Thinking Sideways: DTR-The Witchcraft

to join Stitcher Premium. So what you're gonna hear here is an episode that we released a couple of months back, and this is the kind of thing that you would get on a regular basis. So enjoy Thinking Sideways, stories of things we don't know the answer to. Hi there, welcome to a very special episode of Thinking Sideways. And by very special, we don't mean heartwarming, we mean murder down the rabbit Hole. Yeah, we're going down the rabbit Hole.

Brought to you, of course, by Stitcher Premium, which you probably already know about since you're listening to us on Stitcher Premium. Okay, you guys, ready to go about this mystery? All right? And I am Joe, by the way, and brought to you by Joe, brought to you by you, brought to you by you, brought to us by your mom and your dad. Your mother, Yeah, okay, I'm Joe, and those other two people forget about them. And then oh, okay,

good glad, we got that straight. Right. So let's talk about a mystery, and you guys are gonna like this one. It involves the Braminer Triangle. Yeah, and a boat which vanished mysteriously, which is what you're doing it. It's pretty cool. Yeah. And now wait, if you're one of those people that's sick of the Bermuda Triangle thing, this is a little different, would you guys not agree because a little bit yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not one of those boats have sailed.

It's just really on the fringe of the whole Bermuda Triangle. Well, it's really on the tip of the tip of the triangle. And it actually this boat vanished within sight of Miami Beach, Florida, within sight and also just after communicating with the coast guard, like minutes after, and then the book just is vanished.

But let's start from the beginning. This happened fifty years ago on December seven, and the boat that disappeared was called the Witchcraft, and it was a twenty three ft cabin cruiser owned by Daniel Barrak, who was a real estate and hotel developer in Pennsylvania and I think also in Miami. Uh. He was fairly rich, had a house, a really nice house, and a really nice neighborhood in

Miami Beach, plus a few others in Pennsylvania. Aboard the boat with Dan Barack was a passenger, Father Patrick Horgan also called Pedre Corrigan, who was a Catholic priest from Fort Lauderdale, although originally used from Ireland. Uh. He had been naturalized like ten months before. Yeah. Yeah, so they were the only two passengers on the boat. Dan Burrac invited Father Horrigan to go out on his boat to see the Christmas lights of Miami from the water. You're right, yeah,

I know. It sounds like a fun little outing. I don't know if they took beer or not. I assume they did. They left Dan barracks home on Sunset Island, I should say Sunset Island, number four, Miami Beach. I know, there's a little string of four islands there on the inside of the island that is Miami Beach, right, Yeah, so number one is the most prim real estate. I

don't know about that. It was just numbered one to four as you want as you go north to south, and uh, you know, and actually it's kind of nice actually that they didn't name them all different name like Sunset Island and Treasure Island and you know, Bunny Island Island. Yeah, exactly, state Bler Island. They were running out of names. Okay, a lot of islands down there. I gotta like that. The the office products chain, you know that's posted. Have you ever been in a town where you wonder where

the hell they came up with the street names? It's the same problem the guy is sitting uh paper clip lamp road, Uh, monitor way. I feel like usually it's just oh, I know, a B, C, D E av They can only do twenty six streets and then they kind of find something else. But well, back to our story though, and I'll give you a quick overview of the geography of Miami Beach. Most of you probably know, but for those who don't. We have the city of Miami, which is on the mainland down down near the south

end of the of the Peninsula of Florida. Uh, and then to the east of that there's a big Barrier Island, and that island is Miami Beach. In between is Biscayne Bay. Dan bur x as I said, it was on a

small island on the west side of Miami Beach. So Dan Burreck and father Horgan left the island in the boat and went west into Biscuayan Bay, then turned south and motored about two and a half miles south to what's called Government Cut, which is a channel between Miami Beach and Fisher Island to the south of Miami Beach. You guys have sure one looked at the maps and stuff in the areas. Yeah, you sent it to us.

