Welcome back to the Path with Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley. Let's die right into this week's case. June sixteenth, two thousand and nine, Ross's Point, Ireland, the body of a man who appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties is found washed up on a beach, and his cause of death is believed to be a cute cardiac arrest. Four days earlier, the man had arrived in the nearby town of Sligo and into a hotel under the name Peter Bergman, but it turns out
this name was fake and he carries no identification. Investigators believe that he traveled to Ireland from another country, and you CCTV footage to track his movements in the days prior to his death. When they are unable to uncover Peter Bergmann's true identity. After that, the Path went Chile. So a few weeks ago, our podcast traveled to Ireland to cover the unsolved disappearance of Trevor Dealey, so I figured we should go back there to cover another mystery. This
time it involves an unidentified John Doe. The two thousand and nine death of a man known only as Peter Bergmann. While the story has garnered a lot of publicity in Ireland, it does not appear to be that well known in North America. The victim in question was a middle aged man who traveled to the town of Sligo and checked into a hotel under the name Peter Bergmann, but of course it was eventually determined that this was not his real name.
He stayed there for the next three nights before traveling to the nearby village of Ross's Point, where his body would be discovered on a beach the following morning. While it does not appear there was foul play involved, the exact circumstances of how Peter Bergmann died are still unclear, and since he was heard speaking with an accent which sounded like it might be Austrian, his reasons for traveling
to Ireland to begin with are still a mystery. There is evidence to suggest that he spent his last days gradually disposing of all personal items which might have helped reveal his true identity, as is possible he wanted to be completely forgotten
about after he died. However, if that was his intention, the exact opposite result took place as Peter Bergmann has since become one of Ireland's most heavily discussed mysteries, and there have been numerous theories presented about his possible identity and backstory. In spite of the publicity of this case is generated, no one who recognizes this man has ever come forward, So we're going to explore all
the different themes on today's episode. So a few questions for you. It's two thousand and nine, and of course this is over in Ireland, it's not here in the US. But our policy, and it has been for quite a while, is you now need your ID card, you need a credit card that matches your ID card, and all of these kind of precautions as you check into a hotel or motel. Is that not the case?
Was that not the case in two thousand and nine in Ireland? It should have been, but for some reason he was able to check in without proper ID and a credit card. And we'll discuss this more later on. But people have compared this to another case that was on the Netflix version of Unsolved Mysteries about a woman who checked into a fancy hotel in Norway under the name Jennifer Fairgate in nineteen ninety five, but it turned out the name was fake
and she's never been identified. And people were saying, in that case, that was nineteen ninety five, and you still needed a credit card to check into a hotel. So it's another case where they're just inexplicably wondering why didn't the front desk staff do its job and allow these people to do this? That is insane. Now do we know for a fact that he didn't have a fake ID that said Peter Bergman, Uh, not that I know of. No. Actually he might have, but they haven't really revealed that.
But if he did, he didn't have it on him when he was when he died. Okay, because I was going to say that would even suggest even bigger things going on, because it's easy to walk in and say this is my name if no one's asking for proof of that. We do see that when people are trying to check in, you know, and no one know that they're in that hotel, like a famous celebrity, but they're checking in under their legal name or under a representative's legal name, and then their
name is simply booked under a fictitious name. But here it seems like they didn't do due diligence to see who Peter actually was. And what's really really interesting to me is that I'm assuming there is a sketch or a picture of this individual, and like you said, no one has come forward to say that looks like our missing family member. Well, not just a sketch, but CCTV foot like actual images and photos of the real guy what he looked
like, and he still has not been identified. Our story begins in two thousand and nine in Ross's Point, Ireland, a small seaside village with a population of just under nine hundred people, which is located in County Sligo next to the Atlantic Ocean. At around six forty five a m. On the morning of Tuesday, June sixteenth, a father and son duo came across the body of a middle aged man who'd been washed up on one of the village's
beaches and was lying face down in the sand. He appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties and had closely cropped gray hair and a waterproof Quarts watch on his left wrist. He was dressed in purple stripes beeto type swimming trunks with underwear overtop of it at a navy t shirt which was tucked into them. This prompted the duo to contact the Guardie, which is the name of Ireland's police force, and when the medical examiner or at the scene,
the victim was officially pronounced dead. Some additional articles of clothing included black shoes, dark socks, a sleeveless Tommy Hillfiger jumper, a black leather jacket, a black leather belt, and neatly folded dark navy trousers were found on a nearby rock and presumably belonged to the victim. Curiously, it turned out
that the labels in every piece of clothing had been cut out. The various pockets of each piece of victim's clothing contained a number of items, including an envelope containing one hundred and forty nine euros worth of notes and coins, a packet of tissue, fifty five milligrams of aspirin, hands of plast sticking plasters which are adhesive bandages, and a wrap bar of hotel soap. However,
no form of identification for this man could be found anywhere. What's incredibly odd is that he has this speedo on, meaning that he almost intended to go or that he was going to jump or do something that involve the water, but then also had his clothes on over it. And what's in his pockets doesn't seem to be every day things that you would place in your pocket. Why take the bar of soap from the hotel? Why have these adhesive bandages?
