Going West: True Crime - The California Missing Five // 316

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Between 2010 and 2013, five young men went missing from San Francisco under mysterious circumstances. But are the cases connected? All five families are desperate for answers, and to this day, no trace of any of the men has been found. These are the stories of The California Missing Five. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. CBS: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/missing-san-francisco-men-mysteriously-disappeared-california-5-sean-sidi-crishtian-hughes-shawn-tyler-cameron-remmer-jackson-miller/ 2. "California Missing Five" Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/CALIFORNIAMISSINGFIVE/photos 3. Uncovered: https://uncovered.com/cases/jackson-miller 4. Jackson's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/helpfindjacksonmiller/ 5. Oxygen: https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/jackson-miller-possibly-sighted-more-than-10-years-after-vanishing?fbclid=IwAR0lp64Sc3q8xEcKU3HUPGCL0pUwCQz7mQBDosfFtWL6WRUaAdwssrReR_8 6. Medium: https://medium.com/true-crime-by-cat-leigh/teen-missing-for-a-decade-may-have-been-seen-this-year-7ac832e9bee4 7. The San Francisco Examiner: https://www.newspapers.com/image/569391821/?terms=%22Crishtian%20Hughes%22&match=1 8. Uncovered: https://uncovered.com/cases/cameron-remmer 9. Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/e5mn4l/the_missing_san_francisco_5/ 10. Cameron's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cameron.remmer 11. Uncovered: https://uncovered.com/cases/shawn-dickerson 12. Shawn's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/HelpFindShawnDickerson/ 13. Mission Local: https://missionlocal.org/2012/01/disappearance-of-23-year-old-remains-a-mystery/ 14. Shawn's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KlausAgnes 15. Uncovered: https://uncovered.com/cases/cameron-remmer 16. Uncovered: https://uncovered.com/cases/crishtian-hughes 17. NBC: https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/new-tip-re-energizes-search-for-san-diego-man/1974329/ 18. The San Francisco Examiner: https://www.newspapers.com/image/569387529/ 19. The Crime Wire: https://thecrimewire.com/true-crime/The-Yuba-County-5-Terror-on-the-Mountain 20. Wisevoter: https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/missing-persons-by-state/#:~:text=Criminal%20Justice-,Introduction,1%2C252%20and%20Texas%20with%201%2C246. 21. South Tahoe Now: http://southtahoenow.com/story/08/06/2014/man-missing-2010-may-have-been-seen-south-lake-tahoe 22. Breezy Mama: https://breezymama.com/2014/02/03/missing-cameron-remmer/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One is going on to Prime fans. I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Today we have a story that I stumbled upon online that immediately intrigued me because of the Missing 5 aspect which seems to be sort of a weird trend which we do discuss in the episode, especially since a few of them are in California. And today we go to San Francisco so thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode. Yeah this is also one of those cases where we're talking about a group of young missing men which we don't often talk about we have before a few times, but this is kind of a different, different case.

But it's also really weird because I feel like there is a trend as well within missing men and how they disappear. This one is a little different, but the commonalities between each of these men's last known days are really unsettling. So let's get into it. Alright guys. So you're lying. No, that's alright.

Alright guys, this is episode 316 of Going West, so let's get into it. Between 2010 and 2013, five young men went missing from San Francisco under mysterious circumstances. But are the cases connected? All five families are desperate for answers, and to this day, no trace of any of the men have been found. These are the stories of Jackson Miller, Cameron Remmer, Sean Dickerson, Christian Hughes and Sean City, also known as the California Missing 5. About 2,000 people go missing every year from California more than any other state. Sometimes, these disappearances start to look eerily similar, leading their families and even law enforcement to believe that they're connected.

California has multiple groups of missing persons that fall into that category. For example, there's the UBA County 5, which is a group of five men aged between 24 and 32, all of whom had varying degrees of mild intellectual disabilities or mental health afflictions, who went missing from UBUS city, California, which is about 45 minutes north of Sacramento. To go into that a little bit on February 24, 1978, the five of them attended a basketball game at California State University, piled into the car to drive home together and then vanished. Four months later, in June of 1978, four of them were found deceased, buried in the woods about

three hours away from Ubasiddi on a secluded dirt road. Fowell Play is suspected due to the fact that an autopsy revealed that one of the men was alive for about three months after they disappeared. And the fifth man was never located. So let us know if you guys want us to cover that case because we don't currently have any recommendations for it, I don't think so. But would love to dive into that one if you guys are interested. And then there's also the Humboldt Missing 5, which we covered in episode 220. And this case consisted of five women who disappeared from Humboldt County, which is the Northern California region that is infamous for its missing persons cases. In fact, more people go missing there annually than any other county in the country.

