Welcome back to the Pathway, Chili.
I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case.
December thirty one, twenty ten, Wilmington, Delaware, the body of sixty six year old Jack Wheeler is discovered in a trash heap at a landfill and his cause of death is determined to be blunt force trauma. Days earlier, Jack had left his residence in New York City to travel to Delaware. A numerous eyewitnesses would report seeing Jack wander through the area and displaying erotic behavior, which may have
been brought on by his struggles with bipolar disorder. It is believed that Jack's body was transported to the landfill after he wound up inside a dumpster which was picked up by a garbage truck. But even though investigators believe his injuries are consistent with the homicide, the exact circumstances of how Jack died are unclear.
After that, the path went Chiley, So on today's episode, we're going to be exploring the case, which was the subject of episode number one of the second season of
The Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix. The Unexplained twenty ten death of Jack Wheeler, the victim in this story, led a particularly interesting life as he served as a White House aid for no less than three US presidents and was involved in a number of impressive achievements, including the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, d c. But unfortunately, Jack's life went in in a very tragic fashion, as his body was discovered in a landfill in Delaware
after he had spent the past few days frequenting a variety of different locations doing a number of things which do not seem to make much logical sense. Now. Before this case was even featured on Unsolved Mysteries, I had actually received a couple of requests to cover it on the Trail went Cold, and while my knowledge about this story was limited, I did know that Jack's death had officially been ruled a homicide, and because of his government connections,
there were a number of conspiracy theories surrounding his death. However, once the Unsolved Mysteries episode came out, the consensus from many viewers seemed to be that Jack was the victim of a tragic accident brought on by his struggles with bipolar disorder. And while the episode did acknowledge Jack's mental health issues, it has received some criticism for its handling
of the subject. Much like their episode about the death of Ray Rivera, the Unsawd Mysteries reboot has been accused of leaving out key details to craft a narrative and make the story appear as mysterious as possible, even though there was a chance that no crime ever took place.
To be quite honest, this is why I was initially reluctant to cover Jack Wheeler's story on the Trail Went Cold, but I had to acknowledge that, in spite of the skepticism from online sluice, Jack's death was officially ruled to be a homicide by the medical examiner and law enforcement, so I ultimately decided to release an episode about it
back in January of twenty twenty two. The most commonly proposed theory is that Jack was killed by the trash compactor in the garbage truck which picked up the dumpster containing his body, but investigators do seem to believe that his injuries were more consistent with a beating, so I think it's important to present the most well rounded account of Jack Wheeler's death that we can as this is an opportunity to explore the topic of how mental illness
can sometimes be downplayed in cold case investigations.
So this is one of those cases that I should probably know because I love unsolved mysteries, but I don't remember Jack case. It's really surprising to me that you have a man who has such an incredible resume when you look at the fact that he was involved as a White House aid that he was really responsible for a lot of magical things that happened in Washington, d C. And then you also have that he struggles with bipolar disorder, and so you do have that kind of dual approach
to this case. Is it something that's mental health related, because like you were saying, a lot of people are arguing this might have been one of those episodes of a mental health crisis, or was it something bigger than that. Was it part of a government conspiracy?
Was it due to.
Something that he was involved in in his time with the government. Both are very possible scenarios when you look at cases we've covered in the past, and so I'm really interested to hear more about this. But it's tragic right from the get go. You have such an accomplished man who has such a tragic ending to his life, whether it was mental health or a homicide. And yeah, I'm just already I'm already fascinated. I've got to know more.
This case reminds me so much of It's very different, but we covered Ray rivera really early, but it also reminds me of a least a Lamb just because of the initial way that the case was treated from like this supernatural perspective, rather than you know, her having a mental health episode. And I think Rays was looked at from a very conspiratorial perspective, like his friend Carter or
whatever had something done to him with a helicopter. When I think at the end of our coverage of Ray's case, which was right the very beginning of the Pathway Chile, we settled on it was likely a mental health episode. So I think this is going to be a really good case for us to delve deeper into so we can explore some of those themes exactly.
And I think there is a possibility this case might be a combination of both of them. That he was suffering from a mental health episode, but there wasn't any government conspiracy, but he still could have crossed paths with, say a random stranger who wound up killing him. So it's kind of a combination of both him just kind of having a mental health episode, but also following prey to someone who killed him.
Okay, so no one was arguing that it ended up being a part of a government conspiracy or anything.
Well, I remember before I watched this case on Unsolved Mysteries, most of the limited knowledge I had about this case was from like conspiracy websites, and it was mainly because of the fact that he had worked for the government, and they did push forward the idea that maybe that had something to do with his death on the Unsolved Mysteries episode. But all these years later, it seems the consensus is that the whole government conspiracy angle is just a red herring.
Okay, so we're down to mental health crisis or potential of running into either are a random or kind of a personally known as Sailor.
Yeah, definitely fascinating and.
We'll get into this more. But I think Robin, you touched on something that's really really important with regards to mental health episodes, particularly if somebody is experiencing bipolar mania. You're going to be vulnerable to a lot of people who could predate on you. But you also may act in a way that isn't in alignment with who you are,
with lots of impulsivity. So it's very possible that Jack could have encountered somebody who either decided to prey upon him, or he may have interacted with this person in a way that wasn't becoming in some way or triggered that individual, and then that individual beat him and threw him in the dumpster.
Very true, very true.
