S34 EP1: Welcome to Squamish | Dirtbag Climber

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Speaker 7 This is a CBC podcast.

Speaker 4 This is the sound of a pixelated YouTube video from 2017.

Speaker 11 In it, a young man in a red long-sleeved shirt and cowboy hat is climbing a rock face called Talking Holds.

Speaker 8 The wind is blowing.

Speaker 16 It's an overcast day.

Speaker 18 Small cedar trees lean over the sheer rock face.

Speaker 19 He's in Squamish, BC, considered the climbing capital of Canada.

Speaker 21 To be more specific, he's not just climbing.

Speaker 2 He's free soloing, which means he has no ropes.

Speaker 14 He is literally taking his life in his hands because if his hands give out, he'll fall 40 feet onto hard granite.

Speaker 16 The climber's name is Jesse James.

Speaker 5 The reason a lot of people climb is so that they can forget about things because when you're on the side of a cliff, you know, everything goes away. You're just trying not to die.

Speaker 22 This is Jackie, a friend of Jesse's.

Speaker 11 When you guys were climbing together, did he ever tell you anything about like where he came from, his background?

Speaker 5 No, no, he didn't.

Speaker 5 And the thing in climbing is that it's kind of a soft rule that you don't really ask.

Speaker 5 Put it this way, people, a lot of people climb, at least back then, to get get away from stuff.

Speaker 27 And Jackie was pretty sure Jesse James was getting away from stuff.

Speaker 4 I didn't think James was his real name.

Speaker 5 I thought Jesse was his real name. Everybody knew that the full name probably wasn't real.

Speaker 28 But what was he hiding behind that name?

Speaker 29 And why have a fake name at all?

Speaker 9 Jackie didn't press that question too hard.

Speaker 4 All Jackie cared about was that Jesse was someone who wanted to climb just as much as he did.

Speaker 5 I remember once he would jump on a harder climb and he'd say, yeah, yeah, I'll jump on this.

Speaker 26 If I break my legs, I'll break my legs.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you got it.

Speaker 26 Come on.

Speaker 5 So he'd always, he'd be pushing,

Speaker 5 pushing what he can do.

Speaker 16 Jesse was a strict vegan.

Speaker 12 He was tall and very thin.

Speaker 23 He kind of almost like looked a bit anemic.

Speaker 9 To Jackie, Jesse was the embodiment of a dirtbag climber.

Speaker 21 Someone who lives to climb.

Speaker 32 sleeps anywhere.

Speaker 26 Nomadic.

Speaker 33 Working only enough to live day to day.

Speaker 5 Every time I've seen him or I've talked to him, he's always camping, like I said, nomadic lifestyle. So he was living in,

Speaker 5 what do you call it? In Squamish. He's living in his van or truck or whatever he vehicle he had at the time.

Speaker 35 He'd park his vehicle right here.

Speaker 16 I'm standing on the road that leads up to the Cat Lake Recreation Site.

Speaker 20 It's a beautiful stretch of forest dense with cedar, hemlock, Douglas fir trees just north of Squamish.

Speaker 24 It's a spot where Jesse would often camp in his truck.

Speaker 35 And he'd be sitting here in his vehicle and yeah, he had a good outlook on any vehicle that was coming into the site.

Speaker 28 My tour guide is former Cat Lake site manager Rob Carrico.

Speaker 35 When I approached, he'd hide his face with his hands.

Speaker 35 And it was fairly obvious that he was deliberately trying to hide from me. You know, I thought it was a bit suspicious for sure.

Speaker 4 On the morning of June 14th, 2017, Rob was there to unlock a gate for a student group.

Speaker 35 And I was actually at an appointment

Speaker 35 later on, so I was in a bit of a hurry

Speaker 35 when I discovered the vehicle.

Speaker 30 Vehicle is a generous description of what he found.

Speaker 35 Yeah, I've got a picture of it somewhere.

Speaker 35 Let's see, what time did I take this photo? 9:41 a.m.

Speaker 35 That was the morning of the

Speaker 35 when I discovered the vehicle.

Speaker 40 They toasted the shit out of it.

Speaker 10 There,

Speaker 9 in the photo, under towering trees, is the husk of a large SUV.

Speaker 11 It's so charred that it's impossible to tell the color.

Speaker 8 The fire was so intense that black burn marks extend onto the ground and encircle the truck.

Speaker 35 So, anyway, I took a picture and that was it. Left the scene.

