RW Digital Marketing Podcast with Leslie Hacker, Founder of Hacker Communications and President of the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) Vancouver

Welcome back to another episode of Heart Sides Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. As always, I'm your host, Kayla Moore. Today, I want to explore with you guys one of the most requested dark summer topics, and that is camping horror stories. So I have two for you today. They're both really bizarre mysteries that I got absolutely lost in. And you know, just from doing this show for the last couple of years, I've become really passionate about cold cases being solved. And I think that the last story I tell you might be really close to a major breakthrough, so you're not going to want to miss it. But before we dive in, to celebrate dark summer, I do want to do another where I listen giveaway. If there's one thing I'm going to do, it's going to be giveaway our merch. You guys can take photos of where you listen and tag me at Horses Pounding on Instagram. I'm going to share some of my favorites, and I'm also going to pass out some merch codes to you guys for our store. The last time I did this, which I think was in March for a listener appreciation month, you guys had a lot of fun with it. I know a lot of people were in cemeteries. Some people were just wandering around scary woods. I think one person even broke into an abandoned hospital, which I don't think legally I can condone, but I was very excited when I got that photo. You guys should really get creative with this. I am always a fan of the weirder, the better. Go have fun. I can't wait to see what you do. Now with that, let's get into the episode. I will say these stories can be heavy for some listeners. You can always check out our content warnings in the description. So listen with care. Late in the morning on June 1, 1987, the phone rang in the home of a 43-year-old Fresno California man named John Richmond. On the other end was an administrator at a 16-year-old niece's high school. His niece, Teresa, who lived with him, hadn't shown up for school that day, and the administrator was curious as to why. Thinking fast, John told the school that Teresa was homesick and he had simply forgotten to call in. But he knew that that was a lie. He hadn't seen Teresa since early that morning. See, earlier that day, his friend, a 43-year-old man named Skip Welch, had come by and offered to take Teresa to school. There had to be an explanation for this, as to why Teresa never made it to her classes, he thought. When he tried calling Skip, the landline just kept ringing. So John started calling around to some of his other friends. Did any of them know where Teresa and Skip had gone? And the answer was not anything that anyone would have expected. But that morning would be the last time that John ever saw his niece. By 9.30 pm that night, John had called the Fresno Police to report Teresa as a missing person. Teresa Bear was 16 years old, but those who knew her best described her as "seeming a lot younger than that." At least emotionally. She was described as being "childlike, very impressionable." For teachers and administrators noted that she was a bit immature and was slow to learn. Teresa lived in Fresno, California with her uncle John. One of her uncle's friends was a man named Russell Welch, also known to everyone who knew him as Skip. And Skip was this 43 year old widowed house painter who mostly survived off of disability checks, five days into the investigation. Police were able to locate Skip, but Teresa was not with him and she was nowhere to be found. They placed him under arrest on this outstanding DUI warrant that they had and they took him down to the station, sat him down in an interview room and asked him "point blank." Where is Teresa? And at first, Skip doubled down on the story. He insisted that he had dropped Teresa off at school, but that was the last he saw of her, but as investigators kept pressing him. Skip finally admitted that he had picked Teresa up from her uncle's house that morning and driven with her into the Sierra Nevada mountains. But it's not what you think, Skip said. And this is the part of the story where it turns into something that police could have never predicted. It told them that he and Teresa had gone into the mountains with a mission. They wanted to see Bigfoot, the two of them then set up a campsite. And before long, Skip said, the cryptid emerged from the forest and presented itself to them. They had several Bigfoot sightings while they were in the woods. And Skip told the police that Teresa got so excited seeing these creatures that she ran off to go live with them. The last time he saw her, Teresa was bounding towards the tree line, determined to go live amongst a family of Sasquatches, and Skip just couldn't catch her. And that's why he returned to town without her. Obviously, this did not look good for Skip, an adult man who went into the woods with an underage girl and emerged alone. Now telling the police that she consensually went to go live with Bigfoot. And this sounds ridiculous to you and I. I mean, at least to me, I don't want to make assumptions on your behalf, but I assume a lot of you agree with me. But the area that Teresa disappeared from, Shadai Peak, actually does have this long history of Bigfoot sightings. And the police knew that. So Shadai Peak is in the Sierra Nevada, and it's this really inviting destination for people who love the outdoors. But it's hiking trails are really not for novices. At around 8,300 feet, Shadai is the highest peak on the 8 mile Chikito Ridge, and its steepness