Our story begins in twenty ten, and our central figure is sixty six year old John Parsons Wheeler, the third who goes by the name Jack. Originally born in Laredo, Texas, Jack hailed from a family with an extensive military history, and he arrived with his father, John Parsons Wheeler, the Second, nicknamed Big Jack, was fighting overseas in World War Two. In fact, only five days after Jack's birth, his family actually received a telegram the Big Jack had gone missing
an action during the Battle of the Bulge. Thankfully, Big Jack was later found to be alive. After receiving the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, he would continue on with the military career which lasted over thirty years and he
reached the rank of US Army Colonel. Jack decided to follow in his father's footsteps by joining the United States Military Academy at West Point, and after graduating near the top of his class in nineteen sixty six, he went to Vietnam and served in a non combat administrative position
at Long Bin Post, where he worked at computerizing army operations. However, Jack was hit hard by the fact that a number of people he knew at West Point lost their lives during the Vietnam War, as ten percent of his graduating
class were killed in action. In fact, the experiences of Jack and his West Point classmates would be chronicled in the nineteen eighty nine book The Long Gray Line, The American Journey of West Points Class of nineteen sixty six, which was offered by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Rick Atkinson.
Following his return from va Vietnam, Jack served on the General's staff at the Pentagon and went on to have a successful career in the private sector, but by nineteen seventy nine he decided to become chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the non profit organization was established by a Vietnam veteran named Jan Scruggs, and eventually paid the way for the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial three years later, which would be built in Washington, d c.
And feature the names of every service member who lost their lives during the war. Over the next three decades, Jack would keep himself busy by working for the government and being the CEO of such nonprofit organizations as Mothers
Against Drunk Driving and the Vietnam Children's Fund. He served as a White House aide to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, working on the latter's transition team when he entered office, and during George W. Bush's second term as president, Jack served as special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force.
So Jack had an incredible career, but he also was exposed to a lot of really high profile, high stress positions, jobs, responsibilities. You know, my dad is an amazing Vietnam hero as well, And when you look at the fact that Jack was at West Point, there's a lot of stress that goes into that, a lot of pressure that goes on to those cadets and those individuals serving our country at West Point,
it's an amazing institution. And then he went to Vietnam, or has friends that go to Vietnam, and there's a lot of trauma and stress that comes from that. Right, you lose people that you love and you care about that you're defending our country with. And at the time, Vietnam veterans and veterans before that, they didn't have mental health support to really deal with the consequences of that war and service to our country. Now we are getting a lot better with the VA and with military providing
mental health to our soldiers and to our veterans. But I guarantee you that Jack did not have that kind of support, nor did his comrades that he served with
or went to school with. And so for me, when you look at that and you talk about the fact that down the road we're going to have larger mental health issues, the stress of all of those positions, the fact that likely at that time, men especially were not encouraged or supported in a pursuit of mental health care, and we just didn't have the structures in place, Like I remember my dad saying, you know, World War two
men didn't have PTSD. That's not a thing, you know, like because he was young and they were told you're fine, and then you see years later where these men are. It's a disservice to them. They're hurting and they don't know how to get help because it just wasn't something established or addressed at the time. And so I really feel for Jack, and I feel that his positions and his amazing accomplishments probably have a lot to do with the mental health crisis that he could have had, or
at least the mental health battle he struggled with. The older he got in his life, Well, we're.
Going to talk about this as we go along, but as he got older, he did acknowledge that he had some mental health issues and finally began to start treating it. And I think that's just remarkable about it. I'm not entirely sure at what point in his life that he realized he had these issues, but I think like it during the late seventies and early eighties, he was thinking that there are a lot of Vietnam veterans out there
that are struggling. So that's why I'm going to help establish the memorial fund and the memorial in Washington.
D C.
Because he knew that a lot of people were struggling and he wanted to pay tribute to them and help them. And that's what's great is that he led a very productive life and it's all the more sad that he would die in such a tragic fashion.
And you know, for our Vietnam vets, they were not respected or loved on the way many other war veterans are. They were brought home a war that many of them didn't even understand what we were fighting for, right, and they served our country the way that they honorably said I'll do that, I will go and serve our country,
or they were drafted to do so. But the political unrest here in the United States when they got home, they were so disrespected and so just not cared for by the community, by you know, anyone welcoming them home. It was a very different feel at the time. And I think it was that the political scene they came home to at the time, but that that had a big effect too of what they thought of themselves and their service. And I just think it's a very complicated war to be a veteran on.
And weren't they labeled baby killers when they came back.
Yes, it was horrible. My dad said, he got off the plane, was he had been well, No, not his plane. My dad had been shot five times in Vietnam and was yeah, paralyzed and blind for almost two years in rehab. But when he got out of the hospital, he said, he got spin on like people would tell them they were disgrace to our country, or he was a baby killer, or they were all rapist or whatever, And my dad said, we were seventeen year old boys serve in our country
like we didn't. You know, a lot of just a lot of disrespect. And you had a lot of famous people at the time protesting the war, which caused a lot of backlash too in the communities right where young people were saying, I support this famous person who's protesting the war, and just sad like those boys did their job and they came home to not having the care and love and respect that you give to military personnel who defended your freedom.
They're instruments of the government. They're being told what to do, So getting mad at the instrument you should be getting that at the institution, not the people.
Right, you don't disrespect the boys who came home or in women who came home hurt, you know, like, yeah, it's just very.
