The Mysteries of Death Valley National Park

Today, we're starting out in Death Valley, where a park ranger followed a set of tire tracks into the desert and found a stranded woman desperately waving for help. At first, this just looked like a rescue, but then the ranger got closer and realized that something was horribly wrong. Then we're heading to a different part of California, where a highly trained police officer went for a run, was seen by multiple people throughout the day, and then somehow vanished under extremely suspicious circumstances, I might add. I'm Kyle, listen on if you dare, and I also dare you to hit the follow button, it really helps our standing with Spotify, and it only takes about two seconds. Thank you guys so much for your support of the show, let's do it. Listen to me, something is going on in Death Valley National Park, I've been hearing rumors about this for years, and I'm starting to think that they're true. On August 6th, 2009, a park ranger spotted a discarded tire and an empty water bottle beside a remote dirt road in the park. Then, she saw a set of tire tracks that led away from the road and deeper into the desert, and she followed these tracks until a jeep appeared way off in the distance. This jeep was buried up to its axles in sand, and then she spotted a woman nearby, desperately waving for help. But when she reached that jeep, and she began talking to the woman, she quickly realized that this was not just a case of a stranded motorist, this was something far stranger and far-fetched. It was just a sliver of one of the many disturbing Death Valley stories that I'm going to be telling you today, and be sure to stick around until the end of the video, because the last story is unlike anything I've ever told on this channel, like let's just say that it involves a shotgun, skinny dipping, and copious amounts of alcohol, but we'll get there. So let me introduce you to 28-year-old Alicia Sanchez. Alicia had recently moved to Las Vegas, and she was working as a nurse, and she decided to take her 11-year-old son to the hospital. So let's get started. Her 11-year-old son named Carlos on an overnight camping trip in the desert. And so on Saturday, August 1st, 2009, the mother and son duo packed a case of water bottles, a box of Pop-Tarts, and then a couple cheese sandwiches to eat along the journey. And while we can certainly debate whether Pop-Tarts are like the ideal camping survival food, it seems like Alicia, her son, and their family dog were at least relatively prepared for what was supposed to be a very short camping trip. Assuming not to be a big deal. During the summertime, the daytime temperatures in Death Valley National Park can regularly climb above 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and even the nighttime temperatures can still stay dangerously hot. And so with every mile, Alicia was driving her and her son farther away from civilization and deeper into a vast, empty stretch of land where getting lost would be way more than just a little inconvenience. If they were to somehow get stranded out there and then. run out of water, it would pretty much be a death sentence. And I don't know if Alicia was thinking about these things, probably not, but all of a sudden, Alicia heard a pop. She felt her car jolt, and she began to drift to the side of the road because she realized she had a flat tire. And so they were now stranded out in the middle of nowhere. It was insanely hot, and Alicia was going to have to change a flat tire while her 11-year-old son sat and waited patiently in the car. And I gotta give it to her, despite the, you know, almost hellish conditions, literally, Alicia managed to change her tire and successfully install her spare. But after this stressful plot twist, she didn't decide to cut her losses and turn around. No, she continued to drive deeper into the desert. And I'm not really sure why. So apparently, Alicia had originally planned to camp somewhere in the Panamint Mountains and possibly take Carlos to an attraction. On the far northeastern side of the park, but as Alicia continued to use her car's GPS to guide her, it was starting to become increasingly clear that her tire was not the only piece of equipment that had failed her. And this is also where the story gets even harder to understand, because somehow her GPS, the directions that it was giving her, led Alicia and Carlos onto an unmaintained dirt road and deep into the Owl's Head Mountains. near China Lake Naval Weapons Center, close to the southwestern corner of the park, more than 155 miles from their original destination. And look, I'm just barely old enough to remember when my parents had to, like, print out old MapQuest directions, or maybe even use, like, a road atlas. But even then, I can't imagine being that far in the wrong direction. But they kept driving, and very soon, they felt another bump in the road. And this one would not be as simple to fix as a flat tire. It turns out that their car had hit an underground animal den and was now suddenly buried in the sand all the way up to its axles. And Alicia realized that she needed to call for help now, and this is where she discovered yet another massive problem. She, predictably, couldn't get any cell signal. She even tried to hike to the top of, like, a nearby hill, hoping that she could finally connect with someone up there that could come rescue her. And Carlos, and their poor dog. But the bars on her cell phone never moved. And so now, they were all stranded in one of the deadliest places on Earth that's literally in the name, with no maps and very little food and water to sustain the three of them. And to make matters worse, the sun above them was unrelenting, with temperatures reaching, again, like, 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and then an overnight low of a brisk 96 degrees. And so, obviously, if they were going to make it out of this nightmare alive, they were going to need, like, a true miracle. Back home, it took Alicia's family members a few days before they started to notice that anything was wrong. They knew that Alicia and Carlos were planning an overnight trip, and so they weren't immediately concerned when they hadn't heard from them, which is totally understandable. However, by the evening of Wednesday, August 5th, five days after their fateful trip had begun, their family finally. started to get, like, pretty seriously worried. According to Death Valley Chief Ranger Brent Pennington, one of Alicia's relatives contacted them after receiving a text saying that she was, quote, out in the desert changing a flat tire. And her family later told authorities they received that text message on August 1st, but the reports that I read didn't clarify exactly, like, when it was sent. I mean, it could have been sent right after Alicia got the flat, before losing cell service, or maybe it was a message. That she tried to send earlier, that was delayed until her phone briefly reconnected. But whatever the case was, Las Vegas police had also received multiple calls from relatives, and the brutal truth was officially real by this point. Alicia and Carlos were missing. At around 5pm that very same night, Las Vegas police checked Alicia's apartment. And while they were there, they couldn't find