Status: Untraced - E10: The Hero Project

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Speaker 4 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes. The killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm.
But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 6 I know there's going to be a twist, won't they? A massive twist. At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 4 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and the New Yorker.
Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed.

Speaker 7 The season finale of Status Untraced starts right now.

Speaker 7 Thanks for going on this journey with us. And stay tuned for more Up and Vanished coming very soon.

Speaker 8 You're listening to Status Untraced, a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey.

Speaker 8 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast. This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone.

Speaker 8 Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 9 Morning, guys.

Speaker 9 Yeah, guys, ready.

Speaker 10 Ready?

Speaker 9 Four to six hours, I think, is what it's gonna take, right, to get to the spot.

Speaker 6 The morning after reaching Kirganga, we head deeper into the mountains.

Speaker 6 Says we're at 10,400 some feet, but

Speaker 6 not positive. My fellowship consists of Alex, Kabir, Jagdish, who carries repelling gear, two porters, and a man who wields a loaded rifle.

Speaker 6 We pass no one. Snow is imminent this time of year, so many do not continue on this far.

Speaker 6 This is the path where Dustin Alexander was last seen.

Speaker 12 It's been a long time since I set out into the wilderness alone, but this time is special.

Speaker 12 I want to do these ancient practices under an influence that may allow me to see the magic, if it exists at all.

Speaker 6 Marching on for hours, we finally reach a clearing. Perched atop a grassy knoll rests a rock hut.

Speaker 14 We have reached

Speaker 14 Tundebush.

Speaker 6 Tundebush is the rest stop where the porter was sent ahead to prepare food. where the mysterious couple passed by and did not stop, and where Baba arrived without Justin.

Speaker 16 The old route for the trek was from the bridge.

Speaker 16 You had to cross the bridge and then go from there.

Speaker 6 An old bridge sits across the river here, crumbled and decaying.

Speaker 6 It once connected to grassy fields on the other side. That's where some shepherds could be up there.

Speaker 16 Not now. They've already left by now.

Speaker 17 We rest, but not for long.

Speaker 11 You okay?

Speaker 16 The altitudes

Speaker 16 caught Alex.

Speaker 6 The elevated altitude strains our breaths, muddles our thoughts. To add to that, the trail itself has started to disappear.
What once was a hike now feels more like a rock climb.

Speaker 1 Fuck.

Speaker 16 Have fewer things in the hand.

Speaker 6 No, I need a thumbs.

Speaker 6 As we ascend, glacial runoff trickles under our feet. And the higher we climb, the more we encounter frozen patches of of it, slickening the trail.

Speaker 16 You mean Justin walked down to the river?

Speaker 11 Could have.

Speaker 10 I don't know.

Speaker 11 That's not the theory.

Speaker 16 But I'm wondering, why would he go down to the river?

Speaker 6 Probably just a photo.

Speaker 16 Better spots for photos.

Speaker 6 Jagdish,

Speaker 11 is this it?

Speaker 6 Jagdish points to a steep slope about a hundred yards away.

Speaker 16 We can't get any further.

Speaker 16 impossible to cross this ice

Speaker 11 how close are we just the corner there just around that corner right

Speaker 16 if one guy slips down there yeah the whole team's gone yeah

Speaker 16 that's the spot you know that ledge right there that one right out there you can assume so yeah

Speaker 6 nobody saw him

Speaker 6 Before us lies the site where Dustin Alexander's belongings were found.

Speaker 6 Far below, what has to be five stories down, the river cascades with violent force through massive rocks. If you fell in,

Speaker 6 it would crush you. What do you think, Alex?

Speaker 6 The steepness of this cliff

Speaker 6 makes me uneasy.

Speaker 6 I can't believe this is a hiking trail.

Speaker 9 Yeah, this is uh

Speaker 6 This is definitely a lot steeper than I was anticipating.

Speaker 6 I look at the ledge just 100 yards away, in a valley swallowed by immense beauty. For such an epic life, it's such a strange place to be murdered, to die, or to leave it all behind.

Speaker 6 In his final journal entry, Justin included a photo of what he packed. A metal pot, a plastic cup, utensils, a leather journal, dry food and plastic wrap, and assorted camping essentials.

Speaker 6 Yet, it was only a red butane lighter, an umbrella, a backpack raincover stuffed with a scarf and head wrap, and a flute staff standing upright in the ground that were found.

