Morbid - Charles Whitman: The Texas Tower Sniper

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

On the morning of August 1, 1966, twenty-five-year-old Charles Whitman arrived at the University of Texas Austin campus a little before noon, carrying with him several rifles, pistols, and a shotgun contained within a military footlocker. After talking his way past a guard, Whitman climbed to the twenty eighth floor of the campus clocktower and walked out onto the observation deck, then began firing at the people on the ground below. In the span of a just over an hour and half, Charles Whitman killed fifteen people and wounded thirty-one others before finally being shot and killed by a police officer who’d managed to make his way to the top of the tower. Investigators later learned that, prior to arriving on the UT campus, Whitman had also murdered his mother and his wife.In 1966, mass shootings were virtually unheard of in the United States and Whitman’s spree killing shocked the nation. By most accounts, Charles Whitman was the picture of an all-American man, which made his actions all the more confusing. He was well-liked, had a successful military career, a beautiful wife, and once out of the military, he began pursuing a college degree in preparation for the next phase of his life. But behind the façade of American middle-class success lurked a deeply troubled man whose personal history and acute medical problems would eventually go a long way to explaining his actions on the morning of August 1.Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!ReferencesAustin American-Statesman. 1966. "U.T. sniper shoots 33." Austin American-Statesman, August 1: 1.Colloff, Pamela. 2006. "96 minutes." Texas Monthly, August 1: 104.—. 2016. "Memorial day." Texas Monthly, August 1: 22.Flemmons, Jerry. 1966. "UT tower sniper kills 14, dies in hail of police gunfire." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 2: 1.Governor's Committee. 1966. Report to the Governor; Medical Aspects, Charles J. Whitman Catastrophe. Fact-finding report, Houston, TX: Texas Department of Public Safety.Krebs, Albin. 1966. "The Texas killer: Former Florida neighbors recall a nice boy who liked toy guns." New York Times, August 2: 15.Lavergne, Gary. 1997. Sniper in the Tower: The Charles Whitman Murders. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press.New York Times. 1967. "U. of Texas to reopen ." New York Times, June 18: 25.Stuever, Hank. 1996. "96 minutes, 30 years later." Austin American-Statesman, July 29: 1.Texas Department of Public Safety. 1966. Statement of John and Fran Morgan. Intelligence Report, Houston, TX: State of Texas Department of Public Safety. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is morbid. This is morbid and it's raining and spooky outside. Yeah, it's fucking wild out there. It is. I'm ready for it to stop raining, though, and just turn into snow. Like, make it festive.

See, I'm going to live in this little gloomy era. See, I feel like we had the gloomy era. Like, it rained. We lost our power. It was windy and I'm over it. And now I'm like nervous that we're going to lose power again. Yeah, I don't want that. I just want it to snow so that it's fluffy and it doesn't fuck with my

telephone lines. It does, though, sometimes. Yeah, but like, blizzards. But that's not what I want. I want, like, a chill. It's not what I want. That's not what I ordered. It's not what I'm manifesting. So let's see if that happened. I'm manifesting fluffy, beautiful snow. Yeah, I'm down for that. I mean, it's it's the holiday season. I want to put my Christmas lights up. Me too. My holiday lights. Are you guys ready for that? Are you ready for the holidays? Ready, I'll give you second answer. Okay. Oh, good. I'm glad you're with us. Okay, cool. I'm just like, so excited. It's like so comfy. I know. It's a cozy time of year. It is. And we're going to bring you such wholesome content this time of year. Yeah. Speaking of which we do have two true crime updates

actually. Yeah, there was a few things going on. So there is true crime news. There is. So that's exciting. Yeah. It's sad, sad news though. I don't know if a lot of you have been following this. I think a lot of you have because I've seen it on my Twitter a lot. There's been this little girl missing. Jacqueline Angel Dobbs. And her mother, Janaya Murphy, was found dead in her home this past Tuesday. She was 21 years old. And then Jacqueline was missing. And they believed that her mother was strangled.

And then that Jacqueline was taken away in a maroon 2020 Dodge Grand Caravan with Illinois license plate, FP 139-29-293. and then they located the vehicle in western Missouri, but Jacqueline was not in the vehicle. It was like abandoned. So they were like, oh, no, like she's in danger. Yeah. So I saw all of that going on. And then I believe it was this morning.

They discovered Jacqueline Angel Dobbs's body in a pond in northwest Indiana. A sweet little one-year-old girl. Like a baby. And she's the cutest, sweetest thing. Like, I can't. I can't. And everybody said that they, like, that she was. an amazing mom that they were so happy together. They had like, it's, there was no disturbances at that

house. Like, yeah. There was no, it's just, what the fuck? No, it's, it's like you said, deputy chief Alan Stephens, I believe it is, said, quote, we never had any domestic incidents at the house. We were familiar. We weren't familiar with any domestic situation there, but at the same time, she was a 21-year-old woman, just like any other 21-year-old. She, by all accounts, was a great mom and had great supports within her family. Their concern was not being able to contact her. Because they found Janaya's body that Tuesday morning because she didn't show up for work. Excuse me, they found her Tuesday afternoon. It was like 10.30 at night because she had never shown up for work and it was like super unlike her. Yeah. So then they went to check and that's when they found her. And then they found

Jacqueline missing. They said they believed it was somebody that knew her and had a prior, possibly some kind of prior relationship with her, but was not the father. The father. of Little Angel. And the three of them were actually last seen together on Monday, like this past Monday, just at like a shopping mall. This person of interest. And they have that person of my interest has been located in Missouri and is being questioned. Good. So they have whoever this is, hopefully. What a monster. Seriously. And just what a strange situation who comes into the house, if it is him, somebody comes into this house, kills the mother and then take. And then take the baby. Takes a one-year-old baby. And then kills the baby. Oh, it's horrible. My brain immediately

just like, that poor baby. And they don't know anything about her cause of death at all, but her autopsy is scheduled to take place later this morning, this Friday morning. That kills me. And that poor, like, poor Janaya. And their poor family. She's just like a mom doing what she has to do, taking care of her baby. She was a great mom. Like has a support system. Is that sucks. It's so sad. It just sucks. And it's what a sad ending to it. I was really hoping we would get a happy ending out of that. Not a happy ending, but at least get half of a happy ending, you know, alive. Yeah, that's what I was hoping for. So sad. She's so cute. Her face keeps popping up on Twitter and I'm like, I just want to give you like a hug. Yeah, because this morning I think I shared like the missing.

Yeah, I had shared it like a day or two ago. And I was really hoping. And it was actually, it sucked because this morning, I was like, oh, we should talk about that. And then I opened up, I got the information from CBS Chicago, too. And I opened it up and they said the body was identified. And I was like, come on. Yeah, that really sucks. It does. And then more true crime news, a suspected serial killer has been apprehended. Yeah, this is crazy. It's nuts. His name is Perez Reed. He's 25 years old, and he is believed to have shot and killed four people with a 40 caliber handgun. In a distinctive manner. Yeah, in a distinctive manner, which I'm just going to go ahead and assume here. I feel like that means execution style.

I mean, that would be the first thing a lot of people are probably thinking. But we don't know. Who knows? It literally could be anything. A distinctive manner of shooting someone that's interesting phrasing. It is. But it could be anything. It could be in a certain position.

It could be anything. Yeah. And he's killed four people, but he is suspected of shooting more. He's from St. Louis. Is it St. Louis or St. Louis? I think I, because I always think of like, meet me in St. Louis. Yeah, I think it's St. Louis. I don't know.

