National Park After Dark - A Murderer on the Loose: Wrangell St. Elias National Park

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Louis Hastings wanted to get away from the fast life of California and into a place where he felt more at peace in nature. He decided the best place to venture to would be the remote town of McCarthy Alaska, a place with limited resources and only accessible by plane during the long winter months. When Louis begins to disagree with the way the state of Alaska is handling the lands, he goes on a murder spree.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Microdose: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.Athletic Greens: Use our link and get a free 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase.Xanterra Travel Collection: Become and employee and get FREE shared onsite housing.Taos AER: Use code NPAD for 30% off.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Alaska, the last frontier, the home of some of the deadliest conditions in America. Known for its dangerous wildlife, unforgiving weather conditions, and drastic landscapes surviving here is not for the faint of heart. While it's dangerous and daunting, it is also a majestic landscape that can easily make you feel less connected to the modern world and more intuitive.

with nature. Alaska is the least densely populated state in the entire U.S. Lewis Hastings moved here from the bustling streets of California to find a new life among the wild, to live amongst few people, and to live up to his standards of environmentally friendly living. But when the state of Alaska fell short on what he expected his life to look like, he went on a murder spree. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Welcome back, everyone, to National Park After Dark. It feels like it's been a hot minute since we've done this. Danielle and I went through and recorded a bunch of episodes in a row. So we're sitting down last time we were in Washington together and now we're back at our home routes where we're each on Zoom right now talking.

I forget how to do this. It feels like to. like it's been a long time, but we hope everyone's enjoying their summer. It's definitely summer in Washington now. It's like 95. I didn't sign up for this. The day I left. Literally. I mean, when we moved here, we're like, oh, we're going to get a break from the heat and think again. I don't enjoy it. But Cassie did bring the summer. I swear to God, the second she left, the sun was shining. I haven't seen a cloud. The tank was clean. The tank was clean. I have not seen a cloud since you've left. And I don't know if that's supposed to make you feel better or worse, but I guess thanks for the nice weather.

Yeah, anytime. It's actually, it's been really nice in Vermont too. And the weather wasn't awful while I was in Washington. It was just cloudy. I saw a rainier a few times. So that was cool. Yeah, but when it's right in my backyard, essentially, and you barely saw it, that's upsetting. Anyways, well, I just realized that this is coming out July 25th.

aren't we going to be in Alaska a year from now? I think so, yeah. And we're doing an episode in Alaska. Right. How I'm happy one year, almost prior anniversary to Alaska. I'm just trying to look forward to little things that I can like grab onto of like, this will be nice. I will be happy at some point in the future.

In the future, a year from now, Alaska will be amazing and it will be beautiful. And we're going to an amazingly beautiful National Park today. We're going to go to Rangel St. Elias National Park. And we are going to be talking about some pretty dark and scary stories that happened there. You did something, what did you abandon town or something here before? Yeah, we went to the Kennel-St. Elias National Park. And we talked about the old mining history there and the hauntings. And this time we're switching it up from that type of story where there was actually a really

series of really brutal murders that happened within the National Park. So we are switching gears and we're going back to some of our true crime routes. I know we like to kind of dabble around and head to a lot of different categories. But today is definitely a true crime episode. All right. I'm ready. All right. Well, we are going to wrangle St. Elias National Park.

And as always, I'd love to tell you about how beautiful. beautiful it is and amazing and tell you that. Even though the story is very scary, you should still go there. Rangel-State Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest national park that is located within the United States. And to give you an idea of how big this park is, it is the size of Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and all of Switzerland combined. Okay. I thought you just threw in a country. Yeah. Okay. Someone measured that. It wasn't me. But it's, it just, just an odd, yeah, I thought we were just going to stick with park references, but then you're like, and an entire country. I don't know how big Switzerland is. It's a decent size. It's a whole ass country,

so. It is a whole ass country. And this park is located in the southeastern part of Alaska, so it borders Canada, and it actually adjoins to a Canadian national park, which is the Cluane National Park. And Rangel St. Elias preserves 13,0.175,799 acres, which is 53,320 square kilometers. So it's massive. This national park begins at sea level elevation, and its mountain peaks reach over 18,000 feet or 5,400 meters in elevation. There are four major mountain ranges that all meet within this area, including nine out of the 16 highest peaks in the entire United States. The Wrangell Mountain Ranges were originally volcanic ranges,

but today, only Mount Rangel remains an active volcano. These ranges formed over 5 million years ago when massive eruptions occurred from the result of tectonic collisions of the Pacific and North American Crestle Plains. So they're very, very old mountain range, huge, beautiful. They're covered in snow all year round in the higher elevations. This park is filled with ice fields and glaciers. Inside of Rangel St. Elias is Malaspina Glacier, which is a glacier that is larger than the entire state of Rhode Island.