Speaker 9 And the truth is, the scene wasn't all that surprising to Rob.

Speaker 35 Over the years I've seen countless burned-out vehicles.

Speaker 23 What do you mean?

Speaker 35 You know, basically insurance scams or stolen vehicles torched or,

Speaker 35 you know, I don't know.

Speaker 42 So if you need a

Speaker 40 vehicle torched, this is your spot.

Speaker 35 One of them, yeah.

Speaker 24 But a few hours later, Rob would learn that this wasn't like the other cars he'd found before.

Speaker 43 This vehicle and his picture had something a lot more sinister hiding inside.

Speaker 16 The body of Jesse James.

Speaker 44 On June 14th of 2017, at around 9.30 in the morning, the Cedar Sky RCMP received a report of a burnt vehicle in a forest road in Squamish.

Speaker 30 This is then-Sergeant Frank Jang from the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team at a press conference explaining details from the case.

Speaker 44 Now, when they examined the vehicle, they found human remains inside the vehicle. Now, after speaking with the members of the Squamish community, we learned that

Speaker 44 our victim went by the name of Jesse James.

Speaker 29 Squamish is a small town, and the climbing community is even smaller.

Speaker 46 Everyone knew or knew of Jesse James.

Speaker 30 This press conference only amplified that recognition.

Speaker 30 Messages like, Thank you, Jesse, for being my friend, that big personality is gone, and Jesse was an inspiration in the climbing community poured in.

Speaker 29 People wondered whether this was some kind of freak accident, but then police revealed the truth.

Speaker 44 The autopsy later confirmed that the victim died of a gunshot. It is obviously a homicide that we know.

Speaker 4 Jesse James was murdered,

Speaker 36 And his death caused a big storm on social media.

Speaker 48 There's a killer on the loose and squamous.

Speaker 50 I don't know what kind of forensics the police have, but knowing him very well, it would be extremely likely he would fake his own death somehow, especially if he thought his cover was blown.

Speaker 49 Did anyone actually know his real name?

Speaker 50 Did anyone actually know his real name?

Speaker 33 That was something the police wanted to know, too.

Speaker 4 Who was Jesse James?

Speaker 51 It was clear that this person lived a deliberately private life. Well, he had a lot of secrets.

Speaker 22 He's a puzzle. He really is.
It would take three years to figure that one out.

Speaker 27 And that would be just the beginning.

Speaker 31 Because Jesse's death and the discovery of his true identity would trigger a landslide, causing all of his secrets to come tumbling down.

Speaker 35 His story is, if you read it as fiction, you'd consider it just to be too far-fetched and unbelievable.

Speaker 19 My name is Stephen Chua, and from CBC's Uncover, this is Dirtbag Climber: the story of the murder and many lives of Jesse James.

Speaker 52 Are you telling me that he's deceased? Yeah, so he was murdered.

Speaker 26 Well, I'm surprised it took that long.

Speaker 16 You know, very often, people like that do wind up dead.

Speaker 5 It is truly a mystery.

Speaker 40 It is truly a case of who done it. I bet he provoked lots of people, and whoever killed him was, you know, first in line.

Speaker 11 I I only care about things that impact me.

Speaker 25 Chapter 1.

Speaker 20 Welcome to Squamish.

Speaker 26 What a

Speaker 5 gong show.

Speaker 6 Wow, this is a gong show. Yeah.

Speaker 21 It's spring in Squamish, and the climbers are out in the forests.

Speaker 10 Oh my god.

Speaker 27 So yeah, we're now we're at the smoke bluffs.

Speaker 40 This is the most popular

Speaker 40 spot to climb in Squamish and as you can see it's a total shit show.

Speaker 9 My producer Chris Kelly and I are driving around trying to find a place to leave the car.

Speaker 40 I'm going to have to park somewhere else.

Speaker 29 Located halfway between Vancouver and the mega ski resort of Whistler, Squamish is quaint.

Speaker 39 It's dotted with craft breweries, a disc golf course, a farmer's market, but the town wasn't always this way.

Speaker 9 For decades, it was a rugged logging town, but people have always been trying to get to the top of mountains.

Speaker 41 And if there is one place that says Squamish more than any other, it's the Stuamis Chief.

Speaker 6 This is the Chief right here?

Speaker 54 Yeah, right there.

Speaker 9 Right off the highway as you drive into town is the Chief.

