Rodney Marks Pt. Two

Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the unexplained death of Rodney Mars Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on what we talked about in our previous episode, Well, this is the first case you've ever covered from Antarctica. It takes place at the South Pole, at the Amundson Scott South Pole Station, which is a research station where about fifty people go to work a year round and it'll work so that during the

summer season it's six months of straight daylight, followed by the winter season which is six months of straight darkness. And one of the people who loved working there, this was his second stint there was Rodney Marx, who was an Australian astrophysicist. He showed up there during the nineteen ninety nine was planning to stay there for a whole year, and he also got engaged to a woman who was stationed there named Sonia Walter, and they were planning to get married

after they made it back to the mainland. But one point during his stint in May of two thousand, Rodney started to become very ill and over the course, at thirty six hours his condition was worsen until he suddenly died. They were not able to figure out his cause of death. At first, they attributed to natural causes, but after a Rodney's body was flown back to the mainland about six months later and he was given an autopsy, they discovered

that his exact cause of death was methanol poisoning. But of course, in so much time had passed and all the people at the station had gone their separate ways. And it was also a jurisdictional nightmare because the New Zealand police wanted to do the investigation, but a lot of the people who were stationed there were American and it was tough to decide who act she had jurisdiction in Antarctica. So they were unable to figure out the circumstances of how Rodney may

have died. Could it have been an accident, could have been ingested methanol by mistake by drinking tainted liquor, or was it an intentional homicide where someone poisoned one of his drinks and that's how he died. But no one has ever been named as a suspect or person of interest. No one has ever been named as having a personal grudge against Rodney or a motive to murder him. So to this day of this death is technically still unexplained and they've been

unable to determine if it was a homicide or an accidental death. So before we start talking anymore about Rodney Marx's case, I want to share a story about another crazy incident which occurred at the Emmonson Scott South Hole Station. In our last episode, we mentioned that during the winter months, the weather is

so cold that it is nearly impossible for a plane to land there. Well, just over a year before Rodney's death, a woman named doctor Jerry Nielsen was assigned to serve as the physician at the station, but during the winter season, she discovered a lump in her breasts. Due to the weather, there was no way she could possibly be evacuated for months, so doctor Nielsen was forced to perform a biopsy on herself and self treat her own cancer,

which involves self administering chemotherapy. The National Science Foundation even sent a military plane to fly over the base and air drops some medical supplies for her treatment because they cannot safely land and pick her up. But thankfully, once they're able to evacuate Nielsen and transport her back to the United States for the proper medical

attention. Her cancer went into remission. Unbelievable. One Just what a hero is she where she's saying, like, listen, I will get medical care, and if i can't get it from somebody else, I'm going to have to trust myself enough to try to save my own life. Like that alone is one of the most epic and motivating and inspirational stories I've ever heard in

my life. It is tragic that you don't have a team setup like we talked about on episode, where people are accounted for, provided for, and have means to rarely needed but important kind of access to high end medical care and the ability to get help when they need it. For her, thank god, by the time she's able to be transported out, she is able to get the necessary care and go into remission, because that could have gone

a very very different direction. Yeah, we knew that this part of the story was going to get the strongest reaction out of you, even though it's not directly tied to Rodney Marx's case. We just had to mention it because it is so epic. Oh, it's crazy. I mean, you go there and you really are. You're sacrificing so much of your life. It's an amazing opportunity for someone's career, but you're sacrificing so much for the love of science. And then you get there and you're not provided for the way

that you should be. It's a slap in the face with an organization that has so much funding and so much money, it needs to really focus on protecting those people who are doing their work well. Speaking of Raytheon Technologies, here is another story. So we have one more true crime story to share, and this one was chronicled by the late great true crime writer and Rule in one of her chapters of her twenty twelve book Lying in Wait and Rules

Crime Files. It involves a sixty one year old man named Robert Alan Baker, who beat and strangled his wife, Kathy Baker, to death in Greenback, Washington, in June of twenty twelve and wound up receiving a sentence of fifty two years in prison. While what's interesting is that Baker worked as a defense contractor at the Raytheon Technologies Corporation, and, much like Rodney Marx and Sonia Walter, his relationship with his wife began while they were working together at

the Aminston Scott South Pole station. At the end of her chapter about this case and Rule actually made reference to Rodney Marx and while she did not know if Baker knew Rodney or was stationed at the South Pole with him, she hoped him investigators would look into a potential connection, while upon further research, it turns out that Baker did not start working at Raytheon until two thousand and one, one year after Rodney's death, so I think we can safely rule

him out. The main reason we made mention of this story is because there was some controversy over the fact that Baker was a convicted sex offender who had previously spent time in prison from molesting an underage relative, so Raytheon never should have hired him in the first place, let alone send him off to an

