Thinking Sideways: Archambeau-Bruguier disappearance

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See you there, Sideways up the I I don't know stories of things we simply don't know the answer to. Hey there everybody, and welcome again to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am Steve as always joined by Joe, who's about to sneeze once again. We have another mystery this week. Uh and as per normal, this is a listener suggestion. This was suggested by Shelley quite a while back. And today what we're gonna be talking about is an unsolved mystery that is mined from the show of the

very same name, Unsolved Mysteries. Yeah, an episode on these two. They did, they did. And I've actually I've been slowly researching this story for several months now, as you too well know. And while I haven't gotten every answer or I feel like we've kind of pinned down a few things that were a little more unresolved. So that's always

good to know. What we're gonna talk about today is we're gonna talk about the deaths of and I really hope I'm pronouncing this right, and I apologize if I'm not for the last names here, but they are Arnold

Arschambau and Ruby Brugier. At the time of their deaths in Arnold was twenty years old and Ruby was nineteen, and they both lived in Lake Andy's South Dakota, which is inside the borders of the Yankton Sioux Reservation and to clarify for anybody who may not quite have understood that the state of South Dakota has nine different reservations on it and they're obviously there's towns inside of those reservations. This particular town, Lake Andy's, and the lake it's named

after is inside of the Yanktin Reservation. That's why that's that way. That's kind of an interesting jurisdictional patchwork in there. Actually, Oh buddy, we're gonna talk about the jurisdictional stuff because it gets it gets kind of muddy. But the you know, the reservation itself is pretty big. It's what sixty five square miles, which is just over sevent square kilometers, takes

up like six of the county that it's in. So it's a big place and the county is in it's kind of large to actually, Yeah, it's Charles Mix County on the border with what Nebraska, the south end of the south south of state. Yeah, it doesn't run right up to the border. Yeah. So talking about Arnold and Ruby, so, like I said, they lived in Lake Andies as much as I can tell, and I'll be honest in that I do not know if they were members of the tribe or simply residents of the town. I've never really

seen a whole lot said to that. It's sorry to tell about their pictures and their names, but you know, I mean a lot of Indians have just regular, ordinary white sounding names, and and frankly, I they look kind of white, especially at Archie Arnold Arnold, it's Arnold, And I made that mistake more than once. And yeah, and it's hard to say. And I while it does make a bit of a difference at one point in her story, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference who worried

about it. But there are a lot of white settlers in that area, so they're probably just white folks. Yeah, I don't know. Again, I'm not going to make a guess because I just I can't tell, and it's not relevant to the mystery itself so much so. The mystery itself is that on the night of December twelve, Arnold and Ruby and Ruby's cousin, who was seventeen at the time. Her name was Tracy Dion, they were driving in the area.

They were just south of Lake Andy's and Arnold was driving, and I believe that Ruby was in the passenger seat, which puts Tracy in the and what happens is they're they're driving in the area. Oh, it should mention that it's late at night apparently, and they had been out doing a little bit of drinking because they were all under age. Um, and Tracy is the one who later admitted that they had been they'd gone out and I don't know how much they'd had to drink, but they've

been drinking. My understanding, there are kind of like three things to do in that area when you're that age and drink whiskey and what I was going to say, it's drink smoke and have sex. Just driving around the countryside. That's been a teenager. Yeah, so yeah, they were. They were traveling north on Avenue, correct, correct, So so yeah, so that's that's perfect because they're heading north on three

third Avenue. Eighty third Avenue intersects US Highway eighteen and it's a T junction, so that means three three ends because the highway is going east to west at that point. And according to Tracy, it was icy out and when they pulled up to the intersection, Arnold said there were no cars coming and then the next thing she knew, the car was upside down according and so this is her statement that you see all over the internet. So I'll go ahead and read it because it kind of

helps illustrate a little bit of what happened in the car. Says, I was upside down on the ditch and Ruby and I was in the car. You know, Arnold wasn't in the car. I don't know where he was. Ruby was crying. She was saying, oh my god, oh my god. She just kept hitting the car. The next thing I know, the door it was open a little ways and she had enough room to then slide out and then so I was going to reach over and then just like that, the door went shut. So that's her statement of what

she remembers immediately after the crash. At this point, apparently Tracy is the only one in the car, and I'm guessing must not have been able to free herself from the car based on the events that are about to happen. Eventually, somebody does come by and sees the car and helps her out. It's at that point that she realizes that Arnold and Ruby are nowhere to be found. They should have been there and they aren't. And I don't know how much time passed between Ruby getting out of the

car and help rite. I had never found that out of either. I never did, I would assume given that she didn't say, And I was stuck in that car for you know, what must have been hours without so it doesn't sound like that long, because it seems like she would have mentioned it was weird that they w weren't coming back and helping me out. That would be part of the lore if it seemed like it was a significant amount of time. But that's just my own

interpretation of it. Yeah, and I and I don't know how heavily traffic that's I should have done, Like in looked up traffic counts on Highway eight team, which is what they were right off the side of. But it's it's it's really though on the south side of the lake, So you would think they'd be a fair amount of traffic on it. Now, depending on the time of night, it may not be that much traffic. But that's a

good point. But yeah, obviously, no surprise. The local sheriff's department gets in all then they come out to the scene to figure out what's going on. The next morning, they walk up and down the road. They're looking around that area trying to find Arnold and Ruby. The thinking at the time was that they in a state of shock and probably helped with a little bit of booze.

