Someone Knows Something - S1 Update: Final Response

Episode Date: March 29, 2018

In March 2018, David and his team of volunteers conduct a fourth search of Holmes Lake for Adrien McNaughton. It's the deepest and most thorough search to date and, with the help of cadaver dogs, leads to important discoveries.

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It's kind of windy, eh? Yeah. Yeah, my headphones are all frozen here already. We're heading up to Holmes Lake here, about quarter to seven in the morning. Up the snowy road. Five-year-old Adrian McNaughton disappeared late day on June 12, 1972, while on a family fishing trip here at this lake. It's early March.

We're just trying to catch the lake with the ice in still. On our fourth attempt to look for Adrian McNaughton in the area that the four cadaver dogs indicated and auger some holes in. We've got a core sampler that we're gonna insert into the holes at regular intervals on a grid, sample the muddy bottom of the lake throughout the area where the dogs were signaling. So hopefully we'll be able to get much deeper into the sediment that has accumulated over the years at the bottom of Holmes Lake.

During the dives, the first three, we were barely able to scratch the surface of the mud so this would be by far the most thorough search of the lake that we've done to try to find Adrian if he's in the lake okay let's go let's keep going there's the lake. Holmes Lake. Well it's an overcast, grey day. Pulling everything on a sled behind me here.

Chris Oak from SKS is in the distance pulling up the Sampler device in a big Pelican box We got Mike Grebler coming in who is dive master on dives one two and three He'll be joining us later and Chris and I We're gonna start by marking out the search area. It should be about 80 feet out from shore and about 100 feet in width and then another 80 feet back to shore in a rectangle.

We'll place the samples next to the holes on the ice and later Kim Cooper and Pauline will come in with their dogs separately and sniff at the samples and we'll see if there's any indication on the samples and we can get up to four feet of sample so we can actually get right to the bottom of the mud in the search area. Here's the spot where Adrian was last seen. This is where Murray said they were fishing and

looked back and where Lee said he saw Adrian playing and they looked back again and he wasn't there. It's not very far. God, it's a lonely place. This is the area right here where the dogs all stood and looked this way. Like I'm wondering whether we can focus on the area where we think he might be and then

expand out from there. So like if we were to start where we think he fell in and then sort of fan out from that as we search. There's the spot right there where the dogs indicated. So there's the 80 foot mark out there. So we'll put our first hole right here. Using a hand-powered ice auger about 15 centimeters in diameter, we bore into the ice of Holmes Lake.

The ice is clean and smooth, enough for a game of shinny hockey. We bore into the ice of Holmes Lake. The ice is clean and smooth, enough for a game of shinny hockey, and about 40 centimeters thick. Okay, so let's get the sampler. Now let's get the alcohol wipes because Kim Cooper said that I should sterilize whatever we sampled or tested. The theory is to sterilize the unit before we use it, and then anything that it touches here is all fresh from Holmes Lake.

And anything it's been through before isn't represented as something that the dogs can smell. The core sampler is made up of four detachable cylinders, about 30 centimeters long and about 3 centimeters in diameter, with a butterfly valve that traps a column of mud inside until we can get it to the surface. On top, above the tubes, we screw on an increasing number of rods to get down to the depth necessary to find bottom. This is probably as much sample as we can, right? Yeah.

Just keep going until you kind of get a good feel like you have something. How much more length do we have here? I think I brought enough to go about 32, 33 feet. Oh, that's something to hurt. Okay, so that's the bottom. Oh, there you go. That helps to hold the sample in better. So at this rate, I think we just leave it as the dogs smell at a particular hole,

then we just mark that hole. Yeah, here comes Mike Grebler. Hey Mike. Nice to see you again, Mike. Be seen. So we're like what? 15, 20, 12 feet from shore and we're down about 35 feet already. Wow. Into the silt. Yeah. There's a sub-layer, and then there's a mat, and then there's another layer underneath, an opening, like open area of water, and then there's another layer way down. So there's like a layer cake. Probably, you know, a lot of the old growth and tree bits and... Like the actual bottom is like... there's like 20 feet after the actual bottom. Like after the bottom

that you feel, there's another 20 feet. That's astounding. That was truly astounding. I had... I mean... You can't even tell as a diver. You can just be pushing against it and think it's sort of bottom maybe below that. And it's like actually just the sub bottom. Holy mackerel. So the question is how did those divers back in the day ever claim or ever actually say they searched it properly? Well, their target would have been on top of the silt.

Yeah. Or underneath the tree. Yeah, hit like, caught. Caught underneath the tree. Or underneath one of those hollows. Wow. So we're trying- 30, 35 feet. Well, look the tree. Or underneath one of those hollows. Wow. So we're going... Thirty-five feet. Well, look at the number that we've got coming out here.

So this has gone all the way down in there already at that length, but I can't get it down any further. So this is from the very bottom at least. Basically, the dogs will come. They'll smell. They find. They find. And then we mark the holes.

All right, well we should keep going. I wanna get at least this area covered, so we've gotta pretty much push. We are in the hole. That's what we're going to be getting. Because that went really easily. And it captured a whole bunch of mud. Looks like we got a nice sample in there too. Yeah there's a good sample there. So that's 33 feet of sampler in the ground but we're about 20 feet from shore

and we're 33 feet down and we're at almost at the end of our pipe that we brought and we're 33 feet down, and we're almost at the end of our pipe that we brought. And we're going through several layers. This is astounding, really. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I mean, so if Adrian or anybody's remains are in here, they could easily be within the layer cake of silt and tree bark and debris and twigs and all the stuff that had been moving. We drill and sample over 30 holes. Then, in the early afternoon, Kim Cooper arrives with her group of cadaver dog handlers.

