Thinking Sideways: Gareth Williams

be connected to the case. Critics Rave of Bellevue is original, ambitious, and stands apart. Don't miss the series premiere of Bellevue Tuesday, January three at ten nine Central on w G in America. Go to w G in America dot com to find the channel in your area. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast I Am Devin, joined this week by Jill and Steve. Welcome Happy New Year.

I know a couple of weeks ago, but I know it's a couple of weeks ago for you guys, but for us, is the first episode of the year that we're that we're recording. Yeah, you're giving away valuable information stopping. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Uh. This week we're going to talk about a man who was in a hurry to pack and accidentally locked himself in a suitcase. Yeah, it is probably cheaper than you know, I don't know buying an airplane ticket. You just check

yourself in a bag. No more jokes here, no, okay, alright? Uh And this episode, before we get too far, was suggested by like everyone. I'm sorry if you've emailed us seriously, Like I would say, at least to fifty people have emailed us this story. So I'm not going to name names. Just if you emailed us, know that you're one of the special people that suggested it, and thank you so much. But yeah, how you're working for love? There, just a

quick small ears warning. It's not really that bad, but we are going to talk a little bit about bondage later. So it's just unusual sexual practices. So if that's the thing for you, turn it off. Actually, I think if that's the thing for them, they wouldn't turn it off. Okay, Well, if it's a thing you don't want your children to hear about, please turn this episode off there and just burn your iPhone smash smashing it to us. Yeah, if

it's new enough, here's the deal. On August m I six intelligence agent Gareth Williams was found dead inside a locked Duffel bag, inside a bathtub, inside a locked secret service safe house. And now I know some of the reporting says it's his apartment and some of it says it's a safe house. I think, what's going on. We'll address this a little bit in a second. I also read it was just a government owned department. I think

that's probably the most accurate what it was. It can't be a safe house, because, oh my god, if that's actually a safe house, and m I six needs to just pack its bags and go home, go home. There have been like five different investigations and in quests into this death, and the findings range from probably an accident to definitely killed by the KGB. By the way, for those of you who don't know, m I six stents for Military Intelligence Department six, So it's a British intelligence agency.

I guess you didn't know this mix and I six Is that what double O seven was a part of? Yeah, so something higher or something more secretive. Yeah, so let's back up a little bit. Gareth was a Welsh born scientist with a PhD. He graduated university first class at seventeen, which is actually impressive. I had to talk to one of our moths who lives in Britain to be like, is this impressive or is that first class or first in class? That's the same thing in Britain. I think

it's the same thing. It's basically like graduating magna cum laude from university like an undergrad at seventeen, so it's you know, it's doing your entire four years of your first university experience at seventeen. So he's kind of a head smart. It's too bad you met it on timely and really. Yeah. He started working at the Government Communications Headquarters h Q. Yeah, which I understand is under m

I six jurnsdiction or the other way around. I can't remember what the what they're essentially kind of like equals. I mean g C h Q was kind of the British equivalent to our n s A, and then M I six is there equivalent to our ci A and M I five is their equivalent to our FBI. See they were just almost it would be so much easier, right come, Yeah, they all share the same MOLES six.

Geez No, it's it's one of those kind of confusing things that you know, even the people that I know who live in in the United Kingdom kind of are like, we don't really know how we're but they're all kind of secret e. So yeah, um, yeah, that is the point. Gareth was a quote unquote intensely private man. Yeah, he was into cycling and seems like that's about it. Also like long walks in the countryside, kind of you know, private e things, kind of introverted, solitary, solitary things. Yeah,

he was staying again at a safe house. There's two different ways that I've seen this reported. A one is that he was on his annual one month leave for that year. The other is that, uh, he was on like a secondary assignment with m I six and was hating it. So he was due to return back to his job at the g h Q in the midst of a transfer. Yeah, so I'm not I'm not totally sure which is is correct, but that's why I think

it was. To my understanding, he was going to go back to g c h Q. Yeah, I mean, he was due to return to g h Q in in September, but whether that return was from his like annual month long vacation or from this other assignment that he had taken. It's I'm not totally clear, but I think he was on this other assignment and during that time he was living in a government apartment slash safe house. It's called safe house, a lot that had a security door. Yeah,

I have no idea. It's hard. I mean again, it's hard because this is all lots of it's classified. Wait, hold on, I think I missed something here because I thought he lived in that flat for like five or ten years. He lived in a different flat for five or ten years, not the one he was found dead in. Well that's That's the thing I don't get though, is that maybe I'm getting ahead again. But they found tens of thousands of pounds worth of women's clothing in the flat.

Well maybe they did, maybe they didn't. That we will talk about, okay, but yeah, which it makes it hard for me to believe it. He just moved in for a few weeks and moved all that crapy. So I don't know what it's. It's very confusing. I haven't found I'm glad also because sometimes when I say I haven't found this. You guys are like, yeah, you just missed it,

your dummy. But I think it's kind of this nebulous thing, which is I think okay, because again, he did work for secret services, and it's okay for me to kind of not totally understand what was going on. It is my understanding that he was in a house that was not his normal flat. And whether or not they found whatever they found in the place where he his body was found or his normal residence, that also is kind of unclear to me. But this is a great way

to start this episode. We don't actually know what is and I think you know, I mean, there's there's statements that are made in succession that makes you think that one is the other, but I I'm guessing that it's just the way it's written sometimes and it's not exceptionally clear. It makes you make a bunch of presumptions about the story. Yeah, we're laying out we don't know what those presumptions really are. That's okay. We know the important stuff. That's the important thing.