They decided that the best course of action was to just flee the scene so that they didn't get in trouble for drinking illegally, and after which they succumbed to the cold. Because it's December twelve, it's in South Dakota that year. At that time, the temperatures plus or minus were in the single digits, so it is brigging cold. But but they didn't find any sign of a couple, and just as a sign of how cold it was, apparently when you read the descriptions, it's the car came

to rest in a ditch on the ice. The ice was thick enough to support the weight of the vehicle, so that that's just in indicator of how how fen solid. Absolutely, although the I'm not sure which dish, because there's a ditch and there's a swale. The ditch is very shallow and then the swale is deeper. The swale drains into the legs. One of the big questions this whole thing is exactly where where it is, and we're going to get into that when we get into a little more

of the details later on. Here. They not take pictures. I can't find any pictures. No. The oly, Okay, this is what's infuriating. I love that this was on Unsolved Mysteries. I hate that this was on Unsolved Mysteries. All of the photos are from the recreation. I think, oh, look, that's a no, no, that's totally That might as well be Robert Stack in the background right there, because that's

what you know that there's websites out there. They're talking about this very one and they had those photos on there as a real Oh yeah, those are the real photos. So we run into that a lot with that show. Yeah, it's it's the it's the it's the the beauty and the pain all at the same time. Okay, their car was supported by ice. There was no sign of them anywhere, no sign of them at all, according to the reporting the local law enforcement. They keep looking for them and

was there. Sorry to interrupt, but is this a stretch of road that's pretty barren of people or their houses or there's not a whole lot of houses r out there. It's farms and fields. A couple of miles away is town. They worked very far away from the town. Back to the town was not even a couple of miles away. It's like, you know, I think the kind of sheriff's office, which is in Lake Andy'es is like six tenths of a mile to the west of where they crashed. Something

like that. It's what it really easy for them to watch. So it's not as if they could have wandered away and not found some place to seek shelter. And that's what everybody's thinking is that they wandered away, they sought shelters somewhere, and now they're hiding and eventually they're gonna come forward, and we're looking for or Um. But there

there was no sign of them. And when the sheriff's department was looking around there all of the stuff that I've read, they said they didn't see any signs of where the ice had been broken to indicate somebody had fallen through. None of that is is present. So it's it's literally, as my wife would say, poof they disappeared. Basically, maybe that's what happened. Yeah, but but so okay, so let's now let's talk about the whole thing that you

were saying with the swales and the ditches. So for geography, for anybody who isn't looking at a map, like we said, Highway eighteen runs east west, three eighty third runs north south and tease into the highway. That's what it looks like. On the east side of the of three third, there's really just not much there. It's not much of a dip at all. On the west side, so this is south of eighteen. Between eighteen and three and e third there is a swale or what did you call it. Yeah,

so it's not really a ditch. It's with a bunch of stuff growing in it, but it looks like it could be at its deepest point maybe four or five ft deep, but that's way off. It hard to tell because of all the vegetable men are growing. But then it gets deeper as it goes north. Then it goes

underneath Highway eight team. So there there is a culvert s it's a culvert or a mini bridge something, which by the way, it looks like according to the I love going through the maps and going through the history, and you can see back in I think it was the early two thousands they redid that culvert because it's captured on the satellite view. But there's a culvert because Lake Andy's is several hundred feet north of the highway.

It's right there, and when the water level gets high, it will back up to that culvert and filled swale. And this north of high of the highway itself is a walking trail, which Joe has helped me understand, used to apparently be an old railroad track, used to be right away for railroad. And and that's got a footbridge that crosses over that inlet that goes and swale. So the north side, the north west side, from that junction of the two roads is where it starts to get deep.

But I don't know if when they were looking for him, whether they walked out onto the ice or for fear of falling in they just did it from the bank, but from the intersection itself, And we don't know where the car was right, We don't know exactly where the car. I'm going, Okay, I'm going to make a giant presumption and say that they flipped just off of the north side of that intersection. That's an easy thing to say. So they were in the swale, is what we're saying.

The car was another car would have been the east of the sale would be well, know what I'm saying, or the ditch in between the walking trail and the road is where I'm saying it w Yeah that's is that what you're saying? Yeah? Okay, okay, the same thing. But yeah, and so in between to the north of eighteen. This is getting confusing, But there is a shallow, very shallow, shallow ditch parallel to the road, and then and then it right angles is the swale. So again it's confusing

as to look at the area. Yeah, I mean really and three eighty third Avenue South Dakota Lake, Andy's you'll zoom right into it and you can't get it. Yeah, I guess I For me, I'm just continuing to assume that it was the swale or something deeper because there was the prevention of being able to get out of the car, is I guess my assumption. But if they flipped the car, they guessing they didn't have a new car, probably a little bit of crumpling going on. I mean,

you've been in a car accident. It's hard to open the door sometimes and I'm guessing here, but I don't know what I do I have to guess is that because of the fact that the lake the water level can rise. I'm guessing that the ice from the water from the lake had backed up and that whole area there was frozen at that point. So at this point we've got to missing people, missing young people just poof

into thin air, into thin air the aliens. Yep. So the deputies, they've they've wandered up and down this chunk of roads several times. The sheriff at the time said he had been up and down at multiple times and they didn't find anything. That's the other thing I never found in the story was they never found any footprints. Did there nothing? No? No, I don't believe that it was I think that it was frozen, but I don't believe it was snowing. But there's nothing to say that