Speaker 18 Three giant granite peaks jutting out towards the sky.

Speaker 19 This would put Squamish on the map.

Speaker 36 And every climber or hiker who comes here wants to know what it feels like to stand on top.

Speaker 6 So when you moved here though, were you a climber? No. Well, that's a funny.

Speaker 40 I think I'm like one of the only people I know that moved here

Speaker 40 not to climb or do any of the outdoor fun things here.

Speaker 6 I moved here for work.

Speaker 10 I moved here to work at the local newspaper, The Squamish Chief.

Speaker 23 Like all reporters at a local paper, I'd cover it all-from the school district to court cases to municipal hall to the latest search and rescue mission.

Speaker 13 But in my downtime, I found this small town, at least at first, pretty boring. And I realized if I didn't pick up something like rock climbing, I'd be miserable.

Speaker 26 Okay,

Speaker 6 Rumble A climbing, on

Speaker 13 back at the smoke bluffs, I'm halfway up a 20-foot wall.

Speaker 6 How are you doing up there, Steven?

Speaker 40 Having a ball

Speaker 33 over the years, I've gotten decent at this, but back in 2017, I was just learning the ropes.

Speaker 9 Little did I know it would help me land the biggest story of my life.

Speaker 6 Tell me about

Speaker 6 the

Speaker 6 that you had to report out the murder.

Speaker 40 I was in the newsroom, and all of a sudden, like this press release pops into our email inboxes, and it says that the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team is working on a case.

Speaker 10 There's been a murder, and it was definitely

Speaker 40 maybe the point when I was just like, oh, this

Speaker 40 small town is not quite as sleepy as I thought it would be.

Speaker 28 After Jesse's death, the climbing community was not exactly rushing out to talk to the media.

Speaker 15 They were pretty tight-lipped.

Speaker 9 But I had an advantage over some of the other reporters in town.

Speaker 31 I'd started to climb.

Speaker 25 It's happening.

Speaker 21 Okay.

Speaker 14 Do you have any questions before we start?

Speaker 5 Just go for it.

Speaker 53 While I never met Jesse in the climbing scene, it is how I met Jackie.

Speaker 5 Well, the thing is, it's like,

Speaker 5 I think it's important to get the history, whether it's good or bad, either way. I mean, what comes, the chips fall where they may, right?

Speaker 5 Like, I mean, you can't hide the past, but you shouldn't hide whatever after the past either, right?

Speaker 9 Jackie is not his real name.

Speaker 33 For the purposes of this podcast, he asked that we refer to him by a pseudonym, because, as you'll find out, being associated with Jesse can have its repercussions.

Speaker 8 What did you make of him? Did you like him?

Speaker 38 What did you get out of?

Speaker 26 I liked him.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I know, I liked him.

Speaker 5 He would talk. He would argue about anything.

Speaker 5 He would argue about life, food, right? He tried to pretend

Speaker 5 he was some kind of philosopher king, philosopher climbing king or something, if you want.

Speaker 17 Jesse would capture these big ideas on the blogs he operated.

Speaker 39 One he called Whippers and Tears.

Speaker 13 That's where he would write about his climbing experiences, and his other one, The Killer's Strangelet, was filled with philosophical musings and poetry.

Speaker 47 This is an actor reading one of Jesse's poems, a poem that speaks directly to his philosopher king persona.

Speaker 55 I've come upon you in the night, but have you any fare?

Speaker 55 Step aside, the hermit says, my food and drink I share.

Speaker 55 Before the dawn, the hermit dies in a heap of blood and bone. A crimson sunrise in the east as the horseman rides alone.

Speaker 41 Jesse was very, very online.

Speaker 27 He bought and sold websites, he was obsessed with chess, and would play virtual games with players around the world.

Speaker 5 He actually, I heard him say to me, it's like he's a chess grandmaster or master or something.

Speaker 13 He was also active on the squamish rock climbing forums and Facebook groups. posting his takes on the sport, and sometimes this included fighting for more representation of minorities in climbing.

Speaker 45 Something that, after his death, would gain a lot of attention.

Speaker 5 I think this was about seven or eight years ago.

Speaker 23 The sponsorship community,

Speaker 5 all their ambassadors or sponsored athletes, were white.

Speaker 23 All white.

Speaker 5 But he would say, like, you know,

Speaker 5 you know, there's not enough minorities that sponsored climbers or athletes, you know, or why are they sponsoring all these other people?

