National Park After Dark - Murders on the Mountain: Volcanoes National Park (Part 2)

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

In part two of the story of Dian Fossey we discuss Dian’s murder, who could be responsible, her unethical practices, and who paid the ultimate price during the messy, questionable and confusing process of uncovering the truth. Lean more about and contribute to the Fossey Fund HERE.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!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.Away: Use our link and start your 100-day trial. Faherty: Use our link and get 20% when you use code NPAD at checkout. Stride Career Prep: Help your student take charge of their education and their future.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Listen to Monday.com. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes. Go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally, breathe. Welcome back everyone to National Park After Dark. This is episode two on Diane Fossey. Daniel's first two-parter. It feels weird. I don't know how I, because I'm not in the groove, you know, like we stop. abruptly and now it's like a week later. Well, you left us all on quite a cliffhanger. You're just like Diane Fosse led this crazy life. She did all this. She made a couple people mad and then she was brutally murdered. Okay, bye. See you later. All right, bye. Well, it was more than a couple people and we'll get into that. I did kind of write a little bit of a recap for everybody. So we're going to just begin with that, just so we're all on the same page. But if you have not listened to episode 75, like this is not going to do it justice, so go ahead, get on back there, listen to it.

You need the first one. For sure. So bringing us back to where we left off, we discussed Volcano's National Park and the work that Diane Fossey accomplished in the park regarding the mountain gorilla. We talked about the animal in depth and the danger that their population was under just different threats that were going on within the park, poaching and habitat loss, etc. by the time that Diane got to work in Africa. And Diane had been working in Africa studying the mountain gorillas and actively fighting for their protection for years.

She deployed what she dubbed active conservation. Remember those different tactics that were a little severe but successful. And they did cause a lot of unrest and a lot of trouble. While she had set up a successful research center in Volcanoes National Park, she was also getting on the bad side of some really dangerous and prominent people in her crusade to help the animals and to protect their environment. She was in Africa for just shy of around two decades by the time December of 1985 rolled around, and that is when she was found murdered in her cabin within the park.

So that's where we're at. And now you're going to tell us about what happened. Yes. We've all been waiting. Tell us. I don't know this story, so I'm excited. Okay. There's a lot of questions. It's a lot of unanswered stuff, but it's going to be a wild ride. So here we go. So we are now in the morning of December 26 and or December 27th. There's so many different sources, say one or the two. And both dates are

marked and reputable sources. So one of those days. And what year was it again? This is 1985. 1885. Okay. So December 1985, just after Christmas, Wayne McGuire, one of the researchers at at Karasoki, which is the research center that she had established, walked into Diane's cabin and immediately knew that something was off. The cabin was very still and eerily quiet. Papers were strewn around the room and furniture was knocked all over the place. He slowly made his way through the cabin, careful to avoid the furniture and items thrown around, and he approached the bed and laying next to it was Diane's body. Her eyes were open, but it was clear that she was long gone. She had been deceased for a while. She was laying face up with a large

gash across her face that covered her nose and spayed onto her cheek. There was blood behind her head and matted in her hair. Her hands were up by her sides and they showed visible defense wounds on them and clutched within each of her hands were two different clumps of hair. The slashes and gashes on her body made it abundantly clear that she had been murdered with a machete that was later located underneath her bed. The entire camp was notified of the situation and authorities were alerted. Upon initial investigation of the scene, a few things stuck out right away. First, there were two sets of footprints that were found around the camp. They passed right by several cabins, including Wains, who came upon the scene first, and they led straight to Diane's cabin. This would lead to the

belief that obviously there's two people involved in the crime if there's two sets of prints. Next, there's the cabin itself. Like I mentioned, there were things everywhere. I mean, like George were pulled open, furniture was knocked over, there was paperwork everywhere. So at first glance, it looks like someone was clearly searching for something. And there was also a three by three foot hole that was cut through the corrugated iron siding of the cabin, kind of right near Diane's bed that was initially reported as a point of entry for this murderer or pair of murderers. So they broke in by cutting a hole into the side of her cabin? That's what was first reported, yes.

Okay. That seems like a really extensive way to get into a cabin. Right, because there's also a front door. And we'll get into that. And probably windows, yeah. Right. So one of the Karasoki researchers noted one of the first observations that would lead to what would just become like one of many, many questions.

The footprints were not shoe prints. They were actual footprints. These people were going barefoot. And he had remarked, quote, white men don't walk around without shoes, while we Rwandans do that very easily. So that was kind of like the first clue as to who these people could have been. The footprints were marked in circles, like encircled and kind of. and kind of protected until the police arrived.

But ultimately, when the police got there, they seemed really uninterested in them. So the people who had circled them and set them aside and noticed that they were just regular footprints and, you know, shoeless were the researchers at Carasoki. So not law enforcement at all? No. At this point, this is just the people who are at the research center

making these first observation. So they circle them, kind of like bring it to the attention of authorities, and at this point, it's not even clear if photographs were ever even taken of these prints, let alone cast, casts were never taken of the prints themselves either. So all in all, there was actually very little to no effort to protect this crime scene in any way. Like if you're envisioning the classic crime scene tape, everyone out of the area, there's crime scene photographers, protective gear used, limited entry into the scene, like that is not what is happening here at all. The hair that was in Diane's hands were collected by a member of the U.S. Embassy. Her name was Kathleen Austin. And she says that the police

were aware of her doing this and actually watched her do it and didn't even bother to intervene or to collect their own samples. And the hair samples were collected separately. So one sample from her right hand was packaged and then one from her left. So they were separated. And the intention was that they were going to be sent to the FBI for analysis. DNA analysis, see if they could find out who did this. Right. So next back to that hole in the wall, which is very odd. Because like I said, the first reports, I mean, if you look at old news footage

of this story being broke. Because remember, Diane is a huge public figure. Like, everyone knows who she is. This is a high profile case. It's a very violent crime. It's all over the news. And there is footage of reporters saying, you know, stating, that this is what happened. Like the intruders came in this way. Like it was being reported as fact.

