Thinking Sideways: Disappearance of Ronald Tammen?

we're doing bonus content once a month. So that's all available over at Stitcher. So go to stitcher dot com slash Thinking Sideways and if you use the promo code sideways, you'll get one month free when you sign up for the twelve month plans. So go over there. There's a lot of great content. You're going to enjoy it. Hey, guys, welcome to an episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. I am Devin, joined as usual by the two Jabronies, Joe

and Steve. And what's the brown? Is that like a piece of sausage or I think it's like an animal. I think it's like an animals private parts or something. Yeah, I probably don't want to know. You're probably right, Okay, meat product noted anyway, Today we're gonna talk about a disappearance of Ronald Tammon. It was suggested by Lily on Facebook a really long time ago. I believe this disappearance that we're gonna talk about takes place in nineteen fifty three.

He Ronald Tamon Jr. Disappeared from his dorm in Oxford, Ohio, at the Miami University. Because apparently I have a for students who disappear in Ohio. As long as you do. But as long as we get to school right this time, I think we're okay, we can just we can do another one. This one Miami University for sure. Sweet yeah, because it's in Ohio not Miami, which is just not confusing at all. I was a little confused by that

at first. I didn't, you know, because I was thinking, Okay, Miami, Florida, you know, and they started talking about them like the Midwest and stuff, and I know, what's what? Yeah, yeah, No, it's Ohio. Yeah. So Ronald Henry Tammon Jr. Is the full name of the gentleman that disappeared. He was nineteen on April nineteen, nineteen fifty three. He was a sophomore at Miami University. He was a resident advisor, a member of the Navy r OTC. He was a frat member

Reserve Army Training Corpses. Believe it's what you're right. That would have been our a TC so um. He was a member of a fraternity back when that meant something. It isn't just you know, drunken antics. I'm really excitedful the emails we're going to get about that one. He was a varse city wrestler, He was a bassist, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. He was I mean, he was really like an all American boy who he kind of just seemed to say yes to every opportunity that came along for him. He

was very involved. He was very stereotypical of the time. He was seventy five pounds, dark hair, light eyes, brown hair, dark brown hair, light eyes, like really just like the all American nondescript. You know, you you picture the college boy in the nineteen fifties, and that's him. Yeah. Some days before the nineteenth it's reported. We're just gonna go chronologically here, I tell you, because I already told you.

He disappeared from his dorm room. That's the mystery. This is an easy way to appeach It makes it actually easy to follow. Yeah, I think so. Actually, I think it's a little easier than a lot of the ways that they report it. You mean, where they report half and half and then the other half. Yeah, and then there's like twelve paragraphs in between about who knows what. It's almost like I was reading what was it Esquire, an online Esquire article today, and I started skipping entire

paragraphs because it was just like, bounce around filler content. Oh, you just make a living, make so this is really nice. And actually one of the articles that Devon linked to in this one, I skipped a bunch of paragraphs because they were describing a prompt photo. Yes, I did that, and then I read a sentence. I skipped about five more paragraphs. I got through that one really fast. Actually, really, that article was really really interesting for me. But I

agree there was some filler and not a lot of information. Yeah, well there was some. There was interesting information, not not killer information, but good backfill. Yeah. It was interesting for understanding Ron, not so much the case anyway. Cool. Some days before the nineteenth it's reported that Ron went to get his blood type tested. Now he paid for this procedure off campus when it sounds like it was a free p future on campus, And can I ask how

do I know? I'm going to ask this for a lot of this because a lot of things in this case. You're just stated, is it just a generally accepted fact that that was free or do we know that it was free? Okay, it is reported that it was free, and we also know that he did go off and did pay for it because the corner did the testing, right. I knew about the I knew about the actual test. It was the free portion that I could never really pin. Yeah,

it was part of it was part of student health services. Plus, you can also go to the Red Cross and donate blood and they'll type people out for free to even at that day and age the Red crosses around wasn't it was, but actually one of the you you often had to get your blood typed first before you could go donate it in those days. That was one of the reasons that people suggested he might have gotten his

blood typed. But it doesn't necessarily explain why he would have gone and paid for it because it was twenty dollars to have the corner do it versus free and twenty back in fifty three was kind of a lot of money and there it wasn't like Boogo bucks, but it was, you know not Yeah, it's not something that a normal college kid would be like, oh yeah, I can throw that away on this thing over a hundred bucks today. You know, I'm sorry I interrupted you. Where

so he went and got his blood type off campus? Yeah, So, like I said, a lot of people find this to be kind of suspicious, like he was planning something, and to be totally honest with you, it does confuse me the motives behind, you know, going to spend you know what is essentially more than a hundred dollars on something that you could get done for free. But we'll dig into that a little more when we start talking about theories.

It's just something that you should know about. Background wise, nineteenth of April in Ohio was reportedly very cold outside, like record setting cold in Columbus, which is only seventy eighty miles away from Miami, Ohio. In fact, the coldest April nineteenth on record is nineteen fifty three. This same year, it was I think it was nineteen degrees outside fahrenheit or something like that. It was frigid. Whether people live there and well it does, it's not usually that's that's record.

Usually it's kind of you know, in the sixties seven. No, it's usually a nice like it's kind of like it is in Portland Sea. But this was this was extremely abnormal, which is why we even bring it up because he did go disappearing on a night that go disappearing, did disappear on a night where it was abnormally cold. It wasn't like an you wouldn't be inclined to go out in that kind of weather exactly, especially in his state. Got it. So, as far as we know, this is

how things went. At about eight p m. On April nineteenth, Ron called the house mom, which is a bit tricky for me because he was r a in a dorm and usually I associate house moms with like fraternities and sororities.