Holy shit. It also contains Nabesna Glacier, which is 53 miles or 85 kilometers long, which is one of the longest glaciers in the whole world. Another fun fact about this park is that it has the largest concentration of doll sheep in North America, and there are over 13,000 of them that live there. It's a great place to see them. There's also moose that are often seen around the bogs and the lakes and the rivers in the area. They have mountain goats, caribou, wolves, herds of bison, black bears, grizzly bears. They have all the scary stuff that lives in Alaska is right here in Rangel St. Elias, but beautiful.

They do have smaller mammals like lynxes, wolverines, beavers, foxes, coyotes, and river otters as well. This park has got it going on. That's like everything you want in, in my opinion, everything that you want out of a national park experience from the landscape to the wildlife. This has it. It's like picturesque Alaska. It's everything that you want to see when you go to Alaska. And it's just insanely beautiful. You know, it's filled with the wildlife, the giant peaks, the glaciers, the rivers. It also has these wildflowers that bloom everywhere. One of the wildflowers is known as fireweed, which covers. most of the park during the summer with these bright purple flowers. But they are not the only plants that live here. There are actually 936 species of plants that live within the park. So cover during snow all winter long and then for the short, whatever summer is there, it's just beautiful. But looking at these beautiful, amazing landscapes, you would never dream of the horrors that could happen here. But in March of 1983, one man by the name of Lewis Hastings, went on a murdering spree and sighed a small town within the park called McCarthy.

Never heard of this guy. And in the intro, when you were describing him, I was like, okay, I like it, I like it. I thought it was going to be like an uplifting. Like, he just wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of life as we know it and carve out his little slice of paradise in Alaska and live happily ever after. Yeah, immediately kind of relate to him. Yeah. Like, I get it. I want to live in solitude in the beautiful mountains, get away from civilized society, and go out into the woods, be environmentally friendly. Okay, I see you. And then you're like, hold on, what happened? Yeah, did you say murderous spree? Because that kind of just threw it for me.

I'm binging alone right now. I always go to that. It's like my comfort show anytime that I need just like something in the background. I always put on alone. And season, I think, season eight just got released on Netflix. So I've been watching it. And it's in British Columbia. So it's like kind of Alaska looking. Okay. It's just something about not that I could ever fucking do it. I could not. I would not survive. I don't think I could do it. I don't have the necessary skills needed. But there's just something so romantic about going out with just like what's on your back and making a living and just like surviving. And just like surviving. And figuring it out. Those people are wild on alone though because they go on that show and they're like,

yeah, when I was in survival school, I learned how to sew a net together with my toenails and grass and then they go out and they do it and then they catch a bunch of fish or whatever they do. They just have these crazy things. I'm like, what in the world is going on? I remember this one, oh, God, what? I don't know what season it was. It might have been Patagonia. I don't know what it was, but this woman like made traps out of her hair. I saw that one. I don't remember. She was getting snowshoe hair with her hair.

I think that was in Northern Canada. Okay, yeah, I don't know which one it was, but I was just blown away. Yeah. We would not survive. We talk about survival stories. We don't actually survive in them. There's a difference. I am confident I would die very quickly.

Winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Back to Luce Hastings. We'll give you a little brief overview of who he was before he to Alaska. So Lewis Hastings was originally born in Leewood, Kansas on January 1st, 1944.

When he was young, his father abandoned him and he grew up with his mother and sister. Throughout his adolescent years, he was a very quiet person who was periodically being treated for depression as a teenager. Although he did have some struggles mentally, he was always described to be a very kind person, although he was also described to be very shy, but he was also known for his love of animals. He enjoyed taking care of them, and at one point, he even took a volunteer trip out to California to clean birds after there was an oil spill on the coast. He was described as a bit of an environmentalist as a young age, because he was always advocating for things that we probably advocate for recycling, clean the birds, oil spills, but he was always a little weird about it. You know,

there was always something a little off, but most people chalked it up to him just being shy, a loner, a little weird, but other than that, harmless. After high school, he went off and joined the Air Force, where he served for a few years before enrolling in school to become a computer programmer. Eventually, around the year 1975, he moved out to California to work at Stanford University as a computer programmer. While he was there, he met a woman by the name of Madeline Stoval, who was a little. librarian at Stanford. Soon after they met, they fell in love and they were married in June of

1979. Both of them were nature enthusiasts and after their wedding, they decided that for their honeymoon, they wanted to visit one of the wild landscapes of Alaska. So they booked a trip to the Kennecott Glacier Lodge, Inside Rangel St. Elias National Park. This lodge was perfect for a honeymoon. This bright red sits on a hillside with these massive snow-cap mountain ranges. as its backdrop. It's a very remote family-owned lodge, about 315 miles or 505 kilometers east of Anchorage that you can reach by a car in the summertime or a small plane. The inside of the lodge is rustic and charming. There's lots of history from the area. There's good food, good drinks, and all around good community. And during their stay, they fell in love with the lifestyle of the locals there.