Okay. I'm guessing you're going to say it's not true. And I'm just by the way that you're saying it. But it's just weird to think if someone was actively cutting a hole in my wall from outside, I would leave. You know, like it's just like alarm bells would go off way before someone sneaking through a front door or a window if someone was actively cutting a giant hole in the wall. Right. And that's exactly the questions that immediately. came to mind. Like anyone who hears that, it's like, hold on a second. And this is with a machete. Yeah. So they would be hacking it. That takes time. Even if it was the sharpest machete in the world, somebody very skilled at doing this, it still takes time. It makes noise. It would create some sort of racket. So it leads you to question why Diane stayed if she was aware of someone breaking in through her wall with a machete. Why didn't she run? Why didn't anyone else hear anything? Because it sounds like it's all pretty close together, everyone's. Yeah, the camp is obviously, you know, all in one. It's a camp. The cabins are close together, but they're not budding up against each other and it is in the forest,

you know, the jungle. But at the same time, you think that you would hear something like that. At first, the overwhelming theory emerged that this was the work of poachers. She had put poachers through hell, as we discussed a little bit in the last episode. She literally tortured them. And after the murder of Digit, her favorite mountain gorilla, she really, really ramped up her active conservation methods. And this included, which forgive me if I already told you this, because I don't remember, but I put it in here because it's just wild. She actually put a noose around one of the captured poacher's neck and threw the end of the rope over a rafter and was threatening to hoist him up and hang him if she didn't give him information that she needed.

And another time, this is just a rumor. However, a lot of people don't think it's very off base. There was a rumor that she had injected a poacher with a like slurry of gorilla feces in hopes to give him septicemia. And that she was also hiring different sorcerers from local communities to poison and curse poachers. Damn. So she's like, she is not against violence at all when it comes to saving the gorillas. Yeah. And we'll get into it a little bit. There are people who say, you know, like a lot of this is rumor based in rumored. I mean, of course she did for sure, like burn people's villages down and she, you know, but as far as like killing anyone or, you know, acts of horrific violence. Because the other thing that we didn't really talk about, but is something to know is it's not like it's just her. And she's this wild and crazy violent person. person. If the Rwandan authorities got their hands on poachers or people doing illegal activities, they didn't treat them much better. Like this was a very violent time and people were not treated

kindly who broke the law like this. So not excusing it, but it's just, it wasn't like wildly out of the norm. Well, I imagine Diane Fosse had people with her that was also contributing to this as well. Yeah, she wasn't just a lone soldier. Like there were people also involved. I feel like that's a really important picture to paint because when you're saying like Diane Fosse was out there just burning villages down it would be like oh my god Diane she was definitely the ringleader so yeah there is that for sure all of that to say is she made a lot of enemies is essentially the moral of that story this episode is brought to you by prime obsession is in session and this summer prime 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 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. So of course, the first thoughts would be poachers killed her as a way to put kind of like an end to everything that she was doing and also as a form of payback in a way. And she did write, I said that she had kept a very detailed journal and diary not only about the gorillas, their behavior, and her work, but also just day-to-day things, her thoughts, all of that. And she did have an entry in her journal that said, quote, The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow.

That's some foreshadowing right there. It's a little bit of foreshadowing, perhaps. Maybe she knew that something. I mean, she had to know, I'm sure she knew, what a dangerous field that she was in, because she was participating in violence for her own cause. So I'm sure she knew the dangers and saw it within other activists in the area as well. Exactly. So the public immediately thought that she had been murdered by poachers. Like that was kind of it in the beginning because she so publicly fought against them for so long, you know, 18, 19 years. So back to the crime scene. The crime scene at first looked and appear to be chaotic. Obviously, there's shit everywhere. And it was, you know, chaotic to some extent. But upon closer examination, nothing had apparently been taken. There was money there.

There were weapons there. Nothing had been moved of value. So it was personal from the, it was clearly not a robbery. Clearly not a robbery. And this immediately raised red flags to her fellow researchers and to her friends, because that did not track with poachers at all. So even if it was personal and it was payback, poachers would have almost certainly taken guns and money as just kind of like bonus. Like these are people that are not in financially stable positions. So to pass up thousands of dollars in cash and weapons would not happen. So that was kind of like the first, what is going on here? Like that doesn't seem like it's really fitting together.

