How a YouTuber SOLVED a 67-Year Cold Case Police Called "Impossible"

67 years ago, police gave up on a case, called it impossible and then walked away. No suspects, no answers, no hope. But flash forward to today, in some random YouTuber sitting behind a laptop, quietly hits upload on a video that does what detectives, dogs, and decades of searching could never do. It solves the cold case. You are going to be absolutely shocked, and then I'm going to tell you a bonus story about a man who chose the one day he should have never gone into the woods and why he paid for it dearly. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a 5 star review because I have a goal of reaching 1,000 5 star reviews and we're not even halfway there yet, but the show has been growing like crazy and I know that we can do it, but only if you leave that 5 star review right now and hit the follow button while you're at it. It's not every day that you realize one of your old YouTube videos hides such a dark secret. In 2022, I filmed a simple vlog at this river park along the Pacific Crest Trail, and recently when I rewatched that vlog, it hit me. This exact spot held the answer to a mystery that I was literally in the middle of making a video about today. And the scariest part is that this answer was hiding just out of view from my camera. For decades, police called this case impossible. They tried and tried and ultimately gave up on even solving it, but then almost 70 years after the mystery started, and three years after I filmed my vlog, a random YouTuber named Archer Mayo dove into the river right next to where I had filmed, and he made a discovery that shocked everyone. On Sunday, December 7, 1958, the Martin family were driving through Oregon, seeing it Columbia River Gorge looking for what they called Christmas greenery. They packed into the family station wagon and drove through the woods alongside the Columbia River. About an hour into the drive, they stopped for gas at a place called Dean's Chevron Service Station in the small town of Cascade Locks. It was a crisp December day and the whole family was really getting into the Christmas spirit. But the kids were starting to get pretty hungry, and so they begged their parents to stop for burgers, and as the family pulled up to the Paradise snack bar, they had no way of knowing that the only other people in that restaurant, besides the employees, were definitely on Santa's naughty list, to say the least. Ken and Barbara Martin lived in Portland, Oregon with their three daughters, 14 year old Barbie, 13 year old Virginia, and their youngest Susie, who was 11. Ken worked for a local business called Eccles Electric Home Service, and more than anything else, Ken really loved Christmas. He would dress up as Santa Claus, and even made these wooden candy cane decorations for his yard, and for all of his neighbors. Ken loved Christmas so much that his holiday spirit earned his street the nickname of Candy Cain Lane. Along with the three daughters at home, they also had a 28 year old son named Donald Martin, who lived in New York at this time, and was serving in the Navy. But be sure to remember Donald, because even though he's thousands of miles away, this story circles back to him over and over again. On December 7th, the Martins wanted to start their holiday season a little early by going on their Christmas greenery drive. Oh, and if you want to start your holiday season even earlier, consider giving me an early Christmas gift by hitting the subscribe button right now. This channel's ultimate goal has always been to reach a million subscribers, and we're getting pretty close. So please hit subscribe right now, especially if you are a repeat viewer. As I mentioned before, the family stopped for gas, before stopping for food, and a waitress at the Paradise Snack bar in the town of Hood River confirmed that she waited on the Martin family late Sunday afternoon. The waitress said they'd arrived from the east and their Ford station wagon, eight hamburgers, fries, and dessert, and then left about an hour or so afterwards, and headed west back towards Portland. Notably, the waitress was 100% sure that the family she served was the Martin family because they were basically her only customers that day. Well, actually, except for two mysterious men who were also dining in the restaurant at the exact same time. As the Martin family laughed and filled up on burgers and fries, there were two strange men sitting just a few tables away, eating in silence in the otherwise empty restaurant. Their names were Leicester Price and Roy Light, and they were both ex-convicts. The waitress said that Price and Light both left the Paradise Snack bar shortly after the Martin's did, and that they were heading in the same direction, almost as if they were following them. As you'll see, the details and the timestamps in this story are a little bit more rough estimates, especially compared to some other stories I've covered, which makes it harder to investigate, but most sources I could find, including the restaurant owner, agree that both the Martin family and the ex-cons left between 4.15 and 4.30 pm. Another local couple named Kelsey and Doris Newtson were also out for a sightseeing drive in the gorge that day. As they drove west down the highway, Kelsey and Doris were passed by a light-colored station wagon, just like the one that the Martin family was in at around 4.30 pm. The couple remembered remarking to each other that the station wagon had been going way too fast. Almost like the people inside the car were trying to run from something, and then something even weirder happened, about 20 minutes later, when Kelsey and Doris passed an area in Cascade locks right under the famous Bridge of the Gods. As they passed by the bridge, they recognized that the very same station wagon they had seen earlier was now pulled over to the side of the road. And this confused them. One moment it seemed like this station wagon wasn't such a hurry, and then suddenly just a few moments later it had stopped in like a random spot. And the couple noticed something else that made the situation even stranger. There were two men standing outside of the car. The two men were clearly talking to the people inside of the vehicle, but it wasn't clear if the conversation was positive or negative or aggressive or whatever. They couldn't tell. The couple kept driving, and that was the last time that they ever saw this mysterious station wagon. And so did that chaotic car belong to the Martin family? And who were the strange men standing next to the car? Could it have been the two X-cons, Lester Price and Roy Light? Things like these persisted as the sun went down on that peaceful Sunday, and then even more questions came up as the sun rose the next morning, Monday, December 8. Now back in Portland, Oregon, Ken Martin's boss noticed that Ken hadn't come in to work for the week. And Ken was always on time, and so this was not like him to just skip work or at least to skip it and not call in with a reason, right? His boss was very, very worried, and that very same morning, the teachers at Rose City School marked Susan and Virginia absent for the day. The school also hadn't gotten a call to explain why the girls weren't in class that particular day. None of this made any sense at all for the Martin family. Ken's sister was actually a teacher at Rose City School, and so she called the Martin