National Park After Dark - The Disappearance of Trenny Gibson: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Episode Date: November 11, 2024

What began as an afternoon high school field trip to observe plants became one of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s most enduring and puzzling missing persons cases when 16-year-old Trenny Gibson vanished from a trail amongst 40 other students. Her story has stumped investigators and broken hearts for decades, but there is still hope that someone, somewhere knows something that can bring answers and peace.For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor 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!Lumen.me: Head to lumen.me/NPAD for 15% off your purchase.StoryWorth: Use our link to save $10 on your first purchase.Lume Deodorant: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with@lumedeodorant and get 15% off with promo code NPAD at LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepodBetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. 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.

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That's how quickly something can change or can go wrong. Here one moment, gone the next is exactly how many witnesses describe missing people. Those who last see those who go missing report that they seem to have up and evaporated, especially when the person is last seen in the forest. In these cases, every possibility becomes a possibility. Every cliff and cave become suspects, predators are pursued, and the weather becomes an enemy. As days become weeks, that turn into months, that bleed into years, after decades of combing for clues with no results, considering the impossible, is tempting. But people don't just vanish, do they?

Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hello everyone, welcome back to National Park After Dark. If you're watching on YouTube right now, then you know that I am wearing a matching bird shirt and a matching bird hat. You look like a bird or through and through. You're ready to just go look at birds. Yeah. Yeah. You are a bird right now.

I am a bird pretty much. This is my Halloween costume. Yeah. We figured it out. Well, yeah. I mean, this is coming out after Halloween. It's before Halloween when we're recording it. Yeah, I bought, I went to a local market and there was this woman there.

I guess she's out in New York City. and she was selling these blue bird shirts. And she was like, they're a symbol of hope and they're supposed to be good luck. And I was like, oh, I love that. And it's really soft. So I bought it. And then today I was at a coffee shop and they had these hats with birds on them. And they went to bird conservation and mine has a loon on it.

So I thought that it was very fitting if I wore my entire bird ensemble. It's just, I mean, we aren't matching literally at all. But blue is just not my color. usually, I don't usually wear blue. And I own maybe one or two things that are blue. But today, I decided to wear this looks kind of bluish gray in this lighting, but it is more a true blue color. And it's Ian's a sweatshirt. So it's not even technically mine. But it's just funny that we both are wearing blue vibes today. Yeah. I like blue. It's a new color for me. I never used to wear it. But over the past year, I would say, I've been actively branching out. Branching out. Things that have been blue.

Yeah. Nice. Well, today's episode doesn't have to do with birds. I'm trying to segue. No, not even. Yes, let's talk about your episode. Okay. Well, so today's episode has been highly requested. Cassie put on our Instagram at this point a few weeks ago, just a suggestion box for stories that you want to hear. And oftentimes we do that because we want to see if any of your suggestions line up with, we cross-reference our lists with your recommendations to see if there's any story in particular that we have just in our backlog that you're really wanting to hear. And for me, this happened to be one of them because this story has been on my list for well over a year. And I've hesitated to cover it just because

we've been to this park a few times already for episodes. So I was trying to stagger it a little bit. But after reviewing the question box that you put up, it's just it jumped out at me. You were inspired to do it. Yeah, now's the time. So what story are you doing? So we are doing a disappearance, the disappearance of Trenny Gibson, which happened in the 1970s in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This one has been recommended a lot. We've gotten emails about it. People have filled out the form about it that you have on our website. And then same when I recently posted on Instagram. I saw it and the recommendations there too. So I'm excited. I'm interested. I know a little bit about it, but not much. Yeah, and it's, I understand why it's so intriguing and probably so highly requested because it has a lot of pieces of, a lot of pieces of this story are just so confounding. And you would, you scratch your head as to how it is still an unsolved case. But we'll get into that. So let's, let's just go into the story. We don't have anything else to say. You're in a bird outfit. I'm in a bird outfit. That is the most important announcement we have today. Okay. Okay. So let's get into. the story. Friday, October 8th, 1976 began overcast in Drisley. 16-year-old Teresa Lynn Gibson awoke that morning in her family's home on White Tower Drive in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Trene, as she went by, was preparing for school. It was a particularly exciting day because it was field trip day. Trene was a junior at Bearden High School and was enrolled in an elective course that focused on ornamental horticulture, and the class was of particular interest to her. Trene may have only been a junior, but she knew what she wanted for her future. She had dreams of attending the University of Tennessee after high school where she had plans to study landscape architecture. She was an intelligent, level-headed young woman who enjoyed reading and drawing in her spare time, and she worked part-time after school and during summers at the local mall. Described as friendly yet a homebody, she had some friends, but mostly kept to herself and enjoyed being just at home and with her family. Her family consisted of her parents, Robert Gibson Sr. and Hope Gibson, and her siblings, her older brother Robert Jr., her younger sister Tina, and her youngest brother Miracle. And Robert, Trunney, and Tina were staggered two years apart each, and then Miracle was only six. So I'm guessing they named him Miracle because he may have been a little bit of a miracle baby.

That's really sweet. I love that too. I hadn't heard that name before. Me neither. Yeah, for a kid. I think I've heard Miracle as like, maybe one of the dogs we used to see it. Not comparing to him to a dog. Sorry.

But he came first. Okay. Hey, I've met dogs named Cassie. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. I don't know. I feel like naming a dog.

dog. I would love to, like, I love naming dogs, you know. Human names. Well, I mean, I think it's a little endearing, but I love the name Kevin for a dog. Okay. Kevin, the chihuahua, amazing. So when you get a chihuahua and name him, Kevin, I won't be surprised. Yeah. The Gibson family was described as fairly strict Southern Baptist. And while her parents did have some restrictions, for example, smoking was frowned upon, church was an absolute requirement. There was some like you have to do your chores, things like that. I don't think there was anything that I listened to or read that was overtly oppressive and strict when I think of like a very strict religious household. The Gibson family household just didn't come across that way to me. Yeah. Like they weren't, she was allowed to have friends. She was allowed to go out. Right. It wasn't like strict. You do school work. You come home kind of like very regimented.

family. I mean, like I mentioned, she had a job at the mall and she worked hard there and she was saving up her money. She had a couple hundred bucks cash at home just kept away in a drawer and she also had over $1,000 in her own bank account, which for a 16 year old girl in the 70s, it's a lot of money. She sounds very responsible. Yes. Like I was not, when I was 16, no chance that I had that in my bank account. And that was not in the 70s where that would have been considered a lot of money. Yeah, right. Like it would have been considered less than it was then. Yeah. So as far as what she was saving up for, like I said, she had plans of college, which it sounds like she may have had to probably fund part of herself. And she was also saving up for a car. She's 16 years old. She just turned 16 in August,

so a couple months prior to this day. And, you know, we've all been. there, 16, you just want to get your license and have a little bit of freedom with driving. Yeah. She sounds like a pretty normal, sweet 16-year-olds. Yeah. Just kind of doing her thing, trying to find her way in life and has plans for the future. Just very normal, sweet 16-year-old girl. Yep. So that day, Treney dressed for school while the rest of her house woke up. Her brother, Robert, who we are going to refer to as Bob for the rest of this story, because number one, that was his nickname. But number two, there's also three Roberts in this story. So there's Robert her dad. There's Robert, her brother, who we're going to go refer to as Bob. And then there's going to be

a third Robert introduced as like a family family. Yes. So Bob was home that week. Actually for the first time since that July, he was home from the Navy. So in July, he went off for training. And this was his first time back at home since he initially left. And Trene was really, really excited about that because she and her brother Bob were extremely close, about as close as you can get to a sibling. They were. They had a really close-knit relationship. So he was there.

Tina, her younger sister, was also there getting ready for school. And her mom, Hope, was just tending to miracle, getting him started for the day. And the only person who was missing out of the family was Robert Sr., her dad. He was out on business. He traveled a lot for work. And it wasn't abnormal for him to be. gone, you know, one, two weeks at a time just on different business trips around the country.

And this day, he was actually scheduled to return home from a trip from New Orleans. Without the availability of her husband for an extra helping hand, babysitting and taking care of miracle, Hope actually had to bail out on a last-minute obligation she had made to Beard in high school. Mr. Wayne Dunlap, Trene's horticulture teacher, had sent out a request in hopes of finding a chaperone to assist him that day with this field trip. Hope had volunteered for that position, but unable to find any care for miracle, she had to pull out of the position last minute. And she felt pretty bad about that, especially because Mr. Dunlap was unable to fill that chaperone role with such a short notice. So she felt bad, but she helped Trene by packing her lunch and

driving her to school that day. And it is worth noting that Trene was a little bit hesitant to go on this field trip after she realized that her mother would not be in attendance. And I'm not exactly sure why that is, but she was just kind of like, I don't know if I should go now and you're not going to be there. And whether she confided that slight hesitation directly to her mother or maybe to Bob, her brother who is home now, either way, it got back to Bob that she was a little uncomfortable with going. So Bob in turn reached out to his friend Robert, so here's the third Robert, who was also going on this field trip. that day. And he requested that he look out for Trene. So Bob and Robert had been friends for years. And even though Bob had already graduated and went off to the Navy, Robert was still in the high school. So they were just a couple years apart. That makes sense. Yep. And so he basically said, hey, Robert, can you just watch after Trene? Make sure she's having a good time and she's okay. As a big brother does. Yeah, as one does. And Robert was familiar with Trene. I mean, he had known the family

and Bob for many years. He was one of Bob's best friends. He agreed to that without an issue at all. Hope and Trene put up to Bearden High School and Trene parted ways with her mom. She grabbed her packed lunch and left behind most of her personal belongings, like her purse, her school books, her papers, and her jacket. But she made sure to pocket her hair comb. Her mom had bought each of her daughters one of these combs as a gift, and Trene took a lot of pride in hers, and she often kept it just in her jean pocket and she would take it out and would brush her long brown hair with it throughout the day. I feel like that's such a 70s thing too. Yeah, definitely. A nice brush in your pocket and like your big hair, like your big wonderful hair, just like brushing it in class. And I don't know if it was like

a status symbol or what, but I think it was something that she was proud of. It was one of the nicer brands of combs. So gotcha. She had it with her pretty much all the time. Trani met up with Robert as they joined up with the rest of the field trip group as murmurs of excitement pulsed through the crowd. It wasn't just a single class attending this particular school trip. There were actually about 40 students across several of Mr. Dunlap's classes heading off school grounds that day, and they had no idea where they were going. Mr. Dunlap was a new teacher to the school that year. Described as down to earth with a passion for hiking in the outdoors, he had decided to keep their destination a secret until everyone had boarded the bus.