and its regattrain make it what backpackers classify as a really hard hike. But it's a hike that's very rewarded with these stunning panoramic views. Now in 1971, two men ventured into these mountains and came back with this audio recording of what they claimed were Bigfoot vocalizations. These distant yips and howls and knocking sounds and strange voices that almost sounded like an unknown language. This recording became very famous. It was called the Sierra Sounds, and it cemented the Sierra Nevada's as a landscape where people believed that Sasquatch lived. Take a listen to it. In the spring of 1987, Skip Welch approached Teresa and told her that he knew where Bigfoot lived. He said that he had seen one of these Sasquatches before. Now this was really exciting to Teresa. Like a lot of people in that area, she had heard stories of Bigfoot and had always wanted to see one for herself. Skip claimed that he was a Bigfoot expert. He and Teresa would talk for hours about the subject, and in fact, it was basically all they talked about. Eventually, Dig convinced Teresa that there was a whole community of Bigfoot's living and underground caves in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and that he had communicated with them. And that's when Skip convinced her to come along with him on one of his Bigfoot hunts. They planned this expedition in secret, and on the morning of June 1st, Skip showed up to her uncle's house and pretended that he was going to drive Teresa to school. Teresa played along with this plan. She stepped outside, got into Skip's truck, and then he drove them 70 miles north into the mountains. And now Teresa Beer was missing. Investigators needed to get to the bottom of what really happened with the two of them out there, but the longer Skip sat with them, the more his story started changing. In one version, he told Teresa ran off with another young woman, and another version she ran off with other campers. And then the story was that Teresa had actually run off with Bigfoot, and now she was happier, and healthier, and better off living with the colony of Bigfoot's in the mountain than she was at home. And she would rather stay with that Bigfoot colony, so can I please leave? I'm done doing this interview, essentially, is what he told police. Investigators listened to Skip's shape-shifting story with increasing uneas. He kept referring to Teresa as Sam, which was a nickname that only her family and close friends used, and then Skip volunteered information that was really disturbing, and it was totally out of the blue. He insisted, and this is without being prompted, that if Teresa were to be found, there would be no signs of sexual abuse. And Skip added that, although Teresa was willing to have sex with him, it just wasn't in his nature to do so with such a young girl. And police heard that statement from him, and they knew, like you and I right now, that something was very wrong. Skip eventually agreed to lead investigators to the spot where he claimed that he and Teresa had camped. He accompanied the detectives out to Brown's Creek, which is about 25 miles southwest of Shadipique, and he walked them into a small grove of trees where they found this smoldering fire somewhere in the damp pine needles, and picture perfect remnants of what looked like a campsite. The town blankets arranged in a way that made them look like they were staged. There was also a woman's purse, a bra, a t-shirt, a camera, and several photographs at this campsite. And the pictures were of the landscape. There was a picture of Skip playing his guitar in the same area that the detectives were currently standing, and there were also photos of Teresa. But the police noticed something really important. The topography that was visible in the photos of Teresa was very different from the area they were standing in around Brown's Creek. The campsite that Skip had led them to was almost certainly staged, and it was not where she disappeared from. The real campsite where the two had been, the police believed, was somewhere else, somewhere closer to Shadipique, possibly in the vicinity of Ghost Canyon. That was more than 20 miles away. But even though police believed that they were in the wrong place, that was still the area that was searched. The organized air and ground searches with helicopters and bloodhounds, and for a moment, it actually did seem like one of the bloodhounds had picked up Theresa's scent. But then, the dog lost it. And after that, a search helicopter that was scanning the area from above spotted something blue on a hillside near the camp, investigators made their way over to it, and it turned out to be a blue shirt. And Skip admitted that that shirt was his, and when police reached into the pocket, they pulled out a small baggy of meth. After that, nothing else turned up. There was no trace of Theresa that was ever found. But authorities now believed Theresa was dead, and Skip Welch was responsible. But without a body, they couldn't charge Skip with murder, at least at the time. So instead, they were able to charge him with felony child stealing and child endangerment. At his arrangement, Skip pleaded, "You guessed it, not guilty," and the judge released him, without realizing that there was actually another judge that increased his bail to $30,000. So once this oversight was discovered, a new arrest warrant was issued for Skip. And then Skip was taken back into custody two days later. Over the next couple of months, prosecutors built their case, and they set a trial date for October 5th, all the while they hoped that Theresa would be found so they could officially charge