A Little Unusual

Summary

Cold Blooded: Mystery in Alaska

Episode: A Little Unusual

Host/Author: ABC News
Release Date: July 29, 2025

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Introduction

In the serene yet isolated town of Ketchikan, Alaska, the sudden death of a beloved local surgeon, Dr. Eric Garcia, has left the community reeling. While initial thoughts pointed towards a natural cause or suicide, a deeper investigation reveals a tangled web of secrets, deceit, and potential murder.

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The Disappearance of Dr. Eric Garcia

On March 27, 2017, Officer Devin Miller was en route to perform a welfare check on Dr. Eric Garcia after receiving a concerning call from an out-of-town individual. As Officer Miller approached Garcia's secluded home atop a fog-covered hill, the picturesque view of the bay belied the grim discovery awaiting him.

Officer Devin Miller [00:28]: "On March 27, 2017, I was driving through Ketchikan, Alaska, on my way to conduct a welfare check."

Upon arrival, the officers found the house seemingly secure, with no signs of forced entry. However, the unease deepened when two unfamiliar vehicles, including Dr. Garcia's red Ford pickup, were spotted near the residence.

Officer Devin Miller [02:29]: "I saw two vehicles drive up the driveway. One was driven by a woman, and the other by a man with a woman in the passenger seat."

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Dr. Eric Garcia's Background

Dr. Eric Garcia was not originally from Ketchikan. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he pursued his medical residency in Chicago before serving as a surgeon in Eagle Pass, Texas. His move to Alaska was unexpected, though his friends believed the town's unique charm and opportunities drew him in.

Saul Garcia (Dr. Eric’s Brother) [09:23]: "A lot of people when they leave and go to Alaska is because they're running away from something. But looking at Eric’s life, I didn't see anything he would be leaving behind."

Garcia was known for his compassionate nature, exemplified by his dedication to his grandmother, whom he cared for despite her genetic heart defect. His colleagues and patients in Ketchikan quickly grew to respect and admire him.

Carlos Gonzalez (Best Friend) [10:19]: "Dr. Garcia thought the town was beautiful. He was interested in its indigenous history and loved its vibrant arts and culture scene."

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The Investigation

Officer Miller's initial visit to Garcia's home revealed a peaceful residence with no immediate signs of distress. However, the presence of Garcia's vehicle at the airport and the claim that he had keys to his own house raised red flags.

Officer Devin Miller [02:47]: "I found it unusual that this man had just happened upon Dr. Garcia's car and had keys to it."

Inside the house, the discovery of Dr. Garcia's lifeless body on a sectional sofa amid an eerie stillness marked the turning point of the investigation.

Officer Devin Miller [04:36]: "In the middle of the room was Dr. Garcia. We could tell he was dead without even approaching him."

The scene contained several peculiar elements: an open barbecue propped by a pillow, unused barbecue tools, an open package of bacon, and a TV stuck on a blue screen. Additionally, marks on Garcia's hand and a mysterious purple stain suggested possible foul play.

Dr. Garcia’s Body [29:24]: "His thumb and two fingertips had charcoal on them... There was a purple stain on his right shoulder."

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Clues and Revelations

As the investigation progressed, interviews with those close to Dr. Garcia unveiled inconsistencies in his recent behavior. His mood had shifted unexpectedly before his untimely death, and his last known activity involved preparing for a trip to Las Vegas for a medical conference.

Dawn Hink (Colleague) [24:08]: "His mood changed, and he still had the shirt on, he still had the smile on, but he had a kind of solemnness that was hard to pinpoint."

Further scrutiny revealed that Dr. Garcia's house contained a locked storage unit beneath the stairs, holding valuables worth nearly half a million dollars, including wine, gold, and coins.

Friend of Dr. Garcia [32:31]: "There was at least half a million dollars worth of valuables in a locked storage unit underneath the stairs."

These findings deepened the mystery, suggesting motives beyond personal despair or natural causes.

