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Hi, listeners, it's Vanessa Richardson. Real quick, before today's episode, I want to tell you about another show from Crime House that I know you'll love. America's Most Infamous Crimes. Hosted by Katie Ring. Each week, Katie takes on one of the most notorious criminal cases in American history. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Listen to and follow America's Most infamous crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is crime house. We all know the feeling. You're walking through the woods at night. It's pitch black. You can't see more than a few feet in front of you. And somewhere out there, just past the tree line, you swear someone or something is watching you. For centuries, people in the forests of North America have whispered about a creature lurking in the shadows. Something enormous. Enormous. Something that walks on two legs, but isn't quite human. It's been called many names over the years, but one has stuck. Bigfoot. Most people think of Bigfoot as a fun mystery, a campfire story, something you half believe in after a few drinks with your friends or maybe a couple joints. But in the fall of 1993, on a remote cannabis farm in Northern California, a 23 year old man named David Holthouse heard something that turned Bigfoot Foot from a legend into a nightmare. He was sitting in a cabin after a long day of work when two men burst through the door, soaked to the bone and caked in mud. One of them was talking so fast, David could barely make out the words. But one thing was unmistakable. Three people were dead. Their bodies ripped apart in the fields. A bear, a mountain lion, some crazed killer stalking the woods. But the farmer kept saying it louder, like he needed everyone in that cabin to hear it. I'm telling you, man, a Bigfoot killed those guys. David didn't sleep that night. And the next morning, he packed his things and drove away from that farm as fast as he could. He left Humboldt county, left California, and tried to leave that memory behind forever. For 25 years, he buried what he heard. But eventually, he couldn't hide from it anymore. And when he took another look at what happened that night, David realized the legend of Bigfoot was more than a scary story. It was a cover for murder. From UFO cults and mass suicides to secret CIA experiments, presidential assassinations and murderous doctors, these aren't just theories. They're real stories that blur the line between fact and fiction. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I'll explore the real people at the center of the world's most shocking events and nefarious organizations. These cases are wild and I want to hear what you think at the end of each episode. Leave a comment wherever you listen. Be sure to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes to continue building this community together. And for ad free access to all three episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts Today, I'm diving into a case that starts with one of America's most famous legends and ends somewhere much darker. In 1993, three men were allegedly murdered on a marijuana farm in California's remote Emerald Triangle. For decades, people whispered that Bigfoot was responsible. But when an investigative journalist went looking for the truth, he found something else entirely. A cautionary tale about greed, racism, and a community where violence was just another cost of doing business. Because sometimes the scariest stories aren't the ones about monsters, they're the ones about what ordinary people are capable of and the myths they hide behind. 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In the far reaches of Northern California, tucked beneath towering redwoods and blanketed in fog, the There's a region where Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino counties meet. It's a place of breathtaking natural beauty and terrifying isolation. Dense forests stretch for miles in every direction. The roads are narrow, winding and treacherous, and in some parts you can drive for hours without seeing another human being. This region became known as the Emerald Triangle, named for the lush green cannabis crops that Made it famous and. But long before anyone planted a single seed of marijuana out there, the land had a reputation. For centuries, the indigenous peoples of what we now call the Pacific Northwest told stories about a massive ape like creature that roamed these forests. The first nations people of British Columbia, Canada, called it Seskuts, meaning wild man. As European settlers moved into the region, the legend spread. In 1924, a group of gold prospectors in Washington claimed they were attacked by ape like creatures near Mount St. Helens. In 1929, the Chehalis people of British Columbia shared a collection of stories about the creature with a local newspaper. Even president Theodore Roosevelt wrote about a monster described as a half human or half devil, Some great goblin beast. But for the most part, the creature remained little more than a rumor. A spooky story whispered around campfires and in logging camps. That all changed in the summer