Speaker 42 Jackie wasn't the only climbing friend of jesse's who noticed this he's very focused on diversity actually

Speaker 42 this is joe wong he'll call out the companies saying oh their hypocrisy you know they talk about diversity but actually they don't have any diversity in their board or their sponsor athlete so he's an advocate for for minority actually Joe saw Jesse as a friendly guy to go climbing with, but remembers that he could also be pretty elusive.

Speaker 42 I asked him what does he do for work? He just brushed it off. He said he doesn't have to work.
He has money already.

Speaker 42 He's very minimal talking about his past. He would say in the past

Speaker 42 I am from New York and I moved up here because I want to climb, you know. And he used to be

Speaker 42 not a professional but semi-pro or high-level amateur tennis player.

Speaker 42 and he also play chess and he do the investment and that's why he already has enough money he doesn't have to work and he also told me he wrote a book too he sent me a link the name of that book psychology of seduction seduce women using evolutionary and social psychology the author jesse james 4.2 stars 26.18 on amazon at that time you know among the young people a lot of young men climbing of course dating is a is a topic you know here's the book's description in the psychology of seduction jesse james merges the shady world of the pickup artist with modern science, unraveling the mystery of attraction.

Speaker 53 Jesse James is a Canadian rock climber, disruptive technology pioneer, artificial intelligence developer, author, and adventurer.

Speaker 39 Jesse holds a theoretical physics PhD from Stanford and served as an officer in the Israeli Defense Force.

Speaker 5 I heard he brag about how he was an IDF special forces soldier or stuff like that.

Speaker 26 Right?

Speaker 5 Now you laugh at that though, but like, why do you laugh at that it's it's like you know he's not you you know he's not so it's just like i mean if he was idf specialist force soldier he'd be a lot bulkier than what he was

Speaker 17 ai developer physicist soldier new yorker diversity warrior was jesse any of these things and did they have anything to do with his murder After his death, there was a rumor that a group of Israelis were staying at the campground on the night of the crime.

Speaker 17 He'd also made a big announcement on social media about selling some AI tech to a Silicon Valley firm.

Speaker 16 And that evening, he was allegedly supposed to buy a website.

Speaker 15 Did any of this connect?

Speaker 28 His climbing buddies couldn't say, but there is someone who is quite close to Jesse who might know more.

Speaker 17 She was even with him on the night of his murder.

Speaker 51 I was camped not far away from where he was.

Speaker 20 His partner, Eva.

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Speaker 51 I knew he was smart. I knew he was rich, and that we'd get along like a house on fire.

Speaker 4 There was so much about Jesse James that was mysterious.

Speaker 31 Even his partner, Eva McLennan, had to accept that she didn't know everything about him.

Speaker 51 Well, he had a lot of secrets, and I was evidently shielded from a lot.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 51 I can't say what drives somebody to murder. Yeah.

Speaker 14 Eva declined to be interviewed for this podcast, so all we have are the statements she made to the press in 2021.

Speaker 24 But Yvette Brend is a CBC journalist who spent time with her after Jesse's death.

Speaker 48 Eva is utterly fascinating. She met Jesse James.
at a climbing gym in Victoria. She was very young and met this very charismatic, as she described it, intelligent man who fascinated her.

Speaker 48 She ended up moving to Squamish and living out near Cat Lake with Jesse. She had changed her name.
She'd taken on a pseudonym, Abby Garbanzo.

Speaker 48 She was clearly very in love with him and had great admiration for this older man.

Speaker 24 You mentioned her alias, Abby Garbanzo.

Speaker 40 Maybe you could tell me a little bit more about why she took one.

Speaker 48 She said that that was something that Jesse had encouraged her to do. He was very concerned about security for some reason.

Speaker 48 She described how when they would go to bed at night, when they lived out at Cat Lake, they had a sort of a routine and they'd say good night and she would go sleep and he would sleep somewhere else, sometimes in his truck, sometimes somewhere else.

Speaker 48 But she believed he did that because of security. I kept saying to her, why do you think that he didn't sleep in the same place? And she said, security, security.

Speaker 48 I said, well, what do you mean security? And she said, oh, he thought people were going to kill him. You know, he knew he was in danger.

Speaker 45 Where was she on the night of the murder?

Speaker 48 She was sleeping. She woke up a little bit late.

Speaker 48 Didn't understand why she hadn't heard from Jesse because that wasn't their routine. So she wandered down the road.