isolated location in Antarctica to meet his future wife. This is why it could have proved very useful for Raytheon and the National Science Foundation to have turned over all their personnel files to the New Zealand Police for investigation, because who knows if Rodney may have spent the winter with someone with a checkered history who was capable of murdering him. Yeah, exactly. I mean, here's the thing where when you don't do the diligent research there and you have these ideas that

you are again and putting people at risk, it's crazy to me. Right, this guy Baker is a convicted sex offender who was spending time in prison for molesting an underage relative. And so when you look at the fact that these kinds of businesses and corporations, if their primary interest is who can make us the most money, who can contribute to us the most, and they don't look at risk they pose to not only the company, but also to

the people around them, it's ridiculous. It's motivated for money and not the protection of who they serve and the people that serve alongside them. Yeah, they're probably be thinking to their selves, well, we're not going to find too many people who are willing to spend an entire year in Antarctica, so we might have slim pickings. So of course they're going to hire a guy.

And it's unclear if they knew if Baker had was a convicted sex offender and had this history, but even if they did, they might have felt, well, we can't find too many other people to staff the place, so let's send them down there and take our chances. I really and truly hope that they just did know and they didn't willingly send a sex offender onto a research base where basically nobody can access them for six months of the year.

That is a terrifying thought. So let's face it, if you wanted to commit the perfect murder, the South Pole during the winter season would be an ideal time and place to do so, because it could be months before law enforcement showed up to conduct a proper investigation. Now, in Rodney's case, his death was initially attributed to natural causes, but you might be wondering how they would handle things if a violent crime did take place. Well.

A situation like this occurred at Antarctica's McMurdo Station in nineteen ninety six after an incident where an American cook at the facility attacked an American coworker with a hammer, though thankfully the victim survived, the McMurdo station manager was assigned to be a special Deputy US Marshal with training and evidence protection, so he had the

power to arrest any Americans who committed crimes. There after the attack, you had the cook confined to a hut until FBI agents were able to arrive at the base and take the cook into custody. The advantageous part of the situation is that it's unlikely that can find perpetrator would ever attempt to make an escape

because well, where would they go? Well exactly, That's exactly what I was wondering earlier on when we were talking about you know, you have people with a risky background that are hired, and not only do they have this kind of isolated world to operate in, but what would you do if they had known that Rodney had been murdered on in that lab? There's only fifty people there. Is there a cell designed to hold somebody suspective of abuse or

perpetrating crime in the lab with fifty people? Is there really likely a large security force who can supervise and monitor and care for someone who's in custody in that research lab? Like, I just wonder what would be the protocol when you have such a small functioning society, like fifty people for months that don't

have any outside access. How do you handle people like that? I'm actually surprised that Agatha Christie has never attempted to make a story about this, like a murder mystery at the Antarctica. I'd love to see like herk gul Perot trying to parachute there and to like solve the murder because they can't get these people out. Maybe somebody should make a movie about this. It sounds like

a great idea. You know, it's funny. Earlier on I almost made it Agatha Christie comment too, because it's exactly what it reminded me of. When Ashley was talking about the doctor not knowing and going into the doctor's office. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is just like an Agatha Christie novel, except for we don't know all of the characters that are there, except for you know, the doctor. We know, but it is such a fascinating story and it would make an excellent movie. You're right, Robin.

Now, like the Aminston Scott south Pole station, the McMurdo station is located in the Ross Dependency region, which is under New Zealand claim. But the crime we just mentioned was a clear cut case of one American violently attacking another American, so there was no ambiguity about handling jurisdiction over to the American authorities. But Rodney Mark's case is a lot more complicated because he was an Australian citizen and no one could even be certain if a crime had taken place

at all. Well, it doesn't sound like there were any potential suspects. I'm sure that there would be a ton of legal complications if it turned out an American was responsible for his death. There were forty nine other people working at the Aminston Scott station at the time Rodney died, so if foul play

did take place, there's your entire pool of suspects. Theoretically, even if the higher ups of the station had their suspicions that Rodney's death was foul play, I can kind of see why they might be compelled to stay quiet about it and classify his death as natural causes. I mean, if it turned out that someone intentionally poisoned Rodney by slipping methanol into one of his drinks, can you imagine in the panic that might have ensued With no way in or

out of the South Pole for months. This would mean that everyone was trapped there with a murderer, and without knowing that person's identity. The paranoia would have been sky high. It's definitely not uncommon for people to go stir crazy will spending long periods of time at an isolated location. So I'm sure an unsold homicide would have only exacerbated that. Oh absolutely, you know that if they had been able to identify. Listen, we have a homicide and something

like a poisoning. There is not that direct contact with a victim, so there's not a presence of forensic science left there. There's very easy ways to avert an eyewitness knowing what you're doing, and so it becomes a game of clue where it's forty nine people looking at each other and saying, it's one of us in this room. It's one of us in this lab that actually is responsible for the death of this individual, and now none of us are