There's actually a really great documentary about that. I can't remember exactly the documentary. Is it Murder Mountain? I think it's Murder Mountain. Yes. Yes. On Netflix, I think. Very interesting documentary about that region. Yeah, check out that episode of going west to 20 again. But also, yeah, if you have Netflix, go watch that documentary.

If you haven't, I think it came out like three years ago maybe. Yeah. Yeah. But a few hours south of Humboldt County in San Francisco is yet another notorious missing persons case, which oddly also ties in five different potential victims, which we're going to discuss here today. A case that seems to be far less known than the other two I just discussed. These are the disappearances of the California Missing Five. Now obviously we got to talk about the first person to disappear here and that person's name was Jackson Miller. So Jackson Alexander Miller was born on June 19th, 1990.

In 2010, 19-year-old Jackson was living at home with his mom Gina, his dad Paul and his sister Michaela, and Cupertino, California, which is about 45 minutes southeast of San Francisco. Now, at this time, he was studying at Deanza College in his hometown of Cupertino. In high school, Jackson had been a gifted athlete, particularly in swimming, and his parents remember him as intelligent and strong willed. A friend added that he was incredibly generous and kind-spirited to all those he knew.

But despite his motivation and convictions, his family openly admits that he was struggling at the time of his disappearance. Jackson had been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, also known as OCD. He seemed to be navigating some kind of dependency as he was going through a 12-step program at this time, though his family is not specified which one. So Jackson had been mitigating his mental health symptoms with medication, but wanted to work towards managing them without pills and had recently quit taking them all together. His parents remember this leaving him erratic and paranoid, symptoms that they were hoping would subside after his body perched itself of its dependency on the medication.

They also were called Jackson having been suffering from insomnia at the time and having withdraws from going without his medicine On Saturday, May 15, 2010 Jackson left home telling his family that he was headed to a 12-step meeting Now as the day passed and he didn't come home his family grew extremely concerned Knowing that Jackson had been fragile at the time concerned, knowing that Jackson had been fragile at the time. Two days later, their fears were confirmed when Jackson's car, a silver 2004 Honda pilot, was found in the parking lot of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Now, for his family, this was devastating news because each year about 30 people jump

off the Golden Gate Bridge, so on average about two or more a month. In fact, it's one of the most popular places in the world to take your own life, so the prognosis was not positive for Jackson's family. His car was located at 410 pm on May 17, 2010, with his wallet, cell phone, and iPod still inside. His medication was not with him and neither was the medical marijuana that he often took to calm himself down in the midst of an episode. Both police and his family initially suspected suicide, however, the mystery of Jackson's

whereabouts deepened when there was no evidence proving that he did actually jump off the bridge. When police reviewed the security camera footage from the nearby cameras that likely would have captured his jump, there was nothing to be found. Jackson's dad Paul explained quote, they can actually see the car he drove in, he then walked to a nearby bus stop, a bus came, and he was gone out of the view of the video. Now while this didn't bring them any closer to finding Jackson, his parents were relieved that he hadn't jumped and were confronted by the thought that maybe in a state of mania

or confusion he had simply walked away from his responsibilities, but was still alive. But still, authorities eyed the shore of the bay for weeks after his disappearance, just waiting for evidence of his jump to wash up, yet it never did. Now while it is certainly possible that his body just never surfaced, investigators theorize that it's likely human remains would have been recovered from the shore after the impact. One officer on the scene even speculated, quote, there was some certainty that Jackson

did not jump from the bridge, but it's still unknown. And I'm kind of wondering if it's possible to jump off that bridge, not in the view of specific cameras, if that's in the view of specific cameras. If that's like some sort of possibility here. I'm sure it is, but the weirdest part is that he showed up on the camera and then this bus came up and when the bus left, he was gone. So did he get on the bus or did he get out of the view of the camera and walk off? It just like, it didn't seem like from the camera footage that they did have

and obviously the fact that his body was not recovered, that he jumped off the bridge. Like, there was really no proof other than the fact that his car was parked next to the bridge, you know? Yeah, so it seems more likely that he did get on a bus and just took off. Right, so that's at least what they're kind of thinking, but it's kind of hard to speculate because he just kind of vanished off this video, and there's no trace of him on any other cameras or anywhere else. So it's like he he just vanished. But the Coast Guard claimed that there was a splash caught on security footage on the Marin County side of the bridge, which is the opposite side of where Jackson had parked. So this led many following the case to believe that Jackson had jumped off that day, but

his family has continued to push for more of an investigation. And again, the police, the police really don't believe that he jumped either. So this is just kind of a big mystery of where he went. Right. So while his parents were the first to admit that their son's state of mind was turbulent at the time of his sudden disappearance. They maintained that there is not sufficient evidence that he leapt from the Golden Gate bridge that day.

