let's get into some of the more disturbing, you could say, unanswered questions. And I know I use that word a lot in my videos, I've already used it probably like seven times in this one, but I don't know, I, I just can't think of a more fitting description for what I'm about to tell you. And I think you're going to understand why I say that as I give you some of the details about what investigators uncovered after Kodaheken was rescued. When Rafi Kodaheken was brought to the hospital, it was clear that he was severely dehydrated. However, as was noted by Ranger Matsun, he was all there if you know what I mean. He could speak fine. He was like cognizant of what was going on around him and he was even apparently able to walk unassisted. And what's even more damning is that after being treated for only about an hour at the hospital, Kodaheken was apparently in good enough health to be discharged and brought to jail. I'm telling you, they, they put an IV in him and, you know, he sat there for about an hour and that's all it took for him to bounce back, you know, well enough to leave the hospital. I find this a bit strange. I mean, you'd think that after such a severe survival situation, you know, one so severe that it was necessary to put Kotlin out of his misery and kill him, I don't know, you'd think that Kodaheken would have spent like days in the hospital recovering. Not just hours, let alone one single hour. I'm no doctor, obviously, but I don't know. Doesn't that just seem a bit strange to you? And then what's even stranger are the results from David Kotlin's autopsy. It showed that Kotlin was in fact severely dehydrated, but that he was not like mere inches away from death or anything like that. All evidence suggests that if he had not been stabbed by Kodaheken, he would have survived, especially with the hindsight of knowing that rescue was only a few hours away at the time. And so my question is, why did Kodaheken kill David Kotlin if they both still had life left in them? Okay, so that's the question. Now I'm going to play devil's advocate a little bit here. And so of course, it's worth mentioning that Kotlin and Kodaheken, well, they were suffering. Thus, they probably didn't realize that their bodies would hold out longer. And in addition to that, they definitely weren't thinking clearly. So I can understand them thinking that they were closer to death than they actually were. But I can't understand why Kodaheken would kill his best friend at his command so quickly. The next unanswered question I have, and this one might be the most confusing of all of them, is how Kodohikin was able to cover Koflin's body with rocks. You'll recall that when Ranger Matsun first stumbled into the campsite, Kodohikin directed him to like this pile of rocks that he had used in a makeshift burial for Koflin. And honestly, maybe using the word "Rox" here is a bit of an understatement, because from the sources that I found, these weren't just like small little rocks, they were more like full on boulders. I'm talking boulders between like 60 to 80 pounds each, not just little pebbles, okay? If Kodohikin was so weak and desperate from dehydration, how the hell was he able to move multiple heavy boulders to cover up Koflin's body? And it gets even worse still. Now I would take this next little bit of information with a grain of salt, because I only found one legitimate source that stated this, but according to that source, apparently Kodohikin's lawyer said that after he killed Koflin, he also intended to kill himself, but he wasn't able to do that because he was apparently too weak. He didn't have the strength, but if he didn't have the strength to end his own life, how did he have the strength to move all of those boulders? It just doesn't make sense to me. Now the biggest unanswered question I have, I kind of touched on this already, and this is also where I'm just going to openly share my opinion, although you can probably tell what it is already. This question is why the hell would you ever kill your best friend or anyone for that matter, even if they asked for it? Now I've never been and hopefully never will be in a situation as dire as the one Kodohikin and Koflin found themselves in, and I don't know, maybe this is one of those situations where you shouldn't judge until you've been in their shoes, so if that's how you feel then fair enough, but I don't know. I just can't ever imagine killing my best friend, even if they were begging for it. I'd like to think that I would never, ever give up in a situation like this and never resort to just ending it like that. I don't know, dude. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. Ultimately, Raffi, Kodohikin pleaded guilty to second degree murder, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison with all but two of them suspended. I think I've been pretty harsh on Kodohikin in this video, but I do think it's important to note that David Koflin's family, well, they showed no ill will towards him for taking Koflin's life. In a letter they sent to the prosecutor of Kodohikin's case, Koflin's family said, quote, "We can think of no reason why Raffi would have wished David any harm or pain." Moreover, we cannot presume to know what transpired or the thoughts in emotions that the two experienced during the days before David's death. To be sure, we have questions. However, we find it difficult to believe there was any malicious intent. During his sentencing, Kodohikin upheld that he believed he was doing the right thing by killing Koflin, but also added that he regrets the way things transpired. He said, quote, "This