of 1958. On August 27th of that year, a logger named Jerry Crew was working up in Humboldt county, clearing brush along a timber road in the Six Rivers National Forest. It was early morning morning, and as Jerry walked toward his bulldozer, he noticed something strange in the soft dirt around the treads. Bare footprints. Now that wasn't totally unusual. He was part of a big crew. And it was entirely possible that one of the guys had been walking around without shoes. But when Jerry climbed into his seat and looked down at the prince from above, he realized just how massive they were. 16 inches long, 7 inches wide. Way too big to belong to any human being. When Jerry showed the other loggers, they didn't seem all that surprised. They told him they'd been seeing similar prints for a while. And that wasn't all. There was also some really weird stuff going on in the woods. 700 lb tires being tossed into gullies overnight. Massive steel cables dragged around like string tools going missing without explanation. Something was out there. Something big and strong, and no one had any idea what it was. The loggers brought their stories to the local paper, the Humboldt Times. The newspaper's columnist, Andrew Gonzoli, ran the story and in doing so, gave this mysterious creature a name that would stick forever. Bigfoot. After that newspaper story hit, the legend of Bigfoot exploded and the Emerald Triangle was ground zero. It's where the most famous footage of the creature was filmed. That grainy, shaky 1967 clip known as the Patterson Gimlin film, which shows a large, dark, bipedal figure striding through a forest clearing. It's iconic, and to this day, people argue about whether it's real. But bigfoot wasn't the only draw. In the 1960s and 70s, the Emerald Triangle became a hub for a movement called Back to the Land. Hippies and counterculture types moved to the area in droves, drawn by cheap land, beautiful scenery, and the freedom that came with living so far off the grid. They wanted to live simply, grow their own food and use what the earth provided. But simple living still required money. So a lot of these newcomers turned to farming marijuana to generate income. Now, to be clear, marijuana was illegal at this point. California wouldn't even legalize medical marijuana until 1996, and full recreational use wasn't approved until 2016. But out in the Emerald Triangle, the law felt very far away. The nearest sheriff's office could be hours down a mountain road. Federal agents rarely ventured into those woods. And the growers used their profits in ways that actually helped their communities. Building roads, donating to local schools, even funding volunteer fire departments. For a while, it worked. Life was good. Money was flowing. Hippies, weed, and sasquatches. It was a strange, colorful world, and honestly, kind of charming. But it wasn't going to stay that way. In the early 1980s, the party came to a screeching halt. In 1983, the state of California established a task force called Camp the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, which specifically targeted the small time cannabis farmers in the Emerald Triangle. Suddenly, the government was flying helicopters over the mountains, raiding for farms and arresting growers left and right. Some farmers gave up and moved away, but plenty of others dug in and they were prepared to fight back. Almost overnight, the Emerald Triangle went from a hippie paradise to a war zone. The growers who stayed armed themselves heavily. We're talking attack dogs, tripwires, booby traps, and enough firearms to outfit a small militia. Paranoia seeped into every corner of the community. Trust evaporated, and violence became a way of life. It didn't take much for a dispute over territory or product to turn deadly. And if you made the mistake of crossing the wrong person, well, there was a whole lot of forest to bury a body in. And there was another dimension to this violence that we need to talk about. The weed industry kept booming despite the crackdowns. And soon the Mexican workers started traveling to the Emerald Triangle looking for jobs. They were hoping for steady paychecks and a chance to send money back to their families. Many of them were willing to do the backbreaking, dangerous labor that came with farming cannabis in the mountains. But the white growers didn't welcome them. Racism ran deep in this community. The old guard farmers saw these Workers as outsiders, threats to their livelihood, their territory, and their way of life. And. And in a place where people already solved their problems with guns and fists, that kind of hatred could be lethal. This is the world that a young man named David Holthouse found himself in during the fall of 1993. David was 23 years old at the time. He'd grown up in Anchorage, Alaska, and had always been drawn to adventure, the kind of person who sought out experiences most people would run from. In 1993, he was working as a trimmer on a cannabis farm in the Emerald Triangle. It wasn't glamorous. The hours were long, the conditions were rough, and the people around him ranged from eccentric to genuinely frightening. But David wasn't just some