So really the important stuff is he was due to return to his job at g h Q in September, apparently did stay in contact with his colleagues, which is another reason that I think he wasn't actually on his time off. I think he was actually on a different assignment. Because what happened was on August twenty three, he had failed to check in or otherwise just his colleagues had said, we haven't heard from him in a long time, so they sent the local police to do a really simple

welfare check. And this is where things start to get. To steal a word from Steve Hinky hanky, Yeah, the police get no response from him, and somehow otherwise gain access to his apartment, probably through the manager's key, I would assume through the manager's key, but again it's oftentimes reported as a safe house, so like, isn't a safe house? And then if it is, how did they get in there and handing safe house keys outside? Yeah, yeah, so

it's a little weird. But somehow or another they get access to the to the apartment, again, hopefully not breaking down the door or anything like that, because that was a welfare check. Let's know what they do. Typically I would assume that as well. But if it is a welfare check and they're like, we think he might be dead, you would probably want to break into the house, and some you'd want to get into. I don't believe they

have the jurisdiction to just randomly break doors down fair enough. Actually, there's one case I know of. Did you hear the one about the baby that was crying in the apartment. Yeah, this happened I don't know, five or so, five or

eight years ago whatever here in America. But yeah, I mean, a neighbor heard baby crying this apartment and knocked in the door and there was no answer, no adult there, and and calls the police, and the police are pounding on the door, and and you know, mom or dad don't come to the door, and so finally, you know, the baby is still crying. So finally they kicked the door and to go in, and you know, the ultimate

welfare check. It turns out it they had a like they had like a minor bird or a parakeet or something. So yeah, so they left a note for the owners when they're next to the shattered door. Yeah we broke in, but if it's missing, we didn't do anything, signed the police. Yep, we were not here. Uh So, Okay, So what happens is the local police gain access to the flat that Gareth is in, we're reportedly in and find his body naked, decomposing in a locked red north Face bag like a

Duffel bag, in his bath in the bathtub. The reason this is a little hinky is because Gareth's family feels strongly that the police, either intentionally, according to the family, or otherwise which you know, allowing for mistakes, wiped any and all DNA and fingerprint evidence from what was probably a crime scene. Maybe not a crime scene, but that DNA fingerprint evidence could have definitely proven you should treat it like a crime scene usually, yeah, yeah, But it

does seem as though they didn't. The texts weren't able to find any fingerprints or DNA anywhere around the bathroom or on the outside of the Duffel bag or on the lock or anything. And it should be noted Gareth's wasn't wearing gloves. There were no gloves in the bag with him, there were no gloves adjacent to him, so it wasn't as though he was hiding his fingerprints. Whether or not that's actually important is up to us to

discuss in theories. But maybe he's one of those people that just doesn't have any DNA, Yeah, maybe one of those. DNA doesn't come off of you every time you come into contact with things. So no, but it does seem like at some point in this whole procedure DNA should have come off of him. At some point you would anyway, They did find a little DNA on Gareth's hand that wasn't that was not his and what we'll talk about

that in a second. To a key, I'm not confirmed to be the only key, because I feel like locks usually come with a couple of keys, but at least one key, well, one key was found under Gareth's body, in the snuffle bag, inside the bag under his body. Yeah, not really true. Investigators believed that Gareth had died one week prior, on August. The corner said that there were no injuries to Gareth's body or really any kind of

sign of what caused his death. His body had no drugs or alcohol and there in its system, So wasn't that His official cause of death was ruled suspicious and unexplained. He's pretty decomposed when they got him, yeah, which was weird for having only been a week August August, and it's a locked room, it's very hot. The heat was turned on in his apartment. So again little little things that make this case a little weird and suspicious in what may seem like a cover up of their own

um hyinees. The Metropolitan Police um that were at that time investigators said, oh, and by the way, Mr Williams looked at a whole lot of bondage stuff, weird websites and stuff like that. My words not there, it's just to be clear. So that investigation did conclude that Gareth had locked himself in the bag, even though they concluded that it was impossible for him to have locked himself

in the bag. They had they had an investigator who tried, I think they had two different investigators who tried over four hundred times to lock themselves in a bag just exactly the same kind of north Face bag, and they couldn't do it. So they were like, listen, it's impossible he could not have done it. But also we'll talk about that, but this is what they found. This is what they found in two thousand and ten. They were like, listen,

it's impossible, but he did it. Impossible, dream that makes sense. A few years later, the corner decided to open up an inquest of her own their own. It was really hurt. It was a woman who's the corner, but it was her office. Mostly foreigners in Britain have a little more

power than corners share in the US. I think that's true, partially because the corner kind of felt like she wasn't totally satisfied, but also because there was a request from the Williams family via their lawyer, meaning they were screaming a lot for attention. They attention, they were not attention to the case, to not have it just swept out of the run. They were not satisfied with the findings

of that initial investigation. There were some discrepancies. Um the family claimed that someone had broken in and stolen things and that that is how Gareth was killed, that he was killed in the process of this kind of picture of burglar killing me. If he breaks into my house me neither. You know. Maybe he said, hey and get in the bag. Here's here's a key. In twenty minutes, you can unlock yourself. I don't know. I mean, I agree,

it's it's silly, but you know, there you go. There were no signs of fourth century quote there's this is a quote, right quote. No signs of fourth century unquote, but the Metro police did take all of the locked stores and hinges from his apartment, every door in the apartment, in the front door, it was definitely the front door at the very least, and I believe it was the rest of the doors as well. I'm guessing it's at

least the front and the bathroom doors. Yeah, so it would have been hard for anybody to prove really anything based on the fact that they had been removed, which again is this weird thing away as they theoretically they were taking them somewhere to examine them and then they never returned them. Yeah, so you know, poor landlords who had to replace all the doors. Can you imagine, I mean, I imagine that the British police must do this as a semi regular practice. And how many doors they must

have in storage somewhere. They probably got like a sort of a rebuilding kind of second hand rebuilding materials store going on. Oh see, I figured it must actually be where the basis of monsters inc. Is that because it's nothing but doors, you mean the basement of yes hardware. Yeah, it's just weird windows and doors, doors and doors and doors and none of them go anywhere. Yes, why it is.