safe because we don't know who it is. I'm that's the horror movie right there. That's the murder novel where you gather fifty people one's dead from a poisoning that we knows a homicide, and all of a sudden, everyone gathered to learn this information looks at their neighbor and it's like, are you the

killer? And now how do we function when we're trapped here, when we don't have any idea of what could have occurred, especially if it was poisoning in his drinks, Like no one would want to drink anything at all during that time period. They'd have to be like extra cautious and make sure that you only open your own bottles and stuff like that, because I cannot imagine the steps to ensure that something like this would happen not happen over the next

few months without any law enforcement intervention. Yeah, that food, everything you know. You would wonder is it tainted, Is it possible that I'm going to be next? Or do they escalate their acts and not poison next time? Do they do something that's more personal to see if they can get away with that. So all of those things would be going through your head.

You'd have to wonder if it would turn into like this Lord of the Flies type situation if it was found out that there was a murder because you don't have any law enforcement intervention. You don't have any legal intervention. It's basically like you're all stuck in this place and it's so isolated, and you're trying to protect yourself and your fellow humans. So if you believe that somebody who was responsible the lengths or the depths that something could go to, the potential

for people to get hurt in that situation would be almost catastrophic. So let's start talking about Rodney himself. It's interesting how when you look at photos of Rodney online, he's not someone you would visualize being a brilliant scientist, as one particular photo shows him with long, purple dreadlocked hair while he's dressed in a Sonic Youth T shirt. And of course he performed in a heavy metal

band at the base in his spare time. But it sounds like he was very good at his job and had been doing excellent work on this project before his untimely death. While accounts, Rodney was a very social, likable guy, and even though one of his colleagues described him as having a dry sense of humor which could sometimes rub people the wrong way, he had such an affable personality that it was impossible for anyone to ever stay mad at him.

In other words, it doesn't appear like he made any enemies who stood out as having a motive to murder him. The one theory which has been pretty much completely discounted is Rodney's death being a suicide, as he showed no signs of depression and really seemed to be enjoying his work. He had also just fallen in love with one of the women he was stationed with, Sonya Walter, so much so that they were actually planning to get married once they returned

to the mainland. While the isolation of spending one year at a remote Antarctic location can definitely lead to depression and mental health issues for some people, Rodney had already gone through this experience once before and seemed to enjoy it so much that he signed up to do it again. Of Course, as we reiterated on this podcast many times before, just because a person is not show any outward signs of being depressed or unhappy does not necessarily mean that they're not feeling

suicidal on the inside. But I think that Rodney's actions prior to his death would rule out that possibility. I mean, for starters, drinking methanol is an unnecessarily protracted way to die, as it sounds like Rodney went through a lot of agony during the last thirty six hours of his life. And not to sound flippant, but if someone's stationed at the South Pole was feeling suicidal, all they'd have to do is step outside without the proper protective gearon,

and everything would be over pretty quickly. I think the fact that Rodney kept visiting the Basis medical facility for treatment shows that he had no intention of suicide. Even if he decided to end things but then changed his mind. I'm sure Rodney would have told the doctore in just a methanol to increase the chances of saving his life. Oh, I think absolutely. And when I think about what could motivate somebody else to hurt him, right, I do not

think that Rodney intended to hurt himself. I also think he was in a place where if he had made a bad decision or consumed something to see if he could get a better high, or you know, get drunk quicker. I think given his pain and seeking medical care, he would have told the doctor. But I do wonder who else was on that base who would have a reason to feel threatened by him. Yes, he was a likable guy,

but he's also brilliant. He wouldn't have been there if he wasn't, And you know a lot of those are grant funded positions and esteemed selected positions. Is there someone who feels threatened by him, feels like he might be discovering something at a higher level than they are, or is it related to his love interest that's on the base? Is someone resentful of that? Is someone also interested in her? Could someone have been interested in him and they

didn't have an opportunity. There's other reasons that someone could look at an individual like Rodney and say, in these short months, I've developed a hatred for him via competition, either romantically or professionally, And you could see somebody having that motivation when you couple that with I remember reading that the base at this time, like we know that Rodney was a heavy drinker, but that there was a lot of heavy drinking going on in general, and that alcohol was

provided to them. Did you hear that, Robin, Oh, yeah, definitely. Like they've always said that alcohol is essential to be able to stay there for like six months in the winter darkness. You need alcohol to get through it. And I'm sure some people would have developed genuine alcohol problems.

