Going West: True Crime - Philip Fraser // 124

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

In 1988, a 23-year-old man from Alaska left for a solo road trip to Washington so he could begin medical school. During the drive, he experienced car trouble, but just 5 days into his trip, his vehicle would be found engulfed in flames 1,700 miles from where his journey began. It wasn’t long until a body would be found, and witnesses began coming forward stating that they saw the young man picking up a strange hitchhiker around the time of his disappearance. This is the story of Philip Fraser. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/151661139/philip-innes-fraser' https://americancrimejournal.com/an-interrupted-journey/ https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/adn/obituary.aspx?n=robert-fraser&pid=171348777 https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/5ouuuy/did_a_mysterious_and_elusive_hitchhiker_kill/ https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_Innes_Fraser https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/canada-phillip-fraser-25-stewart-bc-18-june-1988.123181/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to crime fans? I'm your host Teef and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Welcome to Going West, everybody thanks for tuning in today. We have a very mysterious case. We actually did a poll the other day on our social media to see what kind of cases you guys like. And there were so many of you that said you like the very mysterious missing persons cases. This isn't exactly a missing persons case, but it is mysterious. I think all in all, it was kind of half and half. It was like half the people like these solved cases

and half like unsolved. So really, I mean, we'll just try and do both. Yeah, I mean, you know, we're gonna keep it going how we have been with going west. I think we have a nice kind of mixture of everything. We prefer the unsolved cases because it kind of gives an opportunity for them to be solved by everybody putting their heads together.

Maybe somebody knows something that listens or I mean, who knows? So we really like the unsolved cases but are really interested in what you guys like and we hope you enjoy this episode. All right guys, this is episode 124 of Going West. So let's get into it. In 1988, a 23-year-old man from Alaska left for a solo road trip to Washington so he could begin medical school.

During the drive, he experienced car trouble, but just five days into his trip, his vehicle would be found in golfed in flames, 1700 miles from where his journey began. It wasn't long until a body would be found, and witnesses began coming forward, stating that they saw a young man picking up a strange hitchhiker around the time of Philip Frazier. Philip Frazier was born on January 3, 1965 to parent Shirley and Robert Frazier, in Anchorage, Alaska, along with his brother's will and Robert Jr. Philip's mother Shirley was a doctor in the field of neurology, and his father Robert was actually also a doctor but specialized in internal medicine.

And although they're both from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, they fell in love with the beautiful landscape of Alaska after many visits and stints in Alaskan hospitals. So they decided to move there and have a family. Wow, all the way across the country. I know, I mean Alaska is very beautiful. So Philips parents were both known to be incredibly generous, wonderful, helpful people who had friends from all over. So it's safe to say that Phillip had a wonderful childhood by all accounts.

And although they were definitely more academic focused, Philip grew up loving the arts, from music to literature and beyond. And as he went through life, he became a very talented violin player, and this is because he wanted to, because he was passionate about it, not because his parents forced it on him, because they didn't. Philip was known to be an all around great kid, who kind of just danced to the beat of his own drum, but he wanted to go places in life.

In 1982, Philip Frazier graduated from West Anchorage High School, right there in Anchorage, Alaska. And a few months later, he made the cross-country move to Maryland to begin attending Western Maryland College, which is a private liberal arts college in Westminster, Maryland. This was special because Philip's father, Robert, attended the same college 40 years earlier to study internal medicine, and there, Philip was preparing to study medicine

himself just like his dad did. But after less than a year of studying, Philip decided that he wanted out of Maryland. He missed the life that he had in his home state of Alaska, but also just missed being in the Pacific Northwest in general. So he headed back to Anchorage and started planning his next move, and that's how we landed on the decision to enroll in premed at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, which is just about an hour's drive southwest of Seattle. Being the adventurous guy that Philip was, he didn't want to just hop on a plane and go to school.