We couldn't help, but see it. It's almost impossible, Yeah, I said, you guys a nice naval and nice nautical chart and everything explaining all this stuff. Yeah, but so that was The Government Cut is a dredged out channel. It allows deep water ships and of course cruise ships to get in and out of the Port of Miami. And it goes southeast about a mile out from Miami Beach and then it jocks forty five degrees to the northeast.

It's marked by a series of red and green booies, so on the north side of the channels, the red booties on the south side of the Green Booies, so you're going exactly so it's very very easy. On the south side of the channel where it bends to the northeat east is Booie seven, where a mystery takes place. So that's where dan Burak intended to take the Witchcraft, about a mile off shore, about a mile off from the southeast tip of Miami Beach, about a mile southeast

of there. Sorry, the Witchcraft, Yeah, the Witchcraft the name of the boat. Yeah, yeah, did we say that are? And I just wasn't paying I was reading ahead. Sorry, we're texting or something. Yeah, okay, sorry, sorry, that's okay. And apparently they got there. So all was well until nine pm when the coast Guard got a radio message from Dan bur X saying his boat head hit an underwater object. And it's pretty shallow in that area, so it's not it's not weird that he would say he

bumped into something. Yeah, there are there are hazards there. I mean, there's tons in tends of pleasure boats. And if a boat sinks, and if it doesn't, you know, it could actually wind up being just that it's not hundreds of feet deep. No, not exactly. Now, I think the water right around Bowie seven is deep. Yeah, not, it's not deep at all. But anyway, he hit something and it looks like the hole was not breached. Apparently he was calm and said there was no emergency, he

just needed a toe. So we're all assuming. He didn't say exactly what was wrong, but I assumed it did damaged his screw or his rudder. Yeah, he was screwed, probably, so he needed a toe back to shore. He said he was by Bouie seven, and like I said, according to the coast Guard, and I have no idea. I assumed they taped the conversation, but maybe not, but they

said he was totally calm about the whole thing. And he also said that he would shoot up a flare to make it easier to find him, but for some reason, he didn't shoot off that flare. We don't know why. But the Coastguard had no problem finding Bouie seven anyway, because they need they know exactly where it is, so no problem. They had it right over there. But when they got to Bouie seven, the witchcraft was nowhere to be seen. And again, this wasn't hours or days later.

This was nineteen minutes after the radio call, I assumed they already had boats on the water, which I'm sure, I'm sure they did. So they were right over there nineteen minutes and they went all around it. Of course it was dark, but they they have powerful search lights on their boats and stuff, and so that's what they do. Yeah stuff. Oh yeah, So they scanned all around looking for signs of the boat, maybe the passengers and life jackets bobbing in the water, all that stuff. They searched

pretty thoroughly that night. They found nothing at all, not even a little not even a little piece of garbage flots them at all, not even not even a seat cushion, And of course nan Verret could not be raised on the radio either. They kept looking and the search actually went on for a little over a week. So they didn't just say prank call. Yeah, they didn't just say, you know, oh well let's go. They actually did search. They not like your lift driver who says that guy's

not here, I'm gonna leave. Yeah, not like that at all. They kept searching, in searching and searching, and eventually they had coast Guard ships and navies U S Navy ships involved in this search. And also, like I think about six planes flying over the other and once again is close to Miami. Is very helpful because even if the boat sank, you'd still see it underwater. I mean, it's

not that and it's clear. Yeah, it's very clear. Actually if you go, if you get on Google the aerial and and go and go out from Miami Beach to Bouie seven and then continue southeast another mile or so mile and a half, there's this weird little spot where there's about boats sunk. You can see them underwater there. There's this a little cluster of them and I don't know what it is that their derelic boats and the coast Guard finds him and then just habitat or something. Yeah,

they didn't show him over the spot. Maybe they're trying to build an artificial reef or something. I don't know that. But you can actually see it from satellite images. Oh yeah, you can see them underwater, which is pretty significant. Yeah. But here's the other thing though, is that it shouldn't have sunk because dan Bury, apparently according to friends, was very safety conscious and I guess terrified, yeah maybe, but he he was prepared and he had actually had the