Speaker 6 What is the story these pieces tell?

Speaker 6 In the moment, The chances of answering that question felt impossible.

Speaker 6 What I didn't know then was the things I was about to be told,

Speaker 6 the testimonies we were about to hear,

Speaker 6 would start to bring this journey to an end.

Speaker 6 Sometimes I get the feeling I'm lost.

Speaker 6 Can't sign a minute, it's never enough.

Speaker 6 Now I find in every mirror I go

Speaker 6 that once I saw the killer.

Speaker 6 Once I saw the killer of close.

Speaker 6 I'm Liam Luxon, and this is Status Untraced.

Speaker 9 Episode 10:

Speaker 6 The Hero Project.

Speaker 6 He said he remembers Justin, he remembers the Baba.

Speaker 6 He's down to interview.

Speaker 11 Interview here?

Speaker 6 We're guided to a smoky tent when we're back in Kirganga.

Speaker 6 A burning wood stove crackles at the center, and cloth mats cover the floor.

Speaker 6 Cross-legged in the corner sits a thin man with a scruffy gray beard.

Speaker 6 Shaking hands proper?

Speaker 11 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Well, it's wonderful to meet you, Shokgiri Baba.

Speaker 6 Ashok Giri is called by many as the Tundabush Baba.

Speaker 6 For the past eight summers, he's lived at the stony hut at Tundabush.

Speaker 6 There, on the day Justin disappeared, he remembers Baba Rawat and Anil Kumar passing through and speaking with them.

Speaker 6 I'm trying to wrap up loose ends and get definite answers. Given that Ashok Giri was with Baba Rawat moments after Justin disappeared, I want some clarity on the holy man's character.

Speaker 6 What was his demeanor like that day?

Speaker 6 Did he seem like someone who had just committed murder?

Speaker 16 He asked the Baba and Anil to stop here and wait for that fauna guy. But the Baba said, oh, no, he'll come himself and we're gonna go and

Speaker 16 that Justin knew that where they're gonna be staying, so he'll head up to the same place straight away. He even like shouted at the other Baba, why did you leave him over there?

Speaker 16 The place where he left him is a a dangerous point for people to cross over. He was in yesterday.
Yeah, he actually sent Anil back to the place to go and look for him.

Speaker 16 Anil, he went there, he took almost three hours searching for him and he came back without any clue.

Speaker 6 Anil Kumar went back to look for Justin that day, which aligns with what he said in the interrogation. Does he know of anybody falling off like those rocks around there?

Speaker 16 He hasn't heard any tourists fallen from there, but lots of porters have fallen from that place and went downstream to the river and

Speaker 16 but not the tourists. They never heard about the tourists being fallen from there.

Speaker 6 Because they probably aren't carrying their bags.

Speaker 16 Yeah, that's what they remove empty-handed.

Speaker 6 I've heard about fake Babas that are only in it to try to get money.

Speaker 6 Do we think that this Baba was a fake Baba?

Speaker 16 According to him, that Baba wasn't like that because then he would have ran away from it.

Speaker 16 But the only mistake that he did, according to him, was like leaving Justin behind and he shouldn't have done that.

Speaker 6 Since we have Jagdish here as well, can you tell the Baba what Anil told you you with the couple?

Speaker 6 Jagdish tells a show Giri about the mysterious couple, the one Anil said was with Justin and would have passed by the hut.

Speaker 6 A show Giri doesn't recall seeing them.

Speaker 6 However, gives the name of someone we should speak to, a girl who possibly might know more about Baba Rawat, Justin, and this couple.

Speaker 16 He said there was one girl from Bangalore, Sapna.

Speaker 6 Sapa.

Speaker 16 Sapna. Sapna.
Sapna knew everything about Justin, that he used to take pictures from a very dicey places. He used to climb somewhere and then take the pictures from there.

Speaker 16 He was doing all this stuff a lot. Sapna knew all this.

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Speaker 22 But I know he was like, I need more time in this place. That's what I remember that he wanted to stay there for a longer time.

Speaker 22 That's what I get from that conversation.

Speaker 6 We hiked back to town and I found and connected with Swapna.

Speaker 6 She says in the summer of 2016, she and her brother, Roy, were traveling and sought refuge at a cave in Kirganga.