Very sad. So by twenty ten, Jack had become a very influential figure among Washington's elite, who had many prominent friends, and he was now working as a national security consultant to the nonprofit research and development firm, the Metra Corporation, assisting them with cybers security issues. However, in spite of Jack's personal achievements, he had lifelong struggles with depression and bipolar disorder, and took medication to control his condition. For
the past thirteen years. Jack had been married to his second wife, Catherine Kleis, and he had a twin son and daughter from his first marriage, as well as two step children from Catherine's first marriage. Jack and Catherine were now splitting their time living in two separate residences, a condo in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City and
a getaway home in the town of Newcastle, Delaware. On Christmas Eve, Jack took an Amtrak train from Newcastle to Harlem to spend the holidays with his family, but on December the twenty eighth, he decided to leave and hop on a train to Washington, d c. Jack told Catherine he was planning to spend a few days there doing some work for the Metra Corporation, but she was not thrilled with this decision, as she hoped Jack would spend the rest of the holidays with her until the new year.
The couple got into a heated argument, but Jack still left on his train trip as planned and spent most of the day using his phone to remain in contact with Catherine and other members of his family through emails and text messages. But even though it would be established that Jack arrived in Washington and spent part of the day there, he eventually decided to hop on another train
and make an unexplained trip to Wilmington, Delaware. Wilmington is only six miles north from Newcastle, the location of Jack's second home, and shortly after eleven thirty pm, Jack's next door neighbor, Scott Morris, heard an odd sound outside his residence. When Morris looked out the window, he claimed that he saw the darkened silhouette of a man standing in the frame of a three story house across the street, which
was under construction at the time. After the man walked away, Morris noticed that there was smoke coming from the house, so he phoned the police in the fire department, but when the authorities arrived, they discovered that the structure was not actually on fire, as somewhat had tossed some smoke bombs into it, causing very little damage. However, a cell phone was eventually founded the scene and it was identified as below. To Jack Wheeler, crazy.
When you think about this fact that it's Christmas time and you have a family who's trying to figure out holiday plans, right, and there's this big argument, it makes you wonder is that big argument any part of the mental health crisis that could have come from that? But Jack says, listen, I'm gonna be with family for the holidays, but then I'm going to be working for this corporation.
Am I right when I say he does not inform anyone that he's actually going to Delaware, that's where his house is located, but he doesn't tell the family that he's going to make that pit stop there.
That's correct. He just said that he was going to Washington, but did not tell anyone that he was going to Wilmington. So we have a couple hours of him in Washington and we don't actually know what he does there, But at some point he just makes the spontaneous decision to go up to like the same area where his house is and then potentially throw smoke bombs into this other house that's under construction. So it's a sign that something has really broken inside of him.
Where does someone acquire smoke bombs?
We do make later on, But Jack often used them into his garden to get rid of bugs, apparently, so he did own them. I don't think he just went out and bought them that very same day. I think he kept them inside his house.
Jack's residence was located across the street from a house which was under construction, and he'd spent a lot of time and energy organizing petitions and filing legal challenges in order to prevent it from being built. Jack was unhappy that the house was going to block his view of the Delaware River and opposed any construction on that particular piece of land, as he felt it had historical significance since William Penn had taken his first step on American
soil there in sixteen eighty two. While Jack had attempted to file a temporary restraining order against construction of the house, a Delaware Court of chancery judge had denied Jack's request over two weeks earlier, on December thirteenth. The incident with the smoke bombs was particularly interesting since Jack Robin just mentioned, was known to own smoke bombs, which he would use
to get rid of rodents in his garden. The following morning, at eight forty five am, Jack hailed a cab from the Amtrak station in Wilmington to the Hotel du Pont, Which is unclear why he decided to visit this location since records would show he never registered there. But about forty five minutes later, Jack sent an email to the Metra Corporation to inform them that his house was burglarized and a number of his personal items, including his cell phone, briefcase, wallet,
identification badge, and Keith fob, had been stolen. He also sent an email to his daughter and another one to his therapist to say that he felt dazed, boxed, and in a corner following his most recent fight with Catherine. Since Jack no longer had his cell phone in his possession by this point, it's never been made clear where exactly he sent these emails from, and even though he told his employer that he'd been burglarized. Jack never attempted
to report the incident to the pull. Jack's wareboats for the next several hours are unknown, but at around six pm, he walked into Happy Harry's pharmacy in Newcastle, located just a few blocks from his residence. Jack was captured by the security cameras, and the pharmacist immediately recognized him since he was a regular customer who often had his prescriptions filled here. Even though it was very cool, it was a very cold night. Jack was only dressed in a
suit jacket and did not have an overcoat. According to the pharmacist, Jack looked visibly upset and asked for a ride to Wilmington. Since the pharmacist couldn't leave the establishment, he offered to call Jack a cab, but even though Jack declined, he managed to convince a couple there to give him a ride before they left together.
That is also a little bit odd. It doesn't sound like he knew this couple that he asked for a ride. He's not necessarily dressed for the right weather, and he seemed dazed and boxed in a corner is what he says when he's reaching out to family. This robbery that he doesn't report to the police. But he says he's been burglarized, He's lost all of his important documents, including his I believe, his wallet, his identification badge, his key fob,
his cell phone, and you still don't report it. It does start to sound like he's in this spiral where maybe he's perceiving that he's at risk or perceiving that he's in danger, when in actuality, he's just kind of losing connection with reality. I do wonder how much that argument with Catherine plays into that, right, like sometimes trauma
and stress spurs on a mental health crisis. I also wonder was there any indication that he could have been meeting somebody at that house in Delaware, which is why he didn't tell anyone about it.
