Going West: True Crime - Manley Hot Springs Murders // 198

Episode Date: May 7, 2022

In 1984, residents in the small Alaskan village of Manley Hot Springs began disappearing when a drifter arrived to town. After 9 people were murdered, investigators zeroed in on a 26-year-old man who had appeared bizarre and creepy to many of the locals. This is the story of Michael Silka and the Manley Hot Springs Murders. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. https://www.newspapers.com/image/44783844/?terms=michael%20alan%20silka&match=1 2. https://www.fubo.tv/watch?programId=EP016585230002&playing=vod&airingId=3741505 3. https://books.google.com/books?id=DIG_9oBssrAC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Hoffman+Estates+High+School+michael+alan+silka&source=bl&ots=fhzxuvIspk&sig=ACfU3U0J6o07_0FONTV630wLXay1cuaRqQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqmq31qJf3AhWWD0QIHZJkDm4Q6AF6BAgVEAM#v=onepage&q=Hoffman%20Estates%20High%20School%20michael%20alan%20silka&f=false 4. https://robinbarefield76.medium.com/murders-at-manley-hot-springs-2ca3205d2901 5.https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/data/developers/understandingplace.pdf 6. https://militaryjusticeforall.com/1984/05/19/michael-alan-silka-killed-9-people-in-a-three-hour-rampage-in-manley-hot-springs-alaska-may-19-1984/ 7. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12468556/article-on-manley-hot-springs-massacre/ 8. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/32418518/dale-madajski/ 9. https://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/manley-hot-springs-rampage-michael-alan-silka-killed-at-least-9-people-in-a-three-hour-rampage/ 10. https://www.oxygen.com/fatal-frontier-evil-in-alaska/crime-news/alaskas-history-with-serial-killers-crime-explained 11. http://alaskaweb.org/blacksheep/silka.html 12. https://www.whitepages.com/name/Betty-Silka 13. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/dailyherald/name/frank-silka-obituary?id=29693266 14. https://truecrimeinvestigation.tumblr.com/post/187379280022/michael-silka-victims Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host teeth and I'm your host definitely and you're listening to going west how the heck are you how are you Heath I'm good how are you I'm just swell. How's everyone else doing? No answer. All right Good to see you all again in a way. I hope everyone's having a great week and excited for the weekend ahead If you are listening when this comes out Today we have a crazy story about how one man went to Alaska off-grid and ended up wiping out a good percentage of a village there. It's honestly a crazy story and a devastating tale of just

senseless violence. Yeah, it's absolutely crazy. I mean, it's not the one you probably are thinking of because there's not a ton of serial killers. What are you referring to the butcher baker? Yeah, I was going to refer to that one, yeah, because I can not a ton of serial killer. What are you referring to the Butcher Baker? Yeah, I was going to refer to that one yet because I can't really know that one. Yeah, yeah, we should cover that. But this one is different. This is a different, as you can tell from the title of this episode.

But still just as devastating as that story, so. Yeah. Absolutely. So, shall we? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, quickly before we get into that, if you are looking for more episodes of Going West, head over to our Patreon. We have a ton of ad free, full length bonus episodes

for you guys to binge. Yeah, so basically, like, if you pay $5 today, you will get access to almost 40 bonus episodes, and then if you pay $10 today, you will have access to over 60 episodes. All of just Heath and I talking as we do here on Going West doing various true crime cases from around the world. So that's Patreon.

Yeah, definitely check that out. That's patreon.com slash going west podcast. All right, enough plugging. This is episode 198 of Going West. So let's get into it. In 1984, residents in the small Alaskan village of Manley-Hot Springs began disappearing when a drifter arrived to town. After nine people were murdered, investigators zeroed in on a 26-year-old man who had appeared bizarre and creepy to many of the locals. This is the story of Michael Michael Allen Silka was born on August 20, 1958 to parents Betty and Frank Silka in

Hoffman Estates, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago, and it has a population of about 50,000 people. Michael was the oldest of three kids, later joined by his brother Steven and his sister Susanna, in a very typical suburban American family. Michael's father Frank was a carpenter and a member of Menza, meaning he had a very high IQ as we have discussed and now at least two other episodes are going well. We have.

