Thinking Sideways: Bennington Triangle

sideways twenty, you'll get off your tickets. So that's crime con dot com Sideways twenty. We'll see you there thinking sideways. I don't know stories of things we simply don't know the answer to. Well, hi there, and welcome to an other episode of Thinking Sudways. I'm Joe, joined as always by Steve and exactly, Devin and E V Y I z k W autostrophe L y I sweet. All right, Yeah,

that's why that is always messing it up. Yeah, I got okay, all right, Well back to the important part of the mystery, which is uh, yeah, well that's important. But we talked about that on Facebook. Two, let's talk about this week's mystery, Yeah, which is there's a strange geographical patch of area in the northeastern United States where people just vanish, don't don't do exactly. Some people call it the Bennington Triangle, although that was actually kind of

a recent appellation. I think that happened in the nineties. Somebody actually tagged at a se Bennington trying, which is long after people stopped disappearing there. Actually. But by the way, I shout out to Nicole Hei Nicole, because she suggested this one. Nicole. Yeah, by the way, technically I think people are still being said to disappear in this triangle. Well, I think the most recent one I saw was two thousand eleven. Oh you're talking about Yeah, I know how

you're talking about that seventeen year old kid. Yeah yeah, but he was like he was actually from like clear across the state over like Rattleborough or someone like that. Listen, you can't confine the boundaries of this triangle justice one geographic area. Yeah, sorry, you kind of like and there's enough you can't handle the geography, Okay, I gotta I

gotta be more fluid in my thinking. I get what you're saying, yeah, there's actually there's five classic disappearances that always get lumped in with these, and one of these is actually kind of another one is actually kind of far away too. Yeah, but oh well we'll talk. Let's let's deal with it here. Yeah. Well, I'm gonna start this off kind of randomly. We'll start with the most fascinating one, because this was the appearance of James Edward Tedford,

who vanished off a bus. Yeah. Now, at least it's not Edward Edward Tedford. But and I just got just a circular whose name was Edward Edwards is Edward W. Edwards, which I thought was kind of weird unless his middle name was maybe Ward. I think I worked with a guy whose name was Edward Edwards. Might have been the same guy, hopefully not. Yeah, but yeah, sorry, so so ed ted Oh yeah, yeah, so James ed ted He vanished off a bus somewhere between eight St. Albans, Vermont

and Bennington, Vermont. Geographically speaking, they are at the north and south south ends of the states. Respect Yeah, I'll give you a quick background on James Tedfordum, he was born it's believed around eighteen eighty four and about the time he disappeared, he would have been in his late sixties. Uh. He had actually been conscripted apparently for World War Two. You've done like two different tours. Is that sounds right

something like that. Yeah. He I don't imagine they had him out there like you know, and you know, in the infantry or anything because of his age. But picking stripted a lot of people who were like well passed the standard military Asian World War two. But he was married to a much younger woman, and apparently she vanished when he came back from the war. She was gone literally half his age, yeah, something like that. Yeah, and so he was fifty, yeah, and she was twenty eight.

I remember that when she disappeared quote unquote disappeared. Yeah. I don't think it's quite so mysterious. She just found somebody else and that was that. So but so he um, he decided to check himself into a like an old soldier's home in Bennington, Vermont, which she probably shouldn't have done in retrospect, home of the Apple Barn. Yeah it is it really, yeah, but it's fine. Let's keep going.

I did not know that, yeah, Manning, And actually I believe it is like you know, like the burial place of Robert Frost, isn't it I think it is. Yeah, there's there's a little more history there than there is a here in Portland. But but anyway, he he had family in St Albans Uh survery the time of the year he was up there in late November. I'm assuming it was for Thanksgiving, yeah yeah, and then see on God on this bus uh in St Albans And and if he had disappeared in St Alberns, it would not

have been a surprise. It's of course up there near the Kanuckish standing border. You know, our neighbors to the north, the Kanuck kanukis Stan and Uh. And in those days, nomadic bands of fierce Kanucky tribesmen were often crossing the border and carrying helpless Americans off in the bondage to be slaves or concubines or valets or whatever. Um. And then after the U. S. Canada War nineteen fifty six, we installed Dance Strubberry on our side of the border

and that pretty much solved the problem. Yeah, yeah, thank God. So yeah, but he didn't disappear in St Albans. He disappeared way further south, what happened is sometime not long before December one, nineteen forty nine, he boarded that bus in St Albans and headed back to Bennington. Bus one south on Highway seven which I believe is now Highways seven A on the maps. If you look at it on Google, it looks like the old highway is now seven A and then the new highways is seven. Now.

I wouldn't be surprised by that. They do that all the time. Oh yeah, Yeah, there's just ones like this where there's like old patches of the old one that there's some some of it that goes over the old one, and then they just sort of branch off from one another. Um. But normally this was about an eight hour trip, and that I heard it was longer this particular one because there was snow. Yeah, I think it was delayed by six or eight hours. Yeah, which would make for a

tedious bus trip. But witnesses did see James Tadford board the bus and Saint Albans uh and witnesses on the bus and including I believe the driver saw him on the bus at their last stop, which I'm guessing was man second. I thought it was the last stopment well, I guess it would be the second to last, second last stop before Bennington. Correct, yeah, second to last stop, Yeah, exactly. And I'm going to assume that that was Manchester, which

is about twenty miles north of Bennington. I don't really know that for h let's just assume for the sake of assuming that it was Manchester. Um, so, his fellow passengers see him on the bus in Manchester. But then the bus arrives in Bennington and Tedford was gone. He was doing His luggage was still on the bus. I'm sorry, I don't understand what we have times on this. Just just let it go, okay, sorry, just let it go.

But anyway, his luggage was on the bus. Uh, and it was also an open bus timetable sitting on the seat next to where he had been sitting. But that was it. He was gone. Nobody saw him leave the bus. I saw, uh, it wasn't read it. It was a similar kind of website. I saw somebody theoriz said he had wanted to go off and start a new life, and so when he got to Bennington he just slid down and hid underneath his seat. Yeah, but that was yeah, yeah, those you know, even in the old days. I doubt

that they were that roomy underneath there. Well, but even still, like like, that's not the first place the bus driver is gonna look like, oh, I'll just peek under the seats, like at least to see if he left anything. Huh, Well, yeah, for sure, I mean, but yeah, so it's maybe he was little. Maybe he was that could have been people back in those days where it's true. That's a good point, but I find that hard to believe. But anyway, so he vanished from a moving bus in air apparently zip yeah,

teleported away by the aliens. His family reported missing to the police on December one, and of course there was a search, there was there were lots of newspaper articles about it. But James Tedford never showed up again and they never found him. They never found his body. That was it into thin air. So that was one of the more notable disappearances in the Bennington triangle. So this guy just I mean, it was a strange story because we used to these stories about some guy who wanted

off into the woods and it's never seen again. Well that happens, get eaten by bears or something. Disappearing off a bus traveling down the highway. You can understand why this story is has been so popular with the UFO crowd. Right, well, so many questions, so many questions, and will we Okay, the fologist in me is not happy about this. You don't like this one. No, the follogist in me is

not happy that we're putting on. We're putting off talking about but okay, let's talk about Let's talk about the next one. Okay, we will, um, yeah, so we'll talk about the aliens Teleportinghi off the bus here in a little bit. But he wasn't the first of the last person to just vanish in the triangle. Exactly three years before somebody else also disappeared to the day. Well I

don't know. He was reported missing on December one, and this other person disappeared on December one, so Ted Firs, I mean, well, yeah, it's just pretty much on the day his bus his bus ride was on the first? Was it on the first? His his bus ride was this right here? He was on a bus sometime on or just before before. I fighted that a little bit much because yeah, I wasn't really sure it might have been the day before, but still close enough for government work, right,

I guess, yeah, they're not that far. I mean, Vermont's not giant. No, it's a it's a tight little place. Yeah yeah, okay, yeah, okay, um but okay, three years before this person who disappeared actually did wander off into the woods. So okay, that's a little more like it. That's kind of more what we used to And her name was Paula gene Weldon. She was eighteen student at Bennington College, which is in North Bennington. So why did I'll call it North Bennington College. I don't quite get it.