Speaker 6 They met Justin at an intimate gathering and she says he was memorable, but not just for his kindness.

Speaker 22 Everyone, everyone knew him.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 at one point, I remember him

Speaker 22 removing a big chunk of terrorist. And he told the guys I have talus and I want to share it with everyone.
And he showed it to us, like, as if he didn't care. And he did the same with the Babal.

Speaker 6 Was it weird? How did you feel about him pulling out that much hash?

Speaker 22 Didn't like it. For me, it was not very okay because I felt intimidated.
Like, why is this guy showing this stuff so openly? So, for safety, I didn't indulge too much hanging out with Justin.

Speaker 6 Justin settled into one of the caves and Swapna says he started to change.

Speaker 22 He disconnected from all of us and after some point I didn't even see him because he was only with the Baba.

Speaker 6 She recalls her only true encounter with Baba Rawat was acting as Justin's translator. She later left Kirganga about a week before Justin's trek, unaware of his subsequent disappearance.

Speaker 6 After hearing the news, she returned to confront Baba Rawat,

Speaker 6 likely the first to do so, and obtained what is probably the most reliable version of the Baba's initial testimony.

Speaker 22 And I went to the Baba and asked him, where is Justin? Did you go with him to Prek? And he said, yes. He said, I went with him.
Justin got crazy in his head. And he and me had a small fight.

Speaker 22 And I walked away. And he was in his own world.
taking photos and stuff like that. The whole trip I was annoyed with him and I got angry, so I left him.

Speaker 22 And I and the Nepali porter started to walk in the front, and he was behind. And I came to my place, and I'm waiting for him, thinking he will come.
But he didn't come.

Speaker 22 And I have a feeling he's dead. That's how he said it.

Speaker 6 Baba Rawat's actions are tough to read.

Speaker 6 But if we compare what he told Swapna and the police, it's pretty similar. The only contradiction lies in the order of who came down the mountain.

Speaker 6 Swapna remembers hearing Justin was the last to leave, while Baba said, So, Porter went ahead. Behind was Justin, and after that, me.

Speaker 6 So, what does this mean? And can we trust Swapna's memory of this detail?

Speaker 18 With Baba Rawat gone, we may never know.

Speaker 6 But think about it. Would a guilty man openly air his annoyances?

Speaker 22 So openly, the Baba is telling me. I was so angry with him.
Like, I told him he's a foreigner, you know, if anything happens to people who come from outside our country, you are in big trouble.

Speaker 22 And then he also started to feel panic because after that many people started to come there and question him. Every day was there in his kutia, in his house.

Speaker 22 He sat there without fear. He didn't run away.
He just sat there.

Speaker 6 He said, I must be waiting for just him.

Speaker 22 What do you think I'm doing?

Speaker 22 Of course I was angry.

Speaker 22 But then for some reason I never felt he was

Speaker 10 involved in anything.

Speaker 6 When I volunteered to delve into Justin's case, I imagined the investigation would unfold like a scene straight out of a movie, each clue seamlessly leading to the next, a chain of discoveries culminating in a grand reveal.

Speaker 6 The reality has been far from it. Our days have been a relentless pursuit of leads that fizzled into dead ends, sifting through a mix of rumors and accusations, only to unearth a sliver of the truth.

Speaker 6 And the constant barrage of well-meaning suggestions, talk to this person, visit that place, often led us down paths lined with more questions than answers.

Speaker 6 Is there a killer? Who is this couple? Do they exist? Who can we trust?

Speaker 6 What happened to Justin?

Speaker 6 Other than tracking down the porter, I've followed up on every lead we had.

Speaker 6 Except one.

Speaker 6 You see, I made a phone call months ago to a guy named Ashish Chuhan,

Speaker 6 a local who participated in the searches for Justin.

Speaker 6 Our conversation was brief, just 10 minutes or so. But what he said now gnaws at me.

Speaker 6 Or can you call him on your Facebook?

Speaker 6 On Facebook? Yeah.

Speaker 11 I mean, he knows it's me.

Speaker 20 Fine.

Speaker 12 That's fine.

Speaker 6 Responding here or there, he's been elusive and difficult to pin down.

Speaker 20 Let's go try Archdeep's phone.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I get the feeling he's dodging my calls, so I try calling from Archdeep's phone.