They loved the solitude, they loved the wild landscapes, and they decided that they didn't want to just honeymoon there. They wanted to move to Alaska long term for themselves. When they returned to California, they began planning their move, and by the following spring, they had quit their jobs and moved into a duplex inside of Anchorage, Alaska. And it was here where Lewis started his own computer service company for himself. His time at Anchorage, though, proved to be a difficult one, and tensions within him began to rise. His computer service company wasn't supporting them well financially, and issues within their marriage started to arise. On top of that, Anchorage was certainly not the Alaskan land that he wanted to live within. It was a heavily populated area.

There were people there, and there were more and more people who were moving there because of the trans-Alascan pipeline that was put in. Now, if you're not familiar with the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, it is an oil transportation system that was built in the 1970s that spent. spans across Alaska. It's one of the largest pipeline systems in the entire world, and when it was originally built, there was a lot of pushback for it. There was pushback from the Alaska Federation of Natives and several environmental groups, but it ended up being built anyway with a couple compromises made along the way. Lewis Hastings hated the trans-alaskan pipeline. He was a big advocate for the environment, and the pipeline posed a huge risk to the landscapes and interrupt wild life patterns in those areas. One big argument with the pipeline was that it was going to interfere

with caribou migration patterns. I was just going to say migration patterns, especially if it's so large and so expansive, the ramifications of how it's affecting, you know, the environment and obviously animals that rely on migration and stuff, that's the first thing that came to mind, as far as an argument against it. Yeah. And I don't know if anyone else agrees. with me on this, but when I hear pipeline, sometimes I think of like pipes in the ground. And pipelines are above ground completely. And if you see pictures of the trans-alaskan pipeline, it's really this huge pipe standing feet off the ground blocking off massive areas. So that was an issue. One thing that they did do to combat it is they built these like crossing bridges. Like

wildlife crossing bridges. Yeah. How you see them in the roads. It was. It was. It was. It was. You was the same thing for the pipeline. But that wasn't the only reason that Lewis Hastings hated it. It wasn't just about the environmental implications that it had. Louis Hastings had moved to Alaska because he liked the solitude there. He enjoyed the wilderness of what he saw Alaska was supposed to be. It was supposed to be remote, slower living. It was supposed to be wild. You were supposed to Fish your own fish, hunt your own moose, live off the land. It's the last frontier. He just pictured it being so wild. And this Alaskan pipeline was bringing in thousands and thousands of workers, which were populating this area that was supposed to be remote. I do have a question about Lewis. Sure. Does he have these skills to live off of the land?

Not from anything that I read. Okay. So then what the hell does he care? Like, I mean, I mean, I understand you're going there thinking that it's going to be one thing and it's turning out to be another. But if you can't even participate in what you're envisioning, what I don't understand that. It's like, I want to go to Alaska and I want everyone around me to be subsistence hunting and fishing, but I don't know how. But like I want to be somewhere that that's a thing. It just seems a little hypocritical. He's definitely hypocritical and his thinking gets very outlandish. he does end up with all of these tensions where he's having all of these anger towards society

and the pipeline and everything. He does decide that he does want to head out into the wilderness. And he decides him and his wife, because his wife did move out there with him, decided that they wanted to buy a place where they had first honeymoon and the reason why they first came out there in their first place in Rangel St. Elias National Park. So inside of the park, about five miles away from where they honeymooned near the Kennecott Lodge, they bought a small cabin in the remote town of McCarthy. Now, McCarthy is a very small town. At the time, there were only 22 residents that lived there. Damn.

That's like the only thing I can compare that to is Rachel Nevada when Ian and I were there. I've never been. Well, I don't blame you. for you guys. That was definitely the smallest town I've ever been in in my whole life. And I can't even say it was really a town. Like the only establishment we saw was the little alien and like one gas pump next to it. And that was it. I'm like, where do people live? Like, where are the structures around here? Well, I think McCarthy would give Rachel Nevada a run for its money because I say it's a town, but there's no town center. There's nothing like that. And in fact, most of their houses,

are actually miles away from each other. Like your neighbors are not your neighbors. Your neighbors are a 30-minute snowmobile ride away. Okay. Yep. This town was so remote that in the wintertime, the only way to access the area was by plane. You could theoretically use a snowmobile,

but it was a really long trek to do that. So you could only access the town by plane. And this was really a town in Alaska that never caught up to the technologies of modern society. Living here was very simple. There was no electricity. There was no running water. If you wanted electricity, you had to make it yourself.