they saw footprints. But then again, if it is five degrees and it's not snowing, that snow may likely have frozen solid, which wouldn't leave you a whole lot of footprints. Walking on ice doesn't leave a whole lot of footprints either. Well, is that yeah, So maybe they were on ice the whole time. Maybe they didn't walk on the snow or

maybe the wind just blew the snow around. I don't know, but yeah, I really this is this is this is the kind of story that I really dig and I really despise because there's so many oh like it's not there. I don't know, I can't tell you. But we've got these two people. They've seemed to have just evaporated into thin air. And that's that's basically the end of the

story for about three months. Because then if we fast forward to March of someone driving along Highway eighteen near that intersection of three third Avenue saw what they thought might have been somebody in the ditch, and they called the police. Local Sheriff's department came out and lo and behold, they discovered Ruby's decomposing body in the ditch or swale, whichever it was. I don't know which it was. But the point is is that because it had been warming

up its March, she was decomposing. Her body was not in good shape. She was about seventy five to a hundred feet away from the scene of the accident. That equates tots. She was on the just up off of the edge in the so still in the water is what I understand, figuring that you know, Arnold's got to be close by. They start searching that area, and one of the things that I don't quite understand is they decided, well, he's not anywhere that we can see, so we're going

to pump the water out. And I don't know how they could have done that if it was the the outlet that went into the lake. That's why I still have a question of exactly where they went in. But they pumped water out of whether it was the swale or the ditch they got water out? How How how deep did we say the ditch was? We don't know for sure because I can't tell. I'm guessing that the one that does on the south side is maybe five ft deep. That's a gas deep. As you get towards

the let, it gets deeper. If you go on Google Maps or some great photos that are actually GEO tagged to that location, they give a little more information and the water is higher than I'm just thinking about the weirdness about to talk about. I got you, I got you. They pump out the water lo and behold, they find Arnold's body. He is less than twenty feet away from her. He is in relatively good condition, except well, his body was in good condition other than the fact that it

was no longer alive. Thank you for that clarification. Um And I see a lot of people call this out, and I'm not surprised by that because if he is and the thing you also see called that is that he wasn't frozen to the ground. But if he was suspended in water, that makes sense. It also makes sense why he was so well preserved. If he's in freezing cold water, why his body would not yet have started to really decompose, unlike rubies at me, I'm not rolling

my eyes. I just think I kind of agree with the whole idea of his body being perfectly suspended in you know, what's likely less than the height of his body, this amount of water, that he's just somehow floating in the middle of this, not touching the ground, but not so high that they could have found him before. And just like that to me poses a really big problem because they searched the area pretty well. They did. If if he had been in there, I mean, presumably it

was frozen solid. We've been in there, they should have been able to see. But we'll talk about that in a minute. Now, there's all sorts of possibilities. I mean, I think that maybe that's better for the theories. I

don't know. Yeah, yeah, let's let's hold on because there's there's a few more because we're about to go into some weirdo Ville stuff here, which is going to be fun times, because it seems like an open and shut case of well, they they went into the ice, and they went into the water, and that's why nobody could find him. It's it seems on the outside, very very easily, that's the answer, except that there are things that didn't

work when or didn't match up. When they were got there and they found her body and they were then combing the area again, they find a lock of Ruby's hair on the side of the road, which they say couldn't have been there that whole time. I don't understand why it couldn't have come off of her body once it was exposed to the elements, but I'll set that aside.

You mean that it would have like fallen off her body and blown over there, Yes, as in her skin is decomposing, the hair brakes free and blows away, which is kind of gross. I know, it's no, it's true though. Yeah, that's one of the things that people have said, as you say, is that why was it there? But yeah,

it could have been that. So she appeared to be wearing the same clothes that she had the night she disappeared, but her glasses and her shoes are missing, and the decomposition of her body was bad enough that they had to I d her with a tattoo, So it's not

as if they could tell by her face. If that gives you kind of an idea, that's why I'm saying I could see maybe something breaking frost, But I also think that's a significant amount of decomposition for his body to be like, but he's completely underwater and cold water, colder water. I gotta go a tattoo, you know, so we can identify you. Ye, you know, you should actually get a tattoo that just says I'm Joe identified as Joe. Um. Okay.

So so let's move into the other weird other questions, into the strange area that we're at here, which is it appears there's some questions whether the clothes that Arnold were was wearing when his body was recovered were the same ones that he had been wearing on the night that he had disappeared. The investigators, like I said, I felt it was weird that he was in good condition. I disagree with that. But what they also found is they found keys in his pocket, which they say they

couldn't match up or confirm belonged to him. I'm making a giant, giant assumption here that they say that because it was two a car key and two house keys. And I'm assuming what they're saying is that they took those keys and they tried it on his house and his car and it didn't work. But I can't say that with any certainty. Well, the car situation, but the house maybe. I don't know. It's hard. It's hard to say because, like you know, I have a key right now in my key ring that I don't know. I

have actually no idea what it goes to. Well, but I mean, if if all the is on that ring is three keys, right, a car key and two house keys, it should be pretty easy to figure out where he would go that he would have that, or at least one of those two keys should fit his house. And I tried to find some of that out. I ran into a bit of a dead end, which we're going to talk about. Okay, the other thing here before we get before we get too much farther along, is that