Speaker 11 Well,

Speaker 6 that's kind of weird.

Speaker 6 I don't know what else to do, other than pray he shows.

Speaker 6 Because as I replay what Ashish said,

Speaker 6 I'm convinced he found something.

Speaker 6 See.

Speaker 23 Liam, to be honest, I have some deep shit that you may call it rumor, you know, but the source where I got some of the information about Justin's case that I never shared with anyone else.

Speaker 23 I won't share it with you even right now.

Speaker 23 So, so I'm still digging this, to be honest, Liam.

Speaker 1 Give me some more days.

Speaker 23 I'll update you on this.

Speaker 23 Let's talk later on.

Speaker 6 It was never revealed to me what the deep shit was,

Speaker 6 And it seems his habit to vanish hasn't changed.

Speaker 6 Or so I thought.

Speaker 6 Because finally,

Speaker 6 when my phone rings, it's a sheesh.

Speaker 6 And he's on his way.

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Speaker 6 Nope.

Speaker 6 No, we do not.

Speaker 6 Surprised, I watch a taxi drop off at the front lobby. And shortly after, there's a knock on our door.

Speaker 19 I just have a couple of questions. What kind of questions I'll be facing? So I can prepare myself with a proper answer because it's around six years now.

Speaker 19 So everything is not very fresh for me.

Speaker 6 Ashish is visibly drained, like he hasn't slept in days. He apologizes for the erratic scheduling, confessing that his life is at the moment in a bit of disarray.

Speaker 6 Every so often, his phone interrupts our conversation. Most calls tied to a tourism company he manages, Himalayan Drifters.

Speaker 6 It's an outfit that offers a variety of services, including search and rescue.

Speaker 19 Generally, we find people, it's mostly they are coming down and we are going up.

Speaker 20 I have a picture, oh, you are the guy.

Speaker 19 Your parents are looking for you.

Speaker 19 If Indians go missing, trust me, no one cares. Just a couple of days back, 10 days back, there was this guy who went missing in Kirganga.
No one went anywhere. No one went anywhere.

Speaker 19 Not even the local search and rescue companies came forward. Still missing.

Speaker 19 Still missing. There is not a single poster around.

Speaker 19 Go to Manekan police station. Just find out the board.
They can't remove anything unless that guy is either declared dead or hasn't been fined.

Speaker 19 No, if he's been missing, that board has to be with his name. And just check out how many names are there.
To my knowledge, in this one past decade, more than 100 people have gone missing here.

Speaker 19 But around 5-6 names, that's all.

Speaker 6 I've seen this board.

Speaker 6 Faces of missing persons and flyers from the past pinned to it.

Speaker 6 And there's a list. Justin's on it.
His status marked

Speaker 6 untraced.

Speaker 6 Have you ever had anyone show back up?

Speaker 19 The first search and rescue happened for a guy. He went missing for 14 years and suddenly he was here alive.

Speaker 19 French guy. Lived here for a while, went in the jungles and then never came back.

Speaker 19 14 years and suddenly one day he showed up here in Kosovo and people recognized him. So you will find such cases, lots of them.

Speaker 6 Have you ever met them personally?

Speaker 18 Yeah. What do they act like?

Speaker 5 They

Speaker 19 I would call them calm,

Speaker 20 free,

Speaker 19 aware what they are doing here, why they come and why they are doing it.

Speaker 6 Indians or foreigners?

Speaker 20 Foreigners, all foreigners.

Speaker 19 Now I think about it, more than ten, I think I know.

Speaker 5 Easily.

Speaker 19 Mostly Germans,

Speaker 18 Russians, some Israelis.

Speaker 6 Most of these though, do you have they completely cut off ties with their family, do you know?

Speaker 17 Most of them, yes.

Speaker 6 And in terms of Justin, uh when we talked on the phone, you had alluded to knowing some deep shit. Something that you said you wouldn't share with me until we met in person.

Speaker 6 Can you tell me what that is now?

Speaker 19 To be honest, there are so many things that I haven't disclosed to anyone and

Speaker 19 there were lots of weird things that just I kept to myself. So I'll give you a brief storyline, right? Just I'll try to put a time frame on it.
So I was like on a climb.

Speaker 19 I got back, got to hear that this Justin guy is missing.