But I guess that was the thing that existed back then. Now, yeah, I know, now it's like, well, I think the differences and it was kind of a even though you were a young adult, you were not smart enough to take care of yourself, and therefore there had to be a woman around help you take care of those things that you couldn't figure out how to do, because it's the

fifties mentality. I'm not here, but well, also in those days, uh, you know, colleges were expected to look after you and not just physically but also your more morally speaking to there were adults living in the dorms to make sure that nobody was like boozing it up, having sex, etcetera, etcetera. Panky, yeah, especially the hacky panky part. Yeah. Yeah, hanky panky was the biggest offense. The sex and the booze were bad, but the hanky panky terrible. And I can totally I

can totally see too the same thing adult supervision. You'd have the house mother there to doll out the sheets in the pillow cases so that you know, all the kids don't take them and like gonna make you ghost costumes out of them or banner tellt Yeah, yeah, well, when I mean when I went to college not so long ago, two years ago, you provided your own you could ride your own sheets. So this is totally different to me, but I understand it was a totally different era.

So there was a there was a house mom. The reason that Ron called the house mom. In fact, was because his sheets were soiled and he needed a new set of sheets. Soiled as sheets? Did he? Yeah? Why were they soiled? And you may ask, apparently there was a dead fish in his bed when he got back to his dorm room. Oh you see, it's a dead fish. You see, I'm going to that's that's that's what it was, right, Yeah, it was actually, Okay, there was actually dead fish. I

don't I don't think it was. Actually No, I just made all of the blather that I just did. I don't make a bad accent. Yeah, okay, let's put this on hold while I got to read it and started read it throat And how did the fish get there? Yeah, let's say any theories we get. Yeah, so, actually at eight thirty, it took about a half hour for his new sheets to arrive. It sounds like he somehow cleans up after the dead fish. I don't know if he

sends the soiled fishy mess with the house mom. I don't know whose responsibility it was to clean up after suffer life. I doubt that he would hand her the dead fish. I bet he disposed of that himself. He sounds like a nice boy. Well, I would also say that where wherever the new sheets were picked up from her delivered by would also be where the smelly fishy

sheets would have been left at or handed over to. Well, but the the house mom broth the sheets to him, which means I would guess he gave her his his soiled to the laundry. Yeah. I mean, that's the only way it makes sense. It's not like he's just gonna hang him up in his room to air drive. And he probably had already moved the dead fish into somebody else's bed yeah, yeah, or hopefully like a trash can or a flower bed maybe outside. Yeah. I don't know

how dorms worked in those days. Really, to be honest with you, I just don't understand it. He said that the dead fish was a prank played on him by another student or fraternity member maybe um, but other people on the internet it again, we'll get into this a little bit later, but some people think that he was lying about the purpose behind the dead fish. Remind me, we get into the theories and I'll talk about the dead fish in the bed things. I really don't want

to talk about a story again. But okay, do you think maybe he murdered the fish. No, I just know. I just know the story that Steve wants to tell him. I don't feel like I need to hear it again. But well, it's never been on recording, so we'll do it again. It's there, we go. Yeah. It's also said that he was planning on studying for the rest of the night, although I don't really know. I don't know how we get a lot of this information after the house Mom, Yeah, I thought he had been talking to

a friend and said, yeah, I gotta go study. I gotta testimony. I thought so too. And it's and it's different. You know. Sometimes it says he's studying history, and sometimes it said he's studying psychology. I don't really know which is correct. I don't think they had psychology in nineteen they did. The psychology has been around for a long time, Okay, Yeah, it was just under a different name. I just didn't

think anybody took it back in those days. He was business major, so you know, I don't really know what it was that he was taking. But it is also reported that around nine Ron heard something outside his dorm room that disturbed him. But again, I don't know how the heck we would know that. This is such a leading statement that drives me bonkers because it is copy and pasted everywhere on the internet and there's nothing nobody

could have known that. But I was thinking about that too, and the only the only explanation I could come up with that is that people heard a noise, Like more than one person heard a noise coming from somewhere, and they assumed, you know, well somebody he must have gotten up to investigate the noise that I didn't bother to investigate. Well, he was maybe, So that's what I'm thinking. That other

people heard a noise of some sort. Yeah, I mean that would be the only that would That was kind of my assumption is that a bunch of people heard it and poked their heads out, and he said, Okay, everybody, you know, get back to your rooms. I'm gonna go check it out. But that's no explanation. I have no idea. But that's not how it's reported. It's just reported that he wanted to investigate a dead noise or a disturbing noise.

I think the problem is when this story was originally reported, they only had four lines to put it into, and so a lot of this trimmathea. About ten PM, his roommate Charles Finlay, came home and found Ron's death light on his physiology, psychology history, whatever it was. He was studying, book open radio on and his belongings, including keys to the dorm and his car, wallet, I d money, all in their usual spot in their dorm room, but Ron

was gone. His roommate said that he thought maybe Ron had gone to spend the night at the frat house or something, which I don't know why you would have left all this stuff, but okay, that makes no sense of he left his coat, right, Yeah, he left all of his stuff. Yeah, But Charles went to bed anyway because I guess he just assumed, you know, it's Ron's deal. If it's not nothing I need to really worry about. And then he woke with the next morning and Ron

was still gone. So they notified the authorities. What did they find? Nothing? Nothing? Actually actually yes, kind of spoiler alert. Steve was being a smartass, but it's true. The police found Ron's green car. It was like a nineteen thirty nine something or other that was either way. He found his nineteen thirties car parked in its normal spot. Um

with his bass in it. Still. That's one thing I find on is that you would leave your musical instrument in the back of your car when it's like nineteen degrees out this I would not do that with like my guitar. Well, And that's the thing is that he was what it was it was it a bass guitar or was I thought it was something? It was like an upright bass. Oh it was okay, so which is a big instrument. But even that, I mean, they have it's not they don't use steal strings. I'm guessing they

would your normal natural filament strings. Whatever it is that that is that does not do well in a very cold environment. For yeah, I know, what would an instrument really You don't want to subject it to a lot of extremes and temperature, which leaving in a car would seem to do, whether it's cold or hot. So that, I agree, really odd thing. It's kind of odd to have done. Maybe he was planning on leaving town or