any sign that she'd ever been back home at all. And so police also began coordinating with. San Bernardino County Sheriff's officials, but immediately ran into a major problem, and that was, no one really knew where to look, right? Alicia's family members believed that she was heading towards an attraction called Scotty's Castle, but you and I now both know that Alicia's GPS had sent her in a completely different direction. And so while rescue crews initially focused their attention on one single area, Alicia and Carlos were trapped in an isolated corner on the other side of the road. At dawn on Thursday, authorities launched an air and ground search, expanding their focused area, and combing the enormous wilderness for any sign of the missing mother and son. During this expanded search, a park ranger named Amber Natrus was walking down a dirt road in the southwest corner of the park, kind of just combing the desert. She had been staring at miles and miles of untouched sand. For days at this point, and of course everything was starting to look the same, that is actually, until something that looked out of place caught her eye. Amber spotted a pair of tire tracks, and though she didn't realize it yet, those tracks were about to lead her directly into Death Valley history, and for all the wrong reasons. So park ranger Amber Natrus spotted these tire tracks and followed them. At one point she actually passed by an abandoned tire and a discarded water bottle. Each of these tiny pieces of evidence started to tell a very dark story, and as Amber's eyes followed the tracks even further, she suddenly saw the next chapter of that story unfolding right in front of her. Just a few dozen feet away, she saw Alicia waving her arms beside her. Inside a car that was almost completely swallowed by sand. By some stroke of random luck, I guess you could say, Amber had managed to find Alicia on the opposite, the complete opposite side of the park from where she was supposed to be. Approximately 20 miles east of a town called Trona, California, right along the northern border of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center. As Amber approached the vehicle, she even noticed that the letters SOS had been spelled in medical tape on the windshield. Winshield and Alicia. was continuing to wave her hands frantically she was obviously very dehydrated and exhausted from days in the desert that she had somehow managed to survive and the sight of her the fact that she was moving and you know again still alive brought amber an immediate sense of relief their search was finally over but then when amber got a little closer that sense of relief disappeared immediately this is hard um but i carlos again alicia's 11 year old son was inside the jeep and you know where i'm going with this he didn't make it um alicia and the family dog had miraculously survived for days for days in these extreme temperatures on just you know a little bit of water some pop tarts cheese sandwiches uh even their own urine apparently but carlos was was not so lucky according to the sheriff's report alicia told deputies that her son had died just one day before they were found on wednesday august 5th and the coroner's report would go on to say that the death was due to apparent heat exposure and authorities said they obviously did not suspect any foul play and look man that was hard for me to tell you clearly and i can't help but wonder what would have happened if alicia and carlos had been reported missing earlier right like what if search and rescue crews had somehow found them just one day earlier and what if their gps hadn't somehow pointed them in the completely wrong direction to begin with hikers and adventurers everywhere rely on gps with their lives but according to a lot of reports like the gps had found them just one day earlier alicia's gps had led her miles and miles in the opposite direction and i can't find any evidence as to whether the gps system itself was like truly faulty or if the wrong destination was entered perhaps but it's still a chilling reminder that even the technology we trust can fail us and it should never replace basic wilderness preparation a gps can tell you where a road appears to go but it doesn't necessarily know whether that road is actually safe maintained and if it's not then it doesn't know whether it's safe maintained or even passable and in a place like death valley that distinction can mean life or death now i want you to remember alicia and carlos's story because as unbelievable as it might seem almost the exact same thing had actually happened before and if you can even believe it that story ended even worse somehow and we're going to come back to that very shortly but first i want to tell you a different story one about one of the most accomplished trail runners in all of california and the day that he tried to outrun death valley on august 7 2012 34 year old michael popov would put his speed to the ultimate test on a 123 degree day when he stepped out of his car and set his sights on crossing the desert to reach the infamous bad water road his partner sarah spelt packed up his water bottles for him but as she felt the hot sun shining down she started to think that running in these conditions would be a good idea and the very same doubts would creep back into her mind just a few hours later after death valley turned both of their lives completely upside down but it's important to back up and tell you that michael wasn't just some random inexperienced hiker who just accidentally wandered into the desert no he was actually one of the most accomplished endurance athletes in northern california he was a man who had spent years deliberately seeking out some of the hardest challenges that he could find for example in 2007 when he completed the roughly 222 23 mile john muir trail without assistance in just over four days which became the record the speed record at that time and then in 2011 he ran approximately 165 miles around the tahoe rim trail without support in 63 hours and 54 minutes i've done both of those trails uh in normal time frames and like this stuff is crazy to me i don't know how he could do that kudos to him however on this particular very hot august day death valley was about to throw all of those records out and judge michael on the only question that the wilderness actually cares about which is can you survive or not so michael and sarah had traveled into death valley national park in order to scout a course for a 100 mile ultra marathon that they were planning to stage the following year on the morning of the day michael and sarah traveled into the park from the north traveling through bishop and furnace creek before eventually turning onto west side road and driving deeper and deeper into the valley and at some point on this drive michael turned to sarah and suddenly suggested that he wanted to run across the desert from west side road all the way to bad water road and this plan was simple enough i guess i mean sarah would drop him off michael would run the rough least six miles through the sand and the sun and then the two of them would meet back up at bad water and like this is the kind of random challenge that only an elite endurance athlete like michael would come up with on the spot