Another thing that was observed, which I will mention because it was brought up a few times in a few different sources, but at the same time, I don't know, there was kind of a serious lack of blood at the crime scene. Like there was blood present, but she was murdered with a machete. You think that there would be a lot of blood involved. So at first, this kind of raised another question of, okay, well, was she murdered somewhere else? Was she taken somewhere, murdered somewhere else, planted back into the cabin, shit was strewn all over the place, and then someone cut a hole in the wall. I don't get the hole in the wall. I still don't. I, you know. With that theory, it's kind of weird too, though, because I would imagine if you had just murdered someone and she had clumps of your hair in her hands. Well, there's that. And also, it seems

like that would take time. And she's in a camp where other people are. So to take her in and out seems kind of far-fetched too. It leaves a huge opportunity for a lot of witnesses. Yeah. And she is, seems like a woman that is not going to go quietly no matter what. So I just feel like the whole camp would have noticed something was wrong as she was being abducted, taken out of camp, killed, and then brought back. Like, there's just too much to that that I think could go wrong. Well, she had a lot of defensive wounds, too, that you said, too. So there was clearly a fight in. involved and I don't know how far away she was from the other cabins, but then at the same time, you think, well, if there was this huge struggle, then wouldn't someone have heard it if she was

killed right there too? Right. Who knows? I mean. Or if they did it in the middle of the night, maybe she was sleeping and it was like a last, I don't know. But she was also on the floor. She wasn't in her bed. She was next to her bed on the floor. So now that there are questions surrounding the legitimacy of this poacher theory, what other theories are there? And, And that's when alternative situations started to come up. And one of them is that someone from camp had killed her. And the other was that the Rwandan authorities were to blame. There's more to unpack here again.

So let's just start with the somebody from camp theory. Okay. This train of thought kind of sprung out of a hot and cold relationship that Diane had with many members of her staff throughout the years. There are a lot of people who have gone on record saying how much they adored Diane and admired her and truly loved her. One person was even quoted as saying she wasn't just our boss. It felt like we lost our mother. She was very beloved by a lot of people. However, if you remember back in part one, we did kind of start discussing how paranoid she was getting

that like a lot of people in camp were turning against her. And an old friend named Kelly Stewart had one of these hot and cold relationships with Diane, as it seemed kind of was the theme for most of her relationships and friendships in her life at the time. And Kelly was quoted in a Vanity Fair article about her relationship and how Diane treated others. And I thought that I just, I didn't want to condense it because it's very important. So this whole next thing is a quote. She said, she had a perfectly colonial attitude. towards the Africans. On Christmas, she'd give them the most extravagant presents. Other times,

she would humiliate them, spit on the ground in front of them. Once, I even saw her spit on one of the workers, break into their cabin and accuse them of stealing and dock their pay. Two researchers left Karasoki because of the way that she treated the Africans. My people, she used to call them. They were loyal to her, but they had to stay because there are few paid jobs in the area, and there is a certain cachet to being a tracker. The men never knew when she was going to start yelling at them. When she left camp, it was like a cloud had risen, and it got worse over the years. She viewed herself as a warrior fighting the enemy who was out to get her. It was a perfect ending. She got what she wanted. It was exactly how she would have ended her script. It must have been painful, but it didn't last long. That first

whack killed her. It was such a clean whack. I understand that there was hardly any blood. How does this person know in detail about how she was murdered. Well, at this point, this is after the public had been made aware. That's an odd way to say it, though. It was such a clean whack. It's an odd way to say it. And also, once the details of her death became public knowledge, especially to the members of Karasoki and researchers and friends of friends, like people in kind of like that immediate

circle, they probably got more details than, you know, somebody. living in Kentucky. But at the same time, I just, I don't agree with that, whether or not that whole first portion was right, I just don't agree with the last part. Obviously, I have a very outside perspective, but I hardly think that getting bludgeoned to death with a machete is how she wanted her story to end. Like, I just don't agree with that, but whatever. Yeah, it feels like her story, the way she would have wanted her story to end would be that she saved the gorillas and that poaching ended because that was her whole. Right. Like it sounded like a quote coming from someone who very much disliked her. And maybe she did towards the end. Like I said, they had a really

tumultuous relationship. And not saying like, and not downgrading anything that she that she said she was treating because it sounds like she was treating some people horribly. But just like the phrasing and the wording, like the whack was so clean, no blood. It just feels very cold for something so gruesome. And again, this is just one person's quote and feelings about her. And as with most things in life, there are various perspectives on situations. A friend and co-worker of Diane named Ian Redmond offered a totally different explanation for her treatment of staff. So in that same 1995 Vanity Fair article, he is quoted as saying, quote,

if you're working with Africans and want them to perform up to European standards, you have to blow up at them, because they tried to get away with doing as little as possible. Diane as an individual was in many ways like the guerrillas, in that if you are easily put off by bluff charges, screaming and shouting, then you'll probably think that the guerrillas are monsters. But if you are prepared to sidestep those bluff charges and temper and shouting and get to know the person within, then you'll find that Diane, like the gorilla, was a gentle and loving person, end quote.

Okay, so that's a little weird too, though, because he is defending her, but at the same time, he is generalizing an entire population of people, and he's rationalizing why you can treat them badly. Yeah, I know. And I felt the need to, like, put the 1995 in there, like the 1995 Vanity Fair article, not excusing it because it's a different time. I mean, it's not even that long ago. And, of course, it's not the author of this article that said that.

That is a direct quote from that man named Ian. But I totally agree with you. And I actually wrote a little bit of something like that because I was like, okay, I get what you're trying to say. But there's another problem with your statement that has nothing to do with Diane. It's how you're saying this. So I wrote, like you said, it's a blanket statement essentially, just totally insinuating that an entire population is lazy and has like a lesser than work ethic than Europeans, which is obviously. racist. And saying that Europeans are better than... Right. And the other thing about that is Diane owes a lot of her success to the local people for a ton of different reasons. So number one, Carasoki, like, getting it up and

running, she had the help. She couldn't have done this without the help of the local. Well, at first, she was in the Congo and now she's in Rwanda. But the local African people, like, helped her from square one. Yeah. She can't save an entire guerrilla population. out the help of the African people who care about the same topic that she does. Right. Equally. Equally. You know?