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Conclusion and Next Steps

The discovery of substantial valuables and the strange circumstances surrounding Dr. Garcia's death compel investigators to look beyond the surface. With clues pointing towards possible theft and hidden relationships, the case of Dr. Eric Garcia remains shrouded in mystery, promising further revelations in subsequent episodes.

Officer Devin Miller [31:26]: "Dr. Garcia's death could have been a medical event, like a heart attack, or it could have been a suicide. But the whole thing didn't make much sense to me."

As Ketchikan grapples with this tragedy, the layers of Dr. Garcia's life and the town's intricate history continue to unfold, painting a complex picture of a man who was both cherished and enigmatic.

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Notable Quotes

• Officer Devin Miller [00:28]: "On March 27, 2017, I was driving through Ketchikan, Alaska, on my way to conduct a welfare check."

• Saul Garcia [09:23]: "A lot of people when they leave and go to Alaska is because they're running away from something. But looking at Eric’s life, I didn't see anything he would be leaving behind."

• Carlos Gonzalez [10:19]: "Dr. Garcia thought the town was beautiful. He was interested in its indigenous history and loved its vibrant arts and culture scene."

• Officer Devin Miller [02:47]: "I found it unusual that this man had just happened upon Dr. Garcia's car and had keys to it."

• Dawn Hink [24:08]: "His mood changed, and he still had the shirt on, he still had the smile on, but he had a kind of solemnness that was hard to pinpoint."

• Officer Devin Miller [31:26]: "Dr. Garcia's death could have been a medical event, like a heart attack, or it could have been a suicide. But the whole thing didn't make much sense to me."

---

Upcoming in the Series

In the next episode, investigators return to Dr. Garcia's house to uncover more hidden clues, further unraveling the complexities of his mysterious death.

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Production Credits

Produced by: Camille Peterson, Shane McKeon, Kiara Powell
Edited by: Gianna Palmer
Supervising Producer: Susie Lu
Music and Mixing: Evan Viola
Director of Podcast Programming: Josh Cohan
Executive Producer: Laura Mayer

Special thanks to Liz Alessi, Katie Dendas, Janice Johnston, Joseph Reed, Gary Wynn, Xander Samaras, Chris Donovan, Michelle Margulis, Tom Berman, Sandy Evans, and Pat Lalama for their contributions.

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Cold Blooded: Mystery in Alaska continues to delve into the enigmatic circumstances surrounding Dr. Eric Garcia's death, promising listeners an engaging exploration of a compelling true crime story.

Transcript

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

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[Dawn Hink]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

See mintmobile.com On March 27, 2017, Officer Devin Miller was driving through Ketchikan, Alaska on his way to conduct a welfare check.

[Ryan Reynolds]

In town we get welfare checks quite often.

[Officer Devin Miller]

The person who called dispatch and was put through to Officer Miller was not calling from nearby. He was calling from out of town. Out of state, actually, which was very rare for the small, remote community. Who of Ketchikan. Also unusual. The person the caller was worried about was sort of a local celebrity.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He'd been missing and he was contemplating suicide.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Nobody's heard from him.

[Ryan Reynolds]

His parents?

[Officer Devin Miller]

Yeah.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ten days has been.

[Officer Devin Miller]

The missing person in question was a prominent, beloved surgeon, one of just two in the town named Eric Garcia. Officer Miller had even been his patient a couple of times.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I felt like if I felt pain, this man was going to feel the same pain.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Dr. Garcia's house was secluded at the top of a hill, nestled among dark green mountains, evergreens. The house was on a half acre of land and it had a stunning view of the bay and the cruise ships passing in and out of Ketchikan. Dr. Garcia lived here alone. When Officer Miller arrived at the house around 9am it was surrounded by fog and there was snow on the ground. His colleague joined him and the two checked around the property. Everything seemed normal at first. No signs of forced entry or trouble.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Short time after that, I see two vehicles drive up the driveway.