I don't know. I mean he played a gig that day, hadn't he, So I mean maybe he was thinking he was going to go back out and get it later on. And yeah, that could have been which I don't know, but maybe Yeah, I don't really know why he would have left it in his car, but he did. And you know, nothing else really was missing. I mean nothing really at all of Ron's was missing. And that's the last that we I mean, presumably the clothes that he

had been wearing. He didn't even take his tooth rush. Yeah, nothing, nothing was really missing. And that's it. That's all we've ever heard of roun. Okay, Yeah, there there's more stuff on here. You're not just ending us there, I am. Yeah, that's the end of episode. Just kidding. One final note here before we move onto theories, because there's just like nothing to this story, unfortunately, is that the summer after Rown disappeared, a citizen witness named Mrs Carl Spivy so

you know, she didn't have a first name. She didn't because she belongs to her husband or whatever. She was a kind of a nearby resident told police officers that somebody matching Tomas description had come to her door around midnight on April nineteen. She said that the man looked disheveled. He was wearing only a T shirt and pants, which

seems strange for the freezing temperatures. Which is true. And then she said that the man was looking for a bus stop, but further investigation found that the Oxford bus lines had been suspended for the night, so he it would have been impossible for him to take the bus. Yea, she said that, Yeah, I heard that. She said he was polite and then thanks her and all that stuff, but she was sure that it was wrong. I mean

she was sure. Almost everyone else is not sure. Okay, so let me ask clarifying detail, because I don't remember seeing the Dayton. This says the summer after according to the quote you've got here, is that months later? Or is that a year and months later? Months later? So it's okay, okay, so that's still to three months later when his stuff has been all over the newspaper. Again, these are the we always complain about, these, these later second hand accounts of him after I was informed by

the newspapers. How does she remember that specific night for sure? Yeah, diary or or you know, that was the one night that it was nineteen degrees outside, and the rest of the nights around it could have been not as cold, could have been much warmer. I mean, you know the weather we're having here in Portland. Right, it's like high seventies, and then we've got two days coming up. They're supposed to be in the fifties and I'm supposed to be

back up to the seventies and eighties. So I didn't managed to find out a lot of information about the weather surrounding this day. But it's possible. But it's possible that it was like, you know, kind of normal April weather and then this one freezing cold day for whatever reason, or there could be some other reason. It could have been there at wedding anniversary, birthday something, you know. I mean, yeah, I did read it, or she could just be full

of it. I did read a small little interview with her son, who had been home at the time because she had passed away by the time this this guy was investigating, and he said he remembered the guy coming, but he also remembered that one of the reasons that it stood out to him was because it was one of the only nights that his father was gone, So

it could have been something like that as well. That she remembered that a strange man came to the door while her husband was gone, and that was the night that he was working and okay, and it was the vacuum salesman and mysterious nine months later his little brother was bo. That's not how it happened, okay, but investigators are pretty sure that was actually not ron. Yeah. I mean there is some stuff, but we'll talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The current guy that I was just talking about, his name is Detective Smith, because that's, you know, easy enough to remember it is. So with that, twenty minutes in, you have heard our entire story. So you guys want to talk about theories? Okay, okay, Well, I guess we should take a break first. If you've ever read The Green Mile, you know what a lovable and relatable character John Coffee is. He was so calm and mild that it was impossible to think that he could be guilty

of the crimes that he was convicted of. The man was a literal gentle giant, and in the end we would learn that he was also innocent. Sorry, spoiler too late. In those the prose of the author, though, he understands the world in a way that none of can, and he's willing to accept his fate in order to escape it. But of course that's fiction, and in the real world. It rarely works that way. Did you know that four percent of all defendants sentenced to death have later proven

to be innocent. Now, imagine serving twenty years in prison knowing you didn't do the crime. It happens all the time in this country. If you're a fan of this podcast, you're gonna get hooked on the upcoming Stars original series Wrong Man. From the Emmy winning filmmaker of Paradise Lost, Joe Berlinger. This new docuseries follows the stories of three inmates who have all maintained their innocence for two decades. Now,

these three men have one last chance at freedom. Over the course of the six riveting episodes, a team of esteem, legal and investigated experts will dig relentlessly into each case to find the truth. Don't miss the series premiere of Wrongman on Sunday, June three, at nine pm only on Stars. Get the Stars app and start your free trial today and we're back. Well, I guess one thing to get out of the way right away is that the police at the time decided that since Ron was quote unquote rugged, yeah,

there was no possibility of foul play right exactly, he was. Actually, it was a wrestler, he's probably in really good shape. Yeah, But another thing about it is, I don't think you can totally rule out foul play just because the guy was, you know, muscular and in good shape. I'm sorry, but being muscular in good shape does not prevent a bullet from entering your body. And you know, if there's like five dudes trying to kidnap you. But yeah, yeah, exactly, so, yeah,

she will tear you up. Well yeah, yeah. Well, so now that we've got that out of the way, we know that you clearly had to just have run away on his own, right, Alright, But and there's some series as to why he would have done that. There are there are, actually, there are a lot of theories that integrate both foul play and not. So let's go ahead and just run down the list. Some of these are