I guess it's possible, but they never found any communications. I mean, obviously he didn't send any emails or text from his phone or anything. But I guess he could have called someone on a payphone, or maybe had spoken to someone ahead of time meet me at my hose in Delaware at this particular time. But I was going to talk about throughout the course of his actions, he's captured on a lot of surveillance footage, and he is never in the presence of any strangers or anyone who
appears to be following him around. So I don't see any indication that he had any encounters with anyone except the people that came forward as witnesses.
And who's this couple. Who's the couple gave him the ride.
It's kind of interesting. After this air, they interviewed the producer of Unsolved Mysteries and she said that they were able to find out from police records that this couple was questioned and ruled out his suspects. But I know that the show tried to track them down to interview them again and see if they would give their account of their encounters with Jack, but they could not find their whereabouts, so their identity is kind of unknown to
the public. But they were looked at by police during the early stages of the investigation.
And even though Jack might not have been followed on security cameras, that doesn't mean that he didn't have the perception that he was being followed, because it seems like and he's talking when he's saying to family that like he feels boxed in in days, feels like a moment of lucidity within you know, a mental health crisis or bipolar mania that can lead to psychosis, And if anyone has ever experienced that, I mean I can I've experienced hypomania.
I've never had a manic episode, but I can say at a point when I've had very little sleep and I feel like my behavior is verging on what could be dangerous, I can only describe it as during a moment of lucidity, questioning what I'm doing and being like it feels like I'm running with scissors. That's like the best way I could possibly describe it. And it seems like in this moment, that's what Jack is able to
reach out and say. So it's hard to know if like all of these behaviors that he's doing are because it's some kind of subterfuge because he believes that he's being followed, or he believes that he's under threat, or if he's questioning whether or not he's just doing these because of the state that he's in. It's just it's so hard to know.
Yeah, because on some of the surveillance footage that shows him, like you can clearly see that he's not being followed or shadowed by anyone, but by his body language. Yanit kind of get the sense that he is paranoid or feels like he might be in danger, though you can never really know what's going on in his mind at that moment. Well about forty minutes after he left the pharmacy, security camera footage recapture Jack walking through the parking garage
attached to the Newcastle County Courthouse in Wilmington. He was walking around with what appeared to be a limp and was carrying his right shoe in his left hand, and his body language seemed to indicate that he was disoriented and agitated. When Jack spoke to the parking attendant on duty, he told her that he had been robbed and that his briefcase, which contained his parking ticket, had been stolen.
He also said that he could not find his car, but in actuality, Jack had actually left his car at an entirely different parking garage at the Amtrak train station three blocks away. Jack originally parked there when he arrived in Newcastle one week earlier, before he took the train to New York on Masive to see his family. A security guard from the courthouse was summoned down to the parking garage to speak with Jack, and would later say that his eyes were red, as if he had recently
been crying. In spite of this, the guard said that Jack did not smell of alcohol in his speech was not slurred, and when a state employee offered Jack money to get home, he declined and said that he already had enough money on him. Jack soon left the parking garage, and since the next confirmed sighting of him would not take place until the following morning, it's unclear where he
spent the night. At around eight am on the morning of December the thirtieth, Jack was seen buying coffee at a subway sandwich shop, and the owner would later describe him as looking like a homeless person, as he was no longer wearing a sport coat and had on a dress shirt which was filthy from the elbows down. Later that day, Jack was seen wandering through the lobby of the high rise office building, the Amor's Building, and even though multiple people asked him if he needed help, Jack declined.
He eventually made it to the tenth floor and visited the law firm Connolipo Lodge and Huts, where he asked to speak with a managing partner, while the receptionist left her desk to go find someone Jack left before she returned. Jack also paid a visit to a small business administration office on the eleventh floor to ask for a ride
to Philadelphia for unknown reasons. At three twenty six pm, security cameras captured Jack wandering around the Nemors Building's basement, and later that night, surveillance footage showed him exiting the building, and he was now wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt which his family believed did not belong to him, and was pulled up over his head in an attempt to cover
his face. At eight forty two pm, a security camera outside the Hotel DuPont showed Jack walking east towards Rodney Square, but what happened to him next remains a mystery.
This is heartbreaking when you think about the description of Jack and the many people who are running into him, and clearly they know something's wrong, but they don't know what's wrong is It's just devastating. So you have people who see him in the parking lot and they know enough is wrong to go ahead and get someone to come down and try to talk to him. One on one, and so when the security guard comes down from the courthouse, he's talking to Jack and he says, listen, the poor guy.
It wasn't like he's this, you know, belligerent, drunk or something that's going on and on he's something's wrong. It looked like he was crying. He looks really dishoveled. He's limping with his shoe off, like there's clearly a mental health crisis going on here. Something's happened, and then it kind of just keeps escalating where he looks dirty, he's seen where people describe him as looking homeless. He's stumbling around and random places without really any explanation as to
why he would be there. And then we see him with that dark hooded sweatshirt, which a family says, I don't think that's him, and we don't know what happens to him after that. But he's making these stops and not following through with any kind of actual success there, like the law off as he goes and it leaves when the lady comes in. He goes down to the Small Administration Business Small Business Administration office. Who the heck
knows what he did there. It doesn't seem like logical movements where people can say, oh yeah, he came in and applied for an LLC, Oh yeah, he came in and asked us about workmen's comp or you know, filing in a lawsuit for workplace malpractice whatever, none of that. So it's almost like he's just going from place to place and you see all these people saying, can we help you? Is something wrong? Can we call someone for you?
