Thinking Sideways: Lake Huron boater disappearance

to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I as always am Steve, joined as always by as always Dot dot dot, and this week, believe it or not, we have another unsolved mystery for you. This week, our mystery is the la You're on voters, also known as the disappearance of Launa Stampion and Charles Rutherford. Chuck Chuck. We're gonna use chuck uh this. But before I get into the mystery, though, this was a listeners suggestion was suggested by Susanne, So

thank you, Susanne. I don't know why I didn't find this one in the list, but oh wait, the list is huge. While to find it true, it's a good mystery. So the brief overview is that Laana and Laana Laana Okay, danger zone, danger zone. That's how I have to get out of my system. I'm sorry, it's a Archer joke. I'm done the last time I'll do it. Let's go. Okay, So Laana and Chuck, we're a couple who went on a to day boat trip on the Michigan side of Lake Huron in two thousand five, and they never made

it to their fast final destination. Kind of it's kind of like a Gordon Lightfoot song or Lingann's Island. Yeah, one of the two here on set never gives up her dead and the stores of November come early. So let's tell you a little bit about our players before we get too much into the mystery. Long of Stampion was a thirty five year old lawyer. She worked for

the City of Detroit. But and and by all accounts, she tended to get men's attention, not just because she was a very pretty lady, but she was, but she also apparently had um It was a very outgoing of vivacious is what it's described as personality and attractive personality as yes, yeah, so very uh people liked her. It's too bad, Yeah, just happen. She when she got out of high school, she had initially been a model. She

was on the car circuit, you know, car shows. She was car show model, and but realized that that wasn't what she wanted to just do forever. So she went back to school and became a lawyer. He can't really do that stuff forever. No, so she went to work for the City of Detroit in their law department. To be honest, I don't know what she did in the law department, Joe, thank you. How did I not figure that out? I did some research, and yeah, it turns

out that lawyers do legal stuff. Is okay. Let's move over and talk briefly about Charles Rutherford Chuck. Chuck was thirty four years old, and he was also a lawyer. He was from a family of lawyers. He had He had at one point been working as a for the City of Detroit's Prosecutor's office before eventually opening his own practice, which he had been doing for I think it was about a year or two at the time that they disappeared. Uh, And he was described as a really nice guy. Um,

he was evidently very in love. I think are smitten is the way that you'll see it described when you see the written accounts. Yeah, yeah, um. And they had the pair had met sometime in two thousand three, he was pretty quiet. Sorry, right, Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's that that relationship. You see that a lot. There's the quiet one in the very outgoing he was the quiet one in the relationship. They met though, and like I said, in two thousand three, and then they moved in together

the following year. And I'm not really sure exactly what this means, but it's said that they like to have a few drinks. They were described as thirty something bar flies. At the end of the day they went out and had a beer, a couple of drinks. Well, that's my thing is, I don't know what what that means specifically, because I know a lot of people who in their early to mid thirties will go have a couple of drinks at the end of the day, well a couple

of times a week. So I think that that's that's one of those generational things and also a Portland's thing. Like in Portland, we go out, we drink, we eat, that's what we do. That's societally, that's what we do here. A lot of places we don't have kids. There's not enough room in our houses for kids, kitchens, we can't afford them and put birds on everything, and yeah, you

can't cook, there's just pickles everywhere. But I mean, you know, when I lived in the Midwest, for instance, Uh, you know, people in their early thirties were expected to be married with kids and young kids. So it was less of the going out culture in your early to mid thirties and more of the family life culture. So I can see how that would be brought up sometimes as meant to be an outlier. Whether we think it's an outlier or not. I mean, I don't know that that's relevant.

That's that's a perspective I hadn't thought of. Absolutely, yeah, nothing nothing wrong with Yeah, I agree, Also nothing wrong with being family. Absolutely. Back to the story though, but by all, by all outward accounts to the pair were in a relatively happy relationship, and we will talk about some further details. As with every relationship, there's there's always things that aren't quite right. Well, that's called being human. That's why I'm gonna solve this. Murdered her. We'll talk

about that later on. Lana's father is retired from the U. S. Coast Guard, and I say that because it's always brought up about the fact that he was very diligent in teaching her boat or safety, and because they spent so much time on the water, she really liked being on the water. She was competent and she was. Yes, she was a competent behind the wheel of a boat or

behind the controls. Obviously she'd probably been doing it since she was a kid, exactly, and she's you know, her family has always said that she was very serious on the when she was on the water, it was safety first. If you were gonna have drinks, you did that when you got back to the dock. Like she wasn't um flippant isn't the word. She wasn't reckless about her careless

about it. Yeah, absolutely, this is this is important to know because four years before she disappeared, which would be in two thousand one, Lana had bought a twenty seven foot well Craft cabin cruiser which she had named Sees Life, not Sees Life. She named it boy mcboat face I ever get about, I'm going to name it if only she she was many many many years before that. So just a quick description of her boat, because it's where the majority of our mystery takes place. Well, it was

boat shaped. We know that. Thank you, Joe. Yeah, I appreciate that. Really, when you get down to it, isn't almost everything boat shaped. A lot of things are, most especially you can float on a piece of play, but it's not boat shaped. This argument is going nowhere. Let's get back to the story. Well, I don't know it's it's it was cabin cruiser right right, but not a lot of people know what that. But not everybody knows

what that is. Here's here's a description of it. Is the boat if it is one of those boats where the rear half to two thirds is an open space. Yes, the well has seats and benches for people to hang out. There is the pilot seat where the controls are, the steering and the throttle. Almost every picture you see online of like rich, attractive people hanging out on a boat is a boat like this right pretty close. It's like the girls in bikini is sitting on the bench off

the back of a boat. That's this boat. But this is the Keep in mind this boat is a single story. Because you'll see boats that have the raised or enclosed cabins. Yeah, those are like yachts. This is an open cabin boat. Everything is open um. There is there is a small stairwell in the front that goes into the bow which has a small living quarters. It's the cabin. There's teeny there's a small toilet, there's a place to a fridge and a stove. And depending on the model or maybe

there there's something that can be changed out. It would have bench seats at a table or a bed. I would think it was like an RV, you know how, you kind of that's what maybe changeable table. Usually usually boats like this have a the berth and right up in the bow, and then and then the dining table you know, drops and it's got cushions you can put on it, right, and then that's another bunk right usually, And that's what the pictures of this look like, is

that it's it's bits. Yeah, it's not something that you live in. It's take a trip. Oh, I gotta take a wei. I go down and have someplace to sleep if you're doing one overnight or right exactly. Oh And the other thing that I will say is that because it looks cool, I always like it. This boat has a big spoiler on it off of the back end that it's actually meant to also house. You know, they have the the plastic and tarpaulin covers for cruddy weather, you could cover it up. It's got a small swim

deck off the back, which is just a platform. There is a swim ladder. It's important to note that the ladder on this particular boat sits on the top of the deck that you would dive off of. It's not one of the ones that's mounted underneath or built into the actual boat, right. But it's not something that would be readily accessible from the water. Some boats have them where they're on the underside and you can just reach over and pull it, and this that's not what this

boat had at all. My some of my neighbors going up at a boat very similar to this that we took out onto the river. I will the only other thing I'll say about her boat is, though we know it's a twenty seven foot well Craft Kevin Cruiser, we don't know the exact model, which makes it a little tough. I mean, when I say the exact model, okay, well, maybe it could be one or something. I tried to get really deep into the specifics to figure out details

about this boat. I'm working off a lot of generalities. I kind of had to assemble it from similar boats and ones that are of the year, because we don't even know what year her boat was, so it makes it a little probably. I did not not to stop because I didn't um. So let's talk about the trip that the pair had planned. Lana and Chuck. We're planning to take a trip from her parents house, which is in Bell River, Canada, and they were gonna go head

north to Mackinaw Island, which is in northern Michigan. Their route was going to take them from the southern edge of Lake St. Clair, which is a small lake connected to Lake Uron, and up the Saint Clair River into Lake uh like Uron, and then they were gonna head north up to the point where like you're on meets up with Lake Michigan. So it's about a three hundred miles or so trip. Yeah, and it's gonna take about two days. Except lake here is on the Lake of Death.