Speaker 19 So I volunteered with the family, said I'll be happy to go for the search and rescue, but you'll need to cover basic charges because search and rescue is quite quite expensive.

Speaker 19 But I asked them to just pay the basic and I'll happily search for him. So we took around

Speaker 19 12 people in my team and around 8 cops. So I was leading total number of 20 people and for 14 days we stayed up in the mountains.
So there were three search and rescue teams involved.

Speaker 19 I was hired by the family. And in total around there were 50 people in the mountains searching for him.

Speaker 15 Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 19 This is this still date is the biggest search and rescue operations in the history of Himachal.

Speaker 6 I knew Dustin's case ruffled feathers, but I didn't realize it was the biggest the valley's seen.

Speaker 6 It puts into perspective the immense pressure law enforcement was under.

Speaker 19 So never,

Speaker 19 never people went in that number to find someone, never such kind of amount was spent.

Speaker 19 Then we finally found out lots of belongings and it was at the riverbank, very close to the river. We found out the stuff, we called up the cops, we gathered up all the evidence and

Speaker 5 got back.

Speaker 19 But there were lots of things that no one was discussing.

Speaker 6 Like

Speaker 15 what?

Speaker 19 My impression about this Baba, I don't think he was even physically capable of doing any harm to Justin.

Speaker 18 I think Baba was okay.

Speaker 6 What was your impression when you heard that the Baba had killed himself?

Speaker 19 I was shocked.

Speaker 19 Felt sad, really bad.

Speaker 19 Because no one believed, including cops, that he was involved with anything with justin.

Speaker 19 When I was on the search and rescue, we were in the Tundabuj place, right? So not every cop will stay for 14 days.

Speaker 19 They will switch like seven days, fifth day, someone will go and some new guy will come.

Speaker 19 So every time new guy will come and he will tell us the story about like hitting the Baba, they would say like, this is bad karma. What we are doing is sin.

Speaker 19 So hitting a Baba with whom we have nothing in fact there is no case against him he told that to the cops that it hurts let me smoke give me my joint but they never gave it to him and it was beatings and pain only

Speaker 6 it's one thing to suspect another to hear it from an insider

Speaker 6 Babara Watt suffered from beatings, the tumors, and withdrawal.

Speaker 6 Imagine the torment that does to the mind of a frail man.

Speaker 6 Perhaps he saw only one way out.

Speaker 6 Police, please hit Baba for information.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 19 Yeah, that's a normal procedure.

Speaker 18 It's India.

Speaker 19 People will confess to a crime they have never done.

Speaker 6 So, is that everything or

Speaker 6 do you have more you found?

Speaker 20 I heard rumors, but those are rumors.

Speaker 19 There is no evidence, no fact to it.

Speaker 20 But I heard that he

Speaker 19 not recently, around one and a half years back, I was on the trail of Kiryanga.

Speaker 19 I met a guy who is from Lakhtan.

Speaker 19 He told me, do you know that there was an update on that guy's death?

Speaker 18 Which guy?

Speaker 19 That American guy for whom you were searching.

Speaker 18 So I told what he heard about him.

Speaker 19 So he told me there was one Gaddi. A Gaddi is a shepherd, right?

Speaker 19 So these shepherds are migrants who stay up there in the mountains for like entire summer.

Speaker 19 So one of them saw him tumbling down the mountain with the bag and all.

Speaker 19 So he never told that to cops,

Speaker 19 but he told that to locals. And then I was bit curious because was

Speaker 19 suggesting a very particular point from where he could see this.

Speaker 19 And I asked him, where did he see him? He gave me an exact location where he fell.

Speaker 19 You know the story, right? Where he went missing at the same spot. That's called Patri Garth.
So from that certain point when they were coming back to Tundaboj, there's a stretch, right?

Speaker 19 Very dangerous stretch, in fact. So that's the place we really searched for and we found his belongings there.

Speaker 19 And And if you believe me and the person who told that story of him falling down, quite matches the location.

Speaker 19 How did he know where was the location?

Speaker 19 So I think, yeah, this might have been the case.

Speaker 19 It's very hard to wrap your mind around like this thought that a guy like Justin could trip at such a point.

Speaker 18 But even I have because

Speaker 19 like I was not careful enough.

Speaker 19 So that's accidents. It happens, and it happens quite often in mountains.

Speaker 6 Our final days in India meld together, much of it spent in solemnity.