They might say it differently than we do. I don't know. Tell us. You know, regional dialect, I suppose. But they caught him while he was riding a train. Oh, trains. I hate trains. We've had a lot of train.

Yeah. Train gnarliness lately. And I don't know about trains, guys. I'm all set with trains. I'm starting to back away from the railroad. I used to have to ride the train like every single day into work. And I'm really glad that I don't anymore. But he was from can't or excuse me, he was taking the train from Kansas City back to St. Louis when they got him.

And the gun was in his possession. So he's believed to have killed a 16-year-old girl Marnie Haynes on September 13th, 40-year-old Lester Robinson on September 26th. And then the St. Louis police on Monday said that they plan to seek charges against Reed and the recent shooting deaths of 49-year-old Pamela Abercrombie and 24-year-old Casey Ross. And then this quote is from Chicago's WG9, quote, the St. Louis Post dispatch citing a police affidavit filed in federal court said Reed could be tied to at least four other homicides and additional shootings. Among them, police are investigating whether Reed killed Damon Irvin and Dacia Farrow, whose bodies were found earlier this month in an apartment complex in Kansas City, Kansas.

Charges have not been filed in those killings. Wow. But on Saturday, he was charged with two counts of first degree murder, three counts of armed criminal action and one count of first-degree assault. So far, he has denied any wrongdoing. Ooh, interesting. Yeah. That's so sad.

Seriously. Hopefully they figure this out and get some more. I mean, hopefully we can put some closure on some more cases. I know. I hope so. But wow. Really sad. Whenever you see like a serial killer is apprehended, it's like, what?

You're like, oh. Because like this isn't the 70s? Like you forget that it's like that there's very much still serial killers around. It's just very different. It really is. Damn. Wow. Yeah.

So. What a news dump. And then I have a case for you. Yeah, you have a big old case. And it's also really sad, obviously, because here we are. So let's just get right into it. Yeah. Well, I mean, we'll do our best.

Yeah. This case that I am about to bring to you is the biggest mass murder in Alaskan history. Okay. So you're really going to, you're taking us there. I am. Okay. I did read a really good book for this. and I think you should all get it.

I couldn't get it on Kindle, which I was really bummed about, because sometimes you could just download it right to the computer. I know, it is nice when you can just get it right away. But I love a physical book. I was going to say, but then I opened the book and I smelled it, and I was like, ooh, this is nice. I love a good smelly book. This is nice.

So I smelled the book called What Happened in Craig, Alaska's Worst Unsolved Mass Murder, and it's by Leland E. Hale, such a good book. I love it. So much info. We love a great true crime book. So let's get into it. We are going to talk about the Colthurst family. So Mark Colthurst was from Blaine, Washington, and he had met his wife Irene when they were both

in high school. Okay. And other than Irene, Mark had only dated one other girl. It was actually when he and Irene were broken up that he was dating this other girl. And one day he got into like a really serious motorcycle accident. So Irene and this other girl went to visit him in the hospital. And it was there that he realized he fucked up and him and Irene got back together. He was like, I want to see Irene.

And he set this other girl packing. Wow. And so from that day on, Irene and Mark forever. Sorry, I was swallowing some coffee and I didn't want to swallow it into the microphone. It was so funny, she went to say something and then realized she had coffee and then backed away and swallowed and then came back. Because I would have been like blah. I didn't want to just fall it out of my mouth. Yeah.

But no, I'm here for their love story now. Yeah. Like immediately you've hooked me into their love story. Like tragic motorcycle accident. He lives. Sends this other girl packing. Let's get married. Yeah.

It's like Mr. Turner on Boy Meets World. Oh my God, yes. I used to love Mr. Turner. Except what happened to him after his serious motorcycle accident. That's the question. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways.

That's a question for another day. Well, I know what happened to Mark after his motorcycle accident. He got married to Irene. Good. Yeah. And then they had two children together, Kimberly, and Little John, who was named after Mark's father. Oh. Yeah.

Irene was apparently a great mother, a great wife. She loved to host parties at her and Mark's home. I guess they had like this big like bar in their kitchen so that they could just like entertain as many people as possible. Like they just loved having people over. That's fun. So she would cook a big meal and she'd bake treats and everything. Like she loved hosting.

I feel like we would get along. I love that as well. I know. I feel like she'd fit right in our family because you and I are so like that. But she was also really talented at putting together jewelry and sewing and also stained glass art. Like she was really good at that kind of stuff. Damn. Mark's two sisters said that Irene was the perfect sister-in-law. Wow. Which like, ruined me.

I'm, I'm preparing myself for being ruined here because I'm falling in love with these people. Please do. Yeah. Because I'm sorry. Okay. Now, Mark himself was a pretty interesting guy. He had started fishing when he was just 16 years old and he fell completely in love with it. He loved being on a boat, loved the whole entire environment. So when he was still in high school, he actually restored an eight. foot ship that had originally sank. Oh, okay. Just like restored the whole thing back to new and made it his own. Just restore a shipwreck, no big deal. Like crazy. And you're still in high school. Like you're just like on the side, restore your ship. Yeah, you know. He was also really good with money. And anytime he heard someone complain about the smell of fish on board, he would tell them, that's the smell of money. Which he was right. Yeah. Because there was one point in time where he had such a good week fishing, he caught $105,000 worth of fish.

Damn. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. That's why that's a very good paying gig if you can get the good stuff. And also, it's so dangerous. Like, you are risking so much. That's why the payment is there. Do you remember the deadliest catch?

Yes, someone died on there. Yeah. That was so crazy. It was intense. Like, I mean, think about it. Yeah. Deadliest catch is wild. show. And when you watch it, you really see how what fishermen do. When you watch it, you like get

seasick. Oh yeah. I can't. No, I literally can't. Like I'm claustrophobic and I'm sick. Thinking about it right now is giving me anxiety. Stress. But yeah, $105,000 worth of fish. Not bad. He was saving and saving that money. So eventually he was able to purchase his own like new boat. And he had a couple boats. I think his first other than the one that he restored was the kit. And then he saved and saved to get this boat, which was $850,000 and named the investor. The investor. Rightfully so. Exactly.

So over the years, Mark became a really highly respected fisherman in the area. Like, people knew who he was. They knew he was good at what he did. But it wasn't to say that people didn't necessarily have issues with him. Because as much as he was respected and as much as everybody was like, he's an expert, he also was like really quick temper. and people weren't shocked to hear him described as cocky. Like a lot of people thought he was a cocky guy. Right.

And because of his temperament, it really wasn't that unlikely for him to be in a fight with someone. Okay. Yeah. So he had fired people on his crew in the past, and it was known that he didn't like anyone on board to have any drugs on board or obviously be on any kind of drugs. Okay. I mean, that's pretty standard. Yeah, like that's all right. But back then, I mean, it's like the 70s, 80s.

So everybody's like smoking dope and like live in. but he did not want that shit on his boat. He was like, I'm running a tight ship. So be literally. Yeah. And obviously that's for like a myriad of reasons. But if you work in the industry or if you've watched below deck med a couple seasons ago, you know how intense those maritime laws are. Yeah. Shit's no joke. Yeah. The sea does not forget. Just ask Hannah. The sea is ruthless. Ruthless. And so are its laws. At Captain Sandy. Now, in early September of 1982, Mark had made a voyage to Craig Alaska. Have you ever heard of Craig Alaska? I actually have. I hadn't. So he brought a pretty big crew for the trip. His wife Irene was coming. She was 28 years old

and she was three months pregnant at this point with their third child. They also brought five-year-old Kimberly, who was about a week away from starting kindergarten. And their little son, John, who had just turned four a couple weeks ago. Stop. There were also four men that were part of the crew for the trip. Chris Heyman, he was about to turn 18 in a matter of days. 19 year old Dean Moon, he was voted most far out by his classmates. Get the fuck out. Most far out. Most far out.