boat fitted with extra floatation. I don't know if that sty a foam or what, but he had extra floatation in that boat. So the boat, even if it had completely swamped and filled with water, it still should have floated. At least it shouldn't have sunk in nineteen minutes. Yeah, No, definitely it would have. It would have sunk a lot slower. And but also they would have never completely submerged. Yeah,

they'd be part of it sticking out of the water. Yeah, and big enough part for I assumed the two passengers to cling to, you know, wave at the coastguard or or for the coastguard to see. Yeah. Even exactly if they did perish unfortunately, Yeah, at lest they would have seen the boat, right, Yeah, so I could imagine they're they're cleaning to the boat and suddenly, you know, a bunch of clever sharks just pop up out of the water and snap them off there and carry them away.

And yeah. Yeah, Anyway, the search went on. They went as much as thirty miles out to see and they went all up and down the coastline from there on. This theory that maybe they were cotton a cotton a current or something like that. Uh, they notified every private boat that's to be on the alert for this boat as far out of say, bam Andy and everywhere else, And so private owners were looking for the boat too, and not not a sign of the boat was ever seen.

I know. There's a weird little mystery for you, super weird. Yeah, so what's to do? Well, we've got some theories here, as you can imagine. Yeah, yeah, there are really we never do that. Yeah, well we're gonna do it now because this is a special episode. I said, very special episode, very special theory number one of course our favorite the triangle that is the review to triangle triangle got them? Yeah, yeah, because you know I mean of triangles are pointy and

dangerous of course. Yeah, yeah, they ran right into the corner of it. Um is it a corner on a triangle? I don't think it is. Yeah, it's a point or an apex or I don't think it's a quarner on a trangle. Okay, okay, don't I'm I have nothing to contribute to this conversation. No, I'm just waiting for us to be over iping to contribute. That'd be fodder for another episode mystery this week. What do they call the pointy things on triangles. Yeah they call they call them

pointy things. Okay, But back to our triangle theory, Well, it's not that you know, obviously that is d ego to theory for a lot of people when it comes to this story. But if they really truly wore at Booie's seven and dead in the water, then where the hell did that boat go? It wasn't the triangle. Yeah, that's when that's when things like spacetime portals start making sense, right Yeah. Yeah, And and of course I found theories about their Bermuna triangle about this case on the web,

which lends more credence to it. You know what I really love about the Bermuda triangle. Yeah, it is anywhere you wanted to be in that region of the ocean. Yeah, definitely. I think around there is no official area that is, it's always moving. It's everybody describes it in a slightly different area to fit the disappearances that they need that might be on the X on the periphery becaus it

gets drawn a little differently. But also you see, that's like said boat X disappeared in this location and it's not actually in the traditional Brewma triangle. As long as I started close enough. Yeah, well, you know, the trick with supernatural and paranormal whatever's whatever we're going to call the Bermuda triangle is that it's not it's not usually as though it is going to just stay within the confines of Well that's true, which is just it needs

to cooperate. Yeah, geez, stay in the lines, man, I'll let you. I'll let you talk to them, Steve, I'm not going to talk to that triangle. Way it might be, but we can't. We couldn't ever prove one way or another. Really, I mean, the only thing that would prove it is if they suddenly pop back into existence in that same spot, like say tomorrow. Well then I guess I would say, we've got to get their triangle a little bit of credence. Yeah, okay,

well so we'll see if that happens. So let's move on to our next theory, which is about just sank again. This is like by you know, I'm not going to give it more than thirty seconds here, because if it went down, it should have been a bunch of junk floating around. It should have been stuff floating around. It should be visible just down. Of course, the possible. Another possibility is it sank, It drifted a little bit north and sank in the channel, which is I think about

forty five ft deep. But still don't they dredge that thing on a regular basis? Yeah, the U SAMI Corps of Engineers actually dredges it, so they should they should have found something by this. Yeah, they definitely should have, right, And even if they didn't, you would think you would still be able to see it. That's not that deep still, yeah, it still isn't tremendously deep. Yeah, but maybe maybe forty five would be enough to make it invisible. I don't know,