but in terms of the things he had done in the past it seemed pretty easy however i do have to say the words easy and death valley don't usually go together very well according to sarah michael had always been very careful and extremely thorough in planning when it came to his adventures and so this spur of the moment idea wasn't wasn't like him really sarah actually questioned whether he really felt safe making this run in the extreme summer heat and michael insisted that he felt great about it and he hugged sarah and told her not to start worrying for at least three hours mind you the reported high temperature that particular day was 100 degrees celsius 123 degrees fahrenheit but despite all of her doubts sarah prepped four water bottles with ice some electrolyte packets and then she watched michael disappear into the desert so six miles might not sound particularly intimidating when you're talking about someone like michael but that distance wasn't really the challenge here again michael was going to be running around a place called lake manly which is a rare temporary body of water that forms in bad water basin after heavy rainfall and there wasn't any water there on this particular day but there still could have been hidden moisture that can suddenly give way beneath somebody's feet and so if michael encountered one of these areas he might have to change his routes or risk sinking into the desert sand and mud even up to like his knees and in a place with no trails or shade and almost nothing to use as like a landmark even a small change in direction could have enormous consequences every single extra mile would mean more time underneath the punishing sun more physical exertion and more water disappearing from the bottles that sarah had packed for him i had to like triple check this but apparently it is true that michael had less than two liters of liquid with him and in conditions this extreme that was not even close to enough and that just i hate to criticize him but like that blew my mind i could not believe that anyways he's out there running and in the meantime sarah drove around towards the other side of the basin expecting that within a few short hours she would see michael emerge onto bad water road she knew that the conditions were dangerous but she also knew michael right this was a man who had spent years running through remote wilderness and pushing his body far beyond what most people would consider reasonable i don't know this for a fact but i'm almost certain that he probably had ran in conditions like this before and so if anyone could cross a few miles of desert it was probably michael but as the afternoon dragged on the situation began to feel different the sun continued beating down on the valley the temperature remained brutally high and somewhere out beyond the road michael was completely alone at around four o'clock in the morning the sun continued to hit the road at 4 30 p.m a few miles farther down bad water road several drivers noticed something unusual on the asphalt one driver even pulled over to investigate and as they approached the mystery object uh all of their curiosity flipped to panic when they realized what they had found there was a man lying on the side of the road like that's not good and at first no one knew you know who this man was or what had happened uh but at the end of the day they found him and they were able to find him but as the drivers moved closer they realized that the man was conscious but he was delirious and becoming increasingly combative like he struggled to communicate with the people that were now around him and it quickly became clear that something was obviously very wrong one person headed north towards the nearest town to find like a satellite phone to call for help while others stayed behind to figure out what they could do to help this man and the truth is that there really wasn't much because it wasn't long before the man was found and the man was found and the man was before the man's condition started to like rapidly deteriorate the people around him started to get desperate and began performing cpr an ambulance did eventually arrive and took over these efforts while a life flight helicopter was even called to the scene everybody here from the bystanders to the professionals the crew everyone worked desperately to restart his heart even using electrical shocks in an attempt to like bring him back they also started scanning the desert in every direction and wondered like what the hell this man was doing here all by themselves in the scorching heat and none of them again knew who this man was but they would discover his name soon enough um obviously they were trying to save the life of michael pavav and one of the worst parts to all of this is that somewhere across the valley sarah was still waiting for him just a few miles away actually um total strangers were trying to keep michael alive um total strangers were trying to keep michael alive on the side of the road but not long after those strangers called for help sarah hopped in her car and she sped off down bad water road and i couldn't find out how she did it but all of the accounts i read say that sarah was actually able to find michael through all of this chaos and i don't know if she called the police and they told her where michael was or if she saw other cars speeding through the park towards him but regardless of how it happened it was kind of a miracle and sarah was able to reach michael and say her goodbyes just before he died right there on the side of bad water road investigators would later determine that michael's death was heat related obviously and involved asphyxiation caused by pulmonary hemorrhaging he had spent years learning exactly how far the human body could be pushed but all of that experience may have also led him to maybe underestimate the environment by the time that rescuers had reached him all four of his water bottles were empty and based on where they found him and how long it took him to get there investigators also believed that his original six mile run might have actually turned into 10 miles it's possible that the tricky salt flats forced him off of his intended route or the heat had maybe caused confusion that made him take a wrong turn or something like that and the the biggest takeaway for me here is that this story is a cruel reminder that experience can only take you so far and i think that's an important lesson because it's super easy to cherry pick stories about people who might not have really had any business being out in the wilderness and had something bad happen but michael's story goes to show that that's not always the case however i'm going to contradict myself a little bit here because in our next story well the first scenario i just described is probably um more accurate to as a way to describe this um in fact this next story is eerily similar to the first story i told you about in this video to alicia sanchez's deadly wrong turn in death valley but again this one is even worse somehow on october 21st 1996 death valley national park ranger david brenner was flying over the park when something unusual caught his attention below sitting in the middle of the remote anvil canyon wilderness was a green minivan this was an extremely strange