It is not noticed that Joe, I'm thinking of somewhere else. I do want to point out that this is one of those times where I felt like a geography moron because of the fact that wait, their trips started in Canada and then they headed north to Michigan. It's because because I'm for the West Coast and I always look at the map and it's always the map of the US with Canada deleted, and so you just you just look at it's like, oh, well, it's kind of a

straight line. Canada dips down up there. I know that now, but I felt really dumb. Anybody else just confused, that's what's going on now. I actually think that Canada should give that land back. What the hell are they doing down land further south in the US. That ain't right? Oh well, sorry to all of our Canadian listeners. As unsubscribed to the podcast, you can keep it so. On the tenth of August two thou five, Lana and Chuck

launched from Bell River and they head north. They made it to Oscota, which is about a hundred fifty miles north roughly north of from their their launch point at the end of the first day, and they stopped and docked there that night. While they were there, they met a guy named Richard Bannon, and he offered to take give him a ride into town, and then he and his wife joined them for dinner and a couple of cocktails, and then he took them back to the dock that night,

because they then the next morning got up and left. Yeah, how did you? I didn't know he wasn't hiding on the boat somewhere. Sorry, too, are really wound up today, I'm pretty about this. They left on the morning of Thursday eleven, and they headed north and they stopped in presque Isle at about twelve thirty in the afternoon. So while they're there and they're they're getting fueled up, a guy by the name of Gene Austin was working on the dock and he had said he met the couple.

They were in good spirits. The weather was turning kind of crappy. It was cold and windy, so they were They were wearing fleeces to keep war, but they were in good spirits. Uh. Lana asked him if there was any areas that she needed to avoid, and he told her about two different shallows to watch out for. She's been told him, Oh, well, I've got those in my GPS, so no big deal. And they left after they had topped off the tank and by all accounts everything was fine. Well.

Were they shadowed by a mysterious figure in a black raincoat in the fedora? No, they were not wait and so the storms worth mentioning. It is so when they left, initially the weather was good and they thought they were gonna have good weather the whole time. On that second day, the weather was turned in cold. I don't know that it was actually raining, but it was windy. Uh. The seas did start to get rough. The water in the lake, I believe the next day there are reports of swells

anywhere from three to five ft. Okay, so I just the day the storm is continuing to roll in. It was just crappy and cold. Should have taken a car. But Jean Austin, the guy that you know, he was talking to them on the docks, he didn't really mention. Yeah, and I thought they shouldn't be going out in that weather nothing like that. So it seemed like it was fine. It was like, not ideal, but it was. It was cold.

It was chilly out, but it wasn't as if they were going into hurricane force winds or anything crazy like that. It's not a big deal. Yeah, but it wasn't even at that level on that day. So that's that's when the story morning. Yes, okay, I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding correctly absolutely as Somewhere around one thirty in that afternoon, Laura called her aunt, the one who lived on mcinna Isle or Island. Sorry, it's not Issle, and she was gonna let her know. Hey.

She let her know, Hey, we're a couple of hours out, so we'll be the same. Yeah, we'll be there in a couple of hours, No big deal. She then at one forty five called another aunt who lived in Florida, chatted with her and also told her that they were about two hours away from their destination. Now that's suspicious, and then it should have been one minutes. At at about two o'clock, Launa made one more phone call where she called a male friend of hers. He didn't answer

the phone, but she left a one minute voicemail for him. Yeah, I mean what she good friends with the aunt in Florida. Evidently she was pretty close with her. It's just somebody that she talked to on a regular basis. I guess it's just kind of one of those things for me where I just think, really, you know, she's on a boat, the weather is not great, she's calling all these pieces. She could be in the cabin though she could be chilling and driving the Chuck driving the ship. It's not

that hard to drive a boat. It's not that hard to drive a boat. And Chuck had learned to drive the boat. So they've been living together for a year, they've been dating for at least two at that point, and she was always on the boat, so he had to have learned how to drive the boat, and if nothing else, at least open water. So then you're saying, yeah, okay, Chuck, you stay up here and you know, hate this by yourself. I'm gonna go down to the cabin and make up

phone calls. Yeah, but yeah, I'm sure steering the boat. Yeah, no, I'm sure they totally did. I've done that before when on long trips here you take the wheel. I'm done with this for a while. I take a lot of boat trips occasionally, yea, I have three hour tours. Okay, So we're gonna move forward to Friday the twelve. A captain of a ship crossing like you're on saw a small boat bobbing, as he says, it, up and down in the rough sea. Ease. Yeah, that's when the swells

for three to five foot. He said that he figured either the pilot of that boat was crazy or they were in trouble. So he called the coast guard to let him know that he had found this boat. Because he approached the boat and nobody was responding, he calls the coastguard. They had already been alerted to the fact that Chuck and Lana hadn't arrived the day before by Lana's dad. He had called the coastguard saying, hey, they didn't arrive. It's been hours. Something's wrong. So the coast

guard go. They approached the boat. Um, nobody's on it. The boat itself was just drifting. It was eleven miles northeast of mckinnaw Island, so pretty close close ish, yeah, it called. No, Actually it's it's farther away. I mean, it's obvious that the boat had continued to travel, whether on its own power or by the the currents. It's hard to say, but yeah, I mean, it obviously had gone to me when I tracked it on the map.

It looks like from the two o'clock phone call onward, the boat must have continued moving under power for some amount of time. It couldn't have just stopped, right, It couldn't that way was found or it was found it wasn't moving in quite the right direction. It wasn't but that's part of that's the currents. But the coast guard go on the boat again, nobody answers their hail. They go on the boat, they find nobody on it, and

they don't really find any signs of foul play. There's not blood sprayed everywhere, or everything broken or anything crazy like that. No ax marks in the frame of the boat. Um, there's a there's a number of strange things about the boat itself for the condition that we should talk about. Um, Devon is gonna be very excited because I've used bullet points here. The first thing we're gonna talk about is

that the boat's engine was on. It was running though the boat was a neutral so it had been idling first a fair amount of time. They had to fuel up after one day, Right, they used an entire of fuel in a day and a half day, day and a half and that's its speed. I mean, boats, can

you know it's like your car. Your car can idol for a long right, I mean, I guess That's kind of what I'm wondering is were they able to guess, you know, idling for this many hours, it would have used this much gas, So we think it probably though that's a good question, because yeah, I guess usage Obviously they were going under power somewhere for a while, and although you know, you never know, it might be kind of useless to try to estimate that because somebody else

could have taken the boat us and refueled it. And that's true adrift, that's true. Yeah, Yeah, And I haven't seen anything that tried to plot how much fuel usage there was, because I don't know that anybody ever said and there was X amount of fuel left in the tank. I've never seen that either, So I don't know. I have to I guess I have to just assume that the coast guard probably knows they're talking about and if they thought it was well, they would have done it.

I hope they probably, Yeah. And of course, another another good question to ask is if you search the boat, do you find like a spare five gallon gas scan somewhere and is it full or empty? Yeah? You know, yeah, And then again that's something I've never heard of. And another question I'd like to hear answer it is did they have any kind of dinghy or lifeboat on this thing and was it present. If they had any kind of lifeboat, it would have had to have been an inflatable.

This boat is way too small to have anything but inflatable. Per The last time we talked about uh, oh is um the one we had our intern on right the emergency because we actually look I actually looked up and requirement and it sounds like Laana was, you know, pretty responsible boat owner, and so she would have been required to have an inflatable life up anything. Really. Yeah, well, I do know that the boat had a lot of

p f d S life jackets. So besides a lot of those boats the seat cushions or technically flotation devices, but it also had four life vests on their actual life vests not the right as far as I understand, they were, because they're always referred to as p f d s, which is a personal flotation device, which to me does not infer that it was a seat cushion, but it was actually something you could put on. Well, actually, uh,

p FD is anything. That's why a life jacket is a little bit distinct, just like a propeller is a little bit distinct from a screw. A propeller screw as a propeller. A propeller is not necessarily a screw, like I really hate it when he pulls out his knotic knowledge. Well, but they also make They also make and I don't I suspect they did not have this on the ship. But they do also make body suits that are personal flotation devices that are mainly for crews of ships that

are going across the Atlantic. Because they're insulated, they keep you alive, they have a little bit of resources, they have lights and stuff like that. But they are also pf okay, but typically p f d s are life yes, And I think looking at the images that I've seen of this particular boat, I don't think that the seats were floatation devices. I think they were actual life jackets. I think it's probably like that she had four life jackets on the boat, and apparently she always had four

on there, that's what she kept. Those four life jackets were not there when they found the boat. Those were gone. The running lights of the boat were not turned on, so they were off, but the stereo was apparently on. It's said that the stereo was on and it was turned to a Christian station, which wasn't something that the pair were known to listen to. So obviously we're talking Christian pirates here. Well, I don't, I have no I can't substantiate that anywhere. It's just you see, it's it's

one of those things that you see danced. Even on top of that, I mean, if I have a radio, my radio tune to one channel, I drive two hours outside of Portland and suddenly it's a totally different thing exactly. You know. So if they were, you know, or five hours away, they had one radio station on, it could be something totally different by the time they will agree with that. Also, also, some stations will just occasionally play

you something that's kind of Christian. So at the moment that you happened aboard the vote that that one song is playing something by Amy and what's your face? I can't remember her name now, anyway, possible it wasn't even a Christian, But I still like the idea of Christian pirates. We're not talk, you're you're weight, you're head of a game.