[Officer Devin Miller]

One car was driven by a woman. The other was driven by a man accompanied by a woman in the passenger seat. The man was driving a red Ford pickup, which Officer Miller recognized as Dr. Garcia's car.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So I asked him, I said, Is that Dr. Garcia's vehicle? And replied yes. Where did you find that? And it was parked at the airport.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Miller found that a little unusual too, that this man had just happened upon Dr. Garcia's car and had keys to it. But in the moment, he didn't think much of it. He wanted to get inside the home as soon as possible. The man said he had keys to Dr. Garcia's house. Officer Miller asked him to unlock the front door.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Sergeant Cheatham and I had them all wait outside while we cleared the building.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Miller's body camera captured everything that happened next.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Dr. Garcia, Police Department chiefly. Can you make yourself known, sir?

[Officer Devin Miller]

They check the main floor first. Dr. Garcia's bedroom, his bathroom, his walk in closet, his office. They noted a locked closet door with no sign of Dr. Garcia. They went upstairs.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay. Dr. Garcia, Officer Miller, Police department.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Once the officers reached the top of the stairs, they entered a large open room with white wall to wall carpet and nearly floor to ceiling windows that looked onto a deck, foggy evergreen trees and the glistening bay. The body camera footage gets much quieter from here. The officers stop shifting around. They stop calling out for Dr. Garcia.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He's here. Okay.

[Officer Devin Miller]

In the middle of the room there was a sectional sofa. And on that sofa was Dr. Garcia. The officers could tell without approaching him that he was dead. It was silent in the house. No noise from distant cars, no chatter from neighbors. Just the breath and stillness of the two police officers and a cold March wind blowing into the room through an open door on the deck. This moment, finding Dr. Garcia dead and alone in his four bedroom house would stick with officer Miller when he got home. Much later that day, he took off his bulletproof vest and his body camera and he says the full weight of it hit him.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think was finally able to let down enough to realize the situation and how horribly sad it was. And I just felt. I felt lonely. For Dr. Garcia.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Officer Miller and other investigators, they felt there was something so cold and striking about Dr. Garcia's death. A man who had cared for so many people, alone on a couch with a biting Alaskan wind surrounding him. To find out what happened to the beloved surgeon, investigators would have to go far beyond Ketchikan, far beyond Alaska. They'd have to untangle a crime fueled by years of lies and manipulation. A crime propelled by. By the vulnerability of isolation. From ABC Audio in 2020. I'm Chris Connolly and this is Cold Blooded Mystery in Alaska. Episode one A Little unusual. Ketchikan is at the southern tip of Alaska, and it's known as Alaska's first city because it's the first stop for many ships coming from Washington and other states from the lower 48. Once you land in the Ketchikan airport, you have to take a ferry to actually get to town. Dr. Eric Garcia was not born or raised in Ketchikan. He grew up thousands of miles Away in the complete opposite corner of North America in Puerto Rico. Eric Garcia was the oldest of four. His brother Saul says he was always interested in medicine. He'd read books about surgery as a kid. Saul said his older brother was also really good at making people feel special. The feeling that people get is that you're his only friend that he has at this moment and that that's it. I mean, he's not worried about somebody else or calling somebody else back. He's just with you. Saul and Eric's grandmother had a genetic heart defect. And even as a teenager, Eric would advocate for her with doctors. As an adult, he took care of their grandmother for years. So he always had her under his wing. And many years later, too, when she got ill, he would come and visit her and, you know, put IVs in her and things like that and treat her and all that. And then when she passed away, he was also there with her. Eric Garcia left Puerto Rico to do his medical residency in Chicago. After that, he was a surgeon in Eagle Pass, Texas, for many years. Eagle Pass is right on the border between the US And Mexico, and Saul says his brother liked being able to serve people in need of quality medical care. To this day, Saul is not sure why his brother wanted to leave Eagle Pass and come to Alaska. A lot of people when they leave and go to Alaska is because they're running away from something. But when I see his life and from what I know of his life, I didn't know I wouldn't know of anything that he would be leaving behind. But his friends say something about Ketchikan called to him. Dr. Garcia. He loved traveling, especially taking cruises. His best friend of 30 years, standing Carlos Gonzalez, often traveled with him. Carlos says Dr. Garcia even had a special shirt he wore for the first day of trips. It had bright colors and patterns with different color patches.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And all the pictures that I have that he's wearing that type of shirt, I know that was the first day of the trip because it was. He would use them for taking planes.