If you wanted running water, you had to go out to the pond and cut through some ice and collect your own. There were no law enforcement here. There's no hospitals. If you ever have to call 911, that's not a thing because there weren't phones. You are out. You're a pioneer, is what you are. You are. You're a pioneer. You are living off of the land. Not, not completely because the plane, they did have an airstrip there. And it was in town. And that air strip would come every Tuesday that would bring in your mail. And it would also bring in grocery supplies or any other supplies that you needed. So you would, I don't really know how they went about ordering it because it's not like they had an online thing. It was probably, something where they just spoke between the pilots or they had like a set thing. But once a week, as long as the weather was good, an airplane would come to the airstrip within McCarthy

and drop off pretty much a supply package and mail. Yeah, it's like ordering in bulk. You just, that's what you get. This is what Lewis Hastings was looking for. He wanted to get completely away from society. He wanted to live off the grid. And he was certainly doing that. And this was a place, they're in the middle of Alaska. Everyone's armed. Everyone has weapons, or I say weapons, but everyone has guns because people are hunting. It wasn't so much for people. It was just because people were hunting in the summertime bears you had to be worried about. It was just very common if you did see one of the 22 people roaming around McCarthy that they had a gun on them. I think it's pretty standard. Yeah. In Alaska as a whole. Yeah, in Alaska, anywhere at any point in

time in any town to have. They don't have bear spray. It's just a gun. Yeah, they look at you with bear spray. Like, you have five heads. Like, what are you going to do with that? Like, you city slicker. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hyperbler. hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting.

Watch only on Prime. In the town with the airstrip, and I said the plane that comes in, they didn't have a post office, but they did have two designated unofficial postmasters who lived very close to the airstrip, and their names were Flo and Les Hegel. Now, during the winter months, they were totally cut off from society, like I said. So this mail that came in once a week actually became a social event. Every Tuesday, everyone in the town of McCarthy would head to the Higglands cabin. And the Higglands would make coffee.

They would make cobbler. They would all catch up, talk, chit-chat. It became a weekly thing. They all knew each other. And they would hang out in their cabin waiting for the mail plane to come. After they'd talk, chat, eat their breakfast, drink coffee, they would head out on their dog sleds or their snowmobiles to go out to the airstrip to collect their mail. Louis Hastings had also partaken in these weekly gatherings at the Heglans, although he mostly remained quiet and reserved to himself. He was never rude, but he was described as being aloof.

He wasn't social, but he wasn't unfriendly. He was always kind to people. If people spoke to him, he would speak back. but he never went out of his way to make conversation or become friends with any of the residents in McCarthy. Okay, this is concerning because this feels like you're describing me. Like, am I a serial killer? Like, I'm like, okay, and the problem is what?

Well, that's the thing with Liz Hastings is no one thought anything of it. Like, okay, he likes his own time. He moved out to McCarthy to be away from people. We get it. Right. No one really questioned it. Yeah, not everyone is like cut out to be a social butterfly, okay? That's all I'm saying.

Not everybody has to light up a room when they walk into it. Some people just stand in the corner. I'm just taking this personally right now. I don't know why I'm just fired up. But okay, I know it gets bad. So I'm not trying to say that I like him. I know he's easy to relate to at the moment, but he changes for sure. Okay.

All right. Although he didn't have friends per se. he did strike up kind of a friendship with one of the other residents in town. His name was Chris Richards. And he was really the only resident that Lewis would ever spend time with. Although it was very rare that he would spend time, there were nights that he would go over to Chris's cabin where they would drink and play chess and talk.

It was mostly pretty silent because it was a chess game, kind of his way. He didn't talk much. But he was the only person in town that actually that he would spend any time with. Overall, Lewis Hastings enjoyed his solitude and he enjoyed Alaska. And from a superficial standpoint, he seemed like a relatively normal person within their community. However, within the solitude, Lewis was becoming more and more angry. He had his own ideals about what society should be, how it should be in Alaska and how the environment should be treated there.

He had left Anchorage, but the trans-alaskan pipeline system ran through Wrangley-St. Elias and served as a reminder of what he hated and viewed as detrimental to the Alaskan way of life and its beautiful remote landscapes. He began to plot how to dismantle the pipeline. He started to view himself as the savior to the Alaskan wilderness and that he was the only person that would be able to stop this madness that had been going on around him. This gives me, and I could be so off base, like really off base. So if I am, please tell me. But this reminds me, or it gives me similar, I don't know, I don't remember his name. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Yeah, where he hit out in his cabin. Didn't he have like a similar M.O. of like he, something about the environment, wasn't he environmentally driven to in some way?

I thought he was just a hermit in the mountains. I don't know for some reason. I didn't know if he, like, really cared about the environment. I know he was like political. charged. Okay, maybe that's it. I don't know. It just gives me, it seems kind of similar. I mean, they're both violent and they're both hermits living in the middle of the wilderness, living off the land. And when you said like the savior, this like savior complex, I don't know for some reason. I can definitely see how you can relate the two of them. Okay. They're different, but they definitely have similarities. Okay. During these winter months, he would spend long days and night staying up, just dreaming of ways that he could put a stop to the trans-alaskan pipeline.