His motivations for this were unclear. Maybe it was meant to be a fun surprise, or maybe he just didn't want anyone knowing where their destination was at school for whatever reason. That's so weird to me. It's very strange. Yeah. To have a surprise field trip where you're taking a bunch of children, that's very odd to me. Yes.

And that decision is definitely scrutinized and dissected a little bit later on. So we will circle back to that. Okay. But regardless, the student. students had no idea where they were going until the bus was pulling out of Bearden High School. And that's when they were told they were headed to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Very cool. But if I didn't know that, I wouldn't. I wouldn't bring hiking boot. How do you know how to pack if you have no idea where we're going?

Well, that's the thing. You know, I think especially back to this time frame where especially young women dress a lot differently. I'm thinking of like the 70 skirts, maybe. be some heels, just things that... Dresses, you have like the bell bottom gene kind of things. Right, exactly. It's like good for hiking. Right. Unless like he told them to pack like a couple things for outdoor.

Well, remember, she left her jacket in her mother's car. Oh yeah. So she had no idea. Yeah. They didn't have any idea. Which is crazy to me. Again, again, we are going to get into this later when we kind of discuss like the what happened and go down the rabbit hole with theories and things like that. But the mom knew where she was

going. Oh, she did. Okay. I thought the parents didn't know either. Well, okay. So I guess I should backtrack on that because I'm not exactly sure if he told Hope who had volunteered. I just imagined him being like, hey. Unless it was a surprise to her. Why would it be a surprise to her though? But like I just envision him being like, hey, I need a chaperone. I'm planning on taking the kids to the national park and I need a chaperone. Why would he be like, hey, I need your help. You're not going to know where we're going now. Like that, why would he?

Yeah, that would be weird, you would think. But then she might tell her, I don't know. I guess also it's hard because if she's not someone who hikes or has been to the national park before, then she might not have known what to expect to bring a jacket for colder weather. You're at higher elevation in that park. Things can be a little bit different than when you. you're lower. It's just, and what time of

year is this again? This is October 8th. Okay, so you're in the fall too and things are getting a lot of question marks. So I shouldn't say with any certainty that Hope knew they were going to the National Park. It's just the feeling I get with if a teacher is going

to ask for the assistance of an adult to serve as a chaperone, I just imagine he would inform that adult where they were going. What they were doing and where they were going, yeah. But I could be completely wrong. So we'll just leave it at that for now. So yes, they were headed to the park, but specifically they were to hike to Andrews Bald.

And their mission essentially was because this is, remember this is an ornamental horticulture class, was basically to observe the plant life along the trail. And I should mention that Trenny wasn't, she didn't know where they were going, yes, but she also wasn't very familiar with the park. She had not been before. She wouldn't have been described as an avid outdoors woman. She and her family didn't spend a lot of time outdoors. They didn't do family vacations to any parks or outdoors or things like that.

Gotcha. So she was unfamiliar with the area. But who knows how many kids had been there either. You know, we don't know. 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 story.

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But this was a big bus. It had 40 kids. It was slower going and they made a pit stop so the kids could use the bathroom. So it actually didn't arrive and pull into Klingman's Dome parking lot until just after noon that day. The weather had let up a bit because remember, it was drizzling and raining and overcast that morning. And there was actually a little bit of question as to whether or not the field trip was still going to be on because of the weather. But they went clearly. And the weather had, eased up a little bit. It wasn't raining anymore, but it was still a little bit gray and overcast. Mr. Dunlap took the time to discuss the plan and the rules to the kids. They were to hike up to Andrews Bald and return to the bus by 3.30 p.m. The students were to observe the floor and fauna along the way,

but they were instructed to not take anything or touch anything and stick to the main trail only, not step off trail or take any side trails or game trails. Essentially, he was going over the route and different, you know, leave no trace principles. Sorry, how many people are there? There's 40 kids. He is the only chaperone with 40 children. Yes. That is another, I know we're going to get into it because that is such a huge oversight. I remember just for an example, when I was an outdoor education, I never had more than 16. And I had chaperones per one. Per group. And I had chaperones because there was always a parent that would be part of it. So, yeah. And I know, I know he tried a lot. He tried hard. He tried with Hope. And then when she bailed, he called, I mean, he called a bunch of different people. He even called

his old roommate for 40 people is not enough. That's what I was going to say. Even if he found a replacement for Hope, that's still, you know, 20 kids per one adult. And yes, they aren't small children. They're high schoolers, but no, that's even worse, honestly. I know that's even worse. Because high schoolers are like, they're more apt to try other things to, I mean, I know when I was a teenager, I would be way more apt to hop onto a trail I wasn't supposed to or like explore something I wasn't supposed to climb a tree. You know, like there's just things that I would have done as a high schooler to kind of push the limits that I wouldn't do as a child. Yeah. Children, I think, have their own challenges, but unintentionally, they're just being kids. But with high schooler age,

you're doing it with, I don't want to say malicious intent because I don't believe people are, they're malicious. They're just trying to, they want their own freedom. They're like, hey, it's a, Hell yeah, it's a school field trip. No one's watching me. Let me explore. Yeah, it's just like it's a fun time. You can go off with your friends and you're like, I remember going on field trips with my friends and it was great. You got in your clicks of your people that you were close with and you just like had your day. And paid very little attention to the adults. And just to have two of them for 40 kids isn't enough either. Yep. So there's just Mr. Dunlap. There is technically another adult with them, the bus driver. But, but. he had to stay with the bus per regulation. So it was just Mr. Dunlap physically out on the trail with them that day. And there were no set group assignments. And there was no way that he could keep a tally on, you know, each and every one of the 40 students. So what ended up happening is after ever, you know, people used the bathroom, got settled and things like that. By the time they actually set out onto the trail, it was around 1230. And they just started dispersing into smaller groups

according to, you know, their hiking ability, their cadence, their pace, things like that. They just all started staggering up the trail. Sure. And we have done, like I mentioned, several episodes on this park in the past. So I'm not going to go into great detail about it, but they're on this trail in the park. I want people to be at least familiar with the scene here a bit. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, known as the place of the blue smoke by the Cherokee people, was established in 1934.

And today is the most visited park in the nation. Last year, it welcomed over 13 million visitors, and since its opening, over half a billion people have visited this national park. Wow, that is so, that's, I mean, it's really cool that that many people want to see nature, but those numbers are insane. It's staggering, really. Back in the 1930s, nearly 80% of what is now the park was decimated by logging, but today, the mountains have regrown, and it is renowned for its plant and animal life. In particular, its robust black bear population. You can enter the park from either North Carolina or Tennessee, and most visitors embark on hikes throughout the park, which in total reach over 800 miles worth of trail system, which is also really cool. Wow, that is really cool.

Mr. Dunlap's class was on a hike to one of the park's most popular trails. The trail to Andrews Bald is about 3.6 miles round trip, and it twists through a high elevation spruce fur four. up to a grassy bald area at the summit, which is renowned for its flowering azaleas in the summer months and its sweeping views year round. It's not an easy track. It involves kind of a little bit of a strenuous climb during a portion of the trail, but like I said, it's extremely popular, and there's even an overflow parking lot near the trailhead just to accommodate the sheer amount of vehicles that are there, because there's also other side trails involved in the this as well. So there's a lot of people coming and going from this area. And it's relatively short.

You know, one way is about a mile over, you know, under two miles. Okay. So back to Trene. Remember, I said Robert was looking after her, the family friend, Bob's best friend. So he was a bit on the heavier side and he was slightly out of shape. So he wasn't struggling per se, but as a result, he and Trene made their way up the trail at a more leisurely pace. They stopped to take a break on a rock while they shared Trenny's packed lunch. They made it to the top of Andrews Bald by 150 and spent some time at the summit. But the weather started to take a turn and it started to drizzle again. Noticing that Trenny was cold and without a jacket, Bob shrugged off his orange and brown plaid jacket and gave it to her. Treni suggested they had back down to the bus and back down the trail, but Bob

wasn't interested in leaving quite yet. So he sent her along ahead of him, just saying you take off now. I'll catch up to you. She made her way down the trail at a steady pace, and she encountered several groups along her way as she would fall into step with them for a couple moments, chat with them, just have some friendly trail talk, and then speed up on her own and carry forward alone. And most of these people are her classmates at this point. Okay. The other students didn't note that she was in a rush. They wouldn't say that she was running down the trail, but she was definitely moving at a clipped pace, she would just say, hi, what's up? You know, whatever.