is something I'm going to live with for the rest of my life. This isn't a two-year sentence for me. This is a life sentence. If one of us came out of that canyon, both of us should have. It's not fair that only one of us made it out." So, what do you guys think of this story? And also, perhaps more interestingly, what would you have done if you were in Raffi Kodohikin's shoes? I want to hear your respectful thoughts, of course. And with that said, buckle up because this next story is by far the most disturbing one in this episode. Yosemite's natural beauty attracts visitors from all over the U.S. and from the world for that matter. It's not the type of place where acts of violence and evil are supposed to happen. In February of 1999, 42-year-old Carol Sund, her 15-year-old daughter Julie, and 16-year-old Silvina Poloso took a trip to Yosemite National Park. And because of the cold weather that time of year, they opted not to camp or to stay outside overnight, and they instead booked a room at the Cedar Lodge, an El Portal, California, which is located just outside of the National Park Boundary. My understanding is that El Portal is essentially a gateway community for the National Park. The Suns and Poloso had flown into San Francisco and then rented a red Pontiac Grand Prix for the drive up into the mountains. On February 15th, the group spent the day sightseeing around the park, probably enjoying the lack of crowds relative to the summer anyways. They marveled in the beauty of Half-Dome, they visited some of the other sites in the area, and they even spent some time in Yosemite Valley ice skating, and just overall enjoying their time as tourists. After an exhausting day of sightseeing, they returned to the Cedar Lodge, they ate dinner at the restaurant there, and they then rented a few movies from the front desk of the hotel. Once they walked out of the lobby with these movies, they were never seen alive ever again. The Suns and Poloso were supposed to check out of the Cedar Lodge on the morning of February 16th. Their hotel key had been left in the room, and their red Pontiac Grand Prix rental car was no longer in the parking lot. It seemed as though the three women had left as planned, but they never showed up at the airport. Carol's son's husband was supposed to pick them up there, and at first he assumed that they had made alternate plans. But then another day passed by, and he still wasn't able to make contact with them. A check with their rental car company revealed that the Pontiac had never been returned to the lot. Clearly, something had gone wrong, and so it's at this point that Carol's son, Julie's son, and Silvina Poloso, were reported missing, and a search within Yosemite National Park was launched. It was initially assumed that the women either got lost while they were hiking, or even that they drove off a cliff somewhere, but then while the police were in the middle of investigating these theories, they were thrown a disturbing curveball. Carol's son's wallet was found on the streets of Modesto, California, some 100 miles away from the cedar lodge. And even more disturbingly, the wallet still contained all of son's cards and cash. That made it seem like robbery wasn't a motive in the disappearance, and it just wasn't a good sign. However, despite the disturbing nature of this find, it did seem like a promising clue. But then weeks went by without any further information about the fate of the missing women. Weeks turned into a full month, and then on March 18, 1999, a hiker accidentally stumbled upon an absolutely horrifying scene that was tied to this case. The hiker was just off of California Highway 108 near Long Barn, California. He was walking along some seldom used logging roads, and when he was roughly 100 yards away from Highway 108, he came upon a burnt out red Pontiac Grand Prix. He reported the findings to the police, and when investigators arrived on scene the following day, they discovered that the license plate number of this burnt out car matched the plate number of the missing rental car. And then, when they opened the trunk, everybody's worst fears were confirmed true. Inside the trunk, investigators found the burnt bodies of Carol Sund and Silvina Poloso. The only way that they were even able to confirm the identities of the women was through dental records and DNA, which should tell you a lot. Missing, however, from the gruesome scene was the body of the third victim, Julie Sund, which was a mystery that would only last for a few more days. At this point, there was little doubt that the three women had, I mean, obviously been met with foul play, but just in case the FBI needed even more assurance of this, I guess, on March 25, an anonymous tip was received, which led investigators to their final body that of Julie Sund. Her body was discovered in the brush by an overlook at the Don Pedro Reservoir in Mocasin, California, and just like her mother and her friend, she too had been met with a extremely violent end. The three murders sent shockwaves through the communities that surrounded Yosemite National Park, and a lot of pressure was put on the FBI to arrest whoever was responsible and to do it fast. This is exactly what the FBI did over the next few weeks. A number of repeat criminals from the Modesto area were arrested, and they were also questioned extensively. At one point, the FBI even claimed that they had forensic evidence linking two suspects to the murders, as well as self-incriminating information that was given by one of them. And if I seem a little Confused while I'm telling you this you're gonna