He couldn't wait to carry out his plan. He thought about it. He came up with different ideas in his head. And eventually, he came to a conclusion of what he wanted to do. He decided that he would need to commandeer the mail plane. He plotted to hijack the plane where he would then fly into Glen Allen, Alaska, which was a small town nearby that's at the gateway of the National In Glenn Allen, there were some major roads and highways where he would then be able to steal a fuel truck that he would then drive straight into the Tran-Alaskan oil pipeline pump station and blow it up. Okay.

He had come to the conclusion that in order for his plan to work, he would have to die. Oh, okay. So he's like kamikazeing this situation. Okay. He is set in this. He knows that if he is able to blow him. low up one of these pipeline stations, it would be detrimental, especially, I guess, in the winter months, the oil if it gets in really cold temperatures, is really cold. If it's blown up in that

area, it would take a really long time to put the pipeline back together. And it would throw a huge wrench in what was going on. It would throw a wrench in the jobs that were happening, people flocking there. So he decided that this was his plan. There was one major issue in his plan that he discovered or believed. He didn't want anyone in his family to know that it was him who had done this. He didn't think that they would be happy with it. They thought it would bring shame to his family, shame to his wife, who at the time they weren't doing well, she had actually decided to stay most of the time in Anchorage because they had two homes. They had their cabin in McCarthy, but they also had their duplex still in Anchorage. So she had kind of veered away from him and had been

staying in Anchorage most of the time. He was adamant that he did not want his family to find out that he was the one who carried out this plan. And in his mind, the only way to make sure that no one ever found out that he was the person who blew up the pipeline was to kill every possible witness beforehand. So he derived a plan to kill all 22 residents of McCarthy. Okay. There's obviously a lot wrong with that solution, air quotes. But what do you mean? How would that solve that problem? He's still going to be dead and they're going to link. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not like they're going to be like, oh, I guess he just left and we've never heard from him again. And coincidentally, the same day that he disappeared, this huge explosion in the pipeline happened when we know that he hated it.

That was my thought too. Or if his remains are there and they figure out everyone in McCarthy is dead, except they can't find him there. It just, yeah, it doesn't seem very, I feel like there's a lot of holes in this boat. Yeah. First off, my first thing was, okay, you managed to commandeer the plane. I'm assuming he could fly a plane. Like, if this is his plan, then he gets there, and now he also has to commandeer a fuel truck. He's in Alaska. Every, I mean, he's, I'm sure his plan, I know his plan is to be armed, but other people in Alaska are armed. So you have to do these two major hijackings before you can even drive into the pipeline. Yeah, I agree with you when I was reading this.

There were so many holes in it. And I'm like, this isn't rational thinking, but. Well, neither is killing 22 people. Exactly. He's not a rational person as we are learning from these crazy ideas. Over the next few months, Lewis acquired more guns, and he bought over 2,000 rounds of ammunition. He then built his own silencer for his pistol that he had made from beaver fur, which was essentially this big glove of beaver fur that covered the end of his pistol.

He then spent time practicing shooting rabbits. He did this to practice his aim, but he also did this because he wasn't really a hunter, and he had no practice killing anything. and he wasn't sure if he would even be able to do it. So in his mind, killing these rabbits would prepare him to take a human life. Yeah, this is not the first thing I had, question I had in that statement was, okay, so I guess he really wasn't a subsistence hunter. It's like, I want to go to Alaska to live off the land.

And by live off the land, I mean, watch people do it, but not myself. I'm not going to participate. I order all my groceries from the plane. Yeah. It's just a walking contradiction. There's nothing that makes sense about him because he doesn't make sense. You can't figure out a mad person. I just feel like we're having this like prolonged drawn out back and forth about how he doesn't

make sense. And it's probably super fucking annoying to listen to. But it doesn't really, it really truly doesn't make sense. We're like, what is happening right now? We're so confused. The morning of Tuesday, March 1st, 1983 was a. cold and dark one in McCarthy. It was negative 8 degrees Fahrenheit, which is negative 22 degrees Celsius, and that day had a wind chill that made it feel much, much colder. The night before, Lewis had

spent at Chris Richards' house drinking and playing chess, like sometimes he did, but today he armed himself with two pistols, grabbed 2,000 rounds of ammunition, and headed back to Chris's house. Although it wasn't often that Lewis came to Chris's house in the morning, when Chris, Chris had seen him walking up from afar, he didn't think anything odd was happening. Instead, he put some water on to make a cup of coffee for the two of them. When Lewis arrived, he invited him inside. As he turned to grab a mug for coffee, Lewis lifted up his hand to Chris's head that underneath a mound of beaver fur held a pistol.

In the exact moment that Lewis held the gun up, Chris had moved his head seeing the fur. and when Lewis shot, the bullet grazed the side of his face. It took a moment for Chris to realize exactly what had just happened. At first, he thought it was some weird joke where he had gotten punched in the face by some toy Lewis had brought in because the last thing he saw was this big fur mass in front of his face. He fell to the ground, holding on to his new wounds for just a moment before he realized what was happening. Chris started yelling to Lewis, begging him to stop whatever he was doing. but Lewis stood there calmly and mocked his begging.