And because they're right there alongside her. I mean, from getting Carasoki up and running, they taught her how to track the guerrillas. Like, she leaned on different people throughout the years. Yeah, because she worked in mental health before this. She was from, she was in Kentucky. Or she was working in Kentucky. But she lived in a lot of different places. She never saw, yeah, she never lived amongst.

gorillas before she needed the help from African people. Exactly. And then she had obviously the help from them with the boots on the ground for her anti-poaching force. And, you know, they helped her research and track and, you know, just document everything. I mean, Diane is largely credited with saving the gorilla. And I truly agree that if it was not for her and her passion and her advocacy work, who really knows what would have happened to the gorilla and whatever trajectory they were on where it would have led if she didn't step up. However, I don't think that she could have necessarily done it without the help of the same people that she was treating pretty, pretty fucking horrifically. Yeah. Like you can look at two sides of this. She did some really

amazing things, but it's clear at the same time. She was doing some things that are like, Oof, Diane, you can't, you can't treat people like this. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, okay, back to the theories because the next was that her death was ordered by some sort of authority or someone high up in an illegal operation. Girl, 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 open that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Next theory that her death was ordered by some sort of authority or someone high up in the Rwandan government or in an illegal operation of some kind. some sort of authoritative figure. So on January 14th of 1986, which is about three weeks after her murder, Ian actually found a carbon copy of a letter that she had written to him, but he had never received. The U.S. Embassy had taken possession of Diane's cabin and its contents kind of pending this entire investigation,

and Ian had gone with some of the representatives into the cabin to go through some of her things. The letter written one month before her death detailed information that she had uncovered about a smuggling operation that was going throughout the park and operating within the park. So in part, the letter read, Dear Ian, the latest poacher captured is also a gold smuggler between Zaire and Rwanda. I examined his clothing to find a letter between he and his dealer setting up appointment places for gold deliveries. The thing that's interesting about this is all the other copies of all the other letters that she had written to Ian, he had received, but not this particular one. And while it certainly could have gotten lost in the mail, things happen, whatever. It just seems very odd, especially given the nature of its contents, the timing, it's just weird. No such thing as coincidences.

Right, right. So this could definitely be considered evidence against the people that were named in this letter, evidence of crimes clearly being committed. Diane was known for holding evidence and using it essentially as blackmail against people that she viewed as enemies. Like she kind of had this arsenal of collateral that she would hoard against people and be like, if you don't comply with what I want you to do, or if there was ever a situation that came up that she needed to use some information. against someone, she would have it. So that's obviously very dangerous, especially when you're working with gold smugglers. Yeah. So a photocopy of this letter was taken and given to authorities. And to Ian and members of the embassy, this seemed like a big lead, a big start of uncovering the truth of what

really happened to Diane. But the Rwandan authorities had a completely different take on this situation. At this point in time, Wayne, who was the guy who originally found Diane in the first place, was put in charge of the camp and most everyone that was working in Carasoki was taken in for questioning and interrogation, and the police contacted the embassy to obtain the hair samples that they had collected from Diane's hands. So the woman who collected them from the U.S. Embassy originally, she complied, of course, but she was smart and she only gave them half of each sample. And she kept the remaining because she wanted to send the samples to the FBI because the Rwandan authorities were sending their portion to a completely different lab in Paris for analysis. Okay. On February 3rd of 1986, six weeks after Diane's murder, Wayne was working on a paper. picnic table outside of Diane's cabin when he saw movement inside of the cabin. Remember, he had been put in charge of the camp and he says that it, he felt it was his duty to protect it, especially after

all that's happened, you know, with Diane in the aftermath. So he entered the cabin despite it being off limits because the U.S. Embassy has control over it. No one is supposed to be going in or out without explicit permission and people overseeing the comings and goings. At the same time that he goes in there, a guard approached the cabin and allegedly witness Wayne piling books and other personal effects into boxes. So Wayne was ordered out of the cabin with his arms raised and things quickly just flew out of control, got out of hand that were shouting, guns were pointed at each other, there was a lot of commotion and action. And basically, they were accusing Wayne of breaking into the cabin and attempting to steal different manuscripts or research,

just different things that Diane had in there. And of course, Wayne is denying all of this, but less than one week later, he received a letter stating that he needed to report to the police station where he was immediately interrogated and essentially he was being accused of her murder. Because he went inside her cabin? Yes, and we will discuss a little more about that. Well, I mean, if he was going through her stuff, that's kind of weird. Allegedly. He says he wasn't. Okay. God, there's so many, like, things going on here. He said she said. Yeah. Exactly. So after this questioning and interrogation, he calls it an interrogation. This was not anything to do with just a quick, what were you doing, etc. He was like, there were people that I was being physically, you know, bullied essentially. I was being

shouted at, I was being almost tortured, essentially, and they finally release him, and he was allowed to go back into camp, but the murder investigation continued. Months go on, and over the course of this investigation, pretty much all the Karasoki workers were taken from camp, interrogated, and ultimately released with the exception of one worker, and his name was Relicana, and he was one of Diane's best trackers. And like we already touched upon, Diane would sometimes mistreat her workers. And she especially had problems with those who disrespected her or kind of undermined her authority or questioned her. And Relicana was one of them. He wouldn't take her shit, essentially. He wouldn't allow himself to be mistreated. And he often stood up against her. And on several occasions,

he actually quit, but then was rehired because he was just so good at what he. did. Like, his skills were invaluable. So they had like a really love, hate type of dynamic and relationship. It's like, I need you, but we also don't get along. But I need to. But I need you. And you ultimately contribute a lot to my work. So the night that Diane was killed, he was actually not in camp at all. He was at home with his family. But despite that, the police came for him. And the hot and cold relationship that he shared with Diane was twisted by a thing. And the authorities and kind of melded into, well, this is motive for murder because you guys didn't get along. And it was very clear. But she didn't get along with a lot of people. But with him, with