I mean, yes, the coins and the aspirin are every day things that you might slip into your pocket for later in the day, but the others don't seem to really make sense. And the labels being cut out of his clothes does seem like he's going to this extent of saying, I'm going
to remove things that might link me somewhere or to a purchase. Yeah, as we're going to talk about, in the days prior to his death, this man would be disposing of a lot of his personal items, which I believe because he didn't want anyone to figure out his identity, so he was getting rid of all the clues. But like you said, some of the items he did keep with him and still had autumnhen he died, such as the bandages and the hotel soap, It makes you wonder why did he not
get rid of these items. Why did he keep these particular items around? The hotel soap really gets me, Like, I could see how you could have, you know, one hundred and forty nine euros and maybe even bandages, But what would possess you if you're going out to wrap up a bar of hotel soap and take it with you, Like, so, where were you going that you would need this soap? Potentially? I had to giggle
when I heard about it. At first, I'm thinking hotel soap, and I thought, come on, Ashley, I take everything that's free on the counter when I leave and then I eventually throw it away. But I think it's from my grad school days where I had no money, and I'm like, oh, free soap and shampoo and a summing kid. What is this? Well, it initially appeared that he had drowned the ocean and washed up
on the beach. The autopsy revealed what the pathologists described as no sign of quote unquote classical saltwater drowning, and there was no evidence he had been the victim of foul play. However, it was apparent that the man had been suffering from some serious health problems, as he was in the advanced stages of prostate cancer and had bone tumors, so even if he had not died at this time, he likely only had a few more weeks left to live.
His right kidney was missing, and he showed signs of previously having suffered multiple heart attacks. The man's teeth were in good condition and showed an extensive history of dental work, as he had bridging root canals and crowns, as well as a full gold tooth on the upper back right side of his mouth. But in spite of his health problems, the toxicology report showed no medication or pain killers in his system, including aspirin, even though aspirin tablets have been
found among his possessions. This meant he likely would have been experiencing a great deal of pain at the time of his death. In the end, his official cause of death was ruled to be acute cardiac arrest BLUs his heart, so it looks like it was a heart attack or cardiac arrest at the end of his life. But when he was battling cancer and he has these other serious health issues and clearly in a state of pain, my first thought was maybe he was going to complete suicide and he wanted to end this pain.
Cancer is one of the most cruel diseases you can suffer from, and so that would have made sense. The aspirin, though, does allude to the idea of was he struggling with a feeling of a heart attack coming on, or had he had a prediagnosed kind of risk of heart attack, and so he was taking those aspirin daily to try to prevent that from happening. But
then in the end he actually died of cardiac arrest. Yeah, there is definitely like ample evidence to suggest that he might have been planning suicide and was hoping to maybe drown himself by walking into the ocean, But it could just be a coincidence, maybe that he just happened to suffer a fatal heart attack at that exact moment when he was planning to end his own life, because that appeared to be the exact cause of death rather than drowning. It's so
weird, like just everything about it. Cutting off all of your labels so that nobody can find out who you are. Why would you take such measures unless you were planning to not want to be traced, And if you're not wanting to be traced, unless you're running to a certain location. That would be my thought, too, ash would be that he was attempting to complete suicide and he didn't want anyone who knew him from his life to find out what happened to him, or to have access to the body and know what
he did. So it seems very strange, almost eerie that he would be struck down by a heart attack at that very moment, like you just said, Robin, when he may have been attempting to drown himself. Also was really interesting is you have a lot of evidence of who this person is. His teeth, the fact that there were very unique dental features where he has the gold tooth, and he has other indications that there's a unique root canal, there's crowns, there's bridges, and then you have the idea that he
had cancer. So if you're advertising this is the body we found, we found a man. He had progressed prostate cancer. He had aspurn with him, perhaps indicating that he was at a high risk of a heart attack, which is what eventually killed him. These are the dental features that we you know, we know that this individual had. You would think that someone would easily say, oh my gosh, that's our dad, that's my brother, that's my coworker, and for no one, and then you have the CCTV
for no one to have said that, it blows my mind. I get it might be an international kind of you know, cross countries of origin from this individual to Ireland, but still you would think that someoneould say that's our man, we know him. Question for you, Robin, do you know if they did any radio carbon testing on the teeth or the bones. I haven't heard that. No. I mean it's possible they did. But if
they, if that's what happened, they never released that information publicly. But I have seen that in other cases involving unidentified decedents, So I'd be surprised if they didn't try that here because that would at least give them an idea of where he grew up and maybe an idea of like a range of places