Keep it moving. Yeah. The last group of students that she encountered on her way down the trail were younger than her because remember, this isn't just one class. This is several different ages that Mr. Dunlap teaches this class too because there's several class ages in the mix here. And this is important because they knew of Truny, but they weren't close. They weren't by any means.

friends, but they knew of her because they were in the same school and yeah. Yeah. At approximately 250, Trene stopped with them for a few moments and they guesstimated they were about three quarters of a mile from the parking lot. And they had stopped there on the trail because one of the kids in the group had asthma and was just taking a moment to regain his breath a bit. And they asked Trene if she wanted to hang back with them, but she declined and continued forward. One of the students in that group, Anita watched as Trenny moved down the trail, which at this point, like, looking down, it veers over to the left. And she watched as Trenny stopped kind of as it was turning left, like veering to the left. And she stopped ducked down a little bit and looked to her right,

like at something off the trail. And then she stepped off trail to the right. Oh, she saw this happen. Yeah. So Anita saw this happen. Witness Treni do that because she was kind of just watching her move forward, move along. Just watching her walk down the trail. Yep. And she noticed that something, it looked like something maybe startled her or surprised her coming off from the right hand side of the trail. And then she stepped off trail in that direction. To go check out whatever that was. Yeah, maybe. So potentially. Potentially. And it's important to say that Anita wasn't like watching her like a hawk knowing that, you know, this is potentially the last time anybody is going to see, Treni. Just like a small observation that she was. She was just observing her. Yep. Just

watching her in passing. So after the young man in their group started feeling good well enough to continue on, Anita paused at the place that she watched Trene's step off the trail because while she wasn't totally monitoring the situation, she hadn't noticed that Trene came back on trail either. So she stopped and called out her name. She said her name a couple times. Oh wow. So she thought like that enough that she might still be there. Yeah. She didn't see her reappear. So she just shouted out her name a couple times and she took a look around. She glanced the right of the trail and wondered, is maybe, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this isn't the place that she stepped off trail because looking at it, she observed that the vegetation was really thick. There was no clear path over there.

She was just looking and said, I don't know if this is it. There's no reason for her. Like it's a weird spot. Yeah, why would she go off here in this particular spot? Whether it was someone and called to her. She maybe got confused if there was another side trail or maybe she had to use the bathroom. Like none of those things seemed to make sense in that particular spot. So she kind of just shrugged and continued forward, especially after Trene didn't return any of her calls. By 330, everyone had filed back onto the bus as requested and the bus driver turned over the engine. Mr. Dunlap started doing roll call and with a furrowed brow counted 39 students. Trenny was not there. He asked aloud if anyone had seen Treni or knew where she was. And some of the students spoke up to note where and when

they last saw her because they did see her coming down the trail and talk to her briefly, but they had no idea where she was at this point. And of all people, Robert appeared slightly annoyed at Trenny's tardiness. Mr. Dunlap acted quickly and formed a plan. He enlisted the help of a student named Danny, who he sent to start hiking back up towards Andrews Bald, just wanting to have somebody like hoof it up the trail really quickly to see if she just happened to be staggered coming down for whatever reason, just late. And while Danny did that, Mr. Dunlap went to hike a nearby trail that kind of spurred off the main trail called Double Springs, just in case she had somehow taken a wrong turn, got turned around or sidetracked. So they go out there and they're out there

for about a half an hour, and when they come back and neither one of them have noted anything right away, Mr. Dunlap was like, okay, this is a situation. So he ordered the bus to take the students back to Bearden High School while he contacted the Rangers at the Park Service, and pretty quickly, a search started. The Park Service was very quick to respond and arrived at the parking lot almost immediately. After the initial ranger responded and began taking down notes about the situation, several other park rangers were called in and started fanning out. 18 members of the park service and Jackson County Rescue Squad, along with Mr. Dunlap, split into teams and searched the trail, several adjoining trails, part of the AT, nearby parking areas, and trail shelters,

Klingman's Dome, Observation Tower, and nearby Collins Gap. Meanwhile, the bus pulled into the high school and the students filed out. Hope Gibson was waiting nearby in her car, ready to bring her daughter home. And when she didn't arrive... He calls her yet? When she didn't arrive, every parent's worst fear was realized they couldn't find her daughter. Hope and Robert Sr. who had arrived, like I said, home from New Orleans that day, from his business trip. Immediately they gathered up their family, hastily packed some bags, and made their own drive to the Smoky Mountains. Yeah, come on. Also, like, why would you not call her before that? It's an hour and a half drive to get back to the school. And in that hour and a half, you couldn't call. That's crazy. Immediately, they're on their way back. Yeah. The search was still ongoing when they arrived and it lasted for hours until high winds, rain and plummeting temperatures halted the operations around three in the morning. And she has her teacher's jacket at this point on. No, she has Roberts jacket on. That's what I meant, sorry. Yes, allegedly. Yeah. Yes. By 8 a.m. the next morning, the search was up and running again, and despite the less than ideal conditions, this time with the addition of more volunteers and several dog teams. Hope's brothers, Trenny's uncles, had been told of their niece's disappearance and were desperate to aid in the search. They were experienced outdoorsmen who had hunting and tracking dogs of their own, and they actually went back and forth with the National Park Service about being able to utilize their dog teams, and ultimately they were permitted to join the effort along several other dogs. teams, which consisted of bloodhounds and German shepherds, and they all utilized unwashed clothing of

Trenny's parents had brought with them to track her scent. Several helicopters arrived and searched from the skies while the search and rescue teams, both human and canine, park service personnel and U.S. Marine Corps battalion members scoured the area on foot. Every visitor and hiker that they encountered was questioned, but no one had seen or recognized Trenny or anything out of the norm. for that matter. On both the ninth and the 10th, so technically day two and three of the search, the biggest thing of note was what the dogs found. Every team, every one of the dog teams, including the uncle's dogs that had to fight to be part of the search, at separate points in time, all picked up Trenny's sent in the same three places, where Trenny was last seen stepping off

the trail, as reported by Anita. At the base of Klingman's observation tower, which is up, near the summit of Balds Hill. So Klingman's Dome is that observation tower is like this huge spire that has a big wrap around walkway leading up to it. And it's the highest point in the national park. It's a giant observation tower. I've definitely seen photos. Yes. Okay. Yep. I haven't been, but I've seen photos. So the Hursent was noted noted at the base of that tower. And lastly, for about a mile and a half along the paved road in nearby Collins gap. It is repeatedly noted in the National Park Service incident report that I used heavily for research for this episode, quote, all dogs prove positive along AT from Tower to Collins Gap.

Mr. and Mrs. Gibson stayed in Gatlinburg for the first five days of the search, doing everything that they could to assist in the effort to find their daughter. When they had to return home, friends and family joined the search along with hundreds of searchers from the Knoxville Police Department, the National Guard, Red Cross, U.S. Marine Corps, the FBI and the Park Service. Dwight McArthur joined the search as well. He's a legend in the Smokies and he's an avid outdoorsman and a skilled tracker and worked for the park service for decades specializing in search and rescue for lost hikers. And if his name sounds at all familiar, we talked about him a little bit in the case of Dennis Martin, another unsolved case from this

park that you covered many, many years ago. At the beginning, yeah. Mr. McCarter participated in over 115 searches in his career with the National Park, all of which resulted in the lost person being found, except for Dennis and Trene. So those are the two cases that, like, really haunt him. Hundreds of hours were logged scouring the park. Dozens of reports of potential sightings of Trene, both within the park and beyond park boundaries, were investigated. Over a dozen nearby hospitals were checked. Jane Does were reviewed as potential matches to Trene when they came in. Like, hey, we have a dead female here. Could this be her?

Yeah. The FBI set up headquarters in Bearden High School and systematically interviewed the students, in particular, every student that was there on the field trip that day. They questioned Mr. Dunlap. They questioned the family. And the search stretched for weeks until the end of the month with little more than the scent hit from the dog teams to work with. Trunny's desk remained vacant in her classrooms while the school observed moments of silence for her,

and her bed remained untouched at home upon her family's return, and her dog Mitzie remained looking out the window for her friend for days. Oh, that's so sad. All of it. Her disappearance boggled the minds of everybody involved. How does somebody vanish from one of the busiest trails in the busiest national park while in the legitimate middle of a group of 40, at least 40 people without a trace. They must have been most of the trail that day. Right.

You know, yeah. The bizarre nature of those circumstances, but little the search yielded and the information that came in later from interviews of the students, family, and those surrounding the Gipsons resulted in an array of theories as to what could have happened to Trene that October day in the park. So let's go over some of the biggest theories there are. Okay. Number one is the runaway theory. Early on in the investigation.

No. No. Move on. Okay, let me just scroll past the two pages. Absolutely not. From everything you said, just my first opinion, I'm ready to hear your argument and why that's a theory. But my first thought on that is absolutely not.

She's a responsible teenager. She has a loving family. She has goals that she's working towards. She wants her license. She has like, she's not, from everything you've described, she's not this miserable kid. She doesn't have outdoor experience. So to run away while you're in the outdoors makes no sense miles away from home. She's not prepared.