family home to check on her nieces, but of course nobody picked up. And she called over and over by the way, and she never got an answer. As the calls went on, she was getting more and more worried. Something was obviously wrong here, and so she decided to call the front office at Grant High, which is where Barbie went to school, and they told her that Barbie hadn't come to class that day either. This was obviously extremely troubling, but Ken's sister, Charlotte, didn't go into full panic mode yet. She wanted to talk to her husband first, and she also wanted to get a hold of the Martin's eldest son, Donald, to see if he had heard anything from them at all. Maybe Donald knew something that nobody else did. That very same day, Ken's boss told his wife about Ken's absence at work, and then she told a mutual friend, Mrs. Lens, that the Martins were missing. Mrs. Lens was a woman of action, and so she didn't waste any time at all before she called the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office to report the Martin family missing. Finally, someone was doing it. At night, officer Fred Ruddick took Mrs. Lens call, and recorded all of the information that she gave him. The sheriff's office sent several cars out to the large mountain area in the Columbia River Gorge, and he sent another officer to the Martin family home. And when the officer arrived at the house and searched the grounds, it was completely dark and empty. Just one day earlier, it was bright and full of life, all these children running around, but now it might as well have been abandoned. When sister Charlotte and her husband came over to let the police into the house, and as they all stepped inside, they were met with, I don't even know how to, like, a incredibly weird smell, and so they followed their noses and the smell only got stronger as they got closer to the kitchen. Charlotte was getting sick, and the closer she got to the kitchen, the more this sickening feeling intensified. I mean, what could this smell possibly be? As the group of officers entered the kitchen, they finally got the answer. The sink was filled with dirty dishes, and ground beef had been left on the counter, thawing out. And look, I'm not the cleanest guy in the world, but I can confidently say that I've never left the house with raw meat left out on the counter. I mean, that's a wild move. Even if you thought you'd be home a little sooner, I guess, but I don't know, it's the 1950s so I'll give them a past for not being the most food safe people of all time. After finding the state of the kitchen, the officers and Charlotte were obviously a little relieved that they didn't discover any, you know, rotting corpses in the house, but that tiny bit of relief was immediately replaced by even more fear. And I say that because it was clear by the scene at the house that the Martin family had fully planned on coming home, but instead they were nowhere to be found. And so by the next day, the search was on. Hundreds of people searched for the family up and down the highway and throughout the Columbia River Gorge, from law enforcement officers to forest servicemen, to friends, relatives, and other volunteers. One report even estimated that over a thousand people were out looking for the Martins. Within days, several witnesses had called to report seeing an abandoned white Chevrolet near the highway between Cascade locks and the Paradise snack bar. And this is where we meet a man named Detective Walter Graven. Graven worked in the area and he was at the forefront of this entire investigation. When he ran the license plate to this mysterious car, he discovered that the abandoned car had been stolen from a man who lived in Los Angeles. And when police asked the owner of the car who he thought might have taken it, he gave them one name which was Lester Price. Sound familiar? That's right. One of the ex-convicts from the restaurant just so happened to abandon a sketchy car along the same stretch of road where the Martins had been last seen. A detective that was interviewed at the time called this discovery quote, "the single most important clue in the Martin family case." Clearly, Lester and Roy were both prime suspects or are at the very least people of extreme interest in this case. And when Detective Graven dug into the two ex-convicts, it turns out they had friends in Los Angeles that vouched for the fact that they were both in LA on December 9th, seemingly proving that they couldn't have been in Portland on the evening of December 7th when all this went down. But when Detective Graven started asking around the area, he met a local brothel owner who said otherwise. The brothel owner said that Lester and Roy had actually visited his establishment multiple times between December 7th and December 10th. And after that, the brothel owner said that he hadn't seen either of the two men since. It's also important to note that Roy Light had once worked at an aluminum plant in the town of Cascade Locks and that he had also allegedly hijacked a woman by hiding in her back seat under a blanket until she got back to her car, which is creepy. Wow. And so now we can somewhat accurately place these two very sketchy, dangerous men with questionable alibis in the exact same place as the Martin family on the day that they disappeared. But can we actually prove that they were the reason the family was missing? I know one thing for sure, which is that Detective Graven sure wanted to. A week later, on December 16th, the investigation took a brand new turn, this time towards the Martin's oldest son, Donald. Detective Graven paid a visit to one of Donald's old employers. And while there, he learned that Donald's history with the store stretched back to the late 40s when Donald began as a stockboy before eventually leaving to join the Navy. Donald returned in the early 50s, then left again, and then was later rehired in the mid 50s only to be fired for stealing more than $2,000 worth of goods. When Donald was caught stealing, he was arrested and he told police that he was having a hard time at home. And this gets weird, but apparently that's where he revealed that he was gay and that his parents didn't approve of his sexuality, but even though they allegedly didn't approve of him, Ken and Barbara Martin still helped their son get out of trouble by paying the store back for all the stolen goods and getting Donald released. Detective Graven was interested in Donald both because of his "astrangement" from his parents and his previous arrests, but also because Donald never came home to search for his missing family. Again, Donald lived in New York at this time, and his whole family had just vanished and he still couldn't be bothered to help look for them. Authorities were only able to interview him over the phone, which is very bizarre. And I know that Donald was in the Navy, but I couldn't find anything that said they wouldn't give him leave, or if he even requested time off to go home and was denied. I just have to imagine that the Navy would be able to find like a weekend or something for him to return to Portland when his family disappeared, right? And to make matters even worse, Detective Graven looked a little closer at the list of stuff Donald was accused of stealing from his former employee and there was just one item that he could not ignore. That was a 38 caliber cult commander pistol, and I want you to hold onto that bombshell for