He wanted to make a fun road trip out of it. So on Tuesday, June 14, 1988, 23-year-old Philip Frazier got into his 1983 Volkswagen Jetta and set off for college. Philip's parents were not keen on the idea of him making that drive alone, because for those of you who aren't sure what this road trip would look like, I'll paint the picture. This would be a 2,300 mile trip, or 3,700 kilometers, that would take 42 hours if he didn't make a single stop. And Philip planned to camp along the way, so he was prepared to travel for multiple days.

The drive would take him into the Canadian territory of Yukon, then drive down into the Canadian province of British Columbia, and then write down into Washington, which is the US state directly south of British Columbia Canada. So Philip would get to see a lot of exciting terrain and he was very much looking forward to enjoying the wilderness and scenery along the way. For the journey, Philip packed up all of his belongings including two handguns. Despite the fact that he would be able to protect himself if need be with those handguns, his parents feared of something happening to him on the road because of the rugged terrain

that he would pass through. For a good portion of the trip, Philip would be traveling on Alaska Highway 1, which takes you through mountainous valleys with lots of trees and large boulders. So natural accidents happen from time to time, like maybe a big slab of rock or large tree falls into the road and maybe even hits a car. And just knowing Philip was going to be a loan on top of that, his parents were just feeling really, really bad about it. I mean, yeah, he's a young guy, he's traveling by himself, he's got a lot of ground to cover.

And yeah, it's not like an interstate, it's not like I-5, it's kind of backroads. Yeah, it definitely is. Lots of really small towns you're passing through as well. And actually just a few months before this road trip, he was driving when a rock hit one of his windows and he had to tape it up and it still hadn't been fixed by the time he left for Washington. Luckily it being June the summer weather was pretty much in full swing so no nasty storms were expected to pass through the area, which I can't even imagine what it would be like

to drive that road trip in the snow. So sometime after 11am on Tuesday June on Tuesday, June 14, 1988, Philip set off for his new home in Olympia, Washington. And although he hoped to drive until nightfall, he continuously ran into car trouble, so the trip was proving to be full of mishaps. He hadn't even made it out of Alaska before he decided to stop for the day,

which was much earlier than he planned. Just outside of a town named Tocque, a six-hour drive from where he started. Tocque is a very small town, and in the late 1980s, there was under 1,000 people living there. It's about a two-hour and 14-minute drive from the border of Yukon, Canada, and despite it having only a population of around 900 people, Toke is the biggest town for another 7 hours of driving on the route that Philip would be taking.

So it's just wilderness and small towns of 100 people or less until you get to White Horse Yukon, Canada, which had about 18,000 people in 1988. So just to give you guys an idea, he was out there. That evening, Philip decided to set up camp and call his parents to update them on his car troubles. Unfortunately, he didn't give them a lot of details on what happened, and really only told them that everything was fine and he would continue his drive in the morning after sleeping at the campsite that he had already set up.

But this was the last time Shirley and Robert Frazier would hear from their son, Philip, ever again. And by the way, Philip had credit cards as well as a checkbook with him. So if something was really wrong with his car and it needed to be repaired, he could make this work. And if for whatever reason it was too expensive to fix, his parents would help him out.

And with that said, I don't know why he hadn't gotten his shattered window fixed by then, but his parents have stated that they just wanted him to be safe and were patiently awaiting updates on the status of his car, but those updates never came. Five days later, on Sunday, June 19, 1988, at around 9pm, Phillips-Black Volkswagen Jetta was found abandoned and set on fire at the Carpool Car Wash in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, which is a 26-hour drive from Tocque, Alaska, his last known whereabouts, days prior. The Car Wash was in a commercial and residential area near Third Avenue and Cassiar Street, not too far from downtown.