that he could have lived within the last year or two. Yeah, because we did a Patreon Minnesota while back about a deceded named little miss Panasofki who was found murdered in Florida in nineteen seventy one, and they did some carbon testing to determine that she may have hailed from Greece, So that's the reason why she's possibly never been identified in the United States. So yeah, that would be a good idea for them to do on this guy, if they
haven't already. Since the decedent could not be identified and no one came forward who recognized him, investigators attempted to backtrack his movements, as he frequently showed up on CCTV footage in the days prior to his death. It turned out that he first showed up in the area on Friday, June twelfth, when he arrived at the nearby town of Sligo, located about eight kilometers southeast of
Ross's Point. Prior to that, the man was captured by cameras at the ulsterbus depot in the city of Darry Oh my god, I love Dairy Girls. Have I watched it? So good? It's so good? Is that a show sat in Ireland? Yes, it's so good. Hongyan cheek really funny, kind of a little raunchy and playful. At the time, he was wearing glasses and dressed in a black leather jacket, with a small bag
slung over his shoulder and a smaller black bag in his hand. He initially boarded a bus and asked if it would be traveling to Sligo, and when he learned it wasn't, he subsequently boarded the correct bus, which left the depot at four pm. CCTV footage would capture him arriving in Sligo at six twenty eight pm, and he proceeded to climb into a tax into a taxi
and asked the driver to take him to a cheap hotel. The driver first took him to a hotel on Connelly Street, which turned out to have no vacancy, so he was next taken to the Sligo City Hotel on Key Street at six point fifty two. He rented out rooms seven oh five for three nights and registered under the name Peter Bergmann. Of course, it would later turn out that Peter Bergman was a fake name, but that's how we'll refer
to him from now on. Do we have any details about the quality of this hotel and kind of what their operating standards were, because I know that one of the issues the police have in law enforcement have here in the US is that when you were in a little seedier areas and you have a lot of motels that are very, very inexpensive, they're by the hour. One of the issues is that they don't follow protocol set for hospitality industries. Right.
They're not checking IDs, they're not getting a proper documentation of people checking in. They don't pay attention to what ages people are when they're checking in. So is it possible when he requested that cab driver to take him to a cheap location that he was taken to an area where they simply if you paid them, they did not care what protocol they followed. Yeah, that's a good point, because I haven't heard of the Sligo City Hotel being CD
per se. Like from the photographs I've seen, it doesn't look like a rundown place, and I haven't heard anything about habit like rough clientele. But that could be why he selected a cheap hotel because they didn't check identification and he was able to check in without a credit card as well, which he probably wouldn't be able to do if he had gone to one of the more
classier, fancier hotels. And like, who knows, maybe he said something like, oh my gosh, like I've misplaced my wallet, but I have cash on me and let me just try to find where it is or whatever he said, and then they were like, okay, well we'll take your credit card when you leave or if you have any extra charges, and then you can show us your identification at the point that you find your wallet.
I could see him coming up with some kind of excuse, especially if it wasn't like he's not staying at Hilton or something like that or four seasons where they're absolutely going to require your credit card and identification. If it is just this cheap hotel, might have a staff member who's more likely to make an exception, especially if it's this older guy, and you're kind of like, okay, no one's really going to take him, so let's just make an
exception. We'll let him come in. We're likely not going to get caught for this, and he's paying cash up front, so you know, if nobody finds out, it's not a big deal. Yeah, the very no one would find out. But then it turns out this would become the center of one of the biggest mysteries in Ireland. So I wonder if the clerk who checked him in wound up keeping their job. The rate was sixty five euros per night, and Peter Bergman paid for it in cash, but like
we said, he was never asked to provide any identification. When he wrote his name in the register, he listed his address as eight Stisen fifteen Ving forty four seventy two. Now Veing just happened to be the German language name for Vienna, Austria, but the problem is that this address did not exist. Some sources say that there is no such street as Aint Stetterson in Vienna,
while others state that the address led to a vacant lot. While four four seven two was meant to be a postal code, it also did not exist, as Vienna uses a four digit system where all the numbers begin with one instead of four. Everyone who heard Peter speak described him as having what sounded like a thick Austrian or perhaps German accent, and he spoke English very
well. After spending the night at the hotel, Peter would be captured visiting a nearby post office at ten forty nine am on the morning of Saturday, June the thirteenth. He would purchase ten eighty two cent stamps and was also given air mail stickers. But while it was never conclusively determined if Peter mailed any letters, these stamps were not found among his possessions after he died.