better than others. True. The first theory that you will see out there is that actually Ron was a draft dodger because, as you may or may not know, in fifty three, that's just about when they started doing the draft for the Korean War. Fun times. Yeah, but he was serving in the r OTC, and his older brother was serving in the military, and his father was a veteran, so for all I can tell, and I've read interviews

with his sister, his only living relative. Her name is Marcia, and she because his brother died about five years after his disappearance, right, and his parents died. His parents died, his older brother died, his younger brother died. He was one of four. His younger brother died tragically, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Yeah, so she's the only one who's still living. And she was much younger

than him. She was seven or eight at the time of his disappearance, I believe, No, No, she was ten at the time of uns Right, So she she just seemed to feel that he was excited to surface country. That was the sense the entire family had, was that he was really a patriotic yeah, and that you know,

he had been preparing for that. I mean again, you know r OTC like really trying to get in there, and that it would be unlikely that he would run away to this extent, especially considering to dodge the draft. Considering this is like on the heels of World War two and everything like that, and draft dodging was like, look upon, is far more dishonorable than that when it

first started. Yeah. Well, and and the other thing is that the Korean War officially is listed as having ended on the seven July three, so he would have been gone for April to May to like three months. He could have dodged to the draft for three months and came back and said, I made a big mistake, and

it probably wouldn't have been that bad. I don't know what the repercussions were if you were a draft dodger and you after the fact came, but I don't think they shot you in the head for it seems like it's a pretty low slap on the risk kind of thing, but that's true necessarily. Yeah, it would have been a big market your record, it would have. It would have definitely blackened your employment prospects. You know, it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but yeah, if it

would have been not optimal. Yeah, So mostly I just don't think this is a good theory. No, I don't think general, especially because they were a close family, and you know, if if you are going to do something like this, you're not gonna live the rest of your life without ever getting in touch with your family and

saying hey, by the way I'm safe. No, I mean you could actually, you know, if you did do it to draft, to dodge the draft, say in a couple of years, you show back up and you're tell them all these three guys in Horsepack abducted me and took me to the coast and sold me into slavery, and uh yeah, then I one of my master died, I escaped and the Portugal Yeah, it wasn't a lot of story that we heard. It was one. Okay, So the next one also has to do with being drafted, but

this is something slightly different. It's actually the direct opposite of being a draft dodger, and that is there's some theories that the CIA may have recruited him into their ranks as an operative. Apparently in nine the CIA was actively recruiting for the Korean War and other things. I was going, things were pretty hot in Europe, yeah, and

the Cold War and all of that stuff. And there's a theory out there that Ron was actually recruited to be, like I said, an operative for the CIA, So he would have been, you know, doing clean DestinE operations and things like that. He was unassumingly attractive American man. I

mean you know he wasn't he. There was something that I read, uh in in that article that you were talking about, actually, the one about the prom date, where they said, hey, everyone knew of him, admired him, but nobody really knew him or had any stories about him. And that's kind of exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what you want from a spot. You want somebody who looks, you know, attractive enough that you're not going to be like whoa, oh God, but also not so attractive that you're also

going to be like WHOA right attractive, No, neither. You want somebody who's kind the middle of the road, which he was not. Not Quasimodo and not Marilyn Manson. These are also all on the same end of the spectrum currently the other one there's side right and stunning as the man sitting next to us every week. Exactly, you want somebody to kind of average, right, it's more like, well, no, I'm on the low in inspectrum. So so yeah, I mean he also he had he apparently had really good grades.

He was smart. He again he was interested in me his country with the r OTC and the family reports. He had a wrestling career and he was well liked by everyone. But I guess my big problem with this is that I don't it seems like at one point, sometime in the last however many years he was or even somebody would have just said like, hey, he's okay.

It doesn't necessarily have to have been him. But maybe what they did is they brought him into a super secret program that's kind of like Matt Damon in the Born movies, where they totally brain watched him turn to turn him into a super assassin kind of guy, and he doesn't even know what his previous identity. But that also presumes that he survived his very first training session or mission, and that he didn't just failed badly by just dying all over the place on the first round.

And they're like, well, this is a secret program, so I'm afraid buddy, you're going in with the dogs and the kiddies in the Creamtory. Yes, but sixty odd years on, it seems like the almost any mission. And this is maybe this is optimistic thing, but it seems like most missions would have been declassified to a point where you could have said, at the very least, hey, one single living relative of Ron who is still heartbroken to this

day of his disappearance. He we recruited him. It didn't go. Well. You don't even have to say what mission. You could just say he did died serving his country. He loved you very much. Okay, But again, that's presuming that it's something that was on the books. If it's off the books, not always recorded, and too, it doesn't mean that it wasn't that somebody was recording it under presumed identity, assumed identities. It could have been Oh well, um major major lamp

died in a horrible electric fire, his bull burned out. Yeah, they did a sign of a new identity and everything. Well, you know that identity is in the files having died trying to assassinate Kim Il sung in Korea or something like that. And uh, but it's it's the original one. Maybe it's not cross referenced, and so yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I think. I listen, I'm throwing things in there because I think this theory is I actually I also see we've seen things where I actually think this theory is

not the worst. I think I would say it's like middle of the pack for you, and I really hate your theory. Next up on the tail end of the pack is that the fish head dead fish was actually a threat from the mob. You know, I don't know, I think, I think, yeah, I guess that's threat. I mean usually a threat to use a horsehead and then and then the fish means that we're going to feed you. So it's more than the threat. It's like a promise, right yeah. Yeah, Well, either way that it was something