am using air quotes here. Reportedly there was a dark blazer style vehicle scene near where her body was found just prior to its discovery, which you know, of course then somebody's implying that she was dumped. It's really what that's boiling down to. Well, I mean, or that was the person who or who saw it and didn't call it in or even worse, if you stick at that thing, they probably was like a dark pickout truck with two guys and a scene near the same scene, not you know,

not too long before or after. There was also probably a minivans scene near the scene that was probably also a priest senior the scene. Yeah, unless it was the time traffic. Yeah, those exist you're talking about. Apparently they will as we're still in Weirdoville here. The medical examiner who looked at the bodies said that they didn't die from drowning. They died from exposure, which totally totally drives a nail into this whole thing we've been talking about

of them falling through the ice and drownding. We're gonna talk some more about that in a bit, because there's a whole bunch of stuff there. But it's weird that two people found in the ditch in the water around the ice died from exposure and not drowning, and weren't found in the extensive searches of that area initially. Yes, yeah, days after they looked for quite a while. The final thing that I want to talk about here is that there was a sighting of Arnold, because there's always a sighting,

as Elvis has proven, somebody always sees you. Arnold was seen at a New Year's Eve party with three other people, so that would have been about three weeks after he disappeared. The person who's made this claim was subjected to a polygraph and passed it, though I think we've talked at nauseum about polygraphs and how unreliable they are. That and this person saw Arnold with three other people within the company of three other people against did this person know

any of those three people? Apparently not. That's that. That is what that is the only other thing that I want to talk about that is kind of strange about the case. Uh And and then we'll put it to bed is that in the reading, you will across the fact that this case was initially handled by the Charles Mixed Sheriff's depart County Sheriff's Department, and then at one point it suddenly went over to the FBI, and then it's deemed a closed case in and that's the end

of that. It doesn't sound like the FBI really took a huge interest anyway. Oh yeah, yeah, And and that's that's one of the things that I randomly decided was a rabbit hole to go down, and we're gonna be talking about that. So there's a there's the whole bunch of strange details that we know. We know that he she shows up decomposed, wearing the same clothes but missing

a few articles. He shows up without any obvious signs of major decomposition, and questionably whether he's wearing the same clothes as well as having a few items or an item that doesn't match up, and this sighting of him later on, and they died from exposure, not drownding. So this is there's a whole bunch of things in here that this is why I got into this case initially

because it just doesn't added up to me. Anyway, all right, Now, as we've talked about here, initially, we're not exactly positive of where the car flipped, so which side of the ditch or the road it was on, which makes it kind of tough to determine exactly where the bodies were found though, Joe, So in the reading, it always says they were found between Highway eighteen and the railroad tracks. And I had never figured out where the railroad tracks.

But that's what you how did you figure that out? Well, I mean there was there were no railroad tracks anywhere near the road, right, Yeah, there weren't. But but if you get on the street view and you look, there's a footpath to the north of the road, and the bridge across the swale as a freaking railroad bridge. We've all seen railroad tracks. We know what railroad bridges look like.

Its bridge. And we live in an area around here where at least at least several highway former excuse me, not highways, former railway right of ways have been turned into footpaths, bicycle path Yeah, and that's what path that paralleled the highway? Well, that description for that must be where the railroad tracks were. Yeah, So there you go. So that's why I put the car on the north side of Highway eighteen. Well that that that makes total

sense to me. I was going to call the parks Department, and then I literally spaced it out because I figured they were responsible for maintaining it, but then spaced out calling them. But taking a big page from Joe's book, this week, I actually did pick up the phone and call at least one person who was none too happy to talk to me. Our revenue hard at work. They rarely are happy to talk to you. I noticed that.

So I called the Charles Mix County Sheriff's Department and I asked somebody to talk to you about this case, and they immediately transferred me to the sheriff himself. That would be sheriff failure. Follower failure. Oh sorry, sir, But the point is he he did confirm some details about the case, though he wasn't all that excited to share much because he didn't. He said his reasoning for not wanting to share a whole lot was that he hadn't

read on the file in a long time. He's been shared for like six or seven years in this case obviously predates him. What he did confirm for me was obviously the intersection of where the the accident happened. One of my initial questions was, I wanted to know if a blood alcohol was done on the bodies, because we've talked about that before. Is that can indicate if they had elevated levels of alcohol when they died, or if the body had burned that off prior to their death.

But he wouldn't. He wouldn't speak to that. That's okay. Finally, empties in the car. By the way, I don't know if there was any dead soldiers, have no idea. But what he did help me figure out was he did help me figure out some of the stuff that was going on in regard to the discussion of the FBI v being involved in the case. So we talked about the FBI. That's actually where I started with this case. And that's why, uh you I talked to you two

about this before. Is I got a wild hair one night and deciding that, well, the FBI has been involved, they have to know something. I filed freedom of information acts to find out what they knew. And we looked at you like you were an insane person. Yeah, because

why did I use my real address? Stupid well, I expected to hear nothing back, but obviously I got something back from the FBI on both Ruby and Arnold, and that was the letters stating that they didn't have any information on them so they couldn't share anything and thank you very much, and here's our appeals process of And so I was I was rather confused, and I'm not

the law is not my forte. And if it wasn't for the fact that I reached out to a couple of our experts, I still wouldn't understand exactly why the FBI didn't have anything on this case. So big thanks to Steven and Nicholas, because they really they really helped me out with this. And so here's why I understand the FBI got involved. According to the federal government, there are several distinctions about what they can and cannot do and can and cannot get involved within Indian country. Yes,