And Michael's family's neighbor, Forman Hurst, remembered Michael as a good kid and a normal teenager who loved the outdoors, saying that Michael's number one ambition was just to be outside exploring nature. He and his brother, Steven, even ran away from home to the Canadian wilderness when there were teenagers only returning when they had depleted their supplies. By the time Michael graduated high school, he already had some serious run-ins with the law. So in 1975 at just 17 years old, he and a 16-year-old friend were caught robbing camping gear from a Johnson sporting good store in Displanes, which is another suburb of Chicago.

So they're taking this outdoor thing very seriously, even robbing camping gear. For real. And because Michael's friend was under the age of 17, he was able to remain anonymous and was dealt with by juvenile authorities. But Michael was tried as an adult and was taken to county jail with bail set at $10,000. So this wasn't just like a little teenage robbery. This was a very, it was taken as a very serious crime. Well, it's a very interesting thing to me because it's not like they're like robbing a jewelry store or robbing a gun store.

They're robbing a fucking camping store. They must have taken a lot of stuff. I guess so. Yeah. Or cause a lot of damage. So when Michael was 19, he was arrested twice in the span of six weeks for walking around Hoffman Estates with a loaded rifle. The police chief in Hoffman Estates stated that the Soka family were basically nice people. He just turned out different. Very interesting quote. So Michael attended Hoffman Estates High School graduating in 1977. At the encouragement of his neighbor, Foreman, he joined the army and was stationed at Fort

Wainwright all the way out west in Fairbanks, Alaska, working as a helicopter mechanic. According to military records, Michael was an expert marksman with an M16 rifle and a grenade launcher. But his trouble with authority continued and he collected both an assault charge and an arrest for firing his gun in the Army barracks. After he was discharged in 1981 at the age of nearly 23, Michael headed home to Hoffman Estates, working a string of construction like construction jobs. He found himself in more trouble when he was pulled over for a traffic violation, and the officer noticed two guns and two knives in his car.

After being arrested, he refused to get out of the squad car and was charged with both possession of weapons and resisting arrest, spending four days in the Cook County jail. In 1983, he was pulled over for yet another traffic violation, and the officer again found a rifle in the backseat of his car. After multiple court appearances, Michael skipped Bond and fled back to Alaska. His father Frank claims that Michael started working in Alaska after that, but that he had no idea what he was doing up there.

So it didn't seem that Michael remained very close with his family, and he was just completely doing his own thing. For a firearm enthusiast like Michael, he probably enjoyed that. According to Alaska State Law, he didn't need a permit or registration for any of his guns up there. And it's like you were saying, you know, taking the outdoorsy thing very seriously, so after all these run-ins with the law, it really makes sense that he's like, I'm just gonna go off and live in the Alaska wilderness Because it seems like that's more suited for him. Yeah, it's like it's like I can't live that the way that I want to live back home

So I'm just gonna completely do my own thing right, but and as the story will unfold and you guys will see like he seems very much Like a loner which is kind of a scary combination, you know, like this guy who's very into guns and potentially violence and theft and robbery and just trouble, and he wants to live alone in the Alaska wilderness. No, there's anything wrong with living in the Alaska wilderness, but you know what I mean, just kind of some weird creepy things to have all of those. Yeah, yeah, definitely. My god, I don't know what that was. I mean, I suppose. You guys know what i mean just kind of some weird creepy things to have all of those yeah i yeah i think i don't know what that was i mean i suppose i know what i mean i support you if you want to live out in the wilderness that's that's

dope do it but i guess i guess i'm saying that because of what's to come so around christmas in nineteen eighty three michael re located to doffin in manitoba canada about twenty five hundred miles or about four thousand kilometers away from fairbanks, Alaska. Now, he was described by locals as being sullen and often wandered the streets alone for hours at a time. Although he was mostly unemployed following his stint in the army, he somehow spent that winter living at a local hotel and paid for everything

in cash. That seems extremely suspicious. I agree. So quiet and just kind of keeping do himself, he ate every meal in the hotel restaurant. He didn't drink or seem to have any violent tendencies per se, but the owner of the hotel did notice Michael had an extensive collection of firearms, which he always kept loose on the back seat of his car, his favorite being a rolling block, which is a large caliber rifle used more famously in the Frontier era.