to do with the mob. There's some speculation that he could have gotten into drugs or gambling because he played in a jazz band, so then he was out with ne'er do Wells and the speaks. I think, you know, the big threat in those days was reefer madness. Madness thing was a big deal. So and and definitely those jazz musician types. You know, we're into the reefer kind of jas grass. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think they took him out for killing that innocent trout. Yeah, the trout

writes people. Yeah, but you will you'll see this, actually you will see the theory kind of on the forums. I think it's not a very good theory, but I wanted to put it in here anyway. I kind of fun to talk about the bunkt with the story that we've talked about before, which is when I was a kid, I went fishing and I threw a fish in somebody's bed. That things are not unheard of, because I thought hilarious. Okay, you weren't planning on murdering him. No, no, And believe me,

it was. It was somebody who was renting from or staying with us, and person didn't find it all that funny. And my mom at the time yelled at me under the guise of not thinking it was that funny, but years later would admit to me she thought it was hilarious too. So now you know where I get it. Well, here's what I will say is we can bring this up a little bit later in terms of the prank, because I have a theory that kind of explains that

at how better. But I just all I want to say is that I don't think that it was a mop threat. No, no, no, I think might be totally unrelated. Let's face it, it totally could be. Ye. Next theory that he ran away from a girl were with the girl. There were some rumors that Ron had a girlfriend that went to a different school in Canada. I'm kidding, I'm sorry.

He did have a girlfriend apparently that he was seeing that did go to a different school, went to school in Indiana and actually Indiana University, and there was some speculation that he had maybe gotten her pregnant, and that would have been one of the reasons for the blood test and for him to pay for the blood test versus getting it for free, because one of the reasons that men got blood tests at that time was for

paternity tests of course. Uh. And so that I guess the theory goes that he could have gotten his girlfriend pregnant and not wanted to do this blood test on campus because he was worried it would sully his reputation on campus because apparently you couldn't just say I was going to do it for the Red Cross or whatever. So he went and paid a bunch of money to have it done. But when you say a bunch of money, I'm sorry, you have no idea. No, it was twenty dollars,

like a hundred bucks, Okay, a lot of money. Yeah, that's a big that's a big lot of bills for the fore for a college. So that that kind of follows that either he could have run away with this girl, but no girls were reported missing from Indiana University at that time. I mean, it seems like you would have just that would have been easy to connect the dots.

And also the thing about it is is is if you've gotten a girl pregnant, the reason to get a blood test is because you doubt your own paternity, right the child. Yeah? Um, so I mean, why would you run away with somebody who do you suspect is screwing around on you anyway? I mean I don't quite get that.

I don't either, unless unless she was sleeping with multiple people and you were trying to prove to her that you were the father, which you don't, because he seems like he was kind of like the wholesome, all American guy, and that he would have felt like he wanted to take responsibility for something like that with the stand up guy who says, I'm not sure it's my kid, but does it? Yeah, here's my blood, let's prove it to

you and we'll run away. I don't think he ran away with somebody though, like I said, because there was there was no correlating woman who but he could have been running away from something. But again, that seems count or to what I think I seem to know about him. Okay, so what's what's the the opposite theory because we had to we ran away from a ran to ran away from. Yeah. Well, and then there's the opposite theory, which is that he was trying to help out a friend who might have

gotten a girl pregnant. Explain to folks, because I know not everybody gets what you mean, but I so I found this online on a really lovely web sluic forum, and this this poster said that when they read about the blood test, they thought about the fact that apparently one of the tactics that guys would use if they had gotten a girl pregnant is apparently the only way that they could do the paternity was, you know, through blood typing. So they would get a bunch of friends

together who had the same blood type. Wait, so by blood typing, you mean I have a positive and the baby has a positive, So it's kind of positive that it's my baby, not positive. But really, but if I have be negative and the bite baby is a positive, then it's likely that you're not. Just just to clarify that, Yeah, so they would blood type the baby and blood type the mom, and blood type the potential father, and then you know, if that all came out, yes, that probably

is the accurate thing. But the thing apparently, and I don't have any real evidence to back this up, but apparently, oftentimes fraternity brothers or just friends, you know, a guy would say, hey, listen, I think I got my girl pregnant. What blood type are you? And if they were the same blood type, they'd say, hey, will you just say you were sleeping with her? Two? And then it would call in questions for morals and that's what matters, but also the paternity, and then they would have no way

to know which one. And then you know, obviously at that time, if a girl said no, I was only sleeping with the one guy, the doctors would be like, oh, well, you're just trying to protect your I mean, you're lying obviously, um, and so that would just be this whole big question and then usually they would just drop it. And well, there was a that was a case. I remember this

is like you knows a while back. Let's in the eighties where that I heard about where there were like three or four guys who were you know, we're doing the same thing, and the judge basically said, okay, well you're all you're all gonna paytriot support then, yeah, you know that's how that will worked out in the eighties, I think that worked much better than the fifties. Yeah, right, for women usually. Yeah, it could have been back in

the fifties and the sixties or whatever. It might have been just the threat of going public with having three or four guys saying yeah, we were all I thinking sex with you, and so they would just a woman would just drop it rather than go through that. My biggest concern about this theory is the wanton blood letting from the baby, from the mom, from the boy, and that boy and maybe the other boys, a whole lot

of did you just look that word up, Steve, No, Yeah, sorry. Anyway, that theory I guess is out there as well that maybe he got but I don't Again, I don't know why he especially if it worth for that, why he wouldn't have just gotten it for free? Who was just like to help a buddy out? And it doesn't really doesn't. It kind of doubt it. You probably want to do

it covertly to not be accused of collusion. Yeah, probably, buddy, Um, And it might it might be too that if that was the case, he found his blood type out and found out he was not the same type as his role was anyway, so he couldn't be any help to him. So that's the end of that, Yeah, I guess. Or

there's another possibility to which is this. You know, he met a mysterious of threatening kind of stranger who says, you know, like basically roll and then and so and so he goes to check it out, you know, so he gets his blood typed and finds out that, yeah, it's actually his dad that he not was his dad actually couldn't really be his father. It's a giant tall man in a black mask. But it still doesn't understand it.