I mean, if it's going to be in North Bennington, it should be called North Bennington College, right. North Bennington is separate from Bennington. Uh. And it's not a neighborhood of Bennington. It's it's a whole another town, part of the greater Bennington area. Yeah, it's probably part of the metro area or something like that. But there's definitely some green space in between the two. It's not a suburb really,

um and so, and it's also northwest of Bennington. So I don't know what's not called Northwest Bennington because it's north of Benington. It's north but it's really Northwest. It's still worth of it. I think you're going to get so many angry emails from the people of that town. Okay, sorry, Bennington North End regular that you don't need to be angry with us. Actually I got us by the way,

just just to give you guys a compliment. I gotta street you, of course, and did a little tour of Bennington and North Bennington and they they looked like a very pleasant little places. Did you guys go Look, I've been to Bennington, so yeah, how'd you like it? I liked it. It's it's actually got like my favorite diner in like ever, like the best breakfast I've ever had at the Blue ben We used to drep when I

lived in Massachusetts. We would drive up there like once a month to get I mean it was we would get in the car and drive for like four hours to get brunch at this place. So, I mean, you know, it's cute. It's nice little town. College the days when that was easy to do, it was it was not college, it was work even that's how much we like. I didn't notice stand my my tallerant for long car drives was a lot higher when I was at age than that first change that changes as you get a little

older in it. Where are we Att's I'm talking about Bennington itself. Let's talk about to talk about Paula Welton. Yes, yeah, so she was a sophomore at Bennington. She was from a well off Connecticut family, and there didn't seem to be anything too dramatic going on in your life. But apparently she had had a little bit of a following out with your dad and she didn't go home for Thanksgiving. I mentioned they let the family lived in Connecticut, so

not that far away. But at the same time, she was also eighteen, and so you know, you know what that's like. You know, they were rebelling a little bit, and so the littlest thing set you off. Yeah, can can can necessarily. Yeah. There's also reports that she had been a little depressed in the days leading up to her disappearance. So that makes me believe that she skipped down and started a new life under the name Bernie Sanders.

Not really, well maybe I think so. I mean it's kind of the right age free, but there's there's something to make it right. But yes, yeah, okay, but Bernie or not on this on the Afternoon is Sunday, December one, Paula asked her roommate if she wanted to go for a hike. Her roommate, Hannibal Elector. Her roommates not Hannibal Elector, Yeah, exactly,

said she was busy, she begged us. So Paula decided to go off on her own, and according to most reports, Paula really wanted to hike what's called the Long Trail, which is it kind of runs to the east of Bennington north and south, goes like you know, it goes from the bottom of the state to the top of the state essentially. Yeah. So at southern end of the trail acrosses the border in to Massachusetts, North Dakota somewhere

I don't know whatever south of there. Uh. And then at the northern end it stops at some really dense shrubbery uh. And there's well, it's part of the Appalachian Trail, right it is, I believe, Yeah, and so I certainly if you look at it on Google, it says it all Trades Long Trail, Appalachian Trail, Long Trail, Appellation Trail. So yeah, so yeah, it's kind of cool. I'd like to hike it someday. Except I disappeared. I guess I can't do that. But anyway, Paula never could have made

it to the border with Canada. Um, so there's no reasonably the Canadians napped her and you know, and she wound up living the rest of her days in slavery, yeah, gas or being somebody's valet or god knows what it is. But but yeah, Bennington is in the southwest corner of the state, and it's a long long way from Canada. It's it's much closer to Massachusetts. Senators Canada. Oh yeah, much closer. It's it's a stone strow away from New York. Yeah yeah, I mean it'd be it'd be a hard throw,

but it's a stone throw. Just yeah, I look it up on the NAP. Yeah yeah, you'll see it right there. Paula left the Bennington campus around two thirty pm and she headed south to Highway sixties seven. What sort of goes at that point? Kind of east west? Uh? There she history ride with a guy named Louis Nap who drove her to Highway nine. Apparently Highway Night branches off Highway sixty seven heads out towards the town called Woodford Hollow.

And pass Woodford Hollow. He dropped her about three miles short of Woodford Hollow, which is where the Long Trail starts. That's where it crosses Highway nine. Did she know, Louis, I don't believe. So she was just truly okay, great, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, and uh and apparently talk about much. She just said she wanted to ride out to Highway nine and then wanted him nasking, you know, about the Long Trail, and that was about it. Uh and uh. And of course days later he remembered

giving her a ride. But you know, we'll find out about that. He actually had a house on Highway nine about two and a half three miles short of Woodford Hollow, so that's where as far as he went. He dropped her off and she had it back down the highway south and maybe you got a ride with somebody else, who knows, But she did make it to the trail. Uh. Yeah.

There were four guys who were leaving the trail at the time that Paula showed up, and she asked, just asks, you know, was this the way to the Long Trail? And they said, yeah, the pointed the way, and so uh, the last saw of her, she was walking across the footbridge that led to the trail and that was it. And of course several days later they remembered her. And I should also mention that Paul was not outfitted for a major hike. She was wearing a coat that I think had a hood and kind of a kind of

a furry winter jacket. Yeah, not a real heavy duty thing, um all said, on jeans and tennis shoes. Again not really great snows. Did she even have water? Yeah, I don't know, Yeah, I don't know. I mean you would think she would have taken some water with her. You would think that would make sense. Yeah, And she had no gear. It's not even water, no food, no extra clothes, no camping gear, nothing. I don't think she had a

flashlight either. And you know, it gets dark at that time of the year, that far north right gets dark kind of early. And she didn't apparently take too much money with her either, And she definitely left some behind at the school, like an uncashed check from her parents, for example. And you know, you guys, we've seen lots of these cases where people run off to start new lives, nearly bank accounts and all kinds of stuff behind, because that's what I would do. Y yeah, absolutely. Uh. There

was one more adding Apollo that I know about. I mean, there were a lot of sightings of Paula, but they were rather conjectural. It was all in the paper and people saw, oh I saw somebody look kind of like her, similar to the Indiana Dunes or the Grime Sisters even Oh yeah, yeah, so there were lots of sidies. This one looks pretty confirmed, though. There there was a couple whose names elude me um. I think their names are lost to the ages. The several people in this case

whose names are kind of lost to the ages. It's a pretty common name, yeah, but they lost the ages. It's a nice name actually. But they were about it, maybe a hundred or so yards behind her and following her, and they said she went around a bend in the trail, and then when they rounded the bend of a minute to later, she was gone. Yeah, I don't know how.