Hell yeah. That's my favorite thing that I've ever learned about someone ever. If I had gone to high school in the 70s and I wasn't voted most far out, I'm like retroactively mad that I wasn't born in the 70s and voted most far out. Why didn't I get to have that experience? Most far out. Like peace. man. Oh my God. I'm not kidding. That's my favorite thing I've ever learned about someone ever. Me as well. That's

why I included. My favorite fact. It like has, I just like had to put it in here. What was his name? Dean Moon. Dean, Moon. Obviously, he's most far out. Oh. Mm-hmm. Then we have 19 year old Jerome Keone. He was voted most dependable. Oh, Jerome. Yes. Good for you, man. That reminds me the Lizzo song. And then there was 19 year old Michael Stewart, who was Mark's first cousin. All of these kids had really bright futures and they were doing really well in school. Dean was like a football store. He was a football store at his high school. Jerome Keone was going to Seattle University. And he was actually a newbie on this crew. He just joined a week before the trip. And then Michael, who was Mark's cousin, was going to be going into his sophomore year at Washington State University. And it's like he trusted all of these guys, so they have to be good guys. If you're

going to trust them to take care of your family. Absolutely. You know, so you know that they were good dudes. It's so funny, you took the words right out of my mouth because I literally wrote everyone on the crew were people that Mark highly respected and genuinely enjoyed being around. Yeah, like clearly. Like if you're, I mean, you have two, you have your wife on board and you have like a five year old and a four year old. Whoever's around you, you're going to trust implicitly. Oh yeah, absolutely. So the trip really went pretty well. They caught about $30,000 worth of fish. Damn. Yeah. And this was in the 80. The trip was coming to an end, though, and everyone was going to be heading home the next Monday.

But unfortunately, that Monday never came for anybody on board. Oh, man. So the investor made its way into Craig on Sunday, September 5th, 1982. Now, Craig is a pretty small town in Alaska. As of 2019, the population was only 1,189 people. Damn. In 1982, the population was almost half of that at 600 people. Wow.

Yeah. So Craig is about 220 miles south of Juneau, Alaska's capital. Okay. And even though it's a small town, it's actually the most populated on Prince of Wales Island, which is the fourth largest island in the U.S. Huh. Isn't that crazy? I didn't know that.

Yeah. And you can only get to it via plane or, yeah, plane or boat. Oh, wow. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? That's cool. I mean, Alaska is like fascinating to me. I find Alaska so beautiful.

Fascinating. I feel like I would die there though because. So cold. I get a lot of like TikToks of people who like live in Alaska. Do you really? Is that your algorithm? Me and John, both our algorithm is people who live in remote places telling us about it. And I love that. Does that mean that like you guys want to go live in a remote place? I think it's because we're Ron Swanson. So I'm not coming. And so I get a lot of people from Alaska that live in like deep Alaska. And like igloose. And they like tell you what they do or how far they have to travel to like the store and stuff.

Yeah. It's fascinating. You have to be a bad bitch. Yeah. They have to like. strap on all this stuff to go outside and they have to bring like a giant gun with them to protect them from polar bears and shit and I'm like you guys are awesome do you remember the episode of the girls next door where yeah brings them back to the place that she lived in Alaska yes just like full circle you're like that's all I had to say about it I had nothing else I was like was there any part of yeah Alaska do you remember that I do remember that so yeah um but in Craig Alaska the fishing industry is huge especially the salmon So that particular evening, the crew turned their fish in and they had to wait until the next day to get paid. Apparently, a lot of these places, like, they advertise that they'd pay you cash for your fish, but they, like, didn't.

But then they're like, no. We won't do that. And it took a little while to, like, confirm everything. So they were going to get, like, the next day. But that meant that they had to spend the night on the island. So they docked their boat alongside a few other boats, including the decade, the casino, the defender, and the Libby Eight. I got to tell you, you could have done bad with those names. I like the casino.

I would want to work on the casino. I don't know. What about the defender? That's like a perfect chip name. The defender is a good one. Yeah, the decade. Maybe it was like a B-day gift. Yeah, I don't know.

An upgrade. I don't know about that one. I don't know about the Libby 8. My grandfather's boat was the reverie. Yeah, you're right. I loved that one. Yeah, I think I only went on that boat like once. I like lived on that boat.

I loved that boat. We had to wear special shoes to go on that boat. Yeah. And I was really mad about it. But the way that they docked made it so that they would have had to walk onto the two other boats if they were going to get off the boat. So they were kind of like smushed in there. Yeah.

That would be pretty awkward, probably, if you didn't know your neighboring boats. But Mark actually knew both of the owners of the other boats and the crew members were at least kind of like acquaintances. Yeah, like they knew who they were. And the decade, it's important to mention, was actually owned by a man named Clyde Curry. And Clyde's brother John was one of Mark's partners in a. business called Angel Island Pacific Salmon, which was, quote, a cooperative venture set up to market their Puget Sound Catches.

That's what I figured. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was about to, I was going to finish your sentence, but I didn't want to like take your thunder. Yeah, it's like, just don't. Okay. I was like, I'll let her about this.

But I'm glad you got it. Yeah. So yeah, interesting. He like knew the man. That is. That's very interesting. Yeah. Worth mentioning.

Which, and it's good because like you want to know who you're docking next to, I suppose. Yeah. Like you don't want to dock next to a pile. I don't fancy myself a sailor, but I feel like if I was, I watch a lot of below deck. I would want to dock next to someone I knew and not a stranger. I'm basically a second stew. There you go.

I'm not. But once they docked, Jerome and Dean got off the boat and they went to explore Craig. During their exploration, Dean ended up buying weed from somebody on the Libby 8, which is a detail that I mentioned now and just know that it's going to come back a little later. Store that in your noggin. Oh. So it's believed that the other two members of the crew stayed on the boat. And then the Colthurst family decided to head out to dinner because that night was actually Mark's 28th birthday. Oh.

So Craig was a new spot for Mark. He usually didn't take this route to or from Alaska. And he had never taken this particular boat there anyways. The reason they did like stay in Alaska too other than like waiting for their money. But it was because they were going to fly home to Washington State that upcoming Monday. So it just kind of like made sense. Okay. Anywho, they had dinner at Ruth Ann's restaurant, which at the time.

time was one of the only restaurants in Craig. Amazing. There was maybe like one or two others. Hoping. So they had a couple rounds of drinks at dinner. And when it was time to pay, Mark actually borrowed money from one of his friends who was also at Ruth Vans that night because he hadn't been in Craig a lot, but he knew a lot of the fishermen in the area.

Yeah. So he wrote this guy a $100 check for the cash because Mark had a strict rule that there was no cash on board during the season. That makes sense. Yeah, didn't want any money on board. I thought so. But because he had just turned in like a shitload of fish earlier that day, his friend knew that he was good for it. Yeah.

So dinner ended around like 9.30 that night. And they made their way back to the boat. They stopped along the way a couple times just to chat with the people on the other ships. So it's believed that they were back on the boat between 10 and 10.30. Okay. Now, a lot of the boats that night were pretty hectic. Like they were all having parties on board. And there was a lot of people there because one, it was the end of the salmon season.