I mean, it's good of the police show up and it's like Fred, wats take all the doors in the windows and the life fixtures and all the switch plates. Oh yeah, the heating grates. Yeah, they they've all got to go, all of them. They're all They're really all important in the case. Yeah, if you want them back, you can come down to our store and buy them. We'll give them to you for not Yeah, visit us next door to the binman. Yeah. So, like I said, it would be. I don't know how the police gained

access to his apartment initially. Again, I would assume that it was a landlord key, but we don't know that for sure. We don't know how secure the flat was to begin with, if it was actually like a safe house caliber flat, or if it was just a government owned place or what So. Do either of you remember what floor that was the top floor? But on that street, the buildings are three and four stories high for the most player. Okay, so if it's the top floor then okay,

I mean it depends. I mean it's not ground level, right, That's that's really when I was getting at Yeah, I couldn't resist getting on street view and looking at and there's one modern artly building that's about five or six stories tall, and the rest of them are about three stories tall. Yeah. As as mentioned before, there was also some foreign DNA found on one of Garth's hands Gareth excuse me, Gareth's hands. In America, we say Garth, Uh,

it's true. But it turned out that it was one of the forensic investigators touched his hand without a glove on, which is kind of gross. And you think about it was a week old, brotten corpse. I'm not going to touch it with that close. I'm not either, But like, also, you're an investigator, dude, like you were forensic investigators. What are you doing? But what are you doing touching a crime scene body that you just found in a duffle bag?

Something as simple as having moved the body, taken off the gloves and turned and just brushed the hand without realizing it could be as as casual contact as that. It doesn't have to be. It could have been like, you know, he ends up the bag and his hand comes popping out and he couldn't avoid it. He touched you know it just yeah, yeah, really, just great investigative work.

I mean, that's the thing. Right, is it's just little things like that kind of speak of this like that's why DNA evidence should not be considered, you know, so

as this positive as a lot of people. Well, so the trick was that, um, this this agency, because it wasn't actually the police, it was this outside agency that processed all the forensic stuff, and they, you know, for exactly these reasons, have all of their employees and that technicians DNA profiles on file and they run that's one of the first things they do is when they find foreign DNA on a body, they run it against all their employees and then they run it against you know,

known offenders or anything like that. So they ran it against their employees. But somehow this employee their number had been entered wrong or something like that. So they've been going like it would think it was three or four years later that this was happening that the coroner's inquest was. I didn't realize it was. It was like three or four years later. They were like, Okay, but this foreign DNA is obviously the best chance. The family was like, this is the best hope we have to figure out

what happened to our dear son. And then they realized somebody entered their I D number and inverted to digits. Yes, that's how simple it was. On such a high profile. It was kind of like, how many times did this happen to other cases? Unless Yeah, I know, unless, unless, unless perhaps the killer after the fact, you got a job at this place. Yeah, yeah, that's probably not, probably not, but yeah, yeah, I mean that's the whole problem with DNA.

It's infallible as long as nobody screws up, as everybody behaves in exactly. Yeah. So the inquest also found that this whole like bondage website nonsense, had been sporadic and isolated quote unquote. I mean, like, let's be honest, who hasn't found themselves in the depth of I am not searches on bondage and LS stuff myself. I mean, you find you stumble across it on the web, but see it, But I haven't actually gone out and looked forward. Well

for all we know, that's exactly it is. You click on the wrong video or the wrong link, and there you are get away fast. I don't I don't know if this does that mean he just accidentally visited a few sides or he was doing searches. No, I think it was. It was sporadic and isolated. Makes me think it was like every once in a while, will accidentally click the link sort of thing. Not I mean, you know, it's not like he was on there like googling things constantly.

And just to clarify why this is important, Gareth was inside of a zipped and lock duffel bag, so naked naked, So this is this is they're they're saying that this is some sort of actor. Also, the police, the in the initial investigation, the police were kind of like trying to paint it as like a you know, auto erotica, asphyxiation sort of bondage play, costophilia, which is the which for those of you who can't make that leap, is

the sexual pleasure of claustrophobia, right, not clusphobia. Yeah, and he to be clear, he had never searched any of that stuff that was that wasn't like where he was. But yeah, they were kind of trying to paint it as and I was actually just going to get into this. They're kind of trying to paint him as like a yeah, deviant or yeah, devian is probably the better word than than the other one I was going to use sounds like, well, I don't know that that's necessarily true. I mean, I

think would make him that makes him a pervert. Yeah. So apparently there was evidence that there was like twenty tho pounds worth pounds is in the current Yeah, yeah, so twenty pounds worth of women's clothing found in either his flat or the flat that he was in. It's unclear.

And I just have already struggle with this a little bit because the assumption is it's his clothes that he that he was into wearing women's clothes, and you know, first of all, like there's nothing really wrong with that, like anyway, like you do you well, I don't know. So that was the thing, is you know he they well, I don't know that important. I know, I agree, I don't know. He was kind of a small all our guys, so yeah, so it could have been for like a larger,

slightly larger woman. He apparently some shop people kind of in the area said, yeah, I remember that guy. He said he was buying it for his girlfriend. It seemed like it was it was like normal the normal range of a woman's clothing, so right, or like you know, super tall or like it didn't. Yeah, I mean, you know, it seems like that was just it was fine, it was normal. I wasn't thinking it was for him or anything like that. Yeah. So I mean, which, like, let's

be honest, please do um um. But I mean, it's it's just so tricky to me because they are I mean, it really feels like they're trying to like smear him almost, like look at this weird sexual deviant who like had all these women's clothes, which we don't know if they were for him or not. But like also he all sometimes every once in a while like searched a bondage thing and oh my god, he must have been so depraved that he would lock himself in this duffle bag,

did a company apartment. Maybe we know that he bought all of those clothes. As far as I know, there's nothing that says that there was receipt after receipt on his bank account from ladies lingerie and dress stores and whatever kind of apparel stores. Well, first of all, he could have paid cash. But second of all, yeah, it could have been first girlfriend, it could have been for his girlfriend, or it could have I mean, we don't

know if he had a girlfriend or not. It could have been for not, I mean, it could have who knows what it could have been. He was thinking about opening up a fashion business or something like, maybe he was reselling it for more money on the internet. He had them, I mean, but he actually apparently had taken some classes in fashion design. Yeah, and so maybe he actually had an interest in starting some sort of clothing

on Maybe he did. I mean, I I just think I don't think it's outrageous so that they talked about his predilection for women's clothes and for bondage and stuff like that, because again, otherwise, how do you explain the fact that he's in a freaking bag locked in because it had been it had to have been foul play, right, I mean, that's exactly it. Right? Is that either he somehow well we're kind of delving into theories, but that's okay,