Speaker 47 Jesse's SUV wasn't where he usually slept.

Speaker 48 And couldn't find him and became concerned.

Speaker 39 He was parked or potentially moved about a kilometer from his usual spot.

Speaker 48 And of course, the burned-out vehicle was found that day. And she said she was kind of in a

Speaker 48 dissonant state. And then the police took her and told her, and she had to accept it.

Speaker 9 It wasn't unusual in Squamish that Jesse and Eva slept out in the woods and spent their days climbing.

Speaker 39 But there were questions about how Jesse was able to maintain even his meager lifestyle and never have to work.

Speaker 51 Reports of his wealth are greatly underestimated. He was a crypto billionaire.

Speaker 25 Eva believed that he had made hundreds of millions from crypto, and people were after it.

Speaker 9 She even talked about his wealth after he died to a reporter at a local CTV news station.

Speaker 51 This is somebody who lived with extensive anonymity, and the reason for that explained to me just the fact of his large

Speaker 51 wealth in cryptocurrency putting him at potential risk.

Speaker 48 You know, I think when I first started looking into this, it seemed to me like everybody that first hears about this guy, someone was after his money, because as any journalist knows, follow the money, right?

Speaker 48 But it's unclear how much information he ever shared with anybody about his keys or his crypto.

Speaker 30 What have the RCMP said?

Speaker 48 Well, that's where it gets muddy, right? Because the police have never said much.

Speaker 48 What's been done to investigate that crypto? What's been done to look into everybody that knew him? I know that people were telling them and feeding them suspects and saying, look into this person.

Speaker 48 This person was in his life. This person didn't like him.
How many of them they followed up on?

Speaker 26 Kind of unclear.

Speaker 38 In the absence of information from the police, rumors of Jesse's wealth circulated throughout town, including one that involved a local cafe.

Speaker 35 He was a regular customer at a cafe,

Speaker 35 and he got talking to the owner.

Speaker 38 This is Rob Carrico again, the guy who found Jesse's burned-out truck.

Speaker 35 He was going on about all his exploits and fabulous wealth and whatnot, but the cafe owner was sort of thinking, you know, he's got all this millions of dollars, and he's living in a truck by the side of the road.

Speaker 35 It doesn't seem right.

Speaker 35 And I guess he gave him the sort of look that he wasn't believing his story.

Speaker 35 The next day, he came in with two shopping bags full of cash, wads of American, I think it was American, $100 bills, as far as I recall, and plunked them on the counter just to,

Speaker 35 you know,

Speaker 35 establish his veracity, you know, his credence. Yeah.
So.

Speaker 29 Rob has this kind of right.

Speaker 27 We actually checked with a cafe owner and he said that Jesse was often paying with $100

Speaker 17 Canadian bills.

Speaker 33 And one day he pulled out a huge wad of cash and threw it on the counter he described it this way open your hand like you are trying to grab two pop cans that's how big these rolls of money were jesse told him that he kept at least fifteen thousand dollars on him at all times but if jesse was a crypto billionaire jackie jesse's climbing buddy never saw it then people said he had a lot of bitcoin because if he did he sure didn't show any of it.

Speaker 5 He wasn't like giving away money to his friends.

Speaker 5 You know, his girlfriends at the time weren't, you know, spending massive amounts of money, you know, or, you know, doing stuff.

Speaker 5 And he never appeared rich or poor. Like he was just a standard climber.

Speaker 17 And while Jackie saw Jesse as a standard climber, that doesn't mean he didn't see a different side, a darker side.

Speaker 5 It's like that character from Batman, the two-faced guy, or Jerko and Hyde, right?

Speaker 23 That's what it is.

Speaker 55 If I disagree with beliefs you hold, I will ridicule the shit out of you.

Speaker 32 This is an actor reading from some of Jesse's posts to climbing forums.

Speaker 55 Some people are just plain stupid and would be better off bolting single-pitch sport.

Speaker 47 In person, Jesse might have been a charming philosopher king, but online, his true unfiltered self came out.

Speaker 55 Fat slobs who think burgers and fries is a concession stand will be waddling up to the stadium glacier.

Speaker 42 He has two personas on social media. He has a good side where he show people the tips on climbing and then he has another side that he jokes around and troll people

Speaker 42 and cause controversies, getting some people very mad.

Speaker 16 And there was one group in particular that was often the target for his venom.