that's what they refer to it as. And I know that some people will say it's state of American, other will say it's Indian. I'm not going to weigh in because I actually read on this subject. It was like what is it? And it's an individual preference. So I'm when I say it one way. That's based off of the way it was referred to in the thing. That's what the FBI calls it is. Yeah, and this is this is the way I found it. So just yeah, I went out to the acted suit tribes and they

all say Indian. They say they say Indian more than they say Native American. So it's a little confusing. So but but he there there have been several legal cases that have helped put in different levels of jurisdiction for federal involvement. Back in the eighteen hundreds, it was if a crime was committed on the reservation, it was handled locally,

and then there was some legal disputes. At one point what is known as the Major Crimes Act was put into that specified certain crimes that could be involved with the or the Feds could be involved with. And then that's been changed over time. But but basically what that means for the folks that are law enforcement in that area is like they this little flow chart I have here.

I swear they must have to carry it around because it's a if the perpetrators Native American committing a non major crime on tribal territory and it's either a victimless crime, or it's against another Native American, the tribe has sold jurisdiction. If the perpetrators native American committing a non major crime on tribal territory against a non Native American, there's joint

jurisdiction between the FEDS and the tribe. And if the crime is committed and it is a major crime murder per se, the Feds and the tribes both have joint jurisdiction no matter who the perpetrator is or who the crime is against. So it's like this is just a hodgepodge and that that sounds confusing enough. Well, yeah, I guess worse than it does, because it's a nightmare. And and I really I commend the men and women who work in that that Sheriff's department for working through this

every day. Because apparently the Yankton Sioux had a dispute about territory that was theirs and what wasn't. There's based on a land sale in the eighteen nineties and the Yankton Sioux had a case that went eventually up to the Supreme Court in Um and it was all around that that agreement, whether it was their land or not.

It was something about a waste for disposal facility, and whether they were going to use state or federal environmental guidelines to to manage it, because well, it was on it was in a white owned area because the original reservation gifted to the Indians or whatever by the by the Feds seated to the unions. Yeah, the Feds actually afterwards sold off portions of it to white settlers. So it was in a white zone. They were going to put it in right until technically on the reservation, even

though not exactly on the reservation. And so and you just use a term that I wanted to explain because because this this whole thing created a shifting map based on which so it worked its way through the courts, that lawsuit about who owned that land, and what that did is that change who had jurisdiction in that specific area. And it was a shifting map. And there was a

red zone and a white zone. And I really hope that red zone doesn't mean redskin, but I think it does, and it meant it meant in you know, is that

that joint Indian and federal jurisdiction. The white zone was going to be the sheriff's department or normal county jurisdiction, right, And so I think what happens here is that through that shifting map, the crime or that the crime, the accident itself, and this potential crime where these people of poof evaporated suddenly falls into a possible scenario where the Feds need to be handling it because it could be

a major crime. And so from what I can tell, essentially the whole thing that the fence took it, figured out it wasn't their ball and like a hot potato. I can't tell whether they threw it back to the sheriff's department as soon as they could, or they just closed it. I got rid of it. Yeah, I don't. Well, it was actually in their court. It was in their jurisdiction from what I can tell, because the town of Lake Andy's is in the red zone. So and but

I think they just immediately determined no crime had been committed. Essentially, they probably opened a file on it and didn't put anything in there. It was a blank file, which is why my letters were empty. Absolutely they hadn't. They really did have nothing because no crime was even committed. I mean, they might not have even actually opened the file. I

don't know. I don't know. But what I can tell you is this is the reason that I now understand the frustration in the sheriff's voice when I said, I don't understand what you mean by that about the FEDS getting jurisdiction and him explaining it to me, And I just didn't have enough history on that particular bit to not get it. But I understand why. That's that's a living nightmare to work through. So if nothing else, that's why the FEDS got the case. And then of course

they absolutely nothing punted it. Yes, they totally totally punted. Here's your sports reference, everyone, Yes, absolutely, So that that right there, ladies, And gent's that is our story. That is all we have on it. So before we get into the theories, let's take a quick break. Yeah, who get in moon encircle the world flying hive of watching his events unfold. Each morning they take flight and it's night they return to report what they're seeing to keep

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and we're back theory time. So there's there's really two main theories within a bunch of sub theories on them. So theory number one is main theory is that they died at the scene, and the subset is that I've titled it thrown from the car. According to this theory, they simply wandered away from the car and they died

from exposure to the elements in the area. And why Well, according to Tracy, she said Arnold wasn't in the car after it had flipped, So it is possible that if he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, he could have gone through the windshield, or the door could have opened during the role and he could have been flung from the door itself. I'll admit there's nothing in the reporting about a human sized hole in the windshield, so I don't think that

he went through the windshield. But this, then, if we follow it, let's just say he was he was thrown from the car and went out the door. The door popped open and he went through it. Then that when Ruby got out, she went to him. You know, that's why she's saying, O God, Oh God, oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. She goes to him. Um, and then from there, I don't know literally, I mean they were like they were like twenty ft or less away from the car, right, they're pretty close from the accident.