kid looking for easy money. Even back then, he had a journalist's instinct, A hunger to understand the world by getting as close to it as possible. That instinct would eventually lead him into a career in investigative reporting, where he'd spend years going undercover infiltrating white supremacist groups, biker gangs, and other dangerous organizations. He'd earn a reputation as one of the most fearless journalists in the country. But all of that came later. In 1993, David was just a young man on a weed farm who'd heard something he was not never supposed to hear. After that terrifying night in the cabin when those two men burst in talking about bodies ripped apart in the fields, insisting that Bigfoot was the killer, David didn't stick around to investigate. He packed up the next morning and drove away as fast as he could. There was no media coverage about the killings, no news reports, no missing person stories, nothing. It was like the murders had never happened. Eventually, David started to wonder if he'd misheard or imagined the whole thing. So he pushed those thoughts away and threw himself into his career. He covered dangerous stories all over the country. He got answers to questions most people were too scared to ask. But the memory of that night in Humboldt county never fully disappeared. It sat in the back of his mind like a splinter. Small enough to ignore most days, but impossible to Forget. And in 2018, David finally decided it was time to pull it out.
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Think about some of the cases that defined true crime in America. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer. The kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, the Karen retrial. Some crime cases are so shocking, they don't just make headlines, they forever change a country. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases, whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history, Revealing not just what happened, but how it forever changed our society. Serial killers who terrorized cities. Unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night. And investigations that change the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. These are the stories behind the headlines. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes, Available now wherever you get your podcasts.
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In the fall of 1993, 23 year old David Holthouse was working on a cannabis farm in California's Emerald Triangle when he had an experience that changed his life forever. Two panicked farmers told him that three men had been killed in the fields and that Bigfoot was responsible. David fled the next day, and for 25 years, he tried to forget about it. But he was an investigative journalist. It was his job to get to the bottom of what happened that night. So in 2018, he let his instincts take over. When David started looking into the alleged murders, the first thing he did was search for records. Missing persons reports from 1993 Homicide cases in Humboldt County, Anything that matched what he'd been told. He found nothing. No reports, no cases, no evidence that three men had ever been killed on a cannabis farm. David knew he'd have to go back to the source. And he'd have to talk to people in the Emerald Triangle. The growers, the old timers, the ones who'd been there in 93. That same year, David got a phone call that changed everything. A filmmaker friend named Joshua Rofe had become obsessed with a podcast called the Sasquatch Chronicles. And he had a wild idea. He wanted to make a documentary about a real life murder connected to Bigfoot. David. Did David know any stories like that? David most certainly did. Together, David and Joshua launched an investigation that would eventually become the Hulu documentary series Sasquatch. They started by reaching out to anyone David could find who'd worked in the Emerald Triangle's weed industry. He made call after call, tracked down old contacts, and even hired a private investigator from the region to help David. But one after another, nobody remembered hearing about three people torn apart by Sasquatch back in 93. Or at least that's what they said. David could feel a wall of silence around this story. People were scared, and not just of legal trouble, although that was certainly part of it. Even though California would eventually legalize recreational marijuana in the late 2010s, a lot of growers in the Emerald Triangle were still operating in a Legal, gray, unlicensed farms were everywhere. Tax evasion was rampant. And plenty of people had done things over the years that they really didn't want on the record. But the fear ran deeper than that. This was a community where people who talked too much had a way of disappearing. Where asking the wrong question could get you killed. So David tried a different approach. He reached out to the Emerald Triangle's other population, the Sasquatch hunters. These were people who dedicated their lives to proving that Bigfoot was real. They spent their weekends trekking through the forest, setting up cameras, collecting plaster casts of footprints. They called