understand why very shortly in June of nineteen In 1999, roughly three months after the bodies were discovered, FBI agent in charge James Maddox said, "I do feel we have all of the main players in jail, but we are in no rush to charge them." To all me, County District Attorney Nina Dean agreed and they stuck to their word because over a month went by and still, no charges had been filed. That's if the FBI and the county's top prosecutor said that the murder suspects were in custody, isn't that enough assurance that Yosemite National Park was in fact safe and it was free from a roaming killer? I think this is probably how a lot of people felt at the time, even if the suspects hadn't been charged or tried yet. So unfortunately, the FBI was dead wrong. There was still a killer roaming throughout Yosemite National Park. During the investigation into the murders of the sons and polosos, this madman was just waving around to get caught and fighting his urge to kill again the entire time. And eventually, this is a fight that he would end up losing. In 1999, 26-year-old Joey Armstrong was working at the Yosemite Institute as a naturalist. She was living with her boyfriend and a few other roommates in the small community of Ferresta, California, which sits inside the borders of Yosemite National Park and from my understanding, it's a small collection of park employee housing and maybe a few vacation rentals. In mid-July of 1999, Armstrong had been planning to take a road trip out of the park to go visit with some friends for a few days. Her boyfriend and her other roommates were actually planning on going to and they had already left. But Armstrong had to work on July 21st and therefore she stayed behind for a little bit extra and she was planning on leaving on the 22nd. And yet despite these plans, Joey Armstrong never left Yosemite National Park. Her friends became worried when she didn't show up as expected and with the murders that had occurred a few months earlier in mind, they decided to report her missing. Searchers quickly traveled to Ferresta and what they found would solidify the story of the Yosemite murders into National Park history and American history forever. When they arrived at Armstrong's Green Cabin, they found her pick up parked in the driveway just as you would expect. Inside of the truck were the belongings that she had packed for her planned road trip, a road trip which obviously never happened. Searchers kind of like fanned out and began searching the wilderness that surrounded the remote cabin and eventually one group of them spotted some footprints that let off into the woods. Those footprints kind of made it look like there had been a chase on foot, not a good sign. They followed these footprints for a little bit until they finally reached a shallow ditch filled with water. Just a warning, this next part is very disturbing when they looked inside of the ditch, they found the decapitated body of Joey Armstrong. As soon as the word got out about Armstrong's murder yet another massive wave of fear spread throughout Yosemite National Park and the surrounding communities. The two murder scenes were very different from each other. The first one was like well planned and hidden and the other one Armstrong's murder was extremely blatant, but just the fact that there had been two separate killings within a few months committed inside the National Park was just so rare that pretty much everybody started to assume that the two killings were connected. And as history would show this assumption was correct and unlike the killings committed back in March, after Armstrong's murder the police would quickly zero in on the actual real suspect. On the night of July 21st, the same night that Armstrong was killed, a park employee had noticed an unusual vehicle parked near her residence. Because this area was so remote and seldom traveled, it's not surprising to me that any unfamiliar vehicles that drove into the area would probably stand out and be noticed. The particular vehicle in question was a blue and white international harvester scout. And since this was the most obvious clue that the police had to go on, they wasted no time scouring the nearby roads in search of this vehicle. And this effort would pay off because on the very same day that Armstrong's body was found, this is July 22nd, police noticed a matching vehicle parked on the side of California Highway 140 only about a 20 minute drive from the park's boundary. The police followed a short unmarked trail down to the Merced River where they found a man in his 30s all by himself, smoking a joint and sunbathing naked. This man told the investigators that his name was Carrie Stainer and that he was an employee at the Cedar Lodge, which was the very same hotel that the sons and Paloso had been staying at the night that they were killed. Stainer's initial encounter with law enforcement was fairly brief, but before the police left, they took some photos of Stainer's tires. His tire treads were quickly matched to some tire tracks that were found at the scene of Armstrong's murder and within two days, Stainer was arrested. I feel like most of the time when a criminal is arrested, maybe I've just watched too much cops or whatever, but they usually lie and make up a story which tries to make them sound innocent or if they're smart, they won't even do that, they'll just shut up and get a lawyer and let the lawyer do the talking on their behalf. I feel like it's usually only after hours or even days of pressure and like hard interrogation that the criminal finally confesses to their crime. But Carrie Stainer, for