The GPS unit on the boat, and there's there's a lot of contention over this, and we're gonna talk about this morning theories, but the GPS unit is said to have turned on around one thirty am on the twelve. I'm gonna we're gonna talk about in more depth on how that's looked at. But can we talk about how they know that? Okay, So GPS units they have, this particular GPS unit has a certain number of track points.

You say, your GPS unit to log a data point every something, whether it's a distance or a time, and it stops tracking data points and sometime on the eleventh, and then suddenly at one thirty a m. On the twelve starts tracking data points again. Okay, this was a GPS, right it I can't verify that. I believe that it was a garment. Yes, okay, we'll talk more about that. Okay, Yeah, the GPS. So it was about the size of the

television set absolutely. Yeah. Well it's in a two thousand four boats or two thousand one boat, so I don't know what size it was. It could have been half of the boat for all we know. It was actually the entire deck of the boat because the older GPS is were that bit they were I remember, and they didn't actually have a screen. They just had this printer that's spat out coordinates. Yeah. Actually, and the cabin is actually halfway taken up with air conditioning units and whole thing. Yeah,

I'm pretty sure that's true. Yeah, yeah, this is totally accurate. We're not making any of this up. Okay, So what else did they Okay, So more about the GPS unit though. One of the mounting knobs for the GPS unit was found jammed in the bottom of lana sneaker. Are we talking just like little knob, Like the knob that I would say is the handle of the knob would be like two inches or so around that big. I think it would be more like about this size. That's kind

of excess. That's huge. That's kind of huge. Yeah, and then it has a screw coming out, and then it has a screw was stuck. Yeah, and the screw head, you know, it's a flat machine screw. It's what is jammed into the bottom of her sneaker. So she had a fight with her GPS and the back of her sneaker, which was the whole sneaker obviously is on the deck, but the back of the sneaker was also torn. I like, I just have to point out no signs of foul play. Sneaker with things in it in it back, torn, no

signs of foul play, totally normal, strange. While I admit that is strange, I don't know that it's actually a sign of foul play. I don't either, but I just liked the like. I guess the statement, the idea that a torn sneaker is definitely not a sign of foul play. The sneaker weeks ago. You never know, they're her favorite sneakers, gonna wear them out. I have to apologize to our listeners for having just said, like the like, it's been

a long day. Well, let's talk about the like the like rope that was on the back of the boat, because there was a twenty foot rope drifting behind the boat, tied to the boat. What is that like six meters six ms? Yeah, it was trailing behind the boat. When the captain of the boat of the ship that spotted Sees Life approached the boat, he said he saw two

rubber blue rubber bumpers tied to that rope. And rubber bumpers, if you're not familiar with it, they're kind of round rubbery cylinder guys that you would stick between the boat and a dog. Yeah, an the answer these two tongues that stick out, and when the coast guard showed up, there was no bumpers. There was no blue bumpers tied to that rope. And I'm sorry, did we say what time that ship found the boat. He saw sometime in the morning, and the coast guard got to it sometime

that morning. It's never specified exactly, but if we don't even know pre dawn dawn, I would say before noon. I believe that, yes, it was daylight when they because they found the boat. And I think that's one of the reasons that the running lights not being on is noted because it had obviously been out there all night long. So if somebody had been on it at night, you would believe they would normally turn on the running lights.

But that wasn't the case. The as I think, as we talked about a little bit before, there's a swim ladder on this boat. The swim ladder was up, so it wasn't dropped into the water. In the trash can, there was an empty bottle of vodka. It was a fifth of vodka. They've been out there for how many days? This was their second day? Okay, yep, And oh look at this, all of their personal effects and their money is accounted for, no personal belongings appeared to be missing. Well,

now here's the deal. Then they say they found their their wallets and all that stuff, like you know, on the boat. They say they found their clothes on the boat where they closed below decks or are they up in the cockpit or the well of the boat. The images that I saw it gives me the impression that there was some stuff strewn around. But this is above deck. But it was like, you know, a pair of shorts and a towel or something. And I'm working for memory here.

I don't remember exactly what it was. But and I've never really seen photos of below decks. I mean, I had to go looking for similar boats to get an idea of what it looked in the bow. So I don't know. I don't know what was where. Yeah, I've seen the cats that say their clothes were found on board.

I just don't wonder if it like, you know, in disarray or in their well, or didn't appear that they stripped naked before jumping into the water and dropped their clothes right there in the well, or were they're just closed stash below decks. I mean, I don't know I don't. I can't say I haven't seen anything that that says it specifically. Like I said, I've only seen a few photos of of the well of the boat when it was found. I haven't seen anything in the in the

actual cabin area. UM. So obviously, of course they find this boat, the people that are supposed to be on the boat are not on the boat, so a huge search goes on. The coast guards got ships running around, they've got helicopters. The Canadian Coast Guard is doing the same thing. Her family. Lawa's family comes to the area. When they get her boat back from the coast Guard, they're using it to go around and try and find her. Thousands of square miles is this area that they're covering.

Keep in mind the lake itself is like twenty three thousand square miles. It's a huge freaking lake. I got an idea, let's use a potential crime scene as a means to search for people. It was released, they they could pick it up, and they did. Yeah. I don't know how long they had in custody though that I mean, it must have been for a while, right, They didn't just turn around and turn it over to the I

honestly don't know how long it was in custom. I mean, all I know is that the family talks about the fact that they took her boat out and they used her boat, and there's some issues that are brought up later on that they're like, we totally kept using this boat and nobody suffered any ill effects of the No.

I like it better if the family goes out in the boat and they disappear, and then you know, and then more family comes out and they disappear, and yeah, the boat the boats doing it, I like that better. Can we just put that in there? No? Is it it's the carry of boats? Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah.

It basically just like flips over, you know, and then writes itself, motors itself baft to the dock, ties itself up in that nice crappy nineteen seventies or nineteen eighties still photography where a rope wraps itself around something as it ties itself. Yeah, we'll totally set this up, guys. So we're gonna move forward in time to the August, which is two weeks later. Two women spot what they believe is a body on the rock shoal of Huron Bang and the authorities confer, come out and take the

body away, and indeed confirmed that it is launa. The strange thing about the condition of her body is that she is completely naked, short of wearing her watch, a ring, and her necklace. Say that strange about that? Well? I say that strange because she her family knew that she never swam with her jewelry on, which I totally get. She always used to put it on her watch band and then attach her watch band to the wheel of

the boat, right, which is really smart. Yes. The other reason is that the watch itself was a watch that somebody had given her years ago, and it was kind of a prize possession. She had recently had it cleaned and tuned, so to just jump into the water with it and blatantly knowingly destroy it was unlike her. Um. The other thing that the thing, Yes, it would have to be an extreme situation. She wouldn't just casually hop in for a swim with it on, especially the conditions

what they are and the water temperature. Yeah. Um, it's it's very apparent that she was naked when she was in the water. It's not as if she went in her clothes came off of her. And that's because there were no rub marks or wear marks from the clothing, and she didn't even have any no underwear, no nothing, so it would be apparent, and there wasn't enough time for those things to have broken enough up enough forgotten

water logged enough to come off on their own. Now, the only the only thing I could think of is that if she went in and then took her clothes up, because obviously swimming with clothes wet clothes is very very hard. Well, we're not in theories yet, but I will rebuke that with who the hell bothers to take off their underwear when they're taking off their heavy jeans and shirt, You don't worry about your underwear. Those are kind of inconsequential.

I would believe counterpoint, she wasn't wearing any that's possible, but on a cold, blustery day, I don't know that that's the case. But we're not in theories yet, so we're gonna sideline that for a few minutes. Um So a little bit uh more about the body, it appears that there were no marks or bruises of obvious trauma that would have caused her to die. Sorry, I had one question, uh so do we know what time did the watch stop? That it's not said we don't know.

It's a great question. I've never seen what the time stamp was. That that is an excellent point. And it's kind of like an indictment of American journalism that these frigging reporters who have massively more resources but watch the watch could potentially be water resistant, so then they'd have to do the math, and you know, reporters don't like math.

It's it's kind of kryptonite. I just feel like you can say the watch stopped at this time and it still gives you a freely understand and you know what, the police may not have ever released that information. Possibly that's completely plausible too. But the body, like I said, there's no marks to the outward sign of obvious trauma. The medical examer does rule that she did drown that

was the cause of death. The only other thing that they call out is that there was almost no alcohol in her system at all, which means it's probably from the drinks that she a few drinks she'd had the night before, but it wasn't as if she had been boozing it up on the eleventh. But she prior to her. But she also had elevated levels of carbon monoxide in her system, which we'll talk about. So I guess really where we're at now is there's a couple of things.