And when you add somebody having dry sense of humor onto that equation, there could be any number of motivations somebody could have felt, like you know, he insulted them or wronged them in some way, or like Ashley said, they could have been jealous of his brilliance or of his fiance. They might

have wanted Sonia for themselves. There's any number of motivations, but will never truly know because none of these individuals have been formally questioned or interviewed, and we only have thirteen of the forty nine people who actually submitted the mail in questionnaire, so we've got so little information here. One alternate theory which was proposed is that Rodney could have drank some methanol in order to get a major

buzz or something. But I'm sure he would have said something once his illness got really bad. So I have to agree with the New Zealand Police's assessment that no matter what happened, it seems very likely that Rodney ingusted the methanol unknowingly. Now it's certainly possible that there was no foul play here and that

Rodney did consume some methanol accidentally. Rodney was described as loving as alcohol, but you could probably say that about most of the personnel at the station, since it sounds like drinking like we just said, was an essential aspect of getting through these long South Pole winters. In fact, while sharing her experience there on a blog, Sonya Walter once wrote, quote, I'm not aware of any AA meetings taking place, although it wouldn't be a bad idea for

quite a few people here end quote. Rodney was also described as being a binge drinker at times, though most people would have stopped short of calling him an alcoholic. I'll just add that at this time, substance use disorder wasn't the proper terminology like it what like it is today, So just calling somebody an alcoholic would have been what they would have done at the time. Oh

yeah, yeah. And he had no less than eighteen bottles of liquor inside his room at the time of his death, and there were also around twenty empty bottles for both alcohol and lab agents on his desk. So could it be possible that Rodney mistook a bottle of methanol for liquor and drank it. I mean, Rodney was described as a very cautious person who wouldn't have made

a mistake like that. But while when you're drunk, your personal judgment can be heavily affected However, since it was months before anyone could arrive at the station to pick up Rodney's body, all of those bottles, as well as a number of other pieces of potential evidence, were tossed out before anyone even

considered the possibility of a homicide investigation. Consider this, they're on this base where, like you guys said, you almost have to drink to get through it, Like you don't, right, sobriety is definitely an option, but it is one of the entertainment ways that people would cope with the mental health of being away from family and in this bizarre climate of being more social than

they might normally be. This is a bunch of scientists together, so you know, like it lubricates the social freedoms that they might not normally feel. And he's in a rock band. He's in two different kind of bands as well, and so well, it sounds like a lot of alcohol. Eighteen bottles of liquor and then these empty bottles as well. Could he have also been the person that was almost like their personal bartender and party host. He's

quirky and fun, and he's in a band. Could he have had multiple options for people to come by his room and he'll make a drink or like people come to his room and hang out. There's many possible abilities that one he stocked up for a year long stay and that's why there's not much alcohol, or could he have entertained other people in alcohol is one of those means as well. And then it's not quite as crazy that you go, wow,

that's a lot for a single individual. Yeah, that's never been specified, but he does sound like the type of person who would invite people privately to his room in order to hang out and drink because he was such an affable person. And if there were any suspects who like showed up spent a lot of time in his room drinking with them, they would seem like logical people to have possibly poisoned his drinks. But of course, because these people

were never questioned, we don't know that information. And I remember reading so I don't know if this is correct that the facility provided alcohol for the employees as like an incentive to you know, be like, hey, you're gonna

come here, but there's going to be booze type of a thing. And if that was the case, and we know that Rodney is this outgoing, affable person, who's like the life of the Maybe, like you said, Ash, he has a bunch of the bottles in his room and it just happens to be a regular meeting place where everybody goes to kick back and have

a few drinks after they finish their day. Of course, due to jurisdictional issues, the New Zealand Police only got to question a handful of people who were stationed at the base, and most of those interactions were done by questionnaires which were pre screened by the National Science Foundation. Even if Rodney was not the victim of an intentional homicide, it's possible his death was the result of negligence on someone's part, which is why the NSF and their employees have been

very uncooperative about the whole thing. I mean, the agency claimed they conducted their own internal investigation, but they've never turned their findings over to the New Zealand Police or even provided any evidence to prove this investigation actually took place. And since the New Zealand Police's coronial inquest was described as informal, the US Department of Justice flat out told them that they had noah Tha authority to force

the NSF to do anything. This sounds like a major catch twenty two because in order for this to happen, the New Zealand police would have to uncover conclusive evidence that the NSF or Raytheon were complicit in a crime. But there's very little chance of obtaining this evidence without the cooperation. Exactly and months later, when you actually found out you needed to go back and ask questions and

do interviews and gather evidence. I just feel like almost every entity, whether they had true intent and desire to know the truth, almost had to know from the onset that there's no way to get to the bottom of this, and you're not going to get valuable information from a questionnaire that has been scrutinized and approved to limit liability and the public relation nightmare that the NSF wouldn't want

to occur once they discover that it's a suspected homicide. So it's just a mess from the get go, and you see for years there is this question of so like, can we do more? Should we be doing more? How do we do more? And by the time it's eight years later, people are starting to say, guys, we almost have to hang this up.