I mean, in Oregon, it would be pretty easy to, like, say, if you had to use the bathroom, it's pretty easy to just hop off the trail and go a little ways and your trail gets totally lost, and you would be totally lost. But I don't have a sing, you know, I don't. I've never to the Long Trail, so I don't know. I have a friend who just hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, and it looks like there are parts where it would be pretty easy to do something similar

to that. But if there were snow on the ground, one would assume that they would have seen her tracks going off somewhere. So, you know, my first my first thought on something like that is she had she had to go pee. That's child possible. Yeah, And as far as I know, it's snowed later on. I don't know if it was a night or the next day, but

as as of that time, there was no sky. But it's also a deciduous forest, which means that is their leaves all over the ground, So that is going, Yeah, but it's not a trail more than yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it would be more open, so it would be easier to see her if she were Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, I didn't great all the time. I did too, Um, but I kind of think that you guys are you know, like really distracting from the alien subducted or kind of

oh yeah, sorry, now just kidding. They also reported the bright light yeah gey stuff, the memory loss. Yeah. So Paula didn't come home that night, obviously, and next next day, on Monday, December two, she uh, her roommate noticed she was gone. And also, by the way, she didn't show up for classes. So back in those days, colleges were a little more a little more strict about that kind

of thing. Some colleges, Yeah, yeah, and so yeah and so yeah, so they know she wasn't there and hermy said she didn't come home, and the alarm goes up and h and her parents are notified, um, and the police are called. And of course nobody knew at this point that Paula had gone to the Long Trail, So at first they were searching the college campus in the

surrounding areas. But then after the news hit the papers, Lewis Napp remember him, the guy that gave her a ride out most of the way, Yeah, he remembered her, and so he came over to police with his story and told them, Hey, I gave her a ride to Hghway nine and she was really interested in hiking the

Long Trail, so uh and also what's his name? The four the four guys that were her on the way on their way out, one of them actually worked at the local benage in paper and so he went to a reporter and told the reporter about that and what he had seen, so, you know. And then so obviously she had had last been seen in a long trail, so everybody can everybody assumes she's out there lost or maybe dead. But at this point, again, she hasn't. She hasn't been gone that long, and so there was still

some hope of finding her alive. And so the shirt the search shifted to the long trail, and they searched not only the trail but to swap the woods on the other side of it. Uh, and a lot of people, I mean, they canceled classes at the college, so so everybody at the college could turn out and help with the search, and like police and National Guard and everybody you can think of. I mean, hundreds of people were

searching for her. And actually, so there were so many people searching for her, I was kind of surprised none of the searchers got lost themselves. True. Well, if they you said they were carrying confetti, did you say that yet? Yeah? Yeah, but soon But they were, I mean they were they were, you know, hustle and grattling it. So you know, it's pretty easy to track your way back if you've got something like that. That's unless you get like, you know,

somebody like Chupy going after you picking up your confetti. Well, the good thing about confetti is it's hard to get all of the pieces. There's a lot a little that's why you would do confetti. Maybe confetti makes sense actually, but yeah, that's one of the ways they kept him going over the same ground again and again, dropping confetti. Whenever you search the place, he drops, drop a little confetti and just keep going. And also reports were coming

in from other places. This was hitting the papers. I think it made the national news even and there were reports from somebody as far away as Massachusetts. The waitress claimed to have served her in a diner. Yeah, Massachusetts,

isn't that It's not, no, it's not. It's not usually far away, especially if she actually went pretty far away though, well, I mean, if she accidentally went the wrong way on the trail, you mean, yeah, she walks south and staid in the Yeah, but the people who said they saw her going on the trail and followed her on the trail. We're going in the northerly direction. Yeah, but she could

have walked north originally and then overshot. Yeah, like just walked for an hour or whatever and then walked back and totally missed where she should have popped off and then just you know, stumbles out of the forest a day later in Massachusetts. And it's just at this first, but you would think the waitress would say she looked horrible, yeah, and really needed help and realized that she needed help, so, you know, because she couldn't pay for the slice of pie, right. Yeah.

And apparently well apparently she was with the guy too, of course. Yeah, and she was running off, you know. Yeah, I don't know. It could be that guy was an alien, yeah, or that could be too. It was the bald world world for Dora. But I've been watching fringely. I was going to say, you must be watching, yeah, exactly. Um, And there was one report of a suspicious character, a guy whose name I could never find. Either of you able to find this guy's name, And yeah, I was.

He was lost to the ages, one of those I swear that I saw it in one place, but when I went looking back through with what I read, I couldn't find it again. Yeah, everywhere. I even found a fairly authoritative newspaper article from the local Bennington newspaper that was like one of those look back on the years later and everything like that. And even that one didn't have a name for the guy. You would think of anybody, they would have had the name, right, You would think

anything at the time. But I think oftentimes when they do those retrospectives they scrub names out. Maybe they do. Maybe they figure it's no sense, you know, expuring that stuff up or something. I don't know. Maybe his family owned the paper by that time. I don't know, But this guy was a lumberjack apparently, at least I've in one place, and he lived kind of near the trail that Paula walked down the long trail and reportedly said to friends or acquaintances that he saw her walk by

the trail. He'd been having an argument with his girlfriend. He storms off angry, and then he said he had he went home. That's one version, or he got in his truck and followed her. His own accounts have buried, of course, of course. Yeah, and he also supposedly told a few people that he knew where Paula was buried, but of course, later on a question my police, he

said that was just idle talk. So I don't know. Okay, So, I mean we're friends and you're oftentimes pretty creepy, but like, yeah, but I mean, like I can't imagine anybody having that kind of sense of humor. They would be like, you know what, I'm going to make a joke about knowing where this missing girl is buried. It's behavior, it's super weirdo behavior. It's a little weird of But then again, I mean, you never you don't really know the context.

I mean, it could have been threatened more than anything, but you didn't have a clue what happened to her anything. But he's threatening somebody and saying, hey, by the way, I know where she's buried. I could murder you. So I'm really uh So this makes me think of another case. We've got a college age girl who disappears and it's a the Northeast, and the news media makes all kinds of hubbub about it, Like I really think that this should have been covered by a sensationalist writer that we

know of. Like it's shocking to me that this hasn't happened too early, too early? Sorry, Yeah, not not yet. Yeah, he's going to run out of stuff to talk about, and then it's gonna be off to this one and it might be related, who knows. The police couldn't put anything on our lumberjacks, so that never went anywhere. And that's it. Paula's missing. Still wait, there was another one. A year before Paula disappeared. Somebody else disappeared too, in the same area, fairly close by. Yeah. Uh, this is

also out in the woods, not on a bus. Uh. But it's still a little strange that this guy's name was Middy Rivers I assume the time. Yeah, he was a hunting fishing guide, uh, seventy four years old. But apparently he knew the local woods very very well, so he wasn't the kind of guy to just wander out there and get lost. And if he had gotten lost, he would have known how to care of himself. I mean, you know, he was seventy four in the forties, right, Yeah,

pretty damn old. Continue. But what happened to him was on November twelve, Middy was guiding a group of four hunters in the hills near Bennington. Uh. And they were heading back to their camp after what I sen was an unproductive day because I have heard nobody mentioned transporting a deer carcass back to their camp with them triumph. Yeah. Uh, and Midea got out in front of the group and apparently out of their sight, and then they never saw

him again. The four hunters eventually got back to camp, Middy was not there, you know, made them all scratch the heads just a little bit, and he has never been heard from again. Well there's the whole shell casing thing. Oh yeah, No, there was a there was a huge search of the woods where he disappeared, but no trace was ever found except for a cartridge from his rifle

that was found next to a stream. And I don't I don't know what stream that was, and I'm not even a hund percent sure that it was even the cartridge from his rifle. That's what I can never understand was how they pinned on his rifle. Yeah, I mean also just realistically, if he was hunting and fishing in that area for a long time, what's to say that

wasn't from three days before? Ye? True, that too, you know, But yeah, there's some cartridges that are just very very popular and so and his might have been one of them. So it's hard to say that was his even but it was just like Paula, there was not a shred of torn clothing or a shoe or anything that they didn't find his rifle. And that's that's what's strange about

these disappearances. We've talked about a lot of disappearing people, uh, and it seems like usually they find some little tiny tracer or another, like an article of clothing, or maybe a year two goes by and they find like, you know, they find a bunch of their clothes, or they find a little backpack or a purse, or they find something.