The bodies are fed, which that's really fast to die from the elements of exposure. Excuse me, that's incredibly I mean, it would have had to have been blizzard like conditions. I feel that they would have gotten lost in the white out and not been able to find their way back, which there's no there's nothing to say that. But I also will say that to me, Arnold doesn't have to have been thrown from the car, because there there's also such a thing as like going into shock or like

passing out. And Tracy, right, Tracy year old, It's totally possible that she just blacked out from as the car was flipping around, and then as she came to he was no longer in the car. Yeah, because when they found his body, he didn't had the sort of contusions that you would associate with being thrown from the car. Not in any of the reporting on this, he just Okay, So I think we can put that one too, bed

because I'm not in disagreement at all with that. Um So then that, yeah, like you said, he got out of the car, she didn't. She didn't realize that. She came to and he was already gone, and so this so this next theory then is that they simply they tried to run away, and that is, like we talked about earlier, they get out of the car, they realized that they are in a world of trouble because they have wrecked their car and they are underage and drinking.

And one of the things to keep in mind is that the couple had a daughter at She was maybe a year old at the most at the time, so there may have been oh, this is gonna be bad, whole bunch of negative repercussions from it. We need to just beat feet and get out of here. So let's go oh yeah, so again, but yeah, but it's weird that they would leave Tray Well, yeah, like, why didn't

you just take everybody with you? I'm starting to formulate some more theory here, right, So again, Tracy, let's say she blacks out, passes out, we don't know for how long. Maybe she was also not wearing a seatbelt. She's getting thrown around a little bit, they settle, and in situations

like that often your sense of time elongates. Right. So Arnold is the most awake of all of them somehow, and he's like, hey, Tracy, everybody okay, and girlfriend Ruby you know, says I'm okay, and Tracy says nothing, and he goes, Oh, crap, I've killed Tracy. You have to get out of here. Because Tracy also doesn't mention that she said anything to Ruby when she gained consciousness, So it's totally possible in my mind that he's like, oh crap. He gets out, She's like, oh my god, we killed her.

She gets out and they leave her thinking she's dead. Tracy is there, she's eyes, but she's not really saying anything because she's in that state of shock. I can run with that that that is a better explanation, because I couldn't understand why you would abandoned the other person. But then if you think that person is dead, then you're definitely going to get the hell out of it. Yeah, there's that. There's you know. Another thing is they didn't

do any toxicology in the bodies, right, I have no idea. Joe. Again, I tried to ask about that stuff. I couldn't get an answer on it. Haven't seen any reporting to confirm or deny that they did. I would presume that they did so wandering away like that, you know, from an accident and forgetting about your cousinants in the back seat. It's the sort of thing I associated with, like LSD or head injuries, you know, being in a car that

flipped over a couple of times. Or the other thing I was going to say is that it sounds like Ruby's body was probably too far gone to even do a toxicolity report, but I would guess it was wasn't really conclusive if they did it. But but I don't know. But the whole thing is is that again I want to come back to if they died there at that time, Let's come back to the fact that they didn't die because they drowned. They died from exposure and again no

whole obvious holes in the ice. And let's just okay, let's let's just run down hypothetical scenario of one of them goes in, the other one goes in trying to rescue them, and now they are both treading water in freezing cold water. The reading that I've done says that you can you know, most people can survive for at least a half hour. Bear with me. Bear with me. How many times have you stepped off and found a

deep spot when you were walking into the water. And also and you're like, whoa, Now, imagine you don't know where the ledge that you just came off of was. So they're they're treading water, they're trying to get back out by climbing out of the ice. It could have lasted for a while until they finally succumbed to hypothermia, which I would I'm guessing balls under the umbrella of death by exposure, so that they don't they're not listed

as having being grounding victims. But I but again, why wouldn't I mean, that kind of hole in the ice should be really obvious to the people who were looking for them. Of course, it might depend on how far out they went towards the lake to look. I mean, they could have wanted out quite a ways on that water that water way out to the lake, Okay, go ahead, and I'm sorry, yeah, So they would have expected then to be with thinking that there's no rational reason that

they would walk way far out towards the lake. They didn't go out that far to look probably, But the difficulty with that is that means that if they walked due north in some fashion, they and then they go in the water, and then they die and they go underwater. Their bodies then had to go back south towards the bridge, which is an outlet, meaning the water is flowing northward already, so now they're flowing their their bodies traveling against the current.

It can depend on this is like suddenly I've I've redeemed myself for ray Greek cars, stupid hard drive and understanding how would dynamics works? Absolutely? Yeah, what are we talking about? dB Cooper? But you see my point, Joel, Like, I get that. I thought the same thing. I was like, well, maybe you know, the water just shoved him in. And then I started thinking about, well, if it's march and it's run off and it's melt, everything's going out into the lake. So how do you explain that. I know,

that's a tricky thing. I mean he could have actually, I mean, I don't know what they did to actually damn off the inlet. When they started draining it and pumping the water out of it. He might have been further out and make that by sucked his body, sucked his body further further south, you know, possible, But they did find her body. Her body was she wasn't on

the edge. It was actually out of the water. Yeah, she apparently, I get the if I were to use the images from Unsolved Mysteries, is any kind of metric, which I'm not going to, I think that she was in several feet of water, but floating and you know, on the top of several feet of water. That's all I got on on that. So, yeah, you're right, Joe. They may have inadvertently pulled him in farther into the

area than he initially was. I don't know. So that though, that is the end of they died at that site, or died there at that time, I should clarify they died there at that time, is what both of these are are falling under. So that takes us to our next theory, which is, I know, the look on your face, Devan,