Relicana, it was like very apparent. Okay. So at this time, investigations were handled through interrogation in Rwanda. There was not really much in the way of physical evidence being presented, which for obvious reasons is a huge, huge problem. And Relicana was brought into the police station for questioning and then was immediately brought to jail. The U.S. embassy was on the Rwandan government asking for updates and evidence and updates on the status and investigation and basically saying, you know, what is going on with him? Like, why are you holding him? What's happening? And they they got little to no response from the Rwandan government during this time. So now we're in July. of 1986, and this is now seven months after she was found murdered. And the Rwandan authorities received

the lab results from the hair samples that were sent out. Oh, yes, it's not as exciting as you think. So they concluded that the hair from her right hand was Caucasian and origin, but it wasn't her own. So at first, there was a theory that either it was defensive, like she had grabbed somebody and it was in her hands, or she got hit in the head with a machete and just kind of instinctively put her hand. at the back of her head and her hair fell out, you know, in clubs. Okay. So at first they were like, is it hers? Is it somebody else's what's going on?

So they concluded it was Caucasian and it wasn't hers. The Rwandan government contacted the U.S. Embassy with good news. They said they had two suspects to charge for the murder of Diane Fossey to charge with her murder. And that was Wayne McGuire and Relicana. So essentially, their reasoning was like this is. what the story was that they had landed on. They said that the two men had somehow conspired to kill Diane. Wayne's motive was to steal her research and Relicanas was because he was just essentially a disgruntled

employee and wanted her gone. So I seem to like. A little far fat. Like my brain's spinning right now. Like hold on. I saw the wheels turning a little bit. You're like, hold on, which is exactly the reaction that a lot of people had because among some of the glaring issues with that theory, according to Wayne, they had never met in camp. Like him and Relicana had never met. And Wayne didn't speak Swahili. He didn't speak Relicana's language. So he couldn't communicate with him.

And they didn't speak a mutual language. Right. So how are they going to conspire this elaborate plan? To conspire, cover up, stay on the same story, like what, and they didn't have a same story. they said, Relicano was like, I was at home. Wayne was like, I had nothing to do with this. So it's not even like they have the same story to stick to. Did they match the hair samples to them?

Oh, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. So despite these issues and obviously all the other questions that kind of are embodied in this whole quote unquote reason, they remained prime suspects. However, because Wayne was not formally charged yet, He was just named a primary suspect, one of the two primary suspects. The U.S. Embassy got him on a flight and out of the country right away. Oh, wow.

So they didn't even take the time to... No. Because remember, they're tracking this whole thing. They're involved in this whole thing. And they've been following, you know, what's been unfolding. And it seems pretty clear that Wayne is most likely not responsible for this. And of course, even if he was, they could still locate... You know, they just got him.

out of the country because they saw that shit was going to start going down here and it probably wasn't going to be good for him. So three weeks later, the formal charges came down and Wayne made a public statement from the United States course on camera responding to the allegations. And he said that there are outrageous charges that the Rwandan government is imposing on him saying that he had nothing to do with Diane's death at all. He called her a friend and his mentor, someone he really looked up to worked for and with for years, he said that he had everything to lose and nothing to gain from her death and was just shocked and outraged by all of these false allegations. And none of the fellow Karasoki researchers or camp members thought that he had anything to do with it either. Like,

they couldn't imagine him being responsible not only because of the person that he was and the respect that he had for Diane, but also, again, like he kind of mentioned, what is there to gain from this. Like, what would be the purpose of this? It's like, what is my motive? Please tell me, because I don't get it. Right. Meanwhile, September 29th, 1986, word was sent from Rwanda that Relicana had died in prison. Officially, he had hung himself in his cell. Un officially, a former prison guard anonymously came forward saying that we all know he didn't commit suicide. He had no means to do so. And on the day of his death, this guard witnessed two government officials go to his cell and then come back with Relicana in a body bag saying that they found him passed away in his cell. Okay. So that's, that kind of brings us back to your other theory where we said that the authorities might have had something to do with this.

The plot is just, it gets so much. It's just, there's a lot going on. It's crazy how much is going into this because if it was the Rwanda authority, then I would imagine that this was all money-based. Right. And I'll say, I'll try and get through the rest of my notes without getting off track because we could go down a rabbit hole. When loved ones describe Relicana, they say he was a really good friend, a family man, and a man with integrity. He would have never killed Diane or himself. The Rwandan government did not release his body to his family, so his family never saw him again.

And an autopsy was clearly never performed. So all of it is so sketchy. So sketchy and just my heartbreaks for his family. And a lot of the footage of, if you look up Diane Fossi and Karasoki, especially in the early days and his name, Relicana, there's footage of him. And it's just, it's just really, it's really sad. So on December 11th of 1986, Wayne was tried and convicted in his absence. So there was a whole ass trial for him in Rwanda. Without him there?

Without him there. Was anyone defending him? Well, I'm not trying to laugh. It's like, I don't want to laugh. We're going to have a trial. He doesn't have an attorney. It's just us. It's called trial in absenteena or something.