Speaker 6 In pursuit of the porter's address, we found ourselves once more at the Manikaram police station, only to be met with an unexpected discovery:

Speaker 6 four boys confined in the cell.

Speaker 11 Those are the guys.

Speaker 9 Well, takes that off the table.

Speaker 15 These were the culprits behind the knife point robbery.

Speaker 15 No interrogation yet.

Speaker 6 Unaware of Daru Agarwal or the web of disappearances, these boys were merely outsiders who attempted the theft on a whim,

Speaker 6 an act of teenage stupidity.

Speaker 6 10 a.m. This is, yeah, it was November 2010.
Eventually, we part ways with the heart of the Parvati Valley and return to the capital, Kulu, continuing our quest for Anil Kumar's whereabouts.

Speaker 9 Alright, are you able to text him?

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'll text him right now.

Speaker 9 What's uh, love to see the full file?

Speaker 6 We reconnect with the superintendent of police.

Speaker 6 Albeit, it too was useless. If he had a number, would they have written it down?

Speaker 11 Anil Kumar. Yeah.

Speaker 6 But if he had one, they would. We were ready to give up until a moment of pure luck came from our guide, Kabir.
Kabir figured out the address of Anil.

Speaker 16 He sent it on the WhatsApp to name your shit.

Speaker 6 It's not Amil Kumar's exact address, but a district in another Indian state, far from our current location, where his family might live.

Speaker 18 But the exact village name has to be there.

Speaker 16 I need to figure out Anil Kumar's exact village.

Speaker 6 We don't make the trip. With 1.6 million people spanning over a thousand square miles, it's just too immense of an area for us to hit to find a man with a common name.

Speaker 6 Wrapped in the warmth of a home-cooked meal, we spend our last night among the mountains with Arshdeep and Kabir.

Speaker 6 The wine flows,

Speaker 6 the laughter flies.

Speaker 6 We recount the adventures and misadventures, and we flick through photos, captured moments of our journey, the memories that we'll keep forever.

Speaker 6 That night, Arshdeep vows to continue to search for the porter during his motorcycle trips. As we prepare to leave, I entrust him with one of our recorders.

Speaker 6 And I can feel that if there's a small beacon of hope to solve this case, it's this.

Speaker 6 In a flash,

Speaker 6 We're back on the plane. The engine roars, the propellers whirl, and once again we rise above the clouds.

Speaker 6 The mountain peaks now don a growing white cloak, hinting at the approach of a cold winter.

Speaker 6 I should feel tired, maybe even relieved,

Speaker 6 but I don't.

Speaker 6 Instead, there's that pull.

Speaker 6 A yearning to stay.

Speaker 6 To explore the untrodden paths, the foods not yet tasted, the beauty not yet seen.

Speaker 6 Entangled with that desire is a heaviness.

Speaker 6 I walk a path that Justin Alexander will never see to the end.

Speaker 6 I get to go home.

Speaker 6 Four months from now, on April 6th, 2022, Dharuv Agarwal's body will be found off the Kirganga trekking route.

Speaker 28 The skull of the head is about 50 meters away from the lower abdomen. The rest of the body parts are totally missing.

Speaker 28 We think it was murdered,

Speaker 28 but I don't have any proof that someone murdered him.

Speaker 6 His brother will tell me that his family is frankly tired of the media attention.

Speaker 28 We had a great loss. We pray to God.

Speaker 28 We are not able to save our brother, but we want to make a safety point to try to save other families.

Speaker 6 While they hope for change, their ultimate wish they can't have.

Speaker 6 They want Daruve back.

Speaker 6 Pyotr Mushalik and I will stay in touch. talking about Bruno and sharing updates on the podcast.

Speaker 29 Now we waiting at the next hearing in Shimla.

Speaker 6 When is that? Beyoter will file a lawsuit against the state of Himachal Pradesh, demanding for more transparency in professional efforts of law enforcement.

Speaker 29 And maybe in the future we'll have more help and more support from police and prosecutors.

Speaker 6 Should his son's disappearance remain unsolved, he's determined to see justice served in the Parvati. With a year following our investigation, 227 tourists will go missing.

Speaker 6 I'll brief Justin Alexander's mother on our trip.

Speaker 30 When he'd visit, he'd leave me little notes around the house, and I'd find them, you know, a week or two later.