it is not aliens, but it should be possibly. I mean, it's a pretty good theory for this one that the aliens abducted them, they subjected them to experiments, and then dumped them back kind of where they thought they would be in sort of the same condition, because aliens don't know, well, you know, things happen. Okay, no, not really. My next theory here is they ran away from the scene, as we've just discussed, and then somehow they came back to

the scene like weeks later and then died. Then after weeks after died, I guess, yes, And it doesn't make a lot of sense for month after yeah, some month. So this, this whole thing, this whole theory, which I don't put a whole lot of stock in, is that basically they beat feet, somebody gave them shelter. Arnold couldn't take being camped up in the little spot they were

hiding at. Any morning, he went to a New Year's Eve party to blow some steam off, and then they went back to that site because they thought their car was still there. I don't know, and then they died there. I mean this, I will admit right now this, I've seen this before, and it's the hokeyest theory in the world, because there's no logical reason for them to go back days or weeks later. Well, you don't know, I mean that might have actually been a hangout spot, a place

where everybody wants to smoke pot. I mean, who knows. You know, you park your car, you wander, you want, you know, the footpath that's along the railroad tracks there actually just just barely to the east of where they where they ran their car through, it turns south and an intersects Highway eighteen where that's what you can get onto it. So I mean that might have been a place people who come, like, you know, hang out and hang out on the footpath Danglar Lakes off the bridge

and look at the lake. I mean, of course, in January. I'm not sure I was gonna say like that. Okay, that that sounds great and high summer, but not in January for any any stretch of the imagination. Yeah, that's why this theory is kind of hard to believe. I think they did return to the just not alone alive. Okay, So you're you then sort of want to go into

the next theory. That's that's what I can tell you're gunning four, which is they did indeed return to the scene of the accident, but they had died somewhere entirely different. They reanimated water over there. No, that's actually not it. No, no, no, no, not not the zombie theory. There's no zombie theory in this one. I know people really like the idea that they died somewhere else, and that is because one of the primary reasons is because of the amount of decomposition

that Ruby's body experienced. It's it's a bit of a stretch. It seems like it's too much for her to her body to have gone through having sat in the water at that site, plus especially compared to his, especially compared to his And then there's that whole possible sighting. But I'm really going to discount the sighting and probably not talk about it again. I probably shouldn't be talking about as much as I am. Yes, that's exactly especially at a crowded party. Exactly my point. But if we follow

this idea, it could explain a couple of things. And the idea here is essentially that these two were abducted from the scene of the accident aliens by a mean person. Okay, if we think about what Tracy said, she said Ruby got out of the car, and why would she just shut the door behind her, Well, maybe she saw somebody she didn't know. What's going On, she kind of wanted to hide her and protect her. Maybe there's the whole set of keys that are in Arnold's pocket that they

can't quite figure out where those belong. If indeed that is true, maybe he picked those up from where they were being held. That would also explain why her shoes and her glasses could be missing, and he might be wearing different clothes. And it could explain the tuft of hair on the side of the road, because if somebody that told that dark suburban vehicle that we we talked about could be that was the person who did the dumping of said bodies, so they dumped the bodies, hair

gets pulled off through that process. It's reaching, but it kind of it ties a few things up kind of nicely. Yeah, I don't know that it's reaching as much as you wanted to be reaching. Well, I think I think. Okay, So here's why I feel like it's a real reach, Devon, is that to abduct people in this scenario is such an amazing crime of luck and opportunity at such a

random location. Now, Okay, if indeed the accident was an accident, was it was Arnold's fault, I mean we could go down the alley of Okay, well, what if what if this guy actually was sitting in the intersection with his lights off and Arnold didn't see him, and as soon as Arnold started pulling forward, the guy hits the gas and pushes him off the road. Okay, well, then then there's a that's a little more the fairy is but

a skin that's a weird place. We've argued this before with the asia degree disappearance in that you know, right place, right time. It doesn't necessarily mean they were kidnapped. It could mean they were picked up by the wrong person. They thought they had a passed out seventeen year old girl in the back of their car that they were responsible for. You were maybe even dead right. They get out there like we gotta get help, and a car comes by and they flag it down and say, we

just slipped our car. Can you give us a ride? We need help. We need to get somewhere where we can call someone, and the guy says or girl says, yeah, no problem, and then oops, it turns out that person is an insane person and take him to a bar. I mean told me argued this before they saw the body. I mean, we've argued this before. And I'm not saying that it's a great theory, but I am saying that them going somewhere else and then their bodies being returned

is a pretty good theory. Well, yeah, of course, the going somewhere else and being having their bodies dumped back there by the killer. Yeah, And that's the problem I have with that is is it's better or safer and easier just to bury them wherever, you know, somewhere else or dumped the bodies somewhere else. And also, there were no signs of murder right exposure. They died of exposure. So I was going to ask, and Joe, I think is leading in the right direction for me in terms

of questions here is that. Okay, so they died of exposure. So if this person is holding them, then how did they die of exposure? I mean that that could maybe explain why Let's say Ruby died a month earlier and then Arnold dies and so oh well, let's let's put them back where we got them, catch and release. Okay, so what if somebody accidentally hit them with their car. Do you think that the EMMY would be able to distinguish a person getting hit by a car versus a

person being in a car accident of that magnitude. Yes, bones bones break well, bones break in accidents like that too. But but the thing is, I've actually looked into accidents where people have been hit by a vehicle, and the sad fact is that your femur tended to shadow very

very dramatical. I was thinking as possible that they just wandered off, got disoriented from hypothermia, maybe had injuries whatever, and one or both of them, you know, it's entirely possible, giving the different positions of the bodies, that Arnold actually actually did fall through the ice, drowned and remained there undetected the entire time, whereas Ruby wandered off somewhere and died of exposures somewhere else, or both of them maybe did.