So Michael drove a beat up brown and white 1974 Dodge Monaco and built a cargo box to attach on top of it, along with the aluminum canoe he mounted on the roof. His car was also fully stocked with camping gear, of course. Fancing himself kind of a mountain man and an outsider, Michael's dream really was to live a very secluded life on the fringes of society. It seems whatever preparation he needed to accomplish was finally done, and in the spring of 1984, he drove back into Alaska to settle there. Michael rented a small cabin on the outskirts of Fairbanks at myle 4.7 on Cheena Pump Road, which ran through the whole city in a cluster of remote cabins called Hopkinsville.

He chose the cabin far this away from the others, but when his neighbors did see him, they described him as strange and threatening. On April 28, 1984, it seemed that Michael couldn't conceal his true nature any longer, and trouble in the neighborhood began to brew. It was afternoon and a woman in a nearby cabin was chopping wood and chatting with another one of their neighbors, a 33-year-old man named Roger Kolb. Michael walked past them silently, then stopped, picked up a large piece of wood, and beat it against the woman's chopping block screaming, this is how you do it.

Shattering the wood and sending pieces flying everywhere. What would prom Tim to do such a thing? I don't know, maybe he's just so avid about the outdoors that he's like, how dare you, how dare you, how dare you, how dare you, how dare you do it, you know, incorrectly or whatever. So after this incident, he then walked back to his cabin without saying another word. So this was obviously very aggressive and completely unnecessary of him to do. And of course, to no surprise, the woman was terrified and Roger was furious.

She tried to convince him to just let it go, but Roger found it outrageous and unnecessary, and wanted to teach Michael a lesson. Especially because they didn't know this guy. He was known as this creepy dude who lived at the very end in a lone cabin. They only saw him here and there. And then he has the audacity to like come disturb them and yell at them that they're doing something wrong.

Yeah, so I understand why this why this was such a striking experience. So Roger, who was basically pissed off at this point, decided to head to Michael's cabin, telling his friend that he would be back in 15 minutes. But instead, the woman heard gunshots and never saw Roger Colp again. She was so terrified that she locked her own door, loaded her rifle, and did not step outside again for two entire days. This woman, who asked to remain anonymous, probably for fear of retaliation from Michael, didn't have a phone, so Roger's disappearance and possible murder initially went unreported.

Understandably so, she was too scared to even walk the 200 yards or 183 meters to the cabin of her landlord, Don Hopkins, to tell him what happened. And that just shows how scared she was. She didn't even want to walk outside. Yeah, she's like, I'm not even going to go report this. So she must have known that something very bad happened. Though the confrontation when unbeknownst to the rest of the neighborhood, other neighbors were also having issues with Michael.

The day after his confrontation with Roger, Wendy Hooker, who also lived in Hopkinsville, noticed a moose hide of hers had gone missing. She didn't find the moose hide, but she did find a potential crime scene. After Wendy knocked on Michael's silkus cabin door and no one answered, she noticed a splatter of blood near his front door, but assumed that it was an animal he had trapped, so it wasn't super alarming at first sight. However, when she walked around to his back door, she found what appeared to be a mound of freshly piled snow that was about 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. Oh, that doesn't sound like a body.

Well, it gets worse. So as she stepped away from it, her footprints pooled with blood from the snow below. Not good. So this just shows that there's blood underneath this freshly packed snow. Right. That, yeah, like you said, just happens to be in a shape of a person laying down, you know. So now getting the eerie feeling that she was kind of being watched, she ran back to her cabin to get someone else to help her.

Then she confided in her friend Tom about her concerns and the two took it to the landlord Don Hopkins. And at this point, they weren't even aware of Rogers' disappearance or of the woman who is still hiding in her cabin So at this point to they they really didn't know what Wendy had seen Regarding the mound of snow and pools of blood under said snow even though it had been suspicious enough that she wanted to report it It's not like she automatically went to like that's a you know a body right because she didn't know that anybody was missing You don't just go there.