Speaker 6 She'll tell me about her efforts to retrieve a death certificate for her son so that she can access his safe deposit box.

Speaker 30 I know he had a couple things in there, but

Speaker 30 I really am hoping that he has a note or a letter or something in there.

Speaker 6 And through the podcast rollout, I'll keep up with Justin's father.

Speaker 31 You don't have to prove yourself. I recognized who you were right off the bat.

Speaker 1 Just so happy with everything that you're doing.

Speaker 6 We'll talk about Justin, the investigation, and just life in general.

Speaker 31 We've talked about it a lot. Most people are so afraid of dying that it actually keeps them from living.
They think if they don't live, then they won't die.

Speaker 29 And that's not true.

Speaker 31 You'll still die, but without having lived.

Speaker 6 But sitting on that plane, heading home, unaware of those fates,

Speaker 6 there's one thing I do know.

Speaker 6 I know that the items found tell a story about Justin's final moments.

Speaker 6 A butane lighter for fires and hashish.

Speaker 6 An umbrella to shield the rain.

Speaker 6 A scarf and head wrap cocooned within a rain cover, protected from becoming damp.

Speaker 6 And a flute staff lodged into soft mud.

Speaker 6 The trail was treacherous that day, and most likely slickened by sporadic showers.

Speaker 6 Forecast data from 2016 confirms so.

Speaker 6 I've heard Justin was murdered. I've heard he disappeared on his own will.

Speaker 6 I've heard he fell off that cliff and is gone.

Speaker 6 What happened to him? The answer?

Speaker 5 The truth?

Speaker 6 It's simply the version of the story you wish to believe.

Speaker 6 I have a theory, something I'll reveal at a later time.

Speaker 6 Because no matter how it ends, it's not the most important chapter of his life.

Speaker 32 I think about, you know, I don't want to be a self-absorbed narcissist. And

Speaker 32 I feel weird posting a selfie of me riding a motorcycle. Like, I don't know.
I think about this a lot. And, you know, like, maybe I should just live my life and just keep it to myself.

Speaker 32 But there's something nice to share. who you are with the world.
And I feel like what I'm doing is I'm living out the life of my heroes and I'm sharing my heroic self.

Speaker 6 In his 36 years, Justin lived more lives than I've ever dreamt of.

Speaker 6 He strived to be his most authentic self. He walked the razor's edge and he pushed the limits of human endurance.

Speaker 6 But that type of life requires balance. It requires recognizing the line between adventuring boldly and adventuring blindly.

Speaker 6 Both come at risk. The latter widens it.

Speaker 6 Survival and ultimately truly living calls for wellness of the body and mind.

Speaker 6 There's no doubt, Justin Alexander struggled with that.

Speaker 6 He was human and he was flawed.

Speaker 6 But even in all his failures, there are lessons to be learned.

Speaker 32 I definitely became a social outsider, the quiet loner kid, and I found my solace in nature.

Speaker 32 And so I basically decided that, you know, I could didn't really fit in socially, so fuck everybody and fuck society. I'm gonna go like be a hero.

Speaker 6 Recently, Terry Shettler dug up some of his son's old diaries and journals.

Speaker 1 What heroes are there?

Speaker 10 You know, I mean, this is just a real person

Speaker 10 who was

Speaker 10 fearless. Yeah.

Speaker 6 He sent me a photo of a tattered page dated December 2nd, 2010,

Speaker 6 long before Dustin retired and set out on his motorcycle. It's titled The Hero Project.

Speaker 13 If I could do anything in life, what would it be?

Speaker 13 If I were infinitely wealthy, what would I do?

Speaker 12 What is it?

Speaker 13 that just thinking about it makes me excited to be alive.

Speaker 13 These have all the same answer.

Speaker 13 I would make myself into my own hero, meaning I would create an imaginary hero, someone I wish I could be, and then become him.

Speaker 13 I need to do this while I'm young. Perhaps in the meantime, I should start a journal called The Hero Project to document my transformations between now and then.

Speaker 6 I asked Terry if he believes that the day one journals we recovered from Justin's iCloud were the foundation to this project.

Speaker 6 He says, yes.

Speaker 6 Justin Alexander changed my life.

Speaker 6 I never met him, and he changed my life.

Speaker 6 And I know I'm not the only one.