So Chuck's body has never been found. Chuck has never been found. Let's just be clear, Yes, Chuck has never been found. Mystery is what happened on CS life that day? What happened to cause Lana ago into the water and and die? Did Chuck die that day? And if so, how and if not, where is he? Those those are our mysteries here. So let's go into theory. Let mystery. I'm tired of it already. So theory number one is

that it was an accident due to skinny dipping. Okay, this is actually one that you'll see bandied about on the internet's a lot really well, no, I actually I totally understand Initially, without doing any reading on the on the conditions and all of that, people like, well, they probably decided that it would be a good idea to just jump off the boat and go skinny dipping. And I just like, real quick run through why this is

a bad idea. I know it's railroading you a little bit but like, okay, in the middle of a storm, it's cold, it's the middle of the night. She didn't have any in the middle of the night, but it was the daytime whatever. It didn't have any alcohol in her system, so she was making good decisions. Also the watch,

also the necklace, also the ring. No, yeah, the only thing that I'll add to that is that the air temperature was in the mid to loose sixties and the water was sixty degree although, on the other hand, which is not something that would incline me as a man to jump into the especially do not like to climb into cold water naked and come back out again. Honest with you, guys, I have at one point. Sorry if this is over sharing, it's very drunkenly gone skinny tomping

on the Oregon coast in the middle of winter. So it's colder, the water's colder. But I was so drunk I didn't even feel it right, But you have to be you have to be super drunk. I think that's a good idea. Lana had almost no booze in or so that doesn't work. And to watch, Yeah, people really easily I understand why this is an easy go too thin but yeah, I just I don't think that that's

that's gonna work. I mean, people also say, well, oh, well, they must have been doing that, and that's why there was a line off the boat, because that's how they were making sure the boat didn't get away from him. But I've been I've jumped off a boat. I got convinced once to jump off of an unmoored boat, and that thing, in almost no winds and on a flat lake, started to move on its own really quickly. Also, you don't put your boat in idle, you turn it off.

And also you probably drop an anchor. Yeah, makes sense. So there's a whole bunch of holes with this difference. Swimming you need the ladder down, you don't need the ladder to get off of the boat. That's an important part of the skinny dipping theory. But this is actually suddenly I've suddenly had a flash of realization that we've just solved the Mary Celeste. Yes, obviously, Well, now that we've changed stories, let's go to our next theory on

the Mary Celeste. Yeah, so the next theory is that Chuck pushed her overboard and ran away with the circus, or actually probably they were having some domestic issues that turned into a domestic dispute. Before we go too deep in this theory, I'm sorry, maybe you're going to talk about this in the theory. Do we know what the message that Lana left for her male friend, so we know that most of it. Yes, we will, we'll talk

about a little bit. Okay. So this one also is popular, and that's because it's got some anecdotal evidence to support it to sort of lay the theory out. The theory out is that Chuck peeved off at Laa for some reason, like say, maybe getting ready to break up with him, Uh, decides that he's had enough, and he shoves her overboard,

and then he drives the boat somewhere and runs away. Well, okay, I gotta say, though, you know, if I were dating somebody and I was planning on breaking up with her, probably yeah, I probably wouldn't be wanting to have have this long vacation with them. I mean, at this point, I'm done with them. So people make a lot of strange decisions when they're in relationships. We can all look back and say, I was really pretty done with that, But why did we do that thing? Or why did

they like this? Stuff happens logically after the fact. It's easy to say I should never have done that, But at the time your people rationalize and convince themselves to

do a lot of funny things. I don't know, it's pretty easy to say, I'm going to break up with this guy on a boat in the middle of a lake, like that's a bad decision, no matter what was I'm sure she didn't plan on breaking up your boat, no, But I mean, if you're about to do it, you're not going to go into a secluded, dangerous situation with him, probably, So let's talk about Let's talk about though I know what you're talking, I know where you guys are heading

with this, and let's give some of the preamble first before we get too much into that. So let's talk about Devin Um. I actually realized I've got the contents of the call, or the general information about the call right here. So the call that was made to the male friend was a man that Chuck was evidently very jealous of, and she had told people that she was a cousin of hers was having a wedding that that summer, and she was going to go and her intention was

to this other man and not Chuck. Now, did this other man live in Detroit? He was in the area, I believe, I mean, Chuck evidently knew him because Chuck was jealous of him. So I've got to believe that he operated in the same circles. He's not like he's a friend that lived on the West coast or something or far far away. Certainly check it would be unhappy about that. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is why, so why was she gonna get

rid of him? Well, Chuck's behavior, there were times where he have exhibited some really bad behavior. Chuck was kind of a bad drunk from what I heard. Yeah, that's exactly so. He Remember I said he came from a

family of lawyers. There is speculation that he should have been invited to practice at his father's firm, but instead he wasn't because apparently, according to some people, he had a tendency to take a two martini lunch that turned into a three martini lunch that then stretched into the wee hours of the morning, and he'd never come back to the office. So he had a habit of drinking too much. And these people who are saying this, are they reputable sources. They sound like they're actually a lot

of family. There are people who knew them. That sounds like it's from Laana's family. But I can't substantiate that because it's always just and this happened, and this is said, it's it's insinuated. But the sources never cited. But he did have a tendency to turn into a total d bag when he had a bunch of booze in him. That happened to some people. It's actually a lot of people, Yeah, it really does. There are at least three times that people have pointed out where Chuck got himself kicked out

of bars because he was supposedly too drunk. But that that doesn't mean he was being aggressive. That means he was cut off and and told. But there's also a time where he supposedly got into a fight with Laura to the point that people who were there decided that it was so bad they had to get in between the couple. To be honest, yelling and name calling and pointing and being just a super saucy drunk does not mean that somebody's inclined to do harm to another person

while sober or drunk. I mean I'm not defending that behavior, but it doesn't mean that it's not an A equals B scenario. But you know, she also said to her friends, she said that, listen, if anything ever happens to me, look at my boyfriend. Well he, if anything ever happens to the police will look at your boyfriend. They will. I mean, I've seen pictures of them. Um, she is super attractive. He is not unattractive, of but I can see why he would think maybe she was a bit

out of his league and get jealous, but quickly I'm sure. Yeah, people have said that he was he had, he had totally he was out of his league with her. Yeah. Well, and you know, for as someone who is also kind of just outgoing and flirty by nature. Um, you know I've been yeah, Steve, as Steve, I'm talking as Steve right now. I've been in situations where, you know, I've

definitely dated people who felt like that was unacceptable. And you know, you go out to the bar, you have a couple of drinks, you just engage with people the way you engage with people, and they perceived that as being really flirty and inappropriate, and you get in a fight and then you know things get heated, and I mean I can, but I can also see that if the friends were drunk, they might perceive that as a

very much more serious situation than it actually was. If everybody, if everybody involved is at the bar, that means alcohol is involved, which means that your memory cannot be totally trusted, and your impressions or perceptions of the situation may be skewed. Yeah, I mean, I get overly protective of my friends when I get a little drunk, and if they're getting in a little kind of you know, snippy spat with there see another, I am immediately like, oh my god, stop

abusing her. That's the worst, right, So I can understand all her friends when I perceived that, even if it wasn't necessarily true, but also it could have been true. I got around this by just not having friends who are nasty drunks. Yeah, that is an easy way. That isn't totally an easy way to solve it. But the other thing is that what we don't know is so that that comment of the fact that she said, well, if anything ever happens to me, look at my boyfriend.

We have no idea if she was being serious or sarcastic. Well, do we have any idea if anybody even actually said that. She supposedly said that to a friend, and that friend apparently has taken it to be serious after the fact, who was his friend? And you know when as she said, and she even talking about this boyfriend, I mean, look at me, hands in the air, look on my face, like I I have no idea who made this statement. Again, these are things that are bandied about. Got to bring

them all up. Whether I I hold it to be correct or not, I don't know. Um, There's there's some other things that I really I have a lot of hesitation with. And that's some other witnesses. And these are late breaking witnesses and that came out like long after R Yes, So there's there's two witnesses that we're gonna

talk about here. There is one. Uh, This gentleman came forward like nine months or ten months after Lana and Chuck disappeared, and it is he said that he was driving down the street and he was going by a local casino and he saw a man and a woman having a fight and the man was waving his arms around, looked like he was hitting the woman and trying to shove in the car, and then she ran away and got in another car and took off, and he followed

that car until at some point he stopped following that car. And he was pretty sure that that was Chuck. He was positive, actually, he says he's positive it was them. It was Chuck. But it was nine months later, and it happened a month before they different period, So we're talking ten months. And if you listen to this guy, I'm sorry, I don't buy him. He We've seen too many people come forward after the fact in stories like this to get the media attention that I really really

am hesitant to buy his story. You know. I mean, maybe maybe Lana was in denial about the terrible situation that her relationship had turned into with Chuck's drinking. I don't know that people do that. It happens. But you know what, this guy, I can't add any credibility to him.