[Officer Devin Miller]

One year, Carlos and Dr. Garcia went on an Alaskan cruise that passed through Ketchikan. Dr. Garcia thought the town was beautiful. He was interested in its indigenous history. Ketchikan is the home of three native tribes and has the world's largest collection of totem poles. Dr. Garcia also loved that Ketchikan had a vibrant arts and culture scene. When Dr. Garcia got back from the trip, a recruiter from a hospital in Ketchikan reached out to him.

[Ryan Reynolds]

A recruiter who has my Name. Carlos Gonzalez invited him to go as a general surgeon to Ketchikan. Took it as a sign because it was my name. And that's how he moved from Eagle Pass to Ketchikan.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Eric Garcia was introduced to Ketchikan by an Alaskan cruise. And that's how most people come across the town today. But it has had many lives. The fishing industry is what first made Ketchikan into a thriving town, and Ketchikan is still known as the salmon capital of the world. Dave Kiffer is a 4th generation Ketchikan resident and he's served on the town city council and as the city's mayor.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Between 2 and 3 million salmon come up every year. Yeah, one of the interesting things is when you're at the airport in the summer, you'll see all these boxes, big fish boxes, and people come here. Basically they catch their limit of salmon and they take them with them.

[Officer Devin Miller]

He says the Tlingit drive had a fish camp along Ketchikan Creek for hundreds of years. Eventually, Europeans and people from Washington, Oregon and California, they started coming to fish as well and to mine for gold. During the 1898 Alaska Gold Rush, thousands of people passed through the town. They saw lots of quartz, and quartz.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Almost always means gold. Unfortunately, in around Ketchikan, it did not mean gold.

[Officer Devin Miller]

But the gold rush did turn it into a frontier town with saloons and a red light district where, as the town's tourism website puts it, ladies of negotiable affection entertained the miners, fishermen, hand loggers and other frisky frontiersmen. In 1926, Ketchikan was called the worst pest hole in America by a Los Angeles newspaper because of its so called vice, which the article described as gamblers, liquor dealers and red light women. Ketchikan kept reinventing itself. When the gold rush ended, canning salmon became the town's next big industry.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And as my mother used to say, the whole place reeked in the smell of canned salmon all summer long. Of course, she called it the smell of money.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Like mining, the canning industry also went through a boom and bust cycle.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ketchikan's interesting because it's probably the only city that I ever heard of that has gone through three different boom and busts and is still here. We were a mining boomtown that crashed. Then we became a salmon canning boomtown that crashed. Then we were a timber boomtown and that crashed. Usually when that happens, at some point in that process, the town goes away. But I guess we're just stubborn because we're still here.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Now tourism is at the heart of Ketchikan's economy. The town is a southern entryway to Alaska's inside passage. That's a route of waterways along the state's coast with gorgeous views of nature and wildlife, including bears, eagles, and whales. From April to October, enormous cruise ships dock in downtown ketchikan. Millions of passengers flock to town. On any given day during peak season, the town's population can more than double. Dr. Eric Garcia was one of those passengers. Thousands of miles from where he grew up, Ketchikan captivated him just like it had captivated generations of people before him, looking for new opportunities and adventure, often on their own. Ketchikan is a beautiful place, but it's also very remote. Residents of the town knew it could be a lonely, challenging place to live and that it was not easy to convince doctors to move there and stay there. So this town needed Dr. Garcia. He would be one of just two surgeons in a place where many people still do dangerous work.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We have to have a very serious trauma hospital because people, whether it's timber industry, fishing industry, or whatever, have those injuries all the time, and they just wouldn't make it to Seattle or anchorage.