place to find a road in this area was barely even a road at all it was essentially an abandoned trail that hadn't been used in years inside of a designated wilderness area where vehicles were not supposed to go at the time david thought this was a strange little mystery but he had no idea that his discovery was about to become one of the biggest missing person cases in death valley history and honestly in national park history and by the way some of you might have heard about this story a little bit before but this is so infamous that i can't make a video about death valley and not mention it so this mysterious green minivan had ended up in an extremely rugged place a place that the minivan was definitely not built for again this was like a soccer mom van right like it's meant for soccer practice not for off-roading in scorching hot deserts and so when david landed his small plane nearby he found that three of the minivans four tires were flat he actually expected to find somebody nearby you know someone desperately waiting for help but the area was eerily silent and so david recorded the license plates and went on to report what he had found when authorities ran the plate they discovered that the minivan had been rented from dollar car rental and reported stolen from los angeles more than 250 miles away and the last people known to have rented it were four german tourists 34 year old egbert rim kiss his 11 year old son georg weber egbert's 28 year old girlfriend connie meyer and her four-year-old son max they were all supposed to return the van on july 26th and had a flight out of la the following day but they never showed up when investigators searched the van they found camping gear bank cards empty water containers bud ice beer bottles and one piece of evidence that would change everything that would be a camera with film inside of it after the rolls were developed the photographs began to outline the family's journey they had spent several days sightseeing around san clemente before traveling to las vegas and then eventually driving to death valley one photograph in particular taken around sunset on july 22nd in hanaupaw canyon and when investigators cross-referenced that date with visitor center records they discovered that the park guides that very same day. But despite all of this new evidence, there was still one more piece of the puzzle. According to the 1996 Death Valley National Park investigation, a visitor logbook from the Warm Spring mining site had been signed by the family on July 23rd. And that entry contained just one almost cryptic message. It said, quote, we are going over the pass. Investigators assumed the pass referred to Mengel Pass, which is a notoriously rough route through the mountains that looked far more suited for like an ATV than a soccer van. And so on October 22nd, more than 200 people launched a massive search using helicopters and horseback teams to scour Mengel Pass, as well as Anvil Canyon and the surrounding desert. And time was of the essence here, because with temperatures reaching the top of the mountains, the city was in a state of shock. The city was in a state of shock, with temperatures reaching 107 degrees Fahrenheit. The family easily could have been fighting for their lives. Despite this enormous search effort, no one ever found any sign of the Germans. On October 26th, the official search was called off. And just like that, the family became one of Death Valley's strangest mysteries. Hell, they even took on the nickname, the Death Valley Germans. For more than a decade, theories ranged from, foul play, to the possibility that they had intentionally disappeared to start a new life. And as crazy as that sounds, there were even crazier theories that involved like UFOs and a secret government cover-up. But eventually, one man, a private citizen by the way, not even a police officer or an investigator, one man became convinced that the answer to the mystery of the Death Valley Germans was much simpler than any of these theories. That man's name was Tom Mahud. Or is it Mahud? I'm not exactly sure, but anyways, Tom became obsessed with figuring out where this family had gone. After studying maps and visiting the location where the minivan was found, Tom developed a very interesting theory. He believed that the family had severely underestimated how difficult the Death Valley backcountry could be. And after turning around at Mengel Pass, they may have believed that Anvil Canyon would be a shortcut. And then when their van inevitably became stuck, Tom believed that Egbert Rimkus may have walked about 1.7 miles down the canyon looking for help. And that is a very specific theory. There's actually a little bit more information that helped him come to this theory. As it turns out, search crews actually did find one more piece of evidence during their initial search. They had found a single Bud Ice beer bottle lying next to a bush. And Tom believed that Egbert may have stopped in the shade of a bush and eventually returned to the vehicle. And Tom also noticed something else very important on a map. To the south of the location of the van was the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, which you might recall from our first story. Tom believed that Egbert may have assumed that reaching the facility would lead them to help, right? A very reasonable assumption on Egbert's part, but getting there would mean crossing roughly nine miles of brutal desert terrain. On November 11th, 2009, Tom and fellow search and rescue member Les Walker decided to test Tom's theory. They split up and had been searching the area between Anvil Canyon and the Weapons Center for less than two hours when Les spotted something strange buried in the sand, an old wine bottle. And so the men looked around and Les quickly noticed something else. He picked up a piece of paper and kind of read it out loud, but it was a German writing on it. Now, Tom was a couple hundred yards away when this happened, and he heard Les's voice suddenly come through the radio saying, quote, Tom. we have some bones here. That's right. Les kept digging. And by the time that Tom rushed over there, not only had Les found the wine bottle and the writing and some human bones, but he had also found something incredibly significant. He found a wallet. And as they scanned through it, they found an ID. And the name on that ID was Connie Meyer. After more than 13 years, the family had finally been found. Further searches uncovered additional belongings and, of course, additional remains. And DNA testing confirmed that some of the remains belonged to Egbert, while others were believed to be Connie's. And actually, one interesting thing is that the two children were never conclusively identified. And the evidence suggested that the family had made it roughly halfway towards the China Lake Weapons Center before succumbing to the extreme desert conditions. Most likely heat and dehydration. We'll probably never know exactly what happened during those final hours. And we don't know what decisions were made either, or like how much water they had left, or exactly where each member of the family spent their final moments. But after more than a decade of theories and unanswered questions, the explanation appears to have been much