That's so bizarre. Are air mail stickers? Are those the ones where you play them on the box and it gives directions like it's fragile packaging or it's I mean, what is an air mail sticker actually used for? Uh, I'll have to look at U unless jewels, do you know. I thought that it would be something that the company who's shipping it would put on like
a parcel or something like that. Right, Like, I thought if you're going to be sending something through FedEx and they're sending something in an airplane, they would slap that on. I didn't know you as the sender would do that, but I really don't know. Yeah, I think it's kind of thing the expedite if you need to send it like somewhere to another country or something like. They're not required for international postage, but it's sometimes helpful to
put them on any envelopes and packages you receive. Yeah, like extra directions, maybe extra guidance for the postage service. That's really interesting that all of a sudden you have this man who's in a foreign country. He's using information that's not accurate. Like the like the postal code, the street may not even be real, the address surely doesn't exist except for possibly a vacant lot. And then we know that he's preparing to try to send mail potentially out
of the country. It's almost as if is he writing letters to family members. But again, if he was, and he mount those prior to this day that he's enters the water, somehow, wouldn't we know wouldn't people say I got a letter from my deceased brother for my deceased cousin and he had cancer and took his own life. Like I just feel like if anything had gone out that wasn't let's say just work related, wouldn't that guide people to
who this individual was. Who knows how much direction he would have given within those letters, and how cryptic or vague he could have been. And say they lived in like just Switzerland for example, Maybe they've never heard of Peter Bergmann or heard of this case, and so they just think that they're getting these letters from their loved one and they're saying, you know, I'm moving
away, I'm never going to see you again. Who knows what they could have potentially said, But I think you're absolutely right ash that he likely was sending the letters to somebody, because why else would you get these stamps, And if they weren't found on his person when he died, and they weren't with his belongings, it seems likely that perhaps he already did mail those letters. But what did they say and did they provide any sort of clue or
direction to where he may have been ending his own life. It could have just been I'm ceasing communication with you. We don't really know. If his intention was to end his own life, and he went so far as to cut his labels off his clothing so that he wasn't identified, he might have been very cryptic in what he was saying to them, essentially some kind of
cloaked version of don't look for me. During his three night stay at the hotel, Peter mostly kept to himself, but during that time period he would be captured on CCTV exiting the hotel no less than thirteen times. On each occasion, he would be shown carrying a purple plastic bag which appeared to contain
items, but he was not carrying the bag whenever he returned. It was unclear if Peter might have folded the same empty bag and placed it in one of his pockets, or if he just kept a large collection of purple bags inside his room. Investigators theorized that Peter may have been using the bags to dispose of all of his personal belongings in order to hide all potential clues to
his identity. However, a thorough check of all CCTV footage in Slago failed to capture Peter getting rid of any items, and even though a number of the local dumps, rubbish bins, and public areas were searched, they failed to turn up anything which could be traced back to him. Peter's movements almost seemed to indicate that he was aware of all the security cameras blind spots and made the calculated decision to avoid them whenever he disposed of his belongings. Okay,
so this is still possible. That changes my idea a little bit. You're saying that it almost was like he was aware of where these cameras were and was going to these great links to kind of hide who he was. Is it possible that with the prostate cancer, with potentially being near the end of his life and having let's say, opioids or any kind of medication for the cancer, or again just kind of having the chemical imbalances going on due
to the cancer and this heart issue. Could he have been suffering from delirium or kind of a state of almost near dementia caused by the cancer medication or by this near end of his life that made him think someone was after him, which is why he had to go to these great links. I think it's possible. I think the cancer can have a huge impact on your mental health and just on you on all of your different hormones and your neurology.