just a second. I promise I'm going to get right back to it, but first I need to tell you about a man named Theodore Hellier. Theodore was wandering through a wooded area just west of Cascade Locks in January of 1959 when something caught his eye. This mysterious object glimmered when the sunlight hit it. And even though it was under some rocks and brush, Theodore just had to investigate it. He wondered if it was like a rare coin or maybe it was just some random metal garbage. But as he bent over and began to dig it up, he discovered not a coin or a Pepsi can, he discovered a gun and not just any gun. It was a 38 caliber cult commander. And so Theodore looked a little bit closer and he realized that the gun had dried blood smeared across the handle and that part of the gun had been damaged and dented almost as if it was used to hit somebody. Right? Only one of the nine bullets in the gun had been fired and the shell casing of the bullet that was fired was still jammed in the cylinder. And so Theodore took this crazy discovery and did what you're supposed to do, right? He took the weapons straight to the sheriff's office. He expected the gun would be logged as evidence and he wondered if it was somehow connected to the missing Martin family or just to some other criminal case, right? But instead, the sheriff refused to treat the gun as evidence. For some insane reason, the sheriff decided to just clean the gun, you know, scrubbing off all of the dried blood, all of the fingerprints, all of the evidence, and simply gave it back to Theodore. Investigators would later say that the sheriff likely didn't see the gun as connected to the Martin family. But still, I mean, you'd think that the police would file away a bloody gun no matter what and at least try to learn something about it. But not in this case, that's not what happened at all. I mean, the sheriff's department might as well have had a big sign outside their office that said, mystery gun cleaners are us. And honestly, to me, this is the point where the story of the Martin family disappearance stopped looking like an actual disappearance and started almost looking like some sort of coverup. However, there was one shocking detail that survived the sheriff's cleanup of this gun and that was the serial number. When Detective Graven learned about this gun, he realized that the serial number matched that of the firearm stolen by Donald Martin from his former employer. When he confronted Donald Martin with all of this evidence, you know, like his old stolen gun resurfacing near where his entire family went missing, Donald's answer only deepened the mystery. He said, quote, police told me about the gun being found. I have no knowledge of it. Donald went on to blame an old friend of his in Portland who was named Wayne. And just a side note here, Wayne's last name has never been released at least as far as I could find. He's simply known as Wayne in all the news and case files, which is unfortunate because just going by one name is usually reserved for people like LeBron or Madonna, but I guess if you're gonna have the name Wayne, you might as well try to be the Wayne. And no offense to anyone who might be named Wayne. Of course, if you are, leave a comment below. Wayne worked with Donald Martin at the employer that Donald had stolen from and he also knew the rest of the Martin family pretty well too. Donald said that quote, Wayne liked guns. I didn't. And this quote seems to suggest that Wayne stole the gun in the first place and that Donald might have taken the blame for him. And it's safe to say that even more rumors and theories like these were running wild around this case, including even more theories that pointed directly at Donald. Detective Graven kept a detailed notebook for the entire investigation, but there was actually one very weird note that for some reason he didn't want anybody else to see. He wanted to hide this note so badly that he actually wrote it down and then crossed part of it out. And the note said quote, it had to be unlegible. No one else with motive. After Graven's death, someone actually took his notes into Photoshop and were able to reveal what was hidden behind the unlegible part of that note, his scribbled ink, if you will, it said Donald, which means the quote is presumed to have said it had to be Donald, no one else with motive. But if the leading detective for this case was so convinced that Donald had done it, why would he have ultimately crossed Donald's name out? I mean, this didn't really make much sense. One of the biggest reasons that Graven was so focused on Donald Martin was because he knew that Donald was set to inherit the entire Martin family estate, along with a big insurance payout. In his mind, that was clearly "enough motive for an estranged son to do something awful to his family." Also, going back to when Donald was caught stealing from his employer, he claimed that he was a homosexual, which I personally don't really think is a defense for stealing, but to each their own. And he went on to say that his mom was, quote, "a fat slob," and that his father, quote, "wasn't much better." Donald went on and said that he was afraid that his sisters would be, quote, "just like them." And it certainly doesn't look very good for Donald, but with all of that said, the authorities were never able to prove his clear involvement since he was all the way in New York at the time of the disappearance, but that doesn't mean he never enlisted the help of a friend, maybe even a friend like Wayne. Donald kept talking about his friend Wayne when asked about the gun, but Wayne reportedly said in a 2008 interview that he had been in Cascade locks on the afternoon of the family's disappearance and that he was busy teaching a PE class. Now I have no idea what kind of PE class he would have been teaching on Sunday afternoon, but that was his alibi, and I guess the authorities in the case generally accepted it. And so if Donald and Wayne weren't involved in the disappearance, then what the hell happened to the Martins? Is it possible that maybe all this foul play talk is nonsense, and maybe it was just a freak accident? During the search, a Portland man named Donald Bane spent time driving up and down the highway searching for clues about the Martin family when all of a sudden he discovered some strange tire tracks in a parking lot in Cascade locks. As he's looking down at these tracks, he begins to wonder if a car had actually skidded off the side of the cliff and plunged down into the frigid water below. And that seems pretty reasonable, especially with the discovery of those tracks, but the authorities dismissed this idea because they didn't think that the parking lot was near any Christmas greenery, and they didn't think that the Martins would have gone there. But when Detective Graven returned to that cliff side for a closer look at the tire tracks, he also found paint chips that he sent back to an FBI crime lab for analysis. And those results confirmed that the paint belonged to the same make and model and paint scheme of the Martin family car. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the station wagon fell into the Columbia River somehow. And if you think about it, it makes sense. How else could a carful of people just fully vanish? Maybe this was just a freakish tragic accident? Or maybe there was nothing accidental about it at all? All of those questions would drift up and down the Columbia River Gorge for months on end, at least until May 1st, 1959. On that day, an oil boat was floating down the Columbia River near Bonneville Dam when it dropped an anchor and heard a great big thud. Almost instantly the crew recognized that they'd hit something on the bottom of the river, and by the sound it made, they believed that they'd hit something big and made of steel. They couldn't see it, but they even attempted to drop their anchor again and use it as a hook to pull up this mysterious metal thing, whatever it was. They did manage to even get a hold of it for a brief moment, but as they were reeling it in, right before it got to the surface, it fell off the anchor and sank right back down to the bottom. Whatever it was, it was almost as if it truly didn't want to be discovered. It would rather stay buried at the bottom of the mighty Columbia. Two days later, on May 3rd, just before noon, a local boat captain was working on the river near the Crown Zellerbach paper factory in Camus, Washington when he noticed some strange debris floating along with all the logs for the paper mill. As he got closer, he noticed what looked like grimy clothing, and then he saw a tiny pair of shoes and his heart sank. He realized that this wasn't your normal kind of river debris, it was the body of a young girl. The captain immediately called the sheriff, and another man who worked on the boat helped to drag the body out of the river. The sheriff instantly recognized the girl's clothing as matching the Martin family daughters, but he was also pretty confused by the fact that the body was found so far from where the family had been last seen. Camus is basically 40 miles downriver from Cascade Locks. This was also strange, and it didn't really make sense, but one thing was for sure, and that was that the body was not supposed to be where they found it. The body was brought to Vancouver, Washington, where Ken's sister's husband came to help identify it. And when he arrived, he prepared himself to have to see one of his young nieces in a horrifying state, but he was shocked to see that the river had broken down the victim's face so much that it was completely unrecognizable. And so heartbreakingly, he couldn't actually help determine if this young girl was actually one of the Martin's daughters. It wasn't until the body was brought to the coroner's office for an official autopsy that dental records were finally able to identify the youngest Martin girl, Susie. The news of the discovery of Susie's body started to spread fast, and at around 1115 in the morning, the very next day, a man was working near the Bonneville Dam when he also noticed something floating in the river. Just like the previous man, he initially thought it could have been just debris or trash, but when his co-workers helped him pull it out of the water, they could not believe what they had found. It was the body of another young girl, which is insane. Like one minute, they were all reading the news about the Martin case, and then suddenly they were living in the news. They were the news or their discovery was at least. Now this particular girl was wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and a white shirt, and this little detail just totally broke my heart when I heard it, but they even found an M&M wrapper in her pocket, which I don't know why, but that just like so innocent. And ultimately, dental records would confirm this body as that of Virginia Martin, the middle Martin daughter. Oh man. I've gotten pretty good at telling these stories, but like this is one of those details where it's just like, it hits, it hits hard. There's no easy way to say this stuff. They found Virginia about 25 miles upriver from where Susie was found, which once again made the authorities wonder where exactly the Martin car had gone into the water. And they also wondered about that mysterious steel object that the oil boat had hit with its anchor around Bonneville Dam. Did they think that the anchor had grabbed onto the Martin family car at the bottom of the river? And maybe when they tried to like pull it up, it caused the bodies of young Susie and Virginia to come loose and float down the river. When the autopsies came back, Susie and Virginia's causes of deaths were both determined to be drowning. There was no evidence of any injury, and they had determined that they didn't think either body had been floating on the surface of the water for very long. This next part is disgusting, so maybe skip ahead a couple seconds, but you good? Okay. They did find evidence of hamburgers and potatoes in their stomachs, which lines up with the story that the waitress told about seeing the family back at the Paradise snack bar the day that they went missing. So all of that lines up with some of the evidence we already had, but here's where the information from the autopsies starts to get really weird. So a deputy sheriff told a journalist that he had photographed and fingerprinted both girls, and he said that quote, both girls had holes in their skulls behind their right ears. I thought they were either from a gunshot or a blow, which like, hold on for a minute. Initially the cause of death was drowning. That's what I just told you, but suddenly we have this guy telling us that he possibly saw gunshot wounds in both girls' heads. I mean, why on earth would the autopsies leave out a detail like that? Everything gets super muddy here because the medical examination and all the other evidence obviously does not have those holes noted. And we just have the one deputy sheriff's random quote from an interview. And apparently there was an author who wrote a book about this case and reported seeing the photos, the deputy claimed to have taken, but they said the picture was too small and blurry to see whether or not Virginia actually had a whole inner head, you know, both girls remains were cremated. And so there's no way to check on this now. And so personally, I'm inclined to trust the official autopsy, but this clear discrepancies still makes me question everything else in this case a little bit more, just so strange. Like first they cleaned the blood off the gun and dismissed it. Now they can't seem to agree on the facts of the autopsies. And so again, I'm like, is this some sort of cover up or is it just pure incompetence? I mean, I don't know. After the girls bodies were discovered, search crews were right back out in the area with boats, helicopters and cars. They focused on scanning the five miles between Cascade locks and the Bonneville dam, just upriver from where they'd found Virginia. They dragged the bottom of the Columbia and searched with grappling hooks, but they weren't able to find the Martin family car or Ken or Barbara or Barbie Martin, either. The case would go cold all over again. And that's exactly how it would stay for over 66 years until a man named Archer Mayo would make a shocking discovery earlier this year as of the time of this recording in March of 2025. Now at the beginning of the video, I called Archer a YouTuber, but the truth is that he's much more than that. Archer is an amateur investigator and he's also a professional sculptor and diver. Archer was insane. passionate about the Martin case, and he devoted tons of time and energy years to pinpointing the exact spot where he thought the Martins might have driven into the water. I'm telling you guys, he had been obsessed with