So they launched a grassroots effort in San Francisco to bring them to Jackson. Family and friends hung flyers all over the city which led to several developments. Four different tips came in that Jackson had been seen in or around the Golden Gate State Park. But when police and the millers followed up on these claims, they were unable to track him down. It's also really difficult because we've actually covered cases before. I think I've brought up this particular example in another episode, but where there are claims and tips that somebody has been spotted by people who don't know this person, right? Who just see them, their picture on the news or whatever. And then it's later been determined that at the time that person claims to have seen

them, that person was actually already deceased, which means it was not that person. So that's why it's really hard because people may have seen somebody who looked like him, but it's not actually him or they did see him. Well, yeah, and another tip came in that said that somebody had seen Jackson wandering the fisherman's wharf, which for those of you who don't know, is it's a very popular tourist destination

on the San Francisco Bay, and it's about an hour's walk from where Jackson had left his car. But this is also unsubstantiated. Like there are so many people that come and go from the war. Like, I mean thousands of people probably a day. So with this, Jackson's parents held out hope that he was still alive and simply wanted to leave his former life behind, you know, living a simpler life off the grid. So they scoured the homeless shelters,

wondering if he had turned to life on the streets voluntarily. His mom Gina mused quote, were hopeful that he's alive and walking the streets of San Francisco. But this was a little comfort to the family when there were still so few answers. Gina continued quote, the best thing in the world would just be to hear him say, hi mom and just to know that he's okay. In the summer of 2014, a handful of tips came in from Lake Tahoe, California, claiming that Jackson had been spotted walking around in South Lake Tahoe,

which is nearly four hours from where he disappeared. While the colors were reportedly confident that the man had been Jackson, police were never able to confirm this sighting. This also reminds me a lot of the Bryce Les Pisa case. I was actually thinking that in my head as we were talking about this. Yeah, because it's super reminiscent, right?

Like, I cannot remember what episode we covered that in, but if you just look up Bryce Les Pisa, going west, it'll come up. I think it was somewhere around like, early, episode 21 or something like that. It's super, super early days of going west, but yeah, that is one of the cases that has just stuck with both of us since we covered it

and since we learned about it. And if you don't know that story, you need to hear it because what happened that day to this young man was so bizarre and that then he seemingly just vanished. And I'm still a part of the Facebook group. So sometimes I'll log in and I'll randomly see somebody will take a picture of a homeless man

and say, is this him? Yeah, I remember when that happened, there was a man sitting outside of a grocery store. Yes. I think it was somewhere still in California and they're like, this is God to be him. It looks just like him. Yeah.

And I think actually police were able to confirm that it was not Bryce's piece of. Right, and that, because his case has kind of gained a lot of traction over the years, it's happened a lot. I know where people think they see him, even though as we go into in the episode, he had really bright red hair,

so that's kind of a little bit more distinctive kind of. Yeah, and he also had a distinguishable tattoo on his arm. Exactly. Yeah. I think that's how they kind of ruled it out. But even so, like a lot of people think that they're seeing him. So it just makes you wonder is this happening with Jackson? Or is he really out there?

Was he met with foul play? Did he take his life? Like there's so many options options and it doesn't seem like there's any clear path. Yeah, no evidence really pointing in any direction here. Exactly. And as recently as 2021, another tip came in and this one seemed a little bit more credible than the rest as the man believed to be Jackson had been captured on security camera footage. So on Friday, March 26, 2021, a mysterious, dishevelled man entered a target in Woodland, California,

which is about an hour and a half northeast of San Francisco, and this man was asking for help. At around 2.20 p.m., this man entered the store and approached an employee saying that he was a missing person and that his name was Jackson. And he was apparently talking to employees and just customers asking for a ride to Los Angeles. Now while Jackson would have been in his 30s by then, this guy bore a striking resemblance to the 19 year old who had been missing, you know, for years at this point.

Like over 10 years. And he was clad in a dark green sweater, black pajama pants with green shamrocks on them, he had short hair, and eventually he left the target after nobody could help him. It wasn't until later when someone reported this interaction with him to authorities that the police were able to link it to Jackson's case. And despite the passage now of 13 years, Jackson's family still hopes that he may be alive, especially after the potential sighting of him at Target. But again, even with the footage, they were not able to determine whether or not this was

him. But Jackson was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed about 160 pounds. He had blue eyes and brown hair and at the time of his disappearance he was wearing a black and white shirt, khaki shorts, and black slip on shoes with white rubber soles and he would be 32 years old today. So the second of the five to disappear was Cameron Remmer. Cameron William Remmer was born on July 30, 1982, and there's virtually no information online about his father,

but his mother's name is Valerie, and we know that Cameron has a different dad than some or all of his siblings. Cameron's parents have since split up, and his mom married Cameron's new stepdad. He was the youngest of four children joining siblings Chelsea, Curtis, and Chris. Now in a blog post that she wrote about her brother's disappearance, Chelsea described Cameron as quote, a true star, with a knack for finding the best in people and magnifying their strength in a way that made them feel appreciated beyond measure.

So like Jackson, Cameron was known to struggle with some mental health issues, and he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder for which he was being medicated. Cameron grew up in Carl's Bad California and was living in Incinita's, California, both of which are near San Diego. and was living in Encinitas, California, both in Wichor near San Diego. In 2011, 29-year-old Cameron was working towards launching his medical marijuana business. Chelsea later stated, quote, "'As a big sister, it wasn't my first choice of business for my brother to be in, but I'm told that it was all done legally, and perhaps he was even ahead of his time with what's being predicted as a $4.5 billion industry." ahead of his time with what's being predicted as a $4.5 billion industry. On September 29, 2011, Cameron was headed to San Francisco to meet with his investors,

hoping to expand his company. On October 1, 2011, he checked into the Fairmont Hotel near the Chinatown neighborhood. The first week of his trip seemed to pass without any incident, but on October 6, 2011, a series of strange circumstances came about that's left his family without answers 12 years later. On the evening of Thursday, October 6, Cameron was drinking by himself at the bar inside the Fairemont Hotel and wound up becoming so disorderly that around midnight he was asked by the bartenders to leave. The dormant who was working at the time were called that Cameron had been vivacious and in good spirits that evening.

However, this dormant left work at 11 p.m. before Cameron allegedly became unruly enough to be asked to leave. After vacating the bar, Cameron called a friend in Arizona asking for help. Now, according to this friend, Cameron said that he couldn't pay for his room at the Fairmont Hotel and asked to borrow money, which his friend agreed to send him. But on that same phone call, Cameron changed his mind and said he didn't need the money after all and that he had, quote, found a place to stay. He then checked out of his hotel room, but left his bags there to be held for him saying that he would be back shortly.

Then Cameron disappeared for three days. It was at this point that his family stopped hearing from him, which was very unlike Cameron, who typically checked in with either his parents or siblings on a daily basis. But to this day, his credit and debit cards remained untouched. On October 9, 2011, he did return for his bags, and he again seemed out of sorts and disoriented. The hotel staff even noted that he was wearing mismatch shoes on his feet and that he was babbling.

After requesting his luggage, he again left without retrieving it, and this was the last confirmed sighting of Cameron. He had a departing flight on October 30, 2011, for which he never arrived. So that was about three weeks after he was last seen was his departing flight. So this was a very long trip.

When repeated attempts to contact him went unanswered, his family reported him missing on October 11. Police searched his luggage hoping to determine more about what could have happened in the past few days. And inside, they uncovered $30,000 in cash, and more than 60 units of medical marijuana that he sold at his company. I mean, obviously this makes sense. He was going to meet with investors, so it's possible that he was working on some sort of deal, make sense that he would have, you know, $30 grand on him. Right. Or in his luggage, I guess.

Do you think he would have had it in cash though? Like, is that normal? Kind of seems weird to have it in cash, but I will say that this was 2011. This is the marijuana industry, so maybe. And also that as well. Yeah. So there was no bipolar medication found among his belongings, which led police to believe that he may not have been taking his medication.

That or he happened to have it on his person, but it's very unclear. Like if he had been having a mental health crisis that made him feel maybe disconnected from reality, someone may have taken advantage of his vulnerable position. But either way, there have been no confirmed sightings of him since he left the Fairmont Hotel without his luggage on October 9th 2011. Cameron would now be 41 years old. He was five feet ten inches tall and weighed about 170 pounds. He had blue eyes and blonde hair. So with the other disappearances to come, happening in the same city around a similar time frame,

Are they all just tragic coincidences or were they collectively met with foul play? The next member of the California Missing 5 is Sean Dickerson. Sean Tyler Dickerson was born in series California, which is near Modesto, on November 12, 1988. Sadly, he and his mom Trisha lost Sean's dad when Sean was only 2 years old, so it was just the two of them for the rest of Sean's childhood. After graduating from Modesto High School, Sean took off for San Francisco, just an hour and a half away, longing for diversity in a community of fellow artists, which made a lot of sense for him because his mom called him adventurous and a free spirit. Sean was

a talented pianist and played in a band, booking gigs at local bars. He changed his name on Facebook to Klaus Agnes, which is apparently a combination of the names of two musical artists that he liked. In 2010, he spent the summer in New York City, and loved the energy and culture that the city had to offer. But toward the end of 2011, Sean moved in with an ex-girlfriend named Ann Julie, and the apartment she shared with a handful of roommates. Sean and Ann Julie had dated for two years in high school and had even went to prom together, but after an amicable split,

they remained friends and they kept in touch. In August of 2011, so four months before his disappearance, he moved in with Ann Julie in the Mission District, which is known as a lively neighborhood of San Francisco that's popular with people in their 20s. But Sean decided recently to move back to New York City, and Anjuli was planning on going with him. At this point, his mother Trish was living in Colorado with her husband, Sean's stepfather, and she and her son had not seen each other for around two years, but he had plans to visit that Christmas.

for around two years, but he had plans to visit that Christmas. Like the two disappearances before him, Sean had a strange final day before he vanished. Sean had recently begun working at a menswear store called Rolo, located on Market Street in the Castro neighborhood, which is next door to the Mission District where Sean and Anjuli lived. He had run into some financial trouble recently when his identification was stolen, so at the time he had no bank account. On December 1, 2011, he went into Rolo to pick up his paycheck, which was given to him in cash. After four weeks working full time at Rolo, his financial situation was growing better and he had gradually

been paying off friends that he owed money, including the deposit for his apartment. When all of his debts were paid off, he wanted to start setting aside money for his impending move to New York. So after picking up his cash check, he met with the owner of the store for a performance review and then left for a lunch break. But he failed to return back after lunch. That night, and Julie said that nothing seemed out of the ordinary with Sean, who did arrive home that day, although he failed to tell her that he had skipped out on work that afternoon, so this couldn't be explained because he didn't even tell anybody that this happened.

But even so, he and two roommates stayed up until around 4am talking and they apparently had some very nice conversations, nothing seemed to be off with Sean. But weirdly around 11am, Sean woke up and he began to hurry around the house getting ready for work. When Ann Julie asked what was wrong, Sean said that he had over slept and was running late for his shift at Rolo. He supposedly called work to alert them of his tardiness and then left in a rush. The journey from Sean's apartment near the corner of Bartlett and 22nd Street to Rolo should have taken Sean about 30 minutes if he were walking, but he

never made it there. Later when Sean's boss at Rola was questioned, it was revealed that Sean was essentially fired the evening before he woke up late and raced into work. When Sean failed to turn up after his lunch break on Thursday, December 1, Sean's boss texted him with concerns that he was unreliable. Around 11.30pm that evening, Sean texted him back apologizing. He explained that he was autistic, which he has never been formally diagnosed with, but seemed comfortable talking about the possibility of, and that sometimes he grew overwhelmed

and needed to take breaks with little or no notice. But Sean's boss just replied that that sounded like an excuse, and that he couldn't keep Sean on the payroll if he couldn't rely on him. So to this, Sean didn't respond. Yeah, so it's kind of weird because he didn't reply to this the night before, but then he woke up and he was rushing to work. So we can kind of imagine that he was hoping to still get to work and make up for having not returned after lunch the day before to show that he was reliable

and that's probably why he was panicking that he was late because he's like, oh man, now my boss is really not going to like this. Exactly, so he's trying to salvage his job at this point. So after running out of his apartment on the morning of December 2, Sean failed to turn up at work and never contacted his boss ever again. When he left, he had only his phone with him. But here's the thing, his day only got stranger from there. At 4.02pm on December 2nd, Sean posted 16 pictures to a Facebook album which appeared

to be scenes from some of his favorite places around San Francisco. In fact, according to Ann Julie, the pictures were from a route that the two had often taken, which included walking through the Chinatown and Fort Mason neighborhoods, as well as Aquatic Park. In one picture, his feet clad in brown dress shoes could be seen hanging off the edge of a bench, or perhaps a slide with people in the background. A later photo pictured his dinner, which was to be duck al-Araj from House of Nan-King, which is a restaurant in Chinatown that Sean absolutely loved.

It was kind of weird because he or it's really bizarre because he walked to work. He made the effort of rushing out the house and getting trying to get to work on time around 11 or not on time, but late at around 11, but he didn't show up to work. He didn't contact his work or his boss to explain anything. And then five hours later, he's posting pictures to Facebook, but where is he during those five hours? It's like what happened after that. It's extremely bizarre, but the only thing that I can think of in my mind is that maybe at this point, like he knew that he was late and probably knew that they were gonna fire him, so he said,

fuck it, I'm just gonna spend the day doing what I wanna do. But then after that nobody saw him again, so what the hell happened to him, like after he maybe decided not to go to work, which we can assume is what happened because we know he was likely at least a live 5 hours later when he was posting all these pictures to Facebook, but then where did he go? Well that's the big question here. So Anjuli said that she didn't think that Sean had taken his own life.

As the two had discussed suicide before and Sean had maintained that he could never do that to his mom. Multiple calls to his phone from family and friends on December 3 went straight to voicemail, so a few days later on December 6, 2011, after no contact with Sean for four days, he was reported missing and has not been seen since. Trish maintains that foul play met her son during his final day, saying, quote, I could see him pack up and travel to Europe. I'm not surprised that he's walked away, but I'm surprised that it lasted this long. After two weeks, we freaked out.

We thought, did something happen? Sean Dickerson stood at five feet, eight 8 inches tall and weighed about 140 pounds. He had blue eyes and blonde hair. At the time of his disappearance, he is believed to have been wearing a black hooded sweatshirt in black pants. He would now be 33 years old. Christian Hughes, the fourth member of the missing five, is described by his mom as a social butterfly with a huge heart.

Christian Michael Hughes was born on July 24, 1992. Now while very few details have been made public about his family life, he and his mom Kim have different surnames, so it's possible that she and Christian's dad were not together leading up to his disappearance. Although of course, it's possible that Kim simply didn't take his last name and that they were together but not married. And then there's no mention of a sibling so we're really not sure if he did have any. Two years prior to Christian's disappearance, he graduated from San Diego High School and

since then, he had been working at Taco Bell while figuring out what he wanted to do next. Twenty-year-old Christian recently lost his dad, so his mom says that he had been going through a tough time dealing with that, so a few days away visiting friends would be a welcome distraction. So on Sunday, February 4, 2013, Kim dropped Christian off at the San Diego International Airport, headed for San Francisco. Kim didn't know the friends that Christian was staying with and remembered having a bad feeling about him leaving that weekend, but he was an adult and went anyway.

He planned a return just three days later on February 7th, but he never made it home. On the evening of Wednesday, February 6th, the friend that Christian was staying with had a party. Now later that night, at around 118am, on February 7th, 2013, Christian sent his last text message, and around that same time, Christian's friends and partygoers recalled him leaving the apartment without telling them where he was going. Now later that day, February 7th, Christian was due home in San Diego, but his mother Kim couldn't reach him, which she found incredibly strange, as they normally would have touched

base about when he was taking off in landing. Around 2.30 pm, Kim was waiting for him at the airport and of course, expecting him to show up, but he never did. So she continued calling him, but received no answer. When she contacted the airline, they refused to tell her whether or not Christian had even boarded his flight, citing the fact that he was an adult. So Kim was really unsure whether to start searching for him in San Diego or in San Francisco, but it seemed like he did not make it back to his hometown at all.

Now the next day on February 8, 2013, calls to his cell phone began going to voicemail, sending Kim into even more of a panic. But luckily, Kim's sister Chelsea did live in the San Francisco area, so Kim called her for help to see if she could get boots on the ground ASAP. And it actually turned out that Chelsea had in fact seen Christian on his trip, but not since he disappeared of course. Christian had stopped by on Tuesday, February 5th, asking for money, and his aunt Chelsea had obliged giving him $70 in cash.

And by the way, Christian had not explained what he needed money for, but she gave him the money anyway because she wanted to help her nephew out. So the same day that Kim reached out to Chelsea, the San Francisco Police Department themselves contacted Kim, telling her that they had received a Missing Persons report from one of the party goers who had been worried about him making it home safely after his abrupt departure. So that kind of goes to show you that it seemed weird that he had just left like that. That somebody at the party literally reported him missing because of it.

So with the help of police, Kim was able to obtain a warrant for the airline to release Christian's flight information, and as she suspected, he had not been on board his flight home to San Diego on February 7. The friends that Christian was staying with explained that they had woken up around 10am that day, planning to take him to the airport, but that he had left with all of his belongings and never came back. Meaning some did allegedly see him after he left the party at around 1.30am, but this is just from what they're saying.

But it's really strange that he did in fact leave with all of his luggage. Well, or so they say. And as we're going to get into, some people do not trust these friends. So according to Christian's phone records, which were later obtained by the police, none of Christian's friends had contacted him to make sure that he was okay, or to see why he had left the party. They also did not check in with Christians Aunt Chelsea to see if he had wound up at her

house. After speaking with Christians friends, police seemed to conclude that he had left voluntarily, and even went so far as to tell Kim that none of the young men had criminal records, so it was doubtful that they had anything to do with her son's disappearance. However, one of the men actually did. Now while the identities of this man remains concealed, it has been reported that he had a prior charge for being involved in a drug deal gone wrong, in which one of the participants

was stabbed. Another charge described how he vandalized a Macy's department store throwing a chair through the display window in an attempt to pull off a robbery. But this information didn't seem to change the minds of detectives, and like many of the other families, Kim was left to search on her own. A few years later, Christian's case was assigned a new detective, who appelled Kim's belief that Christian had been met with foul play. This detective even orchestrated a search of the apartment with cadaver dogs, but sadly,

by the time this search was due to be carried out, the apartment building where Christian had spent his final evening had been demolished. Christian stood at about 5 feet 8 inches tall and had a slender build. He had a scar running down his spine, stretched earlobes and multiple tattoos including West Coast on his left arm and loyalty on his right. He had brown eyes and brown hair and often went by the nickname Chris. Christian was last seen wearing a gray thermal shirt under a black-hooded sweatshirt and white Nike tennis shoes. He would be 30, almost 31 today. Now the fifth and final member of the California

missing five is Sean City. Sean Isaac City was born on April 16th, 1994. He was from the Burntel Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, where he lived with his parents, Lynn and Claude in a sister named Danielle. Sean is remembered as a loving, outgoing kid who put his family and friends before all else, and he was passionate about traveling, adventure, and spending time outdoors. In November of 2012, Sean took a hard fall that resulted in a hospital stay. So after spending multiple days in a coma, he had to work through a traumatic brain injury, which would likely affect him for the rest of his life.

On the morning of May 21, 2013, Sean was planning on heading into his high school from which he had graduated the year prior to visit his old teachers. He spent that morning with his mom and then he headed to the French American International School on Oak Street and the Hayes Valley neighborhood picking up a copy of a short film that he had completed in school the year prior. And there, Sean enjoyed reconnecting with the teacher before leaving the school in the early afternoon. He was captured on security cameras, wearing a black and gray North Face jacket, jeans and

black shoes. At 1.34 pm, Sean talked to his dad on the phone, telling him that he had left the school and headed to Golden State Park to take the bus from there. This solo outing was a big deal for Sean, as he was only six months past his accident and still on the road to recovery. Sean's mom Lynn explained, quote, If you or I get a bump on our heads, it's no big deal, but if he gets a bump on his head, the pressure could rise really fast and that would be dangerous.

Based on the severity of his injuries, he's much much much more vulnerable to complications that could be fatal. At 2pm confirmed by Sean's phone records, his phone died. Around the same time about an hour and a half after they had last spoken, Claude, his dad, again tried to check on his son, concerned about him spending so much time wandering around on his own. But his calls went unanswered. Their last phone call at 1.34 pm was the last time anyone spoke to Sean, and there have been no tips and no sightings of him since.

The family concerned that he may have fallen or hurt himself and triggered his healing head injury began to search for him frantically, starting in and around Golden Gate Park, but found no sign of him. Lin remembered, quote, obviously we started getting worried because since his accident, he's been a little more vulnerable. Like the other four families, they reported him missing and organized their own grassroot search of the area. They hung posters and ass-round as he of anyone unhoused or transient had spotted Sean in the area, potentially disoriented or confused, even wondering if he had potentially lost his memory.

confused, even wondering if he had potentially lost his memory. His family announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to his safe return, but it's gone unclaimed. Sean had brown hair and brown eyes. He was 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighed 120 pounds, and had a scar on the right side of his head. He would now be 29 years old. And this one, Sean's disappearance is really weird to me because obviously the head injury is very different from the other four young men that we discussed, but I mean, the fact

that there are no sightings of him, everybody else had sightings pretty much. And he had none, and he seemingly just vanished. Like his phone died and then he's just gone and nobody has reported seeing him. No witnesses, no tips, no nothing. Like even if he did, you know, something happened to him, he hit his head again, which feels like that would be such a crazy thing to happen. You know, it's like how often- Crazy, but not impossible. Not impossible, but I guess I mean for him to have had that accident and hurt his head, like, what are the chances

that he would go out and something else would happen? Like, when was the last time you went out and you had a head injury? You know what I mean? Like, it feels like a more unlikely thing to happen, obviously not impossible. But then if that did happen and he was wandering around, wouldn't there be some sightings of him? So was he met with foul play or did something tragic happen to him and he is just wandering around out there and somehow not being reported about? Yeah, I mean the saddest part about all of these stories is that there is this potential for

one or more of these people to be out there wandering around somewhere confused or disoriented as we had mentioned before with mental health being a factor with Sean's head injury with potential drugs as we talked about prior to this right could have been a possibility so it's just really sad to think that these people could be out there somewhere and just none of their families can locate them. Right. But it is difficult because what happened is that the road for some of them or all of them that they were not met with foul play and they are out there or is it the opposite.

Obviously, the internet is rife with theories about these five lost men. Some really do believe that foul play was involved and that the cases are connected. But others, like Heath is saying, think that maybe more likely they either took their own lives or lost the struggle with mental health, or potentially drug addiction, and maybe turn to living on the street, maybe not wanting to be found. But what's most important here is the fact that five families are missing their loved ones and those people have not been found.

So whether some of them, all of them, or none of them were met with foul play, they're still missing. Something happened to them. And though Jackson's family, who's remember the first man of the group to go missing, hopes that the multiple sightings of him since his disappearance are credible, they also acknowledge that it's also possible that the splash viewed from the other side of the bridge was due to him jumping. Then Cameron's family are stumped at how his final known days unraveled, but it seems

a distinct possibility that he removed himself from his former life and chose to live off grid. In Christian Hughes' case, his mom Kim and the officer who she was collaborating with, maintained that one of the friends that Christian was with the night of that party had something to do with his disappearance and that he did not disappear willingly. I feel like that's probably the most likely thing. Agreed. A very unfortunate but agreed. And one theory that has come up very frequently on TikTok, Reddit, and Facebook conversations about Sean Dickerson's disappearance is his possible involvement with the Rainbow family. Now, the Rainbow family of Living Light, which was founded in the 1970s, is a counter-culture

movement of individuals existing as one. And this family traces its roots back to the hate-ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. And while many regarded as a cult, those inside the movement simply regarded as a group of peaceful, like-minded people. And some live out the year together nomatically, and others gather periodically in groups for days or weeks at a time. Now while there is some internet buzz around a shan look alike having been spotted at a rainbow family gathering, this has not been substantiated, and there's really no reason to believe that he would have joined

this group. Then, in Sean City's case, his family worries that he may still be out there, perhaps having suffered amnesia due to another blow to his healing head. It's also possible that he was hurt by accident, which further exacerbated his traumatic brain injury, and that he wound up somewhere that no one could reach him. Or the wrong person got to him and took advantage of his disorientation. There's always the possibility that each of them were in fact met with foul play while in vulnerable positions, and even that they are all connected.

But sadly, just like in the cases of the Yuba County 5 and the Humboldt Missing 5, it seems that we are no closer to finding out what happened to these lost souls than we were when they disappeared. So if you have any information about the disappearances of Jackson Miller, Cameron Remmer, Sean Dickerson,

Christian Hughes, or Sean City. Please contact the San Francisco Police Department at 415-575-4444. 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 piece for you guys to dive into. Yes, absolutely. I'm sorry I have had horrible allergies all week, so I've been super congested. Thank you for putting up with it. And don't forget to share this episode

because again, no matter what happened, these five young men are still missing and their families are out there wondering what happened to them. So thank you guys in advance if you do plan to share. And I think that's it. Oh yeah, Heath's birthday is on Monday. So we're gonna be celebrating this weekend and on Monday as well.

So we will not see you guys until after his birthday. So if you'd like, make sure to go send him a little happy birthday message over on our socials. His birthday is Monday, June 26th. Oh, thank you, that's very lovely. Gonna be 35. Yeah, if you do wanna go and check out our socials, we're on Instagram at GoingWestPodcast,

Twitter at GoingWestPod, and we're also on Facebook, so give us a holler. Absolutely. Alright, thanks so much, guys. Alright, 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