give the Yeah. I mean, either he he was a like quote unquote deviant, which again, like I really just don't think this behavior is like that weird anyway. But either he was like quote unquote deviant, I don't think it's that weird, Like, okay, So, like you, I think it's pretty damn weird. But again, you had a giant bag in your in your house once and I watched you get into it, saw me put my cat into it or something. But no, no, no, no, it was a dry bag that was like six ft tall, and

you got into it. You did it, you followed suit. Okay, either way, I mean, I think you're just free. I agree that zipping locking yourself into a bag is weird. I disagree that like the idea that you might be into women's clothes or whatever, that's not that weird in the grand scheme of things. But it doesn't it certainly

doesn't make you like prone to yourself on accident. But so, either he does this quote unquote deviant behavior or he was murdered, Like, those are the two options, right, And so if that's a really weird way to kill somebody, right, But if he was murdered, then the police really did a bad job of their job in the initial investigation,

in the preservation of a crime scene. So right. So, but so I think that that was kind of one of the reasons behind them making a big deal of all this stuff, because it made it so much easier for them to say he was super weird and locked himself into a bag, and that's why he died, instead of saying right, instead of saying, we accidentally got like trampled all over this thing and lost all of the

evidence that might have been around. So okay, okay, So that's like a big old okay anyway, And like I said, m I six even agrees that this whole idea of you're you're free to live your private life how you want to live your private life, as long as you're not breaking the law, as long as you're not hurting anyone,

as long as you can't be blackmailed for it. I mean right, well, but I mean even then, you know, what they were saying was listen, even if he was into bondage, even if he was into wearing women's clothes, that's fine, we don't really care. It didn't mean he couldn't do his job. He was good at his job, and that's all that matter. Yeah, I mean, a field agent, as far as I knew, you know, in the secret services,

ours as well as theirs. If you have any really dirty little secrets like that, it's okay, but you have to tell your family and friends. If you're gay, you have to come out right because otherwise you could be blackmailed. So probably the same thing here. You probably had to tell his parents, Hey, I'm into women's clothing sometimes I like to get handcuffed in my bed. His parents didn't seem to have. They were like, okay, but stop making a big deal of it, like you were diverting from

what's going on here, you know. And so it just makes me think that either it was his clothes and everybody was like, okay, calm down, or they weren't and everyone was like okay, calmed down. Like I don't know, I think the the clothing thing is this big weird thing that I just think it's relevant, but only only mildly mild, like the minimal Yeah, anyway, I mean to me, it's it's not so much that they had women's clothes as the fact that he added fifteen pounds worth of clothes.

Yeah that's a lot. Thats fair enough of any kind of clothes. Yeah, I mean seriously, I mean I will never own that man, even if I win the lottery. I'm not going to have that much clothing, even because our podcast listeners are just filling up your banks. Uh. So this the corners in quest to look back to what we were talking about. Originally did conclude and they said they did not think it was a suicide. They thought it was mysterious and probably had foul play involved,

but they didn't really know what kind. So in response to this in quest, the Metro Police reopened their case because they were like, wait, no, what and I guess they're kind of awful or something, and they really just decided, yeah, Gareth killed himself in the bag and that was it. That he had locked himself in the bag and then accidentally died because of all of the carbon dioxide that had built up in the two minutes or so it

would take. They basically concluded that it would only take two or three minutes for the amount of carbon dioxide in the bag to reach lethal levels. I don't know how they determine that though. It was like maybe, I mean in a space that's maybe they said, Okay, this this bag is like three cubic feet or five cubick fee something like that. Okay, so it's like two ft

by two ft by three and a half ft longer. Yeah, and so something else to really consider here is that north Face bags are usually like leather resistant, so itsically like that rubbery kind of yeah, so it's not as though there'd be a lot of air flow in between. But still they're not totally airtight, so that their conclusion about But yeah, the conclusion about that would have been like, okay, based on this about of space, this is how long it would take them to x this much CEO two

and burn up that much oxygen. But that doesn't take into account that there's air flow going through you know, little holes and the zippers and stuff like that. I don't think it's enough to negate. That's why I think it was the two to three minutes, not just well, and that doesn't mean that you didn't accidentally die or kill himself. It just means that it took longer than

they said. They said it kind of taken as little as two minutes, but really if it took twenty minutes or thirty minutes, so what you know, I mean, well, then you got inside and fell asleep. So let's yeah, we'll just pause on that for two seconds because that really feeds into the first theory. So we'll just pause on that really quickly. Are we going to talk about the other victim in this the reputation of north Face because you know, they freaking hate this story. I'm sure

they did. The fact that it comes up every time, Yeah, why did we put our logos so big on that every show, every every article you see they've got a big old north Face bag there, I know. Yeah, placement is what it is. Yeah, you know they found him. Actually it's some generic bag and then there there there there people went in there and then told the police, Hey, it was in this bag. Yeah, because it's so raw to resistant, an air tight that you could die in

it is that good? It's great. It's great advertising too, because you know sometimes people want to buy a large bag to stuff a body end it's leak resistant. Yeah. So okay, after all of this, we're um, we're gonna talk about theories. But first let's take a break. You run like there's a wild animal chasing you. You jump up and down like the ground is hot lava. You pedal as if you're capable of generating all of the world's electricity. You lift heavy things like well, like they're

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lot like playing games when you were five years old. Okay, but for all, let's talk about theories. Theory number one is, as Joe and I were just kind of talking about totally leaving Steve out of this episode, Sorry Steve, uh, that he could have done it? Yeah? Could? I mean, I don't think like twenty minutes. I think if he did accidentally suffocate in the bag, it would have had

to have been more quickly than twenty minutes. I mean, because he could have fallen asleep and didn't look particularly like it would have been comfortable, but it might have been for him. It was like, you know, I got myself all zip locked in this bag and and this is so nice. I feel like I'm back in my mother's womb and I'm just gonna just go to sleep. And he never woke up. You know, maybe that's you know, but obviously he didn't. He didn't smother to death like

right away. Yeah. Most typically people that are in so kind of tight quarters that eventually run out of oxygen. It doesn't happen quickly. No, Thankfully they tend to pass out part way through so that they don't experience any sheer terror of being locked in a teeny box. But yeah, it didn't seem to be all that opposed to it, really, because frankly, if he had been opposed to it, I don't see any way you could shove a guy into