themselves Squatchers. The Squatchers were more than happy to talk, but not because they had information about the murders. They wanted to defend Bigfoot. They insisted the creature wasn't capable of violence. Everything they'd ever heard suggested Bigfoot was gentle, even help. And they didn't know about any murders in 1993, cryptid related or otherwise. Every lead David followed seemed to dissolve. He was chasing a ghost. Maybe literally. But then he met a man named Razor. Razor wasn't the guy's real name, but he was a longtime weed farmer who'd worked in the Emerald Triangle for decades, including during the time of the alleged murders. Razor had heard about David's investigation and said he had information to share. He told David that he remembered hearing about three Mexican workers found dead in the fall of 1993 at a farm near a place called Spy Rock Road. Now, Spy Rock is an extremely isolated part of the Emerald Triangle. And in a region defined by its isolation, that's really saying something. The few people who lived out there were separated by massive stretches of dense, dark forest. Cell phone service didn't exist. The roads were barely roads at all. It was the perfect place to grow illegal crops. And the perfect place to make someone vanish. David checked the location Razor described. It was only a 15 minute drive from the cabin where David had been on that fateful night in 1993. Finally, a real lead. David was thrilled. He immediately told the private investigator helping him work the case. But instead of sharing David's excitement, the PI Quit. Something about this case had spooked the man badly. He didn't explain. He just walked away. But David was in too deep to turn back now. In an on camera interview for the documentary, Razor laid out the grim reality of life in the Emerald Triangle. He explained that people got killed out there all the time. Maybe it was a turf dispute. Maybe someone stole from the wrong farm. Maybe someone just looked at someone the wrong way. In an isolated, armed, paranoid community with Virtually no law enforcement. It didn't take much for a disagreement to turn deadly. Razor didn't think Bigfoot killed those guys. He was sure the killer was human. Some greed driven, violent cannabis farmer who wanted to protect his operation at any cost. But when it came to naming names, Razor couldn't help. David needed more. And what he found next would change the entire direction of his investigation. Sometime in late 2018, David found himself at a bar in Mendocino County, California. For hours, he'd been sitting across from an anonymous source, trying to coax the man into talking about homicides in the Emerald Triangle. But the guy was like a locked box. He wouldn't give his name, wouldn't agree to be recorded, wouldn't make eye contact. David didn't push too hard. He understood the stakes. This wasn't just about legal exposure, although there was plenty of that to go around. People in this community had witnessed what happened to those who talked. Informants didn't just lose their reputations, they lost their lives. The night wore on. The bar slowly emptied out. One by one, the other patrons left, until eventually, David and this man were the only two people in the entire place. And that's when the man's expression shifted. He leaned forward and said, so I hear you're looking into the three Mexican guys who got greased back in 93. The question hit David like a freight train. Not only did this anonymous informant confirm that the murders actually happened, but he said he knew who committed them. And once he started talking, he didn't stop. He gave David a name. Someone who, according to the informant, was well known in the Emerald Triangle's cannabis world. Someone everyone apparently knew had committed this crime. Someone you absolutely did not want to cross. David chose not to reveal this name publicly in the documentary. But for the sake of this story, I'll call him Tom. According to the informant, Tom was a high level cannabis grower who ran with some very dangerous company. Most notably members of the Hells Angels, the notoriously violent biker gang. David started digging into Tom's background, and what he found was disturbing. Tom had been questioned for two separate homicides in the Emerald Triangle over the years. Both victims were Mexican, and both times, nothing ever stuck. No charges, no convictions. Tom walked free. David even managed to get Tom himself on the phone for an anonymous interview. But if David was hoping for a confession, he was disappointed. Tom denied knowing anything about the murders. And then he gave David a warning to stop sticking his nose where it didn't belong. And Tom said Spyrock Road was one of those places. But David had a hunch that Tom didn't act alone. Sure, Tom was a top level grower, but he wasn't the head of an entire cannabis operation. A triple homicide felt like something that would come from higher up the chain. Within days, two more anonymous sources confirmed David's suspicion. Both said they'd heard that Tom carried out the killings on behalf of a high ranking cannabis farmer. They didn't know exactly who ordered the hit, but they seemed to believe that the motive was retribution. That the victims had somehow crossed the wrong person's family. David needed to find the kingpin. And the answer came from one of the Emerald Triangle's old timer growers. A man who went by the name Ghost Dance. Ghost Dance explained that back in the early 90s, only a handful of men had really made a name for themselves in the region's cannabis world. And one stood out above all all the rest. He was the first to run a large scale operation around Spyrock. He was feared and respected. One very tough customer. His real name was Gary, but nobody called him that. Everyone knew him by his nickname, Bigfoot. When David heard that name, his mind started reeling. He thought back to that terrified farmer in the cabin back in 1992. 