Skip with murder. Even though that's really dark and they were hoping to find a body they at least wanted her found. But that wasn't going to happen. And prosecutors realized that they had a really big problem. If they proceeded to try to get Skip on the lesser charges, and he was convicted, and then Theresa's body turned up later on, they might not be able to pursue a murder case because there would be double jeopardy protections. So three days before his trial, the WDDA approached Skip and he offered him a deal. Skip would receive a sentence of just one year on the child's stealing charge if he would agree to sign a waiver allowing them to charge him with murder should Theresa's body ever be found. Skip's public defender said no to this. He said that was a very bad idea, and Skip refused to sign this waiver. But later that day, prosecutors totally dropped the case, and Skip walked out of that courthouse of free man. It's a devastating outcome, obviously, but I looked more into Theresa's backstory to learn more about who she was as a person because that seems to get really overlooked in this case, and unfortunately, it just doesn't seem like there was anyone in her life protecting her. She was in an ideal situation for a predator-like skip to walk into her life. By the time Theresa was just 10 years old, she had already endured more hardship than most of us have seen in our entire lifetime. When she was barely three years old, child protective services removed her and her sisters from their mother's custody after she was found to have multiple broken bones. Her father filed for divorce, and Theresa and her sisters were separated when her sisters went to live with a family friend, and Theresa went into the foster care system. A few years later, Theresa's father remarried, and the woman he was married to was named Margie Richmond. Margie was actually the ex-wife of Theresa's uncle John Richmond, if that's not too much of a tangle web to follow, and Theresa moved from Fresno where she grew up down to LA County to live with both of them. But her new stepmother was just as abusive as her biological one, and she would do things like lock up the refrigerator so that the children couldn't eat. By Theresa's pre-teen years, every adult responsible for her care had failed her. And before long, Theresa returned home to Fresno to live with her uncle John Richmond, who was her stepmother's ex-husband as well as her biological mother's half-brother, so he had a direct familial link to both of Theresa's abusive mother figures. Now around the neighborhood, John went by a different name, people actually called him blind Johnny on account of his poor eyesight. He claimed that he lost his eyesight in an unlucky round of Russian roulette. But a lot of people in the neighborhood thought that he could actually see a lot better than he was letting on and that story was a total lie. Blind Johnny was in his 40s, he was unmarried, but he didn't live alone. Living with him were his two sons whose mother were not involved in their lives. And Theresa was often forced to babysit these two, and living with Blind Johnny was his girlfriend, if that's even what you could call it because she was 17 years old. I personally would call her a victim, but tomato tomato I guess. Blind Johnny became Theresa's legal guardian, yet another string of unsuitable parental figures in her life. And Blind Johnny was really known to traffic drugs in the area, and it had been alleged, according to multiple sources, that Blind Johnny and several of his friends were abusing Theresa. One of Johnny's many questionable friends was Skip Welch, and that is how Skip got close to Theresa. He was a man with a reputation, he was known to be addicted to meth, his wife had actually died from an overdose, and he was also known to be very predatory to teenage girls, as obviously Johnny is too. The previous summer, Skip had invited a 17 year old girl named Michelle on a camping trip in the mountains, Skip's own daughter warned Michelle to not go with him, explaining that her father had a habit of luring young women into the mountains, plying them with drugs and taking advantage of them. Michelle would tell police that even though she had this warning, she did go anyways, and she made sure it wasn't her skip on this trip, she actually brought along two guy friends, and while she made it back to civilization safely, she believed that she had been drugged on her time in the mountains with Skip. So Skip took drugs and gave them to young girls, Blind Johnny sold drugs, so it wasn't really hard for police to see the connection between these two men, Skip came by Blind Johnny's house often, and there was no one around to protect Theresa from him. Even he told her all of these fantastical tales of his big foot encounters, she believed him, and when he proposed a secret trip to the mountains, she jumped at the opportunity. And then when Skip offered to give Theresa a ride to school that morning, Blind Johnny said yes without thinking twice. Theresa beer's body never turned up. Skip Welch died in 1998 from coronary artery disease at the age of 54, taking whatever he knew about Theresa's disappearance to his grave with him. In 2025, there was a three part documentary about Theresa's case called Bigfoot Tuker, a premiered on HBO Max, and during the documentary's production, Skip's great niece talked to the filmmakers and shared her belief that her great uncle may have buried Theresa on his mother's property. The filmmakers made contact with the current owner who agreed to search the current property with cadaver dogs, and one of the hosts entered the crawlspace