And two, the next day was Labor Day, a day off. off. So people were really in the mood to celebrate. Now, a lot of the crew on the neighboring ships stayed up drinking until the early morning hours. And when they woke up the next day, they were not feeling so hot. No. It's also important to note that there was a pretty big storm going on that night. So most of the partying was presumably going on indoors. Okay. Like not necessarily people just like hanging on the dock. Okay. Now, it would make sense that nobody would notice somebody creeping onto the investor that night. and that nobody noticed that the investor had drifted from the dock until early the next morning.

Oh. It was about 6.30 in the morning on September 6th, Labor Day. When one of the members of the crew on a neighboring boat noticed that the investor was idling away from the dock. Huh. That was really weird because the two boats had been connected with the tie-down lines. Yeah, I was going to say, wouldn't they be connected? Yeah, they absolutely would. And tie-down lines are like crazy expensive.

So they were like, Mark absolutely knows how to dock a boat and his crew. So like, what the fuck? So at first, the crewman on the other boat thought maybe those lines had come loose during the storm. But then he saw a man in the pilot house or the wheelhouse of the investor. So he waved at the man thinking that it was Captain Mark because they did look similar and the man waved back. Now, another strange detail was that the ship definitely didn't have its engine turned on. and if the person steering the ship away was Mark or one of his crew members, the engine definitely would have been on because it's a safety thing. Like you can't leave the dock with your engine turned off because you have no control of the boat.

Yeah, you would just be like literally floating away. Yeah, and like if another boat was coming, you'd literally crash directly into it. Yeah, you wouldn't be able to get out of it. Exactly. So they didn't necessarily like notice that at first the person, but then thinking about it later, they were like, oh shit, the engine wasn't on. This is already like really creepy. Oh.

Like, I'm already like, what the fuck is happening? It gets so much creepier. I don't like it. So now we know that the man who waved back to that crew member was not. Oh, I hate it. I hate it. Because I knew that was the answer, but I, and I could feel it. But, ooh, I don't like that. At that point in time, nobody had put two and two together. Oh, imagine learning that later. Oh, yeah. So if like, you waved at this guy. Oh, I would never. It only gets creepier. I wouldn't, oh, I couldn't. People were so close to whoever this guy was and had no fucking idea. So after that offbeat interaction, the investor was anchored near Fish Egg Island. It's a small island about a mile away from Craig across the harbor.

It's a pretty secluded place where somebody could do something sinister as fuck and have less of a chance of being seen fleeing the sinister as fuck activity that they just did. Oh, no. So at around 4 o'clock the next afternoon, Tuesday, September 7th, another boat, the casino, which was docked Craig noticed smoke coming from the same direction where the investor had gone. So the members on board called the Alaska State Troopers obviously thinking there's some kind of fire. Yeah. And then they headed out that way to help themselves. Wow. Yeah, great people. So while they were making their way over, they saw a young man wearing a dark baseball hat on the investor skiff who seemed to be heading

towards Craig. Now, if you don't know a skiff is like another smaller boat, large boats usually have them in tow like they can tow away the fish if they need to. It's just like a way to get around faster. So they noticed somebody driving the skiff away from the investor and he's wearing a dark baseball hat and they're like, okay, like whatever. They assumed that the man in the skiff was going to shore for help. So later to investigators, the man was described as a young man in his early 20s with either blonde or light brown hair. The multiple witnesses who saw him said that he looked to be about 150 pounds and maybe around 5'10, but it was kind of hard to say how tall he was because he was sitting down.

Okay. Now, unfortunately, by the time that first responders got to the investor, there was a fire blazing through that boat. And there was nothing they could do to save anybody on board. Oh. And at that point, they didn't even know who was on board. Yeah, they don't know how many. They don't know what's going on.

It took four hours to even get the fire under control to the point where, first responders could even get on board. And then it took two more days on board to extinguish the smaller fires. Oh my God. Yeah. Now, the investor's skiff was found docked and abandoned in Craig, and whoever had been driving it earlier was never seen again. This whole thing gives me more chills than I was not ready for how chilly, willy, I would feel. Oh, it only gets worse. Something about something about the sea, man. It's great. It's something about the sea. It's the scariest place.

It's beautiful. It's fascinating. But it's the scariest fucking place. Aren't the most beautiful fascinating things always the scariest? Wow. Isn't that beautiful? Wow. You're beautiful and fascinating.

And sometimes you're scariest. Like that was a little scary. Back at you. But you're beautiful and fascinating. You're beautiful and fascinating and also scary. Oh my God. That's really nice. But really the sea is a scary place.

Fuck the sea man. I'm not going to lie. So this kind of stuff. happening and like someone just tooting away on a boat into the sea. Never to be seen again. Tooten away. And he waved to them like, hello. Like, hey, what's up?

Just about to kill a whole family. Like, are you fucking kidding me? Oh, not even about to. Already did at that point that he had waved. It's believed. Because no. We'll get into it in a second. So.

I hate this. Yes. So the investor skiff was found docked and abandoned. And the tie down lines that I mentioned earlier were found on board one of the neighboring ships the decade. You would have never left your tie-down lines on somebody else's boat. They're expensive. They're expensive and they're necessary for future dockings. So the lines were sent to the FBI to see if any fingerprinting could be done on them, but they weren't able to find any prints. One of the biggest problems during this whole investigation was that a storm was rolling through and it most likely washed away

whatever little evidence was left. Because they weren't able to get anything off the skiff either, like any kind of fingerprints. Oh, come on. So while It's almost like it was planned that way, or it just worked out way too well. Yeah, I think it's the latter. I think it just worked out. Yeah, I mean, you can't really plan the weather. So it's like, but it almost just seems like it just worked out so well. It really did.

And even still, I guess like you could say that whoever was driving could have been wearing gloves or something. Oh, for sure. We have no idea. Yeah. So while searching the investor, this is where it's going to get really heavy, just so you guys know. Oh, no. Troopers found some victims, but the bodies were so badly burned. it was hard to decipher whether or not they were human remains or not at first.

So on Thursday, September 9th, a medical examiner was able to perform autopsies on two of the four bodies. They were later identified as 28-year-old Mark and his wife, 28-year-old Irene, who again was three months pregnant with their third child. Upon closer inspection, the medical examiner was able to determine that both of them had actually been shot multiple times before being burned in the fire. my gosh. Yes. There were multiple gunshot wounds to each body, but specifically, each one of them had been shot in the head. Whoa. So the gunshot wounds were only said to not be done execution style, but other than that, they didn't say much else about them. They just said... So they were like, the one thing we can say is that they were not execution style. Yeah, but they were shot in the head and then they were shot like other times, like other parts of their body. Were they found in their beds, you said?

they were they were found um they were all found in like various areas okay so it wasn't like they were sleeping and somebody crept on and killed them in their sleep okay so now during the initial search of the boat only four bodies were found so those were the bodies of mark and irene their daughter kimberley and michael stewart who was mark's cousin but two days later investigators yeah we're going to get to that Two days later, investigators found partial remains of what they believed to be another crew member, but they weren't able to definitively say who. Now, down the line, the only other crew member that was positively IDed was Jerome Keone, and that was through dental records when they were able to find a jawbone.

But Dean Moon and Chris Heyman were technically never found. So for a short time, people wondered if they could have had something to do with this. Yeah, I mean, you have to. But then over the years, it's kind of been. like confirmed that it wasn't. Debunked a little bit. Debunked a bit. Okay. Now, that makes me happy because I really, I mean, I don't want to think of anybody doing this. No, of course not. But I really don't want to think of people that they trusted,

respected, and felt safe around doing this. And like people on their crew and just turning on them. Yeah, it's believed that they were just like totally demolished by the fire. Because Mark and Irene's son, John, who was four years old, was also never found. No. So they believe that he was sleeping in a room right off of the wheelhouse, which happened to be one of the main areas that the fire just like completely demolished. The fire was like really going crazy there. So sad. Now the coroner was able to determine that the victims had all died before the fire was started.