a bag like that. Agreed, So this is kind of that unless it was unconscious, then it would be tough. It would be tough. We'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute. Okay, I don't know how you got these ordered this. This he did it to himself theory is kind of the like, well, we don't really know. So there's no evidence to suggest that it was a murder. So because why the hell would murder

stuff them in a bag? Yeah, thinking on that as a murder of crandom in a bag to take a take the body elsewhere at some later point, Well, I just forgot to go back and get the bag. I don't want you to trample all over my awesome theory, so we'll just pause that for a minute. I mean, he could he physically could have locked himself in the bag. Despite that initial in quest of like saying we tried

four hundred times and we couldn't do it. I'm like pretty sure that what happened there is that the people who are supposed to be trying to lock themselves in the bag went out for like five beers and came back and they were like, we tried, I don't know how long does it take to try? Um, we were gone for five hours, four hundred times. We tried four

hundred times. I couldn't do it. We just couldn't do it. No, I think I think the problem is is that they tried to do it the same way over and over and over with very minor variations in there, which is crazy technique. So we all in this room have watched I think maybe too at least hopefully you guys have watched both of the videos that um. And one of them is with a woman who looks like she's about my son. She's a little she's like three inches smaller

than Gareth. And then there's a one with a guy who's almost the exact same size as Gareth was, And I do believe that that three inches is really important in this sort of situation. The guy. The guy also had no trouble getting into that. Well, it took him a little longer than it took her. Yes, she, yes, she did go ahead. I was surprised. I actually, well, again, that's that three inches. I think it helps a lot.

It'd probably be even easier for me because I'm a you know, a couple three inches shorter than her, but very convenient because I have a bag right now here, you know. But it's high classes. The whole reason that I bring this whole thing up is because the way they did it is absolutely the way I would try it. I can't even like fathom a different way of trying to lock yourself in a bag. I don't I don't

understand how these other guys were trying it. So are you talking about their method of folding themselves in or the method of sealing the bag? Both? I mean, like well described real real quick. Explain to people how that went down, because you we've all seen it, but people

who are listening haven't. And one of the links we're going to post is going to be to one of these So if you want to check that out, well, it's going to be to the man, because I think it's a more accurate representation of probably what it would have looked like but fair enough. Um, what happens is is they've got this big north face. It's kind of like a Duffel bag, but it's not really like a Duffel bag. I usually think of as being like this long tube with two like round and caps, you know,

like an army bag. This is kind of like a backpack. They call it a hold all it's I mean, it's a little relevant. Um. And then it's got a zipper that is goes on three sides instead of like one down the very middle of it, right, so it like makes a kind of like a big yeah. So what happens is you can lay it down and kind of pop it up because it's that rubbery material so it will hold its shape, and you open the top part

and you kind of just like fold yourself in. You you kind of just stick yourself in the fetal position with your back towards the part where there's no zipper's part. That's the easy part. And then you've got the lock hooked on one of the zippers and you can just reach out and pull that, you know, half away out and clarify to people because people may not get this.

I didn't get this at first, the lock. If you look at some zippers, they have a ring built into the nose of the zipper buckle, not the pull tab. He didn't lock the pull tabs. There's he put those two rings together and was able to thread the half of the lock through that. And theory they all they said is the bag was locked. I don't did he actually get him through those those little rings. I have

no idea. The thing that I read, yes, because they talked about how they figured out how he must have done it, because there's a method that thieves used to foil baggage security. Yeah, so either way you you can you can just like you know, sit up in your little field position and pull from the bottom and pull about halfway up, and then you just lay back down and you can the tab. The pull tabs are pretty hefty and long, and you just kind of like reach and you pull around and then you have to leave

a little hole. But that's where that kind of the either the long pole tabs or the additional ring comes in handy, because you can leave a good two inches maybe three inches between where the zippers would close and as long as you've got your lock open already hooked on one you just kind of like finagle it. And this is again why I think the woman it was easier for her because she had smaller fingers, So it's a little easier, but just kind of and to use

your little little pincer fingers and just it's not easy. No, it's not, certainly, And you have to be dedicated to actually locking yourself in, right, So that's kind of might have some practice too, right, But that is kind of that weird part right where it's like, even if you are into being in these enclosed spaces, why are you locking?

Like why the part is weird, But that he was able to get the two ends of the zippers together and still have enough slack in the zipper line to almost create a you know, two rings of figure eight

to get his hand through those two. That is the amazing part because he if he's in that fetal position as you describe, it means that he must have really you know, pulled his head towards his knees to compress that bag as much as possible in that direction to gain enough slack, right like that, that is an amazing amount of work and commitment to lock this itty bitty little lock it particularly have those baggage locks, and they're kind of a bear to lock, yeah, even when you're

on the outside. Yeah, So that's kind of and that's where I think that three inches comes in really handy. When you know, she was threnches, she had the little up fingers and and she had just that extra couple inches of slack is so helpful when you're getting the lock done. I mean, that guy, he didn't mean he gave up pretty quickly. He the woman actually had it took her longer. It took her quite a long time

to get that locked up, but she finally succeeded. She did, whereas the guy gave up kind of quickly, I thought, which is okay, I feel okay about what you say. I would have gotten frustrated and stopped too. One piece of evidence that was brought up in that he did this kind of thing was that Um, the landlords of Garret had been his landlords for like ten fifteen years,

you know, in his normal flat. Um said that years ago, an unspecified amount of years ago, they were awoken by Gareth yelling, and finally, you know, we're so tired of him yelling that they went upstairs to his apartment and over I thought it was the apartment that he was renting. I thought it was an apartment too, but I could be wrong. Okay, the way it was described, I got the impression he was renting a room, but not in apartment.

