Transcript
Narrator (0:00)
Uncover one of history's greatest mysteries in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a first person single player adventure video game set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade. The year is 1937. Sinister forces are scouring the globe for the secret to an ancient power connected to the Great Circle. And only one person can stop them. Indiana Jones Adventure Calls Indiana Jones and the Great Circle releases on December 9th on Xbox Series X&S Game Pass and PC. Pre Order Indiana Jones and the Great Circle now read. Rated T14 Copyright and Trademark 2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved.
Advertiser (0:31)
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Advertiser (0:47)
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Advertiser (1:18)
This lasagna was so cheesy my plate was filled with saucy slices.
Delia Diambra (1:23)
Then a flimsy store brand plate. No, no no no. Ruined it. Next time get Dixie Ultra plates 3 times stronger than the leading store brand 10 inch paper plate Dixie make it right. Hi park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia Diambra. The case I'm going to tell you about today takes place in the Mark Twain National Forest and the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, both of which are in Missouri. According to the U.S. forest Service, Mark Twain National Forest touches 29 different counties and covers a whopping 1.5 million acres. If you visit, you can kayak, camp, river float, ride, mountain bikes, horseback ride, or walk the park's more than 750 miles of trails. From what I read about the National Forest and Ozark National Scenic Riverways, they both seem like great places to take a day trip if you live in an area within driving distance. One of the largest predators found in these parts is the black bear, followed by a variety of venomous snakes, and lastly a pesky nuisance animal known as the feral hog. Yeah, you heard me right. I said hog, as in oink oink. These critters are perhaps the most harmful type of wildlife to that area because they constantly are rooting around tearing up native plants. They abound in large numbers, and some can weigh as much as 300 to 400 pounds. The precious ecosystems they destroy are dwindling far quicker than wildlife conservationists would like, and the economic and environmental damage they cause in the United States every year is estimated to be about $1.5 billion. In May of 2020, though, it wasn't the feral hogs that fractured the sanctity and solitude of Ozark National Scenic Riverways or Mark Twain National Forest. It was a human predator, a man who took a mother away from her children and the peace of mind out of many people's lives. This is Park Predators At 1:30 in the afternoon on Thursday, May 21, 2020, park rangers for the Ozark National Scenic Riverways were riding around patrolling in a popular recreation area off of Missouri High. The spot was Buck Hollow, and when they got there they noticed something out of the ordinary. An empty pickup truck just sitting by itself near the Jacks Fork river. To quickly paint a picture of what Buck Hollow is. It's a well known spot in Ozark National Scenic Riverways that you can get to if you take an exit off the main highway and drive down toward the river. So think of it like a pull off area that you see in a lot of national parks, but this one's not directly adjacent to the highway. It's sort of back and down a little ways. I've posted a picture of the Google Maps street view of Buck Hollow in the blog post for this episode, so definitely go take a look if you want to get a better sense of what I'm describing. Anyway, when the rangers checked on the truck, I imagine they made sure that no one was inside and they walked around it to see if they could assess how long it had been there or, I don't know, maybe they were looking for signs that it had broken down or something. That detail of the story is a little unclear, but what I do know is that not long after the rangers approached the truck, they spotted something ominous right outside the driver's side front door that made them stop cold in their tracks. There on the ground were two pools of blood and a pair of eyeglasses. In a piece Michael deer reported for KY3 News, it stated that traces of blood were also visible on the outside of the pickup. Now, the source material doesn't explicitly say this, but I have to assume the next thing the rangers did was check the truck's license plate information to see whose it was, because according to all of the news coverage on this case, they were able to determine it belonged to 29 year old Brittney Gorman, who lived in the nearby town of Mountain View, Missouri, which is like a 10 minute drive south of Buck Hollow. So very, very close. When the rangers ran Brittney's name and information, they determined there was no missing persons report or anything like that for her in their system, which meant no one had reported her as missing. Still, her truck being by itself with the pools of blood on the ground next to it and her not being anywhere nearby just didn't sit right with the park rangers. They weren't exactly sure what they were dealing with. So in an abundance of caution, they immediately got in touch with the Texas County Missouri Sheriff's Department and the Missouri State Highway Patrol to come help assist them. The brief description that went out about Britney said that she was 5ft 2 inches tall, had blonde hair and green eyes. It didn't take long before law enforcement was with her family members in the nearby town of Mountain View, who told them that the last time they'd seen Britney was the day before Wednesday, May 20th. She'd