Speaker 5 He was a dick towards experienced climbers

Speaker 5 because I think he has a problem with authority.

Speaker 55 Climbing companies don't sponsor minorities because they want to portray the white hard man image.

Speaker 55 Rock climbers who accept sponsorships from disreputable companies like Red Bull embarrass themselves and the sport they represent.

Speaker 39 He called sponsored climbers a lot of horrible names, including things like genetic mutants.

Speaker 55 They should be ashamed of themselves.

Speaker 5 People got really mad at him. Like there were people threatening him and just attacking him left, right, and center.

Speaker 50 Jesse James, you've been on here spouting bullshit on several threads.

Speaker 55 Jesse James equals internet troll. If you see trolls, they grow and become more annoying.

Speaker 50 Everyone go easy on Jesse James. Fellas probably been up all night fighting off women.

Speaker 49 Jesus, man, it must be hard for you to journey through life with such an enormous ego.

Speaker 50 Jesse James, you continue to come across as a bit of a meth head. I am looking forward to telling you this to your face someday.

Speaker 5 You gotta remember there's a certain subset of climbers. Like most people are pretty chill, right? But there's a subset of climbers which are very hard on what they perceive to be right and wrong.

Speaker 5 And then there's a very small subset who get very angry and violent about it, right?

Speaker 5 They'll go out, they'll destroy other people's climbs, they'll, you know, they'll rip everything out, they'll, you know, they'll do all type of stuff, right?

Speaker 29 But could one of them really get angry enough to kill?

Speaker 5 My first thought is that somebody who didn't like him really got to him. Like they just, you know, went out there and killed him.

Speaker 5 That's my first thought.

Speaker 16 Your first thought? That's interesting.

Speaker 9 I mean, yeah, he was a shit poster, but you think someone would kill him over somewhere?

Speaker 5 I think somebody would kill him over some stuff like that.

Speaker 20 Well, you think?

Speaker 23 Sorry. I think.

Speaker 5 Really? Yeah, I think.

Speaker 5 Because there are a lot of people in Squamish. Well, I wouldn't say a lot of people.
There's quite a few, like a decent amount of

Speaker 5 people who didn't like him, and some didn't like him very vehemently.

Speaker 30 Just days before Jesse was murdered, someone left him a message on his truck.

Speaker 47 Eva took to Facebook.

Speaker 41 She wrote, Whoever inscribed douche king on her vehicle forgot to add and queen.

Speaker 41 Anonymous coronation is a funny business. It certainly gave us a laugh.

Speaker 52 Climbing royalty already.

Speaker 5 I think that somebody who didn't like him, very likely a climber, took a gun out and shot him.

Speaker 54 What's your name, sister?

Speaker 5 Zarelda Collin.

Speaker 54 And your son? Jesse Woodson James.

Speaker 54 Jesse James?

Speaker 28 In the final years of the original Jesse James' life, he was backed into a corner.

Speaker 12 After a life of robbing trains and moving from town to town, his gang had fallen apart and he was considering giving up crime for good.

Speaker 33 At least, that's how the story goes in the 1939 movie, Jesse James.

Speaker 19 There were only two groups he trusted, his family and two friends, Charlie and Robert Ford.

Speaker 15 In fact, he asked the Ford brothers to move in with him and protect him as the law crept closer.

Speaker 9 And then one day, with his back turned, he was shot dead.

Speaker 16 A single shot.

Speaker 9 Robert Ford betrayed him for the $10,000 reward.

Speaker 53 After his death, Jesse James' legend grew, morphing through dime store novels, radio plays, and films.

Speaker 20 At times, he was portrayed as a villain, at others, an old West Robin Hood.

Speaker 20 And then, one day in the early 2000s, a guy with a newly found passion for rock climbing, who was also running from something, picked up the name and put it on.

Speaker 19 Why he picked that name, we'll never know.

Speaker 9 Maybe he saw himself as an outlaw, but the RCMP didn't care about the name Jesse James. They were looking for the person behind it.

Speaker 44 This case truly is a mystery, and we're hoping that somebody out there have information now that...

Speaker 18 This is Corporal Frank Jang from the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team speaking to reporters about their investigation.

Speaker 29 If at this point you're thinking, this is a story about a rock climber who is murdered for his crypto fortune or because he rubbed the wrong climber the wrong way, well, you might be right, but you might also be totally wrong.

Speaker 44 The victim's real name was never known until recently.