whatever reason, didn't lie at all and he didn't even wait for the interrogation to begin before he started talking. While he was being driven to his police interview, Stainer openly confessed to murdering Joey Armstrong and he didn't stop there, by the way. In a shocking turn of events, Stainer also confessed to killing Carol Sund, Julie Sund and Silvina Poloso. The FBI had been completely wrong about their initial list of suspects because Carrie Stainer was in fact the Yosemite Park killer. The police finally had their man, but the story doesn't end here. In fact, it's actually far from over because the more that investigators and the public learned about Stainer, the more bizarre and disturbing the circumstances surrounding the murders became. First of all, because Stainer lived and worked at the very same hotel where the first round of murders occurred, he had actually been interviewed by investigators before a twice, actually, that's my understanding anyways. However, it appears to me that he was never really considered a suspect at this point. He was mostly just being interviewed because he worked there and it was just kind of a matter of routine. I would suspect that every employee that was working or around the night of the murders was probably interviewed. However, the FBI would go on to receive a lot of backlash from the public for dismissing Stainer as a suspect in these initial interviews as well as just the overall way that they handled the first three murders. I'm not going to get into that controversy right now, but if you're familiar with this story or you've like researched this case, then please leave your respectful thoughts about this in the comments. One of the strangest things about this entire story is the circumstances of Carrie's Stainer's childhood and his adolescence. It would turn out that Stainer was no stranger to horrifying acts of crime, but not because he had a history of committing them, but rather because they had been committed against his family, more specifically his brother. The story of Stainer's brother is so disturbingly unique that his brother's name would eventually end up in all sorts of headlines and even have a television series made based on what he went through. In December of 1972, Carrie Stainer's younger brother Stephen disappeared while walking home from school in his hometown of Merced, California. Stephen was only seven years old at the time, and despite a tremendous effort by his friends and family, no sign of him turned up for literally years following his disappearance. And this obviously had a tremendous effect on the Stainer family, and I'm sure we can all imagine the impact that this would have had on the 11 year old Carrie Stainer at the time. Actually, the Stainers made the difficult adjustment to a life without their youngest son and Carrie Stainer entered high school and eventually gained a reputation as a skilled artist and more specifically a cartoonist. And then at the beginning of March in 1980, I mean, this is, this is crazy. Eight years after Stephen Stainer had gone missing, the Stainer family received some and extremely shocking and also exciting news. I mean, this is the type of news that would make them incredibly happy, relieved, but also incredibly disturbed at the same time. The family learned that Steven Stainer was alive and he had just escaped from eight years of absolute hell. It would turn out that Steven had been kidnapped by a deranged child predator named Kenneth Parnell who would go on to repeatedly, you know what, the boy. Parnell began to falsely claim that Steven was his own son even enrolling him in school under a false name. Eventually, Parnell became so comfortable with the situation that he would let Steven come and go unsupervised and he would let him stay home alone for days at a time while Parnell traveled. Steven apparently had plenty of chances to escape, but he was too scared and probably confused to do so as such a young boy. However, Steven did eventually summon the courage to free himself. Parnell ended up kidnapping another young boy named Timothy White and Steven witnessed the trauma that White was going through after getting kidnapped and as the older of the two boys, Steven decided to take action. One night while Parnell was away working, the two boys simply up and left the house that they were being held captive in and they hitchhiked their way to a police station. Parnell was arrested the next day and practically overnight, Steven Stainer became a national celebrity. The news coverage of Steven's story was immense. Cameras followed him everywhere. He was repeatedly interviewed and eventually a television series called "I Know My First Name" as Steven was produced about his story. And while all the attention and praise and cameras and all this was focused on his brother, Carrie Stainer lurked in the background quietly. He felt left out, he felt jealous and he felt forgotten. He would often escape to the mountains to smoke marijuana as a way for him to cope with this crazy situation and just cope with the fact that he really was feeling left out. Carrie Stainer said, "We referring to him and his brother never really got along that well after he came back." All of a sudden, Steven was getting all these gifts, getting all this clothing, getting all this attention. I guess I was jealous. I'm sure I was. I was the oldest and all that. Then all of a sudden it's gone. I got put on the back burner, you might say. So we can't say that Carrie Stainer's gruesome crimes were like a direct result of the situation with his brother. Obviously, I mean, I'm sure