beneath the house and did find bones. The production team sent those bones to a county corner and the corner examined them and concluded that they did belong to an animal. Theresa and beer remains a missing person, and if she were alive today, she would be 55 years old. Like I said earlier, sometimes the scariest thing in the woods is a person you thought you could trust. And though Skip tried to insist he did not know what happened to Theresa, in my opinion, this case was never a mystery. Our next case, however, is kind of the opposite. It's a real puzzle, the kind that still keeps an entire town up at night. We're going to leave 1987 behind, we're going to leave California, and we're going to head a couple thousand miles north to a small logging town in British Columbia, to a summer night lake party, and a mystery that I think might soon have an answer. This episode is brought to you by Kachava. At this point, if you've been listening to Heart Size Pounding for a while, you definitely have heard me talk about Kachava. I've talked about the vanilla flavor, the coffee flavor, which is my new favorite. Also their chocolate, sometimes their strawberry, which I also love. But now they've gone and given me a new flavor to obsess over. And that is cinnamon French toast. It's made with real cinnamon bark, warm and cozy, and it honestly tastes like a weekend morning. Millennials will know what I'm talking about, waking up on the weekends and having cinnamon cereal or French toast and watching cartoons. It's definitely what drinking this feels like. Two scoops and you're getting the same plant-based protein, fiber, greens, and so much more. Everything you get in the other Kachava flavors. There's no artificial flavors, no sweeteners, no preservatives, just clean nutrition that actually satisfies a craving. I keep saying Kachava doesn't have to be boring to be good for you, and this flavor definitely proves it. And this is one that you can really just drink on your own. Sometimes I'll even throw coffee in there if I'm drinking it first thing in the morning, and I just need a little extra something, something. But honestly, on its own, still great. For yourself to a childhood favorite, go to Kachava.com and use code HSP for 15% off your first order. That's Kachava, k-a-c-h-a-b-a, dot com code HSP. This episode is brought to you by Minky Kature, the original blanket company and makers of the best blanket ever. I am quite literally in my Minky Blanket right now, it is so soft and so warm, and I love it so much. They just dropped the hug's light, is their signature stretchy hugs blanket in a lighter, more breathable weight that's perfect for year-round comfort. It comes in seven beautiful new colors with that same bubbly texture that you know and love. I also love that Minky Kature is a female owned business that donates over 100,000 mini blankets to NICU's every year through their heart of Minky initiative. We actually just got a comment from a NICU nursing that they were going to do that, which is great. We've partnered with Minky Kature to bring listeners an exclusive 50% off discount. That's right, 50% off. You can use code HSP at checkout for 50% off all full priced items. at DemiKikotura.com, use code HSP and get into the best blanket ever. them on Instagram for even more deals and cozy inspiration at Mingi Kotor. It was the very beginning of summer in British Columbia, Canada, Saturday, May 28, 2011. At 8.30 that morning, in the small rural community of Vanderhoof, a young woman named Jordi was on her way to work when she made a detour to Hogsback Lake. The night before, Jordi and her friend Maddie Scott had gone to a campfire birthday party at the Hogsback Lake Recreation site. This annual party was thrown by one of their friends and it usually drew dozens of people from around town. Jordi didn't want to stay the entire night. She ended up going home, but she left a couple of things behind. So she figured she'd swing by the lake early that morning to grab her stuff, catch up with her friend Maddie about how the night had gone, but as she pulled into the site, the first thing Jordi noticed was how empty it was. Every single tent from the night before was packed up and gone, even though it was still pretty early in the morning. All of the tents, except for one, Jordi recognized it immediately. It was Maddie's tent, sitting there in an empty campsite, unzipped. She walked over and she peered inside. Maddie's whole area was a mess. Her sleeping bag and blankets had been pushed to the side. Her earrings and her rings were scattered in the grass outside the tent. Now this was jewelry that Maddie wore all the time. It was jewelry that was really sentimental to her. And Maddie herself was now nowhere to be seen. But Jordi noticed that Maddie's truck was still there, parked in the same spot it was when Jordi was leaving the night before and the doors were locked. Now this didn't feel right to Jordi, but she wasn't necessarily panicking. She told herself that there had to be a reasonable explanation for this. Maybe Maddie had gotten a right home with some of the other partiers. Jordi collected her stuff and then she took off and drove to work. That evening, another party materialized at Hogsback Lake, a much bigger one. About 150 people showed up for it. And according to that group, there was an empty tent already set up at the campsite. A tent that didn't move the entire time they were there and the owner never showed back up. Maddie's tent. At some point during the night, someone at the party fell onto it and flattened it. And just after midnight, Maddie's parents arrived at Hogsback Lake. Maddie