I don't see how we're going to get answers in this case. One of the most controversial figures in this whole ordeal is the base physician, doctor Robert Thompson, who's been the subject of heavy criticism for how he handled the situation once Rodney became seriously ill. In particular, he's been criticized for his failure to maintain and use the ectecum machine, which could have potentially detected the

methanol in Rodney's bloodstream before it was too late. It sounds like the fate of doctor Thompson has sort of become a mystery within a mystery, because after numerous failed attempts by the New Zealand police to track him down and get him to testify at the inquest, his current whereabouts were described as unknown. Of course, I would be interested to know if Thompson genuinely believed that Rodney's death was natural causes, or if he decided to keep any personal suspicions to himself

in order to avoid a potential panic at the Base. I highly doubt that Thompson was directly involved in some sort of murder conspiracy, but I can see why he would be inclined to avoid answering questions about how he handled the situation in case of potential liability issues. Thompson did originally provide a report about how the situation with Rodney played out, but it would have been very useful to get his clarification on certain things. One particular oddity which has stood out in

this case are the two needle marks found on Rodney's right arm. Since Rodney was given separate injections of halidahal and another sedative prior to his death, you might assume this was the source of the needle marks, but Thompson apparently said they were already there before he made the injections. Rodney allegedly admitted to interveno his drug use in the past, but since he was right handed, it

is strange that the marks would be on his right arm. Whatever the case, there were no illegal drugs found in Rodney's system during the autopsy, and while a theory has been proposed that perhaps he attempted to take some alcohol intravenously, it sounds like the coroner was pretty certain the methanol was ingested, not injected. It's possible the needle marks have no significance to the case at all, but again, it would have been useful for Thompson to provide testimony in

order to clarify some of these points. While NSF said that they had a zero tolerance policy for drug use, there have been multiple reports of marijuana being used and grown at the station, which shouldn't be too surprising, But as far as we know, there have never been any confirmed reports of usage of

heroin or any hard drugs which would have required a needle. If doctor Thompson is telling the truth, which I don't see why he would not tell the truth, then Rodney was transparent that he was experimenting with different drugs at a party and several months earlier, and so if he had done that prior to ever coming into Antarctica, it's possible if he truly was experimenting and this was not something he did on a normal basis, that he wasn't the one even

injecting the intravenous drugs. That's someone who was a more experienced drug user and someone helping him to learn how to inject those drugs was the one who actually did that for him. But he shared that and he said, yeah, look I do drink, but it was two days ago. Yeah, those are totally old needle marks that I was experimenting with drugs back home, And

so I don't feel like the doctor here has any nefarious desires. I think he was presented with a case that presented more like a common illness, like a virus that has really taken hold of him, a really bad flu and a migraine, and he's thinking of what is Rodney's typical medical history, anxiety, panic attacks, tourette's self medicating. Okay, this could be a result of either withdraws or an extreme mental health episode, right, even the physical

effects of vomiting and the blood and things like that. And so to me, given what he knew, given what he had access to, most of me thinks he was trying to do the best he could in the moment, trying to get external people to call in and help consult on the case, but racing against a clock, knowing there's something wrong, his health's declining, and I don't know what else to try. Yeah, And since doctor Thompson's whereabouts are described as unknown and nobody had any luck tracking him down, I've

always been curious if he's even aware that Rodney's case was. They found that he died of methanol poisoning, and that his case has gotten so much publicity and is so dissected. I mean, for all he knows, he could have just moved on with his life. Assume Rodney died of natural causes and that no one is paying any attention to it now. Even though there was a large supply of alcohol available at the base, it apparently wasn't uncommon for

people stationed there to operate their own still to make moonshine. After all, if you're living in complete isolation in the middle of nowhere for an entire year, even drinking traditional alcohol can become monotonous. Apparently, one particularly popular brand of homemade alcohol, which was often brewed at the base was called Toast Juice, and it's been reported that the New Zealand Police was able to obtain a bottle of Toast Juice for ESR testing and discovered that it was seventy one percent

pure alcohol. The Toast Juice was also reportedly discounted as being the source of the methanol in Rodney's body. But if people at the base were frequently brewing their own alcohol, you can see how something might have gone horribly wrong. Even if the Toast Juice did not contain methanol. Rodney still could have consumed

some homemade moonshine containing methanol without even realizing it. But then again, if Rodney did something like that and had any inkling that it could have been the source of the illness he was experiencing, would he have said something to doctor Thompson. I mean, while he may have gotten into trouble for consuming or making moonshine, his life was on the line here, oh absolutely, And

he was trying to get help. He was scared, and so the only thing they knew to do was to sedate him and give him a how doll. And if that is the response, right, it's like he's he's scared, he's panicking. I feel like he would have been as helpful as possible, begging for help and saying, you know what about this? Could it have been this? You know, doc, what's wrong? If he knew I just ingested some homemade moonshine. I don't think he's worried about any kind

of criminal or career liability at that point. Pure alcohol, my god. We're particularly intrigued by the theory involving the mysterious bottle of liquor that Rodney brought to the base with him, containing a label which appeared to feature Portuguese writing.