He's not the only one who came forward though. There are two ladies who came forward again eight nine months later, after a story aired on the TV saying that they were in hur On Bay on the eleventh and that they saw a boat drifting close to the rocks and They also saw another boat speeding out of the bay, but they couldn't see who or how many people were on it, but they were pretty sure that it was sees life on here on bay is important to them

because that is where Lata's body was found. The problem is, the currents drift from north to south. So how in the hell did the boat get from the bay all the way to eleven miles northeast of Mackinaw Island if nobody was on it? Well, and also how is it that the boat sort of drifted in close to the rocks and then reversed its course on on its own and drifted away again. Yeah, I mean, you know if it's stripped in towards the rocks, and and as far

as the boat speeding away, well, it's water. It's a lake. You're gonna see boat speeding around exactly. People that are yeah, it happens. It's crazy, but it happened. I've seen it with my own eyes, So let's uh. So we talked about a little bit, the fact that there is the phone call and so people were continuous. So we've talked about these late breaking witnesses. We're still in the theory that the Chuck shoved here overboard on purpose. Yeah, I

mean I could totally see this. If he's insecure and a little jealous, he might be like, once she's not around, she's in the head picking up her phone, you know, and having a look at you know who she's calling. Yeah. Um, so you know, it's possible that, you know, he they have a he overhears part of her conversation and then he gets angry and he shoves her overboard. It's possible he didn't know that he wasn't going to a wedding

with her and just suddenly found out and lost his mind. Well, uh, I'm guessing that he didn't even know there was a wedding taking place. I Yeah, I gotta be honest with you. I would not be super stoked if I found out that my boyfriend was taking another girl to a wedding. Yeah, I was, actually, is this this is bad on my part? I was. I was dating a woman and she broke up with me, specifically because I went to a wedding without her. I would probably break up with Yeah. Yeah, okay,

yeah that's okay. Can you go with someone else? Well now, okay, then that's fine. Yeah, I had my reasons for not wanting to take her with and I just never should have missed. You didn't replace her. I didn't replace her. That's not bad. Take a different date. Yeah, that that that was that wass off. But yeah, so you can see how he would be upset. We can see how

he would shove her into the water. It does a little bit explain possibly why she had carbononoxide in her system if she goes into the water, because she would be trying to get on the boat where she's at the back of the boat where the swim deck is, which is also where the exhaust of the boat is. You can see why she would be breathing that in.

But it still doesn't explain to me. And I know that we're gonna have this conversation again, but it still doesn't explain to me why she was buck naked, also why the back of her tennis shoes were and why the GPS was the amount of the GPS was in her shoe. I mean that that, you know, because if they're having a fight of that magnitude, there are signs of foul play on the boat, Yes, there there would be, and if there aren't, if it's intentional, he couldn't throw

the sneakers overboard. You don't leave that stuff around if you like just accidentally push your girlfriend overboard and she's dead. You talked that overboard too, and pull the knob out and put it back in the GPS problem and then he tossed the sneaker overboard, right, Yeah, so that's my problem with that. Yeah. Well, and there's i mean people point to for this theory. People say, well, obviously Chuck was drunk that day because there's an empty vodka bottle

in the trash can. She doesn't probably have probably consumed the night before or at some point in the past. It felt like she's got a maid service that comes on to her boat and takes the trash away for Yeah, I mean, who knows how long it's been it. It could have you know, it could have been a half a half a theft and they polished it off the night before. Could be even less. Yeah, a couple of shots. Yeah,

you have no idea that she just had on the boat. Yeah, so you could have finished it like months ago and you're just chilling there. It had been there for a long time. You you just don't know. I would think what these two apparently they both like to drink. You think they'd be a substantial stock of booze on board. Well, I don't think there was a lot of room for that substantial stock of booze. Joe. There was a pretty

tight Harners in the bottle of that boat. And in addition to that, it's not as though they were like staying overnight really that much on the boat, right. They they stopped and they got dinner and maybe had a couple of drinks, and then got back on and stayed the night. She seemed to be trying to be responsible and stay with family the next day. Yeah, they probably came back to the boat, had a shot and you know,

wants to sleep, you know. But yeah, it's hard to say. So. Um, I mean, just the problems with the late breaking witness theories or the witness statements, Excuse me, I have a lot of issue with that. And then I mean this, this theory continues on that the chuck must have turned off the GPS and then drove the boat somewhere else. Evidently he must have drove it north before he got off.

If the ladies, the ladies you spotted the boat and Lake Uron are to be believed then, or maybe even not that, but somehow he must have taken it north and then that's why the boat drifted to where it is. People say this because his body hasn't been found, but it turns out bodies not showing up after they go into the water in that lake are not uncommon things. It's deep, it's a big lake, it's big, it's cold water. He's a he was not a small guy. He probably

weighed more than sheeted. And it's post well that he sank float. It's a matter of yeah, it's a matter of his body density. And I can't tell totally. He looked, doesn't look like he doesn't look like a skinny guy, you know. So he may not have been as buoyant as her. Some people are more buoyant than He could have been wearing clothes. He could have had weights on his feet because he was working out. It could have

been wearing concrete like concrete shoes anyway. But here's the other thing, is that he might have washed up on shore too, somewhere. But here's the deal. This after bodies have been in the water for a while, it's kind of even hard to recognize him well. But but the you know. That's a good point, is that bodies do wash up, and bodies have washed up. There was a body that washed up in two thousand and eight that they thought might have been him, but it turned out

that it wasn't. They also thought that it could have been three or four other people who had disappeared in the lake. It turned out it was somebody who had disappeared a year prior. It's a big freaking lake. He's like, there's a lot of coastline. It could have washed up and been carried away by animals before anybody start, yeah, or just got sank to the bottom and the sea

life had their way with it. It's not completely crazy that the body quote unquote disappears and there aren't there like little shoals and islands and things like that all over the lake too. I mean, maybe he just washed up there and and it just broke down and yeah, and nature took its course. It could have been he actually swammed one of those islands. He's living there now, still living. Yeah. Okay, so you're right, Okay, let's keep going well, because there's some stuff we did not address

there that I want to address. But I know we're gonna do that a little bit more here. Um, So we're gonna move on to this theory, which is it was an accident, but it was Chuck's fault because he was drunk. Okay, this is very similar to that. You're gonna find this in a couple of them. There's a lot of things that bleed through. Again, this is saying he drank all the vodka that day, he was super sauce, and he didn't know her over overboard intentionally, but somehow

accidentally she went over. He then freaks out and starts throwing the p f D s at her, the life jackets at her to try to get it to her. He he throws a line to her, and then when he can't do get her that way, he decides to just go ahead and jump in himself to try and rescue her and bring her back to the boat. They Yeah, it's entirely possible, except I can't imagine she went in and just immediately immediately started stripping. I can't either. Yeah,

I mean that's the problem I have with this. But you know, otherwise it's pretty solid. But I can see that The problem is is he must have been really sauced or just a really stupid person when he doesn't realize that what he can do is put the boat in neutral and which it was, Yeah, and put it in neutral and actually maybe even turn it around and like head it back towards her a little bit, you know, I mean, you know, he was drunk. There's no reason

to judgment. Well, but maybe okay, let's let's keep this going with this. If indeed he is sauced, his judgment is highly impaired and that logical thought may not occur. If he's not sauced, well, that's a completely different story. Can we talk about the carbon monoxide? Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Um, she did have carbon monoxide in her bloodstream. Uh it is. I'm gonna apologize because there's been a science here and

I really struggled with this. She had a saturation in her blood, which is where it's a little tricky because there's a certain amount of time that you have to

inhale carbon monoxide or certain concentrations to reach that. So there's there's different ways that it could have happened, but the general thinking is that to get to percent saturation, she must have been in the exhaust stream of the boat, which means she was hanging around at the swim deck for fifteen to twenty minut it's at which point she would have inhaled enough that caused dizziness and nausea, at which point would mean that she starts to have some

issues with maintaining keeping her head above water, and that would have been what caused her to drown. And we said, the swim deck is like a little it's there's a little perch there right the back of the is about eight or twelve inches above the water line. But it's a little there. I don't know this is big enough thing that actually like sit on or anything, but it's you can, but it's but it's hard. It's it's hard thing when you're when you're tired to pull yourself up

twelve inches out of the water. I mean, I don't know if you've ever tried. I mean, that's not easy to do. But I was just thinking, I mean, she was a tan girl. You know, maybe she thought I'm just gonna sun myself here. But it doesn't sound like it was. The weather doesn't make sense for that into that trap. You're right, but you know, it's it's funny, is that the carbon Relax said. I was reading and there's this thing I can't I believe people do this

called teak surfing. Have you heard of that have done it? You've done it, teak surfing as in the wood teak because the boats used to be managed to tea. You would hang onto the tea the back of the boat or the side of the boat, and you would either body surf or we're surf on your bare feet, which knowing what a danger is because you're in the exhaustream with the boat is insane to me. People do People do a lot of stupid stuff. I doubt that she would.