I thought it was. Anyway, they went in and they found him tied to the bed, and they told him to shut up and go back to sleep, and they went back to sleep. Yeah. No, they helped him, and he said, I was just practicing. I was just practicing. I promised to never do it again, And as far as we know, he never did it again. I mean, it sounds like he never got stuck tied to the bed again, so he was able to undo it if he did. Maybe he was. He was able to escape

the next time, I guess, you know. For me, I could kind of see the argument of Okay. So one of the things we kind of glossed over was Gareth was going to work for m I six. He was working for m I six but actually teach you how to get out of it. Well, but he hated so he hated working for m I six. He said it was like this, like total like showman ship, my horse is bigger than yours, kind of like broy game. He hated it is bigger than yours. I know what you mean,

but that's a funny way to see. Um. But you know, my rs faster than yours. I don't know, my watch is more expensive. Like it was just one upsmanship and he really just hated it. Um but Mike cue is

an upper case and yours is a lower. Yeah, maybe I don't really so really what the whole thing that was going on there was really what I was kind of thinking about was that like maybe he because he seems to want he'd just been cleared to go on active duty, even though that's what m I six was, And it turned out like kind of field work okay, so not analyzing stuff in the office, but he seemed

to not really like it. But regardless, I did kind of get this idea that maybe he was trying to be a real spy and like had seen you know, in like a Bond movie or some like weird m I six training something that like, hey, maybe you'll be locked in a bag and you need to figure out how to escape. So he was just practicing an accidentally killed himself. But it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't locking yourself into bag under your own will power. Yeah, makes no sense. I agree. I cannot come with any

idea of all that. Logically, that's why. Logically, that's why the sexual sort of deviancy angle is the most realistic to me, because as a spy in training, there's no reason to do that. If you get caught by the Soviets safe for example, you know, they're not going to put you in a bag or tie you up in some weird thing. They just put you in a bag.

You're alive, yeah, probably, yeah, good point. Yeah, They're just going to toss you a cell and then trade you back at first opportunity for another one of theirs, or torture you until you reveal all of the secrets that you know, because he might have known some secrets for so they're not going to put you in a bag. But you know, so I can only really see the

sexual angle of this whole thing, right. But on the other hand, I feel like that's such a like cop out, you know that it's so easy for the Metro police too have been like, well, he dressed in woman's clothes and he was a total deviant and he was like this weird sex guy, and don't and so it made it easier leads to weird truth. No, well, I think that the sense I kind of get is that it was almost this like smear campaign because they think as a general, well in general, I think the it's easier

for the public. You know, if you're throwing all this stuff like this guy was super weird and it's like not weird that he accidentally killed himself doing the super weird stuff, they're more liable to just go, oh, yeah, he killed himself. He was a weird like outlied TV and dude, right, Versus if if you just kind of say, well, none of that's that weird, and none of it really leads you to believe that he would lock himself in you know, owning women's clothes doesn't mean that he would

lock himself in a bag? What are you even doing it? Just you know, maybe he was a bag man. But but but yeah, I mean I don't know, he must have because who the hell else would do it. Well, so that's what we'll talk about in a minute. All right, let's do it actually right now. Okay, so let's talk about the theory that he did not do this to himself. I'm not disputing that he that he couldn't have done it. I mean that he could have locked himself in the bag.

He physically could have locked himself probably, yeah, but like why would you? And that's the thing we've been struggling within this episode. Really really don't understand. Yeah, I mean, for one, I don't understand why people or whatever. Yeah, I mean I think it was hard enough. Watching those videos was really interesting because it was it was really hard for them to willingly get themselves into the bag

now unconscious. Like with some work, you could probably get somebody in a bag unconscious or dead, but an unwilling participant who was like live and conscious, it would be impossible to get them in the bag. I just like impossible because you could, I mean even at gunpoint, not flailing resistance, but you could just not be flex. I don't fit. I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you. It's weird. I don't fit, and I'm sorry, you know, kind of like you know, yeah, that doesn't so weird.

The glove just doesn't fit me. It's so weird. It's like I don't know how to put a glove on or something. It's crazy. Oh yeah, he didn't even know what glove was, yeah, they've never seen this before. Uh one idea I did have Again that kind of went

back to that like spy obsession. Was that like maybe for some reason, somebody else was on accident even killed him, you know that they were like, all right, we're going to do this training of let's get you in the bag and you'll train on how to get out of it. I'll let you out, don't worry. Was chev buddy told, yeah, what you should do? Well, that's actually that's kind of

what I was thinking. Is my most likely scenario is that he was he was playing some sort of a game with one or two friends, you know, and his friends were you know, probably you know, d bags, but we need people like this teenagers, just the British version of deep chad. Yeah okay, they were as okay, they were chavs and and and he's like, yeah, you know, I kind of kind of like, you know, want to do the Udini thing in the bag and you guys

lock me in, okay, sure? And and and then if I if I can't get out in like a minute, would you let me back? Of course? Yeah. And because they're chads, they look at each other and snicker. Andy said we're going to go to the pub for a part too soon, you know, and they live and then they come back and he's dead. Yeah, and they go, oh, you know, crap,

and then they wiped the place down and leave. Well, even if totally that happen, well, I mean, even if we could go with the actual theory, if it really only took him like two to three minutes to suffocate in there, you know, I don't Suffocation is often times a really quiet thing, right, So it could have been that they were like, okay, yeah, Gareth will lock you in the bag for your big spy training thing, no problem, sure, just you know, give a holler when you need us

to let you out or whatever. Yeah, And then you know, twenty minutes later they're like, boy, he's been there a long time, Gareth, Gareth, dude, dude, Okay, betterly. I mean, I could really be something as simple as that. It's not a super satisfying answer, but it could not. But know,

it seems most likely to me, Yeah, that's probably what happened. Um. And there was the other thing that I'll bring up real quick before we go into the really fun stuff that Steve hates, is that there was reportedly an incident at an unspecified amount of time prior to Gareth's at some point in his career in his career, and it seems like it was a like a more recent thing,

probably within a year. Maybe. I don't know if I had guessed that Gareth accessed confidential information regarding president or former President Bill Clinton. I think it's my understanding that what he accessed was a private guest list for an event that one of Gareth's friends was invited to attend, and like Gareth's friend wanted to see the guest list, and so Gareth like hacked into the Clinton server and

got the guests else. Yeah, so I don't, um, I mean, I don't it didn't make people happy, well, so like it didn't obviously like that didn't make his supervisors happy, right, But also I don't totally understand the thought process behind that, but find whatever about them being unhappy about No, don't