had not come home. She wasn't answering her texts or her phone calls. Her parents found her pickup truck still there where she had left it. The doors still locked. They found the campsite full of strangers. And then they found her daughter's tent collapsed in the grass with no sign that Maddie had ever come back for it. Maddie's parents left that area and called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And what followed was one of the most exhaustive searches in the history of Canada's third largest province. And a question that I still think about all the time. How had Maddie disappeared from a campsite full of people? On the afternoon of May 27th, 2011, the day before she disappeared, 20-year-old Maddie Scott called her cousin to ask if she could reschedule the plans that they had made for that evening. Maddie explained that she had just learned about a campfire birthday party that was being thrown that night and the boy she had a crush on was expected to be there. She couldn't pass up the opportunity to go see him. Her cousin understood she was a young girl too and that's what teen girls do and so they postponed their plans. Maddie looked at the Facebook event page for the party and noticed that pretty much everyone attending was someone she knew. That was Vanderhoof for you. Vanderhoof British Columbia is one of those places where everyone does know everybody because there's only about 4,000 people to know. It sits 430 kilometers inland from the coast and about 10 hours from Vancouver by car. The small district municipality hemmed in on all sides by hundreds of kilometers of wilderness and cultivated land. Logging is one of the primary industries and this community is small, it's tight knit and it's very remote. The nearest city of any real size is Prince George which is over 100 kilometers away. So Maddie grew up in the woods and as a result, she was a pretty outdoorsy girl. She loved being active, camping, dirt biking, horseback riding, team sports but she also had these really creative interests like photography and amateur video production. She also figured skated because what couldn't this girl do. After graduating from high school in 2009, Maddie followed her father into the logging industry and she became an apprentice heavy duty logger for the same company that employed her dad. Her friends described her as being really outgoing, really generous, spontaneous and her family said that she was someone who always shared when something was wrong. If Maddie was upset, she would tell you. One of Maddie's closest friends was Jordy, they had gone to school together, they had known each other for years and it was Jordy that Maddie called to go with her to the Hogsback Lake party that evening. Now the events of May 27th and 28th would later be reconstructed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, from interviews with dozens of party goers, cell phone records and the one piece of surveillance footage that captured Maddie that evening. So early that evening, Maddie swung by a liquor store and picked up a six pack of beer, a bottle of wine and snacks for the party. The store's surveillance camera caught her on video, grabbing supplies and heading out to her truck. Now this would become one of the last images of Maddie that anyone would ever see. Maddie and Jordy then headed out to Hogsback Lake in Maddie's pickup. It was about a 23 kilometer drive from town, mostly on good roads, there was a little bit of gravel on the last stretch and by the time they pulled in, it was starting to get pretty dark. Hogsback Lake was a popular local spot for swimming, fishing and camping. The lake itself is pretty small, it's about 128 acres, it's only 22 feet at its deepest, but it's scenic and it's quiet. And if you're young, you can drink there and people don't really bother you. When Maddie and Jordy pulled in at around 8pm on Friday, about 50 people were already gathered around the campfire. As Maddie started unpacking, she realized that she'd brought the wrong tent poles, so she told Jordy to wait for her and drove the half hour back to her parents house to grab the right ones. Her mom was home, they spoke briefly and then Maddie was out the door again at around 9pm. She was back at Hogsback Lake by 9.30, pitching her tent and sharing her drinks and snacks with her friends. Jordy watched as Maddie gathered the courage to go up and talk to that boy she had gone there for, but she also watched as Maddie came back, pretty dejected. The boy told her that he just wanted to be friends, and after that, Maddie's mood really changed, and by 10pm, she retreated into her tent, starting at around 11pm that night. Maddie was texting with her dad, we have these text messages. They exchanged messages for about an hour and a half, and her father would later tell investigators that she seemed somewhat upset about that rejection, I mean, I don't blame her, but nothing about their exchange really alarmed him. It was all ordinary teen girl disappointment. I mean, the kind of thing that you feel at 20 years old when you're at a party, and the person you came here for wasn't interested in you. But while Maddie was in her tent texting with her dad, the party outside had taken a turn. See just after midnight, a small group of strangers showed up and crashed the party. No one seemed to know who these people were, and remember, pretty much everyone knew everyone in this town. Jordy thought that these guys might have been from out of town, I mean, the party had been posted on Facebook, it was public, so anyone could have found it. And these strangers were not there to share beers and hang