He was abducted by Darth Vader somebody like that, you know, the fifties equivalent or maybe and then and then so, you know, he decides and it turns out his his real dad is bio biological dad just says, hey, dude, you know number one, your dad is not really your dad. Number two, I'm a billionaire. She just come and live with me in the Mediterraneans hell with these people. And he decided to do that. I doubt it, Okay, deep doubt, because even if it was his father, I mean like

the other guy raised him. Yeah, there is there is still a relationship, but that is another possibility to those it. Maybe he did doubt, you know, his own father's paternity for some reason, and he wanted to clear up those deaths. But he heard a rumor or something happening, and so he wanted to clear that up, you know. Maybe, and that's another reason for doing it on the slide. But it doesn't necessarily but it's not connected necessarily to our story.

Um okay, So next three is that he could have run away just for the hell of it, for the heck of it, but it seems like you'd want some of your up. It would take your stuff, you know, like especially an ID card you're probably gonna need at some point. This pre internet. Yeah, so this is what we're talking really again, is like pre internet, pre connected

everything really all you gotta do. It's not as though this was this like huge national sensation story, like yeah, I got a couple articles, especially later, like recently it's gotten a couple of national articles, but most of the articles were kind of like, you know, it was a footnote and whatever. If you like to come out to Oregon with your I D and you still have a valid I d. Nobody's going to make a call on you.

Nobody's going to say, oh, you're that missing guy. Why did he leave his money in the bank though, That's but that's what I'm saying all of that. It's there's just a lot of he left so much stuff behind. He didn't take anything with him. So if you were to leave on your own, you would take something with you, at least one thing shoes. Yeah, okay. Next theory is that he could have been kidnapped and that disturbing noise could have been allure for him. I don't necessarily know

why he would have been kidnapped at all. Ransom ransom demand, I would think that. I mean, he wasn't from a particularly well I mean he was from a middle class family, but not one that could pay, you know, some sort of amazing that the Iranians had desperate need of an upright bass player. I guess it's possible. Yeah, they would have grabbed the base and brought it. With that theory

out the window. However, the kidnapping theory may make sense when we examine the theory that it could have been a fraternity prank gone wrong and this is how this would go, and I think this is probably the most plausible theory out there. Basically, the fish would have been the first part, like Steve was saying, you know, fat joke,

right then Captain Bass, here you go. And then there's this noise and it was his Frapp brothers and they fake kidnap him, maybe because of the he was a he was a sophomore, and he pledged in his freshman year Chad, Yeah, and then there was a class pledging behind him. This is when pledge was happening. Again, do you have it? I had it in my notes and I've lost it. Delta something, Delta deltair Okay, I had it written down and then I can't find it any more.

It was like on Kappa Stubby or so they were they were pledging. I guess they were in the second part of their pledging case or something. There was some sort of pledge going on at that time, and so there's some speculation that this could have been in conjunction with the lower class pledge. Maybe maybe some of the freshmen that he had taken part in hazing, maybe one of them was actually kind of angry about what Ron

had put him through. Okay, that's not the theory. Okay, maybe um, but this theory is Baslee that they fake kidnapped him and took him out, you know, a mile or two away from campus and dropped him off, and they just thought, you know, he he'll walk back, no problem. And one thing I will say is, having lived in the Midwest, sometimes a thing can happen when it's that cold out, or it doesn't actually seem like it's that cold.

It is cold. You think, well, you know, I could definitely use a jacket, but you don't really realize how cold it is until you look at the temperature. And so it is certainly possible that they could have thought that it was not you know, nineteen degrees, because it's if they're in a car hauling him somewhere, it's the heat or crank, it's it was snowing. But you know, they were like, okay, well it's chilly out, but whatever, he'll walk back and he'll be fine. He'll be annoyed,

but he'll be fine. Right and then you know, for whatever reason, either he succumbs to the elements or he thinks, oh, I'll do shelter and then walk in the morning, or whatever happens, for some reason, he succumbs to the elements and maybe he gets lost and dies out there. And this is something I never really heard in detail about the investigation, but you would have to assume the police

would have interrogated as frat bros. Right, Well, so apparently they didn't really apparently, Yeah, I was reading I think it was in that same medium article that we skimmed where they were talking about they were talking the woman was talking to uh, some of the people who lived in the dorm with Ron, and they said they never were even asked questions. They lived on the same floor, they live like two doors down, and nobody ever came to ask them questions about him. The apparently the fraternity

was never really asked questions. That's Detective Smith feels like they probably know something that pledge class and that he hopes that he can find a way to track all them down and interview them, but which is hard. Yeah, it's not ideal. Many of them have passed away at this point. But my biggest problem with this theory is that no one from the fat ever really came out. You know, it seems like to me, your first thought isn't oh, crap, we kill him. Your first your first

thought is, oh, crap, he got lost. We gotta go find him. Unless they were, like Joe said, you know, mad about something they wanted to maybe they wanted at least hurt him, right, But I just I and maybe this is just overly optimistic of me. He could have been a tadbit sadistic, and we don't know that he really went off the rails on somebody with the you know, the equalizer, the paddle of the holes drill. Didn't. They're