3. The man who kept shouting about what he'd seen. Did he say that a Bigfoot killed three people or that Bigfoot killed three people? Was he talking about a mythical creature or a very real, very dangerous human? David tracked Gary down through his wife and eventually got him on the phone. Gary was direct. He said, quote, I haven't killed anybody on any occasion, at any time for anything. End quote. Now, it's worth pausing on that for a moment. Gary said he didn't kill anybody. That didn't necessarily mean he hadn't ordered someone else to do it. But there was a problem with that theory. Gary wasn't even in the Emerald Triangle at the time of the murders. He had an alibi. This particular Bigfoot, it seemed, didn't kill those people. Still, David couldn't shake the feeling that Gary was somehow connected. But for the moment, he'd hit another wall. His strategy of chasing the killer wasn't working. So David changed course entirely. Instead of looking for the people who committed the crime, he would try to learn about the victims. Hi, listeners, it's Vanessa Richardson. I wanted to take a brief moment to tell you about another show from Crime House that I know you'll love. America's Most Infamous Crimes. Hosted by Katie Ring. Each week, Katie takes on a notorious crime, whether unfolding now or etched into American History revealing not just what happened, but how it forever changed our society. Serial killers who terrorized cities. Unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night. And investigations that change the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. These are the stories behind the headlines. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. David Hold House spent months trying to find any record of the three men killed in 1993. But there was virtually nothing. No bodies, no police report, no death certificates, no missing persons cases that matched. And considering how many violent crimes happened on that mountain and how many people simply vanished from this region without a trace, David wasn't surprised. But he wasn't giving up, either. The fact that the victims were Mexican weighed heavily on him. From everything he'd learned during his investigation, Mexican workers in the Emerald Triangle were treated as expendable. They were brought in to do dangerous, backbreaking labor. And if something happened to them, if they disappeared, in many cases, nobody outside their own community would even notice. These three men, whoever they were, may have left behind families who never found out what happened to them. Mothers, fathers, wives, children who may still be wondering, over 30 years later, why their loved one never came home. After exhausting nearly every other option, David reached out to the one person he hadn't spoken to yet. The owner of the cannabis farm where the murders allegedly took place. The man who'd been in that cabin with David on that night in 1993. Using his contacts, David tracked the farmer down and set up a phone call. He had no idea he was about to speak to the most terrifying subject of his investigation. The second David answered the phone, the farmer spoke two words. Quote, no names, no pleasantries, no small talk. Just a cold, flat command that made the hair on the back of David's neck stand up. Something about this man was different from everyone else David had interviewed. There was a quiet menace in his voice, the kind of calm that comes from a person who is absolutely certain he has nothing to fear from you. But David pressed on. He told the farmer what he remembered from that night. Two men bursting into the cabin, talking about three bodies ripped apart in the fields, insisting that Bigfoot was responsible. The farmer remembered everything. And he told David that what those two men said that night was true. Well, partly true. Bigfoot the cryptid didn't murder those men. But the killers wanted it to look like he did. According to the farmer, the old guard of cannabis growers in the Emerald Triangle had a problem. Mexican workers were moving into the region in increasing numbers, and these men wanted them gone. But they couldn't just start killing people openly. Even in a place as lawless as Spy Rock Road, that kind of attention could bring heat. So they devised a plan. First, they started spreading rumors about Bigfoot sightings on the mountain. They sowed fear and superstition among the workers, making