out. Their vibe was totally different. Within a half hour, a fight broke out, and Jordy got caught in the middle of it, she was jostled into the campfire at one point she heard her knee pretty badly. The strangers took off a short time later, but the damage was already done. Jordy was injured, the vibe had been killed, and her boyfriend, who had come to the party separately, decided that it was time for them to go out. Jordy left them to leave. He lifted Jordy off the ground, and he carried her back to his truck. But on the way out, they stopped at Maddie's tent. Maddie had been inside throughout the entire fight, she was already burrowed in her sleeping bag half asleep. Jordy told her, "Hey, we're gonna leave." And Maddie pleaded with her to stay. Jordy tried to convince Maddie to come with them instead, but she was too tired to tear down her tent and she didn't want to leave it behind unattended. It was her dad's tent, she said, she just didn't want to risk it. So, Jordy left, and that was a decision that she said she would regret for the rest of her life. Maddie didn't know it because she was inside of her tent, but Jordy wasn't the only one who wanted to leave after the fight. At around 1.40am, people began leaving the campsite in groups. One group stopped at Maddie's tent on their way out and asked if she wanted to ride home. But again, she declined. By 2.30am, the campsite was nearly empty. The only people left were Maddie, the birthday host, and his girlfriend. And then, the host and his girlfriend got in some kind of disagreement and decided that they were going to leave too. It would later tell police that they offered Maddie a ride before they packed up and drove away. And again, she turned it down. And after that, Maddie was completely alone at the campsite. I'm not sure if she knew that every person had left and if that would have changed her decision. But what we do know is that at 8am, the next morning, Maddie's phone stopped pinging the local cell tower. Whether the phone died or was turned off, no one knows. But that was the last electronic trace of Madison's got. The RCMP feared Maddie might be lost or injured somewhere out in the wilderness surrounding Hogsback Lake. And the area was really vast. I mean, think gravel pits, creeks, swamps, dense forest, and open fields that stretched for kilometers in every direction. If Maddie had wandered out into that landscape, disoriented, or drunk, she'd be in the dark and the eye. Lots of finding her quickly were very slim. The mounted police launched what really quickly became one of the largest search and rescue operations in the history of British Columbia. Good avid dogs were brought in to sweep the surrounding forest, boats equipped with side-scanning sonar, scoured the lake, all 128 acres of it, down to the deepest point. Divers searched the lake beds and the nearby swamps, helicopters with infrared cameras flew low over the creeks, the gravel pits, the soft fields. They were scanning for any sign of Maddie. Search teams on horseback covered the trails and the backcountry, and all of them found nothing. Not a single footprint, not a piece of clothing, not a single trace of Maddie beyond the campsite that she had been sleeping in. With the help of Maddie's family, investigators took a careful inventory of everything that she had left behind at the campsite and inside of her locked truck. They examined all of the items. There was the sleeping bag, her purse, her pillow, her camera, her jewelry was also there. Her family confirmed that nothing appeared to be missing except for Maddie's iPhone 4 and its blue protective case and a set of keys that she carried on the lanyard. The phone and the keys were a detail that really stuck with investigators. If Maddie had wandered off, disoriented, if she had gotten in some kind of accident or medical event, if she had even gone for a walk and gotten lost. Why would she have taken her phone and keys, but left everything else behind. Her purse, which her mom said she carried everywhere, that was still at the campsite. Her truck was in working condition, had gas in it, that was still park where she left it, the doors were locked, the phone and the keys, at least to the investigators, suggested that Maddie intended to come back. The phone records showed that Maddie's phone had last pinged the local tower at around 8am on May 28. Before that, there had been no activity on the phone since a brief phone call with a friend at around 12.30 in the morning. That was a 7.5 hour window from roughly 12.30am to 8am, which anything could have happened. This was a big thing, but at this stage of the investigation in the weeks and months after her disappearance, they had no point to. But they did not think that Maddie had some sort of accident. This episode is brought to you by Alma. I'm a big believer in therapy, but finding the right therapist can feel like it's own obstacle. Honestly, it can be the thing that keeps you from getting help in the first place. I remember not knowing where to start and feeling so overwhelmed by the whole process, who takes my insurance, who's going to be the right fit, and what is this actually going to cost me? Those obstacles usually turn people away from getting help. Well, that's why I want to tell you about Alma. 