simpler than like the alien stuff and the cover ups and all that stuff. Much like the tragic story of Alicia Sanchez and her son Carlos, or the story of Michael's death, or the story of the death of Michael Papav, well, the Germans likely got lost, they became stranded, and then they fell victim to one of the most unforgiving environments on earth. In a place like Death Valley, you don't need to make some enormous mistake to find yourself in a life or death situation. Sometimes all it takes is just one wrong turn. This has been an extremely heavy video so far, and so I want to move on to an incident that's a little more absurd than it is heartbreaking. And this is different from what I usually do on this channel. I'm not going to go into too much detail on this, but I'm going to have a little bit of fun here. So on Saturday, April 30th, 2016, three young men named Trenton Sargent, Steven Schwenkendorf, and Edgar Reyes were camping in the Nevada wilderness when a wild night of drinking and shooting rabbits eventually brought them to one of the most protected places in Death Valley National Park. That would be a place called Devil's Hole. Devil's Hole is not your average like swimming hole. It's a deep turquoise pool hidden inside the middle of the desert. It's located outside of a limestone cavern surrounded by tall fences and cameras because it happens to be the only home on earth to the Devil's Hole pupfish, which is a tiny blue fish that's roughly an inch long and among the rarest vertebraes on the entire planet. These fish have survived in this bizarre little pocket of the desert for tens of thousands of years, but by 2013, their population had fallen to just 35. And so naturally, this is a place that's heavily protected, which makes what happened next all the more ridiculous. So all three of these men were from just outside of Las Vegas. And earlier that day, they had gathered at Schwenkendorf's house for a barbecue. And then after drinking heavily throughout the day, they decided they'd all go camping and eventually headed into an area called Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in order to shoot rabbits, which I find kind of ironic because it's not really a refuge at that point, I guess. They seem to be having a grand old time shooting at rabbits, as well as some road signs before eventually they drove their ATV towards Devil's Hole. And look, it's obviously wildly unsafe for them to be driving anything after all of the drinking they had done, but we can just add that to the list of reckless things that they would have accomplished on this day and things they were about to do. So as they sped into the Devil's Hole area, they rammed their ATV into the fence that surrounded the pool. According to reports and security footage, Trenton then attempted to shoot the gate's padlock and even shot at a surveillance camera before deciding to finally just climb into the enclosure with his friends. One of the men was so drunk, I guess, that he even struggled to get over the fence, while Trenton apparently decided that the perfect follow up to a night of drinking and shooting was to take off his clothes and go swimming in the Devil's Hole itself, which I'll remind you, once again, is a protected wildlife habitat. And so this is the moment when he dropped his shotgun. stripped down naked and then jumped into the 93 degree water. Trenton obviously thought he was just having a wild evening swim, but in reality, he had stepped directly into the shallow pool filled with endangered fish at the peak of their breeding season. On Monday, May 2nd, National Park employees were reviewing surveillance footage after a small earthquake had triggered sensors in the area, but when aquatic ecologist Kevin Wilson watched the recordings, he realized that it was just a small earthquake that had triggered these sensors. He realized that they'd captured something far more disturbing than just a little bit of an earthquake. The cameras showed the three men entering the enclosure, and it showed Trenton swimming in the pool. And the wildest part, to me at least, is that the men were basically caught so soon by complete accident, right? Like the earthquake was obviously unrelated to their drunken joyride, but it's such a crazy coincidence that it makes me wonder if it weren't for the earthquake, you know, how long it would have taken for these dudes to actually get caught. When Kevin went out to the crime scene itself, he found shotgun shells and beer cans thrown all over the place, but as he approached the pool, he found the most devastating piece of evidence by far. He found a dead pup fish floating on the surface. The National Park Service took this extremely seriously. They launched a full investigation and detectives eventually assembled what became known as the Scorpion Task Force to figure out exactly what the hell had happened. And fortunately for the Park Service, the suspects had left behind plenty of clues, including shotgun shells, beer cans, even DNA evidence. That's right, they literally went to DNA for this stuff, as well as some pretty clear and incriminating surveillance footage. However, the biggest break came from something completely unrelated to the fish. That would be the group's customized blue Yamaha ATV. One investigator showed pictures of this ATV to a colleague who happened to love off-road vehicles and spend way too much time browsing Craigslist, and sure enough, that exact Yamaha had been listed for sale just one day after the Devil's Hole incident. And so investigators were easily able to trace that listing to Steven Schwenkendorf, who would go on to give the police the names of his buddies who he went on the joyride with. Trenton would go on to admit that he went swimming in Devil's Hole because he kind of wanted to show off for his friends, and he eventually pleaded guilty to violating the Endangered Species Act, as well as destroying federal property. And possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. In 2018, he was sentenced to 12 months and one day in federal prison, ordered to pay nearly $14,000 in restitution and a $1,000 fine, and he was permanently banned from entering federal public lands. He also acknowledged that he knew that the pupfish were endangered, but insisted that he never intended to hurt them. But unfortunately for him, it didn't matter whether he intended to or not, the damage was done. And despite this incident, the pupfish population has improved, but the park service has made Devil's Hole even harder to access than it already was. The fences are higher, the cameras are better, and the security is considerably more serious. And it makes sense because, you know, when your entire species lives in one tiny desert swimming hole, apparently the biggest threat isn't always like droughts or the weather or geology, but sometimes it's three drunk guys, a shotgun, and one absolutely terrible. Death Valley has no shortage of disturbing stories, but our next story might be even stranger. A highly trained police officer went for a run in the wilderness and somehow vanished without a trace. Or that's the official story anyways. Listen on, and if you're enjoying the show, please hit that follow button and leave me a five-star review. I would really, really appreciate