Okay. Because there was no carbon monoxide in their lungs. Okay. So they were all shot. And blood alcohol tests were performed and showed that most of the adults on board were intoxicated. I'm assuming not Irene because she was pregnant, but I don't know. Yeah, it's just you can't tell either way. Yeah. Now, they weren't able to find much, obviously, because, I mean, some of the bodies they couldn't even find. But whatever they did uncover, painted a picture of someone obviously trying to cover this whole thing up. Because investigators realized that whoever had done this had tried to sink the ship actually by opening up the sea cocks while it was docked on Fish Egg Island. So they believed that, that the family was shot first while the boat was docked in Craig. And then when it was floating away, that's when they think it got to Fish Egg Island and the guy

tried to sink the boat. Jeez. Yes. But then whoever did this must have realized the next day on the seventh that the boat hadn't sunk. So they went back and decided to set it on fire to get rid of any evidence or something that they had left behind. Now, they also believed that whoever did this had to have used some kind of accelerant because the flames spread so quickly and the fire lasted for so long. Yeah, for it to be able to burn like that,

I feel like there had to have been. Yeah, there was an arson investigator named Barker Davy, and he believed that anywhere from 2.5 to 5 gallons of accelerant had been used to start the fire and keep it going. Now, Mark's father, John, he actually co-owned the boat with Mark, and he explained that this ship was actually designed not to burn like it had, so it was obvious that this person had to have used something. Now, one of the first troopers on scene, Charles Miller, said to People Magazine, every time I pursue something, I keep coming up short. There's always something that doesn't fit.

One thing that is stuck in my craw is why the murderer didn't burn the boat right away, or at night when there was darkness to cover his escape. There must have been some compelling reason that caused him to do it in broad daylight. That's the thing. Because people noticed this boat burning at like four. o'clock the next day. Literally in like the afternoon. Four o'clock in the afternoon. When everybody's just hanging. Right. People are at work. Like it's just like that is the worst time to do it.

And a bunch of people saw this guy in a skiff like multiple times. He seemed very brazen. He did. And it's also, are they positive that John wasn't taken? Like, are they sure that he's dead? I didn't see. If they don't have his body. I didn't see anything that said they did believe that he was taken. They believed that he was taken. was burned in the fire. They believed that everybody was. But they believed that everyone was, do they have evidence to show that? They don't necessarily. So yeah, he could have been taken. So there's a real, I mean, not that I'm saying there's any kind of like motive there, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah, we don't know. Was he? Is he alive somewhere? And it's funny, because I thought the same thing,

but I never saw that, like, mentioned anywhere. Yeah. It's weird that that's been kidnapped. So I'm like, did they, they must have found some kind of evidence that. Yeah, like, maybe proves he was there. I'm not really sure. I don't know a ton of. but like I know very little about like bodies and fire. Like I know I know kind of like a base level there, like how, you know, that it takes a very strong heat for a long, prolonged period of time to burn bone. Yeah. But other than that, I kind of, I'm a little naive when it comes to that.

Same here. But it's interesting. It is interesting. But it's like, why would they take John and not Kimberly? I don't know. That's the thing because we don't know who this person is. We don't know what the motive here was at all. Yeah.

And I'm going to go ahead and tell you, this is technically an unsolved. Oh, I had a feeling. Yeah. So we don't. I had a feeling. The bummer about this case is this case in general, but the huge bummer is that nobody really knows what happened. Like a lot of people think they know what happened, but nobody is totally certain because

there's really no physical evidence whatsoever. Like, we're going to learn that obviously this went to trial later and somebody was implicated, but it was purely circumstantial evidence. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know anybody was implicated in this. We'll get to that. So immediately the police want to talk to different people on the island to see if anybody saw anything strange, which they did. A few other witnesses described seeing that same guy driving the skiff away from the investor.

And there were also witnesses who saw a similar looking man buying two and a half gallons of gas early on the morning of the seventh and then leaving it on the investor skiff, which was docked in Craig all by itself. Which is weird. You typically don't dock a boat for very long by itself like that. A skiff. Super strange. Now, the only problem was that nobody had a name for this person, simply that description. So for a little while, like I mentioned earlier, there were people who thought that maybe Dean Moon or Chris Heyman could have had something to do with this since their bodies weren't found.

Yeah, and I understand that. I would think that too. Of course. And to heat things up, at one point in the investigation, the police actually had an informant who claimed that he had gone to school with Dean Moon, and he was sure that Dean Moon could have something to do with these murders. Oh. So the informant told the police that Dean was incredibly well connected in the drug world.

This informant said that Dean could get his hands on anything from weed to cocaine to meth. And he also said that Dean had fucked over a few well-connected people and that he was really playing a dangerous game in the drug world. Uh-oh. The informant said that he ripped off some dealer and owed them something like 30,000. thousand dollars, which interestingly enough is how much fish they caught that day. Right. Wow.

And the informant also said that Dean had stolen half an acre of marijuana plants from another dealer. So obviously investigators found this concerning. Maybe whoever Dean had fucked over had shown up to try to take this whole family out. A little far-fetched. Maybe Dean did something to try to get the money to clear his debts. Yeah. I mean, when you get into that kind of.

of stuff. Shit's dangerous. There's really no far fetch there. You're out on the water. They will definitely take out a whole family if it means teaching a lesson and proving a point. And like the way that they did it like shooting everybody and then burning the boat down. Like yeah.

Yeah. And then the other compelling thing was that before everyone on the boat had been massacred, Dean was actually training to become the new skiff operator. Oh. Yes. So clearly he would have at least known how to operate it to get it like. away from the scene. Yeah.

And he also kind of matched the description that a lot of the witnesses gave, because this was like a very distinct description. He was about 150 pounds, had light brown hair, was close to 510. And the only problem was that he had like wavy hair. And the witnesses said that whoever this was had straight hair. But also he had a baseball cap on. Yeah. His hair might have been what?

Who knows? Unfortunately, that also describes like 90% of men. Exactly. to like humans on earth. So I feel like that's like a very average description of a human being. It very much is. But all that other stuff is pretty interesting. It is.

So now all like what they were focusing on doing was searching for Dean like he was still alive because they had nothing on that boat to say that Dean wasn't alive. They didn't find even a shred of him. Huh. But that would obviously prove to be incredibly difficult. So things in the investigation actually got hot for a second in February of 1983. when somebody called one of the lead investigators, Sergeant Jim Stogsdale, saying that Dean Moon had been spotted in San Francisco by multiple people. So Stogsdale went out there himself to talk to all these different witnesses, but pretty quickly he started to realize that these people had not seen Dean Moon.

One of them described seeing a guy that was more like a bum, another guy had like a completely different description and like the guy didn't look like Dean Moon at all. and all these people's stories started falling apart. And so did the informant stories. Ah. Because it turned out that this informant who knew all these wild things about Dean Moon, he had lied. Oh. He actually had not gone to school with Dean. Are you kidding me?

He was six or seven years older than Dean. So I'm sorry, no one checked that out like right away? My next sentence. You think that maybe they would have checked his ID and confirmed his age before being let on a wild fucking goose chase to leave? fucking San Francisco. Oh no, guys. But I digress. Guys, come on.