And then he looked at Chris and stated very flatly, Just don't fight it, I'll make your death easy. At these words, Chris became enraged and launched himself at Lewis and a struggle ensued. Seeing a knife on a nearby table, Chris grabbed it and stabbed Lewis in the chest and the thigh. When Lewis fell to the ground, Chris took the opportunity to take off running. He left so quickly that he had no time to put on a jacket or shoes. Well, yeah. Hell. Lewis grabbed his rifle and just kept shooting, Nicking Chris in the arm as he fled.

Chris was now on a mission to warn the neighbors and to find help for himself. He first found himself at a lodge, but it was empty. He was bleeding and cold, and when he went in, there was nothing there for him to grab. There were no weapons, no clothing. So he ran out the back door and began making his way to another cabin in hopes of finding someone. This time, though, he steered away from the regular trail and stuck to the snow in the woods in hopes of avoiding Lewis. Unbeknownst to him, Lewis had been following his footprints and bloody trail to the lodge. When he arrived, he believed that Lewis was still inside and set it ablaze.

He waited and watched as the whole building caught fire. When he was satisfied that Chris had been killed, Lewis took off hiking through the snow for four miles, heading to the Hegelons home, knowing that today was Tuesday, it was mail day, and the whole town would be gathered there. He saw this as the perfect opportunity to kill the entire town at one time. That morning, Maxine Edwards was at the Hegelons home for her male morning gobbler and coffee. It was almost her 25-year anniversary with her husband, Jim, and they were eagerly expecting a gift from their children to come in that day. Maxine had volunteered to go in to go get it. They were expecting a silver platter that was dedicated to them.

When Lewis arrived, he burst through the front doors with his gun aimed. In a quick moment, he shot Flo Hegeland, her husband Les and Maxine Edwards. He was intent that no one was allowed to survive this brutal attack. And he walked up to each one of them and fired a final shot. God, this is brutal. That's why I have wine. Then in an attempt to cover up what had happened, he dragged them into a bare, back room so when others arrived, they would not have seen what he had done. He cleaned up quickly,

but not great, but just enough so that when people first walked in, they wouldn't expect anything was a miss. And once they came inside, he had a plan to kill each person one by one. Meanwhile, Chris Richards had made his way to a neighbor's cabin, which also was empty. He had managed to break a window and get inside. Here he was able to find warm clothes, boots, and snow shoes. But he was not able to find any weapons, but he was still intent on being able to warn the others in town. So he began making his way to another neighbor's house. And remember, he is bleeding. He's been shot in the face. He was shot in the arm. He's struggling. He was just attacked. And he is just meeting lodge after lodge that is empty. And now he's heading to another neighbor's house, Tim and Amy Nash,

who were a newlywed couple who had just returned from their honeymoon. When he finally did make it, He burst through the Nash's front doors, exclaiming that he had been shot by Lewis and that they needed to get to the airstrip as soon as possible to warn the others in town. Tim and Amy, seeing his state and the amount of blood, bandaged him up quickly, and then they took off on a snowmobile, towing Chris behind them. When they got to the airstrip, Gary Green, the male pilot, was there waiting. They raced up as fast as they could and quickly told him what was happening, that Lewis was out shooting people and they had no idea where he was now, but they needed him to fly back and tell police and bring Chris to a hospital. With this new information, Gary then told them that he had seen Lewis earlier that morning. He had seen him walking towards the Hegeland's house, and Lewis had stopped and stared at him for a moment. Gary, who normally would walk over and say hi to the residents as he knew all of them,

decided to stay next to the plane because he was never a fan of Lewis and thought that something was odd about him. Lewis stood there staring at Gary, but after a moment, he left and walked towards the Hegelons house. With Gary, the only one who could help, he began warming up the plane to get it ready to bring Chris to the hospital and inform authorities. With the Hegeland's house so close by, Tim Nash volunteered to go check on them and make sure that they were okay. He was cautious when he arrived to their house and he ducked below the windows and was extremely quiet. He was armed with a rifle and had his hand on the trigger when he walked in. Immediately he could smell gun smoke and noticed blood on the floor, but Lewis was nowhere to be seen. He slowly made his way around the cabin when suddenly he was met by gunfire and found himself shot in the leg.

returned fire without seeing if he had hit Lewis before running out of the cabin and back to the airstrip. He told them what had happened and that he believed that the Hegelands were already dead based on the gun smoke and the blood that he had seen inside the cabin. With this, the pilot insisted that they leave and that Tim and Amy come with them. It just wasn't safe here. But Tim's gunshot wound wasn't life-threatening and the two of them insisted that they needed to stay behind because more of the town would be there soon to pick up their mail, and they needed to warn them what was going on, before they got to the Higglins and it was too late. Gary, although hesitant, agreed and took off to alert authorities and bring Chris to a hospital. In route, Gary puts a call out on the radio to

another mail plane that was scheduled to come in that day and tells them what happened, and that they need to turn around and alert authorities immediately. The other pilot was a lot closer to Lynn Allen than he was, and it would be a lot faster to alert authorities if they did it instead of him. Within minutes of this radio call, Alaska State Troopers got the news of the attacks, but with very limited information on what exactly was happening. With only three troopers in the area and the closest police station outside of there in Anchorage, over 300 miles away, there was no one else that could help. So these three troopers armed themselves before commandeering an Alaska pipeline helicopter and setting out.