She doesn't know anyone. No money. She doesn't know anyone there. You know, she has money. If she was planning to run away, wouldn't she have brought all of her cash with? No, absolutely not. 16-year-olds don't run away for long periods of time through the woods. run off with friends. They run off with boyfriends, girlfriends, they don't run away in the middle of the woods

when they have just willing-nilly experience. Right. Like, unless it's a dire situation where like someone's trying to escape some type of abusive situation, which it doesn't sound like would be her case. I, no, no. I hesitate to even read what I have. I want to hear what you have. Well, it's essentially that. I disagree. No, legitimately, it's essentially those things. But the reason we're. covering it is because early on in the investigation, this was it. This was what people pointed to. Like, she's a runaway. It's the 70s. That's what people do. Like, that's what young kids do. They run away from home. So for a long, for, I won't say for a long time, but for a while, a lot of people pointed to this as reasoning and as, like, just that's what happened. And students in particular

pointed to this as a likely possibility. Because remember, the FBI is interviewing the crap out of every student. Kids are not to not give kids credit because I think that they don't get enough credit a lot of times, but also kids are very like they start rumors. They say things like, you know, and it sounds like from what you've said about her too is that she doesn't really have a lot of friends at school. Like she has a couple of people, but not many people who actually know her. So that also, if children are saying she ran away, it feels like more of a dramatized theory that's not as scary as some of the other options that could have happened. Keep the students in mind because I think they had something to do with it. But no, you don't really, but they're children.

But okay, now I'm, tell me everything. Okay. I don't know, maybe you'll disagree. Let's see. I have a feeling that you have valid reasons for that, but I always do this like jumping ahead of, you know, I have everything nicely laid out and then I end up bouncing back and forth and things like that. It's just this case is so frustrating because there are so many pieces that fit. But then on the same, like on the flip side of the coin, there's just some that don't with the same theory. So there's so many different things that are like, God, I could see that being the reason why. But there's like one or two things that make it not feel right. Like hard to believe.

Yes. Okay. Back to the runaway thing. Students in particular pointed to this as a likely possibility. Some of the kids were really quick to highlight the strict, quote unquote, strict Gibson household, perhaps Trinney had taken the opportunity to leave it behind and start somewhere new. And I wanted to look into, because, you know, in my mind, just based on movies and TV shows and just like when you think of the 60s and 70s, you think of like the runaway. And yeah, maybe it is common.

And I wanted just some hard facts on it a little bit more than just like what I've seen in movies and what my personal perception is of it. So I did a bit of research and I don't want to include all the numbers in here. But yes, it was prevalent in the same. 60s, but it started shifting in the 70s as to why the numbers, but also why kids were running away. In a 1982 New York Times article written about runaways and homeless youth makes the argument that during the 1970s, kids were either running towards something, a better life, adventure, exciting opportunities, or away from something, like a troubled household where they often endured physical, emotion, or sexual abuse. And as you mentioned, in Chinese case, yeah, her parents, her mom

in particular were religious, but in no way would be classified as overly strict. There was no evidence of any sort of abuse. And despite the typical teenage parent spats that we have all gotten into with our families, there was nothing to add any validity towards that particular argument. And she doesn't have a boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever that she's running off with either. It's not like she has, she's not dating. She's not, there's no like love and she's had that her parents had forbade that she would run off into the mountains and they'd escape to be together. You know, it's just, no, it doesn't feel like she has anything that she's saving up for a car. Why didn't, why wouldn't you run away when you got your car? She's got the money.

Right. It seems like she was just on the precipice of getting a car and then if that's something that was truly in the cards for her, something that she was planning to do. Like, she seemed level-headed enough to create a plan that would logistically make more sense rather than just veering off a trail one day and on a bad weather day too it's not some sunny day where she can true no no and also no we're only done with it we're almost done with it and also it was very well known that she loved her family in particular she loved cooking with her mom she loved watching miracle and spending time with her older brother and also if this was to be the case That's just playing, playing, you know, devil's advocate here.

Say she did have a spur of the moment decision in which she veered off the trail and wanted to walk away from her life. She had no idea where she was going ahead of time. Right. That's such a good point. She wouldn't have even had time to plan. So she had never been there before. It's not like she scouted out the location and had to have told someone to meet her there to help her escape, nothing. And even if she did know.

say she whatever or she was comfortable with it or whatever she was like I'm just going to take my chances it just doesn't seem to align with who she was as a person the the decision making and that you know it just doesn't seem to fit if she was in a very abusive household or had something that scared her from going home I would entertain that theory but she has no reason that we're aware of that we're aware of yeah and lastly like you mentioned as well she had dreams and plans for the future. She was saving money. She knew what she wanted to study in her further education, yada, yada. So that for all those reasons, I think it's pretty safe to say that the runaway theory kind of just fizzled out pretty quickly in a lot of people's minds, not just us. Like the FBI was pretty quick

to be like, okay, this doesn't seem to hold water for long. The next theory is one that we have to consider for obvious reasons. And that is, did she get lost? Or have to. Or have. have an accident or exposure to the elements resulted in her death. Is it a possibility? Certainly. She was outdoors. Things happen. Crazyer things have happened outside. But is it probable? No. I don't like this one either. Especially, sorry, I'm like, no. Okay. Cassie. She's going to be investigated by the end of this. Yeah, I just like, because they found her scent on a road, Mm-hmm. There's no way. They found her scent on a road. If she was that afraid and she had gotten lost, she could wait on the road for a car or for a ranger or someone to help her. Which maybe she did. Which that's why she was there. But that doesn't lead to that being her full disappearance then. You know. Because then something would happen. Someone else is involved at that point. Yes. So like maybe initially, but to think that something happened with the elements and the fact that her scent was found on a road just makes me. not think that she got completely lost and was never found. Right. And the other thing, even,

again, there's so many like, okay, let's say even take this or remove that and let's go with that just to play it out a little bit. So all of that aside, it's so hard to believe that she could have gotten so lost or so injured so quickly with such a swift response for the search. People were searching for her within 30 minutes of somebody last seeing her. Yeah. 30 minutes to 45 minutes. She was pretty close to the end of the trail when she disappeared. Yes. Which also, I think, means more likely that there were other people around closer to the park. If you're closer to the parking lot. Yeah. There's more opportunity for someone to be around that you don't know who might not be safe. Yeah. And so, you know, like I say that. I say it's so difficult to believe that within,

30 minutes. You can get so turned around and so lost that. And then there's such a big search and rescue effort pretty immediately after you become lost. Like how could somebody not find you? Depends on the terrain. Depends on the terrain. And there's one story in particular that just like always comes to mind whenever I throw that out there. Geraldine Large and her and her story and how that's pretty much what happened. I mean, she stepped off trail to go to the bathroom, got turned around. And that's another highly requested episode that we'll get to at some point. And when she was finally found, she was very close to the trail. So I mean, the woods, it's so hard, especially when you're in these wooded areas that are so full of vegetation.

It's so easy to become lost in that and not know what direction you are, especially if you don't have anything. If you don't have a map, if you don't have a compass, you don't know where's northeast, south. Like, unless you, especially as a teenager who is an outdoorsy and does. doesn't maybe know to look to where the sun is, to know, like, what direction. You know, there's just, the woods are so hard and unforgiving. And yeah, it's very easy to get lost in them. It is. So that was another theory that was presented, but it was pretty quickly replaced by the theory of abduction or foul play. And that's where we're going to really spend the

most time as far as the theories go, because there's a lot to, there's a lot to this. So the FBI and Gibson's, the Gibson family, this was kind of their main theory. And this is where things really start to get interesting because there's some information that just adds complexity to the mix. So to start, we have what the dogs picked up on. It's a big deal that several different dog teams throughout several different days hit on the same three places. The place on the trail, she stepped off of at the base of the observation tower and then along the edge of. of that paved road in nearby Collins Gap. So let's break that down just a little bit. There was something found that I did not mention off of the trail where Trunny was witnessed

initially stepping off. I had a feeling. I don't know why I had a feeling, but I had a feeling. Okay. So it's, and it's frustrating because it was never really entered as like official evidence of significance. But essentially there were what appeared to be men's shoe prints found alongside several cigarette butts and a half drink can of beer that was so fresh it could still be you could still smell the odor of beer and this was right off the trail yes this was off the trail near where trunny stepped off herself i mean i think that's huge evidence additionally the same brand of cigarettes were found near colin's gap the collins gap area of road where Trunny Stent was last picked up by the dogs. And there's a couple things about this.

At first glance, it seems as if, to me, when I first heard that information to me, I was like someone was ducked off trail hiding and perhaps they called to her. But why would she, because it appeared from what Anita was describing that someone called her name and that's kind of why she ducked a little bit. Like it looked like she was maybe a little startled. So if someone was calling it. So if someone was calling to her and then called her over and that's why she ducked and then followed perhaps a voice or somebody calling or beckoning to her. If it's a stranger, I don't foresee her going to them willingly, but no one is saying that she went willingly. Maybe they were pointing a gun at her and threatening her to come over. Or it was somebody that she recognized and knew. We're like, hey, come over here.