but that. But but again with all this stuff that was flotation devices and all the other what he called yahyah, Now I like floats. Some floats, it floats them alone. Yeah, I mean you would expect to see something like that. Yeah, So I mean there's always a possibility, of course, that it started. It sank, and it sank deep enough, and it's drifted off, but it still hadn't hit bottomed yet, so it's still slowly sinking. But it drifts miles away

and sinks. But I still think we would have stumbled across at some point and that's a really that's a really really quick time for a boat to sink. It is, especially one that was as floaty as this one. Right. Yeah, Now again, if it was if the damage to the hull had been so catastrophic that the water was just gushing, and I would think he would have mentioned that. I think he would have radio message. He would have said, actually, it is an emergency. He would have said, yeah, we're

going down. Yeah, he didn't say that. I think he specifically said this is not an emergency. I think he won't be able to move. I think he just wanted to let those guys know eventually, I'm gonna need a toll. But if there's somebody dying out there, don't you know, don't ignore them to come over room visit me because it's not an emergency. So yeah, it was definitely. I don't think the hall was breached. But there's another theory out there. Apparently there was a small storm like a squall.

I guess it blew in that night and have actually pushed them out to sea and into the Gulf stream. They could have been carried away. I don't think it came. I just don't know precisely when it came in and frankly, in another account that I read of this, a storm did not actually hit until the next day. Well furthermore, if the coast Guard was only nineteen minutes away, yea, they would have probably noticed there was a storm happening

right well, they wouldn't nice. And also, of course, by the way, you know, just because there's a storm doesn't mean your radio stops working. Yeah, So that there had been a storm that night, it seems pretty unlikely that somebody would go out to look at the Christmas lights from the water because the storm would be making it hard to see. So in fairness, as as we've seen in Portland today, it was beautiful and now it's gale winds and pouring raine. Yeah, and at any coast, it's

so much more changeable, so much more quickly it is. Yeah, Miami is a pretty nice spot even during this time of year. While it's just you know, it's nicer, it's more tropical. But but I just maintain that if the Coast Guard I have been and saw, oh, there's a big old storm blown through here, they would have probably you know, storms don't usually nineteen minutes would be pretty dang quick for a storm to have just blown right through you. Yeah, it really would be. And do you

think they would take note of that too. It's like, okay, we got the storm, strong winds, they're blowing from the southwest to the northeast. Hey, why don't we go look to the northeast. Yeah, they're not that stupid. The coast guard actually knows this. They do actually know what's going on, you know this stuff. Yeah, so okay, let's uh, let's table that there. I don't think. I don't like the

storm idea. But here's another one that's maybe possible, which is I mean, there were there were Movie seven right next to a shipping lane. So if they're boats dead in the water, maybe they drifted a little bit to the north into the into the channel. Freighter comes along or some large ship and just tags them and basically drags them out to sea. It's snagged on it in

some way. Yeah, and so you know it's conceivable, Well they wind up just sort of speared on the on the bowl of a ship and just off they go. And you might know this, you might not know this, probably don't. Don't don't you think that you would you would notice if you ran into a boat a ship.

You know, actually there have been there have been instances where large freighters and tankers and stuff have gotten into port and then and then only after they got into port they realized they've got like a small sailboat like you know, on their bow. That does happen, and we've

talked about this before. There's also unscrupulous people who don't want to admit that they just ran somebody over and whatever litigation might come about, so they just keep going, knowing that it will fall off between their the port they're leaving in the port they're destined to hit. It's probably gonna come loose, yeah, And if it doesn't, you can always stop and send some crew members down to

the knock at loose. But at the same time, you know, this is a very busy area, especially around Christmas time. It's like you've seen what the river down here gets like a Christmas when the other Christmas boats out, people everywhere, and as people the same way down Miami. Apparently there were a ton of boats out that night on the water looking at the Christmas lights and stuff. In a situation like that, you think that any any responsible ship owner or ship driver would have at least one crew