And unfortunately Jack declines all of that. So, Jules, I think you nailed at where it's that perception of somebody's after me or something's wrong. So he's in that heightened paranoid state and he just is stumbling around lost.
Do we know if he had any familiarity with this building.
I'm not entirely sure. We're gonna talk about this later. But he did have an attorney with the last name Connolly, so it's been theorized that he might have gone to this particular law firm because it had Connolly in the name, but his Connolly did not actually work there. So it's almost like he goes to this building and he's seeing stuff that's kind of familiar to him, but he's not sure, and that's why he's stopping at this random law firm
that he's never been to before. But some of that stuff is completely unexplained, Like we still don't know why he went to this small Business Administration office to ask for a ride to Philadelphia, because as far as anyone can tell, he didn't have any connections there. So I think he was just going into this building because there was something going on in his mind that made him think that he was familiar with it. But as far as anyone can tell, I don't know if he'd ever been there before.
Well, earlier that day, one of Jack's neighbors in Newcastle, Robert Dill, who functioned as a caretaker for the Wheeler residence when they were not there, noticed that one of the houses upstairs rear windows was open. When Dill went over to the house, he discovered that his side door was open, so he decided to go inside. It appeared that the residence had been burglarized, as chairs knocked over, a plant had been overturned, a spice rack was knocked over,
and there were broken dishes in the kitchen sink. Some powdered cleanser had been spilled on the kitchen floor, and there was the lining of a bare footprint in it. Dill also noticed that one of Jack's most prized possessions, his ceremonial West Point Cadet Sword and Shield, was lying on the floor nearby. In addition, a copy of that book we've mentioned earlier, the Long Gray Line, The American Journey of West Point's Class of nineteen sixty six, was
lying open on the kitchen counter. On the surface, it did not appear that anything was stolen, but Dill proceeded to phone both Jack and Catherine cell phones and left them voicemails about the situation. After not receiving any response from either of them, Dill decided to inform the police about the break in the following day. It turned out that Catherine had made repeated attempts to call Jack's cell phone, but they kept going a voicemail and he never returned
her calls. Jack and Catherine had been planning to attend a cousin's wedding on New Year's Eve, but when she couldn't get a hold of him, Catherine went to the wedding alone. While at the time she left, Catherine was not yet aware that Jack has been found dead. Shortly before ten a m. On the morning of December thirty first, a spotter at the Cherry Island landfill in Wilmington discovered a body on top of the trash heap, and he
was soon positively identified as Jack Wheeler. An autopsy would soon discover that Jack suffered a number of serious injuries, including a collapse lung, broken ribs, as well as severe bruising and swelling to his face and lacerations all over his body. There have also been conflicting accounts about whether or not Jack suffered a heart attack prior to his death.
Months later, during an interview in an article with the Wilmington based newspaper The News Journal, Catherine said the police kept changing their mind about the heart attack, stating, quote first they said he did, then they said he didn't, Then they said he did, end quote cardless. The medical examiner believed the Jack's injuries were consistent with the beating, ruling that his exact cause of death was blunt force trauma and the manner of death was listed as homicide.
Imagine, poor Catherine. This is a man that she's been married to.
For quite a while.
They got into a fuss around the holidays, and they still have plans like She's like, listen, it's fine.
Couple's fight.
That's a fuss, you know, And she says, we have plans to go to our cousin's wedding on New Year's Eve, but he's not returning her phone calls. And there had been communication with the family throughout his trip for quite a while. He's emailing his daughter, he was checking in with his phone. But then once that phone quote goes missing or is stolen, you obviously see that communication stop. And Jack is clearly in a downward spiral of kind
of what reality is and what reality is not. What's sad is that she's not getting clear information even after his body's discovered. What was the cause of death? Is it the heart attack? Is at this beating? And that's super confusing for her as well and causes a lack of trust in the police department, because give me a straight answer, don't keep changing what you're telling me, or else I can't trust anything else you're telling me moving forward.
When you do look at what the medical examiner says the injuries look like, which is that beating blunt force trauma and they list his cause of death as a homicide, then I really do start thinking exactly what Jules said. Either because he is disheveled very clearly isn't aware of what's real and what's not. Someone who encounters him doesn't say can I help you? They say I can hurt you because you're vulnerable and easy. You can't defend yourself
right now because you're not in your right mind. So I'm thinking he either becomes the victim of somebody's foul play, or the other scenario becomes he actually acts out with aggression, maybe scare somebody gets into an altercation with someone who isn't mature enough to say, something's clearly wrong with this man. I need to get a way, and he's met with an attack against him because of something he presents in his own behavior. So I think that's a very plausible situation.
And then who knows. I think you said in the opening, Robin, some people were saying those injuries could also be because of the way his body was disposed of and the way that if he was, let's say, rummaging through a trash can and got crushed, could that also be consistent. So you'll have to tell me more about that, I hope later on, But right now it's feeling like what Jules put forward, he ran into somebody who either said you're vulnerable or you're scaring me, and it ended in an assault.