visited with them for a little bit and left sometime between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Before heading out, she mentioned that she was going to the nearby town of Winnipeg, Winona, Missouri, which is only like 25 minutes east from Mountain View. The available source material isn't 100% clear on this, but I think it was maybe during those interviews with Brittany's relatives that investigators showed the family those eyeglasses that had been discovered near her truck. Because several news publications stated that the eyeglasses were determined to be ones that Britney wore often. And I don't know how else detectives would have come to learn that unless they saw a picture of her somewhere with them on, or someone who knew her well had positively identified them. Authorities next move was to mobilize a ground search at Buck Hollow, starting at the spot where Britney's truck had been left abandoned. By nighttime on Thursday, word of what was going on at the river was all over social media, thanks in big part to people like Britney's sister Megan, who posted about the disappearance online. According to reporting by Jesse Dreckman for the Ozark County Times, Megan wrote a post asking for the public's help in locating her sister. She begged anyone who'd seen or heard from Brittany in the last 24 hours to come forward. That specific post ended up being shared by almost 1,000 people, but I'm not sure if anyone came forward that night or not. The next morning, Friday, May 22, Britney's aunt and uncle Kathy and Joseph Spence, as well as her current boyfriend, a guy named Gene Roberts, joined search crews at Buck Hollow. They spoke with KY3 reporter Michael Deer and Jean appeared to be really shaken up by the whole situation. He told the news that one time not long before Brittany's disappearance, she'd slept overnight in her truck at the river access point. But as far as he knew, that had only happened once. To his knowledge, she hadn't made any plans to stay there overnight. On Wednesday, Jean made a pretty heart wrenching plea in the news segment saying, quote, Britney, if you are out there, we are looking for you. We won't stop until we find you. We love you. Now you might be wondering, just like I was, why would Brittany have been sleeping in her car by the river even if it was just that one time like Jean said? Well, the answer to that question is hard to answer. None of the source material goes into detail about whether Britney was struggling with housing at the time of her disappearance, or if camping out overnight in her car was just something she liked to do. But based on Jean's comments to KY3 News, it seems like maybe Britney just had moments where she just needed to get away for a quick sec. One possible reason for her wanting to find some peace alone was because she was in the midst of a stressful and tense co parenting relationship with her estranged husband, 28 year old Dylan Hanger. The two were not together at the time, but her family told KY3 news source that the couple hadn't gone through a formal divorce yet. Dylan was also reportedly dating someone else. Just like Britney was in a relationship with Jean. But he still lived in Mountain View, which was convenient because he and Brittany shared three young children together. Their ages range from 5 to 10 years old. And in May of 2020, Brittany had her hands full as a stay at home mom caring for them. I couldn't find any reporting that explained where her kids were when she vanished, but I have to assume they were with her family members in Mountain View that she'd seen earlier in the day. On May 20, her family and close friends said that even though things between her and Dylan were tense, their kids were her entire world. It wouldn't be like her to just disappear and leave them behind. But until investigators could learn more about what exactly was going on and what Brittany had been up to right before going missing, they couldn't rule any theories out. The next person they set their sights on after gathering information from Jean and the rest of Britney's family was Dylan. He agreed to speak with investigators on Friday, May 22, the same day the searches for his ex were underway. He told detectives that the last time he'd seen Britney was on Wednesday. They'd met up at a Signal convenience store in Mountain View so that he could give her a $2,000 check for her portion of their federal stimulus economic impact payment that the US government was doling out in response to the COVID 19 pandemic. After March 2020, the United States Treasury Department began sending stimulus checks to adults and families who needed help shouldering the impacts of layoffs, lost hours and financial diffic as a result of coronavirus. Some families with multiple children got several hundred dollars per kid in relief payments. And since Dylan and Brittany shared three kids together, part of their co parenting relationship still meant they had to divvy up things like this. So him meeting up with his estranged wife wasn't unusual in that sense. He went on to tell detectives that before parting ways with Britney, he'd filled up her truck with gas. The authorities wanted to be extra sure, though, that he wasn't lying to them or trying to hide anything, so they pressed him a little bit more about whether he'd been at Buck Hollow on Wednesday or Thursday. He told them no, he hadn't been. So for the time being, investigators were sort of back to square one in terms of figuring out where Britney was. But thankfully, the lead they desperately needed landed in their laps. A couple of people who'd been at Buck Hollow on the night of May 20 had come forward and man, did they have a story to share.