this case since 2018, and after pouring over all of the evidence, he was convinced that the foul play theories were flat out wrong. Archer didn't think that Donald, Wayne, or the X-Cons, he didn't think that any of them were responsible, and he was hell-bent on proving that fact. One day, Archer found himself looking through the archives at the Oregon Historical Society, and as he looked at a late 1800s photo of the construction of Cascade Locks, just upstream from where Virginia Martins body was recovered, he noticed something. The photo showed that engineers had dug a massive pit into the bottom of the river, and Archer thought that after decades of searching with zero luck, that rescue crews likely had no idea that a pit was even there. And to make things even more damning, this pit was just downstream from the parking lot where the tire tracks and paint chips were found years earlier. Archer also figured that the pit likely would have pulled in anything heavy that might have kind of floated over it, and so he was now convinced that pit is where the Martins car must be. Today, this pit, this spot in the river is located just offshore of Cascade Locks Marine Park. I mean, not very far offshore at all, actually. And it just so happens to be a spot that I've visited two times over the past few years to attend the PCT Trail Days Festival. They hold it right there in the park right next to where this pit is. The park and the surrounding spot here is just incredibly beautiful. And actually, rather than describe it to you, I'm just going to show you. Anyways, as I was saying, and as you can actually see now, the park here is beautiful, right in downtown Cascade Locks. And it's right here, right where I'm pointing, right by that wooden offhang thing there. That Archer was convinced the answer to the Martin family mystery was hidden right there. He spent months getting all the necessary permits and permissions to do a dive of this kind. And then he did 60 different dives to clear debris from the pit with a dredge, all in hopes that his measurements and predictions were correct. And then in late 2024, Archer dipped beneath the surface right there and made the most important dive of his entire life. When he ultimately took his camera beneath the cold, murky waters of the Columbia River, he pointed his lens towards the shadowy depths of the mysterious pit and tried to focus on exactly what he was looking at through the darkness. Above the surface, the mighty river flowed like an unstoppable forest, but in this deep underwater graveyard, it was almost as if time had completely gone still. As Archer dove deeper and deeper, the water got colder, but he also started to feel a much different kind of chill. He searched and searched, he peered deep into the void, and at first, he didn't really see much of anything, but suddenly a strange shape began to form. It was big, and it clearly had been there for a long, long time. It also had a random series of letters and numbers on the front of it. Archer's heart raced as he tried to figure out what he was actually looking at. He then started to read 1G7. This sequence of numbers and letters was familiar to Archer. He paused for a moment to kind of collect himself, and then he read the final three numbers. 159. Archer's heart sank as he realized that all of his hard work and countless hours had finally paid off. He had come face to face with the Martin family's license plate. On March 7, 2025, after nearly 70 years, a recovery crew arrived with a crane to pull fragments of the Martin family's station wagon out of the river. Unfortunately, the cabin of the car just like refused to move. My understanding is that it's still down in the river to this day, and despite this groundbreaking discovery of the vehicle, the remains of Ken, Barbara, and Barbie were not found with the station wagon, and they remained missing. But that would soon change. On August 22, 2025, just a few months, you know, before the recording of this video, Archer announced that he had done another dive, and this time, he had located what he believes are the remains of Ken and Barbara, and even possibly Barbie. He also discovered numerous items belonging to the family, including clothing, shoes, toys, and cameras. Now, my understanding is that the authorities have not officially confirmed these discoveries yet, but at this point, my opinion is that Archer is way more of an expert on this case than even the authorities are, and so I'm certainly going to believe him. Archer, this private citizen, was basically able to solve a case that the police and the authorities could not solve for decades and decades. And I believe that he's going to be publishing a book about his journey at some point, so I've linked his website and his YouTube channel below, go check out those links, and please show Archer some love in the comments because what he has done is incredible. I have so much respect for him. Donald Martin lived the rest of his life under a cloud of suspicion until he passed away in 2004. Unfortunately, years before, his family's car was discovered. He would go on to have four kids, but apparently he never told them much about what happened to their grandparents and aunts who went missing, you know, so many years earlier. I called this case, basically, solved just a few seconds ago, and I said that for a reason. The car has been discovered, you know, most likely most of the bodies have been discovered, and so we certainly know more than we did, you know, for the previous almost 70 years. But despite Archer's discoveries, we still don't have all the answers as to what happened, where the Martin's attacked by the ex-convicts, their own son, or was it a total accident? And how do we explain the weird mistakes that made the whole thing look like a cover-up, you know, like the cops cleaning a bloody gun or the girls autopsies, having those inconsistencies, and for whatever it's worth, I personally side with Archer Mayo's opinion, which is that it was just an accident. I mean, he worked so hard in this case, and he found results that not even the government or the authorities could ever find after decades of searching, and so I strongly believe him, basically. I mean, he's the foremost expert on this case. But regardless of what happened, my heart goes out to the Martin family and to everyone who ever loved them and searched for them. That was a crazy one, but folks, we are not done yet, and so hit that fall button right now and buckle the hell up because you might not ever set foot in the woods again after hearing this next story. The only thing more frightening than being attacked by a bear is being attacked by that very same bear two different times in a row. Just after sunrise on a cold October morning, Todd or made his way up a hiking trail in the mountains of Montana. This was a scenario that he had been in countless times before. Todd felt completely comfortable solo hiking through the wilderness. He had all the right gear to keep him safe, including a 10 millimeter 9/11 pistol and an eight ounce can of bear spray. Todd had hiked a few miles when all the sudden, he saw something that would scare the absolute sh*t out of pretty much all of us. About 80 yards off in the distance, Todd spotted a 400 pound grizzly bear and this bear just so happened to be a mama with her cubs right by her side. Now I can't imagine that Todd took pleasure in seeing this bear, but