Every single aspect of your brain is going to be affected, not specifically by the cancer, but likely by whatever medication he was taking, whether it was chemo or radiation, and then just this feeling of impending doom. Their rates of the incidence of depression and anxiety in people with cancer is far higher than
the general population. So the idea that he could have even been in a state, like you said, of psychosis, that is possible because I can't imagine when you're facing death and you know that that is the end, how difficult that would be to grapple with. And we don't know his interpersonal relationships or his support network so I don't think that we could discount the possibility that
he was having some kind of mental health crisis. That is true because we've talked about how we think it's a calculated attempt to get rid of his identity, to get rid of all clues to his identity, so that no one would know who he was when he died. But if he was not in
the right frame of mind, it could be. An alternate explanation is that he just thought people racked for him, like he was just paranoid, because the cancer was just causing some mental health issues, so everything in his own mind made sense to him, even though maybe didn't make any sense to the outside world. So on Sunday, June the fourteenth, Peter left the hotel
between eleven and eleven thirty am and climbed into a taxi cab. According to the driver, Peter pulled out a map and asked him to recommend a quiet beach where he could go for a swim. After he recommended Ross's Point, the driver took him to the two beaches which were located there. When they arrived, Peter only climbed out of the taxi for a few moments to look at the area before he got back in and asked the driver to take him
to the Sligo bus station. During the ride, Peter asked how often buses traveled to that beach, and he also mentioned that he was from Austria. After Peter was dropped at the bus station, he later returned to the hotel and requested a late checkout the following morning. At one oh six pm on Monday, June the fifteenth, Peter finally checked out and left. He was described as wearing a black leather jacket, longsleeved pale blue shirt, a sleeve
list Tommy Hill figure jumper, and dark trousers. Even though most of these articles of clothing were later found on the beach, the long sleeved blue shirt was never recovered. Peter was also seen carrying the same shoulder bag and handheld bag he had with them when he arrived in Sligo, as well as a purple plastic bag. When he left the hotel, Peter was captured on CCTV walking down Quay Street to the Quayside Shopping Center, where, for unknown reasons,
he waited in the doorway for several minutes before walking away again. At one sixteen pm, I am a little concerned because remember he does have his speed out and underwear on underneath of these clothes when he's discovered, and we do find these other articles of clothing around. But that day before, when he's taken to the beach just very temporarily, just very quickly, what could that have been for. Was he discarding something and the water? Was he
scoping out where he might try to go the next day? And how far were those locations from where his body was actually discovered. I think he was scouting the location, because I don't think he got out of the taxi long enough to dispose of anything. I think if he was planning suicide, that maybe says, I want to find a nice beach, and this looks like a nice place where I can come back tomorrow and then possibly walk into the water to take my own life. So yeah, he was definitely planning something,
but we'll just never really know why he chose that particular beach. Maybe I don't know if he had any past familiarity with it, or maybe he just thought this looks like a nice place. I'll be at peace here when I die. At one thirty two pm, Peter was shown arriving at the Sligo bus station, where he stopped at a small cafe in order to cappuccino
and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Curiously, by this point, Peter was only carrying the purple plastic bag and the black shoulder bag, but the smaller black bag he was seen holding at the hotel was no longer in his possession and has never been found. After he sat down at the table to eat, Peter pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and wrote something down on it before he proceeded to tear it up and toss it into a
nearby rubbish bin. When he finished eating, Peter soon asked an employee about the next bus to Ross's Point, and he proceeded to purchase a one way ticket before the bus left at to forty pm. Starting at four that afternoon, no less than sixteen witnesses would recall seeing Peter at the same beach he'd visited in Ross's Point the previous day. These sightings would be spread out over the course of nearly eight hours, and Peter was seen walking and pacing along
the beach. Some of the witnesses reported him standing in the water in his bare feet with his trousers rolled up to his knees, and at various points he was seen with a black bag strapped over his shoulder. The lask and Firm sighting was from a woman who saw him at eleven fifty pm and said he was still carrying the purple plastic bag and had his glasses on at the
time. The high tide was scheduled to arrive on the beach within the next half an hour, and by the following morning, Peter's dead body would be discovered. In spite of all the articles of clothing and personal items he left behind on the beach, the black shoulder bag, the purple plastic bag,
and Peter's glasses could not be found anywhere. This is wild, so okay, there's a lot of people who watch him for hours upon hours, or at least many people who saw him over the course of these hours pacing the beach. So part of me feels heartbroken for him that if he was trying to take his own life, that he's almost I mean, obviously it's daytime, so he doesn't want to do anything to arouse suspicion, but it's almost
like trying to mentally prepare himself for that. But then there's still an opportunity or a bizarre chance that something happened to him, Like I mean, can I know a heart attack and cardiac arrest are different, but is it possible that an assault could cause him to go into cardiac arrest? He wasn't in good health anyway. Is it possible that being scared or overwhelmed by someone who arrived at the beach could have made him have that attack? I guess you
can't rule that out. I mean, the investigator said that there were no obvious signs of foul play, but if it's just an incident where someone like yells at him or something or touches him and doesn't leave any noticeable bruises or marks, it could be a case where they just indirectly caused his heart to fail and caused him to die from cardiac arrest, which I don't know if that would technically count as a homicide, But I guess you can't discount the
idea that there was another person present when Peter died, And who knows, maybe they could have even stolen some of these items that were missing and never accounted for. Of course, the investigation and failed to uncover any passports or records for anyone under the name Peter Bergmann which matched this man's age or description in Europe, North America or South America. While as DNA and fingerprints were
obtained and circulated among various agencies, no match could be found. When the man known only as Peter Bergmann could not be identified, he was buried in an unmarked grave in Sligo Town Cemetery in September of two thousand and nine. This plot had specifically been purchased to very unclaimed bodies, and since it could hold up to three people, Peter currently has another unidentified decedent buried alongside him.