And it's like somebody we're like, we're smoking, we're drinking. Come over. Do you want to smoke because Trunny, even though she was forbidden to smoke at home, she had been known to sneak a puff here and there. So maybe somebody was off trail and offered her a cigarette or something. Yeah. And I like, there's a couple things that I think of with this. One, if she was known to smoke a cigarette and it was like, if it was a younger man who maybe she was like, oh, who's this kind of thing that she felt more comfortable, yes to the cigarette thing. But for an older man, Like, or I guess we could say woman, but I just am not getting those vibes with a beer and cigarettes sitting there. And you said men's shoes.

But what I think of is that she is raised religious. She's raised to respect her elders, essentially, to respect adults. She has a very good relationship with adults in her family and within the school systems and everything like that. My first thought would be that if someone was like, hey, can you help me for a minute and it was an adult? her first reaction might be to be like, oh, someone needs my help. It's an adult who's asking me to do something. I usually help with that or this is like a safer scenario or on the other hand, you're uncomfortable, but you don't want to be rude. And you go off and you might be like, oh, yeah, like what's up? What do you need? Or how can I help you? Why are you off the trail? Kind of thing. You know, like I feel like she was from your descriptions of her, she was quiet. She's a home body. Maybe she's just, I, I imagine her being very respectful and very kind. So I could see how like she could be lured into a situation where she was either trying to help someone or she was trying to be respectful and not rude to an adult would be like regardless of if she knew them or not is what you're is what you're trying to say. Yeah. And that is definitely a possibility. But pretty quickly people started to well before I guess before I get into that part because we're going to talk at length about this next person. But. it's important to note that the cigarettes and the beer can were not properly collected for any sort of testing.

At the time, fingerprints kept and cataloged for future testing like DNA that was developed several years later. So those were never, like they were noted and they are in the incident report. But there's no evidence bag with them hiding in a locker somewhere. Correct. Gotcha. So back to this mystery person, if there was a person, because it's also made just a coincidence that there was cigarettes and a beer can off the side of a trail that's not unheard of. We don't believe in those.

It just a lot of things add up in this case that it seems like the coincidence is just too out there. The fact that the cigarettes were also found where her scent was found somewhere else is what links me. What makes me believe that it's not a coincidence. Not impossible, but it just feels very unlikely. Especially, I mean, it is the 70s smoking was bigger than, but you're in a national park, throwing litter on the ground. It's just, it feels, it doesn't feel like a coincidence to me. Okay. Well, but usually things don't, so.

Right. Well, when investigators are going over this and going over all the possibilities, kind of, you, like you just worked through out loud, who. would she willingly step off trail for? They kind of immediately started thinking of, well, she's not very close to many people on this field trip. She's friendly with a lot of them, but she's not really friends with anyone except for Robert Simpson. And remember, Robert Simpson was acting a bit annoyed that Trene was not there at 3.30 when everybody gathered back to the bus, which seemed a little weird. It's like this is supposed to be your brother's best or your your best friend's sister who you have been tasked with looking after. Why are you annoyed? You know, like, why aren't you a little more

concerned? So there's a few things that pertain to Robert's behavior and statements on this day and following that are a little questionable. So first and most obvious, he was tasked with staying with Trene. So why did he bail on the way back down? What was his reasoning? Because remember, he's like, oh, I just want to hang out here a little longer. You go ahead and I'll catch up with you. According to him, he was tracking a bear alone. Yes. That's weird. I mean, my first thought is not that that wouldn't be possible, but I would think if you had evidence of a bear and you were with a friend, you'd be like, oh my God, there's a bear. Like, let's go try and find it. Not, I'm trying to find a bear to get away from me. Right. You know, I just find it extremely far-fetched.

There's no other way to put it. Yeah. It's also a heavily traffic trail, so the fact of a bear being around isn't impossible, of course. And he's not, what is, what is, I don't know. Like, why would he be doing that? Why would you be doing that? You have no weapons. You have no, you're, I don't know, it just seems odd. Again, stranger things have happened.

Boys have had off the cuff ideas and have done crazier things. So it's not completely out of the realm of possibility. But it's important to note that he gave that reasoning when he was being questioned by the police. And he seemed very flustered and he said, I was tracking a bear. and that's why I was not with her. And on the bus, he explained that he hadn't seen her since the top of Andrews Bald after they had parted ways.

And it was, like I said, only during the interview with police after that he explained he left her for that reason. And this explanation for his whereabouts and this bear tracking story raised a lot of suspicion amongst the police force. However, there was a very little investigation into him largely due to his family. His father, oh my God, okay, I misspoke. there's another Robert. Four Roberts in this story. I knew. I knew it in your face. Stop there. I'm like, there's another Robert.

Oh, wait. Yeah. His father, Robert Simpson, Sr. was a very prominent Knoxville lawyer and served as the deputy district attorney at the time. When the police brought his son in about his, you know, asking a bunch of questions about Trene and how he played into that and where he was and all of that and his dad caught wind of them questioning his son. He counseled his son to not answer anything further, basically told the police you have nothing on him, you can't keep him, I'm taking him and I'm bringing him home and that was that. And that is honestly, to be fair, if I was a parent, I would do the exact same thing.

I would be like, why are you questioning my underage child alone in a situation that we have no idea what happened to this person and I would be very, very frustrated? especially being part of the legal system and knowing how some people can be kind of, I mean, we've all seen the confession tapes on Netflix and how things people can be pressured. And yeah. Yeah. Like I, like, I would be just as he has more experience than I would have. But, and like, knowing what to say and do. But I would be very upset if I had a child and they came into question. Even if it was like an innocent thing, I would be like, no. Like, I can sit here and be here when you question what happened that day. I wouldn't. If it was alone, I would be very scared of what was happening. But it does appear that there was just no further questioning, whether he was present or not, or, you know, he obtained legal counsel or not. It was just,

he just like took him out of there. Yeah. That was just it. Next, continuing on with Robert, when the Gibson family was away in Gatlinburg, remember they were there the first five days of the initial search. for Trunny? Yes. Robert interjected himself by taking it upon himself to field calls, personal calls, to the Gibson family home. He went into their house and fielded any call that came in, many of which were from the press. He took messages and also threw out his own theories and assumptions about what could have possibly happened to Truney that day. So was he close with the Gibson family? Yes, remember he's Bob's best friend. But his dad fielded these calls. No. Sorry. Other Robert.

Other Robert Jr. Okay. I'm sorry. I was like, wait, why would his dad feel these calls? Okay. This is back to Robert. This is back to... So teenage robber is answering the phone calls and talking to the press. Yes. And he was not requested to do this. And actually, when the Gibson family found out that he was doing this, they were pissed and asked him to stop. So, again, it's like looking at it from a removed point of view. Is this somebody who is just trying to help out a family he cares about? and trying to do what he feels needs to be done. Is he trying to throw off suspicion off of him? Is he trying to stir up the media and the press

by throwing out a bunch of different possibilities and trying to just like mix the media perception of the case? Like what is he, what is his motivation for this? And it's easy to say, yeah, he's suspicious and he's trying to stir the pot or he's just a kid trying to help his friends, family. But either way, the Gibson's didn't like it. And he stopped.

To me, that's a little weird to just step in and be this like spokesperson when nobody asked you to. And there's already suspicion on you. Why would you do that? Yeah. But the other thing that's weird is several weeks after Trunny's disappearance, Bob, the friend, Trunny's brother. Brother. Yes.

Was riding in Robert's car. He hopped in the passenger seat. They were going somewhere. and Bob noticed something on the dash of his car. And he grabs it, incredulous, and he just snatches this item and turns to Robert and said, what is this? And how did you get this? It was Trene's hair comb.

And reportedly, Robert basically just shrugged and said, oh, Trunny asked me to hold on to it. And he had actually been using it since either taking it or being given it because there was strands of his own hair all intertwined in the first. fingers of the comb. So this is her prized comb that she holds on to all the time. Yeah. And now Robert just has it in his car weeks after the incident doesn't care to tell anyone about it. And it's just holding onto it. I don't know. I still have questions about him because I do agree like it's weird that he would be carrying around one of her possessions and actively using it. But at the same time, I could also picture them on the trail together.

If she has it in her back pocket, I wouldn't hike with a brush in my back pocket. If he had a backpack or bigger or his jacket, I guess she wore his jacket. But it just like, it wouldn't be weird to me if he had held onto it for her for the hike. And then he had it after because I am going back to when he would have had time to do anything because he was in the bus, which I'm assuming you're going to get to because she was found. Like her scent was found a mile and a half away. And I just don't know where he would find the time to be a mile and a half away when he was on the bus with the rest of the kids. Mm-hmm. Well, the comb thing, as you just played out, could be explained away.

It's like, I can see how that would happen. Whatever. I think it's weird. Especially, even if all that did happen. I think it's weird. I just don't know if it's malicious or not. Okay. Well, let's talk about one more weird thing.