I don't, especially not in this situation and naked and with all her jewelry. On the other Yeah, And the other thing that I will point out is we you know, having carbon monoxide in your blood stream is not necessarily this immediate bad thing. Smokers have somewhere between five to nine percent in their bloodstream most times, so it's not as if it's an instant death sentence. I don't think, I mean, I don't think that the cause of death

is carbon monoxide poison. The reason for drowning may have been carbon MONOXI her just yeah, yeah, I was trying to think of the word is disorientation, thank you, Joe. Yeah, it's it's but it doesn't mean that as soon as you read that stuff in you're instantly disoriented and drunk on it. No, I mean there's there's carbon monoxide. If you walk downtown, you know you're gonna be inhaling at

least a bit of that. So yeah, next to island traffic, what what at what level do you actually like, you know, die, blood saturation is where you die. That's and that's that's instant death. And for my um just to have to say, one of my favorite stories about the actual dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning is a Reddit post. It's one of the best of If you just best of carbon monoxide poisoning,

I'm sure it'll come up. This guy posted on legal Advice because he thought his uh landlord was breaking into his apartment leaving him sticky notes, and it turned out that he was so poisoned with carbon monoxide that he was forgetting that he was writing himself sticky notes and thought that it was his landlord. You should go read the story. But like this can literally happen to people, so that explains a lot to check the carbon monoxide and yeah, but so, I mean, it can be that

serious without causing any other kind of side effects. It was just memory loss for this guy. But it doesn't sound like this was prolonged exposure. It was a cute exposure. And again, the reason I brought up earlier the fact that her family had used the boat after the fact is that some people will say, well, obviously there must have been a league and the carbon monoxide was spilling

into the cabin somewhere. But if her family is using the boat, then somebody else should have experienced the shown symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. A counterpoint, where was her family sleeping in the cabin, because I guess it's possible that it was leaking in, but they weren't spending enough time in the actual cabin, but that she and Chuck were sleeping in didn't have the engine on. And the other problem is that they slept at a dock and

then they left and they were traveling. They would have had she was making phone calls in the cabin, Okay, Colonel Mustard, I mean, with the rent more time in the cabin than other people, so she could have been exposed to it more. I understand it's it's grasping. It really is grasping because the engine is at the rear of the boat. That's the problem with with this. But um, the other thing that we'll talk about right now is the GPS snob. So, like we said, that knob is

about an inch or two around. It's the kind of thing that when it comes unscrew and it falls to the ground, it's going to fall with the shaft pointing up, which as soon as you step on and it's going to bury itself into your shoe if they're there. Oh yeah. But if it's a tennis shoe, it's not like it's gonna jam your foot and you're gonna throw it that you've stepped on it, you're gonna know, which could explain why she tore out of it. Because she was walking

and she stepped on it and she twists. You could see how that would cause her tennis shoe to tear in the motion. It's possible. I'm not saying it's the right answer, but it's possible. Are we talking. I'm sorry, we're talking tennis shoes like you're wearing right now. Are we talking? Yeah? Okay, I mean it feels like it would take a lot to tear the back out of those tennis shoes. But you would think so, But I've had tennis shoes tear and it's amazing. You know, it's

like tearing a phone book. You see the guy do, It's like it's never gonna holy crap. Once it starts, you just go. That could have been worn to Yeah, because they weren't brand new shoes. Yeah. So let's uh, let's talk a little bit more though about the GPS unit because there's some things about it that we haven't covered. You remember we talked about the data points. You were asking about what the heck the deal was with those. So here's the the numbers. So we actually have some

numbers here. The GPS unit on her boat was able to track two thousand and data points or location points that you would input and say, show me this thing or that it was tracking. It would log to do it automatically, right right, So whatever it's uh, we'll get in some details in a sec. There were one thousand, eight hundred eighty five of that possible two thousand data

points logged. And like I said, there's a gap between sometime in the afternoon on the eleventh and one thirty am in the morning of the twelve, which where there's nothing missing, and people point to this one hundred and fifteen missing location or data points yes as indicating that there's something going on in that time lag. People will actually say, well, obviously somebody went in there and they deleted that stuff so that you didn't know where the

boat was, which is a little hinky to me. That seems silly. And I say that because thanks to some forums of people who are boat enthusiasts I and they also happened to pick up this particular story, I got a bunch of information, which is it's believed that her boat was probably using a garment one thirty And if you go to look up a garment one now be aware that the garment still uses the name garment one.

It's completely different than it used to be. And it was one of those things that would come standard on the boat or come with the boat. This I believe this was an aftermarket after the fact. Addition, it was not if the if the knob had come loose, It's not something that would be flush mounted into the dash of the boat. It's something that was mounted on after the fact on kind of a swivel mount. That's the kind of technology you really don't want to buy that's

installed in vote because this changed it so fast. Yeah yeah, no, I mean my car's GPS is my cars a year old and the GPS system I used the one on my phone because it's better than what was in a brand new car. So yeah, the same, same exact theory. But these, uh, these folks on this forum helped me figure out that. Like I said, they think it's a one thirty and that particular unit, or actually a lot of units, but this one in particular had three modes.

It had OFF, which means it didn't track any data points. It had what was called called phil, which means it tracked until it filled up and then it stopped tracking any data points. Or it had wrapped, which was it tracked up until it reached almost capacity, at which point it deleted the oldest data points to have space to keep recording on top of its overwriting the data. What we don't know, and I want to point this out, is I doubt that it was over writing them one

at a time. Most likely what it did is it wipe blocks of memory out, So let's just say it's block it wipes out two hundred of the oldest data points and then the thing keeps going so it hits capacity, wipes two hundred and then keeps logging. Well, that would explain why it's this random number of a hundred and fifteen, because it hasn't reached that minimum before it wipes another two hundred. Well, I don't know what the minnow number wipe is. I'm making two hundred up. It's unred. But

here's the deal. As anybody actually published the track that was stored on the GPS, the police police have it, but you know it's from what I've gathered, it's follows the route that they were heading to Mackinaw Island, and then at some point in there it's stopped, and then it began again when the boat was drifting relatively where it was found by the coast guard. But here's that's

a little suspicious. Well if that's the case, though, then I mean if it if it's tracked their entire journey with just a small interruption in the middle, with a six or twelve hour gap. But so I guess my question is is was it battery powered or was it plugged? It was dependent on the power of the ship. The boat was, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the boat

was on idle the entire time. Right, So if they turned the boat off and it's not receiving power, if it doesn't have a battery pack, no, no, it would. It would be wired into the boat system. I mean, you've been on a boat. You turn the engine off, you still have electricity until the battery drains. But once the battery drains, you can't turn the boat back on.

But so, I mean, what's to say there wasn't an electrical problem for a minute during the I Actually I'm not going to disagree with that, because here's the thing Lana had had. I don't know what it was, but she had had some work done to her GPS unit, which gives me the indication, uh that it makes total sense that one of the knobs would have come loose in two days of constantly driving over not smooth water. That thing's gonna unscrew itself. Okay, now it's rattling along

on only one screw holding it in place. I can see how the power connection could come loose or if it's using I believe it hadn't built in antenna. But let's just presume that maybe it had an external antenna. The antenna could have come disconnected a little bit, which if it can't get any data, it can't log anything. Then let's move forward in time to now the season rougher. The thing is bouncing around, the connection could have rattled

good enough for it to turn back on. I am making this is pure conjecture, but I'm just looking at well, okay, well somebody worked on it. It's only got one knob on it. I don't know if you've ever had anything that connects in two points and one of them comes loose. Things really start riding around really fast, and plugs they come loose, Well, yeah they did. Was there any evidence that it maybe have been duct taped into place or anything like that? Again, nobody ever said, And the GPS

unit was all duct tape on the back side. They use hot glue all over that mother. Nobody ever said that. That's what I do. Maybe maybe some nails nailed the cable in place. I guess, yeah, I just I don't find the missing data points nearly as suspicious as other people do, just based on the conditions of the boat and everything that it went through through that, Yeah, I mean, I do think that, you know, it's entirely possible it

you know, pirates actually, but I'm talking pirates. I'm not talking guys and ships like taking them over, but guys that basically uh board the boat at some place like there are a lot the last place they gassed the boat up and borrowing the boat for something because they were close to Canada. You might not know this or not, but there's a very profitable business smuggling cigarettes across the Canadian border. So I mean, maybe are you being serious.