Speaker 6 That's the impact of his legacy.

Speaker 5 All of it. The good, the bad.

Speaker 6 his wisdoms, his musings, his shortcomings, his benevolence, his quest for meaning in the face of the unknown. His kindness to strangers, his unwavering courage to follow his heart.

Speaker 6 He wanted so dearly to become a hero, I wish I could have gotten the chance to tell him he already was one.

Speaker 6 What he accomplished propels me to challenge my doubts and think about my purpose.

Speaker 6 I've held onto a bucket list of cities I want to travel to and things I wish to experience in this life.

Speaker 6 But now it's different.

Speaker 6 I don't want to pursue it for the thrill, but for growth. To find ways to give back and inspire.

Speaker 6 And more and more, I've been dreaming about it, talking about it, contemplating when to devise a plan for it. But on a random Wednesday morning, I act on it.

Speaker 6 I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.
I'm just gonna book it right now.

Speaker 6 I book a flight for three o'clock that afternoon. The destination:

Speaker 6 San Jose, Costa Rica.

Speaker 6 I don't have a place to stay.

Speaker 6 I don't know anyone there.

Speaker 6 I don't know what adventures await me.

Speaker 6 But I surrender.

Speaker 6 I just go.

Speaker 15 And it's everything.

Speaker 6 We're still taking tips. So if you want to reach out, please email us at statusuntraced at gmail.com or leave us a message at 507-407-2833.

Speaker 6 Make sure you're following the podcast to stay updated on all our latest latest episodes because there's something special you won't want to miss.

Speaker 6 A roundtable discussion featuring myself, Payne Lindsay, along with Jonathan Skiels and Alex Vespested.

Speaker 6 We'll dive deep into the mystery of what happened to Justin, sharing our thoughts and insights. You'll get to hear various theories, including my own, as we explore the case in detail.

Speaker 6 This is a project that took us countless hours to weave together. We set out to accomplish a lot, but at the end of the day, there was one goal I constantly thought about.

Speaker 6 Is this the way Justin would want his legacy told?

Speaker 6 To answer that, I would go back to his words, and one particular journal entry from 2014 spoke to me. It reads,

Speaker 6 Become the adventurer through YouTube, blog, and Facebook. Eventually, A network will pick me up and fund my lifestyle.
Not hardcore survivor man, but more rugged going tribal type with style.

Speaker 6 Be authentic.

Speaker 5 A bit of both worlds.

Speaker 6 Sex, drugs, and adventure. Never sell out.
I am who I want to be.

Speaker 18 I am awesome.

Speaker 6 To do something dangerous with style.

Speaker 6 I am humbled to have been able to share Justin's story, and none of it could have been possible without this incredible team.

Speaker 6 Status Untraced is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Our executive producers are Alex Vespested, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay.

Speaker 6 Producers are Meredith Stedman and myself.

Speaker 6 Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Consulting producer is Jonathan Skeels.
Associate editors are David Bash and Charles Rosner of GetUp Productions. with additional editing by Sidney Evans.

Speaker 6 Voice acting provided by Johnny Lavale.

Speaker 15 Artwork by Trevor Eiler.

Speaker 6 Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set.

Speaker 6 Our theme song is Colder Heavens by Blanco White.

Speaker 6 Mix by Cooper Skinner.

Speaker 6 Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing, and the Nord Group. We are forever grateful for Arsdeep Sharma and Kabir Sharman.
We hope to see you again soon.

Speaker 6 A big shout out to Kirk Vespested, our accounting wizard, for keeping all our numbers in check throughout the series.

Speaker 6 And also, a special shout-out to Susie Dunner for putting up with our late nights and ramblings for the past four years.

Speaker 6 Lastly, I can't express enough my gratitude to each and every person who took the time to interview with us. It's your stories that keep Justin's legacy alive.

Speaker 6 I hope to be able to share my next adventure with you soon, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with Justin's motto:

Speaker 6 Be kind and do epic shit.

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Speaker 14 Every story has layers, and sometimes the truth hides in plain sight. I'm Josh Dean, host of Chameleon, the podcast about people who transform, deceive, and survive.

Speaker 14 From con artists to unbelievable yet true occurrences, we dive into stories where nothing is ever quite as it seems. Because to understand the world, you sometimes have to change the way you see it.

Speaker 14 Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.