That is like the biggest red flag to me. Okay. As far as I just don't understand. Again, I don't understand the scent being a mile and a half away and Robert still making it to the bus, even though students noticed that he seemed out of breath. But again, that could fit with him being out of shape and just purely hiking. Yeah. For sure. It's not like he was running from a mile and a half away because he just committed some sort of crime or was trying to cover some accident up or whatever. Yeah. Okay, but this part is like, what in the world? Another explained object. or objects, I should say, was Trenny's jewelry, her ring and her necklace. The day of the field trip, she was wearing her prized sapphire and diamond ring and necklace, and according to Robert, they had stopped at the bathrooms at some point before the hike. Remember everyone got out of the bus, went to the bathroom, and then started hiking. According to Robert, while they were there,

Trenny had taken off both her ring and her necklace, turned to a random girl student, and asked her to hold them for her while she went to the bathroom, which to anyone who wears necklaces, like a small dainty necklace, like the one I always wear. I can see maybe taking off your rings to wash your hands and putting them on the counter and then putting them back on. But to be like, I need to pee, I'm going to take my necklace off to give to this girl that I'm not even friends with and my diamond ring. Hold on to that for me and then not come back for that and not.

for them back? Yeah. Did this girl corroborate his story that he's talking about? Well, yes and no. So, this explanation is just so wild to me. Like, for his. Yeah. That's like such a boy thing to make up. I'm so sorry. But to me, like, that's a. Yeah, I would never take off my necklace to go pee. Like, you know, have you seen those interviews of women interviewing men on the street about like basic girl knowledge. Yeah, there's this one right now and it's called Roe versus Bro. And it's this woman who's going up to men on the street and she's asking questions like, what is the period? And she's recording their answers or like, can women pee with the tampon in? And she's going up and recording. I've seen that question before. Yeah, she's going up to. And then at the end, she's asking,

are you planning to vote after they answer all of the. questions like horrifically wrong. She's asking, are you planning to vote? And then she says, then she calls out to women to vote with their uterus. And I just, that's the first thing it reminds me of is just like the outlander things that men have said about women. Yeah. Like I just, I just, I just don't know. I feel like that's like a something that like he would make up that seems legitimate. He's like, yeah, girls like take off their necklace and go to the bathroom. See, I would believe it if she was taking off her jewelry to hike. Like, I don't wear rings hiking because I get sausage fingers.

But your necklace? Have you taken off your necklace? Yes, sometimes. The necklace is the one to me, but it wasn't even to hike. It was to go to the bathroom. Yeah, see, that's what I'm saying. If he said to hike. But my necklace I definitely have before because my hair gets caught in it.

So my hair will get caught in it or if I get sweaty or something or if I have like a clasp that I know like sometimes like it gets tangled up or yeah yeah so like I definitely have taken necklaces off before I hike and I definitely have taken rings off so if it was to hike I would believe that or believe that it could be valid well it wasn't to hike so let's get that out of the way it was just to use what did the girl say okay so that was robert's explanation and they were kind of like okay well like who who was this girl then because she must must be amongst the people we're interviewing here. Yeah.

Months later, the jewelry shows up. And apparently, it had gone through the hands of two separate girls. One of them was a high school acquaintance. And the other one was a young woman that did not go to Beard in high school, but went to the Gibson's family's church. Okay. And the girl, the acquaintance through the church is the one that ended up having it when it was noted. And that girl's mother was like, hey, if that's Trene's jewelry, you need to give it back to the family. And they urged her daughter to do it.

But for one reason or another, and the details are super murky, she never returned it to the Gibson family. And it is gone in oblivion. No one knows where it is or who has it. But those girls gave the reasoning that Robert gave it to them. Were they both at this place? or Robert gave it to the separate times. The high school acquaintance. And then somehow it made it to this other girl.

And the details are just super murky and they're really reluctant to say. If he gave it as like a gift to a girlfriend, that would be the like creepy thing to me. And that's the thing. That's the first thing I thought of. But the details are just so because remember a lot of the information that's coming out doesn't come out right away with the FBI interviews. It actually comes out much later and it interviews decades later. And these are all kids that are like, there's a lot of rumors going around. Like you said in the very beginning, it's like it's so hard with high school kids.

There's so many rumors and who said what and did who to, you know, just different things. It's like a game of telephone where things can just get misconstrued. It is. So the jewelry is a big like what in the world is up with that. Like why do these random people have somebody's jewelry? who is gone missing. And not just her jewelry, but the jewelry she was wearing the day she went missing. Yes. Yes. And now Robert has the comb that she had. It was the only possession she had with her. And yeah. So it has been theorized that maybe something happened between Robert and Trene at some point that day. Whether they had some sort of

argument or maybe Robert tried to make a pass at Trene that went unreceived and kind of spiraled out of control that those have been potentials that have been thrown out there by people over the years. From what we know to be true from the scent dogs, it appeared as if she was taken from that spot that she had stepped off trail near where the Forney Ridge Trail, which is actually the trail that is used to access Andrews Bald. So that's the trail that the high schoolers went out on that day. So where the Forney Ridge Trail intersects with the AT, because remember, she was noted on that section of the AT and then on the road and then was maybe taken out of the park because her scent disappears. Or somehow she made it to the AT by accident, went up to Clingman's Dome because her scent was there too,

and wandered down to the road where she was abducted or met with some type of foul play. And it's hard to conceive that Robert Simpson could have done all that in the time between leaving her at the summit and meeting with everybody else at the bus without being noticed, let alone the time that it would take. Yeah, especially the last time someone saw her was very close to the end of the trail and then everyone went back on the bus and he was ahead of her. So he would have gotten to the bus and bent down there. Well, he wasn't ahead of her. She was ahead of him.

Him. But then other people would have saw him on the trail. Correct. And that's the point. It's like, okay, so nobody, because he is unaccounted for the entire time. No one saw him or at least no one came forward seeing him. between being at the summit with Trunny to then being at the bus. So the entire time that he went down the trail, nobody saw him do that. That's suspicious. So was he actually behind her on the

trail then? Who knows? Some people think that maybe he took some sort of, he went off trail and went through the woods to the spot where she stepped off trail. Not that I'm aware of. Because that just feels unlikely unless he knew the, especially because of how thick the vegetation is. Like, I don't know how he would know where to walk through to get to that point if he didn't know the area and had been there before. Yeah. And it's not like cell phones where you can just like go on all trails and like find a connecting point. Right. Yeah.

Right. I don't know. There's a lot of talk about whether he was involved or not involved. And if he was involved, if he intentionally or unintentionally killed her and stashed her body and then just returned later with a vehicle to. remove it from the park because just because her scent was noted at those places, it doesn't mean that she was alive. It just means that her body was there. So if she stepped off the trail, Robert or somebody else was there, something happened to her and killed her and she was killed, if it was Robert, if we're doing the whole Robert thing, he could have killed her, stashed her

somewhere, and gotten back to the bus, went back to the high school, and then returned later, grabbed her body and that's why her, and that's why her scent was at those different places. But again, I feel so far fetched to me. Like, I'm sorry I'm laughing, but that is like so far fetched to me. It just is like, well, especially because the search. Because the search. The next day. Yeah, the next day. And it's just like, and he killed someone, but the search went on and he managed to hide her body a mile and a half at least away while the search was happening. Well, no, no, no, it didn't have to be at least a mile and a half way to be stashed. I guess. But then he would have had to come back at night in the middle of the night with these huge search teams that were out looking in a rainstorm, drag her to the

road, and then stash her somewhere else. And he had only like a short period of time that he could have killed her because there were other people on the trail that saw her walk off the trail. So even if he was there. Everyone else got back to the bus very quickly because they were at the end of the trail and then he was there at some point. So he wouldn't have had very much time. I know. And how would he kill her? Also, how, like, did he have a backpack or anything that he had beer? Not that I'm aware of. Then also does he smoke cigarettes? And are those cigarettes that he smokes? That, well, what's interesting is, I don't know. I can't say with 100% certainty that he did or did not smoke, but it was pretty widely known that a lot of the students at that time smoked. Yeah. But it's been pointed out that, so the brand, I forget the

brand of beer, but the cigarettes were parliaments, which I think are pretty damn common. But there's people who talk about the case and things like that, they're really eager to point out that the parliaments and that particular brand of beer were her brother's favorite brands. Her brother. Okay. But it's like. But her brother didn't know if she was going there. of that. I mean, I know. Yeah. So, and why would her brother kill her in the woods? And is she even, I mean, here's another thing. On a trip that his mom was supposed to be on. Right. And I'm not going to, like, this just adds to the complexity, but it is something that has been pondered. We don't know if she died there. I was just going to say, I was just thinking that too. We like, no one knows that she was killed there were ever, honestly, because people have been

kidnapped for very, very long periods of time. So yep. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, you know, I think for a lot of the, it's easy to be like, well, she was met with foul play and she must be dead and stashed in the park somewhere or something happened to her, whatever. But I mean, it's very, very possible that she was simply, not simply, but kidnapped and was taken from the park alive. I think that's the most plausible. Yeah. And another just side note, no one closed the gate by Klingman's Dome until Saturday morning, meaning that this gate was left open from the time that people realized she was missing until about 24 hours later. So it's quite possible if somebody took her out of the park in a vehicle, they weren't stopped. They had easy access out of the park from that area. Yeah. I feel like my gut, I don't know if you're going into more stuff,

but my gut is that someone came. Zip. Okay. Tell me. Tell me your thoughts. Let me just get through this let. Like, I am so here for your theories. But go ahead. You're right. You're right. I have so many opinions. Please tell me the facts that you have actually researched. Okay, great. There is another person of interest that has an interesting background with the Gibson's. Kelvin Bowman was another student at Bearden who was friends with Bob. He was one of the few African American students at the school. He was on the basketball team. And For much of his academic life, he did really well. His friends called him Keg, because he really liked beer.

And he was a year older than Trenny. He knew of Trenny. He was friends with her older brother. And Trenny was friends with his younger sister, Annette. Or at least friendly with her. Okay. On October 11th, 1975, almost a year to the day prior to Trenny's abduction, there was an incident at the Gibson's house involving Kelvin.