Yeah, it's definitely the reverse of a lot of these type of cases because you'll often see a law enforcement or the medical examiner rule someone's death to be a suicide or an accident, and here they say homicide right at the back. They say that his injuries are consistent with being attacked by someone, and it's only after they learn more information that people start going, well, maybe it was an accidental death, maybe he wound up any trash
compactor or something. Because we have no accounting of his whereabouts for several hours before he was found in the landfill, we can't be one hundred percent certain what happened to him. Investigators attempted to backtrack Jack's movements after he left the Nemors building to try and determine how he wound up at the Cherry Island landfill. They eventually spoke to a witness who hailed a taxi cab from Wilmington at around eleven pm on December thirtieth, which was headed to the
town of Newark, located fourteen miles away. The witness said that a man matching Jack's description asked to share the cab ride with him when he heard it was going to Newark. Well, Jack did not have any known connections to Newark. Investigators learned that during the early morning hours of December the thirty first, a garbage truck driver named Mike Robowski emptied ten dumpsters in Newark as part of his trash collection route and subsequently dumped the contents of
his load into the Cherry Island landfill. According to Grabowski, it was not uncommon for people to suddenly emerge from dumpsters before his truck was in the midst of lifting them up, as these dumpsters were equipped with side doors
which would allow someone to climb inside. This led to speculation that Grabowski may have unknowingly transported Jack's body of the landfill, and when forensic testing was performed on the dumpsters from Grabowski's route, it turned up a partial DNA match to Jack in one of them.
That's incredible. So when you look at this idea, this is lending credence to the idea that maybe it is actually the result of Jack being in that garbage can and the injuries to his body aren't from a beating or anything like that, but it could be from these dumpsters in the side door and the way that the truck is going to actually transport his body to the landfill.
But what if somebody beat him and then threw them in the dumpster.
That's also true.
There's no way to know. There's no way to know that exactly. It could be a combination of both. It doesn't mean that he crawled inside and was crushed. It could mean that someone attacked him beforehand and put his body in there. But it is interesting that when the medical examiner listed the homicide ruling, did not yet know that Jack had possibly been in a garbage dumpster. Like all he knew was that he wound up in the landfill.
And it does make you wonder though that if he had known Jack was inside the garbage truck, would he have possibly given a different ruling. Question.
We know that Jack earlier had been stumbling around with like a limp and looked like he had a shoe in his hand and things like that. I guess there's no way of knowing if he had actually had an altercation previously with somebody where he got injured, or if he just fell and hurt himself. Right, because he wasn't stable at the time.
It's certainly possible he could have had an altercation. I mean, I don't believe the witnesses saw any noticeable like bruises or injuries on him at that time to indicate that he had gotten into a fight. But we still don't know the source of the limp. Could it have been like some sort of stroke, or could he have a medical issue, or could he have fallen down somewhere, or could he have actually gotten into a fight. We just don't know his whereabouts before they saw him with the limp.
But the big unanswered question was whether Jack might have climbed into the umster himself, possibly in an attempt to keep warm, or if an unknown third party killed him and placed his body in there. Since Jack still had many valuable items on him when he was found, including some cash, a Rolex watch, and his West Point Class ring, it seemed unlikely that robbery was the motive for a
potential homicide. Jack's family offered a reward of twenty five thousand dollars, which was later increased to fifty thousand, for information that led to the arrest of a suspect and pushed forward the idea that he was murdered due to something connected to his past government work or his current position at the Metro Corporation. In fact, Catherine openly speculated that Jack may have been of a professional hit, stating quote, I think perhaps no one has been in on the
reward because they've already been paid end quote. Since Jack's death likely occurred in Newark, the Newark Police Department took over the investigation, but even though the case would be investigated by no less than three different agencies, including the FBI, they failed to turn up any promising suspect who might
have been responsible for killing him. Four months after his death, Jack's body was cremated and his remains were interred with full military honors at the Columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery. But after more than a decade, the exact circumstances of how Jack Wheeler was killed remain up for debate.
Gets say, the path went Chile.
This really does Wreek of the Ray rivera case right where there's no way of knowing exactly what happened. But here when when you're looking at this case, it's even more confusing because the end results can point to so many different explanations. Like you said, my first thought was, okay, so he's in this garbage can. The man says he sees people get in these garbage bins frequently and then pop out.
Well, that was my thought.
Well, then maybe Jack is digging through there or trying to stay warm.
But then, like you.
Said, someone could have just disposed of his body there after a violent attack. And the thing that complicates it is that when that trash is then dumped and taken down to the landfill, there are other mechanisms in place that could have injured his physical body after the fact that he was in that bind. So was he injured before going into it? Were the injuries a result of that transportation and processing of the trash.
We just don't know.
And because of his mental health crisis, both are equally probable. The fact that this man, who's accomplished and a hard worker and a family man could be stumbling around a city unaware of what reality is and going through the dumpster for food, for warmth, for whatever he was looking for and then gets crushed or he dies in there.
Something like that is possible. Being attacked because of that mental health crisis is also possible, So there's zero way I feel like you could distinguish injuries unless someone was to come forward, and there's a chance of nobody that needs to come forward because you just didn't have a perpetrator.
It's it would be horrifying as a family to want to believe that I can get answers in this case and realizing that there's so many circumstances and possibilities here where very few of them result in an actual answer for the family.
Robin, do you know if the medical examiner ever got a chance to review or revise their findings after Jack was found in the landfill and they knew that his DNA was found in the garbage can.