know about him doing that. Somebody wanted to have the guest list, well, but or you know, saying oh, yeah you want the guest list, shirt, let me just hack into this thing real quick and pull that for you, like your service, dude, Like, what are you doing well? No, it might have been somebody who was not actually in right. No, But that's what I mean is that like, I don't if I'm an m I six agent and my friend

is like, hey, I got invited to this party. Can you hack into a server and find the guest list for me? Your supervisors probably won't be very happy with you, but you can do it anyway. I would be like, um, well, you don't know that he hacked. There's there's nothing about hacking or anything. I mean probably and I literally could have had access to it but was not supposed to be accessing it. That what I mean think about it is is m I six is the big thing is

is they probably read Clinton's emails all the time. They probably read everything, well he and so and so. That that was the big dirty secret is you know there's they're reading the president's emails. It's described as um like an unauthorized access to a confidential information. So you're right, it couldn't. It could have been that he didn't hack it, but he gained he gained access to something he was not supposed to have accent and worst of all, shared

it with the outside world. Right, So maybe his supervisors ordered the hit to shut him up or could punish him for something, and they decided it in a really low profile, stealthy kind of way. Yeah it worked. Yeah, that's why all the clothes were there. They were like also the blue dress over left her clothes and the bag. Yeah that sounds very Clinton. Yeah yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Or it's because he'd been working with them an essay and FBI to surveill Russia. Yeah, and Rusks did him

in yeah. Yeah. So here's what we might know on this. It's Steve's favorite stuff. You've heard so much Russia hacking crable, I know, I know, um, but most of this information it so, most of this information comes from The Daily Mail and a defected KGB agent named Boris Courses Carpe. We're gonna call Boris bodies um And. In August of the Daily Mail reported that Gareth had been working with FBI and n s A agents to track cash flow

out of Russia. Um And, according to Boris, the SVR, which is like the Secret Success, was responsible for Gareth's death because they had failed to blackmail him into becoming a double agent again recording. According to Boris, Gareth basically told Russia he already knew who the Russian spy inside of yeah g h Q was and basically that they

would have to kill him to keep him quiet. Smart thing to the Russians, and Forest said um that they apparently did via an untraceable poison introduced via his ear. Remind me of this old Jack Handy saying. Remember Jack Handy says, you know it says like I think if you were an Indian way back in the old days and the Spanish kinds as it came out to you and demanded to know where the gold was, I don't think it would be a good idea to say I

swallowed it. So su me kind of a similar thing. Yeah, I find it hard to believe that to say, yeah, I know who the rat is going to do about it? Huh, Well, I mean I think it's it's possible. Probably the phrasing was more like you, I know, you already have somebody in there, so no, right, I mean, still not smart, but probably not so much like no, I already you know well have been something more on the order of and this this actually does sometimes happen in the real world.

When Gareth, like you know it looks at a bunch of stuff and and puts two and two together and says, and it goes to his boss and says, you know what, I have proof here that we have a mole in the organization. But unfortunately for Gareth, well the boss is the mole and so and such things have actually happened actually in the intelligence world, and so maybe that's what did it, man, But still I don't think it was them, because that's kind of a that's just not a low

profile way to do it. But but the thing is is that the Russians at times can be weirdly petty about stuff. You know, they can they can take what they consider what seems like the smallest of slights and go to some weird lengths. He was listening to something the other day. You guys, have you heard of the mcginsky act? Yeah, yeah, okay, So mcginsky was. He was accountant. I believe he was Russian, even thought he was a

Russian lawyer. Yeah, you're right, he wasn't lawyer. And so he's working for a guy who is he is Kenneth Duberstein. I believe it's how you pronounce his name. Yeah, Duberstein, that sounds better. But anyway, so he does something the Duberstein does, he's the Russians off. They tell him you can't come back in the country as lawyers, like that's really weird, looks into it. The Russians then arrest him and he dies mysteriously in custody. That's the lawyer, that's

the lawyer. Yeah. So now Duberstein is like going around saying, Hey, all these countries, you got to stop the Russians from doing this. And every time that he gets some country to pass the act that he is pushing, they the Russians do something in retaliation to him, over and over and over, like apparently they just recently they put him on the top ten list for Scotland yard like, oh yeah, no, he's a he's a serial killer. He's crazy, like weird. But the US for just a little bit, they did,

but but they do weird. But like I call it, I consider it petty acts because but they just think it's such a knee jerk reaction. Like I really do not believe that the Russians killed this guy, But my point is it's entirely possible because they kind of just their hair brained it time not but not if it was over a mole. Uh, and that's what's in M I six or g h Q. I mean not then, because you've got to do a really low profile hit.

Then well, I do call a lot of attention to the fact that you just whacked the guy that knows them all told me the whole mole angle didn't come out for a long time. Yeah, and that probably was not It probably wasn't a thing. But I mean, if that, if that, if the Russians whacked him, they had to have a reason for it. Okay, either he knew about them all on G C s Q, or they tried to recruit him and he said no, or maybe both,

or maybe both. But I almost wonder if it's that combination of they killed him and locked him in the bag and they're like, okay, but Orris, you will come back. It could be to pick up your bag. No, they were like, boys, you will pick up the bag and drop it in the river and it will be like he never existed and that's fine, right, And then or you know, or just forgets about it or can't gain

access to the apartment again for whatever reason. Yeah, I mean, you know, and then suddenly you know, or he's like okay, I'll be back in like twelve hours it's fine, or like twelve days it's fine. And then the police come and discover it before he goes to pick up the body. And I mean, you know there is a possibility of I don't. I don't think, you know, I don't think it would be anything is dumb is just forgetting about

it or losing the key. No, I don't think. So we totally see where something was something I totally have foreseen what happened. I said. He gets run over by a bus, you know, and he's already you know, and maybe he's he's got the body in the bag and the batub and he hasn't moved it yet, and his controller or whatever says, hey, did you take care of that situation? And Boris says, boris real, I think he hasn't quite taken care of that last little detail. Says, oh, yeah,

it's all taken care of. Not to worry. Then he gets run over by a boss, but his control doesn't worry because that last little detail has all been taken care of as far as he knows. See, it wasn't. Yeah, So I mean, if the Russians did do it, they must have meant to come back and get the body. Yeah,