member station on the bow looking for stuff. Theoretically right, And of course Dan Barak had a flaregun. He said he had a flare a gun, although he never shot off a flare. So maybe he turns out his flare a gun was out of flares. Maybe I don't know, a dud or yeah, or Dud's or something. Never buy

a discounted flaregun, Yeah, discount. It seems like if he was so safety conscious that he had extra padding in his boat to make sure that it would never sink, he would make sure he had flares, probably spare flares and stuff like that. He would think he would. Yeah, so this one doesn't work, Let's pop it out, put a new one in. I'm sure. I'm sure he had extra ones, you think so. I mean, obviously, if he's a safety conscious you might have had a couple of

paddles in there too. So they're drifting into into the shipping lane. So okay, get out the paddles for padre and let's start paddle real fast before that book gets over here. So you know, again, I'm not also a radio, and he had a working radio coming right at you. You can get on the radio and just be like wait, yeah, no, wait, or even just back to the coast card and say, actually, it's an emergency. Now there's a ship coming at me. Yeah,

and and and he didn't do that. And also, I mean, even if he had been carried away, you would think that some wreckage would have been left behind. You think, yeah, they do, something would have been left behind. So even though this is actually a plausible theory in some ways, it doesn't really doesn't really entirely fit the bill for me. What's next? So our next sorya is the radio in front thinking they were Booie seven, but there were maybe

a Booie nine or Boobie thirteen. Maybe they were mistaken. Although the problem with this seria, of course, is still should they should have They should have turned up sooner or later. Yeah, there was a massive search. Yeah, but but but along those lines are next seria is that they is that they faked it and they disappeared to start a new life, because I mean, after all, they said they were a movie seven. How do we know

they actually were? Well maybe not, yes, but it would have been just as easy for them to just motor on out and not even bother to make a call. Well, it would have made it actually would have made a lot more sense to motor or at least pretend to motor way out to see it's like say, oh, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna like go to what's what's near Bermuda? Yeah, I think are right there. Yeah I'm confusing. They definitely are. Yeah, yes, so the Bahamas. So you could say like, hey, we're

going to motor over to the Bahamas for Christmas. And then you say, oh, your radio went from like halfway in between, Oh my god, boat out of control, catching fire or something, and it's only like se it's so close. But but again, radioing in doesn't make any sense if

your intention is to just flat out disappear. Well, I mean radioing in would be could be nothing like as a way of giving it's a red herring, but it's yeah, but every everything is so close there, and they can i mean they can tell kind of where your signal is coming from. So agree you can't lie and say you're a hundred miles north when you're a hundred miles south, because they're gonna be like, that's strange because we picked

you up on the southern end. So it would be easier just to keep your trap shut and go wherever the hell you were going to go, and people would just presume that you sank, yeah, or I mean, I don't even know if they told. I assume they told people that they were going out. Yeah, I think so. But I don't know if you were really just trying to disappear, why wouldn't you just quietly get on your

boat and drive away? I mean, ye, d Yeah, I assume that there are people at the house when they left, because otherwise, how do we know that Father Horrigan was on the boat? Yeah, because I don't think he called the coast guard says hey, I'm out here with the Catholic priest seven. Yeah, I don't think that's what happened, right, So I think that there were people who saw them leave h and maybe bade them are well. I mean,

I don't know. This makes the most sense of all the theories so far to me, to be honest, Star, Yeah, though I agree, I don't. I wouldn't if it were me, I wouldn't like call in, I just motor on out of there. But yeah, but it does, it does make a certain amount of sense. The only the only hitch with this theory is that why did two guys need to leave and start new lives at the same time. That's a weird thing. Well, it's not unless they were

like gay or something. I mean, they could have been lovers, especially fifty years ago and one of them being a Catholic priest. Like, if they were lovers, they needed to leave. They did need to leave town. Yeah, so that's entirely plausible. I mean, back was fairly rich. Maybe maybe he just cashed out and then they took a suitcase of cash onto the boat with them and vanished and want to live in Mexico or Bolivia or Portugal or some sounds

great to me. That doesn't sound so bad, answered, answered, solved. Okay, so we're gonna give that one up. There's a few more theories. Well I thought we had solved it. Not quiet. Well, another theory is foul play. Okay, yeah, could have been. Um. There's a blogger out there named Michelle Meratt who's put up an interesting post about this several years ago, and she's got some theories about foul play, which I thought I would like bring to our listeners and show anybody.