Hello. How are you? Good, how are you? The dogs are all waiting back down at the main road in warm trucks and will be gotten one at a time from there. Hello. Lizzie, nice to meet you. So we're making our way around. I see.

I don't know what you guys think, but we have 33 foot of pipe and about 15 feet offshore we're right down to the handle. Really? We can't go any further. That's the hell out of me. You can't get to the bottom with 33 feet? No. It's 15 right there.

Really? Yeah. It's really different than what I thought. Yeah, because we thought it was a lot shallower. Yeah. Then it would make no sense that he wasn't. That he hadn't come up. Yes.

We've got layers of crap. I don't know how much time you guys have or what you want me to do. Are you going to put more holes in and do more... Or do you think we've got enough for a sample? What did you... You pulled gunk out and you've laid it out somewhere? Is that what you've done? Yeah, the gunk is right next to each hole.

Okay. It's probably most efficient to get all the holes done before we bring the dogs up as opposed to running them back and forth, back and forth. So would you do one at a time? Like you guys would hang out over there kind of thing and then you come in and go around that's a good idea how many sets do we have of dogs we have three so you're two yeah and pauline's nice okay great so who's coming first uh we'll bring grief first so we were going to um we're going to do our best to run them blind uh good meeting us so so i won't tell pauline what happens if anything happens with my dog.

So she'll come up not knowing. I won't watch her dog work when I bring the third dog out. Okay, so why don't we do a couple more holes. We drill and sample a few more holes in some random spots for good measure. That's a lot of ice. Then the first dog, Grief, arrives with Kim. The dogs are brought over the ice rather than through the bush, which is confusing for them at first, but makes it far less likely that they'll remember the location from their previous visits.

Grief passes each of the holes and samples without much fuss, but then he passes one further out, directly opposite the campsite area where all the dives were based from, the datum point, and hooks back dramatically, sliding on the ice as he tries to turn around quickly. Grief bite smells at the water, as I've seen the dogs do when they're trying to get a better scent, And then... He walks to Kim, then back to the hole, barking. This is what Kim calls a final response,

and it is different than what we've seen before. It's what the dogs have been trained to do when they confirm human remains to their handlers. That was interesting. When he came in, there was a major wing back at this one hole here, at the middle hole right there. It was like right back and he smelled again and then he came around and then he did this thing over here.

Because even I noticed that. I'm not a dog trainer or handler. I noticed that. So we'll see what the other dogs do. That was the least experienced dog. Pauline's going to bring her dog in. Then it's Quinn's turn. Quinn's body language shifts at the hole where grief indicated. At the very next hole, just a short distance away but further from shore, in a straight

line out from the datum point, he indicates as well. Just like grief with a full final response, something we've not seen before. Quinn actually lies down on the ice. He lay down on this one, which is his final response. What does the response mean when he sits down like that? When he lays down, that's what he's trained to do. When he smells cadaver, his final response is to lay down by it. That's the only hole he laid down on.

But the same place twice, right? Yeah, that's it. We'll let Kim tell you, the other dog, I guess. So then Kim's coming. She's coming with Maurice. Okay, so we'll wait until the hole. We'll re-pick him after. Thanks. Great. Okay.

I think that's the first full sit that we've had. That's the first full action. And this last dog is the most experienced dog. Breeze gingerly sniffs past the long line of holes. She passes by the hole where grief indicated, and then Quinn's hole nearby. Nothing. But then she returns to the first hole and begins licking the water. Breeze 2 gives Kim a strong indication and lays down. All three dogs with final response indications. So what did you guys observe there?

None of them seem to be drawn to those holes down there. No. Really at all. No, no. Everybody's hooking back onto these ones. Did Quinn do like a hook back? When he came to this hole and checked it out, I did notice a change in body language.

You could tell there was something going on. That's what I was thinking as I was walking back down with grief. Because he's the guy who will not indicate unless it lines up. It has to check all the boxes of everything he's experienced before. And if it doesn't, he won't indicate. I mean, grief, when he came in, the first thing I saw, he hooked really hard on that hole there. The interesting thing is that part of he goes and just bark in holes,

but then when you have three completely independent and they end up choosing basically the same hole. When sat there and then- When lay down there and barked. Well, yeah, we call it a indication or a trained final response. Final response is good. Yeah, okay, TFRs.

Trained final response. So what do we call Breeze's response here? Is it a- Same thing, TFR. TFR? Yeah,ined Final Response. So what do we call Breeze's response here? Is it a TFR? Same thing, TFR. TFR? Yeah. And hers is a, both of them have the same thing, barking down. So Breeze and Grief both did the thing there.

Yeah. Yeah. So that would make sense, I think. Yeah, the whole thing keeps lining up, doesn't it? Yeah. With what we've always pretty much felt. I'm not as really sure about that. I have no doubt.

I'm thinking that whole thing with the pole going in 33 feet over there, that just to me just went, everything just opened up. The possibilities just opened right up. I don't know, it's just like, are we ever gonna find anything more than this? You know, like is it just impossible, right? It's your world, but I wouldn't think so.

It eats at you, doesn't it? It does. It keeps you awake at night. That's why we're here, all of us. We've taken triangulated measurements within a few centimeters of where the holes of interest are. I've discussed everything with this dedicated team of volunteers who have been here from the beginning and we've been forced to agree there's nothing more that we can do or should do given what we all believe. There are human remains in Holmes Lake. Definitively proving that it is Adrian

in the lake will be more difficult or impossible given the depths and volume of bottom material but any further exploration of the lake should be left to the Ontario Provincial Police. To see a video clip of the dogs at Holmes Lake visit our website at go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.