Right, exactly. And also, you know, these are a lot of people who live out in the wilderness. So there's probably a lot of hunters, a lot of game, you know, stuff like that. But still it was weird enough that they were like, let's report this. And, you know, luckily they did

because Roger's female friend couldn't do it. So at least they were able to report this concern themselves. Right. So after they talked, Don set off to confront Michael about Wendy's missing moose hide, and what she'd potentially uncovered. And Michael ran out to meet him at a distance from his cabin instead of allowing Don to approach a knock,

which came off as, you know, kind of odd. But Michael was acting fairly pleasant and admitted that he had taken Wendy's hide. Then he apologized and agreed to return it to her. Dawn, Tom, and Wendy still weren't satisfied, however, and reported the whole situation to the police because something was strange about this entire situation. And you know, being a rural area without reliable telephones and in the age before cell phones, it was really hard for our currences like this to be handled quickly, and often by the time police were involved, it was too late.

The Chicago Tribune even called Alaska in the 80s, the end of the road for a dangerous breed of wanderers. So the three may not have had high hopes for a positive outcome, but they managed to report it to Alaska State troopers on Don's phone anyway. In addition to what they had already observed, Don Hopkins was beginning to question Rogers' whereabouts, so he mentioned that to police as well. But somewhere along the line, the message was miscommunicated.

As police understood it, both Roger and Michael were missing, and foul play was suspected. And because of this misunderstanding, they were actually under the assumption that Roger had killed Michael. So they ran criminal background checks on both men, both Roger and Michael, before they arrived, and found a few hits on Roger's record, including one violent crime. But because Michael's infractions were in another state, his record came up clean. So now it's really looking like Roger's the one who killed Michael.

Yeah, what a what a scurry situation so when the police knocked on michael's door and he answered and spoke to them in person they concluded that nothing was a right because they still weren't thinking that he was involved in what happened a roger because they had felt like yeah because they flip flopped it yeah so they're like oh michael's fine everything's good right no they just had the wrong guy so they also searched his property and found no body and only a small amount of blood,

which Michael attributed to the mousse, of course. Police later recall, however, that Michael stayed inside his cabin and kept his right hand concealed the whole time he was being questioned. And they wondered if he may have been hiding a weapon or maybe blood that would have led them to Rogers body. I'm just going to take a quick guess. I believe that he was probably concealing a weapon and it was one of those things like if he was caught he was going to go out blazing.

Yeah, this goes wrong. Yeah, totally. He's such a gun nut that I wouldn't put it past Michael. Absolutely agree. So nine days after Roger's disappearance, the female neighbor who had last seen him alive finally reported what she saw in her to police. And Don Hopkins drove her to the police trooper headquarters and fairbanks himself. This suspicious information about Michael's aggressiveness with, you know, the chopping of the wood, Rodgers walked to Michael's cabin and the gunshots that followed was enough to issue a search warrant.

But by the time police arrived at Michael's cabin, it was abandoned. Police combed in and around the shack for two days, but found no evidence of Rodgers' body or Michael's whereabouts. Which is really suspicious because Roger is still missing. But they were able to take samples of blood spatter that Michael had previously claimed were from skinning a moose hide and sent them to a lab to be tested. And to their surprise, it was confirmed that the blood was human. So now it really does seem like Michael had murdered Roger that day.

But the last time Michael had been seen, he was getting his car towed out of the mud as Alaska Spring was melting away the snow and his car had gotten stuck, and none of his neighbors had seen him since. The next time anyone saw Michael Silka was about two weeks later on Monday, May 13, 1984, but it was in Manley Hot Springs, Alaska. So Manley Hot Springs is about a five-hour drive west of Fairbanks at the end of or the dead end of a single dirt road. So none of his neighbors saw him again.

He was just seen in a totally dirt road. So none of his neighbors saw him again. He was just seen in a totally different area. Manly is one of those census designated places and it sits along the Tanana River, and because it's situated in central Alaska, it never gets much warmer than 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or 21 degrees Celsius any time of year. So it remains quite cold. Just a little history. So in 1902, upon finding the hot springs, a prospector named John Karsner started building homes and a farm. And then later that year, the US Army built a telegraph station, and it became a service and supply point for nearby mining communities. And then the next year, 1903, a boarding house and restaurant called Sam's Rooms and Meals, now called the Manly Roadhouse, opened.