In twenty thirteen, this story became the subject of a nineteen minute documentary titled The Last Days of Peter Bergmann, which was screened at the twenty fourteen Sundance Film Festival and also won the Best Documentary Short Film Award at the twenty
fourteen Melbourne International Film Festival. The director Kieran Cassidy has speculated that Peter may have traveled to the beach at Ross's Point in hopes of being washed away into the Atlantic Ocean, stating Bergmann must have wanted to disappear forever into the Atlantic. But alas for him, the ocean rejected his body and now he lies in an unmarked grave in Sligo end quote. In most sources I found for this case, there was no mention of how DNA profiling was being utilized to
identify Peter. But about a month after my original trail went cold episode came out, the Sligo detectives currently investigating this case released this statement quote, we don't send DNA to ancestry or other sites. Well, it might advance an area where Peter might have come from, it doesn't advance his identification end quote. This story has ballooned into one of Ireland's biggest mysteries of the modern era, and after nearly fifteen years, the true identity of the middle aged man
known only as Peter Bergmann remains unknown. So I guess you could say the path went Chiley. Can we all just go back to what this detective says that while it might advance the area where Peter might have come from, it does not advance his identification. Today it does, right, We are not just sending in DNA to say this is my country of origin or this is where I'm from. We know that genetic genealogy can actually help us link to
close descendants of whoever Peter Bergman actually was. And so while we used to not be able to have those kinds of links, the advancements have occurred so quickly and been used for criminal cases over the last several years. Why can't
they send his DNA? And Now, I understand if this is not a priority case because you have a lot of active cases going on, you have a lot of cold cases with issues that need to be handled through DNA analysis and it's expensive, but to say that you can't is problematic to me. To say we won't given the circumstances, we won't because this is not necessarily an urgent case. Fine, but I don't think that's a factual statement given
what we know today about potential DNA and genetic genealogy. Mom, I've literally found her long lost sister on ancestry dot com. That's unbelievable. I guess it would depend on the laws for certain countries, because your mom's from Canada,
right, Yeah, her sister's in the US. Okay. Because I haven't been able to find any confirmation on this, any specific details, but I get the impression that laws for a lot of these genealogy websites are different in other countries in Europe, and that's why we've only used genetic genealogy to
solve cases in the United States in Canada. So I don't it sounds kind of like a bureaucratic situation where maybe you just don't have the same rights over there where, where people who have submitted their DNA to websites like Ancestry, they just maybe in Europe have not consented to allow their DNA to be used in some sort of police investigation. Because as far as I can tell, genetic genealogy is still not being used as a tool in criminal investigations outside North
America. So if you're a true crime follower, you'll probably know that the last six years have been a pretty amazing time when it comes to identifying John and Jane does. There's so many cases involving decedents who have remained unidentified for years, if not decades, but organizations such as the DNA dough Project and Authorm Incorporated have been able to use such methods as genetic genealogy to track down
these decedans' biological relatives and figure out who they are. In many of these cases, the public only had an idea of what the decedan looked like through computer generated composite sketches. But what makes the story of Peter Bergmann stand out is that he was captured on CCTV several times prior to his death, so we know what he actually looked like. These images are easily available for viewing online, yet no one has ever come forward to say that they recognize this
man. You may have already noticed that Peter's story has a number of similarities to some pretty famous cases involving unidentified decedents. For instance, there's the Tomom's shoodecase aka the mystery of the Somerton Man, involving an unidentified middle aged male who was found dead on the Summrton Park Beach in Australia in nineteen forty eight.