On that evening, Kelvin arrived to their house absolutely hammered. He was yelling and acting belligerent outside of their home and calling for Bob. He made his way over to a planter box outside of Trene's window and was trying to get into the house. Like, he was just smashed. He was, like, no one was answering him and he was just trying to gain access. Yeah, he's being erratic. Hope, who was watching from an upstairs window, was watching this whole thing unfold, telling him to go away. He's not listening.

So she shot him in the foot with her with her pistol. Damn. Despite being shot, he was undeterred. He broke Trunny's window, managed to gain access inside her room, grabbed her by the hair, and was trying to drag her outside through the broken window. Oh, my God. And he's yelling. It's very scary.

He's yelling all this stuff to her and being just, yeah. Just not great. It's a whole thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a whole thing. She manages to get away. she runs down the hallway, she gets to the safety of her mother's room, the police come shortly after Kelvin is arrested and tried for breaking and entering and sentenced to two years in a juvenile detention center.

During his sentencing, he was heard stating that he would seek revenge and get back at the Gibson family. He ended up serving only six months of his sentence, meaning he was back in Bearden High School for October of 1976. He was known to give Trene a really hard time when he was back in school, bullying-wise, just heckling her and giving her shit, essentially. Yeah. And it's thought that perhaps Kelvin followed. Okay, again, I know it's out there, but these are just everything that people have presented. They have to be considered. So it's been thought that perhaps Kelvin followed the bus to the park with ill intentions towards Trene, knowing that she was going to be on the trip.

Some students that were on the bus stated they saw him following the bus in a vehicle, but it could never be proven. The problem with this theory other than the fact that it seems very extreme was that he was marked as being present in school that day. However, it came out later that he was just marked as being present in homeroom in the morning and that attendance there was pretty loosey-goosey. like, oh, he was here and maybe they skipped out or like, you know, a lot of, like, come and go and they might not notice. Exactly. So is it possible that he could have left after being marked as present and home room and then left to catch up the bus? But I don't know, not knowing what direction it was going in or where it was headed unless he really saw it pull out of the school and followed it. Yeah, not knowing where it was headed and she's with a massive group of people. Yeah, I don't know.

I had to include that it's possible, again, every possibility out here. Like, I just feel like there's so many possibilities. And I know it can be super frustrating. But it's possible that maybe some students had an idea where they were headed before it was officially announced. Maybe it got out through the grapevine or maybe through Mr. Dunlap's search for additional chaperones like the day before. It's like he's calling around. Maybe somebody's parent got, again, totally just guessing here, but maybe. I can see a world in which somebody's parent gets a phone call from this teacher.

Hey, can you help out on my field trip? We're going to the Great Smokies. I need some more help. They say no. And then they're like, oh, yeah, teachers looking for help going to the National Park. Or they tell their kid, like, have fun at the Great Smokies tomorrow. Yeah, or something like that. You know, I just.

Yeah. And then, again, telephone word spread. Who knows? Who really knows? So that's a possibility. Maybe Kelvin caught wind of that and devise some sort of. retaliation against trendy. Kelvin eventually graduated. He was never, I mean, he was a person of interest, but just like- He didn't really link anything to him. Yeah, just like Robert Simpson, it kind of was just like,

oh, that's, you're suspicious, but we don't have anything if like really on you. He eventually graduated and in 1979, he was convicted of rape and assault after following a woman home. Since his release from jail, he's been in trouble with the law over the years here and there for different things. So that's just something to know about him that, you know, he had, it seems like he had those intentions with Treeney that day in 1975, and he certainly went through with it later on in life. Robert and Kelvin seemed to have the most suspicion thrown their way, but everyone was looked into. Trenti's father, her brother, Mr. Dunlap, fellow students, pretty much everyone was considered a subject until they were rolled out for one reason or another. And no matter how many

weird coincidences or odd behavior, nothing concrete enough ever came from either of those individuals or anybody else. And no theory that we've discussed. And there are plenty of others, but there's only so much time in our worlds to discuss them. And none of those theories have ever been proven to be true. So today we still have no idea what happened to Truny. And I do have more, but I will pause right now to give you a moment if you would like it. I'm exploding. Okay. Okay.

So I guess my opinion that I was going to say, what his name's Calvin? Is that correct? Kelvin. Calvin. Well, my opinion on him is I do think that that is a more realistic option. I think that there are some things there that feel a little fishy, especially if he was out for revenge, he's violent. But it seems very, unless he was familiar with the area, I think that it would be very unlikely

because my feeling here, and of course there's no evidence and I have absolutely no idea, but from what you have presented and the fact that she walked off the trail, there was stuff there that seemed like someone had been sitting there at some point that day. And then her scent was found on a road nearby. I have a feeling that there was someone there who knew the area, who had premeditated something to happen, who had come. who had come out with beer, cigarettes, whatever else he had with him that he took with him. And he sat there and he waited for an opportunity.

And my thought is that he knew a way to get back to his car, maybe stashed his car on the side of the road and then brought her and left the park. And what happened from there? Who knows? In broad daylight. I'm just asking. But in broad daylight with everybody around leading her alive? Yeah. I mean, or.

Yeah. I think so. I mean, okay, I think that... I just want to be clear with what you... Yeah, I think that if it was through vegetation, that was not a trail and he had a weapon, I think that it would be very possible if he knew the area to get somewhere and not be seen. And also to have a weapon, it is very easy to manipulate someone to stay quiet, you know? And if you're on the side of the road, you might have an opportunity to get to your car without anyone seeing.

And also it might be an opportunity where no one would notice your car if there's a lot of other people parked around or there's a lot of other people driving, it wouldn't stand out. So I don't know, I feel like whatever this was, it feels very premeditated to me because to just sit and to be sitting in the woods off a path, you would have to have some type of plan if you were going to abduct someone. You would have some type of escape, especially on a crowded trail with a lot of people around. And that's just my feeling. Everyone else. else, it feels like even with Kelvin, he feels very erratic and violent and not. He doesn't feel like he prepares for things necessarily. He just acts on things. So that's just my feeling that this was something that maybe Trenny wasn't the target that day, but she was like an, she was an opportunity that this person was waiting for. Okay. Well, I will present the rest of my information and we'll see if, yeah. Okay. In the months and years after Trenny's disappearance, the state of Tennessee offered up a $5,000 award for information leading to answers in her case. Mr. Gibson pleaded to get his daughter's story on unsolved mysteries, and even Ted Bundy was questioned about her disappearance before

he was put to death, and he maintained he knew nothing about her. Psychics and clairvoyance have stepped forward with varying information on her case, and private investigators were hired all without success. For years, flyers with Trene's school photo, which eerily was taken a day before she vanished, circulated the Smokies for years. The school implemented several changes to their policies, including adding a requirement for the number of chaperones to be present on field trips. Mr. Dunlap was significantly affected by Trene's disappearance. According to his wife at the time, he was in a near constant state of nervous breakdown. He resigned from his teaching position at Bearden that same year and moved across the country to Oregon, and he has since passed away. The entire family was devastated by

Trenny's disappearance. Hope and Robert moved their children out of their home and away from the painful memories that it held in, you know, Trenny's empty bedroom. And despite efforts to keep their family together, they divorce several years later. That's sad. Mr. Gibson remained relentless in his effort to find his daughter. He petitioned the park service for a second search, but was denied. However, he had some pretty powerful connections. At one point, he had worked for and was very friendly with Jimmy Carter, who then in the years following became president. After reaching out to his old friend, the president was able to make some calls and write some letters that granted a second search in the park, which ran from April 18th to May 5th of 1977,

in which 230 people joined. Wow. All major and minor trails, drainage and ridges between Andrews Bald and Elkmont in Tennessee, a distance of about 15 miles, and Fontana Lake in North Carolina, a distance of 14 miles, were searched, and they found nothing. The case went cold with very little movement for many years. And then in 2003, a chef from Alberta, Canada, was browsing the Doe Network, which is a website for unidentified and missing persons.