And to this day, it's still the community's only restaurant and hotel. And Manly Hot Springs is on Alaska Native Yukonland of the Athabaskin-speaking Ethno-Linguistic group. I hope I said all that right. Yeah, that was a mouthful. Important to say. It's a tiny town and records indicate that there were no more than 90,

but maybe even as few as 50 people residing there at the time that Michael Silka got to town. So a newcomer was kind of a big deal. Yeah, there's literally no one in this town. You know everybody. But locals also knew that this was kind of a big deal. Yeah, there's literally no one in this town. You know everybody. But locals also knew that this was kind of a stomping ground for many runaways, like hitchhikers, vagabonds, outsiders, and people who just like to live off

the land. So they also didn't think too much about the new addition. According to resident Robert E. Lee, and no, not the Civil War, Robert E. Lee, Michael, not the Civil War, Robert E. Lee, Michael described himself as a mountain man, and locals were impressed with his wilderness and survival skills. But he continued to rub others the wrong way, calling him strange and scary, and was often seen sharpening the same large knife.

Yikes. And funny enough, a local named Sebi Gertler called him quote, nasty looking. That's a comment you would make. Dirty bastard. So 25 year old Michael set up camp near the boat landing dock on the Tannenau River just 3 miles or 4.8 kilometers outside of town. He was seen all week working on the engine of his car and just kind of tinkering with his aluminum canoe, sometimes taking it out for joy rides on the Tanana. With the winter snow and ice melting away, the river was very high and currents were strong, chipping away at massive ice chunks along the banks. This is called break up when the ice begins to move

down the river, and for a remote community like Manley, it's a big deal to residents because it means that their primary method of transportation is opening back up. Thursday, May 17, 1984 began like any other day, with locals hunting, trapping, fishing, and coming and going on their boats. But by the end of the day, seven people, or about 10% of the community's population, would be gone. Around noon, 38-year-old Joe McVeigh and 20-year-old Dale Mandaiski drove to the Manly Boat Landing with a six-pack of beer just planning on taking Joe's boat out to check the status of the river's ice. After a few hours when there was no sign of them, their wives, Alice McVeigh and Cursedon McDysky drove down to the landing to check on them, but found Joe's boat still attached

to its trailer, and the six pack still in the back of the car. While they were alarmed, it wasn't uncommon in the area to kind of take off on a hike or take a longer trek down the river than you'd anticipate, so they agreed to wait it out for a bit before kind of jumping to conclusions. And they also noticed another car of a local man, 27-year-old Albert Hagen Jr. nearby, and they presumed that they had all taken off together. But the next morning, none of the three men had returned, so their families really started to panic. 24 hours after her husband Joe first left the house for his excursion, Alice called Alaska

State Troopers and filed a missing persons report. In such a small town, word spread quickly that something was wrong and residents began to compare notes. There was also a family of three that lived nearby, whom no one had seen since the day before. 36-year-old Lyman Klein, his wife 30-year-old Joyce Klein, who was four months pregnant and their two-year-old son Marshall. They were last seen writing their four-wheeler in the direction of the dog. The family was apparently known for taking frequent trips, but never without finding someone to take care of their beloved family dog. When someone in the newly formed search party went to check the client's house, the only one home was the dog.

As one resident put it quote, somebody else would go check on them and they wouldn't come back either. The only eyewitness account that they had to go off of was Sabie Gertler, the local who called Michael nasty looking, who had driven her kids down to the river around 2pm to watch the break up, and she said that she saw Michael Silka's aluminum canoe halfway off of his car, and that when she returned two hours later, it was gone.

Fearing an accident or an environmental catastrophe, state troopers began to investigate by running the plates of all the cars of the missing persons left abandoned at the dock. And this included Michaels. When his plates came up as a suspect wanted in the disappearance and probable murder of Roger Colp, police realized that they might have something more sinister on their hands. The investigation began at the dock, where beneath frost, police found what looked like smeared human blood, as if a body had been dragged toward the water and pushed in. They found bullet casings nearby as well, and down the road, the client's ATV was found abandoned.