[Officer Devin Miller]

It might seem like Eric Garcia would be a fish out of water in a place like ketchikan. A puerto rican surgeon who got his training in a big midwest city and had worked in a town along the u. S. Mexico border, Living in a town of 8,000 in cold, rainy Alaska. But his co workers, neighbors and friends say he fit in quickly. By the time he died, he had lived in ketchikan for nearly a decade. His brother Saul remembers going to the grocery store with Dr. Garcia. During one of his visits. He'd be stopped and asked, oh, Dr. Garcia, you're here. And he would move on to the next aisle. And then somebody else would pop up and it would take forever to get out of the. Out of the store. It was took forever to get in and out out of any place. Ketchikan may have been a surprising home for Eric Garcia to choose, but the town itself is a place of contradictions. A boom town that never fully went bust. A pest hole that's become a town where people raise their families for generations. A remote place that brings the world together through the cruise industry. And it turned out Eric Garcia was a man of contradictions, too. Beloved, well connected, social, but also very private. Was he happy in his big house overlooking ketchik can, or was he lonely and maybe dangerously isolated?

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

They lobotomized our replicas. The personality that I had the day before was entirely wiped out.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But Travis wasn't alone. Across the globe, others start reporting the same shift. And as lines blur between real and artificial connection, the consequences become all too human. From Wondery. This is flesh and code. A true story of Love, loss and the temptations of technology. Follow Flesh and Code on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge episodes of Flesh and Code early and ad free right now by joining Wondry. Tonight, Project Runway is back in dramatic fashion. This is more stressful than Cinderella at.

[Dawn Hink]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Dawn Hink]

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[Officer Devin Miller]

March 27th the day Dr. Garcia's body was found was not the first time Officer Miller was asked to do a welfare check on the surgeon. The out of state caller, whose name was Jordan Joplin, had also called dispatch about a week earlier. During that call, Jordan said it had been a couple of days since he'd heard from Eric Garcia.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He was telling me that he wanted to commit suicide and I haven't heard from him, so I'm getting worried.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Officer Miller went to check on Dr. Garcia's house for the first time.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It was snowy on the ground, fresh snow, and there were no prints at all going up to the house, going away from the house. At the side of the house. Doors were locked, windows were closed. There were some lights on in the house as if someone was going on vacation and they put sporadic lights on. I looked in the garage. There was no vehicle in the garage, so I certainly did not anticipate that there would be anyone home. I walked around to the side of the house and everything seemed to be secure back there. And so I left to contact his office.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Dr. Garcia's office told Miller they believed he was out of town.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I did not think that there was any issue because it all made sense.

[Officer Devin Miller]

But Jordan Joplin called again five and then six days later, dispatch explained that an officer had checked things out and did not find a reason to be concerned. And they couldn't just knock down the front door and go in.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We contacted the hospital and they stated that he's out of town. And then also there's nothing else to believe that he's injured in any way. So at this point they can't.

[Dawn Hink]

They went to his house, it looks.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Like, yeah, and nobody answered.

[Officer Devin Miller]

So Jordan said he was going to fly into town to check on Dr. Garcia.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He gave me a house key. I know his security key, everything, because I had permission. And I'm going up there on Monday because I haven't heard anything, and I am very worried.

[Officer Devin Miller]

A few days later, on March 27, more than a week after his first call, Jordan arrived in Ketchikan. He made the call we heard earlier, the one that was patched through to Officer Miller. But Jordan Joplin was not the only one who said he was worried about Eric Garcia.

[Dawn Hink]

A lot of times they called me his work wife or his assistant.

[Officer Devin Miller]

His co worker Dawn Hink, a patient access representative at the hospital, had become one of Dr. Garcia's closest friends.

[Dawn Hink]

I had a numerous amount of people calling me his daughter, which I always wore as a badge of honor because he was, you know, such a fatherly figure in so many aspects to me.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Dawn remembers the day she met Dr. Garcia.