like he could have. But I just, you know, I maybe I just again like maybe I just believe in the good in people. But I don't think the first thought, you know, when you wake up the next morning, is a crap, we killed him. I think it's a crap he's lost. We got to go find him and save him. In my mind, at least, you know, especially if it's

just a couple a mile or two out. But maybe not the more hopeless side of me, I would like to think that people are not so moronicous to least somebody out in nineteen degree weather with no coat to begin with too. But listen, if it's a if it's a couple of college guys though, and they've had a couple of drinks and they think they're being funny, and then oops, we let him turn into a human popsicle. They get two, three, four of them may using the

phrase or term used early. They may collude and go, oh, hell, we need to get rid of the wrong sickle. And so what we're gonna do is whatever the hell they did, and we will never tell anybody of this again. Yeah. See, I knew you were going to say something depressing about this. Something depressing is what I say every That is my depression. Shick. I just I just generally, I guess believe in the good in people, and I would hope that it would

have been we can help him and find him. Not and when we killed him, we got to cover up our tracks. But maybe it was. And so that's how I can kind of make the kidnapping thing work. And that's kind of my best theory on this whole thing. You know, it's also another possibility. It's just this is really random. As they leave him out in the middle of nowhere, and then he and then they'd go down the road a little ways and they're waiting for him.

He never shows I've been asked to them, he's been picked up by like a serial killer, like Ed you know, Ed Gain has come along and given him a ride or something like that. That would be really awful. But that would be I guess possible. It would be the mother of all coincidence. That would be just like what's his name? The kid who broke down and you said, got picked up by somebody randomly, when before the greater came by, um Brandon Brandon Swanson. Yeah, yeah, that's that's

on par with the completely random stuff to make that happen. Yeah, it does. But I mean, when you think about it, a lot of serial killing kind of stuff, a lot of it is kind of random. People just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they crossed paths with the serial killer and then maam, that's the end, you know, that's out. Yeah. Um. My last theory is, well, I guess I have two theories. My my second to last theory is that it could

have been a revenge gone wrong. You know, maybe ron knew who put the fish in his bed, and he maybe you know, of the handle, and went down to confront them and it went poorly and then they felt like they had to dispose of a body. They had already killed the fish, so obviously they were not above killing. That's good. But did somebody find a human body in between their sheets? No? I don't think so it wasn't reported. Yeah, my sheets are trying to stank you, and somebody stuffed

the body and yeah, not the case. Uh. And then my last theory is that it could have been a ghost. What. Okay, So I love that you put this in here as just the theory name and you're not explaining this to us, so please tell me what it's just haunting? Ye, to be haunted? It was? Yeah, it was once in a sane asylum, and so it was rumored to be haunted. Oh so what you're telling me is that the text was there, but a ghost took it away, so I

can't see it on my script. Yeah, I guess it is actually said that the space is still haunted by Ron, even though even though the dorm was torn down and it's a conference center now. But some people think that Ron haunts the conference center now, which okay, whatever, But so maybe a ghost took him and that yeah, so so yeah, there were ghosts before. Wrong, So just This is a play on the Devil went down to Georgia, but instead of a fiddle, he was after a base. Yeah. Yeah,

espectually that's for the hot fiddle Pars. It's like it's like like, yeah, you suck. Yeah, But you know, actually and also I I I totally like the Poulter guist kind of idea. You know, I could have like enticed him with that noise down into the basement where he had opened and had it opened like a portal to hell. It sucked him in, you know, And so you know,

that's actually weird. That actually takes me in a direction that might help some of this, which is maybe the noise that Ron heard was something similar to the instrument that he had left out in his car, and he thinks, oh hell, somebody opened my car because people didn't tend to lock their stuff up. Oh hell, somebody's got my car and they're screwing around with my base, and that's the noise. And so that would could be something that

lured him out. That could have been the noise that he went to investigate and he thought, I got to protect my base or my instrument. It doesn't then feed into any of these but that could have been what that lure was, except he would have taken his dorm keys to get back in, like into his car and into the dorm. Well, if the door, if the car wasn't locked, then that wouldn't be a reason to take the keys. And I don't know that the door of the dorm would be an auto lock situation in that

if it was, I don't know. I've never seen anything said the auto locks in those days, but I know that, Um, well I was in the dorms. If you if you had to nip outside for just a moment to your car, you might just like toss a brick in between the door. And I guess the reason that I think that is because if he thought somebody was messing with something in his car, he probably want to lock it after Yeah, unless he just intended to drag it in the dorm

room like he should have done in the first place. Yeah, but I don't know. It could be that. Actually he didn't go to investigate any noise at all. He just went outside. He just he remembered his base and he decided to go out and get it, and that's when he ran into Mr. Serial killer or whoever it was. So that's the end of my theories. Of course, you do st got one. My theory is probably the most repugnant of theories because it is very appropriate for the

day and age. But it could have been it could have been a sexual encounter gone wrong. And by that, I mean it may have been that Ron was gay. And just so everybody knows, I'm going to talk about this in the frame of the nineteen fifties. It's not like I have any negative views on this, but at that time it was a huge bad thing to like

someone of the same gender. And so it could have been that he went to a room expecting to have a hook up and the person that was there wasn't down with it, or they got caught, or he went somewhere else even or maybe he busted somebody because he was the r A. It's true he may have busted somebody actually, you know, murdering somebody to protect that particular

dark secret that was a serious thing to protect. I mean, he could have been in the closet and it was him going out to to get an encounter and it went bad. Or it could be that he was actually straight although el and he busted somebody else, and those two guys said, we cannot let this out because we are the I don't know, star football players. I would make something else. I actually saw a theory out there that I did not that I admitted from this because I didn't. I liked it just as much as I