With what looked like a spring murderer at large, police assembled a special emergency reaction team and began hunting for Michael Silka at 2 a.m. on Saturday, May 19. Now something cool was that Mother Nature was really on their side for this one because they had 24 hours of daylight at this time of year to begin their search. So two helicopters and a single engine plane were able to set out immediately, which is awesome because we know that daylight has a lot to do with searching like come days end, suns down, we've got to stop for the day and restart tomorrow morning. Right, it just makes it so much harder to search.

Right. So as they did, a woman flagged them down, telling them that her husband had been missing for two days, 30-year-old Fred Burke. So there's like multiple people missing at this time. They have a feeling that Michael is involved. They can't find any of these people. And you can imagine with this town being so small,

when you have a certain amount of people missing. And this isn't just like one or two. This is like seven people missing. Right, but the problem is that, you know, the wilderness is so vast, like they could be anywhere. Right. So this brought the total, like Keith said, to seven people who were now unaccounted for in a community that only had about 70 residents. Police started along the banks of the Tenanaw, knowing that he was probably still traveling via canoe.

In the late hours of the day, they spotted Michael upstream about 25 miles or 40 kilometers from the dock that he had disappeared from, at the mouth of the Zitziana River, which emptied into the Tenonaw River. He had made his getaway in Fredberg's stolen motorized boat, towing his own boat, filled with camping gear, guns, and ammunition behind him. So it seems like this guy just... he murders people and then he takes off to a new destination. But it just doesn't make sense. Like all of these people who are missing and presume murdered at this point, like why?

Like these are all just men trying to live their days, you know? Right, but it does leave me with questions because you know there was a point where he was living in Canada, so it's like are there other potential victims in Canada that they never checked in? Totally, because he just seems like a senseless murderer who's just doing it for- Yeah. No, that there's a reason to murder, but you just seems like a senseless murderer who's just doing it for... Yeah.

No, that there's a reason to murder, but you know what I mean? He just kills and moves on. Yeah. At this point when they found Michael, they were calling down to him and offering the chance to surrender, but instead, Michael hid behind a tree and fired a high-powered Ruger rifle directly at one of the helicopters. And this actually shattered

the windshield and struck 34-year-old Trooper Troy Duncan in the head, killing him instantly and injuring nearby Captain Donald Lawrence when a bullet fragment struck him in the face. So this is just like murder, murder, murder. Trooper Jeff Hall then returned fire, hitting Michael five times in the head, torso, and legs killing him. Jeff said the entire standoff lasted just two seconds, with 25 bullets fired, leaving two men dead and one wounded. And Troopers recall it being very reminiscent of their time in combat in the Vietnam War.

So this is crazy, like they were hoping he would surrender and get answers to where these people are, all these people are that are missing and presumed murdered, but now there's no answers. Because he started firing and then of course, they had to fire back and then he just dies. Yeah, so disappointed. Michael's such a nut that he knew he knew he wasn't going to get away at this point. Right.

Which makes me believe even more that when the police came to his cabin that he definitely was concealing a weapon. Oh, absolutely. And I understand they had to shoot at him because he just shot at a helicopter and killed somebody and injured somebody else. Like they had to do what they had to do, but it's so disappointing that it had to end this way, you know? Yeah.

And it's still unclear why Michael Silka did what he did. There doesn't seem to be any explanation for his violent erratic behavior. It is speculated that he was caught stealing Fredberg's boat and he was confronted about it and he started killing anyone who may have witnessed the theft, the attack, or the subsequent attempt to cover up what he had done.

Which is just like, you can't just, why are you murdering people just because you stole a boat? Like murder is such a worse crime. You know what I mean? He's just trying to get rid of like witnesses to a boat theft. It just shows how unhinged he is. Absolutely. It's believed that unhinged he is. Absolutely.

It's believed that he hastily dumped the bodies in the Tanana River after taking their lives, assuming that they'd never be found. The Tanana River can be as much as a mile wide and up to 80 feet deep. Being Glacier run off the water is always near freezing, and the brown color and silt makes it almost impossible to see through. By the end of June 1984, four of the seven victims bodies had been found. Fred Burke, Lyman Klein, Dale Medisky, and Joe McVeigh.