I tend to believe that he probably wasn't as scared as most people would be, as you or myself would be. And the reason I say that is because Todd was born and raised in the mountains of Montana and he had spent the past 25 years working for the United States Forest Service. He had seen countless other bears in the wild over the course of his life and besides, on the tiny chance that something did go wrong, once again, he had that gun and he had that bear spray to protect him. He had two defensive weapons, so what could possibly go wrong? Well folks, everything went wrong for Todd or this initial bear sighting would quickly turn into the bear charging Todd and Todd deploying his bear spray. And when this bear was confronted with a thick cloud of pepper mist, well, the bear charged right through it and it slammed right into Todd. The next series of events that would follow this are a mix of just frightening and miraculous and violent. And when all was said and done folks, this was probably one of the most infamous bear attacks of all time. It went super viral and I feel very honored today to tell you the story of Todd or so I get asked all the time if telling all of these outdoor mystery stories on my channel makes me more scared to go hiking and the honest truth is that it doesn't. I'm not scared of getting lost. I'm not scared of running into a murderer out on trail and I'm not scared of dying in a freak accident. I am, however, very scared of grizzly bears and mountain lions and I'm not afraid to admit it. And those of you that are regular viewers of this channel may have noticed that I've covered nearly every type of outdoor mystery on the channel at this point, with the exception of animal attacks. I've pretty much straight up avoided making videos about animal attacks because they're like the one thing that scares me the most when it comes to spending time in the wilderness. Now, I've never seen a grizzly bear or a mountain lion let alone had a bad experience with one of them, but they're just so like primally terrifying to me that I've basically refused to tell any stories about their attacks until now. It's time to confront this fear and what better way to do it than to tell the story of the man the myth the legend himself taught or this is a story I've known about for years long before I ever started making videos and so now I'm going to tell it to you. So please join me as we head together on a virtual trip to the great state of Montana. You'd genuinely be hard pressed to find anybody more experienced in the outdoors than Todd or he grew up just a bit outside of Yellowstone National Park in a small town called Ennis Montana, which is surrounded by wilderness on all sides. Todd spent his childhood exploring pretty much every outdoor pursuit including hiking, snowboarding, fishing and including hunting. When it comes to hunting in particular, well, this is an area where Todd really excelled from a very young age and an area that would eventually lead him to earn a degree in fish and wildlife management for Montana State University. This in turn led to a career with the United States Forest Service where Todd worked as a trail construction engineer in Custer, Gallatin National Forest, which was a job that required him to be outside in the wilderness almost every single day, and usually by himself by the way. However, this never phased Todd. In fact, he felt so comfortable alone in the wilderness completely by himself that he actually started a little side hustle selling handcrafted custom knives to hunters and other outdoor recreationists alike. This is just a little side note, but his company is called Skyblade Knives and I will have a link to it in the description if you want to check it out. On the morning of October 1, 2016, Toddore set out on a solo elk scouting mission. Now rifle season was still a few weeks away and Todd knew that his best chance to actually lay his eyes on an elk would be just after the sun came up. He planned to spend most of that day on trail. He was going to take photos, make notes about animal tracks and scat that he saw, and by the time that he returned to his truck, he hoped to know whether or not it would be worth hunting in the area once rifle season had begun. Todd pulls up and he parks his truck at the empty North Fork Bear Creek Trailhead, and then he just set off into the woods. He followed the trail just like he had done hundreds and hundreds of times before. And just like all of those hundreds of previous times, he carried weapons with him as he made his way down the trail. He carried both a 10 millimeter 1911 pistol and he carried an 8 ounce can of bear spray. Now you might be wondering why Todd would even bother carrying the bear spray if he was already carrying a firearm. And that's a great question, and the answer is that Todd was experienced, well practiced, and well studied when it came to bear spray. Now what I'm going to say next is a little bit controversial and definitely still up for debate, but there is research out there suggesting that bear spray is actually more effective against an aggressive bear than a firearm is through his passion for hunting and through his work. Todd was experienced with both firearms and bear spray, and he personally believed that bear spray was worth carrying and using in case of a bear attack. But honestly none of that really would have mattered when Todd first set out on this hike. Of course he wasn't thinking that he would ever be attacked by a bear. Nobody does. In fact, I would be willing to bet that this thought of an attack didn't even cross his mind when he literally spotted a mama grizzly bear with cubs about 80 yards in front of him. And the reason I say that is because while that is a unnerving circumstance to put it mildly, it's one that Todd had been in countless times before. And on each and every one of those previous occasions, the bear simply ran away. That's it. That's what bears are supposed to do when they smell or they see a human. That's what they're supposed to do and that's what they actually do in almost every single circumstance. In fact, that's actually what happened initially this time as well. The bear and her cubs well, they stared at Todd for a moment and then they went screaming over the ridge and they ran out of sight. And so at this point, Todd figured that he wouldn't be seeing those bears ever again. But unfortunately, Todd would see those bears again. And he would actually see them two more times to be exact. Todd or was about to find himself in the type of situation that's so rare, so statistically improbable that it almost doesn't even seem real. So after seeing the bears run away, Todd waited patiently for a few tense moments, but then he decided that the coast was clear and that he was safe to continue. And besides, I mean, the trail he was about to take would actually move him in the opposite direction from where the bears ran away to. And so he takes a deep breath and then he takes a step forward. Then he takes another step, then he takes another step. And then another step. He repeats this process no more than 12 times. When all of a sudden, he hears a noise coming from behind him. Todd turned to look over his left shoulder when he heard this noise and when he did this, he realized that the very same 400 pound grizzly bear that he had just seen a few moments earlier was now charging directly at him. And folks, these bears can