them believe that a dangerous, possibly supernatural creature was prowling the woods. And then they selected three Mexican workers to serve as the first victims of this murderous cryptid. Let that sink in for a moment. These weren't random animal attacks. They weren't the work of some crazed Sasquatch. They were calculated acts of racial violence, deliberately staged to look like something inhuman. The killers mutilated their victims bodies to make it seem like they'd been mauled by a creature. And then they let the legend of Bigfoot do the rest. The message was chilling and clear. Something evil is out there in the woods, and you could be next. David was stunned by how much the farmer was revealing. He pressed further. He asked if Tom was involved. The farmer's response? No comment. So David asked about the two men who had come into the cabin that night, the ones who told David about the murders in the first place. And the farmer's answer revealed just how thought out this entire operation had been. One of those men was in on the plan. He'd deliberately taken his friend, a gullible, talkative guy, to the site of the murder. As the farmer put it, the friend saw what he was supposed to see. The second man was essentially a tool. The conspirators chose him because they knew he'd spread the story. He'd tell everyone he could about the terrifying Bigfoot attack, and nobody would ever suspect that the real killers were the same farmers pretending to be afraid. After talking to the farmer, David had one final trip to make for the documentary. In June of 2020, he drove up the winding mountain roads of Spy Rock to meet a woman who said she was willing to talk about the violence in the region. But there was a catch. If David wanted to meet, he had to come to her. She lived deep in the woods. There was no cell service, no way to get help if something went wrong. And David's companion on the drive seemed to enjoy pointing out every spot along the road where someone had died or gone missing. As they wound down deeper into the forest, David knew how Often people disappeared in this part of California. If he didn't play his cards right, he could be one of them. It took over half an hour on that narrow, bumpy excuse for a road to reach the woman's property. And before they could get down to business, she decided to tell David a story. She said that a year or two earlier, a couple of drug dealers had come up from Los Angeles to make a deal with her. Eventually, the negotiations went sideways and the woman decided those men weren't leaving. She told David all of this with a smile on her face. She was practically beaming as she described what she'd done. She even laughed about how one of the men had urinated on himself before she killed him. And how her dog dug up his boot the next morning and carried it around like a chicken chew toy. David did the only thing he could. He laughed along with her. But in the back of his mind, one thought echoed over and over. Coming here was a mistake. That was David's last trip to the Emerald Triangle for the documentary. And it ended the way so many investigations in that region end without a definitive answer. To this day, the 1993 Sasquatch murders remain officially unsolved. David could never conclusively prove that the murders even happened, let alone identify the killers. But he walked away believing one thing without a doubt. A cryptid didn't kill those men. Humans did. And the legend of Bigfoot was weaponized. Turned from a harmless campfire story into a tool of terror and racial intimidation. And here's what makes this story even more haunting. These alleged murders weren't an isolated incident. The Emerald Triangle has been a black hole for violence and disappearances for decades. The numbers tell part of the story. Humboldt county has the highest missing persons rate in all of California. A commonly cited 2018 report puts it at 717 per 100,000 people. Nearly double the state average. Because of that, the region has earned the nickname the Black Hole. Take the case of 38 year old Edward Buschbacker Jr. And his friend 39 year old Randy Peters. In November 1984, both men were found shot dead in a marijuana field in Humboldt County. Their killers were never found. Then there's the case of Garrett Rodriguez, One of the most heartbreaking examples of what this region can do to a person. In late December of 2012, 29 year old Garrett drove up to Humboldt county from his hometown of San Diego to work on a cannabis farm. He was adventurous and loved the outdoors. He'd grown up surfing and fishing. Working on a farm in the mountains sounded Like a great change of pace and. And the money was really good. His family begged him not to go. They'd heard the stories about the area, but Garrett was young and optimistic, so he didn't listen. He went to work on a farm in that area called Rancho Sequoia. The locals had another name for it. Murder Mountain. It earned that nickname after the 1983 killing of a man named Clark Stevens. That murder was thought to be the work of Susan and Michael Carson, a serial killer couple known as the San Francisco Witch Killers. It was a terrifying story, but it seemed like