Some were up to 75 miles or 120 kilometers downstream, so these bodies traveled a long way. They had all been shot in the head. Albert Hagen Jr. Joyce Klein and her two-year-old son Marshall Klein were never recovered. Trooper John Myers said quote, This river doesn't give up its bodies often. Which makes it so crazy to know that four of the seven bodies were found. Yeah, absolutely. And so tragic that the others weren't.

I agree. So, manly held a memorial for the victims at the dock the next day. Fred Burke, who went by weeds in Athabascan, Alaska Native, who was a fur trapper in Fisherman, and left behind his wife Lillor. Albert Hagen Jr., a construction worker who had just returned home to Manley to visit his parents for the first time in a decade after moving to California. Lyman and Joyce Klein, both of whom were born and raised in Manley, and their two-year-old son Marshall, thrilled to be welcoming their second baby. Dale Medisky, a carpenter and cabin builder, left behind his wife Kyrsten and seven-month-old son. They had moved there to be closer to nature and absolutely loved Manley Springs.

Joe McVeigh, a fur trapper and disabled Vietnam veteran, left behind his wife Alice. for Trapper and disabled Vietnam veteran left behind his wife Alice. Troy L. Duncan had been a 10-year veteran of the Marine Corps and relatively new on the force in Fairbanks. He left behind a wife and two kids. And Roger Colp was a woodcutter with two young daughters at home, and his body was also never found. Most families of the victims left the area just finding it too painful of a reminder. They did destroy Michael's car first though, still sitting on the dock on the Tanana, just kind of taking out their anger and frustration on it.

Michael Silka was cremated and his ashes were buried in the SITKIN National Cemetery at the request of his father. The cemetery, ironically, is across the street from the Alaska State Trooper Training Academy where the gun that he used to kill Troy L. Duncan is still on display. Families and friends of the victims were furious, but having been honorably discharged, Michael still wasn't titled to a burial in a military cemetery at government expense. As more information came out about Michael and his victims, some locals claimed that they

saw him eating in a restaurant with a pair of hitchhikers before driving away with them in his car on May 11th, so it's possible that he had more than nine victims. Which I think is definitely possible. I mean, if this guy is this comfortable murdering people and he seems to not give a living shit who he kills and how many people he kills, I feel like he definitely has killed more people. Yeah, I assume that there's other victims out there. And that, you know, again, brings me back to the fact that he had lived in other places. Yeah. Who else could he have murdered?

And he was only 26 at this time, so he was still so young. Yeah. We'll never actually know what fueled Michael or these heinous crimes, but it seemed like something was in the air. The year of this case, which again is 1984, Alaska had the highest murder rate in the country. But Michael alone committed the worst mass killing in Alaska history. Alaska State Police spokesman Paul Edscorene said quote,

Alaska still has a romantic image for many people. It's going to be a place where people go to live in the wilderness. It's the land of opportunity. It's the last frontier. A lot of people we describe as end of the rotors are people who are really trying to escape from other people and from themselves. And they definitely can't get away from themselves and are in fact more isolated with themselves here than they've ever been. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this wilderness episode of Going West, and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into.

This case just makes no sense to me the fact that he just went off and murdered so many innocent people for absolutely no reason. Like just because you think they might have seen you steal a boat, if that is even the reason that he murdered all these people because as we said he could have killed more people, it seems like he just didn't give a shit about anything. Yeah, I mean he did murder Roger Colp for literally confronting him about shopping wood. Yeah, and that was Michael's bad. So Roger was allowed to be like,

hey, that wasn't cool. Yeah, exactly. Without being murdered. So just in same case, and shocking as well that it was the biggest mass killing in Alaska. So thank you guys so much for tuning in for this episode. We appreciate every one of you. I know I say that all the time,

but I just want you guys to know every week that we love you and we love that you share the show and that you listen and that you're here with us. Yeah, I really wish that Michael would have been taken into custody so that we could have more answers, especially about this shitty Grizzly Adams. Yeah, absolutely agree.

All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you