move quick. They can run up to 35 miles per hour and I mean, just think about that. I mean, that's enough to get like a speeding ticket in a school zone. So both Todd's training and the speed at which the bear was charging told him that he only had a few seconds to react, a few seconds to save his life. And his first instinctual reaction was that honestly, this bear was probably bluff charging. Both charges are way more common than an actual attack and so he has this feeling and then his next instinctual reaction was to grab his bear spray. This is the thing that everyone's going to debate like, oh, maybe he should have grabbed his gun and if you want to do that, then fine. But that's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to tell you what happened. Todd unholstered the can of bear spray. He removed the safety clip and then he pointed it right at the bear. Todd had even tested this particular can of bear spray only a few weeks prior and also due to his job, he had taken numerous bear safety and bear spray classes over the years. And as if that wasn't enough, he had even used bear spray on a charging black bear once earlier in his career. And the reason I'm telling you all of this stuff is to say that if anyone knew how to effectively use bear spray, it was obviously Todd or within. Even just a few milliseconds, well, Todd realized that this bear actually wasn't bluff charging. She was running full speed ahead and she left Todd with no other option but to deploy his last line of defense. He unloaded his can of bear spray, putting a thick cloud of orange peppery mist between him and the bear. Now this mist is supposed to irritate the nose and the throat of the bear as well as just scare it and cause it to run away. And according to studies that have been done on bear spray, that's exactly what it does 98% of the time. Todd or would unfortunately be part of the 2% of circumstances where bear spray doesn't deter the bear. This bear was running so fast and it was so determined to dominate Todd that it ran right through the cloud of pepper spray and it smashed right into Todd. Todd shoved his face into the dirt and he put his hands around the back of his neck. He was basically helpless at this point. The best thing that he could do was just try to protect his vital organs and honestly just lay there and take it. He began to feel the bear tearing away at the muscle in his shoulders, his back and arms. But then after only about a split second and six bites, the bear began coughing and it ran away. Maybe the bear spray had actually worked after all. The bear had been charging too hard for the spray to stop the initial pounce. But after only a second or two it appears that the spray caught up to the bear irritating it to the point where like mid attack, well it gave up on Todd and it ran out of sight. So Todd just laid there for a second or two but then he slowly picked himself up to take stock of his injuries. Now he was bleeding quite a bit but he could stand and he could walk. He assessed his condition and he realized that while he was certainly seriously injured and he needed to go to the hospital. None of his wounds, none of his injuries, were life threatening. He was all but assured to survive as long as he could make it back to his truck. Once he arrived there, the hard part would be over, and he would just have to drive straight to the hospital, and he would let the doctors handle it from there. But I repeat myself that was all predicated on Todd making it back to his truck successfully. He was about 3 miles from the trail head when he was attacked, and so he knew that his journey back to the truck would be by far the most important 3 miles that he had ever hiked in his life. Still bleeding quite a bit, and holding his bear spray at the ready, mind you, Todd got moving. The first number of steps that he took were extremely nerve-wracking. I mean he knew the bear was still in his general vicinity, even if it had ran away after it felt the effects of the bear spray, and because of these nerves, well, Todd quickly worked up to a very fast hiking pace, and he managed to travel about a half mile. And after making it this far, somehow his nerves actually subsided almost entirely. He no longer feared that the bear would come back for him, and it just so happened that his adrenaline was kind of wearing off now as well. I can only imagine that this came with the price of increased pain from his wounds, but regardless, Todd wouldn't have much time to think about this. He wouldn't have much time to feel this pain, because just when things were starting to look up, well, he heard a branch crack behind him. He turned around to see the very same grizzly bear charging at him once again, except this time, the bear was so close to him that he had literally no time to react. He had no time to grab his pistol, no time to even deploy his bear spray. The bear slammed into Todd, knocking him ten feet forward, and then she began mulling him for a second time. This time was a little different though, and the reason I say that is because frankly, it was a lot worse, her level of anger and her level of violence was turned up to a whole another level. The bear pinned Todd down, and once again, he drew his hands in like this to kind of protect his neck and protect his head. The bear began biting his shoulders and his arms, and then it bit into his forearm so hard that he could literally feel his bone being crushed. When this happened, very understandably so, he reacted in pain. He moaned, he shouted out, and he moved around a little bit, and this movement and the noises that he made seemed to only further enrage the bear. Which is obviously not good, but it also was good because this is the moment that Todd realized an incredibly painful yet life-saving lesson. He realized that his only chance of survival was to essentially play dead. He had no choice but to just lay there and take the mulling while staying as perfectly still as he possibly could. The longer that he moved and reacted, the longer that he showed any signs of life at all, well, the longer that the attack would continue. In order to cope with this reality, well, Todd convinced himself that the attack would ensue because the mama bear would eventually need to go check on her cubs, right? He figured that he just needed to stay there, stay still, for just a few more seconds before the bear would wander off, it would be gone. But unfortunately, well, little did he know he still had a lot more pain to endure. The bear continued mulling him, it would open a gash on his head that would end up bleeding so bad that it basically blinded him. The bear was literally picking him up and then slamming him back down on the ground. Folks, the violence continued and continued until suddenly the bear stopped and it just kind of stood there on top of Todd. Todd held his breath and he just remained motionless as he actually felt the bear's breath on the back of his neck, which is very, very disturbing, a feeling I'm sure he won't ever forget. The bear stood there crushing him for roughly 30 seconds and then the bear wandered off. It left. This was obviously a huge relief for Todd, but at the same time, he had no idea where the bear went. He just didn't know right, did the bear leave the scene for good, did it run away or was it just kind of waiting off in the distance ready to attack a third time and ready to deliver that final