Laura Rist has been fascinated with missing persons cases since she was a child, and it was not out of the norm for her to just browse this website in different cases in her spare time. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when she was several pages deep in the Doe Network and Trene's case popped up. Laura described the first time she saw Trene as almost startling. She had such a strange experience. She felt like she had a physical reaction to seeing Trene's photo, like she couldn't breathe. There was a pressure on her chest and she quite literally almost collapsed out of her chair. After reading the blurb of information on the site, she pulled an atlas off of the shelf and flipped it open to the great

Smoky Mountains because she had never been there, heard of it. She had no idea where it was. And she has mentioned over the years, you know, I have looked into missing persons cases for decades. I'm always really intrigued by them. But Treni, like since the moment I saw Trenny, I just everything changed for me. And I've just been so strangely drawn to her case in particular. And she wasn't lying because she is dedicated over 20 years and thousands of hours into Trenny's case. Wow. In particular. She has interviewed everyone that she can get in touch with from classmates to family members, law enforcement, park rangers. She has an entire room dedicated to Trenti's case. She has maps of the park and trail system from the 1970s that are just plastered on her wall. She has the incident report, note cards, case filings, just like everything filling this room just has everything to do with Trenti's disappearance. And she runs a blog dedicated to Trenti's. case any and any updates that it may have. And she contacts the local law enforcement regularly

inquiring about their efforts in solving her case, like on a monthly basis. Okay, any updates? That's very dedicated. Yeah. Especially because she doesn't know her. She doesn't know her. She has no personal connection to her or anything or nothing. Yeah. Through her numerous interviews and from the hundreds of emails and anonymous tips that she has received over the years, Laura says that she has heard every theory there is under the sun. Everything from sex trafficking, being abducted by a stranger and aliens, stepping into another dimension, Robert and Kelvin working together to get back at Bob for something because they both knew Bob. Like Bob is like the kind of like the common denominator between Robert and Kelvin. Yeah. So she's heard that. Right. Right. Like everyone, everyone knows my brother

too. You know, it's just like, yeah. She's heard Bob being involved himself. All of that to Trunny was maybe Truny was pregnant. And she arranged an abortion somewhere. And she ran off in the middle of a school field trip to get an abortion done somewhere else or or something went wrong with members of her class, maybe a prank gone wrong or something happened. And the class is covering their asses. essentially, or members of the class that were there that day are all protecting themselves, and it's some cover up between high school kids. Tina, Trinney's little sister, when she got older, she started to do her own little sort of investigation, just questioning people, you know, like, what do you know? And were you there? And just like, she started probing people and bearded in high school when she was old enough to do so. And she was met with threats saying, quote, if you keep poking around the same thing that happened to Trenti is going to happen to you. So people were telling the sister that. Wow. That's horrible. Yep. And according to Laura, she has sources who claim that they, and this is, okay, this is a little

confusing. But she has a couple sources that claim that they had contact with Bearden High School students later on once they were in college. So they weren't Bearden High School students, but they went to college with students from Bearden High. Gotcha. Who say that they were told from those beard and high school students that Treni was long dead before the search began and is somewhere in the park to this day. There were also rumors throughout the high school that Robert was later on seen wearing the jacket that supposedly Trenny still had that orange and brown plaid jacket. People are like, what do you mean he gave it to her? And she has it because I've seen him with it since that day. Interesting. And then some people say that they know that her body was

driven to a separate location in the back of a Jeep and dumped somewhere, either in the park or right outside of it. Like, these are just all things that have come through different interviews or anonymous tips or email, just like, or I heard this or I heard that. It's just so convoluted. And you have to consider everything because one of these things could be the key. Times that you know, the saying like where there's smoke, there's fire. Like maybe not everything you're hearing is true, but maybe there's something in there that is and there's something worth looking into. With Laura, so there's actually, we're almost done, I promise. But this episode is so long. But there is a, there's so many episodes series that have to do with Trinney's disappearance for obvious reasons. I mean, I'm not even going into great detail, believe it or not. I tried to keep it cadence for everybody. But there are entire. podcast seasons that are dedicated to this story. And there is one podcast in particular that I listened to. They had a six or seven part series on this case. It's called Missing, like not the missing, but missing podcast. And like they've covered Maura Murray and like they've done a lot of stuff,

but they had Laura Rist on and her interview was so long, they divided it into so many different episodes. So according to Laura, just hearing her speak for so many hours and have her, She's like, I mean, she's an encyclopedia with this case. I mean, she's dedicated over 20 years of her life. And she knows this case like the back of her hand. And a lot of what she was saying, I was looking through the incident report at the same time she was talking. I'm like, it seems like she just, it's crazy how much she knows. Yeah. But it seemed to me that she feels like, yes, it could have been an abduction for sure. But she thinks something is very weird with this high school class or this group. I should say, because it's of mixed ages. But she just feels like there is something there that people know more than they're letting off. Does she have an idea for motivation behind it? No. No.

And that's like the big missing piece. It's like, but why? Why would somebody want to harm Trinney? Unless it was something that went bad by accident and they just, like I said, was she bullied in school? Do you know? Well, she was given a hard time by Kelvin, for sure. And again, Laura in her interviews did talk about bullying. Like, yeah, Trenny definitely got her fair share of bullying.

But it wasn't, she made it a point to say how it wasn't super abnormal, especially in the 70s. Bullying was not given, looked at the same way. As shamed as it is. Yeah. Like, it went around a lot to a lot of different people. Like, it was almost a sort of right of passage. Like, it wasn't, it wasn't something that was completely out of the norm. And compared to other people.

Yeah, I got the feeling. that it was just kind of like she got her fair share but so did so many other people so I'm not really sure but I didn't get the feeling that she was specifically targeted for that reason yeah if that makes sense okay but anyway Laura has given various interviews throughout the years and despite having no law enforcement background has done all she can as an amateur sleuth to keep Trini's story at the forefront as she believes it may have gone cold but it remains solvable. She is adamant that it's going to take someone with some piece of information that they've been holding back or some type of deathbed confession to make strides forward in this

case. Because again, she believes there are people, or at least one person, that knows some key information here that they've been holding back for one reason or another. She's not entirely sure why. Yeah. At the conclusion of the final search for Trene, Great Smoky Mountains Park Superintendent Boyd Eveson released a statement stating in part, quote, searchers have again gone to great lengths and extremely rugged mountain areas to find any clues to Trenny's disappearance. But after extensive search, no evidence has been found. With all effort expended on this search, the fact still remains that there is a possibility

she is still in the park. That possibility will stay in our minds every time we go into the backcountry, I'm sure. As of this recording, Teresa Trenny Lynn Gibson, Thelma, Paul, Melton, Dennis Martin, and Derek Looking remain the four unsolved disappearances within this national park. As of today, only Trunny's mother, Hope, and Younger Brother Miracle are still alive out of her family. Robert Jr., her older brother Bob, died in 2000 at the age of 42. Robert Sr., her dad, died in 2004 at the age of 67, and Tina, her little sister, died in 2016 at the age of 54. Today, Trene would be 64 years old. At the time of her disappearance, she was 5'3 and 115 pounds, wearing a blue blouse, a white striped sweater, and potentially a borrowed orange and brown plaid jacket. Her case remains open, and if you have any information about Trene Gibson's case, please contact the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 615-744-4,000. Wow.

Oh, my God, what? I need to take a deep. Cleansing breath. Yeah. No, that was a lot of information and definitely I would be, I feel like there's so much more information like you said needs to be known. I think it is very weird that the class has a lot of like malicious things that are behind it with people that potentially they know where they're like, I knew there was a Jeep involved, don't go searching. This is dangerous territory. Like, well, it just seems weird. Like aside from them saying initially, oh yeah, she ran away. Yeah, that was, she must have run away. Then they go to like all these rumors are swirling instead of just being like, yeah, she must have been taken by a stranger. Like maybe and maybe some people did say that, but then you know

how kids are and how high school works. And even if somebody is just that, I don't know, just the flaw with that that I see. Again, everything is like maybe, but also no. And the also no for this for me is that is a lot of people to keep their mouth shut. for 40 something years. Yeah. Aside from those little trickles of like warning, like don't go poking around or yeah, I know like something may have happened. Like for somebody, for anybody out of that group, like the possibility of every single

person keeping their mouth shut for that heavy of information to know for so long, just seems wild. I agree. I agree. I think that especially like maybe as maybe a group of adults, yes. but a group of kids who maybe know something that is really horrific and horrible. Like, I just, I can't imagine as a 16-year-old if I knew one of my classmates something really bad happened to them, not saying a word to anyone.

Like, not even like a safe adult to be like, I'm really scared. You know, so it's just like, I agree. It's very weird that not a single person has said something. I think that it's worth looking into. I still feel like there was some type of predator out there. I feel like that is something that we've seen before. Of course, like, if there's more information here where there's something with the family, if the parents had someone that had it out for them and something was done against it.

You know, like, there could be things that we just don't know about. But, yeah, I don't know. I just, I don't know. I think it might be. There's so much of this. information of like the comb, the jewelry, the rumors, the like all these different things that seem so intriguing and do strike as odd. And like kind of like you raise your eyebrow a little bit at those, especially given the circumstances. But like you said from the beginning, it just

feels like the most obvious explanation is the explanation. Yeah. Trenny was by herself coming down the trail when it seems like everybody else was at least with one or two other people. She was alone. And I feel like someone just acted really quickly and took her and or killed her. And that's just like the tragic. I mean, it's not simple, but it just seems like that's the most plausible. Yeah. But again, it's just, it's complicated for a reason, clearly.

And there's a lot to consider. But that is the official stance of the FBI and the Gibson family. they think that she was taken. She was taken by somebody. And I think for the Gibson family to think that they're part of that town, they're part of that community. So if something is going around with all these rumors, they're going to hear them too. Even if people are trying to hide them away, like stuff like that in a small town, as someone from a small town, things get filtered back from you, back to you. So I feel like if they believe that she was taken, then the validity of anything that the town was.

saying didn't really resonate with them. So I don't know. I agree. It's a very weird case. There's a lot of opinions. I hope that sometime in the rest her surviving family's lifetime, that they do get an answer and they're able to find her and whether that is alive for some reason and we haven't been able to find her for all these years or if it's just to put an end to this and get some closure. I hope that they find that. Yep, me as well. So thank you. everyone for tuning in and listening to Trenti's case and for suggesting it. I hope I did it the justice that it deserves. And you got what you were thinking you were going to get with us presenting this story. And we will see you next week. Enjoy the view. But watch you're back.

Bye everyone. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at NPAD Podcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Join our Outsiders-only community on Patreon or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more, visit our website at N-P-A-D-Podcast.com. And please rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you listen to podcasts.

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