She said that she noted a few interesting facts about crime in Miami Beach at that time, as you obviously all know then and now, it is home to a lot of very rich people, which you know might attract your criminal types also, right, And so there were some home invasions robberies that took place, like there was one big famous one that took place like two months before this incident. Another one took place like a month after

this incident. So her thinking was possibly it was something on the order of, well, maybe some criminals came busting in and then took them hostage and then for some

reason decided to make their getaway in the boat. You know, was that that particularly one doesn't totally make particularly because we just said we think there were people at the house when they left, right, Yeah, but yeah, I don't know, And so you know, one is like, but there's other other variations on that, which is like, you know, for example, um, he was involved in the hotel business in Miami. Maybe

he was involved with some shady people. Uh, and maybe he, you know, for whatever reason, you know, made the wrong people angry and so they got rid of him. They took him and maybe father Horrigan was just collateral damage and they just took them out to sea and sank the boat. It could have been also a crime of opportunity. You know, somebody comes along and sees a disabled boat, notices, oh, that's that rich guy that I know about, offers them

a toe. That's why he doesn't set off the flare, and then actually just kidnaps them and scuttles the boat or whatever else. Yeah, that's possible. You think he would have radio the coast guard and said never mind. But you think on the deck or the or the people who kidnapped him were like, oh no, we'll radio them, We'll let him now. That could be like a combination series.

Maybe he and the father were heading not to start their new life with the suitcase full of cash and these guys and so yeah, and this scenario, maybe they good Samaritans are on board helping them break for the toe, and then's not so good Samaritans, you know what, they're good Samaritans for now. But then suddenly the suitcase so cash pops open and revealing that there's cash, cash, and

diamonds just flowing every Yeah, yeah, exactly. It saw a good Samaritan immediately spins around with the ballet pin and brains them both shoves and shoves their bodies overboard and then you know, or maybe probably took their bodies way up to sea and show I was gonna say, because it seems like the bodies would have shown up to

maybe not yeah, or back to our home invasion. But the theory, I mean, it might be that maybe maybe the word was out that Okay, Dan Barack's super rich guy has a secret safe in his house and he's got three million dollars in cash in and so because there were no signs of a home invasion in the house itself as far as I know, But supposing somebody forces his way into the house and just forces him to open the safe, take out the cash, and then make us get away on the boat, and so that

would make sense. Okay, So and again doesn't totally make sense to do the whole Booie seven radio signal thing. But you don't know that it was actually him that made the call. It could be somebody impersonating him. Then your idea that they're farther out to see than they really are becomes plausible. I mean, this one is just a hamster wheel, you can you mean a rabbit hole something like that? Yeah, I say, Hamsters to Hamsters are totally a loud. Of course, we don't discriminate, but it's

kind of a rabbit oriented podcast. Um, small furry animals, small tales and rodents. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know. I still kind of like, I tend to like that they ran a light together just because it's happier ending. Yeah, it is happier ending. But yeah, there's so many permutations on this whole thing. Another another, another variation on it is that somebody in the families say, maybe for insurance purposes or inherance purposes, I wanted to

get rid of them. But again, who knows. There's no evidence for any of this stuff. Unfortunately, there's just no evidence. They're just adn't have it. Really, it's a really intriguing little story. Yes, um, and I agree with you. I like the idea that they just decided to like, you know, and maybe they weren't even gay. They just you know, let's go to Bolivia and be witch Cassidy and Sundance. You know, it could have been something like that too,

who knows. You know, they were bored with Miami. Al Right, So that's our story. But if you have any theories. You know our email, we're taken off. I want to say special thank you to all of our Stitcher Premium listeners. You guys are awesome and we'll see you next time. Alright, bye, bye, guys, it's a long rabbit. Hey, everybody, Steve here one last time.

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