blow. Todd's thinking about this and he just laid there, remaining motionless on the ground for close to a minute, but then he finally decided it was time to move. He mustered up the courage, he got up and he looked around. His brain immediately went into defense mode and so he thought about his gun. He stood up and he realized that his pistol had actually been tossed from his chest holder during the attack and so he went over to it, he picked it up and he cocked the hammer and then he kind of just stood there and inspected his immediate surroundings, obviously looking for the bear. And much to his relief, well, he couldn't see the bear. He was still nowhere to be found and so Todd grabbed the rest of his gear, including the bear spray, of course. And once again, he began moving down the trail towards his car. After he started moving, he had a second to kind of process what had happened and he was in complete disbelief that he had been attacked not once, but twice and had somehow survived both attacks. During this second getaway, Todd hiked at a slower pace as he made his way down the trail and the reason that he did this is because he wanted to keep his heart rate as low as possible in order to limit bleeding. He had also once again made the decision that his best chance of survival came with reaching his truck as soon as possible, rather than spending precious time attempting to like treat his wounds on the spot. And by the way, his wounds were much worse after this second attack than they were after the first attack. His left arm was rendered completely useless and he actually kept it tucked in against his body while he was hiking out in order to prevent further injury and to minimize pain. He also tucked his pistol in with his damaged arm and then he held his bear spray in his other arm while he was hiking out. And speaking of hiking out, it took him about 45 minutes, which is pretty impressive given the circumstances. For 45 minutes, he stumbled down the trail, stopping only twice to briefly assess his bleeding. By some miracle, folks, he reached this truck and this was the moment for the first time since the second attack that Todd knew with 100% certainty that he was going to survive. He had done the hard work all he needed to do now was to drive himself to the hospital. That was the most important thing, but Todd decided to add two bonus steps before he hit the road. The first thing that he did after he reached the trailhead was to actually try and warn other people about the dangerous bear. And I think this is a perfect illustration of Todd's character. I mean, he was literally bleeding and by now I'm sure the adrenaline had worn off and he was in severe pain, you know, he really needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. But he still paused for a moment, pulled out a no pad from his truck and attempted to write a warning note so that he could put it at the trailhead to warn other people about the bear. Unfortunately, despite his intentions here, he actually had to give up this idea because he was trying to write the note and his arms and his body was so damaged and he was also dripping with so much blood that, well, the note was just completely illegible. And so eventually he gave up and he moved on to something else. Todd figured that some of his hunting buddies might appreciate it. So he actually began taking selfies of his current condition. He's standing there covered in blood and he's taking photos of himself. And then he actually took a video. He made like a quick clip just kind of recounting his brush with death, his brush with his grizzly bear. And later on, that very same video would end up on Facebook and would end up going completely viral. I'm sure a lot of you have probably seen this video. I remember seeing it way back at the time when this happened way before I had a YouTube channel, you know, way before I was thinking about covering stories like this. And unfortunately, I can't actually play anything from his viral video because, well, frankly, it's way too graphic and it would get this video banned immediately. But if you really want to find it and I highly advise some discretion if you do because it's very graphic. But if you really want to find it and you look hard enough on Google, you're going to be able to find it. But anyways, Todd finished filming this video and then he got into his truck. He drove himself 30 minutes to the nearest emergency room, stopping only once to ask a local rancher to alert the hospital that he was on the way. And just another side note, can you imagine being that rancher, like, can you imagine a guy pulling up in a pickup truck covered in blood and just being like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Hey, do you mind calling the hospital and telling them that I'm on my way? I got attacked by a bear, like can you imagine? Just insane. When Todd arrived at the emergency room, his pain and his injuries literally prevented him from doing simple things like being able to put his truck in park and unbuckle his seatbelt. That's how bad his injuries were. I mean, the muscles and the tendons in both of his arms were badly damaged and he had puncture wounds all over his upper body. He laid there in the hospital for nearly eight hours as doctors stitched him up and then he went home. He got a few hours of rest and then he returned the next morning for a series of surgeries. Two of Todd's tendons in his left forearm had been completely torn. He also had extensive nerve damage. He had broken bones and of course, he had muscle damage. His road to recovery would be very, very long, but within six weeks of the attack, Todd was healthy and mobile enough to actually go hiking again. And as I'm sure you can maybe imagine, the trail that he chose to go hiking on this time was the very same trail that he had nearly died on. That's right folks. He went back to the attack sites only six weeks after the attack. This time he brought along a friend and he went back to try and face his fears. And I'm happy to report that, well, it must have worked because within just a few more months, Todd was back at work, surveying trails for the forest service, often once again in the wilderness completely by himself. He would go on to make a near full recovery from the attack. I mean, he's basically back to normal with only a few lingering effects in his left hand and his left forearm. I actually had the great pleasure of speaking with Todd in preparation for this video. And one thing that I was really curious about was why his bear spray didn't stop the bear during that first attack. I'm sure this is something that a lot of you are wondering about as well. And so allow me to read you his response. Quote, the bear was in a full charge at 35 or 40 miles per hour and didn't slow it all when she got close. So she blasted through the cloud of spray in a fraction of a second and it took a few seconds before it got to her sinuses and began irritating her. She bit me a half dozen times and then started coughing from the spray and took off. So it definitely worked and deterred her just a few second delay due to the speed of the attack. Most bears would bluff charge and stop short. That's where they get a full blast of spray and usually turn around and run. Folks, Toddore is a certified badass. I'm so thankful that he survived and I'd encourage you to please show him some love in the comment section right now.