When firefighters arrived at the scene, they extinguished the flames quickly and were pleased to see that no one was inside the vehicle. But not only was there no people inside, there were no belongings whatsoever. Not even documents indicating who the car belonged to, and the car had also been stripped of both of its license plates. Considering all these details, the RCMP, aka the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, did a bit of digging on the car. And the next morning, they used the car's Vinn number to find that the car belonged

to a young man named Philip Frazier, and that he lived in Anchorage, Alaska. To ensure the vehicle hadn't been stolen, the RCMP reached out to authorities up in Anchorage to see if anything regarding this vehicle had been reported, and nothing had. So based on the route that Philip would have taken to get to Prince George, assuming at this point he got to this destination himself and that his car wasn't stolen, the last four hours of the drive leading into the city of Prince George, which in 1988 had a population of around 70,000 people, was on Highway 16, which is also referred to as the Highway of Tears.

Starting with the disappearances of Tracy Clifton in Helen Frost in 1970 and spanning across over 50 years with the most recent murder of Crystal Haines Chambers in August of 2020, over 40 women, many of which were indigenous women, have gone missing or been murdered along Highway 16 in British Columbia. No murders or disappearances of women were reported in the year of 1988, but it's worth mentioning this so everyone kind of understands how this very rural area can be extremely dangerous, since many have been met with foul play on it. We've discussed a lot of highway disappearances in homicides, so this can really be said about any main long highway.

But the road Philip Frazier happened to be traveling on was fairly well known even back in those days for foul play. Investigators got involved in Philip's case when they realized that his parents hadn't heard from him in five days, and that he had specifically been on this road trip so he could move to Washington. And they mentioned that he had been having car trouble. And they felt strongly that that trip didn't include lighting his own car on fire and vanishing off the face of the earth. Although investigators typically don't get involved in a missing adult person's case immediately, Philips' father, Robert, stated that there really

wasn't any hesitation when it came to Philips' case. Everyone just felt something was wrong right away. Oh, absolutely. There's nothing else that could be said here. For example, since they knew that he was having car trouble, it would be one thing if all of his stuff was inside the license plates were still on and maybe it caught on fire from some problem in the car. And then he went to go get help, but there was nothing in the car, there was no license plates, and he was nowhere to be found and he didn't report anything himself.

So, something's wrong. Yeah, exactly. And typically when people want to disappear, they're not going to tell their family members where they're going. So, Philip had plans. He had plans to go to college and the fact that there's no license plates, there's nothing of his in the car. Obviously, huge red flags.

Exactly. So four investigators with the RCMP immediately jumped on the case and started putting Philip's face on the news throughout British Columbia and Yukon, hoping for any kind of lead in the case. And the next day, investigators discovered a little clue. A few days earlier, on Friday, June 17, 1988, so three days after Philip had last been heard from, he crossed the border into Canada from Alaska. The Canada Border Services Agency in Beaver Creek, UConn, which is the town right on the border in just two hours from Tauk, seized both of Philip's firearms

and he had to sign an RCMP non-resident firearm declaration. So essentially he wasn't allowed to bring his firearms from the US into Canada and he had to give them up. This whole process took about an hour and then Philip was on his way, but that was all the RCMP knew. And the clues coming in were extremely few and far between, not only was it 1988, but again, the area was extremely rural. So it was well known that many people in the area didn't keep up with the media. They just kind of lived off the land. But now at least they knew a little bit more about Philips' timeline. If he had indeed

driven to Prince George BC himself, that means he would have driven 24 hours worth of terrain in just two days, which is a lot of ground covered. That's pretty consistent driving of probably 12 hours a day. So if you got eight or so hours of sleep, that would leave just 4 hours a day to stop for gas, eat, use the restroom, stretch, set up, and tear down his campsites, etc. So he was definitely on the move. And this gives me a lot of questions because he spoke with his parents on the night of Tuesday, June 14th. But then didn't get into Canada until Friday, June 17th, and he didn't speak to them or anyone during that time. We know that Toke is only two hours from the Canadian border, so what

was he doing for two and a half days before crossing the Canadian border, and why didn't he update his parents? Philip was obviously an adult, but he was still only 23, so yes he was independent and really felt he could take care of himself, but he was also still pretty young and very close with his parents, so I just wish we knew a little bit more about his timeline. Yeah, those two days, I'm just curious if maybe he was traveling kind of slow before he got to the Canadian border or what the deal was. All investigators could really do at this point was go to every campsite, gas station, and rest stop along Highway 16, looking for any clues that could lead to answers regarding

what happened to Philip. Luckily, some tips were coming in that seemed fairly credible, and one of them included information that Philip had been staying at a campsite in Deese Lake, BC, which is a whole 11 hours away from Prince George. Deese Lake was on the route that Philip was believed to have taken, so this seemed like a good place to search. Also, the tipster noted that Philip camp there the night of June 18th, which was the day before his car was found.

However, other tipsters told police that they believe they saw Philip at a campground in Dawson Creek, BC, which is a whole four hours past Prince George, indicating that Philip potentially hitched a ride with someone and maybe just continued camping. And this confused his parents because they really didn't see him going this long without updating them. And this still wouldn't have explained what happened to his car. But there was no way to really confirm if these reports were true because the tipsters who claimed Philip was at a campground in Dawson Creek said they saw him the same night

as the other tipsters supposedly saw him, 15 hours in the opposite direction at Deese Lake. To help get some definitive answers, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police began running ads in the newspaper about Philip Frazier, but no concrete answers came in. And regarding him not calling his parents, you know, I don't know what it was like in 1988, but I'm just thinking, you know, obviously no cell phones. And he after toke is just like we said, a ton of super, super, super small towns. So maybe he couldn't find a place to, you know, use the phone. I don't really know. Yeah, it's possible that there wasn't many p-phones along the way. And yeah, you know, use the phone? I don't really know. Yeah, it's possible that there wasn't many

payphones along the way. And yeah, you have to keep that in mind. It's 1988. He definitely does not have a cell phone. So he's got to call them from a pay phone or somewhere else. And especially, you know, thinking about this, he's also not staying at hotels along the way. He's camping. So he has to go into town to find a pay phone. It's not like, oh, hey, I'm staying at hotels along the way. He's camping. So he has to go into town to find a pay phone. It's not like, oh, hey, I'm staying at this hotel. Let me just call from the hotel phone. Right, and maybe after toke,

maybe he camped out that night, the night that he spoke with his parents, and then maybe he continued on, had car troubles, wasn't near a phone. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Yeah, and the frustrating thing is the conflicting stories from the tipsters. It's like, yeah, they saw them over here and then they saw them over here.

But in those two places. Please, right. Sorry, and those two places are so far apart. They're 15 hours drive apart. Yeah, exactly. So it's always good to have tips coming in, but sometimes they can be this opposite. And then the police are like, I don't know what to believe. So they just have to look into both. Over a month after Philip disappeared, on July 27, 1988, a gruesome discovery was made.

About 450 miles or 700 kilometers northwest of the area where Philip's car was found in flames, a family of tourists were driving down Highway 37A, which is known as the Glacier Highway, when they decided to pull off into a gravel area. One of the men in the car wanted to take the dog out and everyone else just kind of stretched and walked around. The dog, who was on a leash, began pulling his owner

into some thick shrubbery when it suddenly stumbled upon the dead body of a young man face down with multiple bullet holes. The family immediately jumped into the car and drove to the nearest town which was Stewart, British Columbia, about 30 miles west of where they discovered the body. They informed police of what they found and investigators knew right away that it was most likely 23-year-old Philip Frazier. Two days after the body was discovered, so on Friday, July 29, 1988, officials made a positive identification using dental records, and the body was confirmed to be that of Philip Frazier. As you can probably guess, his cause of death was the multiple gunshot wounds to his body,

and they came from a handgun. His body was in an advanced state of decomposition, so the medical examiner determined that he likely died around the time his car was found, which was about six weeks earlier. Now that investigators knew Philip had been murdered, they went full speed ahead on looking for his killer. After releasing more information in the media, investigators headed back to Dees Lake, where Philip was supposedly camped out the night before his car was found on fire. It was then that they stopped into a restaurant and gas station

called Forty Mile Flats Cafe, which was just about an hour south of Dees Lake. Detective spoke to the owner, a woman named Gay Frockledge and Gay's daughter Tina, who owned and operated the business alongside her. Gay had called in a few weeks earlier with a tip regarding Philip, and it was an extremely important one. Gay explained to the officers that on Saturday June 18th, so again, the day before Philip's Volkswagen Jetta was found, someone driving a dark colored pickup with a light stripe on the side dropped off a hitchhiker at her gas station. Gay noticed him from inside and immediately got about feeling about this guy.

She described that there was just something wrong about him and that he gave off kind of a vibe that he had escaped from a mental institution. She was uncomfortable just looking at this guy. It was an intense feeling that she had, so she continued to watch him and informed her daughter Tina. In fact, Gaye had planned to leave around that time and let her daughter run the restaurant for the rest of the day, but because of this man being there, she really didn't feel safe leaving Tina alone. Shortly after the hitchhiker arrived, he went inside the restaurant and ordered some food, and then a black Volkswagen Jetta pulled

up to the gas station. The young man inside the car got out and began looking for something in his vehicle. It was then that another car pulled up, and Tina went outside to pump their gas while her mother Gays stayed inside with the hitchhiker. Tina greeted the young man searching his Volkswagen Jetta, who we now know was Philip Frazier, and Philip returned to hello to her as she walked over to the other customer and began pumping their gas. Then, Tina went back inside to where her mother gay was, and about that same time, the

Hitchhiker finished his meal and approached the counter to pay. Both Gay and Tina noticed that he paid in Canadian currency, and then he walked outside and approached Philip Frazier. The two spoke for a moment before the Hitchhiker walked off and headed south, but just a few moments later, Philip's Jeddah pulled up beside the man and the exchanged words again. Then the Hitchhiker opened Philip's car door as the car was still in motion. To gain Tina, it looked as if the Hitchhiker had originally asked Philip for a ride, but Philip said no, and then as the man walked off, maybe Philip felt bad because they both said he seemed like a really nice guy, and pulled up behind the Hitchhiker again to kind

of maybe get some more information and then finally led him into his car. Weirdly enough, both Gay and Tina had a really bad feeling. And exchange thoughts with each other that fill up, of course at this time they didn't Giving that man a ride. When they say mental health is a journey, they mean it. That's why it's important to prioritize your mental health and wellness every day. When you work on yourself, it brings positive changes in all areas of your life. The long-term effects of therapy can give you the tools to deal with challenges as they arise, strengthen your relationships, and give you a more positive outlook on life.

There's no better time to invest in yourself than right now. Talkspace is the number one online therapy platform that has thousands of licensed therapists trained in over 40 specialties, including anxiety, depression, relationships and more. Your therapist can help you set and achieve your goals. And Talkspace is a fraction of the cost of in-person therapy. So instead of waiting for an appointment, you can send unlimited messages to your therapist 24-7 and they'll engage with you daily five days a week. and show your support for the show. That's going west and Talkspace.com. At this point, investigators felt confident that whoever the hitchhiker was

had to be the same person that killed Philip and set his Volkswagen jet on fire. They posted and passed out flyers all along Highway 37 and Highway 16 from Lake Dees to Prince George, and they spoke with as many people as they could in that area. The problem was that many of the people stopping at 40-mile flats cafe were travelers, but that didn't stop them from trying. Luckily, a composite sketch was created of the Hitchhiker and investigators found multiple people who could confirm that they had encountered the man matching the Hitchhiker's description week's prior. One witness said that the man told them

he was visiting relatives in Tokal, Alaska, and then told someone else that he worked for a fish processing plant there. He told someone else that he was a medical student from Toronto, and that he had just left a friend's wedding in Whitehorse, which is in Yukon, Canada, and that he was hitchhiking home. He even told others that his name was Philip Frazier, and that he lived in Anchorage, Alaska and was driving down to Olympia, Washington to go to medical school. But everyone described this hitchhiker as a man in his mid-twenties with a large beer

belly, rotten teeth, strong, foul body odor, and stubble on his face. He looked a mess, waddled when he walked, and was described as being mentally slow. He also smoked cigarettes and held it like someone typically holds a joint between their thumb and their index finger. And it wasn't obvious whether he was American or Canadian. He was white, stood about 5'9", weighing probably around 225 pounds, and had brown hair and brown eyes. Somehow we couldn't find a description of Philip Fraser online, but based on the two photos that we have of him, to me he appears to have like reddish brown hair, he's very

thin, he looks like he's probably pretty like a tall, lanky guy and he has a long thin nose. He looks like he would also have a need or appearance, whereas the hitchhiker was super messy and had round features. And the reason we're pointing this out is to describe how different they looked. Yet a man fitting the hitchhiker's description stated that his name was Philip Frazier and told Philip story as if it were his own. So investigators began to think that this man, for whatever reason, was trying to assume Philip's identity. story as if it were his own. So investigators began to think that this man, for whatever

reason, was trying to assume Philip's identity. Yeah, pretty much sounds like that, and yeah, it kind of sounds like he acquired all of that information about Philip's life while they were in the car together. Exactly. And we posted, as always, photos of the composite sketch as well as photos of Philip on all our socials and urge you guys to take a look. There's three different composite sketches of the hitchhiker based on what the various witnesses saw, but they do all look extremely similar. So to me it's like it's obviously the same guy.

So two months later, another break came in the case. A nice couple from Kit Wanga British Columbia, which is a very tiny village just south of where Philip's body was found, named Pauline and Eddie Olson had come into close contact with the hitchhiker in question. After Eddie saw the poster with the hitchhiker's composite sketches, he contacted investigators and informed them that on Saturday, June 18, 1988, eight hours after Philip had picked up the hitchhiker at the 40-mile flat's cafe, Eddie and his wife came across a stranded motorist. They had been driving on Highway 37 in British Columbia and weren't too far from their home when they saw him outside a broken-down

vehicle, in 1983, Black Vokeswagon Jetta. And to give everyone a better idea of the area in question, I'm going to do my best to kind of make this picture. So the 40-mile flats cafe, which closed a few years ago, was located about five hours north of Kit Wanga, where this couple lived. And the 40-mile-flats cafe is only about three hours north of where Philip's body was found. And eight hours later, the hitchhiker is alone and needing a ride, five hours from where Philip originally picked him up.

So we can assume that Philip was killed within three or so hours of picking up the hitchhiker and then the man dumped Philip's body and continued driving down Highway 37 until he eventually came near the town of Kit Wanga and found the couple. Because we know that Philip was having car troubles, so obviously I'm assuming those car troubles were passed on to the hitchhiker Who stole his car after he killed Philip? so That's why he ended up in Kit Wanga where this couple found him. Wow. That's actually really crazy because

Sorry, I know that was really complex. Yeah, no, no. I mean just breaking it down the guy the hitchhiker Stole Philip's car after discarding a Phillips body after he killed him and then the car it down, the hitchhiker still Philips car after discarding a Philips body after he killed him, and then the car broke down. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So now he sees this couple, and they're going to help them out, because they just think this poor guy's car broke down when meanwhile, this guy is a monster, and this is not his

car. Well, what's really interesting here is that Gay described this hitchhiker as almost looking like he was mentally ill. So I wonder if Eddie and his wife got any of the same type of feelings that Gay and Tina got. We're going to go into that a little bit right now but it doesn't seem like they did and I don't know why, because you would assume if Tina and Gay got those feelings from behind a freaking window?

Well, he was outside. Those have got to be some pretty strong vibes, so I don't know how Pulling and Eddie would not have felt that, but it doesn't really seem like they did, and let's talk about that right now. So, Eddie noted that the stranded motorist was nervous, but Eddie just figured that it was likely because it was pretty late at night and he was alone in a remote area. The Olsen couple towed the Vauxwagon Jetta to their house and allowed the man to stay in their basement for the night. Scary as it is, the Olsen kept their guns in the basement and

had nearly 15 of them in a case. So the hitchhiker slept beside them. Luckily nothing bad happened overnight, and the three of them had breakfast together in the kitchen the following morning. The Olsins tried to ask him questions about himself, and have some small talk, but the man would barely speak. The only details he really gave was that his parents were physicians in Anchorage, Alaska, and he was starting class in Seattle the next day. Therefore, he was in a bit of a rush to leave, but weirdly enough, he offered to sell his car to the Olsons. Yeah, so it's clear they kind of did get some strange vibes. And now it's like this guy once again is taking Philip's life story, however he

changed Olympia Washington to Seattle. And you're probably wondering, you know, why would he say that he needs to go to Seattle and then sell his car? So his whole thing was, I'm going to sell you the car cheap if you just, you know, give me enough, essentially to get a plane ticket to Seattle. So Eddie Olson decided to just kind of take a look at the vehicle, and he went outside with the young hitchhiker and began inspecting it. Everything ultimately seemed fine with the car, and Eddie actually was interested in purchasing it, especially because the young man was trying to sell it far under market value. But it now being a Sunday, the banks were closed,

so Eddie wanted to wait until the following day to buy it through customs since it was a U.S. vehicle. But the young man didn't want to wait. He wanted to sell the car right then in there, so he declined the sale and thanked the Olsins for their hospitality. Hoping to pay them in some way for their help, the hitchhiker pulled out two separate wallets, removed an American $20 bill from one of them, and handed it to Eddie. So we can only assume that was Phillips wallet. Yep, pretty much. But yeah, going back to what you just said, I do, I wish we had some more information

because if everybody else described him as having like rotten teeth, a beer belly being really messy and like gross in appearance. And this guy's like, oh yeah, I'm about to go to med school in Seattle. Like, you don't fit the bill, dude. What do you mean, you're going to med school? Yeah, absolutely.

You don't fit the bill and it's just incredibly strange that I don't know, the whole selling the car thing,'s just incredibly strange that I don't know the whole selling the car thing it just really sold me and then the fact that you know he pulls out these two wallets it's like all right man so but you know it wasn't it wasn't weird enough for them to call the police but they were just kind of like okay this guy's kind of weird and he's about to be out of our lives and overall they were very, very lucky. I would say.

Oh my god, yes. As we all know by now, Philip had been having car issues during his road trip. But it really only needed a new fan belt, which Eddie helped the hitchhiker get. So with that, around 9 a.m., the hitchhiker was back on the road in the black jettah, and they never saw him again. 12 hours later, at around 9pm that same Sunday, the Volkswagen would be found 300 miles away, or nearly 500 kilometers, remember in Prince George, on fire. The Olsins didn't hear this news, or really think anything more about the man that they

hosted for one night that early summer, until Eddie saw the poster about Philip Frazier, and saw that composite sketch that looked exactly like the man he and his wife had helped. Unfortunately, all police had to go off of was this composite sketch, because no one knew this man's real identity, so they just kept looking into the 500 tips that they received in the first year of the investigation and searched various garbage dumps along Phillips route in hopes of finding his belongings. But to this day, none of them have been found. And he had a lot of stuff with him. He had various cassette tapes, luggage, camping equipment, clothes, his passport, wallet,

and much more. All just vanished like the Hitchhiker. There are various theories as to who the murderous Hitchhiker could be, and many think it's a man named Michael McGray, who was a serial killer active in Canada through the 80s and 90s, killing both men and women. He was arrested in 1998 and is believed to have had seven to 18 victims if not more. Although he was born in Ontario,

which is on the other side of the country from British Columbia, he murdered people throughout all of Canada, including BC. At the time of Philip's murder, Michael McGray was 23 years old, which is around the age that the hitchhiker was believed to be. He doesn't necessarily bear too much of a resemblance to the hitchhiker composites,

and his MO was typically stabbing. He also wasn't known to hitchhike, but he did once murder a 17 year old hitchhiker, named Elizabeth Tucker, in Nova Scotia. And the way that I'm thinking of this is because this man in particular doesn't really look like the composite. Eddie Olson saw the composite and immediately thought of the man that he had met one time, i.e. the hitchhiker. So to me, I'm like, the guy has to look pretty similar to the composite. For Eddie to have seen the composite sketch and said, I met that dude, I hosted him at my house one night. So, that's kind of what I'm thinking is that,

I'm thinking the composite sketches are pretty spot on. Right, so basically you're saying that it probably isn't Michael McGray. Right, I mean, I really don't know, but I'm looking at the MO2 and I'm like, okay, Philip was shot, we know he wasn't shot with his own gun because his guns were taken from him at the Canadian border which means the hitchhiker had a gun on them and I don't know just look at Michael McGregor. I'm like well, he I don't think he killed anyone with a gun

So yeah kind of doesn't really fit right and I saw it in an online forum that someone mentioned that the hitchhiker Composite sketches look a lot like a guy named Roger Hone Brady who was a man convicted of robbery and murder in the early 90s. And he murdered a 29 year old police officer named Martin Gans and a woman named Catalina Korea or Korea, not sure, who was a witness. He to me looks very similar to the composite sketches and was about 22 when Philip was murdered. And he killed his victims with a gun, which was a high-powered rifle, so different than the handgun used to kill Philip, but who knows. But he lived in Malibu,

California, and the murders occurred in Manhattan Beach, California. But he was caught in Vancouver, Washington, when they ultimately arrested him, he was in Vancouver. Still, I kind of have a feeling that the killer was likely Canadian, but I think it's interesting that no one noticed any specific accent. We do know, however, that he paid in Canadian currency at the 40-mile flat's cafe, but he could have easily stolen that money from someone or just had that currency on him because he was traveling through the country of Canada. Yeah, I mean the problem is we really don't know where this guy's from, but I'm going to side with you on this one I think he was probably Canadian as well.

So, police have looked into a great deal of theories, including Michael McGrey being involved, and they just don't believe that it was him. There are still a lot of details in this case that have not been released because it's unsolved, but we know that there isn't anyone specific that investigators have their minds on as far as a suspect goes. We do know that the hitchhiker told Eddie Olson that he was selling the car cheap because he wanted to buy a plane ticket to Seattle, so investigators wonder if that's where he's from. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that he wanted to get rid of the car because if he had eventually been found with that car, he would have been linked to Phillips murder. Exactly.

But, you know, why did he want to go to Seattle? I mean, that's, it is a different country. So, you're leaving the country that means he, he must have a passport on him. That's an interesting angle, though. Like, why go to Seattle? Like, unless you're leaving the country that means he he must have a passport on him that that's an interesting angle though Like why go to Seattle like unless you're just kind of drifting you don't really know where you're going You're just kind of running from the law, but I wonder if I mean Why did he set the car on fire? I mean probably to destroy any future evidence But I wonder like where did he go after that? Did he hitch a ride from somebody else? Did he go to Seattle? It's there's just so many questions. We really don't know.

Well, that's another very scary thought to think about this guy being out there and you know Hitch hiking with other people and then killing them. Right So Phillips remains were cremated and scattered over-order lake in Anchorage, Alaska, which was a spot that he and his family loved to visit together. Sadly, in 2014, at the age of 83, Phillips' father, Dr. Robert Frazier, passed away not knowing what really happened to his son, Philip. His mother and brothers are still alive today, and they want answers as to why

their incredibly bright loved one was met with such a horrible fate. What is the most important thing to do? 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 next week we'll have an all-new case for you guys to dive into. As interesting of a mystery as this is, this is still someone's tragedy, the family is still alive and they want answers. So please

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