It's like the term. It's basically like the show's going on with or without you. So he was not there for obvious reasons. But members of the U.S. Embassy were in attendance and stated that any reasonable person would have found there was no compelling evidence whatsoever. There was no defense lawyer, no witnesses were called, and no. physical evidence was presented. The trial lasted less than an hour and a judgment was rendered very quickly. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. What? This sounds like something that you would

hear like so long ago, but this is in the 1980s. Yes, it was. How do you sentence someone to death who's not even in the country? Or with no evidence? Like there's just nothing around. Like, I'm just like I'm holding out my hands. It's like empty. Like what is? I'm sure the US embassy was like, okay, so he's just not going to come back here. Right. Exactly. So clearly this entire situation is a huge mess. Diane lost her life. Relicana lost his life as well. And Wayne is now sentenced to death. No one is winning here, you know? And according to documents from the laboratory in Paris, because remember, let's bring it back to the hair samples now, they confirmed the hair in Diane's hand came from a Caucasian person, but it was never, ever compared to Wayne's. So it may very well have been somebody else

or even hers because they initially said it wasn't hers, but upon further investigation on all of the documentation from the lab, there was no comparison hair samples ever taken to compare this hair to anything else. So they just knew it came from a Caucasian person, that's it. Okay, so they didn't even compare it to her own hair? That's what it said. Or Wains. Or the person who they've sentenced to death for it.

This is just a wild investigation. Of course, also, there's the last. whole crime scene itself, it was markedly contaminated. Evidence was not collected properly or at all or processed correctly. Just everything was just all over the place. And of course, the case was really high profile news. There was a huge pressure coming from all over, you know, not only in Rwanda in the United States, but globally, I mean, Diane was known around the world. And there was a huge amount of pressure for this case to be solved. There are questions as to whether the Rwandan authorities at the time were actually just really incompetent and just really messed up this entire investigation, or maybe they just

didn't want to solve the crime appropriately for reasons that we kind of have touched on already. Well, if they're involved, then it would make sense of why they've botched this whole investigation and planted it on someone else and sentenced them to death. So quickly, it'd be like, oh, no, it wasn't, it's this person we know for sure. Mm-hmm. So more people than not agreed that the official story didn't track. What was the desired outcome if it was true that Wayne got away with the crime? And this is something that a couple of his fellow researchers made note of, they were kind of posing the scenario.

Like, okay, so say he really did do this and his motive really was to steal Diane's research. What was he going to do? Kill her, the most prominent and well-known guerrilla researcher at the time and almost without saying of all times. steal all her research and then publish it and claim it as his own, someone who very clearly worked under her and with her. And now all of a sudden she's dead and now all of a sudden he has all of this. Yeah, like where is, none of it makes any sense. Right. Like who would ever believe that, you know? And in regards to the Rwandan government being behind it, as Diane was often kind of like

a thorn in their side, she created a lot of problems for them. Why would they kill her when they could have just easily kicked her out of the country. Like, why go to the lengths of getting her killed when they could have just kicked her out of the country? How would they kick her out? I mean, she wasn't, she wasn't a resident. I imagine she had, like, a working visa or something, though. I imagine she was legally there. But the Rwandan government is like, if they wanted her out, they could have gotten her out. Yeah. And the poaching theory, we already covered that. It just, it didn't really fit well. So that leaves the smuggling operation. The gold. that you were talking about, the gold smuggling.

Yep. Or some other type of illegal activity or operation that she had some sort of knowledge about that was operating out of the park. So if someone was in a position of authority that was implicated or involved in an illegal activity and Diane made it known that she had this ammo against them, did someone have her killed? Because there's a lot of different theories swirling around, but there's also a very real possibility that someone that was in the Rwandan, like a Rwandan authoritative figure, like whether in law enforcement or some type of political figure, if they were involved in an illegal operation and they were somehow implicated in whatever she had uncovered about it, that could ruin their lives and their careers. It doesn't mean that this one person,

like this illegal operation, was had to do with it, which they certainly could have, and it could have just been a standalone thing, but there also could have been some ties in the government, too. Well, you said that she had a history of blackmailing people and she found out information about them, right? Yes. So if she did uncover something, she could have just threatened the wrong person, essentially. She could have threatened the wrong person or she could have threatened. So say, let's just hypothetical this. Say it was some sort of gold smuggling operation.

And she had made it known to them that, hey, I have X, Y, and Z on you. like just so you know, like watch your back type of thing. If they weren't the ones responsible directly for her murder, I'm saying that I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that someone, say, a police officer in the Rwandan government, like someone that is in a law enforcement role, also has ties with this illegal gold smuggling operation. And if word gets out about the operation and it links that person to the illegal activity,

it could just tear their whole life apart in their career. It's like a dirty cop situation. Yeah. There's so many avenues here of what could have happened. I feel like all of it is kind of a guessing game of was it. I mean, we have some things where it's like this is really far fetch. This is really far fetched. And then there's just these other avenues like law enforcement or if she got in, if she knew some things that she shouldn't have that avenue and just it. Yeah, the other thing is like I truly think. that the whole one of her researchers or one of her workers murdering her, I think that's far-fetched, of course, but all of these other things, even poachers. Like, yeah, it doesn't exactly fit, but I don't think it's impossible either. And I don't know, there's just obviously some things that you lean way more towards than others, but there's just a lot of possibilities here. And just as like kind of a last couple things to make it even more complicated. Oh, no. At the time, of her death, she had been in negotiations and had already signed a movie deal to create a movie

off of her book, Gorillas in the Mist. And she said at this time that she had information that she was going to tell the world. So she's about to make a blockbuster Hollywood movie and has all this information that she wants to share with the world. This happened right before her death. So was this really the work of some really powerful people trying to silence her and whatever information she was going to disclose to and make known to everybody. And then, in 1994, a civil war in Rwanda led to a genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 people. And along with the mass loss of human lives came mass destruction of the country. The entire court involved in Diane's case was burnt to the ground, along with any chance of recovering documents or other evidence related to her case.