[Dawn Hink]

And everyone had told me how intimidating he was because he was, you know, had been the chief of surgery and all these places and everything. And I walked up to him, and he was the most gentle, kind, wonderful soul you could imagine. And it was just odd to me that people were intimidated by someone like that.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Don says Eric Garcia had a warm voice, the kind of smile so bright you could hear it through the phone. But when dawn really thinks about what made Dr. Garcia stand out in a room, she remembers his love of nice colognes and how he always smelled incredible.

[Dawn Hink]

He had one for each day of the week. And those little idiosyncrasies I used to take for granted are some of the true, most core memories I have with him.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Dawn last saw Dr. Garcia at work on March 16th. He was about to go to Las Vegas for a medical conference.

[Dawn Hink]

He showed up to the clinic wearing his vacation shirt.

[Officer Devin Miller]

That day, Dr. Garcia had to give bad news to a patient, and dawn sensed something else might have been going on.

[Dawn Hink]

His mood changed, and he still had the shirt on, he still had the smile on, but he. He had kind of a, like, a solemnness to him that was hard to pinpoint if he, you know, at this point in time, you can always go back and look back at things and think of hindsight, but to me, he was almost nervous to go on the trip.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Dawn and Dr. Garcia texted each other regularly, but after March 16, she stopped getting responses from him. She had sent Dr. Garcia a photo of her son in a local parade.

[Dawn Hink]

Just kind of, you know, trying to keep up with what was going on with him and how come he hadn't sent me pictures of the different Martini. He was excited to try and. And didn't receive anything. Back at all. So it definitely struck me as odd. Day one, day two, something is really weird. And day three, uh, oh, we need to figure out what's going on.

[Officer Devin Miller]

She got a call from Dr. Garcia's mother, who was also worried. So Don went to his house multiple times.

[Dawn Hink]

And everything seems okay, except on the back side of the house. The window upstairs, which I thought was a window, was actually a door upstairs was wide open. And this is March in Alaska. It was less than 32 degrees, and it had snowed about 3ft during the duration of him being gone. It just. The hair on the back of your neck stands up, and you just don't know really what to do.

[Officer Devin Miller]

But dawn saw tracks in the snow, which seemed to her like they were from a police officer. She figured if a police officer thought everything was okay, then it probably was. She didn't know that when Officer Miller had done his check, he hadn't seen an open door. Dawn wasn't totally satisfied after her visit to the house. It still seemed odd to her that Dr. Garcia was not replying to texts. So dawn called one of the hotels she knew he stayed in in Las.

[Dawn Hink]

Vegas, and they had said, no, his reservation has been canceled. And then whoever I was speaking with at that time realized they were not supposed to say that to me and hung up the phone really quickly.

[Officer Devin Miller]

On March 26, dawn heard from someone else who said he was worried about Dr. Garcia. Jordan Joplin. She had met Jordan once before. He called her to say he was coming to town from Washington state to check on Dr. Garcia. Dawn and Jordan met at the Ketchikan Airport on March 27 and made their way to Dr. Garcia's house. They drove the two cars that Officer Miller watched arrive at the house. When dawn and Jordan arrived, Officer Miller and his colleague, Sergeant Cheatham, went into the house to do the final welfare check. Dawn was still waiting outside with Jordan when the sergeant reemerged.

[Dawn Hink]

It felt like it had been about 20 minutes, when in actuality, it was probably less than two. He came back down the stairs, open the door, his face gray. He was pale. And he looked at me and said, eric has passed away, and he is in the house. And I wouldn't say I lost it. I had a fair amount of shock behind me, knowing that I had visited the house so many times, and I could have. You know, what kind of could I have done? I walked to the opposite side of the house, as far away as I could, get physically sick with emotion and sadness and, you know, just despair at that point. And looking for answers.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Dawn knew she didn't know everything about Dr. Garcia. He was a warm, friendly person, but he was also very private.

[Dawn Hink]

Dr. Garcia definitely had secrets, and I think a lot of people may have known that. No one ever pushed the envelope. Everyone had a very firm line of respect for him.