That's a good question. I haven't seen anything to indicate that the medical examiner looked at his body again. I do know that investigators have been very tight lipped this past decade about releasing information to the public, So it is possible he got another autopsy but we just didn't
know about it. But like that would be a good point because if he's unaware that Jack has been in a garbage bin, he may be misinterpreting the injuries and may just look at things differently now that he starts looking at the possibility that he was crushed by a trash compact. So this story is something a reversal of many the unexplained deaths which have been featured on UNSAWD Mysteries.
The show has featured a number of cases where someone's death was ruled to be a suicide or an accident, prompting law enforcement to close the case, but the loved
ones believe they were the victim of foul play. But judging from the reactions I've seen from online sluice on various message boards and read it, it seems like the majority consensus from those who watch the UNSAWD Mysteries episode is that Jack Wheeler's death was a tragic accident, even though it was officially classified as a homicide and most of the media coverage of this case has described as death as a murder. Hell, the UNSAWD Mysteries episode is
literally titled Washington Insider Murder. This is definitely not part for the course when you're talking about online sluice, who will often gravitate towards theories involving foul play, even if
the evidence strongly points towards suicide. Or accidental death. I mentioned in the intro that before I saw the Unsolved Mysteries episode, my limited knowledge of the case gave me the impression that this was universally considered to be a homicide, and given Jack's previous ties to the US government, you'll definitely find a lot of discussion about his death on
conspiracy message boards. But I do wonder if the reaction of this case might be driven by a growing cynicism which is developed within the true crime community towards Unsolved Mysteries and true crime shows in general, which can sometimes manipulate the facts and leave out key pieces of information
in order to suit their narrative. Back when Unsolved Mysteries first launched during the nineteen eighties, there was no Internet and it was more difficult to fact check the information they shared, so you pretty much took their segments at face value. But these days, it's so much easier to do additional research and find out if a true crime show is distorting the facts. We've already talked about this in great detail during our episodes about the death of
Ray Rivera. As you probably know, it was featured on the debut episode of the first season of the Unsolved Mysteries reboot, which dropped on Netflix on July the first, twenty twenty. Ray Rivera was seemingly killed after a fall from the roof of the Belvidere Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, but even though the authorities ruled Ray's death to be a suicide, his loved ones were convinced that he was
the victim of foul play. Well, I will admit that I was absolutely captivated by that episode when I originally saw it and had no idea what to think, but it soon became a parent that Unsaw Mysteries left out a lot of information about this story, which may have pointed towards Ray suffering from some sort of mental health crisis and jumping off the roof on his own. Once you looked at the big picture, none of the murder
conspiracy theories surrounding this case. Surrounding this case made much sense. So by the time Unsaw Mysteries dropped their second season in October of twenty twenty, I think the controversy surrounding their presentation of Ray Rivera's death had caused a lot of skepticism to develop about their presentation on Jack Wheeler's death I.
Remember when you guys started describing the Ray rivera case. To me, I was like, Oh, it is a murder. It is definitely a murder. I was very much in that camp because of the way Unsolved Mysteries presented it, and it really was this crafted story to cause a question mark if nothing else, right Whereas when we went through the evidence that is actually known, it very much pointed to mental health episodes going on in Ray's life, and paranoia and fear and bizarre behaviors. So none of
that was really described in that episode. So I can completely understand, and skeptics aren't wrong that when the media takes hold of a story, they're telling a story that's going to get them the most ratings and to get the most attention, the most jaws dropping at the case. And so you got to be your own little sleuth and kind of look back and say, Okay, who are they presenting this to, what's their goal and are they
telling us the whole story? And oftentimes the answer is no, just because of time limits and because of the audience and the goal that they have for that show. So I think a lot of that skepticism is valid I too. I mean when I watched the Ray Rivera case. I was pretty convinced. So then when you go and you start talking about Jacks, it makes you want to question, well, how much of this is one side of the story versus the whole picture.
I think when you look back in time too, like when we covered Ray Rivera's case, I feel like we as like a true crime collective. We're just on the precipice of kind of understanding that intersectionality between mental health and criminals as well as victims of crime, and understanding
that situations it can seem very very mysterious. There can be an underlying mental health issue that can motivate somebody to act very much outside of themselves, and it can leave a family devastated and with more questions than answers and very very convinced that this person didn't do this to themselves. So I think we've got a much greater understanding now, even though that was just a few years ago, it feels like we've come leaps and bounds, doesn't it, Oh very much?
So I think so, Yeah, I think there was more of an understanding now that sometimes people just do inexplicable things and that will cause their death. But it doesn't necessarily mean that there was a conspiracy or foul play.
And you look at the true crime community too, of viewers who want to consume that kind of information. And I remember the murder at the Cecil Hotel, right, that documentary.
At least a Lamb.
Yeah, yeah, that Lisa Lamb. It was a mental health crisis. But I remember reading reviews of it and people are like, oh, it's not what I thought. It's not that good, you know, and it was fascinating, but because it was a mental health crisis, it takes it out of that. You know, true crime vein in many ways, and so people who are drawn to that, they want to see those mysterious,
big old question marks, what happened? Conspiracy theories. They like that, and so when people are producing segments, I feel like they are catering to what gets us the best ratings, not necessar gets the best and most accurate story out there.