Nothing ever turned up at all, particularly when we're talking about those ones where we kind of say, okay, well could be a serial killer, but probably it was a bear. You know, they wandered off and you know some predator got them, and then you know, the clothes because they they're not going to eat the clothes because no, well sometimes the devil bear. Yeah okay, yeah, So I mean that's always so fascinating and frustrating to me when literally

nothing shows up, absolutely not a clue. Ah. But yeah, so those three so far. So we talked about MIDI, PAULA, and James Tedford. So that's the first three. And then uh, year after James Tedford vanished, a couple of other people

disappeared too. Uh. There was Paul Jepson. And I've seen this as Jeffson as a J E. P. H. S O. N. Yeah, and I've yeah, I'm gonna go with Jepson because I saw an article in a local paper that had his and his dad's name in there, and it was Jepson in there, although not that the newspapers anyway, But anyway, we'll go with Jepson. He was ag eight. He was from Shaftsbury, Vermont, which is about six months north of Bennington on Highway seven A, which, of course you know,

meant that what's his name, James Tedford cruised right by there. Yeah, I know who. Coincidence, Paul Paul Jeffson disappeared October twelfth, nineteen fifty and all these people disappeared in that sounded kind of a narrow little window there between October twelfth and December one. They also supposedly all disappeared within an hour window during the day, somewhere between three and four o'clock. I always see this sometimes, and it was always between

three and four o'clock they disappear. Yeah, that's when the oos are out. Yeah, the accounts that I've heard of this one I read that he disappeared from the family farm in Shaftesbury. And then another account that I read his mother left him in the family track while she went off to feed some hogs, which doesn't totally make sense, but whatever. Well, actually I think I can explain that. Yeah, so his family. One of the things his family did

is they took care of a local dump. And if you think about the time in the area, the local dump was somebody that had extra space that happened to have a big hole in it that everybody could throw their garbage into. And garbage tends to have food in it, so you can have pigs, and the pigs will feed off of the trash. But she still got to give them some real food. You know, they can't they can't subsist on what they find in I mean, it's not like hefty bags were around at the time, but they

can't subsist on everything they're finding in the trash. That they've got to give them some real food. So that I think is why you that's why I think it's two, because people read pigs and believe it's got to be a farm, and then people read the thing about being in the truck and you'll see it, Well, they were at the dump, and I think that's they're actually one in the same. Yeah, well, yeah, I know that makes

sense totally, the part of it didn't. I mean, even if they had just gone off to say, say, somebody was on vacation, she had to go go buy their farm real quick and feed the hogs. And accounts that I've read about this it took her like a hour to do this, which seems like kind of a long time to go feed the hogs. How many hogs there are? It could be that, or it could it could just be that that was inaccurate and she was only gone for fifteen minutes. Yeah, as say enough for a kid

to disappear. I've I've had to take your livestock, and you know, you gotta do the water, and you're gotta do the feed, and you gotta clean out stalls and that can take some time. Well that's true, yeah, But also I mean he was eight, right, but he's old enough to help with some of that stuff. That's why

I'm surprised. You. So, if it is this long endeavor where you are like mucking out pins and stuff like that, why would you not just have your eight year old son do the mucking while you're doing all the rest of the stuff. For like true, of course, there is also the fact that what do eight year old boys love to do? Jump in puddles of stuff and when it's pig excrement, that stuff stinks to high heaven and doesn't wash out. Tell the kid not to do that,

Oh yeah, because boys listen. Well, I think eight is older than you think it is, but we can go with that. Yeah. But anyway, so it's not out either way, Family Farm Org. It's not outrageous. But whatever happened, Uh, he either wanted off or maybe somebody snatched him right out of the truck. We don't really know what. The police brought in bloodhounds. They were able to track him for a while, but the trail apparently ended at the

edge of a highway and that was that. Uh. There were, as always, some reported sightings of Paul, but nothing consistent. Nothing ever panned out. There was one that I read about it, one of the papers or some woman spotted a boy just like him, but from the description his father said, as Paul Jepson's father said, he didn't believe it was his son. And did you mention that he's apparently was wearing a very distinctive red shirt at the time, or a red shirt or a red jacket, much like um,

what's her name? Yeah, Paula, Paula. Thank you? Yet it exactly and you know it's an easy target color. No, it's it's it is. It's great when he's looking for a body. Okay. So, and then one last disappearance, which was only two weeks later, that's October, Max and freed to Langer, North Adams, Massachusetts, were camping in the Mount

Pisca area with Frieda's cousin, Herbert Elsner. But first, before I go any further, I want to say this is the one that I think doesn't really fit with the other ones, even though it's always it always seems to be included when you read about the Bennington Triangle. This take place in the Mount Pisca area, as I said, And that's a long way from Bennington, that's all. That's way north, fairly close to the Kanakastani border and and so I'm not it's kind of outside the triangle, and

it doesn't have to be a perfectly shaped triangle. The boundaries of this triangle can change. Okay, okay, well that was much like the Bermuda triangle. Yeah, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. Yeah, it morphs to absorb whatever story you would like it to encompass. Okay, all right, well that guy's cool. It's part of the triangle that won't include it. Yeah, okay, So Frieda Langer was fifty

three or husband Max was eight. Max had a bad need, so in Frieda and Herbert decided that they wanted to take a hike. Max decided to stay behind the camp because of that bad name, and so Frieda and Herbert headed out. But a little way from camp, Frieda slipped while crossing a creek. And I don't know whether they were just hopping rock to rock or walking across the log. Whatever happened, she fell in and got wet, and so

she decided taking to run back to camp. So she told Herbert to just continue on that she was going to run back and change. Yeah, it's late October, of course, it's chili out and uh, she was just gonna run back, changing and something dry. Uh. In one account that I actually said she was taking a shortcut. And this is a you know, a little note to our listeners. Many a great adventure starts with the words, hey, let's take a shortcut. I know a shorter way, I know a

good way. Yeah. Yeah, But whatever happened, I don't know. She left Herbert at about three pm. Herbert eventually she never saw her again. She never rejoined him. He came back to camp about four or forty five, but Frieda wasn't there. Uh. And according to her husband Max, she had never she had never returned from the hike, and so well, you know, puzzled all around, and they called the police and another huge search is conducted. No trace of Frieda was ever found, which makes it kind of

similar to our other disappearances. Which is why I see that some people because it's so pinky. I mean that she just disappears. But here's the guy that knows her. Here's camp right back here, and she just vanished hike apart at the most and she just zip just just vanished, yeah pooh like that then leaves no trace. But there's also just similar in one big way, and and that is that Frieda's body was found about six months after she disappeared. She's the only one. She's the only one act.

And was she in good shape? No, she was not. She she had just decomposed enough that they couldn't tell how she had been killed or she died by natural causes. I don't think it was natural causes. So because the body was found in a spot that had been searched when they were searching for her originally. Yeah, so it looks like somebody came back and dumped the body there after the you know, after the search was done. We've got four of five bodies or people who were never

seen again. Yeah. Now, I mean I'm sure that you came across this, Joe. I know that is what I want to say. Canonical Is that the right term? The central core? They can in the central There are other you know, murders and disappearance. Yeah, there's I've seen upwards of twelve different ones that are attributed to this particular triangle. Yeah, like there was that one, that one that was very recent, like two thousand and eleven, that kid with the weird

name Marble, what's his Marble? Something, there's there's marble, but there was a hunter in the thirties who quote unquote disappeared out of sight of his party, and that was found under a tree shot days later. Like there's there's a whole series of these kinds of weird occurrences in this whole areas. So it really depends on which version,

in which assemblage of articles you read. Yeah, I know, I read another one that I didn't include it with this one because there's absolutely nothing out there about it except a group of three hunters vanished I believe in I think, Yeah, but that's it. That's that's the only thing there is about it. So who knows if that's anything related to truth or not. I mean, uh so I didn't include that one. But yeah, apparently a lot

of people disappeared, you're mysterious, were murdered or whatever. But these are, like I said, the five tried and true, absolutely for sure. So we think ones fo, we go to theories. Let's take a quick break. The walls are wire, the foundation is stone. It really shouldn't be that hard to secure. Yet despite all this, he gets in week after week and terrorizes all the ladies. Woken up from their slumber, they scream and run blindly into the dark,

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where were here? Oh? Aliens? Alien induction. Now, I know, as a noted ufologist, I know Devin wanted to weigh out on the alien thing. It was obviously aliens, you think so, Yeah, I mean even the most recent one of h what's her name? His name? Her name? Oh frieda frieda Yeah, I mean obviously the aliens just abducted her and did their tests and then dropped her in the exact same spot. Never mind they accidentally got you know, the days wrong. They just teleported her back and close enough,

close enough for government work. Man, I don't know. I mean they've come hundreds of thousands of light years. I mean really, what is Yeah, well, to them, that's you know, like a millimeter if they're giants. No, no for distance, I mean like whatever, it's kind it's easy. I mean you who can who can be trusted to know exactly? Sometimes you park your car and then you think you're exactly where you parked your car, but you're actually like

five blocks off. True, you dropped the pin in like a little bit of the wrong place in the map. They might have fingers, I don't. I mean, it's the only I'm not going to argue this too hard because I like being a newphologist. There's no like real evidence here. There's no sightings that correspond with any of these things. Yeah, none of that. But I will say that it would

nicely round out these disappearances. I mean, most of these people disp heard with literal literally hide nor hair of them, right, I mean, they're just gone like poof, And what else can do that other than weird magician guys are serial killers. But I'm getting ahead of myself or you know, made up histories. But I think, I mean, I think the aliens theory is not a bad one overall with this one.

I mean, again, it is troubling broad daylight, right, you don't that's not really usually when the aliens come to abduct people and then the lack of any kind of sightings or strange noises or anything like that. But overall the next one might explain that though, yeah, I don't think still though, I mean, we're talking, especially with Frieda again, right, we're talking, you know, fifteen minutes walk, you'd hear Bigfoot. Either of those guys would have heard big Everybody here's Bigfoot.

They just can't get his picture, that's the trick. Oh okay, they would have said. And there was a loud rustling and weird grunting noises unless he was having a quiet day. And I really, well, not even I think that he does that. That's sort of noise making things, kind of the way a rattler wants to scare away. And and you're probably right, yeah, but I also big Foot is

a gentle giant he's carrying not. According to the story that comes out from I think it was the late eighteen hundreds in this area, Supposedly there was a carriage that, you know, team of horses is drawn upon and it's a terrible storm and they stop and the guys trying to see ahead, and he hears something outside and the

horses are freaking out. All the people get out of the carriage, at which point something comes out of the woods and you know, beats against the side of the carriage, eventually knocking it over and scaring the holy hell out of the horses. Like it was eight foot tall with glow. I think it had glowing red eyes. That you're wrong on that that was moth man. No, Bigfoot doesn't have glowing eyes. But the point is eight foot tall and hairy and angry. Does sound like Bigfoot? Bigfoot is never angry.

Bears are angry often. Listen. I've met a lot of bears and they are generally not angry men, but some of them have very big feet. True, all right, there you go. Um, but there there are local legends there. It's very similar to our sasquatch lessons legends here in the Northwest of a big foot like creature. Uh. And so that's among the Indians, local Indians And um, so what do you guys think about big Foot? Is the theory? No? I like aliens way more than for this. I'm sorry.

I like Bigfoot. I love you, but I think aliens more exactly. That's sure, you feel better, don't your big Foot? No, I'm sure a lot. Where are we at next? Next? Sary legendary rocks? This is according to local Indians, and I forget what these things were called by the Indians. I've seen the name, but it's unpronounceable. Um. But these apparently, if you step on these rocks, they can just open up and swallow you up. I've seen those. Yeah, it sounds like something out of Stargate. Oh really, And I

haven't watched it about Stargate, so I don't know. But yeah, okay, so that's a possibility of that. You know, there's some of these, some of these Indian legends you kind of wonder sometimes they're pulling they're pulling the white man's leg just a little bit. Yeah. So here's the problem with the whole Indian legend thing that didn't show up until the very early eighties, that there was the whole because

the Indian legend is not only the rocks. There's the Indian legend that the local indigenous people wouldn't go into those mountains because for fear of the things were there, and they would only bury their dead there, and YadA yadya.

That only came about in the eighties. But there is act at least some information that people say might be truthful in terms of the local people's didn't like going there, and that is because apparently the way it's oriented and with the weather patterns that are there, storms move in and it gets really crappy, really fast, and so it's really easy to get disoriented because you say, you're thinking, well, the wind is always going to blow from the east,

except there's some weird weather patterns where it changes that, and it can screw people's sense of navigation. Well, I mean more than that might be real, though, but the whole rock thing is not just gonna say more than

just the wind patterns. I mean, the wind can be blowing consistently from one side, but the way that the forest looks in a storm versus when you've been walking there, I mean, it's it's easy enough to get disoriented if you aren't What if you aren't doing that thing you gotta do when you're hiking where everyone's a while, you look back to make sure you know what it looks

like on the other way, you're not doing that. It's all right, super easy to get disoriented if it's kind of sunny and then ten minutes later it's pouring down rain and wind blowing and you turn around. It's like the easiest thing in the entire world to lose any trail. That's why. Yeah, I was just take a five mile long rope with me. Yeah, I know you do. I've seen you hyper It's really awkward. It's super weird. That's a lot lighter towards the end of the hike, well

heavier as you go back, because God help you. If you don't coil it up as you go home, then you got this big knot at the end of the trail. That's disgusting to try to entangle that thing. Yeah. Well. The other thing about the Indians though, is there they're much like the rest of us, is they want they want a good pay day. And I'm not sure how good the game was around there, but I assume that might have been part of it too. If the hunting is not good, then screw it, why should go there? Yeah,

that's another good reason. Or alternately, if the hunting is really good, why would you let anybody? Why wouldn't you just like try to scare people away at a good point too? Yeah? Okay, but anyway, Yeah, I don't think the Indians were aulally terrified of that. Another possibility is that all five of these people were killed by a serial killer Boom boom, which I actually I think it's possible at least some of them were. It does seem to me like quite possible there was a serial killer

at work here. This eyebrow was raised. I'm waiting for you to to to justify this to me. Yeah, well, people that advantage like that. I mean the middle ones, Middy, or I should say, the early ones, Middi, Paul, Paula, and James are similar enough. I can see them being done by a single killer. But in the case of Middy, remember he was the first one, the hunter guy who disappeared.

I wouldn't totally rule out a hunting accident because I mean, when you think about it, it would be a huge act of daring do for a serial killer even to nab this guy. And it was he's this guy who was armed with a rifle himself, and he's being followed by four other guys with guns to just nab that guy at hall him away and kill him. That's pretty um, that's pretty ballsy. You gotta let me be honest. It's

it's almost it's almost almost Hannibal Lecter territory. That that's the whole idea that this guy was just barely out of sight of these four other guys and he just vanishes. I find it really hard to believe a serial killer did that. I found it a lot. I would agree with that that there was probably a little accident and they decided to hide the body, which is one possibility.

But but the other three. My my problem with this whole serial killer thing, and we we talked about this recently, is you know, the serial killers tend to have a pattern and an m O. But these your your three core, These three people right there are four people are vastly different. We've got an eight year old boy, eighteen year old girl, a fifty three year old woman, and uh, Tedford was Tedford wasn't even in the area. But let's just bring him in the mix. He's a fifty something year old man.

It was, Yeah, he was in the area. He was He wasn't on the trailers first, he was not on the trail right there, and he wasn't on the ground physically. He was supposedly still in the bus. But my point is they're all very different. I'm willing to go there with the people who disappeared in the forest be a cme of opportunity. I mean three or four even because we got a hunting guy on the trail, the teenage girls. We got a woman who slipped and fell on the trail. Yeah,

but no, she wasn't on the same trail. Well he was far away, that's right, she wasn't on that actual trail. And then kid a little boy on the road on the road. I mean, yeah, the victims are different, but the m O is not different. It's not ame of opportunities getting That's That's what I'm thinking to you. Just you know, just crazy person wandering the forest and kidnapping people.

I don't think he was wandering the forest. I mean what these um also, yeah, Paul the eight year old, as we know, he they followed his scent to the highway or a highway. So okay, we gotta road. And actually we have proximity to road for all these people, I mean not the first one, not minie, and and not fraid that with the middle three. There is proximity there with two roads. Um. So Paul Jeffson wanders off, let's say, from the family truck, gets a little board.

Forget that he's been told to stay at the truck, so he just mos He's off, gets a little lost, winds up at the highway, or he's picked up by a kindly helpful stranger who turned out to be a psycho killer. Uh and but and which I find more believable than him getting wandering off and getting lost in the woods and dying of disposure, because as we said before, he was wearing a bright red jacket or as some reports have said, a bright red shirt and should have

been easy enough to spot the body. Of course, there's another possibility with Paul, which was that he didn't disappear at all. It was just parental abuse or negligence or negligence. And also I was about to say, thank you, is that if if his parents do some thing negligence was the word you used, and I'm going to continue with that word, or or if he got out and got

I mean, pigs are mean. Pigs will knock somebody over and bite them while they're like, I don't know if you've ever been bit by a pig, but the freaking hurts, and they got sharp little teeth and they can tear through things quite quickly. So it's entirely possible that they went ah hell in an hour called the cops they'll be done with him by then. But that does present a problem in that bloodhound dogs were able to track him.

So there's a problem with that too though, because the problem is he disappeared in the afternoon, you know this three to four o' clock window. The dogs were brought in the next day. It rained heavily during the night, so those dogs didn't have a whole lot of scent to go on for him. So it's very possible that they picked up a wrong said and followed that to

the road. Well, I guess it's also possible that he ran to the road, realized he was at the road, ran back, went mom, got knocked over by some pigs, I got eaten something like that. Yeah, possible. But there's a huge issue with the dogs because of the fact that there was such heavy rains. Well, I mean, I guess that was my first thought. Honestly, when we started talking about Paul and there were pigs involved, I just generally think like, wow, the pigs, Yeah anything, people have

fed people to the pigs. It has happened in real life. But you know, I think that pig for the pig. Yeah, I was still rape Paul is as a good possibility of you know, since he was in a pickup truck, that means he was on a road or right next to a road. Well, if they're at the dump, there's people that are coming to the dump. Yeah, but I see where you're goinging. I mean all three, there are at least three people who could have definitely just happened to be on the side of the road and in

need of help and a quote unquote kindly Yeah. Personally, yeah, I mean, particularly when we're talking about was a Patricia, right, I mean, you know, she walks back, she she hitched there, she's got a hitch back, gets in the wrong car and oops. Yeah, I don't Yeah, I think that that was what it was. Because the trailer she was on, it was in a valley and she really couldn't wander

far off the trail either direction. There was a creek right next to it on one side, and on both sides it was very rough, large rocks, windfalls and brush and everything like that, and then steep, steep valley walls, not not a lot of places to get lost. It would have found her body if she'd been lost. But but if she decides to do the same thing as Frieda and take a shortcut. I know there were some switchbacks here, and I can just cut across and then

follows it too far down. She could very easily get way off of that trail, because you're right, it is valleys and and uh and decent. I mean, the photography isn't very nice in that area. I was looking at the contour maps. But the point is is that if you foolishly decide to hell with it, I'm gonna get in the I'm going to get in the seam of these two hills and I'm going to follow it down and it's gonna take me to something. You can go a long way before you actually get to something, and

that is a hard hike. It would be hard, especially in the dark. Yeah, or and with you know tennis shoes, we with the the lisanfrun cream Chris taste. I mean that that seemed like a likely possibility, right that they thought, oh, we'll just follow this canyon down and oops, no, that's not That turned out to be their downfall. I mean,

I think it happens, certainly, but it can happen. That about it is you would think you would find something, well, yeah, there is that you think you'd find something but also I read this blog or this guy who lives in the area went up and retraced your trail on that on long trail, and that's what he said. He said, like, you really aren't going to get far off the trail. I mean you could if you really wanted to. But

he says it's so rough. There's so many big rocks and and windfalls to have to climb over and everything. He says, it going was so rough that he just thought it was really inconceivable that somebody could actually think it would be easier to take a shortcut here to there. Well, it's hard to get I guess no, No, I mean essentially that's that was kind of his point. It's like it was such rough going, I mean, nobody would go more than about ten before realizing that this is just

not going to pay off. Well, I almost wonder if if she had no idea of how the trail went right, and she might have thought, oh, it kind of goes parallel to the road, and she's she gets an hour in, Say she gets a couple of hours in and realizes, I don't have any water, I'm getting dehydrated, have any food, I'm freezing. I wasn't ready for this, and in her mind she thinks and you know again it's it's one person. Because she thinks the road it's just over that little thing,

you know. She starts to climb up that thing, and in her mind she's got to get there any minute. It wouldn't. I mean, you know, she would think it's this is definitely easier going than walking an hour back. There's no way I can get an hour back. I'm so tired. And she's climbing and thinking, you know, oh my gosh, the road's right there, and you know is wrong, and you know, either decides I'll lay down and take a nap here or just hide for shelter. But let

me throw this in there. They had like five planes also as part of this search, and there was there was like a lot of people out there beat the bush is looking for her. Oh no, I definitely more believe she got in the car with the serial killer.

I'm just trying to add a little, but I actually disagree with the guy that you were reading the writings of who was saying nobody would get off of this trail, because I was reading blogs by guys who have hiked that entire trail, and they have for one I can't remember what organization it is that maintains the long trail, yeah, I can't, but but they they tell people to stay off of the trail. I want to say, from octobersh to like March, because it's so wet and it's so bad,

and that's one reason. The other reason because it's washes out and it's slick and it's crappy, but it's also muddy. And this guy that I was reading who had hiked this trail, he had he'd actually classified it into six types of mud, from the slippery to the soggy to

the boot removing type of mud. And you know, and if it's if it's all deciduous leaves and you can't tell what's going on, and you take it and you take a tumble in that, and you keep your walking on what is supposed to be the trail and oh my god, it's it's soggy and it's slick. You know what's easier people have been hiking over this. I'm just gonna get off the trail a little bit and follow that because it won't be as bad because there's not as much foot traffic on it. Like, I can see

why somebody would get off of the trail. But the thing about it is is you can't get I mean, the trail is essentially constrained by a mount by valley walls on both sides. I mean you can, you can't. You can get off the trail and walk parallel to it, but you can't just walk up at sixty degrees without coming in. But if you but if you're walking parallel

to it, and then you start drifting. So let's say she's on the downhill side of the trail because it seems like it's sugar footing, and then she starts just drifting down the slope a little bit and eventually gets herself to a point where she has no idea where

the hell the trail is any I have. I have a problem with that, and that is that there were other a lot of other people on the trail, and they mentioned it was really us out, would they though in the nineteen forty well, no, this is I mean, it's clear weather, but the trail is gonna be soggy. But I mean, if you look at what is in the news articles, they don't really talk about the conditions.