Speaker 9 It took three years to finally,

Speaker 38 finally get that answer.

Speaker 44 Now the victim's actual name remained unknown until recently when it was confirmed as Davis Wolfgang Hawk.

Speaker 29 Davis Wolfgang Hawk.

Speaker 44 Mr. Hawk was 38 years old at the time of his death, but we were able to confirm his identity through DNA.

Speaker 44 He was reported missing from his family, by his family, in the United States, and that's how we were able to confirm his identity.

Speaker 9 But if the police had hopes that the case would bust open once they had a name, they couldn't have been farther from the truth.

Speaker 44 In this case, it's actually opened up more questions.

Speaker 44 We have a name, we have an age,

Speaker 44 we have a photograph. We've spoken with some people in the Squamish community that recognized him, that knew him, especially as an avid climber.
But

Speaker 44 aside from that, there's a lot of question marks on this case.

Speaker 9 Because once investigators identified Hawk, they discovered that Jesse James wasn't the first name he'd made up and put on.

Speaker 26 There was Commander Bo Decker, Walter Cross, Johnny Durango, Dave Bridger.

Speaker 20 He even made up the name Davis Wolfgang Hawk because he was actually born Andrew Britt Greenbaum.

Speaker 29 And behind each name, a different bizarre story.

Speaker 39 And behind those stories, there were lots of people who might very well have wanted him dead.

Speaker 48 And then the more that I dug, the more I realized a lot of people might want this person to be hurt.

Speaker 52 The mere fact that he could get into Canada and spend years living there, avoiding this multi-million dollar lawsuit.

Speaker 51 It was sickening to learn of his past.

Speaker 5 People were sending messages, you know, saying, oh, you know, this guy was evil, this guy should be dead.

Speaker 56 Plagiarist, Jesse James was murdered by Brazilian psychologists.

Speaker 23 You haven't heard on, you haven't heard this?

Speaker 6 Never heard of this. The Brazilian thing, no.
Never.

Speaker 9 Over the course of this series, I'm going to try to find out who was Jesse James.

Speaker 11 He would say things like, you know, I think the CIA is listening into our phone call.

Speaker 20 Or Davis Wolfgang Hawk.

Speaker 52 There's a lot of gang activity in the Carolinas in Georgia.

Speaker 39 Or Andrew Britt Greenbaum.

Speaker 37 For a while, they were talking about him.

Speaker 52 You know, maybe he will become like a world-famous chess champion.

Speaker 8 And I am hoping we will get closer to figuring out who killed him.

Speaker 5 You know, he was fundamentally a Nazi.

Speaker 19 That's next time on Dirtbag Climber.

Speaker 25 Can't wait for more.

Speaker 34 Binge all episodes early on the CBC True Crime YouTube channel at youtube.com slash at CBC Podcasts.

Speaker 34 For early and ad-free listening, subscribe to CBC True Crime Premium on Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash CBC True Crime.

Speaker 45 Dirtbag Climber is a production of Lark Productions and Kelly and Kelly for CBC Podcasts.

Speaker 4 The show is hosted by me, Stephen Chua.

Speaker 30 It's written and produced by Kathleen Goldhar and Chris Kelly.

Speaker 45 The showrunner is Kathleen Goldhar.

Speaker 39 Producers are Karen Bracken and Tina Apostolopoulos Moniz.

Speaker 33 Associate producer Hadil Abdel-Nabi.

Speaker 47 Sound design by Paul Tedeskini and Chris Kelly.

Speaker 39 Tamara Black is our coordinating producer.

Speaker 17 Original music by Chris Kelly.

Speaker 47 Our senior producer is Jeff Turner.

Speaker 18 Our digital producer is Rosh Nien Nair.

Speaker 9 The series was developed by Ainsley Vogel, Gene Parsons, and Kristen Boychuk.

Speaker 45 Additional reporting by Yvette Brand.

Speaker 47 For Kelly and Kelly, executive producer Chris Kelly. Executive producer Pat Kelly.
Business Affairs Producer Lauren Berkovich.

Speaker 47 For Lark Productions, Executive Producer, Aaron Haskett, VP Business Affairs, Tex Antonucci. For CBC, executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak.

Speaker 17 Tanya Springer is the senior manager, and R.

Speaker 33 F.

Speaker 18 Norani is the director of CBC Podcasts.

Speaker 7 For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/slash podcasts.