Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 160. Lost Media: Tapes Too Dark For The Public

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Today, I want to look at two pieces of “lost media” with you all. One piece is lost because it was deemed too dark for the public to ever hear, and the other was lost when it was intentionally destroyed by the US government. That’s right, we’re going over the case of Timothy Treadwell aka Grizzly Man, and the Cavalese Tapes. So roll up your sleeves and let’s dive into the darkness together. TW: Animal Mistreatment Subscribe on⁠ Patreon⁠ to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society and enjoy ad-free listening, monthly bonus content, merch discounts and more. Members of our High Council on Patreon also have access to our weekly after-show, Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. You can also enjoy many of these same perks, including ad-free listening and bonus content when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts . Follow on⁠ Tik Tok⁠ and⁠ Instagram⁠ for a daily dose of horror. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We've all been there, the unexpected hosting panic. Like when the watch party finally makes it out of the group chat, but you volunteered to host, and suddenly you need snacks, drinks, dips, cups, and all the other party essentials no one else planned for. With Instacart, you can get all those groceries delivered in as fast as 60 minutes. No extra errands for you. One quick order for everyone. That way, everything shows up right on time, making hosting easy and making it look like you had it planned all along. Download the Instacart app today and get no markups at select retailers. Fees and in-store offer exclusions apply. In October of 2003, a woman named Jewel Palavac went out to check her mail and saw that there was a Manila envelope with something crammed inside.

The sender was the Alaska State Medical Examiner's Office. It looked like it had been hastily thrown together like the contents were radioactive and the coroner wanted whatever was inside away from them as quickly as possible. Now, inside the envelope, Jule found a video cassette tape, and on it was an audio-only recording that was only six minutes long. And when she saw that, her heart sank,

because Jule knew exactly what was on that tape and that under no circumstances should she listen to it. What the video cassette had captured was the sound of her closest friend, Timothy Treadwell, and his girlfriend, Amy Huguenard, being mauled to death by a bear in the Catmine National Park of Alaska.

Just before their deaths, one of the two of them hit record on a video camera. The lens cap remained on, but the audio of the attack was recorded. Now, because Jewel promised herself she would never listen to this tape and never share it with anyone, it's become lost media.

But over the years, investigators have been able to piece together what happened leading up to the recording, and some of the very few people who have ever listened to the tape have come forward and described it. So the first story I want to tell you about today is the story of the grizzly man. Welcome back to another episode of Hard Sites Prounding.

As always, I'm your host, Kailen Moore. I want to get right back to today's episode. This is honestly our darkest episode of Lost Media yet. But first, I did want to give a quick shout out to all of the new listeners who may have found this podcast over the holidays. I am so happy to have you here in the rogue detecting society headquarters with me while I guide you through these dark tales. Seriously, welcome to all of you. I also wanted to update you all that if you're interested in joining our book club, we are reading Riley Sager's The Only One Left, and we're going to be discussing it on Patreon later in February.

You can join Patreon on the free tier to participate. Yes, this one is for everyone. So come on over and join us. Also, I wanted to give a huge shout out to members like Madison, Morgan, Janine, who truly finished this book within three days. I could not believe how fast you guys read it. But I think that's a testament to how good it is. Okay, like I said, I want to get right back into this episode

to the story of the tape that is too dark for the public to hear. This story starts in Long Island in the late 1970s. There, a young man named Timothy Dexter had visions of himself up on the silver screen starring in big Hollywood movies. Timothy was described by his parents as being an otherwise ordinary child. He loved animals. He was a star on his swimming and diving team. but something in Timothy changed when he went to college.

While he was attending Bradley University on a swimming and diving scholarship, he started making up these stories about his life. Instead of telling people that he was raised by two parents in Long Island, he started saying that he was a British orphan, and this continued after school as well. Timothy moved to Los Angeles after college to pursue acting, but after just a few months in L.A., he wasn't really getting many auditions.

So the lies continued, maybe as a way to make his life seem more interesting to casting directors. He changed his last name to Treadwell and would once again tell people that he was an orphan, making up all these different ways that his parents had died. He even went as far as putting on a fake Australian accent and saying that he was raised in the outback. But none of this really helped. At one point, he almost booked a role on a sitcom Cheers, but he lost to this up-and-coming actor named Woody Harrelson. And it was really after this event where Timothy's life took a dark turn.