The thing about this investigation is it took a while for them to even get like somebody like arrested. Yeah. And I think I don't I don't have like an actual opinion of if I think this person did it or not. It's there's not enough for me to say like absolutely he did it. And there's also not enough for me to say like no. Like he didn't do it. So I'm kind of just like, I don't really know. I don't know.

But I do think that they were getting to a point where they were dead. desperate to be like, we solved this. Well, because, yeah, I mean, one, this is so bizarre and so tragic. And the entire family is massacred. It's horrific. And then that Dean Moon thing doesn't look great for them. No, not at all. That they didn't check the age. And then we're like, oh, oh, actually, this informant is a lie. He happens to be almost, you know, like seven years older than, like, no. No, that doesn't look good for you. No. So it makes sense that they would suddenly be kicking it into high gear to finish it out. Exactly. And they did because another name that would start to come up in the investigation quite frequently, actually, is the name of a man that they had

already cleared. And now they weren't so sure, though. Now, this man also knew the Colthurst family pretty well. He was a 23-year-old guy named John Peel. John Peel was also from Washington, and he had actually casually dated Mark's sister Lisa in high school. Oh. And he was actually went to the hospital. when little John was born. So he like really knew this family. Wow. And actually later on while this was all going on, the families like felt really bad for each other. But in the beginning of this, Mark's mother was worried because Lisa was getting married and John Peel's mom was supposed to make the cake. Oh. So these families were like connected. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And Mark was actually one of the reasons that John got into fishing in the first place. Because while Lisa and John,

and John were dating, it was nearing the end of high school. And John hadn't really made his mind up about what he wanted to do. He thought maybe he might go into the military just because he wasn't sure. But he wasn't sure exactly that he wanted to go into the military either. So he was hanging out with Lisa one day talking about this when Mark walked into the room and he overheard them. And he joked with John and said, you want to go fishing instead? Like instead of joining the military, you want to go fishing? Like, what a way for it to come about.

Yeah, I know. Want to go fishing? That doesn't sound fun. Yeah, you could go fishing instead. Yeah, let's just go fishing. And John was like, hell yeah, brother. Let's go fishing. So that year, he actually joined Mark's crew.

But things didn't really work out. Uh-oh. Because while people, or excuse me, while investigators were talking to different people about John Peel, they learned that he and Mark were not exactly the best of friends and were not exactly on the best terms. Oh, no. There were a lot of rumors about what had gone on between the two of them.

But basically the gist of the rumors is that Mark ended up firing John from his crew. And all these rumors said a bunch of different things that John was a party animal. He brought drugs onto the ship. He was drunk all the time. He never showed up. If he did show up, he was like fucking everything up. He was just a mess. Like there was a ton of different things that people had to say.

Uh-oh. But John's parents later said he actually wasn't fired from this boat. And this was the kit that John had worked on. He wasn't fired. family said, but he decided to leave Mark's boat, quote, because, excuse me, because, quote, the boat wasn't that sea worthy, which I feel like that's pretty important for a boat. To be seaworthy, yeah. Like, you're going to be out there on the sea, so you should be seaworthy.

Yeah. I don't really know what that means. Worthy of the sea. I'm going to go ahead and, like, think that Mark probably fired John. Yeah, if I had to put some money down on it, I would say that Mark definitely fired John. And Mark is like, he's kind of a hard out. Like, and if John is showing up, like I said, he runs a type ship. So beware.

Yeah, so beware. So beware, John Peel. So like I said, there is no physical evidence that tied John Peel to the scene. But the police really focused in on him because he matched the physical description of the man driving the skiff. And because there's all these rumors, they're not on good terms. We have probable cause, I guess. For sure. But Craig's mayor did say to the Associated Press, there were probably 500 guys in town that looked just like him.

I was going to, exactly. Because you literally just said. That's a bit. I feel like the physical description is really not helping anybody out here. A very average male. Like really not helping. I can name like eight guys that I could off the top of my head that fit that description. Literally.

And I'm not like good at height and weight either. No, I'm very bad at that. He's John. I don't know. Yeah. I'd be like, I don't know. Sure. Yeah.

Right. But the police focused in on John Peel anyways. For one thing, like I said, his name had been brought up a ton. And he had a motive. He was mad that Mark had fired. Yeah. You can't ignore that. But then you're also like, would he kill his entire family, including his children?

I don't know. I also don't know. But people have done worse. Crazier things have happened. And for crazier reasons. And John Peel may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place. I don't know. He was in a place.

He was somewhere. Because he was working on the Libby 8 at the time of the murders, which I said earlier was one of the neighboring boats. Oh. Yeah. and another crewmate had seen him climb onto the investor the night of the murders. The witness who saw him said that it looked like he had a bottle in his hands. So the investigators said, you know, maybe he was coming to wish Mark a happy birthday. Mark didn't want him on the boat or he said something like to embarrass him and pissed him off.

And one thing led to another. Now, one of the biggest things to police too was that they were fairly certain that this person who had massacred an entire. family and the crew had to have killed every last one of them for a reason because they were like, why would he kill the kids? Yeah. And they felt that whoever committed these murders must have known the family and felt as though they had to kill the kids because the kids would have been able to ID them. That's what the investigators thought.

Okay. Which, yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Because if it's just a stranger, the kids are going to be like, I don't know, like, they're four and five. They're not going to be able to be like, well, his cheekbones felt like they were a little bit, But like, you know what I mean? Yeah.

They won't be able to get a good description of that. No. But if they're like, yeah, it was John. Mm-hmm. Like, they're going to be able to point to that and be like, yeah, it's John. I know him. And John later, like, talked to Lisa and he said he saw them while they were like their docked and Craig.

And he actually told Lisa that he had like pushed John on like a little swing that was on the boat. So the kids absolutely did know him. I mean, like I said, he was at the hospital. He was at John's birth. When John was born, right. Oh, I really don't want to believe. I don't want to either.

I don't want to believe. that but and I don't I get I get why that's something that connects him though yeah definitely I just am like struggling I'm like oh man it's tough but it does make sense I mean it's awful no matter what yeah no matter which way it's not like any situation you're gonna be like well I'm glad it was that instead of this like no the whole thing it sucks it's horrible but to think it's someone that they knew oh but hopefully they were sleeping I think they said that John definitely was sleeping and I think Kimberly was said to have been shot pretty close to her bunk because her and Irene the mother used to share a bunk together and I think they were found pretty close to each other. Okay. So John was brought in

for questioning multiple times over the course of about a year and a half because again, they don't have a lot. I was going to say, so they're going to just hearsay. Basically their hope was that they would crack him and he would confess. Yeah, that's all you can try. So during one of the last visits that he made to the station, they asked him to take a polygraph. test, which he failed. Okay. But we said earlier in the case that you just covered. Hot dog in a trench coat.

Hot dog in a trench coat. But it's there. But it was the same type of thing. The police were telling him, we know for a fact you killed this family. We have this. The polygraph's telling us everything we already knew. But John was sitting there continuously denying any involvement in the murders. But what fucked him over is that he kind of started like asking for like things from the police.

Like you'd be like, well, what do you know? And like that kind of puts you in. a really shitty position. And it's a weird thing to say. Yeah. And then what really kicked things even into higher gear was a witness named Joe Weiss. He had been fishing in Alaska during the time of the murders. And he had seen the composite sketch that they put together from the witness statements.

And he said, I realize I saw that man that morning on September 7th. And he went to go tell the police. And so when he went to go tell them, they set up a photo lineup of six men, an obviously John Peel was on the photo lineup, Joe Weiss picked him out almost immediately. He was like, that's definitely him. Okay. Uh-huh. I mean, that's interesting.