The bottle was never found, but there were multiple witnesses who were called seeing it, and if it was thrown away, then this implies that the liquor was consumed before Rodney's death, and if it happened to be tainted liquor containing methanol, then Rodney may not have had any inkling that it was causing his illness since he obtained it before he even arrived at the South Pole. According to the World Health Organization, tainted alcohol can lead to as many as

three hundred deaths per year from acute methanol poisoning. On our last episode, we made reference to a two thousand and nine article about this case in Men's Journal, and it made reference to an incident where a sherpa wound up dying at a base camp at Mount Everest after drinking methanyl tainted whiskey. If that's what happened, then technically no one from the base had any complicity in Rodney's death, but without having the bottle to test his evidence, it would be

impossible to know for sure. But of course this theory is pure speculation, and we cannot rule out the possibility that something else led to Rodney's poisoning and someone from the base knows the truth and is never talked. If it is that bottle, there's just zero way of being able to trace that back.

I mean, not really understanding the time that's passed and when he acquired that, and if there were surveillance cameras of someone replacing it on the shelf as a tainted bottle versus the regular bottle, all that would have been gone, you know, a year after the purchase. Remember he came I believe in December, the year before he died, and then his body is held almost

until you know, the winter again a year later. So no one was going to have information about that tainted bottle, even from the store that it was purchased from a year later. Okay, I'm confused about the statistic with the chanted alcohol. Do they mean that it is three hundred people die from tainted alcohol that is bought commercially or do they mean that three hundred people die from tainted alcohol that they could have potentially homebrewed. They've never specified that.

I think that was just like a statistic they put in the Men's Journal article. But yeah, that'd be interesting because if it was home brewed alcohol, how can you really know for sure if it was tainted. Yeah, it says that most cases of methanol poisoning and this is not for men's health, This is from a science journal, but it says are a result of drinking

home brewed alcohol. Methanol is either deliberately added to strengthen the informally produced alcohol, or it's left in the brew because of poor cleaning and distillery practices. Aren't you supposed to like pour off the top when you make like a homebrew or moonshine or something, and that pours off the methanol. I don't know. I think people used to die alcohol. I don't. I don't remember.

You're from the South, you should know now. So one theory which has been pushed forward is that Rodney's death was the result of a prank on horribly wrong. I mean, lacing someone's drink with methanol seems like a pretty

stupid idea for a practical joke. But people don't always make the best decisions when they're drunk and have been living in isolation from That's why it's such a shame that Rodney did not receive a proper autopsy to find the methanol in his system until over six months after his death, because by that point, the forty nine other people who had been stationed at the base had all gone their

separate ways and were scattered all over the world. The key to figuring out what happened to Rodney would be at a pinpoint, the last time he took a drink. When Rodney was being examined by doctor Thompson, he said he hadn't taken a drink in nearly two days. But where did this drink take place? Was it in the privacy of his own room, or was it at a social event with numerous people. Did someone else have the opportunity to

handle one of Rodney's drinks before they gave it to him. If this had occurred anywhere else besides the South Pole, law enforcement probably would have gotten involved immediately and backtracked Rodney's movements to try and determine where and when he took the fatal drink containing the methanol. But after more than six months, figuring out something like this would pretty much be impossible, particularly since only a small fraction

of the basis personnel. We're willing to answer questions from the New Zealand police. If someone wanted to murder Rodney, poisoning one of his drinks would be the absolute perfect way to do so, because methanol is odorless and known for having a taste that resembles vodka, so Rodney would have never even noticed. But I guess the issue is that Rodney had one hundred and fifty milliliters of methanol in his system, which is about enough to fill a wine glass.

So I have to wonder what he was drinking to be able to consume that much without realizing it, my goodness, and for how long? And if someone's sitting there deliberately poisoning multiple beverages for him, that's incredibly disturbing and very risky as well. I had no idea it was that much to fill a

wine glass. So for me, if he's sitting there and he's having multiple drinks that are being tainted, it can take, I believe, up to like seventy two hours for methanol to finally shut somebody's body down if it's a high dose like that. So he is presenting me symptom what forty eight hours

after he's had his last drink. But it's such a high level. Do you is there any way that that medically could have metabolized in his system and it actually seems like more than what it was like, could that at all be a possibility, or when it was mixed with other drugs that it seems to have thrown off the chemical I don't know, makeup of his body. That just seems like so much. I'm not entirely sure. I mean, it was six months after he died when they finally found those millileaters, so