Helicopters are slow moving though, and it was going to take them an hour and a half to reach McCarthy. It's a long-ass time when you need help immediately. At the airstrip, Tim and Amy were still standing guard to warn anyone approaching. What they didn't realize was that Lewis was no longer waiting for people to walk into the Hegelons home. He had perched himself up at the airstrip behind a snowbank with a... a very close distance behind Tim and Amy.

He fired his weapon twice, shooting both Amy and Tim. After they fell to the ground, Lewis walked over and took another final shot into each of them. For someone who didn't, was never even cruel to animals up into this point, like, this is so cold, like, the way that this is all unfolding. So cold and personal and, like, just, I don't know. Not to say that if you're cruel to animals, that you'll be able to. shoot someone point blank, but it just seems like a really large leap. Well, especially when you learn about serial killers and some of the early signs of them is cruelty to animals or just

like no regard for human life to see him go from just a quiet loner loves birds and other animals to go to calculated cold murder is just so wild and so unexpected. After he shot the two of them, he then attempted to drag their bodies away from the airstrip in an attempt to conceal them from people approaching. But very soon, he heard a snowmobile. It was two residents named Harley King and Donna Byram. Donna was planning to fly out on the mail plane that day, and Harley had offered to give her a ride. As soon as they got onto the airstrip, they noticed the large amount of blood on the ground and quickly saw the bodies of Tim and Amy. A moment later, Harley was shot. Donna leaned down to help him. him with Lewis calmly walking down the runway towards them. Harley began yelling at her to run.

With a moment of hesitation, she followed his instructions and took off into the woods. Donna ran to the Higglens home to hide out, but when she saw that the door was already open, she was afraid to enter. Instead, she ran around to the back and hid outside of the Higlin's greenhouse. Within only a few minutes, she heard the crunching of boots in the snow outside. Donna held her breath. Lewis called out to her. her, he told her. Harley wasn't dead yet, but he would be if she didn't come out from wherever she was hiding. But Donna remained silent. Barely breathing or making a sound, he called out to her again, saying the same thing. She heard his boots nearby in the snow, and they were circling the area she was in.

Lewis, however, was growing nervous. He couldn't find her, and now he knew that there was a witness who had escaped. He headed back to the airstrip where Tim and Amy had their snowmobile. His plan was unraveling and he needed to get away. He loaded up two duffel bags with his weapons and survival gear before taking off into the woods. By this time, it had been five and a half hours since the shooting began and the state troopers helicopter was finally approaching the airstrip. They immediately saw a body laying in the snow and then further down the runway, they saw two more. They took off to conduct an aerial search to try and find Lewis and within minutes, they saw the snowmobile heading towards the mountains. They began to follow him and after a short time he entered into a large enough clearing

that the helicopter was able to land. Lewis, who recognized the helicopter to be one of the Alaskan Pipeline helicopters, thought that they were there to give him a ride into town. And he waved to them before stopping his snowmobile and stepping off. What an idiot. Sorry, but why would they be like, oh, you need a ride into town? Why would they... Like, here we are. Yeah, that's weird. The officers jumped out with their guns drawn and demanded he put his hands in the air. There were a few moments where Lewis hesitated. He would raise his hands in the air, then he would put them back down. And next to him, on top of his snowmobile, was one of his loaded guns.

And he was debating if he had time to grab it and win in a gun fight. Against three officers. As soon as you reach for a gun, too. Yeah, like what? After they know that you're clearly dangerous, they just saw the bodies of three different people that you murdered. The audacity that this guy has, like, what do you think is going to happen? Well, he decides against it. He's like, I know that the odds are not great for this. So he decides to comply with the officers, but he has a quick idea. He yells out to them and says, my name is Chris Richards.

I'm one of the victims here too. Authorities are reluctant to believe him, however, because they had already gotten word that Chris was heading to the hospital. When they apprehend him, it's confirmed that they were right because he had his ID with his photo and his wallet on him. Once they have them in custody, the troopers returned to the airstrip to search for any survivors. Quickly, they find Donna Byram still hiding out by the greenhouse. She had been shot in the arm while running from Lewis. The arm wound was really bad. If the weather had not been so cold that day, it was more than likely that she would have bled out before they ever found her, but she was still alive. Lewis Hastings killed six people that day. Donna Byram and Chris Richards were the only people who he had attacked that survived.