I'm seriously, they could have taken them, murder them, not just cigarettes. Even though it seems like a hell of a thing to do to smuggle cigarettes, to to to throw two people overboard. It does. But but I mean that's that's just one thing. I mean, the cigarettes is less likely. But suppose this. It's by the way, we're now in the pirate theory. For anybody who hasn't picked that up. We just moved right into the pirates is the pirate theory. But it wasn't. I'm thinking more like

for smuggling people. If you want to boat and you want to get from you want to get some people into the US from Canada, let's stay there. You know some al Quaeda types, you know, who want to come into the country and they don't really feel like walking over the mountains. They can't go to a checkpoint, so you murder a couple of people, take their boat, go to Canada, which is not at all far away, pick up your guys, bring them back to the US, drop

them off, and then ditch the boat. You know, that's it, Okay.

So I have a number of problems with that, which is, where did they bump into Chuck and Lana to then decide that they were they were great marks for this situation, I mean, the only point that they could have done that, and that this actually falls a little bit in line with the lead investigators theory, which the lead investigators theories that they met somebody at presqu Isle who was not a good person, a nefarious kind of guy, who left on their own boat and followed them and then did

something you know, made her strip and then walk the plank or whatever whatever. Whatever. I mean that that is sort of in line with it. But I know you're thinking about the phone calls and the phone calls. The phone calls, let's just say, you know what, dismissed the phone calls. The phone calls happened before this person or Joe's Canadian pirates show up, and so all of that

happens after the fact. But for what you're talking about, if you were gonna leave a dock in Canada and go to a dock in the States, it's it's not like there's a bajillion customs points. I mean, there's a million places in a million boats you could do with. It just seems out amazing these guys fell into a terrorist trap. I also like the idea of Canadian pirates because they're just like, oh, hey, sorry to bother you, man. Uh, we're gonna need your boat, man. Yeah. And they're like, no,

you can't have it. Oh sorry, man, we gotta we were gonna need your vote. Hey, sorry man, here's your some Tim Horton's man, I'm sorry twice. Even Canadians can recognize that they are not good pirates. They know it's like Portlanders aren't good pirates, were too weird, like not, we're just too nice. Yeah, we wouldn't do that, Okay, So anyway, No, I think that's a stretch. I agree. I think I do think the fact that she is naked,

but wearing her jewelry and her watch. It makes me suspect that perhaps somebody of an affarious nature did somehow board their bows. And I guess it doesn't because we're they didn't sleep. They were spending the night, right, they had dinner and they left right, so they were they were on the lake at night, So it's not so weird to me. They disappeared in the daytime, did they? Yes,

because it was two o'clock in the afternoon. Is the phone calls and they showed up at the dock to get on presque Ill to get gas at twelve thirty in the afternoon, right, But the unaccounted time is until when the next morning? So we have overnight? Correct? So they But why would they have not called anybody or use the radio if they the boat died? Well, maybe the boat didn't. I maybe they were fined for a while.

I mean it took a nap. I don't know. I mean, you're you're you're saying that they moored up somewhere and then ended up sleeping that overnight, even though they had told everybody they were going to be there in two hours. Did they find her cell phone? I didn't have a charge I mean, frank questions I can't answer. No, I think they did find yourself, and I think it was on the boat. Well, did I have a charge? You know, probably by the time they found it, and might still.

But I mean, so that's part of it, right, is maybe you think, Okay, we ran into a little trouble. We're just going to you know what, the storm. It's not good. We don't want to try and doc Or's just going to spend the night. Was very close with her family, so it is very out of character for her to have called her family and said I'll be there in two or three hours and then just not show and not contacted. But if her phone was dead,

she had no way to contact them. It's not I mean, I've been a think called a charge here, and I'm sure I don't know. Listen, I mean things can go bad quick on the sea. Maybe they decided to have a quickie, okay. I mean she's on her boat with her boyfriend. It's not so weird to me that she's naked. No, No, that I have a theory about why she's naked, but we're not there, okay, But it does to me mean something like the some ne'er dwell came on the ship

and stripped her. I agree. I also agree with that. It doesn't mean that to me. So we've we've now addressed we've addressed the pirate theory. We've addressed the lead investigators theory that something happened somebody followed them from from presqu isle Um. The other thing that I want to talk about is that this is a relatively similar to

the Chucks and drunken fool and knocks her overboard. Is that it's believed that she may have he may have gone over because he was a bumbling fool, not drunk, but a classy guy and goes over and as she you know, she's throwing the p f d s at him and she can't get him to get him and she's thrown. So she throws the rope to him and

he gets to the boat. Now why she doesn't drop the swim ladder, I don't know, but she doesn't, and instead reaches down to give him a hand, and as she's trying to pull him onto the boat, he inadvertently pulls her over. I mean, or it's the other way around. It's he does all this while she's in the water. Or I mean, he goes over she grow some p FDS in it's not working. She goes, I'm a strong swimmer. I can save him, and she jumps in after him.

A strong swimmer too. Maybe he's floundering. I mean, you can be a strong swimmer and have one thing go wrong. It can happen. The thing that her family always points to to say that this can't be the case is again, voter safety had been drilled into her for so long, and voter safety says, no matter how bad it is, the pilot doesn't get off the frigging boat, because as soon as you get off the boat, the boat is gone. Yeah,

right now, voter safety is very important. But Steve, look me in the eye and tell me that if your wife was floundering overboard and the only option you thought to save her was to jump in after her, you'd be like, on the pilot, I gotta stay on the boat. Yeah, I got life insurance, a life insurance. I just mean, you know, they're our reports, they're happy, they're in love, they've been together for a couple of years. I would jump in after my boyfriend, and I know about her safety. Well. Now,

the thing about it is is that number one. There was no there were no sypes of trauma. As I say, if she fell overboard, there were no knocks on the head or in my theory, he fell o. I can see that. Okay, so he fell overboard, he's drowning, but she still knows enough to to stop the boat and maybe head back towards him. Yeah. But but I see what you're talking about. The problem I have with this is that I guess she should She could have panicked and just dove overboard to rescue him. But you would

think she would have put the ladder down. Yeah, I mean that's not that's exactly you would think. But again, I mean she says this all the time. That's like that's thinking rationally. Well, yeah, she's a chick. I know, the person that you love, the person that you love, you're watching them drown. You're watching that person die. Yeah,

what are you going to do? Yeah? Are you going to be like bladder than you have a fast maneuverabal thing called the boat that you can turn around and get to him and chuck the rope at him and hook him with the rope and try and pull him up. Maybe she tried that. Maybe he was unconscious. Maybe he banged his head and he was like, you know, but still you would think that she would be rational enough to you know, I literally don't the boat around close,

you know, put the ladder down and all that. Yeah, that's that's my problem. And okay, well let's just let's just say that she does. Okay, so part of this is that one of them, let's say it's him in the water, he accidentally pulls her overboard. What I don't get is why she wouldn't kick the swim ladder over as she's reaching down to pull him off. Well, no, I mean, I mean, trying to pull him up from

the well of the boat is acidinine. Anyway, why she would kick the ladder down climb down to the swim platform is the really big boat you guys, you're like saying, it's like it's just like right there, she could just reach her to go over into this boat. This boat has a two couches. Great, howes how long are they? Okay, it's probably the size of my couch, which is like a six or seven foot couch. They're small couches with seats on the ends. And then I mean, if you

look at the schematics of these boats. Half of it is the well. So they're not big things. It's not like she has to run a hundred yards. But I'm also saying, you missed the thing and he's pulling you over. It's not like it's right there and you can. You have a couple of tries, but you you pull somebody back onto the boat at the lowest point of the boat, which is the swim platform. But so if you're in the swim platform, you knocked the ladder over, saying hey, dummy,

climb up the swim ladder. But so what if he falls overboard and he grabs onto you for stability and you both go over. You can't just kick the ladder. But I don't I don't think that he could have reached her from the water from the well. E's we're we're going down rabbit holeville. We have gone so far down the rabbit hole too, and they're so far off track. The bottom line is, is there there is There are a lot of ways that you can actually accidentally go

overboard on a boat. Yeah, and it happens all the time. Yeah there ships. So let's let's move to a completely totally different theory. I like this one. Aliens not aliens. The actual theory is that it is a angry client a K or angry defendant would be the right way to put it. A K A. The mob in Detroit, Chuck was, he was a prosecutor, and so according to some people, it's entirely possible that he was prosecuting somebody

who didn't appreciate him prosecuting them. And they figured out where Chuck was and they followed he and unfortunately, because she was in the wrong place in the time Lata out onto the water, they figured out where their boat was, they threw her over overboard after making after making and then took him to his his his torture party to him. Because we don't know what she did. She she worked for the City of Detroit doing lass. I don't believe that the City of Detroit prosecute a lot of people.