I'm not sure if the body does produce methanol after someone dies. But they did say that it had a vodka taste, so it could be a thing where someone literally poured a glass of methanol and told Rodney it was vodka and that's how he consumed so much. Well, that's true, And you could also if you have a mixer with it that dolls, you know, pretty heavy, like an orange juice or something like that, it wouldn't it wouldn't

be as suspicious either. Now we mentioned earlier, but no less than eighteen liquor bottles were found inside Rodney's room, So theoretically, if someone wanted to sneak into his room and slip methanol into his liquor to poison him, How would they know which bottle to choose. In order for a murder plot to work, the perpetrator would need to be certain that Rodney was drinking a specific beverage at a specific time, which is why it would have been so useful

to piece together Rodney's drinking habits in the days preceding his death. But of course that still doesn't answer the question about who would have had a potential motive to harm Rodney. Well, you might have noticed that we haven't made much mention of his fiance, Sonia Walter. Sonia refused to give interviews following Rodney's death, but she did provide evidence at the coronial inquest and would continue to

return to Antarctica to work lengthy stints there. It seems like she was content to put the whole incident behind her and move on with her life, and for all we know, she might genuinely believe there was no foul play involved. Certainly don't have any reason to suspect Sonya and anything, but I can't

help but wonder if their relationship might have set someone else off. Even though an isolated research station in the South Pole sounds like an unusual place to meet your soulmate, it sounds like Rodney and Sonya fell head over heels in love with each other and seemed to be a perfect match. I mean, the couple had literally not spent any time together in normal civilization before they decided that they wanted to get married. But what if there was someone at the base

who had feelings for Sonya and became jealous. I mean, this is not an environment where you could just move on if you see someone you like with another partner. If anyone had issues with seeing Rodney and Sonya together, it's not like they could just avoid the situation, as there were pretty much trapped there for another six months. I have to wonder if this could have driven

someone to murder. But once again, this is all just pure speculation, since I have not heard any stories about someone having issues with Rodney and Sonya's relationship or any friction ever developing over it at the base. I would love to go back in time and figure out what the social scenario was there. I mean, they're playing these bands, they're having these concerts there. Drinking

is a very common pastime for everybody. I don't know why, in my gut, I almost feel as if somebody was saying, oh, let me run make you a drink. And his room really was like a sub bar where you can run in there, mix a drink and a cocktail, run back out to the show where he's playing music and everyone's having fun. And so if someone wanted to go help him by getting a drink, they could

have easily poison it and known exactly which alcohol to select. It seems crazy that you would decide to taint a whole bottle because there is a risk that your target isn't the one that consumes it. Sonia could have consumed it. One of the other band members could have consumed it, one of the other researchers could have You might have accidentally been served by that bottle. So I would more see someone say let me run get you and they bring it to

him, and that's how he's able to consume it. If he was performing a few nights earlier, it's very possible someone was a runner running to get him some drinks. Now, one thing I'd like to know is was there anyone else at the base who started hitting on Sonya after Rodney died, or making attempts to comfort her and say I'll be there for you no matter what.

I mean. I haven't heard information about her getting involved in another relationship, but I'd like to find out if someone was paying extra special attention to Sonya after Rodney passed away, because that would make them look like a promising suspect, oh for sure. Or was Rodney getting special attention or special notoriety

in praise for research he was doing that could equally make somebody angry. I mean, I certainly hope that Rodney's death wasn't a murder, because if it was, the responsible party has done a very successful job at getting away with it. If the New Zealand police somehow uncovered evidence which pointed to a specific suspect, I can only imagine the red tape which might be involved in order

to make an arrest and bring them to trial. While I discount the suicide theory, and I'm pretty certain that Rodney was completely unaware that he ingested methanol, I really don't think there's enough conclusive evidence to point towards his death being a homicide or some sort of freak accident such as drinking taint and moonshine. But if it's the latter, then I do have to wonder if there are some people from the base who have always known more than they let on.

Detective Senior Sergeant Wormold speculated that there might have been some employees from the NSApp and raytheon who did not want to cooperate because they feared it could affect through employment prospects. It's quite sad that Rodney's family have stated that they've pretty much come to terms with the fact that they might not receive any answers about what happened to him, and given the jurisdictional issues, there's not really anything they

can do about it. So much time has passed that if someone knows something, I really wish they would come forward to at least put the Marx family at peace and assure them that there isn't somebody out there getting away with murder. However, if the solution is something like Rodney being poisoned by a tainted bottle of liquor he purchased elsewhere before he arrived at the base, then we will probably never know the truth. All that being said, if you happen

to have any information about the unexplained death of Rodney Marx. Please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley, any final thoughts on the case. I'm gonna have to piggyback off you, Robin. When we talk about the family, they said, quote, it seems impossible, right, practically impossible that we could ever find answers here and to know exactly what happened to our Rodney.

And like we talked about earlier, Rodney had called home, not just to share that he's fine and doing well in Antarctica and he is soaring in his professional duties, but hey, mom and Dad, I'm bringing home a girl who I'm marrying. I'm engaged, I am starting to grow my family. You have a daughter in law who can't wait to meet you. I mean, this is such an exciting time in their son's life. And then he

tragically dies from what they think is cardiac arrest. And so imagine processing your young son's death and just thinking, wow, what are the odds that our healthy son goes to this research place that he's been so many times before and his body just gives out. It's wild to process. They're sitting there waiting for his body and his remains to come back so that they can give him

proper burial, and then they get him back in their care. They check an autopsy off the list, which is usually required when there's a sudden death of a young individual, and it's methanol poisoning. So in their gut, they are not grieving a tragic natural death, which has its own set of coping mechanisms and grief kind of processes that go with it. Now they have a question mark not only of like tell me what happened, But it's really hard to understand, Like you said, is it murder? Is it ambern

with something? Could it have been the result of something at that lab? Was it prior to him getting there, that he was exposed to something. There's no answers or guidance for them, And so to now process what was odd and crazy and tragic before a young man dying of natural causes, Now it sets off a whole nother journey of what even happened? Like what senseless thing happened that robbed us of time? Not just with Rodney, but remember

they lost so much more than that. They lost Sonia, They lost potential kids that they could have had together. The family lost big time when they buried their son, and so to not have answers is difficult. To feel like institutions that your son gave his career in life to weren't really protecting his best interest. All of that has to be so harmful. So my prayer would be that one day there is some kind of clarity for the family. But at this point it's so sad to say that I almost side with the

family and it says it's quote practically impossible to know what happened. Yeah, I agree unless there is somebody who comes forward. And the one person that I'm just so interested in is yes, the doctor is interesting, but I don't think he had anything to do with it. I think there was potentially just some negligence on his ecticam machine that he didn't recalibrate it or keep it

up to date. But it's the person who was anonymous and wrote in the suggestion that they check into the liquor bottle with the that was shaped like a shrimp or had a shrimp on it and potentially Portuguese writing. And I'd said, well, maybe it was misdirection, and Ashley said, well, maybe they did the poisoning, and they did it in that bottle and so they're like cantin there. It is, so it could be any number of things,

and maybe that person was anonymous because of the corporation. Maybe they worked for Raytheon or the NSF and they didn't want to have their job put into jeopardy, or potentially they had something to do with it, and there's a more nefarious angle there. But it is so heartbreaking in this situation, it's literally like an Agather Christiane novel, but for the family, it's a very real situation where their loved one goes He's brilliant, this brilliant astrophysicist who clearly

has struggled with drugs in the past. You know, you don't casually do intervenous drugs, and he'd gotten himself to a place where maybe that's one of the reasons that he liked being in that arctica. If you're somebody who'd struggled with drug use and you know that it's going to be a drug free environment, then you basically only have access to alcohol. So I can see how that would be comforting in some way for somebody who may struggle with that,

And I just I find this case so frustrating. We have so little information here, and I Just've got nothing else to say except for I really hope that somebody comes forward if it is indeed murder, because this family really and truly deserves to know what happened to Rodney. Yeah, in our last episode, we used the word unprecedented to describe this case, because I can guarantee you We're not going to find another case like this throughout the entire world.

And that is the problem. That is the big obstacle for getting it solved, Because if we had a situation like this where someone was in an isolated location and diet under suspicious circumstances, they'd be able to launch an investigation quickly, question everyone else was there, collect the evidence, and even if it was never solved, at least you could know that the best possible investigation was

being performed. But that was just not an option here because they could not figure out Rodney's cause of death for six months, they could only question a handful of the people who were actually present at the station. All the evidence which could have pointed towards homicide had since been disposed of. So it's like the only way this could be solved after all this time is if there is someone from the station who knows the truth about what happened and decides to come

forward and develops the content. But if this is a case where Rodney just drank a tainted bottle of liquor, then there's any did it alone without the company of anyone else, then there's no way to conclusively solve this. So it's kind of a terrible situation for the family where you really don't hope that this wasn't a homicide and that someone is getting away with it. But if it was not, then there's no way to provide the family with conclusive answers.

I mean, it is good that they've acknowledged that they may not get any conclusive answers, because well, that's a terrible situation. I guess that is better that they have come to terms with that fact, but it would be nice if they could get a more conclusive resolution. I myself, I am kind of on the fence. I mean, under almost circumstances, I

would automatically assume this was a murder, this is an intentional poisoning. But because we don't have any information about potential suspects, motive or like a means to carry out the crime, then we just can't say that for certainty. I cannot rule out the possibility that this was some sort of just accidental poisoning, just a tragic accident. But until someone comes forward, we will probably never know the full truth and this will be literally one of the coldest cold

cases to ever exist. 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 free,

the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime 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 Jewles 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 appreciate it. 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