it, and it is completely free. It's the best way to help support the show. Let's do it. In 1998, a group of schoolchildren, and their teacher took a field trip to the mysterious Devil's Punchbowl, a remote desert canyon outside of LA known for disturbing stories, missing persons, and just some dark, dark history. This group was hiking along when all of a sudden, they spotted a jogger on the trail. And to their surprise, they actually recognized him instantly. This man was a canine police officer who had recently visited their classroom. For a moment, this was a very fun and heartwarming encounter. The kind of thing that you'd never expect to turn into an unexplained mystery. But, just a few hours after they parted ways, locals heard a single gunshot echo through the canyon. Suddenly, this popular hiking spot wasn't just a scenic destination. It became the scene of an unsolved case, a real-life horror story, and a chilling true crime mystery involving a missing person that would haunt the community for years. Now, I've heard a lot of awful and weird stories, that happened in places with names like Devil's something, Devil's Canyon, Devil's Tower. Hell, I even have a video here on my channel, an old one, from a backpacking trip I did on a trail called Devil's Path in the Catskills Mountains. It wasn't easy, but I clearly hiked that trail successfully and made it out alive. Obviously, putting Devil in the name of an outdoor destination is a very popular thing, but I'm starting to think that we should stop naming things after the devil. simply cannot be good for the karma and the vibes of these wild places that we're all adventuring into. I mean, with all these devil names, it really just feels like we're kind of setting ourselves up for something hellish to happen. Okay. I usually don't start my videos with a rant like that, but thank you for allowing me to get that off my chest. And now allow me to introduce you to a man named Jonathan OJ. John was the man jogging that I told you about in the intro. And he's also this canine police officer that ran into that class field trip in the devil's punch bowl on June 11th, 1998. Now on the surface, some might say that John OJ's life was pretty much the definition of success. He was an accomplished army veteran having served as a special forces paratrooper, which already makes this guy a total badass, obviously. I mean, he would literally parachute into combat zones, which is crazy. I guess driving into combat zones just isn't, isn't as cool, right? Um, I'm telling you, he was elite. John went on to become a long time deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department, working as a canine handler for their special enforcement bureau. His canines name was Bosco. And according to everyone who knew them, Bosco and John were super, super close, even by canine standards. LA County has the largest sheriff's department in the whole country. They cover a massive area and have to deal with some of the most challenging cases that you can imagine. And so John was obviously the type of guy that was up for that, that challenge. And as if his life and day job wasn't intense enough, John spent his free time training for ultra marathons and climbing mountains. John had been married to his high school sweetheart, Deborah for 12 years. And they had a five-year-old daughter named Chloe. John was six feet tall, 165 pounds, and obviously incredibly fit. He was great at his job. He loved his family. If I hadn't already told you this guy's name, you'd probably think I was talking about like Superman. And so on June 11th, 1998, John parked his white Ford pickup truck in the Devil's Punchbowl parking lot. He threw on his green day pack and he set out for a trail run around Mount Baden-Powell. The time was about 1145 in the morning. And he had told his wife, Deborah, that he'd be home from his adventure sometime in the evening, say right around when it gets dark. John had planned a very long training run for this day, which is something that he had done many times before, literally in this, exact location, right? Hell, John and some of his coworkers had even run a 50 mile, uh, 50 mile trail race the weekend before, which happened to be his sixth race at that distance, which is just insane. Oh, and, uh, he didn't stop at ultra marathons either. He had also led 10 different climbing trips up Mount Whitney, which is the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States. At this time, John was in the middle of training so that he could run the Western States, which is one of the more popular 100 mile ultra marathons in the U S um, and not long after he started his run on June 11th, he was seen first by that class of children. They obviously recognized him and he kind of stopped to chat with them for a bit. He told the teacher that he was likely going to be out until around sunset, which matches the story that he told his wife. Now we've all heard the joke about how weird it is to see your teacher, you know, outside the classroom out in the real world. But this situation is not the case. It's not the case. It's not the case. It's not the situation has to be the next weirdest version of that. I mean, imagine being way out of town on a field trip and all of a sudden one of your former guest speakers is just jogging past you in the middle of his 20 mile run. I don't know. Maybe it's not as strange as I'm imagining it. Uh, and maybe it just speaks to the tight knit community of the greater Antelope Valley area. But the coincidence of this happening on this exact day is still pretty wild to me. And you're going to understand why in just a second. John eventually said goodbye to the schoolchildren and continued on his run. And then later a jogger fitting John's description was spotted by two camp employees. And then the next sighting of John allegedly occurred at 6 PM that very same evening where another employee claimed to have seen John with his green backpack and all walking through the parking lot back to his white Ford pickup truck. And then not long after that, a local reported something extremely unsettling. To another park employee. They said that they heard one single gunshot in the devil's punch bowl area. Now this is a rather rural and remote area. And so it might not have been too crazy to hear someone, you know, shooting guns off in their backyard or in the woods or something like that. But knowing what we know now, the fact that it was only one gunshot, uh, basically just sends chills down my spine every time I say it. Let's just recap this story real quick. We have this one mysterious single gunshot on top of tons of confirmed sightings of John throughout the day in devil's punch bowl, including someone who saw him in the parking lot, you know, finishing his run, getting ready to go home. Um, which makes it incredibly mysterious when you learn that John did not come home that night, John had said that he would be home around sunset, right? But the sun went down and his wife, Deborah, hadn't even gotten a phone call from him yet. And so obviously she began to worry. She even waited a couple more hours just in case, you know, this is a hard decision to make whether or not you should call someone about your loved one being missing. But by 11 PM, she finally had to make