that the trauma and later the jealousy that he experienced in his youth played a role, whether it's a really big role or a small role is up for debate, but I mean, it certainly played a role. We do know that Carrie Stainer repeatedly told investigators and the media that he just felt this bizarre and twisted compulsion to kill, one that he tried to control until it finally just boiled over. He said that he had his first violent fantasy about killing women when he was only seven years old, which is incredibly disturbing. And even more disturbing than that, if that's even possible, is that he also said that he would have continued to kill until he was locked up. So it's a damn good thing that he was caught before he was able to claim more victims. Carrie Stainer told investigators that on February 15th, 1999, he noticed Carol Sund, Julie Sund, and Silvina Paloso arrive at the Cedar Lodge, which is where Stainer was not just working, but actually living as well at the time. Around 10.30 p.m., the woman took these photos inside their hotel room, about 30 minutes later, around 11. Stainer knocked on the hotel room door and told them that he needed to come in to fix a leak that was dripping through the ceiling. Carol Sund was initially skeptical apparently, but she did eventually relent and she let Stainer in. And then shortly after this, he pulled out a gun. He held the women captive for some time and then he eventually strangled and killed Carol Sund and Silvina Paloso. He then loaded their bodies into the trunk of their rental car and then he forced Julie Sund into the passenger seat. He drove her to the Don Pedro Reservoir where he eventually killed her too and he left her body in the brush. Now, I'm sparing you a lot of the gruesome details here because I honestly can't say them out loud. It was awful. I could barely even read this stuff. I mean, it's just brutal. Next, Stainer drove the rental car to a remote spot off of California Highway 108. He left the car there and then he walked a few miles back towards civilization and eventually he took a cab back towards El Porto. He returned a few days later to burn the car and then he also dropped Carol Sund's wallet in Modesto to try and throw off investigators. He also sent the anonymous letter tipping off authorities about where Julie Sund's body could be recovered. After apparently getting away with these horrific crimes, Stainer decided to kill again. He had been following the news coverage and yeah, it really looked like he had gotten away with it and he was kind of just waiting, expecting to be arrested but that never happened. And so one day he randomly drove up to Joey Armstrong and this happened on the evening of July 21st, 1999. Stainer sensed an opportunity here and this was truly a random wrong place, wrong time type of thing. Stainer held Armstrong at gunpoint and he actually bound her up inside her cabin before forcing her into his vehicle. However, Armstrong apparently was able to actually open the car door and throw herself out of the vehicle while it was moving before she took off running into the woods towards a nearby cabin. Stainer stopped the car and ran after her and tragically he did eventually catch up to her after about a hundred yards of running through the woods and when he caught her, Stainer killed her on the spot. Carrie Stainer was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing Armstrong and he was eventually sentenced to death for killing Carol Sund, Julie Sund and Silvina Poloso. This death sentence was handed down in 2002, but as I speak today in 2024, Carrie Stainer is actually still alive. The state of California hasn't executed a prisoner since 2006 and in 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom suspended the practice in the state. And because of these events, it's likely that Stainer will live the rest of his life behind bars and won't be executed. It should be noted that Carrie Stainer freely admitted to the four murders that I've discussed in this video, but it's also suspected that he may have committed even more. Stainer's uncle, with whom he was living with at the time, was actually killed by a shotgun blast in 1990 and nobody has ever been held responsible for this. Patricia Hicks was also found dead in Yosemite National Park back in the early 80s, but wasn't identified until 2021. It's possible that Stainer committed this crime as well. There's been a few more murders in the area surrounding Yosemite that he is suspected of, but I gotta say he has denied involvement in any of these certainly doesn't mean he didn't do them, but he did admit to the other one. So freely that you, I don't know, there's really no way of knowing right now. Leave a comment and let me know if or how this story has affected your relationship with National Parks. I'm really curious about this. I'm guessing that many of you have probably heard this story before the video and so maybe you were already aware of it. I don't know. For myself, I think that this and other similar stories are an important reminder about how even though National Parks and I guess other outdoor recreation areas for that matter, even though these places are significantly safer than literally any city, they're still not completely immune from crime. Again, it's extremely rare and I personally choose not to let these stories determine from getting outside and enjoying the mountains and stuff, but this crime and these stories do exist. And I don't think that we should hide from that fact either. Thank you for watching and make Carol Sund, Julie Sund, Silvina Paloso, and Joey Armstrong rest in peace.