Six out of the 22 members of the town of McCarthy were killed in a matter of just a few hours. The following year in 1984, Lewis Hastings was tried for six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. His lawyer initiated a mental illness defense, claiming he had a personality disorder that made him consider himself godlike and better than others, which was what made him make these decisions that day. The judge didn't agree with this defense. Although he agreed there was probably some mental illness, he didn't think that that was an excuse for what had happened. And he sentenced Lewis Hastings to six 99-year terms for each person that died that day. And he also sentenced him to two 20-year terms for the attempted murder convictions. This put Lewis Hastings

sentencing at over 600 years and his release date is listed as 2,617. I feel like this is one of the rare stories that the punishment fits the crime. Do you agree? I feel like a lot of different cases murder-related. Yeah, if they're convicted, they do receive prison time. And and things like that, but nothing seems like as severe as this. It'll be 25 years for some horrific murder. Yeah, and then they're like, oh, but chance of parole after 10. It's like, what in the world is going on? Like, I feel like this actually does kind of fit the bill.

There's justice being served here. Yeah, like those people received the justice that they deserved for what happened to them. And I don't know why we don't see that more often. But it's nice to see that outcome out of such a horrible, horrible string of events, you know. Yeah. And I imagine the families feel, I mean, there's nothing that could ever bring those people back. And it's horrible what happened. But I imagine just knowing that he is never going to see daylight again.

He's, or not daylight, but he's never going to be outside of the prison ever again in his life. Is at least a, well, at least he's being punished. And this happened in the 70s, you said. In 1983. Oh, 80s. Okay. So Lewis is actually 78 years old right now. He is still serving his sentence.

He is at the Spring Creek Correctional Facility in Seward, Alaska, with no hopes of ever getting out of prison. Well, he deserves it. Yeah. Good red ends. I mean, I'm all for, you know, like, you believe in something that's wrong, the pipeline, what oil spills, the rainforest, whatever. But I just like, when people take it to such a fucking extreme of taking it. other people's lives. It's just I don't understand where that switch happens because I just feel like there are two traits that I guess in my mind don't go hand in hand. Like having compassion and

empathy for animals in the environment and wanting no harm to come to them. But then you're okay with a total disregard for human life. Like those things to me, how are, how do those two schools of thought coexist in a single person? Do you know what I mean? That's not what loving the environment is about. You don't get to choose one side and then pick the other too. If you love the environment, you love things as a whole. And it's just, I agree with you. A thousand percent. You can't, from every, everyone hears us talk weekly and they know we love the environment and we're always advocating for environmentally friendly things and practices. But this is extreme. This is an extremist person who went out and carried on something that one never even helped the

environment and probably never would have even if he did complete it. Absolutely not. It would have been a hiccup. Yeah. I mean, in the whole thing. Like, yeah, it would have thrown a wrench in it, like you said, but it would have never, you think they're going to be like, well, I guess we got to just like scrap this whole project. Yeah, this hundreds and hundreds of mile long pipeline, you blow up one small section of it. You think that's going to do anything at all? Yeah. It's just the way he went about it from even if you're just looking at the pipeline section to literally murdering people to try and get your point across and then he didn't want anyone to find out about it. Well, now everyone knows about it.

Your family knows you did this. The world knows you did this. Everyone listening knows you did this. The whole thing just seems so senseless and not thought out in terms of being productive at all and left a lot of families really devastated and it's very, very sad. Oh, God. Well, thanks for sharing, I guess. You say that after every true crime episode I do.

I don't know what else to say. Thanks for sharing, I guess. We are a true crime podcast. There's just no eloquent way to end it other than it just, it's terrible. And there's never a good outcome for anybody involved, you know, in any story that has to do with true crime. No. And then you've left these survivors with survivors' guilt, trauma. everlasting trauma.

You know, there's just so much that he's taken from the people of McCarthy, including lives. And it's just an overall sad thing. I hope that, I don't know. I, it's just sad. Do you know how the town stands today? There's, it's still a town. Last I read that there's over a hundred people who live there now.

Oh, okay. I did see that they've updated some of their practices and the mail plane comes twice a week now. Wow. That's really cool. So they're basically on the grid now. Essentially, yeah. But really, even though this story is awful and we're all sad now, Rangel St. Elias in Alaska is just such a beautiful area. Alaska is probably one of my favorite states to visit. And I think it's definitely a destination that everyone should try to get to at some point.

Regardless of these awful stories, it's a really, really cool location. And there's a reason why so many people love being there. Yeah, and I'll find out in a year. One year from now. But we'll see you all next week. And in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye.

Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Become an outsider. by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly bonus stories and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our partners, you're supporting our show. To access our special discount codes along with source information from today's episode,

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