Much like Peter Bergman, all of the labels in the Summerton Man's clothing were removed and it seemed like he had gone to great lengths to conceal his identity. But during the summer of twenty twenty two, it was announced that based on genetic genealogy, the Somerton Man had likely been identified as an electrical engineer named Charles Carl Webb. The details of Webb's death are still not entirely clear, but he had a history of serious mental health issues, including one
previous suicide attempt. Since Webb's wife had left the abuse of marriage and he lost four close relatives over the course of seven years, it's been theorized that his death could have been a suicide. And who is to say that Peter Bergmann couldn't have had a similar backstory exactly? And what else was he struggling
with where he has this cancer diagnosis. It's likelihoend his life. He could very well all have a problematic family life or feel as though he's become a burden on his family and feels a need to leave or to get out with dignity, and so he's trying to, like they said, go out with the Atlantic. But again, this is my case in point. We have cases that are decades and decades old where we have an unidentified individual and through
this genetic genealogy we're able to identify who they are. And so my prayer is that the databases and DNA technology in European countries and in Ireland is growing and it's one of those things that when it becomes more accessible, that it is used in a case just like Peters. That's what we're finding out these that's the beauty of these databases. And so we know people over in Ireland and Europe are doing the tests. Are they being used in criminal justice cases
or in these kind of unknown cases? Possibly not. But my prayer is, because we know it works, why wouldn't law enforcement agencies start turning to this as a standard practice. I mean, they've identified someone from who died in nineteen forty eight because of genetic genealogy. Like many people thought that the Somerton Man was going to be one of history's truly unsolvable mysteries that people like talked about for decades. Yet here we are and they've been able to figure
out who this guy was, so anything is possible. Peter's story is also reminiscent of two other cases involving individuals who checked into hotels under false names before they turned up dead. If you've watched the Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix, you're probably familiar with the story of an unidentified woman who checked into the Uzza
Plaza hotel in Norway under the name Jennifer Fairgate in nineteen ninety five. Like Peter, she was never asked to provide any identification and booked the room for three nights, and she would eventually be found dead on her bed after an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound. In both the Somerton Man and Jennifer Fairgate came, one of the most prominent theories is that they were spies, So I suppose it's not surprising that this theory has also been presented for Peter Bergman as
well. The other famous case that we were referring to took place in September two thousand and one and involved a young man who checked into a motel in Amanda Park, Washington, under the false name Lyle Stevick, before he subsequently hanged himself in the closet. In May twenty eighteen, it was announced that the DNA dough Project had used genetic genealogy to track down Lyle's biological family, but in the interest of privacy, all details about his true identity and backstory
have been kept secret from the public. It's been theorized that Lyle Stevick took steps to ensure his family never found out what happened to him. And it's possible that Peter Bergmann may have done the same thing. There don't seem to be many reasons you wouldn't use your legal name to chuck into a hotel either.
I think you would be having a concern that somebody was after you or dangerous, or it could be looking for you, like a domestic violent situation, or even something bigger like a spy situation, or you have a debt to handle and you haven't, So those kinds of issues could explain why you would be using a false name. If you're incredibly famous, I could see hiding under a false name so that the publicity and the notoriety's not there.
But I could also see this situation where someone says, I need to leave. I am coming and taking this trip to complete suicide and to end my life, and therefore I don't want my family to necessarily know that. There's a lot of shame that people carry when they're suffering with depression like that, or they want to end their life and their famili's fighting so hard for them
to live, especially through a cancer treatment and things like that. So I could very well see Peter either having that kind of delirium and worry and being on this trip and kind of not necessarily being in his right mind, or I could also see him saying, I have a very clear plan, I know what I want to do, but I don't want to hurt the people who care about me, and I'm going to see if I can lead them to believe that I've left and that I can in my life and let the
pain go away. Because we know he was suffering significantly, there just doesn't seem to be many other options out there. I mean, there is always a circumstance that he was being followed or watched or wanted, but the cardiac arrest makes it seem as though he really was severely ill and he knew that, and he knew his life was coming towards an end, and therefore it's one of these things that makes it lean towards that suicide is the most probable
instance here. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I guess the big unsolved mystery is why he would choose this particular town in Ireland in order to end his life, because it was obviously he was not from the area, so I just always wondered was he there in the past, and did he like this place? And this is why he chose this particular area for suicide. But until he's identified, we will probably never know, so I suppose we
need to address the question about whether or not Peter should be identified. In June of twenty nineteen, The Irish Times released a three part podcast about this case titled Atlantic The Unsolved Mystery of Peter Bergmann, hosted by journalist Rosita Boland. At one point, Boland did discuss the potential ethical issues of trying to uncover Peter's identity. If Peter took all these steps to ensure he could not be identified, should everyone respect his wishes and let him rest in peace.