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She left on foot without her purse from a campsite that was 23 kilometers from town. It just didn't really fit the Maddie they knew and it didn't seem like a rational decision. They were really frustrated that investigators even floated this idea to them. And that's when her family realized that the RCMP could only do so much and if they wanted to maximize their family's chances of finding her, they needed to take matters into their own hands. So they launched a website and a campaign called Find Maddie and it spread across billboards, bumper stickers. They put flyers up all over British Columbia. They offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information that led to them finding Maddie and the campaign really worked. At least in keeping Maddie's name in the public eye. Her disappearance received intense media coverage across Canada and it would stay in the news for over a decade. Even 48 hours covered her case in a segment about disappearances in central British Columbia. And although it was in the same relative area, Maddie's case didn't necessarily fit the pattern or the profile of the highway of tears disappearances. As we know, those largely feature indigenous people who go missing in the area and don't receive this kind of coverage. So they stated publicly that Maddie's case just didn't meet the criteria to be lumped in with the other highway of tears, murders and disappearances. And unfortunately, when there is an empty space in an investigation, someone will try to fill it with whatever theory they think is the most accurate. And for Maddie's parents, that involved Jordy. They started making public statements, blaming Jordy for their daughter's disappearance. And then as the case attracted more attention, strangers began piling on as well. Jordy was harassed on Facebook by people who were following the case. Some of them who accused her outright of being a murderer, said that she knew more than she was letting on and said that she probably had something to hide. Because Jordy was one of the last people to see Maddie alive, the RCMP held their focus on her during the early weeks of the investigation. They brought her in for all these interviews, they administered multiple polygraph tests, and Jordy cooperated. Bully, she passed every single polygraph test. She was devastated by the loss of her friend and she wanted to do whatever she could to help find her. By 2016, when 48 hours sat down with the RCMP investigators for a follow-up segment on Maddie's disappearance, a constable made it clear on camera, Jordy was no longer a suspect. But they said there were actually a couple of other new leads that had popped up that they had started following. So in the first year of the investigation, the RCMP received several tips about a man who had been going around Vanderhoof, telling people that he knew what happened to Maddie. His name was Phrybian Bjornson. Born to his friends as Phryb, Phryb was 20 years old, he was described as being a single father with a cocaine habit, and he was known to socialize with Maddie. After her disappearance, Phryb started telling people around town that he knew what happened to her. And there were rumors circulating in Vanderhoof that Phryb owed money to drug dealers and that Maddie had been abducted to teach him a lesson. Police caught up with Phryb and brought him in for questioning. He denied knowing anything about Maddie's disappearance, and he insisted that he had nothing to do with it. And then, investigators gave him a polygraph test and he passed. But two days later, Phryb disappeared. And unlike Maddie, he wasn't going to be missing for too long because two weeks after his loved ones first reported him missing. Phryb's severed head was found in an abandoned house near Fort St. James, about 60 kilometers from Vanderhoof. Investors spent months piecing together what happened, and they would ultimately learn that Phryb had traveled to the abandoned house to buy drugs, and he had been ambushed when he got there. Phryb was beaten, he was strangled with a wire, and then he was beheaded. His body was left in the house and his head was found separately. In November of 2013, four men were charged in connection with his death, and the trial stretched out for years. And by October of 2017, all four men had been convicted, two for murder, two as accessories. But throughout the investigation and the trials, the RCMP looked for any possible connection between those men, Phryb, and Maddie Scott. And they just couldn't find one. Their conclusion was that for Frib's murder and Maddie's disappearance were unrelated. So whatever Frib had been telling people around town that he knew what happened to Maddie, he was either lying or he took the truth with him. And after that, leads in this case really start to dry up. The tips slowed down to a trickle and then the case grew cold. Maddie's parents frustrated with the pace of the RCMP investigation launched their own. And this research they did is showcased in the 48 hours episode that I was talking about earlier. In the basement of their house, they set up these big evidence boards and whiteboards and they started mapping the names of every person that attended that party that they could identify. They looked for every potential witness and every possible suspect and you can really tell how dedicated they are to finding their daughter. Now there's something I noticed in this episode that I want to talk to you about in this episode. Those whiteboards are largely blurred out, probably because there's sensitive information on them. But I noticed when I was watching it that in a couple of the shots, the boards aren't blurred and you can read what was on them. And there's two names on these whiteboards that keep showing up. Now for various reasons, I'm gonna keep the names anonymous because I don't know if I was supposed to see that. So I'm gonna call these two people the Greens. Two brothers who, you