The hair samples sent to the FBI have presumably been destroyed, and the one sent to the Paris Lab cannot be located. There is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Rwanda, and therefore, Wayne was not sent back to the country to face his sentence. Although he didn't lose his life, he lost pretty much everything else. His childhood dream of working with the guerrillas, and all of his years living and working in Volcano's National Park were just totally gone and done, and he had to create an entire new life and career for himself.

And he has kind of reinvented him his career and he now works in the mental health field. And to this day, Diane Fosse's murder remains quote unquote solved if you were to ask the Rwandan authorities. But there's a lot of mystery around it. And nobody else other than Wayne, McGuire and Relicana have been named as suspects. Wow. What a crazy. story and how that all went down. I just, I feel like this is wildly unsolved. I wrote to this day, her murder remains unsolved because I truly believe that that's true. No matter what official,

you know, officially, they were like, okay, in 30 minutes, here we go, you're guilty. I don't take that. It feels like we're never going to know either. Well, yeah, no. Like, I mean, the whole, unless someone comes out on their deathbed and is like, I did it. And even then, where's the evidence? Who's going to believe it? Right. Her memoir, Gorillas in the Mist, was adapted to a feature-length film and was released in 1988, which made Gorillas in the Mist kind of just like a household name. Sigourney Weaver, who played Diane in the film, said that after spending so much time learning about Diane, her work and spending so much time with the guerrillas, it became impossible to go back to the way that she saw the world before. She, Sigourney Weaver, is now an honorary chair at the Diane Fossie

Gorilla Fund International, so that film really changed her life. Mountain Gorilla numbers have doubled since Diane Fossi's time and can be found in three countries spanning four national parks, windy national park, Mahigna Gorilla National Park, Volcanoes National Park, and Varunga National Park. The current director of the Karasoki Research Center said if it was not for Diane and her courage, there would be no wild gorillas left to protect at all. World-renowned naturalist, David Attenborough noted that if anyone could say that they saved a species single-handedly, it would be Diane. He said she undoubtedly turned the world's attention towards gorillas. Her friend Ian said of her, she got behind the big bluff bravado and found the gorilla.

It's that amazing meeting of another mind that happens to be inside a non-human body. That's the magic to be opened up to the world. The work she began is still carried on today. the descendants of the first gorillas that she made contact with back in 1967 are still being studied and monitored by researchers at Karasoki who hike out every single day to monitor and study the animals. Each and every morning, Fossi Fun trackers will locate their assigned guerrilla group by finding where the gorillas built their nests the previous night and then follow the trail of crushed vegetation left behind as the group moves. Upon locating the groups and recording the group's location, the trackers will then locate each individual and record different information regarding their appearance and their health and mark any changes such as if there was anybody that was born, anyone that died, anyone that came to the group or left the group as a way of just tracking the overall population dynamics. Behavior is also noted constantly as a way to collect detailed information for the long-term research database that has just has been going strong. since Diane's time. And as of this year in 2022, the government of Rwanda announced plans to expand

this national park by roughly 39 square miles. This addition will serve ultimately, hopefully, as a buffer zone between the park and the surrounding communities and will be utilized for agroforestry, which will hopefully benefit both the park and the people. But most importantly, the expansion will reduce human wildlife conflicts, hopefully of up to a projected 80%. The projected time frame for the project will last approximately the next five years. So I guess we'll check back in 2027 to see where the status is. However, it is really important to note that war in surrounding areas such as the Democratic Republic of Congo has resulted in more than 4 million human lives lost over just the last 14 years.

So this political instability and pressure from rebel groups throughout the areas has put a huge amount of pressure on the nearby national parks, not just volcanoes national parks. And by proxy, places the gorillas in the middle of this social and economic crisis. There's just like, they're in the crosshairs as well. And we mentioned before that Diane was opposed to guerrilla tourism initially. Remember, she was like shooting at tourists and yeah, basically like I get off my lawn extremist. And there are actual, you know, arguments against guerrilla habituation. So a couple of them. Human diseases, like the flu, pneumonia, Ebola can be transmitted from humans to gorillas. And obviously, habituation, there leaves some risk there as far as, are you changing their natural behavior? Because

humans are present all the time. Are we influencing them? You know, those are some of the arguments raised against exposing the wild populations of gorillas to people on such a regular basis. But towards the end of her life, Diane, did start to come around to the benefits of guerrilla tourism. As of 1995, since 1979, guerrilla tourists have increased Volcano's National Parks revenue by 2,000 percent. And the number of guards, guides, and administrators have doubled. So I have no idea what that current figure is, because, again, that figure came from an older article that was published in 1995. So I have no idea where the numbers are now, but I can only imagine they've increased even from there. And donations to the Fossi Fund not only contributes to the anti-poaching efforts and research

efforts, but it pours money into local communities in the form of education. Teaching the next generation of the benefits of protecting the gorilla and the environment, not only because the gorillas are poster children, but because protecting them and preserving their home brings massive benefits and opportunity in the form of income, jobs, and support for the local economy. Other than the guerrilla treks, one of the most sought-after activities in Volcano's National Park is hiking to Diane Fossi's tomb. Diane is buried at the Karasoki Research Center in a graveyard she began for her fallen gorilla friends. She was laid to rest, according to her wishes, on December 31st of 1985 in a small cemetery alongside her animals and directly next to her beloved digit.