like this one um. And that was that, you know, it's possible that he when he went to go get clean sheets from the house mother, the dormmother, that he caught her doing something she shouldn't have been doing, and she might have either called her husband or her boyfriend, or maybe she was with a guy, or maybe she was with a guy who came or a girlfriend or whatever. And that was, you know, what needs to be done, because we just have her take on what happened, and

it's obviously scant investigations, so I don't listen. And the only thing that I don't know, I have no tough I mean, it's just there's no good theories and there's no good evidence for anything. He just disappeared. And the original investigation, frankly, wasn't they just assumed, you know, like I said, they said, he's rugged, so we assumed he just left on his own. Yeah, as ault. That's the problem. One note. There's I have one final hopeful note and one final sad note. The sad note is we kind

of talked about this before um. Ron's younger brother, Richard, was actually first year. He was just a year younger than Ron at the time he went. He was also a student at Miami University. He was the first year, you know, he's a freshman while on a sophomore. He finished school and then he was killed in an apartment fire a couple of years later. That's yeah. Fire. Ron's mom died essentially of what's described as a broken heart

after Ron disappeared. I don't remember when his dad died, but it was earlier, and his his older brother died kind of early on as well. So, like we said, Marcia, his sister who was who was ten years younger than him, or much younger than him. She was ten when he disappeared, the only living realm that would make her eight or nine years younger than him. So damn your tenure. So I'll publish you found herself a new family. Yeah, it sounds like maybe not. It sounds like she's just kind

of still searching for him, which is really sad. But I have this faint hope you know that he actually did run away and started a family of his own, and maybe this whole DNA testing train. I mean, you know, as of today, actually as of the recording of this episode, they have identified Lyle Stevicks family. This is what I heard. Apparently the family is not talking there. They've just declined to be identified, which I think is totally fair. But they,

you know, hopefully they have closure for themselves. Now. You know, the Golden State killer was just identified via DNA, So it's kind of my hope that he did run away and that somebody in his family because Marcia has sequenced her DNA because they found a number of bodies that they thought might have been Ron's and so they have her DNA on file and it's it's spread out in the DNA sphere. I think Joe's right. I think this DNA thing is going to really screw up our gig here.

I think it is too, which you know what, kid, I'm totally okay with that. I'm totally okay with everybody getting closure for everything. Want any answers ever, might actually have to shift to a more historical format when we're talking about how did year old mysteries and older because there's no Yeah, I think we're going to have to do that. Yeah, but um yeah, that's I guess that's kind of my hope, although I do think it's probably more likely that a frat prank went wrong, or you know,

he was recruited into the CIA. But yeah, I don't think that, I personally do not. I don't think the CIA one works. There's God, what was that crappy Pacino movie about a decade ago? It was that That was kind of the vein of what you're talking about. That's the one where he was the trainer, the you know, the old wise man. Yeah, that was that was that was That was that movie. It was a horrible movie. But the point is this theory is along the same lines of that, and I just can't get behind it.

I I really I think that either he had an account or lost in counter, or maybe the frat thing, but those are the only ones that seemed to have enough history or repeated instances of by other people to have explained how it could have happened, and then why the body would never have showed up. Just ye, I just hope that if it was a frat thing, that somebody will come forward at some point. I'm kind of doubting it was, because I think it's more likely he just went out to get his face and just ran

into Mr. Serial killer or that's your favorite theory. And also, well there's that one of those at the Steve's gay theory is also plausible because the frat boys, you know, I mean frats, you know, generally speaking of their stunts, don't kill people. While they do sometimes they do, they

have usually that usually they don't. And so I'm finding, like, like to say, the whole gay thing is actually kind of more plausible in its own way, just because of again the sentiment of the time and the reaction that it got from people. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess I don't. I don't think any of these theories are good. Maybe someday we'll find out remarkably better. Yeah, alright, So what else have you got for um? Yeah, here's what I

have for you. Um. If you were a part of this frat prank, you can spend up in an email. That email address is Thinking Side Was podcast at gmail dot com. You can find this episode, along with all our other more than two hundred and fifty episode back catalog as well as an episode list, links to March blah blah blah blah blah, oh yeah, links to our research. You can find all of that on our website, which

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and for you was weeks ago. But you've also heard our live episode, so you know how much fun we had and how excited we are. So yeah, well most of us are, and I've had a lot of caffeine. That's the only reason I sound excited. I'm just doing a lot of other really big planning things right now. Yeah, you're your priorities are all I know, and you probably know how you're finding us. Um, how you're listening to

us right now? Hopefully that's on you know, like a Stitcher premium type thing where you are not listening to ads, you're hearing us four days early, and you're hearing our bonus content that we're calling down the rabbit hole once a month. If you are not doing that but you're interested, you can go to stitcher dot com slash thinking sideways and use the promo code sideways for a month off. You might be listening to us on iTunes or streaming

us pretty much almost anywhere. Yeah, who knows where you're finding us, but you know how you're finding us, And if you haven't already, please do take the time to subscribe and leave us comment and reading that helps other listeners find us and tune in. I forgot we're on tune in and Google. Okay, great, we're kind of place were everywhere. Hold crap, we actually sound better on Stitcher Premium that's probably true. Ye, Steve spends more time editing

sabotaging our audio for everywhere else. Yeah, yeah, that's that's exactly what we do. It's a good long term plan. Yeah. Anyways, I think all of that having been said, we're going to go ahead and get on out of here. But we will be back next week, unlike Ron, with another hard hitting mystery. A matter of fact, he's right. Bye, guys, dudes. Later,