I don't know, but I know that I had read an interview with the former sheriff, not the one that you talked to, the former sheriff, and for his name it's escaped, but his retirement. There was an article written about and this was the case that really really nagged in his mind a bit. And because one of the reasons is, of course they searched the area they found no sign that they've gone through the as no bodies,

no nothing. And he said he knew somebody who rode his horse across that that land like in January, saw no signs. Yeah, and actually and and saw no signs of anybody's at all. And yet hear in Mark's, uh, you know, Ruby's body shows up. Kind of interesting. But you know, the one thing that strikes me about this area and then the reasons to move a body is the jurisdictional thing, and that is that they were just inside the city limits of the town, and also by

the wreck or where the wreck was. It might have just been pure coincidence, actually, but they were just inside the city limits of the lake, the town of Lake Andy's, which is in the red zone. And so if somebody from a white zone had this body of Rubies or maybe both of them that showed up and inconveniently died of exposure, they find them along about march Um and

then figure out who they've got on their hands. Well, he might not have even they might not have even known who they were, although they might have figured out who they were and thought, hey, let's jump them back to the scene of the accident or It could just be that, hey, this is just over right there in the red zone, let's just take the bodies over there, dump them in that swell. It could have been a remarkable coincidence that they dumped the bodies back into the

red zone under its different jurisdiction with more limited resources. Probably, and again just share speculation on my part. But that's one of the interesting things about this case is that the previous sheriff was sure the bodies were dumped there. But there's but they died of exposure, no signs of violence.

Why would you dump the bodies there? The only reason I can really think of it is just to avoid rather inconvenient investigation that's a little too close to home for you, given that, you know, maybe maybe you're doing something you shouldn't be doing on your land. Doesn't mean you kill these people. It's just sheer accident that they wandered onto your land die of exposure. But they kind of pose a problem for you. So you get rid of the bodies, You take them across jurisdictional lines, and bam,

you're golden. Assume you get okay, caught the bodies of course, well and and okay, so you've you've stitched. You've stitched the whole jurisdictional bit back in in a way that I hadn't considered it. But taking them to the same spot, it's just that's that that's the sticking point for me. If you know what the red zone is, why the hell not drive them two miles up to the other edge of the lake and dump them there because it's

a red zone. And then everybody was saying, oh, well, obviously those ding dong's walked across the lake and died there, and we didn't see them like you do. You see where I'm coming. I see what you're saying, And it's it's too convenient to take them back to the starting point for that for me. But it just seems to me that that's the swell. It was a nice little place to dump the bodies because there's a lot of vegetation there, especially if the ice has melted and everything.

You know, they're not going to be readily. It's it's a good easy place, right next to the road and the road and the path just to the north of the road. Uh. And it could have been that they, like I said, a coincidence. It could have been they recognized Arnold at least and just thought, hey, there, the wrecked car was found in this spot. Let's just dump the bodies there and not worried about it. Now, you're you're not saying so, I'm just gonna make sure that

I understand this. You're not You're not implying that this is a typical dumping ground. This is just a one off thing. Yeah, just the one off. Just making sure. Yeah, Devin, you had you have your own theory aliens. I like that one. Yeah, I thought you had a real theory. No, no, alien, I mean aliens is a real theory for this one is interesting, I guess to like wrap it up. I do agree that it seems there's something to steal a

term hinky going on here. There's I just I have a really hard time believing that their bodies were there the entire time. I have a really really hard time that the believing that the search just conveniently missed them. But I also have a hard time believing that, you know, it was a crime of opportunity, then they got dumped again or what happened. I don't know. How do you

murder somebody through exposure? The only way I can think of it is you lock them in a barn, but then they should be decomposing at the same rate they should be. Yeah, they should also have like all sorts of like like marks on their hands and where they were trying to clod out of their enclosure and stuff. I mean, there should be. I just don't see any

way to murder. You can tie them up and just leave them outside, but then there's gonna be there's gonna be, yeah, Like that's how do you do how do you make that somebody just stay out in the cold with out you know, I can't think of a way to do it short of locking somebody into one of those low deep freeze freezers. I don't know, because somebody's gonna die

in a deep freeze like that very quickly. But they're gonna fight to the I mean there will still be signs of them, but not nearly as much as locking them in a bar and tied up. I don't know. So I'm out of theories. I really This is why I like this this case so much, because it's a kind of a toughie. If you have any thoughts about this particular case or any of the other cases that we've ever talked about or you want to share story ideas or anything else you want to chat with us about,

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Go to the website on the right hand side. You will see the links for that. That's all I've got to share today. You guys, got any other final parting thoughts or shots. Just if you're the person or persons who put those bodies back, we'd like to hear from you because I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has expired, and so I think you really don't need to worry about getting arrested. So just you know, send us an email. We'd like to know what happened. I just want to

say we'll talk to you next week. And by the way, thanks to the sheriff for actually talking to me. I know that's nice. I'm sure it was aliens. Guys,