I would agree. I mean the other thing that is like a little we kind of glossed over this, but it's a little weird that you know it was August, but also the heat was like cranked up pretty high in the apartment, which aided in the accelerated decomposition of the body. Do we know what the heat was turned up to? Okay, the heat was on is all we know. But but why was the heat on in August? But

in the middle of the night. I have woken up in August when it's been warm and then it cooled off at night, and I shut the windows and had contemplated turning on the heat. I mean, this, this does happen. So it's possible that he had a heat pump or some kind of automated system that was set to seventy five or whatever the equivalent is in in c But yeah, I agree. Except for that, the police did bring it

up as like being weird and suspicious. Well, they also brought up his Internet searches and the women's clothes and anything else that they could sling at this story to say, not our fault, somebody else is weird. That's true, but it did his body was more decomposed than you might otherwise expect from that timeline. I think it's my understanding they came up with the timeline based on other activities that they could corroborate, not just like yeah, or like

talking to people or being at work or whatever. Well, you know what, I what I find really funny is that you don't see a whole lot of information about is the fact that this was not the first welfare visit that had been done to his apartment, Like on the first day that he didn't make contact, they sent the cops over, and then they waited a full another

week for doing it again. Like that's hinky. Yeah, there's a lot it's I think, you know, it's just like there's a lot of weird stuff that's going on with this case, which is why it's such a good Unsolf mystery. I don't I always favor the Russian angle just because it's like the most fun for me is an American as a true American citizen, or not necessarily even the Russians.

I mean, there's other intelligence services, there's other bad actors out there of all kinds, I mean, and and a lot of the cash could have been in North Rurians, but you know, I could have been some private parties, because I mean, the whole Russia thing, cash flows out of Russia is not all just KGB. It was the Lake City quiet Pels. I'm pretty sure that. Yeah. Yeah, but there's no reason to kill him and stuff him in a bag unless you plan on moving him. I agree,

but I don't. I also don't think there's any reason to put yourself lock yourself in a bag unless it was the Vikings did well. The only another reason I could take this non kinking would be if he was on a Houdini kink excuse me, kick, was on a kick and because who do he did do stuff like that. So maybe he thought he'd go all Hoodini in the world. Maybe that was his hobby. Maybe he had this new hobby of doing. He seems like he would have been doing a lot of Internet searches for that though. Yeah,

just how to escape a locked bag? Yeah, that would be the first thing I would google. Maybe, Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe he carefully hit all that stuff, yeah, I thought, seems about right, Yeah, but not his bondage stuff. Yeah. Yeah, all the weeks I don't know, what do you? I mean, I think most likely is that there was another party involved and they locked the bag for him in his behest and just left him there, let's see, and then just panicked and wiped the place down a bit and left.

It's just kind of stupid and sad and tragic because who knows, maybe they could have called and gotten an ambulance there and maybe saved him him out of the bag.

I think something similar to that. I mean, I had seen allusions to the fact that he had a lady over and they were playing some kind of kinky game, which is fine, but she may have, just as Joe said, locked the bag for him, and when he stopped responding, he was like, oh crap, I can't get it open, which would explain why everything either way, whether it's Joe or eyes, would explain why things were white down. Oh God,

I have to get out of here. I gotta get my so wipe the bag down, white the lockdown, the tom you know, every surface that I think I came there, an attack with vacuum on the way out the door. Yeah. The fact that he's got no left, no fingerprints or DNA, and the lock kind of indicates to me that somebody else put the lock on entirely because he, while not easy, could have pinched the lock through the bag. The body of the lock, you know, the big, the square of it.

He could have held onto that while he was threading it around. Now, that's a not a lot of room to move. And I understand that it's possible. Why I don't have the idea why unless he couldn't get his hand out of the bag enough and that was the only way he could get purchased was too I see what you're saying now, But I mean still why, because I mean, at some point the lock had to be transported over to the bag and put on the bag. Is he gonna wear glass for that? And if so,

why why? I don't know? He was clean, freaking he was wiped it off because it was greasy and gay. I have no idea. I don't know why you get into a bag? Yeah, and I know it's it's this whole thing. I understand this. This is uh, this is a mystery that's actually been suggested to us. I don't know how many times, by how many people are but I mean it's it's obviously a really popular mystery because it is very inexplicable. It's it's there's not none of

it makes any sense. I mean, murder makes no sense, kinky sex makes no sense, none of it does, none of it. Not a single thing about this case makes sense. Not really. Yeah okay, so, um, I guess we just agree that none of this makes sense and it's crazy

and stupid and we'll never know anything. Yeah. I would say that if you're still investigating it out there over in written if you want to go my my cocky, my cock eyed theory of of the Russian agents or whatever agents bag the body and then got run over by a bus, well, you might want to check on like accidents around that time period which Soviet diplomats, for example, got run over by a busy. Let's do that to pursue That's the only angle I can think of really,

Other than that, I'm kind of at a dead end here. Yeah. Okay, well, um, I guess that does it for this mystery. Lay Yeah. If you want to see that video that we were talking about earlier, some of our other research, you can go ahead and find that on our website, which is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. On that website, you can also find links to merch episode lists, you can listen to the episodes. You can I don't know, do lots of other really fun things on it too. Moving on. Uh.

You can also connect with us via social media. You can do that on Facebook where we've got a group and a page. Um. If you want to join the group, you just have to answer the questions. They're really easy. It'll take two seconds. What's your favorite color? Yeah, those are the questions. Yep. Um, you can connect. You can connect with us on Twitter, which where we are thinking sideways, and you can connect with us on Reddit, where our subreddit is thinking sideways. Uh. You can you know where

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do it, um and then. Uh. The other way that you can reach out to us is by email where you can, um just talk to us or whatever you want to do. Really, um, that email address is thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com. All of that having been said, I think we're going to go ahead and bag this one. Yeah, mom jokes, Yeah, zip it up? What the come up with one? You can do it. Let's see, I'm going to north face it. Are you locked it in? Dang? Okay, we'll see you guys next week. Bye, guys.

We gotta work on Joe's Putton say. I'm gonna go pack my bags