an outlier. And for a few months, things seemed fine. Garrett stayed in regular contact with his family, but in the spring of 2013, the phone calls suddenly stopped. His dad reported him missing that April. The official investigation moved. Moved slowly, too slowly for Garrett's family. So they hired a private investigator named Chris Cook. Chris got to work talking to neighbors around the farm. And the people she spoke to didn't mince words. They were pretty sure Garrett was dead. But when Chris brought this information to the local sheriff's office, it didn't get much traction. Meanwhile, Garrett's truck was found on someone's property in the middle of nowhere. But it was clean. There was no useful forensic evidence. Another dead end. Months went by, the investigation stalled, and it seemed like Garrett might become just another name on the long list of people who vanished in the Emerald Triangle without a trace. But here's where this story takes a turn. Because when law enforcement didn't come through, the community did. About 20 miles south of Murder Mountain sits the tiny town of Alderpoint, a remote, unincorporated community of a few hundred people deep in the heart of the Emerald Triangle. It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and where people have learned the hard way that if you want justice out here, you often have to find it yourself. The people of Alderpoint were pretty sure they knew who had information about Garrett's daughter death. A local man who they believed knew where his body was buried. And they were tired of waiting for the system to work. On Thanksgiving night, 2013, a group of eight men from Alderpoint went to the man's home. Things got heated. The group shot him twice. Once in the arm, once in the leg. And then they forced him to take them to where Garrett was buried. Someone made an anonymous call to the sheriff with the location, and on December 17, 2013, almost a full year after Garrett had left for Murder Mountain, the sheriff's office announced that his body had been identified. To this day, nobody's been charged with Garrett Rodriguez's murder. The man who led the vigilantes to the grave was never formally charged either. And the eight men from Alderpoint who became known as The Alder Point 8 had criminal records of their own that made them unreliable witnesses. It was a community problem, and the community solved it the only way it knew how. In the Emerald Triangle, that's just how things go. Which makes me wonder how many other victims are out there, unnamed, unrecorded, buried in the woods and forgotten? How many other killers are walking free because there's nobody left to hold them accountable? And how many families are still waiting for answers that are never going to come? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as well. Let me know in the comments, wherever you listen. At the end of the day, the legend of Bigfoot Foot was supposed to be fun. A quirky piece of Americana, one of those mysteries that makes the world feel a little bigger, a little more strange, a little more magical. But in the Emerald Triangle, that legend was corrupted. It was turned into a weapon. A way to terrorize and intimidate vulnerable people. A way to cover up murder. You'd almost prefer a Sasquatch to be behind these killings, because then at least you could understand it. A giant ape like creature acting on instinct. That's tragic. But it's not evil. Animals don't plan. They don't scheme. They don't target people because of the color of their skin. But people do. The men behind the 1993 Sasquatch murders, whoever they are, made a deliberate choice. They chose violence. They chose hatred. They chose to use a beloved legend as a mask for something truly monstrous. And in the end, they showed us who the real beasts are. Not the ones lurking in the forest, but the ones we already know. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes. Come back next time. We'll decode the episode together and hear another story about the real people at the center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies and criminal acts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes listening experience subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode and ad free. We'll be back on Monday. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios, this episode was brought to life by the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzovsky, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Kayla, Kylie Pine and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.
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I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases in American history. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.
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Thanks for listening to today's episode. Not sure what to listen to next? Check out America's Most Infamous Crimes hosted by Katie Ring. From serial killers to unsolved mysteries and game changing investigations, each week Katie takes on a notorious criminal case in American history. Listen to and follow America's Most infamous Crimes now wherever you listen to podcasts.