The hike brings you up the slopes of Mount Karasimbi. Hikes are led by experienced local guides and you have to set off early in the morning. The hike itself is considered difficult and takes about a half a day, but it leads to the ruins of her home in Karasoki and to her grave amongst her murdered animals and counterparts. Initially, a wooden cross and a photo of Diane and the guerrilla she loved were placed on her grave, but that has since been replaced by a plaque where visitors often leave bouquets of flowers. And it reads her nickname, which I couldn't pronounce before, and I still can't, but I'm going to try. I think it's Nairira Machella Belli.

That was really horrible. And anyone who knows Swahili or whatever, please don't come after me. I can't find any pronunciation. Send us an audio of how you're supposed to pronounce it if you know. Because that would be cool. That would be cool. I can't find it on Google anywhere. It's like, I do it.

And then I'm like, wow, that is actually deaf. I know I'm not saying it right, but that's definitely not it either. Yeah. And also, I didn't write the meaning. But in the first part, it means the woman that lives alone in the forest. That was her nickname. And then below it says Diane Fossey, 1932 to 1985. No one loved guerrillas more.

Rest in peace, dear friend. eternally protected in the sacred ground for you are home where you belong. And while poaching has decreased and guerrilla numbers have increased since Diane's death, we aren't out of the woods yet. As we mentioned, mountain gorillas are still poached and their habitat is still under threat. If you would like to support the ongoing guerrilla protection efforts and contribute to the work of the Karasoki Research Center, definitely consider looking into and donating to the Fossey Fund, and I will link it in the show description for this episode.

Diane's ambition, dedication, and the legacy she left behind continues to inspire people around the globe. And I'm going to leave everyone with the very last entry that Diane ever wrote in her journal. And it says, I looked up into Digit's warm, gentle, brown eyes. He stood pensively gazing down at me before patting my head and plopping down by my side. I laid my head on Digit's lap, a position that provided welcome warmth. When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what has passed and concentrate more on the preservation of the future. And that is the story of Diane Fosse and the mountain gorillas of Volcanoes National Park. Wow. What a legacy. What a legacy to leave behind.

Yeah, for sure. She did it. I mean, she did what she set out to do after that first trip to Africa when she fell in love and found her purpose and her true calling. And she had a really, violent end. And of course, that's just such a shame and it's really horrible to think about. And it's very frustrating that the investigation was handled the way it was and we don't have any solid answers. But she did reach her goal of protecting guerrillas. And Gorillas in the Miss was a household name in my world because of Diane and probably so many others. And, you know, like David Attenborough said, like she could claim, like, Imagine that. It's like because of me, this species is still around. Like, who can say that?

Her and Jane Goodall, you know? Powerful women. Just so powerful women. And even though, like, there's some parts of her that are, you could say, like, controversial or she wasn't great in certain areas, it's like she set out for a goal to save a species and she did whatever she needed to do possible. And it sounds like she was a little ruthless and she was a little, it wasn't like, she's like this happy go-getter woman. she was to the point, like, I'm doing this and we're succeeding at any means, any means necessary. Yeah. So there's also someone that, I mean, she wasn't the same as Diane, but she has kind of a similar story. And her name is Joy Adamson. And she, she has an incredible story. It's very similar as far as, like, setting out to advocate for an animal. And she was also murdered. She's also buried in a national park. But she had to do with lions. She was the author of Born Free. There's a huge movie about it book.

It has very similar ties. So maybe that will be an episode in the future. I was going to say, is this one you're doing soon? I don't know if it's soon, but I will put it on the list for sure. I read Born Free when I was in college, but I didn't know that she was murdered. She's in Maru, National Park. But yeah, so anyway, that's the story of Diane. And obviously there's a lot of questions.

and I'm sorry if this episode was like all over the place because I'm like, how do I make this flow in a way? Because it's so all over the place. I don't know how to make it not all over the place. Well, there's so many avenues and there's so many questions and mysteries of what could have happened. And it sounds like there was a lot of people that could have been involved in this. So it would be unfair to not touch upon every section of that, despite it being like a little bit like all over every direction. It's because that's what the story is. You know what I felt? I felt like that the meme from Charlie Day from Always Sunny in Philadelphia when he's like he has the whole board of all these different like things and there's like red string everywhere and he looks like a madman. I know exactly which one you're talking about. Like that's what I felt like trying to present this. I'm like, okay, are you following me? You know, like here it is.

My hair is everywhere. I'm like, do you see? Yeah. So anyway, that is it. Everyone should go definitely. watch Girl is in the Miss. It's an amazing film. And it's very true to Diane's story. And if you really want to go in depth, her book, Girl is in the Mist. I mean, it's her memoir. So add it to the list, the book list. Yeah, we got a long list running. We should really someday start a book club because we have so many books. I know. But I can't even think about running that right now. I'm just like, oh, God, there are a lot of things that we want to do that we're just like, yeah, maybe someday. That would be great. All right. We're very busy. I got to get out of here. It's hot. I got to get outside. It's like a heat wave in Washington right now, which is absolutely unheard of and I'm upset about it. And I have no AC. It's, it's really

hot in Vermont. I have AC, which is nice, but it's been like in the 90s the past few days and it's hot. I know, we got on Zoom and I was like, oh, God, it's so hot. Cassie's like, yeah, you're glistening. I'm like, oh, I'm sweating my ass off. Thank you for putting it that way. I'm glistening. Okay, everyone, we will see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Goodbye. 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.

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