know, according to these whiteboards, showed up to the party at some point on four wheelers and were riding around the lake. And it seems like whoever Maddie's parents had spoken to to get this information, that person seemed to think that these brothers were among the last known people to have been around Maddie before she vanished. But this was from the parent's investigation, not the police's and Maddie's case had been stalled. It was basically cold. So I'm not sure if the police had looked into these leads. After Frib's death, more than a decade passed without any new developments in Maddie's case, they're not knowing haunted everyone who knew and loved her. But then on May 29th, 2023, 12 years to the day after Maddie's mother first reported her daughter missing, the RCMP made a wild announcement. They had recovered Maddie's remains from a property south of Vanderhoof about 16 kilometers from where Maddie was last seen. And the RCMP provided no additional details. But in the town of Vanderhoof, far more information was circulating than what had been publicly released. And much of this information found its way onto Reddit and WebSloos. Now Reddit is Reddit. It's not an official news source. I mean, you know that. I know that, but this is something I do need to clearly establish for obvious reasons before we move forward here. But since Maddie's remains were found, a lot of information has been posted about this case. And some of it has come from people who claim to be local to Vanderhoof and have firsthand or secondhand knowledge of this case. And the consensus seems to be that the property on which Maddie's remains were found was owned by the father of the Greens, the two brothers who were among the last known people to see Maddie alive. Now, the RCMP has not confirmed any of this. They haven't addressed it. They have not publicly named anyone connected to this property. But posters on Reddit and WebSloos have reported that Maddie's remains were discovered when a contractor was at the Green Family Farm buying topsoil and accidentally unearthed a human skull. Either the contractor or the property owner, Mr. Green, then contacted authorities and the remains were removed and soon identified as Maddie's. A few retiters who claimed to have the inside scoop have said that the father now has dementia and this has complicated the investigation. Word of all of this had already spread by August of 2023 when some angry followers of the case began posting and sending messages to the father on Facebook saying that his sons were murderers. He did reply to these messages, calling the senders, "Sick people and accusers," and he dismissed all of this talk as slander. But he also did seem to imply that how Maddie ended up on his property was quote, "a mystery for everyone." Kind of acknowledging that, yes, Maddie's remains were found on his property. That same summer, a candlelight vigil was held for Maddie on the athletics field of her high school. The vigil drew over 2000 attendees and that's equal to nearly half the population of Vanderhoof. And in the three years since Maddie was found, the RCMP has offered no public theories on her death, except to say that foul play has not been ruled out. And remember earlier in the investigation, they did say they assumed that foul play was involved. To date, there have been no arrests in Maddie's case and the police have not named any suspects. So this case is still technically open. And I have here that if you have any information on Madison Scott, you can call the RCMP at 788-290-5291 or 1-877-543-4822. And if you want to remain anonymous, you can call crime stoppers at 1-800-2284-777. And also, if you have any information on the whereabouts of Teresa Ann Beer, you can call the Fresno Police Department at 559-621-2541. But Maddie's remains have been found. She was able to be laid to rest. And that is why I do think that this case might be cracked very soon. It seems if we're going based on the parents investigation and what people around town have been saying, it seems like the people who might be responsible is where her remains were found. So I'm just hoping that they're able to put those pieces together. And I hope that whatever happens next we're able to see some justice in her case. And that that happens very soon. But what do you guys think? Now I kind of turn it over to you. You can comment wherever you listen to episodes. I'm always interested in hearing your thoughts on these cases. Is anyone local to that area and had been hearing about more information on Maddie's case? I'm very curious. I will be here next week with another story for you all. You can meet me here in the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters. And if you want more, we do have footnotes, which is an after show that we do on our Patreon on the High Council tier, where you can get a little bit more context on the episode, stuff that goes into the research, and we just talk about what's going on in the heart starts, pounded community in general. And you'll also get 20% off merch, which is great. And we have our dark summer merch. So join me there. I will see you next week with more. And until then, stay curious. Ooh. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kiela Moore, our associate producer, is Juno Hobbs. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown, additional research and writing by Paul Haines, Sound Design and Mixed by Red Room Creative, Video Editing by Creative Step. Special thanks to Travis Dunlop, Grayson Drining in, the team at WME. Have a heart pounding story or a case request. Check out Heart Starts Pounding.com. [BLANK_AUDIO]