that call, right? A call that no one should ever have to make. She called the police and she reported John missing. Amazingly, there were search and rescue crews on the scene by 1130 PM. And I want you to think about that for a second. Um, authorities, heard that one of their own, you know, one of their officers was missing and they were able to instantly mobilize and search for him within an hour, which is not typically what happens when a hiker goes missing like this. Authorities arrived on the scene and immediately sealed off John's truck as a potential crime scene, right? And over the next few days, they used the thermal imaging to kind of scan the area. They drove around on ATVs and they even busted out an army Blackhawk attack helicopter in order to look for this man. Even some local friends of John joined in and kind of ran around the area looking for him. Everyone. And I literally mean everyone was dead set on finding John. One of his former SWAT partners was quoted saying that John's tough as nails and that they'll find him and bring him out. And he'll probably have a sprained or broken ankle. People really believed that he was going to emerge and he was going to be okay. And that mentality makes total sense to me. I mean, John was the ultra marathon man. The tough military survivalist man. He was Superman after all. There's just no way that he would be lost out there for long, let alone die or disappear. Or so they thought. As the search dragged on and on, people did eventually begin to wonder, I mean, what could have happened to John to keep him from coming home? Well, folks, the wilderness is called the wilderness for a reason. I mean, it's wild out there. Duh. And with the increased danger and isolation of the back country, we all know that accidents do happen out there. Even if you're Superman. I mean, maybe John was running and he took a misstep over a rock or a branch or something. Maybe he fell down into a ravine and was too far out of reach for search and rescue crews. And of course, the devil's punch bowl area is also home to mountain lions and dangerous snake snakes. So maybe he had some sort of run in with wildlife. All these theories were initially being floated around, but it didn't take long before an alternative theory, we'll say, began to surface. Now, since John was a police officer, could there have been a much more sinister, even criminal explanation for his disappearance? In the late 1990s, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was dealing with a massive scandal. Internal investigations had reversed the case. Some deputies had been taking bribes from local meth producers or something like that in exchange for tipping them off before big drug busts. It also came out that some deputies were actually stealing money from drug dealers and just pocketing it for themselves. Despite no hard evidence of this, a lot of people were wondering if it was possible that John was somehow caught up in the middle of all this criminal activity and scandal. After John's disappearance, multiple police informants came out with some very wild information. One woman with connections to the local biker gangs in the area told police that she had heard John had come across a meth lab while on his run and because of this he was taken care of. Another informant claimed that John had discovered something else that he wasn't supposed to see and, quote, was going to be a hero and he was taken care of before being, quote, put in a hole. These tips range from pretty vague to very specific, but they definitely seem to at least loosely back up the idea that John could have come across like a lab or some other crime being committed by an outlaw biker gang or another violent group. However, it's worth noting that in this case, police claim to have disputed nearly all informant information, which makes sense because honestly, all that stuff sounds pretty crazy and pretty unlikely. Eventually, the either admitted that they were lying or the authorities just ended up catching them in a lie. One retired sheriff's department captain claimed that those informants must have been confused by all of the other deputy involved scandals going on at the time and that those tips should not be taken as fact. The police ended up conducting extensive informant interviews, but were quoted as saying that they could not get quote one piece of credible evidence from any of those interviews. So was John killed by meth dealing bikers or could he have been hurt by someone in his own department? Again, I don't really know. It seems doubtful to me. As a member of the special enforcement bureau, John would have been operating close to the edges of the sheriff department's black market busts, and he might have even had some access to sensitive information. So is it possible that maybe he just learned too much? It wasn't long before a homicide detective named Larry Brandenburg started investigating the case and found out that he was actually murdered and that the killer could have been a fellow deputy. Brandenburg began working with another investigator named Darren Hager, and together they had collected enough evidence that led them to believe that John really might have been killed and that there was a true cover up going on, even if some of the informant claims I told you about earlier were exaggerated. But then right in the middle of all of this, Brandenburg was suspiciously and then even more suspiciously, Hager was fired. Years later, Hager would actually sue the county for wrongful termination. And in 2018, he won millions of dollars in damages. If Brandenburg and Hager had been able to fully investigate their leads, and if they had turned out to be right, the implications of all of this would be absolutely chilling. Was John threatened by the people in his department? And if so, how high up did the conspiracy go? There was another bizarre yet obvious piece of information from the search that led a lot of people to think that foul play was actually involved here. I hesitate to call it a smoking gun because it was actually just a disappearing gun. That's right. One of the very first deputies to arrive on the scene recalled seeing a gun resting on the center console of John's truck. That deputy knew that John was, too good at his job to ever just leave a weapon in plain sight like that. I mean, he would never run the risk of it getting stolen or falling into the wrong hands. I mean, that's just gun safety 101. That's not something an experienced officer like this is going to do. Hell, the deputy wondered why John wouldn't have just had the gun on him in the first place, you know, in case he ever needed it way out in the middle of nowhere. It's not uncommon for off-duty police officers to still carry their weapon. But as if that wasn't strange enough, the official missing person, person Bolton about John, curiously listed his gun as likely carried by John, like when he disappeared. And how could that be? I mean, the deputy on the scene insists that he clearly saw the gun sitting in the truck left behind. And yet somehow the gun was marked as missing, which begs the question, where did it go? And more importantly, if John had been killed, could that gun have been the weapon used? Another theory that started to cross people's