But she's not working for the prosecutor's office who she working for. She's working for the city of Detroit. I get the feeling that it was more of mundane stuff, contracts and stuff like that. Yeah, okay, you can you can argue that it's Laana's fault all you want. Devin and The point of the matter is somebody was mad at one. Got it is as I because it is hard enough to track somebody down on land, let it alone, when they out on the water speeding along in a boat.

There's a lot easier ways to find somebody. Yeah, and also like get a hold of them. Yeah, I mean this is frankly, if you know, if Chuck sees defendant number five over there on a boat going Paul over, I gotta get on your ship. He's obviously not going to be like, yeah, okay, hey, I totally recognize that dude. Yeah, he's a good guy. I tried to send him away for five years. Let's let him on board and give him a shot of vanka. Yeah, I'm sure that doesn't work.

So I really feel like that one doesn't have any any basis other than it sounds cool and convenient. The only one we have left is what I'm going to refer to as the Steve Special, and that's a rogue wave. So this theory, according to me, by the way, I made this up, because I'm combining a whole bunch of stuff that's related to the case, is I'm looking and this all comes from well, Laana is obviously had to have been naked before she went in the water. Let's

say that. I still I feel like she probably would not have been going commando. Um. I mean, at the least I would have expected she'd have some bathing suit on. But so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to explain why she's naked. And so what I'm thinking is that is, if it is crappy weather and they're hitting big Chop, she gets soaked by a wave. She whether they run through spray and she's had too much, or there's a row wave that hints her. She says, hey, Chuck,

can you take the wheel. I'm gonna go down below. I'm gonna change my clothes so I'm not freezing to death. He's like, sure, no problem, hunting whatever. Something else happens, either she hears chucking distress, or the boat's going all wonky and she realizes nobody's at the pilot or at the pilot's wheel. Of course, when an emergency happens and your neked, what do you do. You don't stop to put your clothes on. You go to take care of

the emergency. It's why your mom told you to always make sure you're wearing clean underwear in case you go to the hospital, because you never know when that's going to happen. The point is whatever then happens happens from there. But that's the only way that I can I can justify or or make sense of why she would have been naked before she went in the water, is that she had to have had a good reason to take

her clothes off in the first place. And when you're on a boat and he gets soaked and it's freaking cold, you change into dry clothes. That's that's the only thing that I can come up with, no matter how much you two try to tell me she was going commando proposal. She says, Hey, babe, I just got soaked, take the wheel. I gotta go change. He says, that's an invitation, if I ever heard right. She goes down, gets naked. He wanders down and it's like, hey, babe, what's up? And

she's like, why are you doing? Somebody tells to be driving the ship. She runs up to try to drive the ship and just overboard, and he's just drunk, and he goes overboard, and you know the rest of history. It's it's the only problem I have with that. It's an invitation if I ever heard one, it is the It is an invitation, for sure, but nothing invitation. Let's be clear about that. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah that's right.

Let's be correct here. If she had really totally gotten drenched, the first thing that would have come off was her watch because she would have wanted to drive that off. Yeah, damn complaints. So yeah, so I'm not totally sure that I buy into that or not. I still like the Christian pirates who made her strip before she walked the plank, because that makes sense. Yeah, it totally does. I still like the cigarette smuggling Canadians, but I still like the

academic connection, although even that's not quite believable. Yeah, people just screw up and fall overboard. This story is that people screw up and fall overboard all the time. But when it's two of them, one of whom is reported to have been so competent and so aware of how things should be done, it really makes me question every theory. I mean, we've gone through a lot of theories. Well, let's talking about an hour about theories. I mean, it's hard for me because that assumes that Chuck is the

one who went overboard. It is, you know, because every time we say yeah, but she really knew what she was doing, was like, yeah, but accidents happen, you know. And if she was the one who went overboard, he may have you know, been a little trained, but he obviously didn't have the indoctrination. He didn't grow up around it. And you know, again, I know I referenced this all the time every talk we every time we talk about bowl mysteries and stuff like that, you can talk about

cruise ship well a little bit. I mean that's there are a lot of mysteries that I don't really want to cover because I think that person just went overboard and their cruise ship related and people are always like, oh, no, no, that person couldn't possibly have gone overboard, and it no, No, people go overboard all the time. And I know that sounds really insensitive. I know that sounds horrible, but it is true. That's why these things on sailboats and boats

and stuff that are called safety straps. So when you're on deck, you've got this strap on you so you won't follow over Yeah. Yeah, if you do go overboard, at least you've got this rope to help yourself, like stay attached to your boat and maybe get back on board. Yeah, that was one of the That was one of the things that was always dan until we got into the moderns motor power boat age, is that sailors used to get washed over in storms all the time. I mean

that just it just happens. And I know that sounds awful, and I know that it's hard to accept because it's I guess it's easier somehow to think, well, I got abducted or like he murdered her. But the fact of the matter is people go overboard, and then people make bad decisions to get their loved ones back, and there it just happens. Yeah. There is a popular theory I hear about this one is that Check murdered her, whether actually doubtly or not, and that he actually survived and

he's actually living under a false identity somewhere. Well it is. It is a little silly about the supporting evidence is this. I'm not I'm not I'm not saying this is true because I doubt it very very much. But supporting evidence is that his family was not all that excited about going out and searching for him, unlike her family and like Bona's family, and they were a little too a little too quick to get him declared legally dead. So let me address that. And and you know, again I'm

not buying this theory. So I'll actually address the thing that happened that has drawn a little bit of internet scorn against his family is that what comes out is that somebody came to his family and said, hey, I've got a helicopter, I'll go search for yourself. I'll let you use it to go search for your son, and all you have to do is pay for the cost of fuel, which was how much, Well, helicopter fuel isn't cheap. It's more than it costs for gallan to put it

in your car. I know that. And that that is I can understand why his family is like, uh, I don't think I can pay for that. And that always, you know, people always say, well, obviously they're hiding something because they didn't they didn't want to just pour everything they had into this. Certain you know, aviation fuel is not cheap more than that. I mean, not only do

you think it's the cost of the helicopter. I mean, it's just I mean, they may just be very pragmatic or they may be very private and they just don't want to be out in the limelight. They might be afraid of heights. I mean, I don't know, but well, I'm just yeah, I get where you're going with that, But I just mean they may not want to just be out on the boat. They just want to stay together and see what happens and let the professionals to

their job. That there's that. And also I don't know exactly when this person what the chopper approached them, and if that was like a week or two after you know, I mean, do you know when it was. I think it was within a week or within the week it might have been. I mean generally speaking as somebody, coast guard was already searching in helicopters. Yeah, they were already

searching a lot. Yeah, and you know, if a week has gone by or even several days has gone by and there's no sign of them, it's like, well, kind of you know, it's a little too late. Yeah, I kind to stick a fork in it. Really hate to say it, but yeah. Yeah, So I personally, I don't I don't have a preferred theory on this one because I feel like it could be a bazillion different things.

I like to kill a rabbit theory. I think my preferred theory is, you know, as jaded and awful as it sounds, as some sort of accident, I don't think there was an intention either way. I think they both went over and it's just what happened happened. What happened happened pretty much, I think so too. What about foul play?

Let me pay? Yeah, okay, okay, Well, if you want to see any of the links that we have available for the research that we did, we will put up some of that on the website, of course, as we always do. That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. We are available in a lot of different places. You can of course stream or download from the website itself. We're on iTunes, so if you use iTunes, do take the time to subscribe, leave us a rating and review

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the show, you can do that in two forms. You can go and use PayPal to make a one time donation, or if you want to make a ongoing contribution, you can do that via Patreon. Patreon is a reoccurring basis. It's based on every episode you say how much you wanted to give per and every time we put an episode, that's what you're gonna get charged for. And by the way, if we throw up a short or something like that, we don't. Oh no, not everything is. You know, we

put up interviews and stuff like that. We never charged for that kind of stuff. But be aware it is an ongoing basis. Uh. That is the only the other thing. There's nothing else that I can think of that we need to do at this point. The basis so I think we're gonna float out of here. So if you are Chuck, give us a call or send us an email, or if you are a Canadian cigarette smuggling pirate, I'd like to talk to you. Or if you're the Chata guy that's responsible for all this, I want to talk

to you too. Laura,