They're all focusing on her because she's a college aged girl, and her dad because he is a prominent industrialist, and they don't guess focus on that because the reporting of the time doesn't encompass everything. They just this is what people don't know. Well, I mean, regardless of that, I really think I agree with Joe that you know, if her body had been there would have been found. Yeah, I know, you don't seem to agree with No, I don't,

but that's fine. Yeah, I just think it's much more lackly she made it out of there because you know, she was not dumb. I mean it's like, you know, it's like I think she would have just stuck with the trail and mose I'm back out and down to the road again. Unless she intentionally wandered away. Maybe she

just wanted to go off a commit suicide. I mean, there there are people who say that she was having a she was not in good spirits lately, and there's the whole thing about her fight with her dead whatever that might have been, And it might have been some some suicide attempt that it was successful. Maybe she managed to do it and actually conceal herself. Yeah, she burrowed into a nook in the ground. There's caves in that area.

She could have gone into a cave for shelter or intentionally to to die, and you know, nobody ever found her in that cave until you know, long after she's decomposed and the animals have scattered around and nobody notices it. Um, hey, wait a second, So I know this is probably my fault, but I got us way off a track and off trail we're looking at in front of us. So we're still on serial killer or because I feel like I drug us away from that, well maybe threw us into

the We're sort of going back and forth between. We can't agree that they are necessarily meant the same fate, but we're talking. We're kind of on serial killer versus getting lost in the woods. I'm voting for she made it back to the Apollo made it back to the road. That's Highway nine hits the ride with a friendly stranger who was psycho and killed her. That's what I think happened. I think she met Bob, could have meant Bobs name cat Bobcat. Zerios does have bobcats, Yeah, and bobcats are

a little Have you ever been scratched by a cat. Yeah, I'm just saying multiplay that by the size, like the area, they were considered a environment or a nuisance in the area. And while they used to be hunted for um what, I can't remember the reward because they would you know certain stat Yes, that's it, but there was there was that, and there are bear in the area. There's actually I guess bobcats aren't the only cat, but there are big

cats in there. Yeah, we're talking about cougars or whatever. I'll accept to a bob cat. Okay, so if you say care though, if we say that kind of cat, it's entirely possible. Let's just pretend for a second that she didn't get taken by a person, but she did get taken by a cat. A lot of times those cats dragged their prey up into a truggers sugars do Yeah, which would you know? That would explain why nobody found her body on the ground. I was going to say,

I just have to prove a point. Bobcats and max out at about twenty five pounds. But they're mean, but they're little, but they're mean but still anyway, so yeah, I mean, in case you're little and your mean that's true because I'm close to Hell. Oh yeah, So with Paul, let's let's talk about a little bit more about well as far as there the mysterious disappearance you talked about that she might have nipped away to go pee. Remember she noticed she was being followed back up with the people.

She wasn't sure who they were, what their attentions were. She a, yeah, you know, I could see that, or just didn't want human company. But I'm still thinking that. I think Paula made it back to the road. I agree, And she met a friendly but helpful and helpful stranger who offered to give her a ride. Yeah that's Bob uh. And then there's James Tedford. So that the three here that says Paul, Paula and James. Um. The thing that they haven't common for me is their proximity to a road.

He was on a road on a bush. He was seen on the bus and remember that I think the relevant clue. Here's the bus schedule that they found laying on the seat next to him that was open. Yeah, and I'm thinking that James was sitting there in the bus station in Manchester, uh and probably had one of those momentary realized, Hey, you know, I probably need to go to the bathroom before we hit the road again.

So you know, what do you do? He wants to know how much time he's got, so he pulls out the bus schedule and says, hey, I've got ten minutes for the bus leaves Manchester. So off he goes, and meantime, maybe his watches off, or maybe sometimes things in the bathroom just take a little longer to take that. Well, I mean alternately he thought, oh, I have time to go grab a piece of pie from that dine over there.

It took a little longer, yeah, than anticipated. Well, and the thing is he because the buses had been so delayed by the snowstorm that was going on at the time he had There's accounts that somebody that knew him ran into him at one of the bus stops and chatted with him. So, I mean, it wasn't as if he was just hiding on the bus the entire time. But you would get off, I mean, you get off and stretch your legs. But I have huge problems with the Tedford story. Yeah, well that not everything was has

been consistently reported. Well, the yeah, the problem is is that he was on this bus. We think, you know, around the first of December, but the Old Soul is it the old Soldier's home. Yeah, that's where he was at, right,

that's where he was staying. They called. They called his family a week later to say, hey, so, like, is he really coming back or what because we're holding his bed, at which point then his family turns around and calls the cops, and the cops then tracked down the bus driver and the people that are on the bus of week after that. Literally there's full two weeks of time between the actual incident and when the cops talk to him.

So these people like, oh yeah, I remember looking over and totally seen him sleeping on the bus with the schedule next to him. Oh yeah, it was weird that I noticed he wasn't there, And it's made out to be as if minutes between these events it's you know, there's problems with that one, but well there's problems with it, but still and and so, and that's why I don't I don't see this one in terms of him vanishing

just like that, like by magic off the moving bus. Yeah, you know, I never bought that to begin with that, he never spared off the yellow bus. Now, I figured he got off the magic school bus. He had the magic but but you know, so I figured he got off the bus. Nonetheless, he did disappear. There ain't no disputing that. And it could have been that he just ran away. It could have been and which is possible.

Or it could be that he got off the bus and history with a friendly, helpful stranger turned out to be a psycho killer. Or he could have just become, you know, part of the moving, massive homeless people that that shuffle around in those areas. I mean, he doesn't have anything to really go back to at the Old Soldiers Home other than he's paid for I'm assuming he paid for unless the Feds were paying for the Old Soldiers So I don't know how those work, but let's

just say that he's not paying for anything. He's like, you know what, That place really blows and I really hate listening to Bob tell war stories all day long. Screw it, I'm gonna hang out here. And then it's December. There's a giant freaking snowstorm. He gets kicked out of the bus station, and he dies in an alley of exposure with no idea on him. Because somebody rolls his body over and steals his wallet, we would never know because the emmy is going to have nothing to identify

him with. Like, there's very simple ways, especially with Tedford. Yeah, no, there are, I mean there are there are other ways. But again, somebody local freezes to death, and and meantime Tedford has disappeared, somebody's gonna make at least a little bit of an effort to connect those thoughts. I would think, I don't know that that's the case, because the cops are going and hunting down these people that are now far Afield and maybe the local man let's just say

it was Manchester. Is that who you were saying? If it was the local Manchester p D may not have been the ones that were investigating. Yeah, well, I mean they might not have, but you would think there's some sort of register of local missing people. I don't know. In the fifties is sometimes it feels like they played things a little more fast and loose, whereas today everything is just you know, fill in the forms. It's all

the data we can. We always pull it in access that we know exactly what's going on, generally speaking, and I guess it's not a perfect system. But I don't feel like that's the case in you know, typewriters and rolodex days. No, I mean, it definitely was all manual. I mean you couldn't have computer cross matching or anything.