minds was the idea that John might've disappeared on purpose. And this might surprise you. And so listen closely. John's sister at least even thought that that might've happened. She told reporters that John was quote, checked out, done. He hated living in the Antelope Valley and had apparently dreamed about escaping off to Alaska somewhere. He was apparently miserable in his marriage. And his sister said that the last time that she saw John, it seemed like he was a man trying to say goodbye. Again, John was in the special forces. And so he definitely had all of the skills you'd need if you wanted to just kind of disappear like this. I mean, he would know how to live off the grid, create a new identity and how to cover up his tracks. Certainly. Maybe he had even been saving up his money in secrets. John's sister didn't know how he would have pulled this off, but she was pretty sure of it. She was sure that John did not want to be found. But if that were really true, then what about his daughter, Chloe? What about this job that he'd worked so hard for? I mean, would he really be able to just leave everything behind like this? Oh, and something I just kind of glossed over for a second there, his marriage. What was that about his sister saying that his marriage was falling apart? As the search for John continued, it came to light that John and Deborah's marriage was actually coming to an end and that John had plans to start a new relationship with a trail running friend of his named Vicky. Vicky of course was interviewed and she would have had a chance to talk to him. And she would have had a chance to tell the authorities a slightly different story about John's trail run and devil's punch bowl than the story that his wife, Deborah told them. Vicky said that John described his run that day as a quote overnight walkabout, which, uh, one is not the same story that John told his wife or the class of school children on the trail. And two, that's a very Australian way to say that he was planning on hiking in the dark. But regardless of all that, now you're starting to see a little bit of a different picture of John's life. Maybe it all looked fantastic on the surface. You know, he's got this respectable job. He's got the wife, the kid, the success, but behind the scenes, we now see a man that was likely struggling and facing a gigantic life change. And to add on even more complications, we also know that right before John disappeared, he had turned down a promotion, a promotion to a supervisor, at the sheriff's department gun range. Um, and this was a job that he had initially requested. Like he originally wanted a less intense work life in the hopes that he could try and save his marriage. And this job at the gun range was going to be just that, but in the days leading up to his run at devil's punch bowl, he had kind of changed his mind and told his superiors that his marriage was ending anyways. And that ultimately he just wanted to stay in his current job as the canine killer. He had also begun packing up a few of his personal belongings and even giving some stuff away to people. He packed up race medals and some of his hiking gear. He returned a family bookshelf to his in-laws. Uh, and he had even gifted his father's gold necklace to his new girlfriend, Vicky. Now, some folks might think that he was packing up all of his things because he was getting ready to move out or to skip town and just wanted to leave less things behind. But the police didn't. They considered all of this information, you know, John's John's job was demanding his personal life was kind of crumbling and he was giving away his stuff. And then you pair that with the single gunshot that was heard way out in the wilderness. And it was determined that John, you know where I'm going with this might have been planning something even more tragic than I've discussed so far. Despite an intense search of the devil's punch bowl, John was never found. That's right. They never found him or any sign of him out there to this day. That remains true. And the police ultimately ruled his death as self-inflicted heartbroken. His wife, Deborah would end up agreeing with this call. She noted that the last words that John ever said to her were quotes, have a nice life as well as quote, tell Chloe. I love her. Now you can interpret those words in a few different ways, but to me, it sure sounds like he was essentially saying, you're never going to see me again. Now, if his family accepts the conclusion that John took his own life, then that's good enough for me. It's really not my place to make any further determination. Um, but I will just point out a few glaring holes in this story that I just can't seem to let go of. Again, I'm not implying anything here, but I think it's worth mentioning that if John did take his own life, especially with a firearm, how has his body never found? I mean, there just doesn't seem to be an easy way to do something like that without leaving some kind of scene for search crews to find eventually. And also why did he tell his wife and his girlfriend, two different stories? He told his wife that he'd be backed by dark. And he told his girlfriend, Vicky, that he'd be on an overnight walkabout. Those just seem obviously different from each other, but also not really different enough. I don't know. It just, raises a red flag to me. It's weird. Oh, and, um, while we're on the topic of Vicky, according to all of his friends at the time, John seemed to be excited to start his new life with her. According to them, he was getting out of this, you know, toxic marriage and stepping into something full of potential, right? I mean, why would he just kind of throw all of that away? If John OJ did in fact take his own life, then that's obviously a terrible, terrible ending to the amazing and accomplished life that we covered at the beginning of this story. I mean, this guy seemed like he was invincible and it just goes to show that there can be so much hidden under the surface when it comes to those around us that look like they're thriving. And so if nothing else, then let this story be a reminder that anything can happen, even to the people that you least expect his disappearance and presumed death also left behind his young daughter, Chloe. And frankly, she might be the saddest part of this story. And as if this story wasn't already depressing enough, I have even more bad news to break to you guys. Um, I'm sorry in advance to all of the dog lovers out there, but John's canine dog Bosco would end up dying just a few short weeks after John disappeared. A spokesperson for the sheriff's department told reporters that the cause of death was a ruptured artery, but Debra's mother was quoted as saying that Bosco ultimately died because of a broken heart, which like, man, talk about a, a gut punch there. I mean, Debra's mom really didn't have to do us dirty with that quote. I mean, just one time I'd like to read a story where the dog doesn't die at the end. I mean, first it was old yeller, then it was Marley and me. And now it's, it's this story, but my heart goes out to John OJ and everyone who cared about him, uh, his, his wife, his daughter. And of course it goes out to Bosco. Be sure to leave a five-star review. I appreciate all of you guys. So so much