[Officer Devin Miller]

While don was hearing the news from Sergeant Cheatham, Officer Miller started documenting the room they discovered Dr. Garcia's body in. Just like everything else that day, many things in the room seemed unusual. For instance, the tv. It was still on, but it was stuck on a blue screen. And then there was the open door leading out to the deck.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And it wasn't just open. It was propped open by a pillow. There was a barbecue right at the door. And I also looked at the barbecue. There was no barbecue tools around.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Officer miller walked closer to Dr. Garcia. There was a coffee table in front.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Of him, which he had his elbow on. There were some items there that didn't really make sense to me. There was an open package of bacon. There was a partially burned charcoal briquette. And I didn't really understand how a person could barbecue bacon on a barbecue grill.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Miller began taking detailed photos of Dr. Garcia himself. Then he lifted up Dr. Garcia's hand. Full rigor, meaning full rigor mortis, a sign Dr. Garcia had been dead for at least a few hours. Officer Miller lifted a green sheet that was covering Dr. Garcia's body up to his chest. He was looking for signs of trauma, like a gunshot or a knife wound. He didn't see anything like that, but he did notice a few other things.

[Ryan Reynolds]

His thumb and two fingertips, I think, had charcoal, dark charcoal on them, which had transferred to his white t shirt, which I'm guessing came from the partially burnt charcoal that was on the table. Also, I noticed that on his right shoulder, There was a purple stain. And the stain wasn't consistent. It was more like a dribble stain, and it looked like it was dribbled from his shoulder towards his head and to his mouth.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Officer Miller took more photos and then turned his body camera off. As sergeant Cheatham returned. He said his first impression of the scene was that Dr. Garcia's death could have been a medical event, like a heart attack, or it could have been a suicide. But the whole thing didn't make much sense to him.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The setup was just a little unusual.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Eddie had a lot of questions about what they had learned so far.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How is he here, and his truck is at the airport. Why did his work think he was out of town? Also, it just didn't make sense when.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Officer Miller came out of the house after documenting the room. His body camera was back on, facing the handful of people standing in the fog and snow outside the house. Dawn Hink, Jordan Joplin and the woman who was with him among them, and another friend of Dr. Garcia's who had shown up while the officers went through the house. The next step was to start doing interviews with everyone at the scene to see what they knew. They learned a lot from those interviews, but maybe the most surprising thing they learned came from that friend who had shown up after dawn and Jordan. He knew a lot about Dr. Garcia's house and what should be inside.

[Ryan Reynolds]

He pulled me aside and he informed me that there was at least a half a million dollars worth of valuables in a locked storage unit underneath the stairs, which included wine, gold and coins.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Next time on Cold Blooded Mystery in Alaska. Investigators search Dr. Garcia's house again, looking for those valuables, only to find more unusual clues. Mystery in Alaska is a production of ABC Audio and 20 20, hosted by me, Chris Connelly. Produced by Camille Peterson, Shane McKeon and Kiara Powell. Edited by Gianna Palmer. Our supervising producer is Susie Lu. Music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Liz Alessi, Katie Dendas, Janice Johnston, Joseph Reed, Gary Wynn, Xander Samaras, Chris Donovan, Michelle Margulis, Tom Berman, Sandy Evans and Pat Lalama. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming. Laura Mayer is our executive producer.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The top stories, biggest headlines, entertainment buzz and viral moments. You give us less than 10 minutes and we'll give you what you need to know. Your new daily must have habit. Start your day with what you need to know now. Streaming on Disney in theaters now.

[Officer Devin Miller]

Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four is the number one movie in the world. Yes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Hell yeah.

[Officer Devin Miller]

It's unlike anything Marvel has done before.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We face a danger that is threatening our families.

[Officer Devin Miller]

And now it's certified for ash.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I will not sacrifice my child for this world. But I will not sacrifice this world for my child.

[Officer Devin Miller]

And it's one of the best superhero movies of all time. Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four in theaters now. Radio 13. Some material may not be suitable for children under 13.