But again, people were, people were reading the local papers, people would have seen his pictures and and so it's it'sn't theoretically, but it's theoretically possible that what you're saying, it's you. I find it actually a little easier to believe that he got off the bus at some point and was and was nabbed by a serial killer. But you know, marginally, but I admit that what you're talking about is also possible. I mean, Sarah, killers are actually

sometimes easier to believe, you know. I'm mostly just say, yeah, he got off the bus at Manchester and walking, missed the bus and I don't know what happened, and then just caught another bus to somewhere else and started over, started working and named himself Benjamin Kyle and got on with it entirely. That's entirely possible, right there. No, it is poss well, I mean, it's it's an interesting little story,

and certainly maybe he was murdered but there's other possibilities. Um, so yeah, I mean and and so it's really hard to say with all these if they're related at all. I think they might be. It's entirely possible that there was there's a serial killer doing something. What about Frieda though, Okay,

so I didn't talk about Freedo. No, we haven't talked, because we've talked about Paul and Paula and Paul and Paula and James and and well so we you yeah, because earlier you said you thought it was probably a hunting access So what about Frieda because she's the only one, so she's the last one. Well, and Freeda is the one that I say is I don't you know, so far away from the whole Bennington area, you can't really

say she's part of the triangle anyway. But that's another one that's kind of like Middy and that, and that it would have taken a very very very skilled and hannibal elector type of serial killer to naver in the woods just for one thing to just be lucky enough to be happening to be right there. Once she had hustling by, to go back to the camp to change your clothes, and and then nab her and Carter off to god knows where and do his thing and murder

her and everything. That's why I think there's other possibilities she could have gotten lost. I don't think so. And the reason I say that is because how they found your body. I think most likely she went back to camp. She and her husband argued the husband killed her accidentally or not hit the body, and then you know, later on when it was more opportunity time in the search had died, anyone back and retreated the body and dumped

it somewhere else. Hit it where that inter sleeping bag because those are so easy to roll up, and you would never tell that it was lumpy and full of human That's true. No, really, I actually I'm being a jerk. But she she makes a really good point of how do you hide the body and then have that massive people come looking? Well, here's the deal. If you hide the body like ten or twenty ft from the camp sign,

nobody's gonna look there. Are you sure? I'm sure? If they say, hey, i'm gonna look, I'm gonna look right over here behind this stuff, can just say I just want to pe behind that stump. I know, for sure she's not there. So Steve, when Joe finally murders me, yeah, make sure to do a really thorough search wherever the last place. Just be like, hey, Joe, where were you last And he'll be like, oh, behind that stump, and you'll be like, great, that's definitely where Evan's body is.

That's it. That's it, I know. But that's that's just a possibility. I mean, obviously maybe a murder, maybe the husband did it. I don't know, Uh, I don't. I don't see her getting lost though, really because she had all kinds of people out there beating the brush looking for her. But if she took the shortcut and I actually,

so this is the other thing. I know I said this before with Paula, But she's also going to be in an area that is a deciduous forest, which is known for I mean, for the love of God, the Northeast is known for their fall and the number of leaves that change color and then hit the ground. And I'm sure I know Davin has I don't know if you have, Joe, but I've walked through those fours when it's nothing but leaves, and depending on where you're at, you know, it can be six inches or more of

leaf litter, and also can happen seemingly over a night. Yes, you know, I mean it can be like, well, there's no way I mean it was. It wasn't it was twenty four hours ago. There's no way that this leaf cover is. I don't need to poke it because there's no way there's a body under there. But I mean it could have had all of those trees could have just lost their leaves in the last twenty four hours.

So like in the case of Paula, it's entirely possible that let's say there's I'm gonna use a log, there's a log on the ground, and she curls up next to it as a wind break and dies of exposure, and then the trees above her all the side to let go of their leaves at one time, and she is completely covered and it is just a log shaped hump in the ground. And somebody goes, oh, well, it's just a log, okay, and they keep they don't searched the entire length of it. Well, that's that's one reason.

That's the one reason too that I'm not that enthusiastic about lumping this in with the rest of the Bennington disappearances anyway, because it's it's far Paula, though not freed oh paul I was talking about for Paula. Paula. Paula disappeared December one. I mean Arnold leaves down by that time in New England. Wouldn't free to disappear, free to disappear October? Okay, So yeah, okay, I'm getting them back. I apologize. I think I agree. I mean, I think

Frieda shouldn't be lumped in anyway. Her body was found and she could possibly have wandered off. I mean, that's the only thing about it is I think she was murdered. Well I think probably too, because here's the deal. Is that, so she falls into the creek, she tells her cousin to go ahead and continue at the trail. She's just gonna dash back, change close, come back and meet him. Therefore, they could not have been very far from camp at all.

I want to know why the hell her cousin didn't just walk back with her or just wait or just yeah or just wait. Yeah. It is a little weird. But the thing about it is is they had to have been close enough that if she had gotten lost, or fallen and broken her ankle or whatever. She should have been within hearing. Just she should have been, because otherwise, how could she possibly hope to go all the way back, change your clothes, come all the way back and catch

up with him unless they were really close. Maybe she went to town for a beer run. Yeah, maybe she just decided if she was going to disappear and start a new life and call herself Bernie Sanders. Yeah, that could have been twice. Bernie Sanders is in this episode two different people. Yeah, she was fifty three at the time. That would make her about the right agg given that Bernie Sanders is exactly Okay then of the series. No,

I mean, I it's hard. It's very hard to say, but there there does seem like there were a bit more than the average disappearances in this little area. Uh that but doesn't necessarily made a supervene a triangular and time. Yeah, I mean, part of it is just there's a really hard trail right there. Yeah, the trail the serial killer.

That'll count for some of it. It's interesting that it all stopped in nine Okay, So I mean, I I really think that the only theory that loops all of these together neatly in a nice little bow is aliens, that's true. I say it's the state of Vermont is the only thing that connects these people, and that's it. I think Bigfoot and I like Vermont, but I'm blaming

Vermont because they all happen to live there. Damn. Actually, you know what, before we get too far the you know who we have there was one of the things for Middy rivers. So you do know that there's a whole there's a number of ghost towns in that area, right, I've heard this. The lumber industry kind of went away, right, Well,

it was the lumber industry that they're making charcoal. So there is the there is a theory out there that there were old wells and that Middy, MIDDI and or maybe one or two of the other people accidentally stumbled across an old well and they're actually in the bottom of that and not in the bottom of a well with a man who says it puts the lotion on its skin. He's too old for that, so that doesn't really know. Yeah, I know that one for the lotion

you mean yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. No, Yeah, there's always there's always the old well thing. Although you think that Timmy in the well, oh yeah, but you think that if there was that much of that going on, there would be more disappearances. Although maybe people got smarter about avoiding wells. You know, I don't know. They're just full of bodies now anymore and padded fall in. But it's like a clump, crunch and climb back out and

question ever happen? Yeah, it's rather gross. Okay, yeah, well, okay, a little housekeeping here, hey, yeah, well, first off, you're probably wanting to know how you can get a hold of us, And of course we have an email, this thing called email, and our email address is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. And of course we have a website that is amazingly enough called Thinking Sideways podcast dot com where you can actually download episodes that you

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Oh god, what else that's going on? That's about it. I think cool. Alright, Well in okay, thank for me to mosey on down the trail. I'm going back to Blue Ben. Good for you. I'm going to ask the bears what they think.