He started drinking. His moods became really unpredictable. Days of dropping headshots off around town turned into days of drinking alone at bars. Eventually, the alcoholism turned into drug addiction, and it took surviving a near-fatal heroin overdose to wake Timothy up. He finally realized that he didn't want to die. And now we don't have a ton of details on this next part, but at least according to Timothy, when he was at his look, He had this encounter with a grizzly bear, and it made him realize his true purpose in life. He felt like grizzly bears needed a savior, a protector.

They needed Timothy. But for him to play this role, he would need to get and stay sober. And so, he decided to hone in on the bears of Catmine National Park in Alaska as the ones that needed his help the most. He felt like these bears in this park were at the highest risk of the best. highest risk of being poached. He would go on these long rants about how poachers had run amok in the park for decades. They hunted bears for trophies and to steal their gallblatters, which they would then sell on these, quote, Asian black markets. So every summer, starting in the late 1980s, he would fly to Anchorage, Alaska, and he would live amongst the bears with just some camping

equipment and his camera. He even gave the bears names and personalities. He would get very shockingly close to them and film himself even petting them sometimes, he felt like he was really starting to develop very special relationships with some of these bears. He filmed himself talking about chasing off poachers, even ones that threatened him with guns. But one thing that he never got on camera was any actual footage of him facing off against poachers. No, his camera was never on for those interactions. And that brings me to really the problem with Timothy's plan. See, the bears in Catmai National Park are not really at risk of being poached.

Catmai is a national park and national parks have extra layers of protection against poachers. Poaching there would be a federal offense and it would carry a much larger consequence. And many conservationists, animal advocates, and the native eludic people of the area, all argued that the bears were perfectly fine without Timothy's intervention. High country news reported, quote, poaching has never been much of an issue in Alaska where grizzlies may be hunted legally, and the area in which Timothy spent most of his time is already protected from development because it's in a national park.

But that didn't deter Timothy. He never listened when park rangers explained to him that in their entire careers working in the park, they had never seen more than a few isolated incidents of poached bears. Or when members of the eludic tribe talked about how they had lived amongst the bears, for generations, but they knew that they had to be at arm's length because grizzlies were really unpredictable, harsh, and unforgiving at times. But no, he never took any of this advice. Instead, Timothy started becoming somewhat famous for his trips. In the early 2000s, he made an appearance on late night with David Letterman, where Letterman asked him an ominous and kind of foreboding question.

He asked, quote, is it going to happen that one day we read a news article about you being eaten by one of the bears. He asked this in a joking tone and he laughed, but Timothy took the question very seriously. He responded with a firm, no. He didn't think there was any world in which these bears would hurt him, let alone kill and eat him. He had developed a relationship of mutual respect with the creatures, he said. They knew he was their protector, and they wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that. But that brings me to the end of the 2003 summer season that Timothy spent with the bears. From Timothy's first summer camping in Katmai, he and the park rangers did not get along. Timothy was angered by a lot of the National Park Service's safety guidelines

because he saw them as tools they used to stop his efforts in protecting the bears. Some of the precautions that he chose to ignore were, one, carrying a defense weapon on him, including a gun or bear spray, two, putting up an electrical fence around his camp, Three, keeping a distance of at least 50 yards from the bears. In order to keep the peace with the park rangers, though, there were some restrictions that Timothy eventually did start to follow. Now, campers were required to move the location of their camp at least one mile every seven days,

and Timothy did do this. Unfortunately, most of the campsite locations he chose were far from safe. He would choose to set up his tent much closer to the bears than any wildlife ranger would ever recommend. But this summer, he wasn't alone in camping. With him was Amy Huguenard, his girlfriend, who had joined him on these trips for the last few seasons. Now, Amy was a physician's assistant, and from what we can gather,

it seems like she was pretty afraid of bears. From reports I've read, she didn't really love the trips that Timothy took, but she would go down with him during the seasons. She only appears two times in the over 100 hours of footage that Timothy gathered. Now, Timothy stars in most of this footage, but it seemed like Amy really wanted to keep an arm's distance from it. When she first started joining Timothy on his summers amongst the bears, he displayed this level of reverence and deference towards the animals.

He would make sure to not keep his back turned to them. He wouldn't touch them that much or go right up next to them. But in the more recent summers, he was becoming a lot more relaxed with his personal rules for being in contact with the bears. He spent longer and longer sitting with them. That's when he started petting them, interacting with them during their feedings. And this particular season, Amy was pretty eager to leave. Timothy was getting way too close and personal with the bears. Their campsites were getting closer and closer to the bear feeding areas.

And Amy, on top of this, already didn't love the whole expedition. So she just wanted to get out of there. And the two of them were supposed to have left weeks early. but Timothy just kept pushing the date further and further into the future. So on September 26th, the summer season was finally over and Amy was sitting in an uncomfortable airport chair, though I'm sure it was more comfortable than anything she had been used to in the last couple months. The summer season had ended and she was ready to catch her flight home when all of a sudden Timothy came over to her and he tells her that they're actually not

going home today. Something about the flight being more expensive than he thought it would be. Also, he mentioned that he hadn't gotten to say goodbye to one of his favorite bears, Downey, and now he could. And Amy got this really, really bad feeling. But still, the couple headed back to the park, this time to a part called Kaffia Bay, an area that Timothy referred to as the grizzly maze. Now, the grizzly maze was probably one of the most dangerous places that they could have camped at that time. The area was defined by having really thick brush and almost no open spaces, so visibility was minimal for both humans and animals. This left the couple vulnerable to accidentally scaring a bear that didn't see them, and a scare like that could and would have deadly consequences.

The area that this was in was also very remote. There was not a single other camper around, and it gets even more dangerous beyond that. The exact spot where Timothy put their camp was at the intersection of several. bear trails, trails that led to the lake that the bears would use to fatten up before winter. He quite literally put them between the bears and the source of food that the bears would need as they were getting ready for hibernation, which is the time in a bear's life where they are the most desperate for food. With all of this working against their safety, you would imagine that Timothy would have done something to set up safety precautions. But other than keeping

most of their food in bear-resistant food containers, he didn't really do that. much. He didn't have an electric fence. He didn't have any defensive measures. Nothing. Now, Amy begged Timothy to move their campsite, but he refused to leave. This was exactly where he needed to be, he told her, and he wanted to say goodbye to Downey. And that brings us to October 6th, just a few days later. A pilot that Timothy had arranged to pick them up was flying over their pickup spot looking down, and he didn't see any sign of Timothy. or Amy near the shore. He landed and he called out

into the thick forest of brush, but he hears no response. Now, he would have gone to search for them, but he also knew that this area was not safe at this time of year, so he ended up getting back in his plane and just started circling the area, hoping that he would see the couple somewhere.

But instead, what he saw were a few bears gathered around a food source. And even from the air, he could tell that what the bears recircling was human. This episode is brought to you by Merritt Beauty. I wear makeup most days, but I don't always want to spend more than five minutes doing it, which can be hard because I still want to look refreshed and put together, and there's

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inviting you into the chaos. If you're ready for bold takes, real talk, and a little fun, come join us. Listen to and follow Undomesticated and Odyssey podcast available wherever you get your podcast. This episode is brought to you by Quince. For most of us, the weather is finally cold, and now this is the moment your winter wardrobe really has to deliver. If you're craving a winter reset like I am every single year, start with pieces truly made to last season after season. Quince brings together premium materials, thoughtful design, and enduring quality. So you stay warm, look sharp and feel your best all season long. I am currently getting a ton of use out of my Mongolian cashmere sweater and my boyfriend cardigan, but I will say the thing that I truly get the most

compliments on is my faux fur hooded jacket in the color latte. It is so warm, it's so fluffy, and every time I wear it, I swear at least one person asks where I got it from. I should probably just order it in the black and brown colors as well at this point, because when I love something, I definitely want just more of it in every color. Refresh your winter work. wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com slash HSP for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince, quince, quince, com slash HSP. Free shipping and 365 day returns, quince.com slash HSP. By 2 p.m. on October 6th, investigators had arrived at Timothy and Amy's campsite and saw that it had been fully torn apart. Their gear and the tent were decimated.

and flung in every direction, and it would later be confirmed that what the bears were eating was human and was in fact Timothy and Amy. The attack was believed to have happened at 153 p.m. on October 5th, and one of the first people at the scene was Trooper Alan Jones,

and as he was surveying the campsite, he noticed something pretty chilling. One of Timothy's camcorders was set up like it had been recording. There was a tape in the camcorder, but the lens cap was on, so it wasn't likely that there was any video of the attack. Investigators figured they would pop the tape into a video cassette player just in case. They had no idea how disturbing this tape would be.

Their assumption that no video had been captured was correct, but what had been recorded was six minutes and 21 seconds of the sounds of unimaginable horror as Timothy and Amy were attacked and eaten alive by bears. This is the tape that made its way to Joel Pallivak. And even though Jule has never listened to the tape, it has been listened to by a few people, including filmmaker Werner Herzog when he was making a documentary about this called Grizzly Man.

And there's a very upsetting scene in the documentary that shows Werner with headphones on listening to the audio while Jule watches him, and even without hearing a same, single thing, Jewel bursts into tears at the thought of what is on this tape. When Werner's done listening, he tells Jewel, you must never listen to this. And you must never look at the photos I have seen at the coroner's office. I think you should not keep it.

You should destroy it. I think that's what you should do because it will be the white elephant in your room all your life. Other people that were confirmed to have heard this tape before it got to Jewel were trooper Alan Jones and Trooper Chris Hill, who were the first on the scene. There was Sergeant Maurice Hughes Jr., medical examiner Frank Falico, wildlife biologist Larry Van Dale,

and Kevin, quote, the Bearman Sanders from Yellowstone Outdoor Adventure, who also claims that he's heard the tape, though it's a little bit disputed if he actually has. And based on the retellings of these people, the following summary of the tape can be made. Now, there's no way to confirm who hit record on the camera, but Amy makes the most sense in this situation.

The attack on Timothy had already begun by the time the camera started recording. He might have hit record out of reflex, or Timothy could have yelled at her to turn it on. We just don't know for sure. But the tape starts with the sound of heavy rain hitting the tent. And the first voice we hear is Amy asking if it's still out there. Next is Timothy's voice. His voice was captured even through the rain because he had been wearing his remote microphone clipped to his clothes. And he can be heard screaming to Amy.

Get out there. I'm getting killed out here. The tent zipper is then pulled open and Amy's screaming can be heard too over the sounds of the rain and the wind. Timothy then yells at her to play dead and a few seconds passed before he yells at her again to play dead. Amy's screaming does seem to ward the bear off at least for a little while. And then Amy and Timothy have a clipped conversation about whether or not they think the bear is really gone. Amy then makes her way over to Timothy but backs off because the bear returns. Timothy can be heard screaming that playing dead isn't working, and he begs her to hit the bear with something.

The sound is muffled because of all of the wind and rain on the tent, but Amy can be heard yelling at Timothy to fight back. And then she yells, stop, go away, or maybe run away. And next comes the sound of a pan hitting the bear on the head, and it's believed that Amy is the one striking it. At one point, Timothy screams at her, Amy, get away, get away, get away, to try to save her. But Amy stays.

There's a sound of dragging, and then the sound of Amy screaming. And that's it. Wildlife biologist Larry Van Dale describes the screams as, quote, the sound of a predator call used by hunters to produce the distress cries of a small wounded animal which often attracts bears. He thinks that this may have only attracted the bear to come back and kill her. The tape on the cassette runs out and then the recording ends. It's believed that Amy was still alive when the tape.

tape stopped, but the bear at some point returned for her shortly afterwards. Now, I've actually seen people talking about this tape on TikTok before, and there's a lot of comments that say things like, I've heard this tape, it's out there. A lot of people really do believe they've heard this tape. And you may have seen a clip going around on YouTube that claims to be the original audio of the attack. This clip is only two minutes long, and it alleges to be the first two minutes of the entire six-minute recording. You may have even listened to that sound clip, and I'm here to tell you that what you heard is not the real tape, despite how convincing it might sound. People who have heard the actual recording have confirmed that the YouTube video is not the

tape. And anything you hear with bears roaring loudly in it is also not the actual recording, because contrary to what you've seen in movies, bears are actually very quiet when they attack. And so in the real recording, you can hear grunting from the bear, but you're not going to hear any roaring. The tape either lives on a shelf in Jules' home, or it was destroyed by Jules. Jules, as Werner Herzog told her to do. But it was in the possession of Timothy's dear friend, someone who understood him on a level deeper than the general public could and still loved him for it.

And Jule knew that the world had been given one very specific version of her friend, a version that became famous in his death. So personally, I understand why she never wants the tape to be released. And the internet is also this insatiable beast. And I don't know that necessarily any good would come from. anyone listening to it. Timothy set up a foundation called Grizzly People to aid in educating about grizzly bear conservation, a foundation that was run by Jewel after his death. Now, for our next piece of lost media, I want to tell you about a video recording that no one

will ever be able to see. Like I mentioned before, sometimes media becomes lost accidentally. Sometimes it's withheld because it's far too dark for the public. But sometimes it's intentionally destroyed because someone doesn't want any record of it ever existing. We've spoken about it before here, but sometimes big corporations or networks will erase unsavory footage, but for the most part, that's harmless. But not this time. In this case, someone recorded a horrible accident on video, footage that was so bad, the U.S. government decided to destroy it. This is the story of the Kavalas tape. Kavalez. is a small ski resort town in the Italian Alps, nestled in the Dolomite Mountains, about 20 miles northeast

of Trento. Now, Cabalaz wasn't the most luxurious destination in Italy. It wasn't bougie or exclusive. It was more family-friendly, pleasant, a place where locals could afford to ski and tourists could come for a nice vacation without breaking the bank. The town's economy really relied on that resort. It was the heartbeat of the community. That is, until February 3, 1998. It's a It's just after 3 p.m. The ski resort is busy. It's a Tuesday afternoon and the slopes are full of skiers from all over Europe. Some are staying on vacation, trying out this resort for the first time. Others would have been yearly passholders, locals who have skied these mountains their entire lives. That afternoon, 20 people pile into one of the yellow cable cars. Seven Germans, five Belgians,

three Italians, two Poles, two Austrians, and one person from the Netherlands. 19 skiers, and one cable car operator. The gondola begins the beautiful ascent up the mountain. The sun is out reflecting off the pristine white snow that blankets the dolomites. The air is crisp, and it's cold in that way that makes your cheeks flush, but feels refreshing after a few runs down the slopes. The ride up is totally peaceful. Quiet, except for the hum of the cable pulling them higher and higher up the mountain.

But then, someone hears it. At first, the sound was distant. It was just the rumble of an engine somewhere in the valley, but it gets louder and faster. And finally, someone looks out the window, maybe trying to figure out where the sound is coming from. But that's when they see it. An aircraft.

Low. Way too low. It's not just flying over the mountain. It's flying through the valley, screaming towards them at an impossible speed. There's no time to process what's happening, no time to even fully register the fear. This plane is massive.

It's dark against the bright sky, and it is coming right at them. The whole thing happens so quickly that most people inside of the gondola probably don't even process it, but the right wing of the plane strikes the cable from underneath, causing it to detach and plummet 260 feet crashing into the face of the mountain.

It's like falling from the 20th story of a building, and once it hits the snow below, All 20 people die on impact. Even days after this disaster, the scene was haunting. Against the white snow, smashed pieces of the yellow cable car were roped off with orange and white police tape, guarded by Italy's paramilitary police force. To one side, rescue workers had piled the broken skis of the 19 skiers that were killed. Pieces of hats and gloves could be seen scattered in the snow. The severed cable car still drooped in the air, suspended by branches.

of a pine tree, like some really horrible reminder of what had happened. The whole town afterwards was devastated. And during a special mass that was held for the victims, the local priest, Reverend Lorenzo Kazerati, voiced what a lot of people were feeling. He said, quote, the skies are for everyone, not only for the powerful and arrogant who believe themselves to be the masters of the lies of others. See, it seemed to only be a matter of time before an accident

like this had happened. Locals had been complaining of low-flying planes for a while now, but these were not commercial Italian planes. They weren't personal planes flown by locals. No. The planes flying incredibly low and almost crashing into the gondolas every single day were U.S. military planes. This episode is brought to you by Alma. A year from today, who do you want to be? More patient, maybe less reactive. I always think about these things, around the new year, and I know I want to work on managing my anxiety, personally. Well, you deserve to feel like the future version of yourself, and the right therapist can really help. With a network where 99% of therapists accept insurance, Alma helps connect people to in-network care that aligns

with their preferences and coverage. People who use Alma to find a therapist who accepts their insurance save an average of 80% on the cost of sessions, and 99% of Alma's therapists accept insurance, making it easy to get affordable care. I've used therapy before, and I know, that when you want support, the last thing you need is to hear that someone is not in your network. Alma really helps make that part easier. The year from today isn't that far away. Get started now at helloalma.com slash heartstarts. That's helloalma.com slash h-e-a-r-t-st-a-R-T-A-R-T-A-R-T-S. That's H-E-L-L-O-A-L-M-A-L-M-A-R-S-Hart. Let me tell you about this aircraft first because it matters to the story. The Grumman EA 6B prowler was a twin-engine four-seat electronic warfare plane that had been in service with the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps since 1971.

It was primarily used for jamming enemy radar systems, and in its 48 years of service, not a single one was ever lost in combat. It was reliable, it was incredibly effective, but it was also loud, slow, and very ugly. I mean, some reports I saw people were calling it a sky pig. One description even said, quote, it resembled a flying. chicken leg. But it seemed to get the job done. On February 3rd, 1998, one of these prowlers took off from the Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy for what was supposed to be a routine low-altitude training mission. On board, there were four Marines. There's the pilot, Captain Richard Ashby, who was 31 years old. There was Captain Joseph Schweitzer, who was 30, he was the navigator,

and then there were two electronic countermeasure officers, William Rainey, 26, and Chandler C. Graves, 28, who had joined the crew at the last minute. That morning, the plane had already flown one mission to Bosnia, and when it returned, at around 12.20 p.m., the morning pilot reported a fault in the radar altimeter, the instrument that tells you how high you're flying above the ground. Now, the instrument was changed out and seemed to be working fine afterwards. But what's also important to this story is that the Italian government had recently issued new directives on low-altitude flights in the region, and it forbid flights below 2,000 feet. Copies of this directive had been given out to all of the pilots at Aviano.

But after the accident, investigators would find one of these copies in the EA6B, and it had never been opened. They also found maps in the flight deck that clearly marked the location of aerial tramway cables, but no one had opened any of the maps. And if you remember, the cable car was sitting at around 260 feet when it was struck by the plane at 541 miles per hour, Captain Ashby would later claim that he thought they were flying at 1,000 feet, which is already below regulations, but they were flying so much lower than that. After the accident, the prowler sustained wing and tail damage,

but it was able to get back to the Aviano Air Base with all of the passengers alive about 90 miles away. All four Marines on board survived without any injuries. while 20 people at the resort fell to their deaths and were trapped beneath the cable car wreckage. Now, locals said that they had been seeing these U.S. military planes flying unusually low for a while. And it felt like these planes were taking joyrides in the beautiful Dolomite Mountains, putting all of their lives at risk for pretty view. And afterwards, the community became incredibly anti-American, and it got so bad that even President Bill Clinton had to come forward an issue an official apology.

But that was not enough. These people did not want an apology from the president. They wanted answers. They wanted to know exactly what had happened in that cockpit. What were those pilots doing? Were they following regulations? I mean, clearly not. But were they even taking this seriously?

Well, there was a way to find out. Because there had been a video camera in the cockpit recording the entire flight. But by the time investigators asked to see this tape, it was already gone. Now, let me tell you what we know about this tape. The video camera in the prowler's cockpit was there to capture the scenery, just a way for pilots to record their flights, maybe as keepsakes for review later. And according to Captain Schweitzer, the tape from February 3rd contained footage of him smiling during part of the flight, right before the accident occurred. When the prowler landed back at Aviano Air Base after severing the cable, the pilot, Captain Ashby, gave the tape to Captain Schweitzer the navarre the navarre. and Schweitzer knew that it was bad. He knew that they were flying way too fast. He knew that

they were flying way too low. They were barely one-tenth of the altitude of the regulations. And on top of that, there was a tape of him in the cockpit smiling as the plane hit innocent bystanders. So that night, he built a giant bonfire, threw the tape in and destroyed it. All four crew members were initially charged with negligent homicide. and dereliction of duty. If convicted, they faced punishment ranging from reduction in rank to dishonorable discharge and several years in prison. Italian prosecutors wanted the Marines to stand trial in Italy, but an Italian court recognized that NATO treaties gave jurisdiction to U.S. military courts, so the trial needed to be held in America. And in March of 1999,

Captain Richard Ashby went to trial at the Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. And he was charged with 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter. During that trial, though, it was determined that the maps on board the prowler didn't actually show the cables they were at risk of hitting, even though we know that maps that did show them were in the cockpit. They were just unopened. It was also determined that the EA6B had been flying considerably lower and faster than allowed by military regulations. The restrictions required a minimum flying height of 2,000 feet. Ashby claimed at first he thought they were at 1,000 feet, which is still too low, but obviously they were even lower than that.

Ashby also claimed that his altimeter had been malfunctioning and that he had been unaware of the speed restrictions. When the verdict finally came, Captain Ashby stood at attention as the president of the jury, which was made up of other Marines. Colonel William T. Snow said, quote, this court finds you of all the charges and specifications not guilty. And the courtroom scene after this was an absolute mess.

Ashby's sister, who was seated with about 30 other spectators in the courtroom, let out a loud, whooping sound, which caused one of the prosecutors to turn to the relatives of the German victims seated behind him and say, I'm sorry. For the families, this result was devastating. One of the women who was there, Cindy, whose father and sister were on the cable car,

along with her sister's fiance, said she worried that the Marine Corps jury wouldn't convict one of their own. Quote, there's a saying in Germany. she said. It says, one crow doesn't pick out the eye of the other one. And Rita Wunderlich, who lost her husband in the crash, said through a translator, quote, I buried my husband a year ago, today was his second funeral. And about the whip from Ashby's sister after the verdict, Wonderlick said that if her own daughter had done something that caused 20 deaths, she didn't know if she could even enter the courtroom. She said, quote, I don't know if she were declared innocent

if I could have screamed out of joy. But saddest of all, some of the victims' family members believed that this would have played out differently if that tape still existed. Would it show what really happened that day? A group of young Marines joyriding smiling through the Dolomites, too low, too fast.

Maybe it showed the exact moment that they realized they were going to crash and what was said afterwards. Did they come up with a plan to destroy the tape together? But the tape no longer exists. so justice would never ultimately be served. Well, actually, the story wasn't entirely over. There was still a chance for some justice,

and it was because the tape was destroyed. In a second court-martial, both Ashby and Schweitzer were charged with obstruction of justice and conduct unbecoming an officer and gentlemen. The prosecution argued that the crew had destroyed the tape specifically to obstruct the investigation, that there must have been safe. something incriminating on it, something that they didn't want anyone to see. And this time,

both of them were found guilty. Ashby was sentenced to six months in prison. He was dismissed from the Marines, and he surrendered all military pay and allowances. Schweitzer entered a plea agreement. He faced no prison time, but he was also dismissed from the Marines. An appeal by both pilots against their dismissals was also rejected in November 2007. Years later, in July of 2011, an Italian newspaper called La Staumpa was investigating the tragedy. They wanted to see if there was anything that could be learned from the legal proceedings about the not guilty verdict. So they legally obtained a classified U.S. Marine Court document from the archives.

This document had been written just one month after the accident, and it contained a bombshell. It recognized the Marines' full responsibility for what had happened, and it was an internal document. quote, the cause of this tragedy was that the marine air crew flew much lower than they were authorized to fly, putting themselves and others at risk. The document read. It recommended that, quote, appropriate disciplinary and administrative action be taken against the mishap air crew, and also against their commanding officers for their failure to properly communicate flight restrictions. The document recommended the United States pay legal reparations for all deaths and damages. It also revealed that, in May of 1999, the U.S. Congress had rejected a bill that would have set up a $40 million

compensation fund for the families. Instead, in December of 1999, the Italian Parliament approved compensation of $1.9 million per victim. It was the country paying for the U.S.'s mistake, essentially, though NATO treaties did oblige that the U.S. government refund 75% of that amount, which at least was something. But none of that brings to the U.S. back the 20 people who died. And none of that changes the fact that we will never know what was really on that tape or how having it would have changed the verdict. Today, we covered two different kinds of lost media, but two that were intentionally withheld from the public for very different reasons. With the Timothy Treadwell tape, I'm not sure that anything can be learned from actually

having that piece of lost media. It seems like it serves more to satisfy the dark curiosity of the listener than to help solve anything necessarily. And all the people who needed to listen to it have. So it may sit on a shelf and Timothy's friend's house for the rest of eternity, or it could already be destroyed. We just don't know. But the Cavalais tape could help bring closure for those families. It could have changed the outcome of the trial.

But now I'm curious to hear from all of you, my darkly curious listeners. Do you think you could bear witness to either of these tapes? I mean, they're both incredibly dark. A lot of people out there do want to see. one or both of them, but do you think that you could handle saying them? Or do you think that it's best that they never be released to the public? You can leave a comment wherever you listen. I'm very curious to hear from all of you, wherever that may be.

And that's all I have for you this week. I will be back next week with another story for all of you. Join me here in the rogue detecting society headquarters as we dive into another darkly curious tale. And until then, stay curious. Heart size pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heart starts pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our associate producer is Juno Hobbs. Additional research and writing by Megan Gilbert.

Sound design and mix by Peach Tree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlop, Grace and Jernigan, and the team at WME. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartsarts pounding.com.