It is interesting. I will say that is very interesting. So finally, two years after the fire, John Peel was arrested in Bellingham, Washington on January 10, 1984. He was charged with first-degree murder for the eight people killed on board and first-degree arson. Damn. Yeah.

Now, the prosecution's argument was that John Peel's motive was that he was fired and he was scorned. And the evidence, like we've said a million times, was clearly purely circumstantial and a whole lot of he said, she said, which we're going to get into. If you read this book, there's like even more witness testimony. I included kind of like the most important things. Yeah. But if you read the book that I mentioned earlier, which I'll link in the show notes, he gives you so much. It's so good. This is fascinating because it's also you just think about it and you're like, okay, so yeah, I get it. Like, he's mad. He doesn't like this guy. He got fired. And it's like, okay, he has to kill the kids to not ID him and all that. But it's like, why did he choose a time and

place where he would have to kill the entire family? Right. If that was his whole plan to get rid of Mark and like scorn him, you're from the same town. Like, why would you choose a time when you have to not only kill the entire family, but kill, what, three or four more men on board? Four men on board. To me, this just like is like... It's crazy. I'm like, yeah, is this really what happened? I don't... I feel like there had to have been like more people.

Like, I don't know. One guy took out that entire, like, wow. That's the thing. But they said all of the adults on or most of the adults on board were drunk. Yeah, that's true. So like how did he know that? And it's like the night. So they were, well, maybe he had partied with them.

Was he partying with them, I guess? Yeah. But like, was he drunk? I don't know. A witness on board, a witness on like another boat saw him climb on board with a with a bottle. That's still real risky. Like that's real risky.

To get on a boat alone, knowing that there are six adults and two children on that boat and you have to get rid of literally all of them. Well, the other thing that worked in this person's favor, unfortunately, was that there was only one exit off of this boat. Yeah. So. But even that, it's like as soon as somebody hears you, there's seven people to overpower you. I mean, and you're docked next to, like, these, a bunch of other ships and you're shooting these people.

Yeah. Again, they were shot multiple times. There's six adults, two children. And like nobody heard anything. It's crazy. Yeah, because I've just, I can't get past the idea of walking into that place being like there are six adults that I have to take out. Yeah. Because as soon as one was shot, didn't they all wake up and when they all attack that one guy?

That's what you would think. Absolutely. And the other thing is these are all like well-built. guys presumably like they're working on sailors yeah sailors they're working on a boat all day like hauling heavy lines and doing manual labor i'm not convinced that there's only one person involved here i'm not either and i'm not convinced to be honest i'm not convinced that it's john peel but i'm not convinced that it's not john peel yeah because so far i'm i'm sure there's many things that are suspicious yeah and if given physical evidence i would go

yep and look at all that too like it would make i'd be like yep that all makes sense now right but without the physical evidence there's nothing there's no physical evidence and because that description is just so generic i can't i can't get behind it and i just there's more people involved here in my opinion i i don't believe it's one person i absolutely overpowered this entire boat and well and before i got to the part where it was like dean moon didn't have anything to do with this we think yeah i was like oh it makes sense like a couple of people involved in like the drug world. Yeah. That made more sense to me. It made so much sense. Like not necessarily Dean Moon. But then it was all made up. And as soon as you start, I was like, no. Like I didn't want. I was like, and now it's like, okay, now I'm just sad that he's dead.

But I do as soon as you were saying that, I was like, it makes sense that there's more. It's like a group. Like, yeah. I don't buy that it's one person. No. And the way that like they got away so easily, it did to me at least feel somewhat organized. Yeah. You know? Oh, it did. Yeah. It's, yeah. It's strange. But then the other thing is the only way to this island is by boat or plane. So it's like, can we not check the records of who was on this island? And at the time, the population is 600 people. Well, that was the other thing. When everybody was like, yeah, we didn't know this person. I was like, you didn't. Right. Then that should have shocked everybody. Like, wouldn't everybody? Like, wouldn't everybody be like, look at the records of like, who's this person? Exactly. That we don't know because we know everybody. Right. But then again, it's also the. 80s. What's happening? Technology hadn't come that far yet. It's stressful. I want to solve this now. So the DA on the case was Marianne Henry and she said that it was a combination of anger, frustration, humiliation, and jealousy that led John Peel to murder the entire Colthurst family and the crew on board that day. And she had witnessed testimony to back that up. And she said that John had been caught in

multiple lies, which he technically was. So one of the things that she really focused in on was how John abruptly left Alaska. She said that there was a, quote, sudden change in John's travel plans. And there was. On Tuesday, September 7th, he called a travel agency at 1156 a.m. And at 459 p.m. that day. And then ditched his original plan and went back to Washington via plane instead of boat. He originally was supposed to leave.

on a boat. Huh. And changed his travel plans, plans at 4.59. The boat was found on fire at 4 o'clock. Okay. Yeah. Again, circumstantial, but compelling. But does not look great for you.

Why do you want to get out of there so quickly? Yeah. Later on, John's parents told reporters that the reason he flew home so quickly was because his family was taking a vacation to Reno and he really wanted to join them. But that meant getting home quicker, so they figured out a way to get him home on an airplane instead. Okay. Fair. Makes sense. Like everyone in his family said that his father and his mother. And as soon as it's like you, as soon as you started that, it's like, oh, and then they say that and you're like, all right. That makes sense. Yeah, like people go on vacation all the fucking time.

And it's Labor Day weekend. That's like the biggest time to go on vacation. So the trial began in March of 1986 and the prosecution, like I said, had a lot of witnesses, most of whom worked on the Libby 8. I will say the problem with a lot of the witnesses that they had was that a lot of them were struggling with addiction at the time. Okay. So not necessarily like, you can't necessarily believe everything that they said because they might have been hazy at the time of this. There's some impairment happening. Correct. Correct. Correct. I don't know why I said correct. Correct. Correct. I like it. I'm like in court. I know. So the main witnesses from the Libby 8, again, which was the boat that John worked on, were Don Holmstrom, Brian Polinkas, and Larry Demert.

All three of them said that John Peel was lying when he told investigators that he had crashed early on the boat the night of the murders because he was tired. That's what he said to the investigators that crashed early. They all said that he was not on the boat that night. And Larry Demert was actually the one who saw him climb aboard the investor with that bottle in hand. All three of them also said that John was again lying to. the investigators when he told them that he went out on the boat to watch as the investor was on fire because a bunch of them all, I mean, it's kind of shitty that they did this, but they all went out on a smaller boat called the Cindy Sue to see the flames and see what was going on. Yeah.

I mean, it happens, you know. Yeah, like you're just seeing what the hell is happening. Exactly. So he told them, he had told the investigators that he went with them to look at this. But they said he told them that he was too busy with things to do and he was going to go find Mark Colthurst to tell him that the boat was on fire. Hmm. So they also... Interesting. Yeah, they also tore apart his alibi when he said that he saw his girlfriend Robin Thomas that

night. So it's like, first he crashed early and then to account for the rest of the time he was with his girlfriend, Robin Thomas. Okay. Robin Thomas said they were already broken up by that point and she wouldn't have been with him that night. Ooh. Yeah.