From a production standpoint, the Washington Insider murder episode is very well done, and if you watch it for the first time without much prior knowledge to the case, watching the events unfold is pretty compelling. But once the episode ends and you start thinking about some of the possible murder conspiracies, they just don't make any sense at all. A lot of the mysteries surrounding this story fades away and it becomes obvious that Jack's strange actions were the
result of his own mental health crisis. The mental health angle in the Ray Rivera case is based on speculation because he was never officially diagnosed with anything, but we do know that Jack had lifelong struggles with bipolar disorder, and to be fair, unsolved mysteries does not shy away from this. While Jack took medication to control his condition, one fact about the case which has never been conclusively established is the last time that he took his meds
before he died. But if he'd been off them for an extended period of time, that would go a long way towards explaining his actions during the last few days of his life, which seemed to indicate that he was having a manic episode. Jack's condition could sometimes make him very energetic and aggressive about issues he was passionate about, and a short time before his death, a moderator at a West Point message board Jack liked to frequent had to suspend him and give him a time out because
he was becoming very temperamental during his postings. Jack had obviously had become quite obsessed about preventing instruction of the house across the street from his residence at Newcastle, and his neighbor Robert Dill, claimed that he sometimes had to cut off Jack from going on angry rants, and he was once chastised by Jack for not being angry enough
about the situation. Jack struggles with depression also took a toll on him, and his wife Catherine once stated quote, I don't like to say it, but I think Jack hated himself. He tried to do good all day so he could sleep at night. Then he'd wake up in the morning and that self hatred would be there waiting
for him end quote. According to Jack's family, he also had a terrible sense of direction and was a type of person who would park his car somewhere and then take a taxi cab home, either because he couldn't fight
his vehicle or had completely forgotten where he parked. This fits in with a situation where Jack struggled to find his car inside the parking garage in Wilmington, even though he had parked it in a completely different garage one week earlier, and I'm sure the whole thing was exacerbated if he was suffering through a manic episode.
So the most heartbreaking thing you just read to me was the way his best friend and the person who knew him most. His wife describes the demons that haunted her husband. She knew him inside and out, and to be able to articulate that, look at his career, look at all of the things that he's sacrificed and fought for and worked for. People he's protected, organizations he's supported,
like mothers against drunk driving. You can tell he's a humanitarian, that he wants other people not to hurt or struggle, and it's because he was hurting and struggling. His wife says, I think Jack hated himself. He tried to do good all day so that he could sleep at night, and then he'd wake up in the morning and the self hatred would be there waiting for him, like a repetitive cycle of that darkness that she watched her husband battle.
To me, that is so heartbreaking as someone who loves their family and yet can't seem to find any kind of peace or way out of the darkness he feels. The medication clearly helped. I mean Jack was in.
His sixties, right, yeah, sixty six.
Yeah, so Jack's in his sixties. He's clearly had to deal with this his whole life. It's probably gotten exacerbated by different things. But he's even at the pharmacy trying to get his medicine refilled, isn't he at some point?
Not really, No, even though he frequented that pharmacy quite a bit to get his medicine, on that particular visit, he was just looking for a ride, like he wasn't even the okay, So maybe that's why he went in there, Like maybe he recognized this place, this is a place I get my medicine, So that might be why he asked for a ride at that particular location.
So in my head, I was thinking, maybe he's at the pharmacy to get this refill for his medication. But like you said, there's really nobody to know when the last time he took it would have been. It sounds like with his daughter through email and things, there wasn't anything that alarmed her, right, he said he's kind of a little bit off kiltered with after fussing with Catherine, but he is communicating and then that stops, and it seems like that's one of those mornings he woke up
and he couldn't fight the demons anymore. Maybe he didn't have his medication. Maybe he lost all of the things that he said had gotten stolen or robbed away from him. But his medication could have been in that as well, and so if he had lost or misplaced it.
I don't think it takes.
Very long to come off of mental health medication to struggle with a severe episode, especially if you have significant swings in your disposition. So I think it's devastating to look at Catherine's perspective of her husband, because when you hear that, everything seems to fall into place where you see all the things he did to try to fight the darkness, and it sounds like the darkness in some way ended up consuming him at the very end.
That's definitely true about psychotropic medications. If you are to go cold turkey off of them, it should be done under the supervision of a doctor. If somebody just stops taking their medication, especially first line bipolar intervention treatments like lithium, it can trigger a manic episode if you just all of a sudden go off lithium. I've seen it happen. It's a really messy and very very dangerous thing that
can land somebody into a psych word. And if somebody isn't recognizing this behavior in Jack and he isn't getting whatever like a fifty one fifty would be in Washington or in Wilmington, that's something that he clearly needed at that time to have somebody assess his mental state because it seems like he was a danger to himself. But it's just unfortunate because Catherine didn't seem to have access
to him, because he wasn't answering his phone. He didn't have his phone, So all of those people that would have been the ones that would go, okay, we need to intervene, they're not able to make contact with Jack exactly.
And I think he was just feeling completely helpless and disoriented and didn't know what he was doing. And we also don't know where and if he was sleeping during the last few days of his life, So I can only imagine that if he fell asleep, say in some underground storage room or something, and then woke up, he must have been like feeling like he was in a really dark place and like perhaps even forgetting who he really was. So I think this would be a good
time to bring it into part one. But speak as we present part two of our series about the unexplained death of Jack Wheeler.
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Yes. The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode and Incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.
So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
So we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link them in the show notes.
So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us on social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy