Going West: True Crime - Logan Schiendelman // 196

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

In 2016, a 19-year-old man in Washington told his grandmother that he had an epiphany about his life that he was excited to share with her. But when she returned home later to hear about it, he was gone. When his car was found on the side of the road the next day with his cell phone, wallet, and snacks inside, his family and police wondered where on earth he could have gone. This is the story of Logan Schiendelman. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Welcome everybody to yet another episode of Going West. Hope everybody is having a wonderful week. Hope you guys are enjoying those two episodes a week. Yes and right now Heath and I are in Vegas not while we're recording this but we're about to go for CrimeCon so hopefully we'll see a bunch of you there and I know we've been talking a lot about that. This will be the last time. Yeah. It will now be behind us but we're super excited. So thank you guys for tuning in. Today we have a very bizarre missing person's case for you guys. We're really hoping that somebody out there knows something and can bring some closure to this family after six years. So please make

sure to share and listen up. All right guys, this is episode 196 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 2016, a 19-year-old man told his grandmother that he had an epiphany about his life, that he was excited to share with her. But when she returned home later to hear about it, he was gone. When his car was found on the side of the road the next day with his cell phone, wallet, and snacks inside, his family and police wondered where on Earth he could have gone. This is the story of Logan Shindleman.

Logan Druah Shindleman was born on June 27, 1996 in Tomwater, Washington, which is a little over an hour outside of Seattle. Tomwater sits at the northern tip of Thurston County right at the base of the Puget Sound, and it borders the state's capital, which is Olympia. From the beginning, Logan had a bit of a unique family dynamic. So his mom, Hannah Shindelman, had a daughter named Chloe

with another man before Logan was born, but they split up. Hannah then got pregnant with Logan, whose father was a Saudi Arabian native, only in town for his work as an engineer. So he actually left back to Saudi Arabia before Logan was born, and may not even know to this day that he has a son. So it goes without saying that Logan did not know his father. So Logan, his mother Hannah and half- Chloe, lived with their grandmother and Hannah's mom Virginia who went by Ginny.

Ginny had also been a single mom and she was dating a man and had gotten pregnant with Logan's mother Hannah Shindelman. And the pair split up before Hannah was born and Hannah did not spend much time around her father just like Logan. Ginny's ex, who is Hannah's father, was black, so Hannah and her kids were growing up black and a predominantly white community. So Logan, being mixed race and Middle Eastern and not knowing his father, was left kind of struggling with a bit of an identity crisis as he got older, which was quite tough on him. Tom Water has a population of around 20,000 people of which over 85% are white and African-American

residents make up less than 3% of the population. When her kids were young, Hannah decided that she wanted to go to art school in Seattle, which again was just over an hour away. So the family officially petitioned for Ginny, you know, her Hannah's mother, to have guardianship over Chloe and Logan so they could be covered under her medical insurance. And with that, Hannah moved to Olympia, Washington about two and a half miles or four kilometers north of Tomwater, but she was always present in their lives and according to Ginny, she was a good mother. So Logan was a tall and handsome young man with dark hair and dark eyes. He's remembered by high school friends as being normal, happy, and popular. He was a varsity running back who took Tomwater

high school's football team to the state championships. His grandmother says that he was smart and a very gifted student, always securing good grades without really having to work at it. And in addition to his academic and athletic endeavors, he wrote poetry and loved music. The only thing that seemed to be missing from his promising young life? Where the holes in his family tree? In 2014, Logan's senior year of high school, he attended a bonfire party with some friends. Now there was a girl at this bonfire, and she's to this day has not been identified, but apparently she started making racist comments and jokes at Logan's expense, telling others that he should be dancing around the fire, chanting, and singing, which is just, you know, obviously really fucked up here.

Yeah, especially because this girl was apparently one of his friends, so it's like, what are you like, bitch? Yeah, come on. And as you can imagine, Logan was really rattled by this, and he called his grandma Ginny so that he could be picked up. Now while his close friends were not the ones perpetrating the slurs, Logan claims that the ones that were there also really hadn't done anything to stop it, which also isn't very cool. No. So he told Ginny that he thought he had friends, but he didn't. So this incident was a huge turning point in Logan's life, because he had already been questioning his identity, his culture, and what that all meant about his place in the world, especially in somewhere like Tomwater. Now after the party, feeling hurt and isolated, he withdrew from his friend group and stopped talking to all of his friends, whether they were

there that night or not. Logan was planning on attending college nearby and had already signed up to live in the dorms with one of his high school friends. But not long after, he pivoted and decided to go to Washington State University, which was a five hour drive east in inland from Tomwater, almost to the border of Idaho. So Washington State not only had a more diverse student body, but it also didn't have anybody that he knew. So this would be a great change for him and a chance to be happy.

Oh, absolutely. So Logan completely withdrew from his friends at this point, ignoring their texts and messages on social media as well. So it really did seem like he wanted to just start a new. Now his friends remember that he would clearly open and read them but made no effort to respond or keep in touch. Like I said, he seemed to see this time in his life as a fresh star and a clean slate and didn't want to bring anything or anyone from his past with him, which really makes sense because Logan deserved so much better than the treatment

he received and he was passed to for this fresh start. So in his freshman year of college, Logan started partying and going out a lot, making new friends, as many freshmen do. And even though he was incredibly smart, like Keith said, he didn't really have to try in school, like academics just came naturally to him. Right. Despite this, his grades kind of paid the price for all this fun he was having. And by the end of his first year,

he was forced to drop out and move back home with his grandma. So this is probably something that he wasn't expecting to happen. And obviously, he's probably not very happy that he has to go back to Tom Water. Yeah, and I know he was dating a girl at his college, but by the time he was leaving school, they had already broken up.

So it seems like he was really trying to have a new experience, but it really didn't work out. So he was not invited back for a second year. So he's back in Tomwater. Now, while in Tomwater, after an unsuccessful turn at college and having separated from all the friends that he had had since childhood, Logan scrambled to figure out what he wanted to do next. So he started taking odd jobs to put money away and started a laundry service that washed

linens from nursing homes and care facilities, and he would also work on the farm that belonged to his great Aunt Mary, who was his grandma, Ginny's sister, and Mary's husband, Mike. Mary and Mike were recall having many happy hours chatting and working with Logan on their farm, and they paid him really well, I think it was like $20 an hour, because he was such a hard worker. They were like, he deserved this money, because he actually is doing a great job and he cares. So as he looked for jobs, he turned in an application to a former high school classmate named Alyssa Parrish, who later claimed that he was acting weird and seemed nervous. Whatever that means. Yeah, and it's kind of interesting to hear somebody say something like that, just knowing

what is going to happen. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think it makes sense knowing that he feels, seems to feel kind of lost at this point. He's back in his hometown where he didn't want to be surrounded by people he doesn't want to be nearer. And he can't go back to school, so it's like, what am I going to do? Yeah, yeah, this is definitely a huge turning point in Logan's life.

So by the spring of the next year, which was 2016, Logan had been back home for a year and was still trying to figure things out. Now his grandma, Ginny says that he had been mostly keeping to himself, spending his time alone in his room listening to music and watching movies. spending his time alone in his room listening to music and watching movies. In addition to the identity crisis he seemed to be suffering from, Ginny recalled him smoking a lot of pot and being pretty paranoid, claiming people were looking in his windows. And this makes me wonder were these just casual, stoned concerns or was he serious about somebody watching him? Yeah, yeah. Either way, I mean, it's either way that sounds scary.

It sounds scary. Yeah. So on Thursday, May 19, 2016, at around 7.30 a.m., 19-year-old Logan Shindelman came in through the garage after seemingly having been out all night. Ginny was in the kitchen getting ready to leave for work at the Washington State Department of Ecology, and Logan told her that he had been driving around all night, and had an epiphany.

Now Ginny pondered if it may have been about his racial identity, and what he needed to do next to find himself. But she said that he seemed a bit avoidant, and didn't seem to really want to talk about whatever this epiphany was. I also read that she was in a hurry to get to work so it wasn't the right time in general I think, but it is also kind of eerie and bizarre to be like, I had an epiphany but I'm not going to tell you what that was at this present time. Yeah, so Jenny had to leave to work as we just mentioned, but told Logan that she was

excited to talk about this with him later, and that they discuss it when she returned home that evening. But when she did, Logan and his car were gone. Assuming that he had gone out for another drive, she went about her night and then went to bed, assuming that she'd wake up to him being home. But when he still wasn't home the next morning, which was Friday, May 20th, she really started to worry. So around 11am that morning, his grandma Ginny pinged his phone, and saw that it was within an 8 block

radius of Boulevard Avenue in 18th Street in Olympia. So with that, she just assumed that he was visiting his mom Hannah, and that he'd be back later. And the timeline here is a bit confusing because Ginny has publicly admitted to paying his phone that same evening, so Thursday, but we found a post on Facebook where nine days after Logan was last seen, she stated that she didn't ping his phone

until the following morning, AKA Friday at 11 a.m., like Keith just said. Yeah. So just in case anybody has heard one or the other, I wanted to mention both, but it seems that the next morning on Friday, May 20th, he was eight blocks away. So of course, the only person he really knows

in Olympia, which is right next to Tom water. It's his mom. So it does make sense that Jenny's like, oh, he's probably just going to see his mom. Yeah. Or he's been at his mom's house. So Jenny claims that while Logan and his sister Chloe would often visit their mom, they usually wouldn't stay overnight. So it would have been a little bit unusual for Logan to go there that Thursday evening, if that's even where he went, and then sleep there and still be there at around 11 a.m. when his phone was allegedly, or allegedly pinged. At some point on Saturday or Sunday, so two to three days after anyone has seen Logan. Logan's

sister Chloe texted their mom Hannah to check in with her. And strangely, she said that she had not seen him. Now at this point, Ginny had decided to drive to the police station to file a report. But unfortunately, the Thurston County Sheriff's Office was not open on the weekend, so she had to wait until Monday morning to file a missing person's report. And this is the first case we've read about a sheriff's office being closed when someone's trying to file a report like this. So this is pretty shocking. Yeah, definitely. Though, Ginny could have called 911, but she says she didn't because

she still didn't think it was an emergency and hope this was all just a big misunderstanding which makes sense because you know it feels kind of a scary step to call the police and then it's like oh my god it's a big charade and it was nothing he was just out of friends right and Logan had been out you know the night before driving around so what makes this night any different right so while she waited for Monday morning she drove around town looking for Logan and just talked to everybody that he knew. And also knowing that Ginny didn't have this deep sense of urgency to report him missing, especially knowing his mom and sister hadn't seen him either, I wonder where she did think

that he was, but I mean hindsight is 2020 and he was 19 years old so I do get it. Like at the same time she's like he's an adult, he can go do whatever he wants to. So hopefully he is. Right. So maybe she's just checking certain areas that she may or may not think he might be at, you know, like just random areas. Right. But then, you know, come Monday, it all feels a bit more serious because now it's like,

okay, days have passed. Exactly. What is going on? Right. So on Monday morning, which was May 23, 2016, Jenny went to the Sheriff's Office to report her grandson as missing. Because at that time, he had still not been heard from, so the alarm bells were really ringing here.

Jenny shared Logan's pertinent details with the Sheriff's Department, including what he drove, which was a black 1996 Chrysler Seabring. When police plugged in his information, they actually got a hit. Logan's car had been impounded at 3.15 pm on Friday, May 20th, after being abandoned on the highway, and this would have been just four hours after Ginny pang'd his cell phone, thinking he was probably at his mom's in Olympia. When Ginny went to pick up his car from Baker's towing in repair in the very small and nearby town of T9O, she was unnerved to find his wallet in the glove box, which still held his license, debit

card, and $25 in cash. Not only this, but his cell phone was on the seat alongside grocery bags of snacks. something was very, very wrong. [♪ music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background Before the break, we were just about to dive into the beginning of the investigation into Logan's whereabouts. As police began to dig, they found a few strange and suspicious occurrences on the day that Logan went missing. His car was found parked at Mile Marker 92 on the I-5 highway between Tomwater and Maytown. And more specifically, it was 10 miles or 16 kilometers southwest of Tomwater, so just outside of his hometown where he resided.

And there were actually several 911 calls made regarding the car before it had finally been impounded on Friday at 3.15 pm. Logan's car was also seeing coasting slowly down the interstate, swirving and veering in and out of lanes before crashing into the median and stopping on the shoulder of the road. And this is very, I don't know why, but this really reminds me of like, briceless pizza, just being on the highway and these strange incidents occurring.

It's just eerie too, because being a witness and seeing his car doing that, you're only driving by for like a split second. So you can only see so much. And of course, these people didn't know that this would be relevant information for later But it's like what was going on there. Well one of these witnesses who was a truck driver Also claims he saw the driver's side door open and close

Then saw someone jump over to the passenger side and the passenger door swung open and a person ran across side and the passenger door swung open, and a person ran across lanes of traffic before disappearing off into the surrounding forest. Which is very concerning. Very concerning and alarming here. So the witness claimed that this man was white, six feet tall, and male, and did not appear to be Logan. Even area. However, investigators questioned this theory as there were paper grocery bags

with power bars and other snacks on the passenger seat that were found standing upright. Meaning if someone had clamored over the seat to get out, they likely would have squashed these bags down. So investigators like to take this kind of eyewitness evidence with a grain of salt, but of course, if it's true, it's incredibly alarming that someone other than Logan could have put his car there. Yeah, and we've seen this in other cases, like when people are headed down the highway, going 60 plus miles per hour, kind of like I just touched on, you know, there's one report of whatever somebody supposedly saw, and then other people are saying other things.

So it's hard to rely on these testimonies because again you're going by so quickly and you're probably not really paying attention and since no one else had seen what this man says he saw with a young white man you know clamorant or climbing over the passenger seat and then running across lanes of traffic and into the forest you know there's no additional evidence to support this sighting. This is the only guy that came forward and said this. We have one witness saying that they saw this happen when they were driving by. Right.

Did that happen to somebody else's car? It's hard to say. A key factor in this case probably should have been Logan's car. But get this, the vehicle was not forensically processed. Huge mistake. Right, so, well, according to investigators, because the car had been impounded and then Ginny had driven the car home, there were already additional sets of fingerprints inside, and there also weren't obvious signs of struggle.

But honestly, in my opinion, they should have released the car to her yet, because at that point, he had been missing for four days and didn't have his car or his phone or his wallet. So what did police think happened if not something potentially suspicious? You know, also, I agree with you that they shouldn't have given over the car to Ginny, but the fact that they did that still doesn't mean that they can't take other fingerprints.

I mean, there's, like, even if they match certain fingerprints to Ginny, there's got to be some other fingerprints in there if someone else is involved, so. That's a good point. It's like, who fucking cares? Just test all the fingerprints I fully agree So on Friday, May 20th the day Logan officially went missing

9-1-1 received another odd call a report of a black man walking naked along the side of the road This report came from a part of town known for its crack houses, for lack of a better term, and its drug users, so police posed a few more theories like could he have potentially overdosed, and if so, did whoever he was with, maybe dispose of his body, fearing that they would get caught for supplying him the drugs or further involvement in his death, or perhaps they thought he could have been using drugs and while under the influence, he killed himself. But obviously this is just a whole lot of speculation being done.

Just because there's a black man naked walking down the side of the road does not mean for one, that it's Logan. And two, there's no proof that Logan was into these kind of drugs. Absolutely. I mean, anything is possible, but Logan's family and friends maintain that he never touched anything harder than weed and alcohol. So this, it doesn't seem like this would be true. Kind of outlandish here. I agree.

So some theories propose that he may have been at a routine exchange for weed, but that's something went wrong. Like, either he found himself in a confrontation with someone, or he saw something he wasn't supposed to see because although recreational cannabis was legalized in Washington state over two years before this in late 2013 you'd have to be 21 to legally purchase it whereas Logan was still just 19 so he would have had to have gotten it legally. Yeah yeah exactly I have to go to a dealer or something. Right. So a commenter on one of Ginny's very first Facebook posts

in the Logan Shindelman is missing, Facebook group, claimed that near where his phone pinged at 11 a.m. on Friday, May 20th, is a known party house. And this commenter directed Ginny, her family and authorities, to center their search there instead of where his car was found, which seems kind of specific. Yeah. But as far as we know, no leads were pursued in that direction.

Ginny also wonders if he could have suffered from some sort of psychotic break or psychological break as he had been struggling with his mental health, and then you kind of have to wonder again about this epiphany and what this epiphany would have been. Because with the way that Ginny described it, it seemed like a positive move in Logan's life, which wouldn't lead you or at least wouldn't lead me to believe that he would go off to a party house that night and do drugs, but it's impossible to say for sure at this point. Yeah, I mean, who really knows. It is interesting that he mentioned some sort of epiphany and I really wish that we had answers as to what

he was thinking at that time. That would really give us a more clear picture here. But I am also very curious about this party house. So before we keep going to just thinking about the fact that there were snacks in his car, also something I want to touch based on before I forget is I wonder if his car had any damage. Why was it on the side of the road? Was his car really swerving? Is it because there was something wrong? But the problem is since they didn't process the car, I don't think they check this.

So we know that Ginny drove it home so that leads me to believe that it was in fine condition. Yeah, at least drivable condition. Right, but then we have to think about the snacks on, you know, were there, were is he bringing those home, was he going on a road trip? Yeah, were those road trips snacks like this? But at the same time he didn't have like a suitcase with him. Yeah. So then that makes me think, well maybe he wasn't planning on leaving town necessarily.

I don't know, so many questions. A lot of questions here, yeah. So six canine teams with both tracking and cadaver dogs spent six hours searching the area near where Logan's car was found. And police also completed an air search of the area using heat-seeking technology. But unfortunately, neither search turned up any new evidence

or information. Logan's uncle Mike, who was a retired Thurston County sheriff, also organized his own search efforts. He and Mary spent hours wandering the thick brush looking for anything that could lead them to his whereabouts. They tracked his cell phone activity and found that he traveled southbound on the I-5 to Camus in southern Washington, just outside of Portland, Oregon, which for reference is just under a two hour drive away.

But then he turned around and traveled northbound back to Tomwater on I-5, but why he did this nobody knew, so he went south for a while and then turned around and came back up north. And something I wonder to is how long he was in Southern Washington outside of Portland. Did he stop there and immediately turn around like how I wonder what the times on this are, but we don't know. Yeah, unfortunately we do not know. So at 3.45 AM on Friday, May 20th, the activity on his cell phone stopped, and shortly after this, his cell phone died.

So this part is kind of confusing to us because the reports that we read said that it was 3.45 AM or around 3 AM on Friday, May 20th, but then that really conflicts with what Ginny said. Yeah, that she was tracking his phone at 11am on that same day. So that's hours later. So just so everybody knows we're just reporting what we have found, but because this is unsolved, it's not like we can look at the police reports and see what is, like, for sure, factual.

So that it definitely is conflicting information. Definitely. So a search of his phone confirmed that he'd been talking to a few people that he met online, including a young woman in the neighboring state of Oregon who he'd met on a dating app. But she confirmed that they never met up in person, nor had they made plans to do so. Which is kind of weird because she apparently lived in the Portland area and we know that Logan had been to that area. Or was it at least heading southbound?

Right. So that makes you wonder. On May 26th, so six days after he went missing, there appeared to be a Facebook check-in from Logan's computer at the Olympia Regional Airport. So this is kind of strange. So, please jumped on this lead wondering if maybe he was fleeing his family to start over. Could he have been heading to Saudi Arabia to try and find his father or was he headed somewhere else? Nobody really knew. Jenny said that their passports needed to be renewed, so if he left the country,

it would have been under an alias and with falsified documents. But the check-in turned out to be a dead end, and it was actually an anniversary post from a year ago that had been generated by Facebook itself. We're timing for that to happen. Yeah, and like that just sucks, because it's like, like, oh, could this have been him

and then, oh, no, it's just a Facebook generated thing. Which it wouldn't really make sense anyway, why he would be missing, but be posting his location on Facebook, but yeah, which, you know, didn't happen anyway. But so after that, Logan's case went cold. With the lack of evidence and no new leads or witnesses, the family was left to really fend for themselves. A Facebook group for the page now has over 16,000 members, full of people wanting the same thing, Justice for Logan. Billboard signs, missing persons, posters, and bracelets were made to spread awareness, and the community also made bumper stickers that said hashtag Find29, which was Logan's football jersey number.

A massive yard sale was held to contribute to the reward fund, which is now set at $15,000. His family also hired a private investigator, but sadly that didn't turn up any new information. Over a year after Logan's disappearance in June of 2017, a woman contacted police, saying she had seen Logan's car on the freeway the day he went missing, but she offered a new piece of information. She said that she saw two men with him standing next to the rear of the car on the shoulder of Interstate 5, and she said that the trunk was popped open. Along with Logan, she said she saw a tall man with light, scraggly hair and a bowl cut wearing tight

clothing, which was a tank top and jeans that apparently both looked too small for him. The witness didn't get a decent look at the second guy, but said that he had long, blonde hair. Police released a sketch of this man, which is quite soulless and chilling, if you ask me, and we posted this on our socials. So go take a look at that. Yes, but they didn't receive any new viable leads from this. So Logan's disappearance may have been at the hands of one or both of these men,

or it could have even been a hit and run. It's just hard to say because again, this is only one person coming forward and she's coming forward a year later, which I don't know how she would have remembered that after so much time unless she had been keeping it with her. Yeah, I don't know. It would make it really hard to remember certain details,

just with that much time passing. I agree, which makes me feel like she must have known this information that whole time and not just been recalling an incident from a year prior, you know? Definitely. So why didn't she come for it earlier? I don't know.

So aside from Logan's identity crisis, there may have also been a little conflict at home. Ginny had recently let Chloe's boyfriend Jake and his two children from a previous relationship move in with them, and Logan and Jake notoriously did not get along. Jake had a history of domestic violence, and and in 2013 he pleaded guilty to a felony assault charge against his partner at the time. So by the time that he is living in Ginny's house with Chloe, this is three years after this charge. So yeah, he had already been charged with that. And it doesn't sound as if there was any history of violence or physical confrontation between Jake and Logan, but they definitely did not see eye to eye, and it's safe to

say that Logan didn't really care for Jake as a match for his sister. So five months after Logan's disappearance, Jake violated his probation and landed himself in jail. So police use this as an opportunity to question him about Logan, giving him a polygraph test. They asked Jake if he had anything to do with Logan's disappearance, or if he knew anyone who did. But Jake answered no to both and passed this test. Although polygraphs aren't, you know, thought to be foolproof, at around 80-90% reliable,

police maintained that he was actually telling the truth here. Though he still had major concerns about his origins prior to his disappearance, Logan had been making an effort to connect with his roots. And shortly after before he went away to college, Logan had finally met his grandfather and great aunt and uncle, and his great aunt Tina invited him over for dinner one night and they just kind of sat around telling family stories and looking through

photo albums. And Tina claims that Logan said that it was so good to spend time with someone who looked like him. Tina also seemed bothered that it took so long for Logan to connect with the African-American side of his extended family and wondered if this was Ginny keeping him from them, you know, after she ended her relationship with Hannah's father. She also said that Logan was afraid to tell Ginny about the visit and initially kept it from her to spare her feelings. By the way, Ginny is white.

I don't know if... Yeah, we just need to clarify that. Ginny is white, but Logan's extended family seemed to be black. And his mom is half black too. Right. So Ginny denies this completely stating that it's been so blown out of proportion

and that they were free to get in touch and see him at any time, but that the effort just wasn't really there when he was a kid. And that's not Logan's fault. He doesn't need to be the one to make that call, especially because when an uncomfortable position for him to be in, to have to reach out to family that he doesn't know. So it just seemed like a weird situation where they didn't know how to reach out to Logan.

He didn't really know about them. And so I think it wasn't like, maybe it wasn't on purpose. It just didn't happen. And we also just don't know how much relevance this actually has in Logan's disappearance. Right. We just know that he didn't grow up with them and felt that it was very nice to connect with them. So Logan and his great aunt Tina kept in touch via social media. And she noticed that in the months before his disappearance, as he tried to connect with, you know, where he came from, he started sharing quotes from Malcolm X and Martin Luther King on his social media, and she thinks that it's possible he may have gotten

away from his family to get closer to his own identity, and that he's out there and just wants to be left alone. Logan had only recently found out about his dad in the Middle East, in addition to having little to no contact with the extended family who shared his heritage. But Ginny, Mike, and Mary say they don't care if it was his choice, they just want to know that he's safe, and that there would be no judgment and no questions asked, and that he's always welcome home. They also said he could just contact them to let them know that he's safe without even having to come back.

But again, if he did just go off to continue to find himself and start his own life, why was his car on the side of the road with a bag of snacks, his phone, and his wallet. Like, he was an adult who was free to make his own decisions, and he always could have just driven off and started a new without having to go to this extreme and make things harder on himself, you know? Also, how would he have the money to do this? It just, it doesn't make sense to him.

Yeah, if you leave your wallet behind and also your cell phone, you're a young person, yeah. Typically, we're glued to our cell phones. And he was on social media, he did all that stuff, he didn't pack a bag, it's just bizarre to me. And I understand that they have to have that point of view in some regard and say, maybe he did go off because that's wishful thinking, but I just don't know why he would do it like

this. Yeah, definitely. I don't know. The strangest thing to me is just the car on the side of the road. You're right. Like, why not just take your car with you? Drive. You're in a... How the hell do you go ahead? You can go anywhere you want to go. And that's your car, so it's like, I just don't see why you would leave it on the side of the road in a random area. With all your stuff in it. Yeah, to just don't see why you would leave it on the side of the road in a random area. With all your stuff in it? Yeah, to just disappear.

Yeah. Logan's grandma, Ginny, and his great-uncle Mike and Aunt Mary still live in Tomwater, and his mom Hannah and sister Chloe are both still in Olympia. According to LinkedIn, Chloe works as an administrative assistant and Hannah has a website for her art. And though her posts stopped in 2015, she still posts her art to her Facebook page. Detective Frank Frauley of the Thurston County Sheriff's Office stated, QUOTE,

I have no reason to believe that he's been killed. I have no reason to believe he's alive. It's been almost six years since Logan vanished. He would be turning 26 this summer. He's 6' tall between 150 and 190 lbs with brown eyes and black hair that he normally wears shaved. He's severely allergic to peanuts and needs to travel with an epiphen, which would make us wonder even more why he would purposefully leave and travel without one, making Daphne and I believe even more that Logan did not go off on his own free will. He was last seen wearing a black windbreaker jacket,

a white t-shirt, jeans, and Nike tennis shoes. Logan was such a light and will continue to be missed by all who knew him until an answer is found. If you'd like to keep track of updates, you can join the Facebook group, Logan Shindleman is missing. If you have any information that may lead to Logan's whereabouts, please call the Thurston County Police Department at 3-6-0-786-5746. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and on Tuesday we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. There's so many male cases that kind of fall along these guidelines. Like you were saying, Bryce, let's piece that.

There's Jesse Ross, Brandon Swanson, Brandon Lawson, Zeb Quinn, Philip Frazier, so many of these men and young men just disappearing from their cart. It's really, really, really bizarre. So this is one of those and I'm glad we finally covered it because I've been wanting to cover this for a long time and I just forgot about it. So thank you guys so much for tuning in and please don't forget to share.

Yeah, the most important thing you can do here is share because they're still looking for answers in this case. It's still unsolved. And this wasn't that long ago. No, it wasn't. So again, thank you guys. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for being listeners of Going West Heath and I appreciate you more than you know, and we love you. Yeah, we also love when you guys leave us nice reviews. So if you want to, no pressure, feel free to head over to, you know, whatever Apple Podcasts.

Yes, really. It's the only one I think. Yeah, I think there's a few others. But yeah, leave us a nice review. We love to read them. Yeah, and just share the show with a friend on your social media that really helps us and it means a lot to us, like I said. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world,

don't be a stranger. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% Thank you. you