The plot thickens. It does. And the other thing about him going on the boat. to see the fire. He had said to the investigators, like a couple of the things were burned. And I think, I believe, I don't have it written down, but I believe he said that it was on the North Cove that they were watching it when it was actually on the South Cove. And then he had said like a certain part of the boat was burned and it wasn't burned. So it was almost like he was a sailor. He would know. He's a sailor. Yeah. It's almost like he was trying too hard to like get it wrong or he just

wasn't there in the first place. And all of them are saying he wasn't there. Huh. So Brian, and Polinkus testified that when he and John were talking about the murders, John said, quote, bless you. Sorry. Not quote. John said, quote, Mark probably tweaked out and shot everyone. But at the time, it wasn't common knowledge that any of the victims were shot. Ooh.

And you all know that this boat was on fire. So why would you think that Mark tweaked out and shot everybody? No. Yeah. Weird. Then came a biggie that I told you earlier would come back. I had said that Dean and Jerome went out to explore and that. they had bought weed from somebody.

Yep. That someone just so happened to be John Peel. Oh. And originally he had told the investigators, he didn't tell the investigators anything about that, about the weed. But he said it was because at the time, when he was arrested at that point, he was married. And he was dating this woman named Kathy or Catherine.

And she had sent him the weed by mail. So he said the reason that he lied was that he didn't want to get her in trouble. But he lied. Yeah. And about like selling a potential murder victim weed. And allegedly during their exchange, Dean mentioned that he was going to be getting 12% of the investors' earnings for the trip. John on the Libby 8 was only getting 3%. So the prosecution surmised that John was pissed and felt like if he had still been working for Mark, that money would have been his. Oh. Right. And if he's sitting there saying that he's making 12%, it might have come up how well.

they did that season. Yeah, of course. Maybe John thinks he's going to find that check on the boat, that $30,000 check. Of course. And he's going to get all the fucking earnings. Again, Wow. It's all allegedly. Yeah, exactly. But there were also other people who said that John Peel actually asked Mark if he could hitch a ride with him out to Alaska for that trip so he could make it to the Libby 8 because he was going to be working on the Libby. And Mark told him no. So John had to like pawn a watch to get money for a ferry ticket and then had to hitch the rest of the way to get on the boat. Oh, damn. So he was already pissed off. Yeah. Then he maybe even got more pissed off because he was fired. Then he's finding out how well Dean is doing. So he's increasingly getting more and more angry.

Yeah. Like by this time, there are three events that would have left him feeling scorned. Of course. So that's a good argument. It's not bad. It definitely is. Now, there was also another skipper who knew John Peel and said he definitely saw him on board the investor the night of the killings. And another witness said that he was the one who sold John Peel gas just hours before the fire. And Don Holmstrom even said that John admitted to killing the family one night through tears. What? Yes. The problem with all of their testimonies, though, they later recanted parts of their statement saying that what they had said was done while they were, quote, under pressure. So all of that went to shit. You can't believe any of it now. Went to shit. Went to shit.

shit. Yeah. So all in all, the trial lasted six months, and when it came time to deliberate, the jury just couldn't decide. Yeah, of course. They were hung, and John Peel's first trial was considered a mistrial. That's not shocking at all. No. So the second trial started in January of 1988, and the newspapers all said that it was the state's longest running prosecution and the most expensive at $2 million. Damn. It took three months of testimony in four days to deliberate, and this time the jury acquitted John Peel. Wow. I mean, it's, it, there's nothing physical. What do you really have? It's all, he might have been mad. He might have been mad. And I lied about what I saw. So it's like, what do we, what do we really have here? Exactly. Wow. So two years later, he filed a hundred and seventy-seven million civil suit against the state for wrongful prosecution. And seven years later, he settled for $900,000. Damn. But by that point, his family had sold their. family home to pay for his defense. So I had mentioned earlier, like when you were doing your case,

but that also happened in my case. And his family was just like ruined. And his name was ruined. And if he didn't do this, then that really sucks. Yeah, it really does. Now, to this day, nobody understands what happened that night and who could have murdered this entire family and crew if it wasn't John Peel. And John Peel was asked by a current affair what he thought it would take for his name to be cleared, like shortly after he was acquitted. And he said for them to solve the case, which like, yes. Yeah. But unfortunately, it's now been 39 years. Thirty-nine. I know. I keep forgetting every time you say the 80s. It wasn't ten years ago. It happens to me every time. 39 years. Wow. Yeah. So Mark Colthurst family full-heartedly believes that John Peel was the right man.

Mark's father, John, said, in one sense, it makes us more at peace because we know who the perpetrator is. And his mother, Sally, added on to that saying, but in another sense, sense, it doesn't do us any good. He's running free, but nothing is going to bring my kids back. People say he'll get his punishment someday. I'd like to live long enough to see it. A conviction wouldn't change our lives, but it would finally put some things away, like having the body of a soldier. Oh. I just got like chills. I know. That really just like a knot in my stomach. It's so sad. And John's family said that the whole case, of the whole case, quote, we really know the case against him is contrived. They, the Alaskan authorities, have misrepresented

themselves, falsified testimony, intimidated witnesses, and changed John's statements before a grand jury. The list is endless. He wants everyone to know about this. It can happen to anyone. Wow. Which it is, it's so crazy that we picked these two cases at the same time because we just saw it happen in Elena's case. This very well could be happening or could have happened to John Peel. For sure. But I also feel like there's not enough to say that he didn't do it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because this one, it's like, I don't know. There's a little more reason. involved. There's a little more meat on this bone, but more witnesses. Not enough. Not necessarily credible witnesses. They haven't erased a reasonable doubt in my mind. Same. Which you can't convict.

If there's reasonable doubt, they tell the jury. If there's reasonable doubt, then you cannot convict. And there is a ton of reasonable doubt. And there's no physical evidence. I need something. Something. But there are a ton of people who do believe that John did this. And police detective David McNeil said, quote, they got the right guy. Just because someone's acquitted doesn't mean they're innocent. It just means there's not enough evidence to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's true. It doesn't mean he's innocent. No, it doesn't at all.

I could not tell you that this guy's innocent and I can't tell you that he's guilty. I don't know. I have no idea. But I wish I could sit here and be like, no. Blah, blah, blah. Like, no. I have been working on this case for two weeks now at this point. Yeah, I have no fucking idea who did this.

Wow. It's crazy. To me, if it is him, there was more people involved. I agree with you. I think there had to have been. I do not. It's going to be real hard to convince me that someone waltzed onto a boat with six adults. Right.

And two children and was like, well, up, I'll just take my chance and see if I can get them all. I mean, like, yeah, you have a gun, obviously. But like, that's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. Not that it's not happened before. It's just, it's stretching. But I mean, I guess if they're all sleeping and who's, I mean, did they have silencers back then for guns? So risky. It's crazy. It's risky. And there's kids on board. Yeah. It's crazy. But if you want to know

like even like a little bit more about this case, you definitely get that book. What Happened in Craig, Alaska's Worst Unsolved Mass Murder by Leland E. Hale. I want to read this so bad. I'll give it to you because I have the physical copy. It's really good. I got to read this. Wow. Really good. That was a wild tale. It's just so sad. And I feel awful for that family. Thirty-nine years later, they still, I mean, they don't have peace. They don't have peace, but the father John said like it gives us a little bit of peace because we feel like we know. But I just want them to, I know nothing will fix it. You know, like nothing's going to take, get them back. No.

Wow. Yeah, it was a doozy. Damn. That sucks. It does. But you told that well. Thanks. You're welcome.

I was like very immersed in this for the past couple weeks. You can tell. Thanks. Well, we hope you keep listening. Yeah. And we hope you. Keep it. Weird. I don't think I have to tell you not to keep it this weird. Yeah, you just, you know.

Don't lie to people. You know. Goodbye.