It would be one thing if foul play had taken place and a homicide investigation was required, but there are cases in which decedents have died by suicide and it seemed apparent that they just wanted to be left alone and forgotten about. However, I've always personally held the belief that no matter what their final wishes may have been, there still needs to be an investigation to find out where
they were. I mentioned this particular case on our podcast so many times that I must sound like a broken record, but I must want, I must once again harkened back to the Gail Delano case, which has always been a
serious influence on my opinion about stories like this. As a quick refresher, Gail Delano vanished from her hometown in Maine, and her disappearance would be featured on Unsolved Mysteries and Toil, a medical examiner who watched this show, recognized Gail as a Jane Doe, whom he had found dead inside a hotel room in Mobile, Alabama, two years earlier for reasons that are known only to her. Gail had decided to travel there and register at the hotel under a
false name before she overdosed. It's possible she did not want her relatives to ever find out what happened to her. And while it's true that some of these other decedents might have been estranged from their own families, that was definitely not the case with Gail. You could clearly tell that her family was suffering during their Unsolved Mysteries interviews, and it would have been a major tragedy if Gail had remained a missing person and they had to keep living with the uncertainty
for the rest of their lives. Well, it's possible that Peter Bergen was a complete loaner with no family or friends. He may also have loved ones out there somewhere who spent the past fifteen years not knowing what happened to him. For this reason, I believe there is an obligation to keep seeking out his true identity. Now, what separates Peter's story from the other cases we've discussed is that the autopsy showed he was in the advanced stages of prostate cancer.
So no matter what it seemed like, he was not going to live much longer than a couple more weeks. It sounds like he wanted to spend some time in County Sligo before ending his life on his own terms. But the big mystery is where did he come from and why did he choose his particular location. That is a really powerful question. I actually never thought of it from that perspective of do you let someone rest in peace and kind of
honor what it seems their wishes were. But I'm with you, Robin, from all of the families I've worked with, and all of the professionals and grief advocates and victim advocates. When you talk to families, they will consistently tell you the only thing worse than what happened to my love when via homicide, via an attack the death right would be not knowing having a missing person. They'll tell you that, you know, I want to know the details.
I want to know what happened, because when I don't, I fill it in myself. Right, these families have a obsession almost with wondering what happened when you don't have an answer, than every answer is a possibility. And so I think the kind of over overwhelming questioning you would be doing, the way that you would just want to know why and what and how, that you would actually have nightmaric situations in your head that you would be playing
constantly. I have to know what happened to my child. I have to know what happened to my husband. I have to know where their body is. Those are really important questions for someone who's grieving. And when you leave and you disappear, the grief is significant, and the fear and the trauma and the way that I, you know, I hypothesize what happened to you is often far worse than the really grim, dark reality that these families find
out eventually. They want to know so to me, when I hear the worst case scenario would be if our child was missing, the worst case scenario would be if my husband was missing and they hadn't found his body, I think the family needs to be informed. Speaking of broken records, I will bring up Julia Murray again, and I know, just like Gail Delano has been brought up a lot. I often use Julia Murray as an example, but I just remember when she spoken to Ashley and I and she talked about
her open ended trauma of not knowing where Mora was. And in a situation where you have somebody who wants to end their own life and they're taking all these measures to avoid being identified, you have to ask the question of are they in their right mental state at that point in time to make a decision such as that that has such far reaching implications and consequences for their loved ones. If they were at their very best mental health wise, would they make
that decision for themselves at the end? And I think the answer is typically no. So I'm in agreement with both of you and that I do understand when somebody ends their own life and you know that maybe there could be a level of respect for their wishes, but I think in an overwhelming number of circumstances, unless they're trying to escape an abusive partner or something like that, or a situation where they were being harmed in some way, I do think
the family has the right to know because it is something that they will carry with them forever, and at least that would provide a resolution. I agree, And I think when suicide becomes an option, it's that life is no longer a viable outcome for you, and a lot of times these individuals feel that they are a burden on the people around them, that they've caused significant distress that it cannot be healed now for Peter, if the mission really was
suicide. I also think when a fatal illness is staring you down, I think there's been many people who have said, I want to go out on my own terms with dignity, where I still have my faculties about me, where I still am able to stand, I'm able to go to the restroom by myself, I'm able to do these things, and I want to die with dignity. So I think that in this case is probably more the case
if he was completing suicide. But you also hear of people who say, I just I'm too much on my family, I'm hurting them, I'm a burden. This problem is so big, I can't get over it. And so, like you said, Jules, when you actually talk to family members after the death of a loved one via suicide, that issue was not something we couldn't overcome. Warakness was not something we couldn't bring light to. Right, They're not a burden to me. Whether it's medical issues, whether it's
their mental health, whether it's something they've done to our family. It's a problem that we could have overcome had I known, or it's something I would have gotten help had I known, or there's someone in their life that needed them. And so I think for Peter it might have been more medical based and dying with dignity, which is not always allowed. You know, we have euthanasia laws, and some states and some countries do allow for people to
choose when they're facing a disease that's going to end and death. But if Peter didn't have that option, or if his family didn't wanted to take that option, this seemed to be a way that he could go out with dignity. I still think his family needed to know, so I think this would be a good time to bring it into part one. But join us next week as we present part two of our series about the death of Peter Bergmann. Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trailment
Cold? Patreon, Yes, I don't call. 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
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