The Mystery of the Death Valley Germans

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Mystery of the Death Valley Germans"

Stuff You Should Know | iHeartPodcasts | November 6, 2025
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant

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Overview

In this haunting episode, Josh and Chuck delve into the decades-old disappearance of the "Death Valley Germans"—a German family who vanished during a 1996 summer vacation in California’s Death Valley National Park. Through chilling details, speculation, and the dogged investigation of an amateur sleuth, the hosts unpack how a fun family holiday ended in one of the park’s most notorious mysteries.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Vanishing: Who Were the Death Valley Germans?

• In July 1996, a blended German family—Egbert Rimkus (34, architect, father), his son Georg (11), Egbert’s girlfriend Cornelia “Connie” Meyer (27), and her son Max (4)—embarked on a three-week US trip for bonding after Egbert’s tough divorce.
• Their itinerary: L.A., Las Vegas, Death Valley NP, Yosemite, then back to L.A. for a July 27 flight home. (03:43)
• They never returned the rental minivan, nor caught their return flight—prompting Egbert's ex-wife to eventually alert authorities.
• Interpol issued an international alert, but months passed without clues. (04:42)

2. Tracking Their Movements

• In October 1996, a park ranger searching for meth labs in a helicopter in remote Death Valley spotted their stranded minivan, buried to the axles with three flat tires. There was no trace of the family, alive or dead. (05:25, 09:11)
• Inside: luggage, German guidebook, empty water bottles, two unopened Bud Ice beers, and a business card from the Seahorse Resort in San Clemente—pieces that began retracing their path. (11:27)
• Investigators developed their undeveloped film, revealing the family’s last stops, including a visit to the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas, plus desperate attempts by Egbert to wire money from Germany (failed due to a bank mix-up). (12:40)

3. The Perils of Death Valley

• Death Valley: Notoriously hot—even “run-of-the-mill” summer days reach 124°F, with little water or rescue options for the unprepared.
• The region surprisingly attracts many German tourists, due partly to 19th-century novelist Karl May’s romantic adventures set in the American Southwest. (07:19)
• Josh: "Death Valley is something that...was a very popular tourist site for Germans." (07:19)

4. First Clues—The Logbook and The Beer Bottle

• No trace of the family at any local lodgings; a crucial find was the Warm Springs Mine logbook, where the family wrote in German: “We are going over the pass.” (21:09)
• A massive four-day search of the area (more than 250 people) yielded only an empty Bud Ice bottle and a butt print underneath a bush—likely Egbert’s—1.7 miles from the van. (21:41)
  • Chuck: "Clearly somebody took a little break in the shade and had that sweet, sweet, extra potent iced beer." (21:48)

5. The Theories: Disappearance, Crime, or Misadventure?

• With no evidence for years, speculation was rampant:
  • Intentional disappearance: Egbert wanted to escape custody battles.
  • Crime: Drug gangs, random violence.
  • Conspiracy: Involvement of the nearby China Lake Naval Weapons Center, with some speculating about secret hybrid propulsion technologies (27:23).
  • Hosts agree these theories are far-fetched—the family simply “vanished off the face of the earth.” (25:24)

6. Break in the Case: Tom Mahood’s Investigation (2009–2010)

• Nearly 13 years later, armchair desert explorer Tom Mahood took up the case.
• He pored over the details, revisited the minivan and beer bottle site, and hypothesized that the family—constrained for time and money—tried to shortcut over a supposedly “passable” route shown on their map, aiming for Yosemite.
• Instead, they found themselves on a treacherous road needing a 4x4 (not their Plymouth Voyager), and were stopped cold at Mengel Pass. (39:05, 36:04)
  • Josh: “Before, you know...smartphones and things like that, or people on the internet saying, hey, don’t go this way...It looks like it’s pretty possible to drive...They didn’t know...you really, really need a 4x4.” (23:08)

7. The Desperate Trek

• After failing to cross Mengel Pass, Egbert likely decided not to double back but to try to reach help by heading south toward the mysterious China Lake base, which (false hope) appeared close on the map. There was no actual fence: "If you try to hike to us, you’re going to die. You're so dead. We don’t even need to put up a fence." (44:31)
• Mahood reasoned the family believed the base would provide rescue; tragically, southward led further into lifeless desert.

8. Discovery and Heartbreak

• In 2009, Mahood and fellow searcher Les Walker, defying earlier search patterns, combed the south. Within an hour, they found a wine bottle, a German daily planner, and—finally—bones under the only shaded cliff for miles, along with Cornelia’s wallet. (46:40)
• The remains, 9 miles from the minivan, were confirmed via DNA, but only that of Egbert. The fate of the children remains uncertain—only a small shoe was ever found. (47:47)
  • Chuck: "The bones were distributed all over...The rains and the ensuing torrents of water would have...spread the bones out." (49:19)
• The family had nearly reached the supposed base border before succumbing—drained, dehydrated, lost.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Death Valley’s Danger
  “It’s one of the most inhospitable places on earth.” — Josh (05:25)
• On the German Fascination with the Southwest
  “German writer had never been to Death Valley but wrote a bunch of hugely popular travel adventure books…” — Josh (07:19)
• On Investigators' Frustration
  “The only evidence from this four day search was an empty bottle of Bud Ice and a butt print basically in the sand...” — Josh (21:47)
• On the Role of Maps and Culture in the Tragedy
  “Their map showed them roads that either were really misleading and weren’t really roads or weren’t roads at all. That was the map that Egbert was dealing with, and that was what ultimately got them killed.” — Chuck (41:08)
• On Human Tenacity and Suffering
  “To make it nine miles in that kind of heat really speaks a lot to their tenacity, trying to get out of there and trying to save themselves.” — Josh (47:29)
• On the Horror of Realization
  “Thinking of what it must have been like for Egbert to climb some ridge and...see there was no perimeter fence anywhere and for it to just hit you then.” — Chuck (49:34)
• On Solving the Mystery
  “We salute to you, Tom Mahood, for picking this case up and bringing about some sort of resolution.” — Josh (49:59)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:12 — Introduction of the family and trip intentions
• 05:25 — Discovery of the abandoned minivan
• 09:11 — Details of items found in the van
• 12:40 — Details unearthed from developed film and bank wires
• 21:09 — Clue in the Warm Springs Mine logbook
• 21:47 — Four-day search yields only beer bottle and butt print
• 25:24 — Theories and speculation about the disappearance
• 36:04 — Tom Mahood’s theory and investigation
• 46:40 — Discovery of remains by Mahood and Walker
• 47:47 — Confirmation and the unresolved fate of the children
• 49:59 — Reflection on the tragedy and Mahood’s efforts

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Tone & Style

The hosts intertwine compassionate analysis with dry humor and relatable anecdotes. They maintain reverence for the victims and the gravity of the tragedy but also break up tension with banter (Bud Ice, Zima, the perils of 90s road maps, etc.). The conversation is casual but sensitive, rich with procedural details and personal reflection.

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Epilogue

The episode concludes with a salute to the persistence of amateur investigator Tom Mahood. Through his dedication, one of Death Valley’s darkest mysteries approached closure. The fate of the Death Valley Germans stands as a somber lesson in preparedness, the danger of misleading maps, and the stark indifference of desert wilderness.

Chuck: "That’s as close to solved as it gets. And it seems pretty solved." (50:16)

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For additional reading:

• Tom Mahood’s "Hunt for the Death Valley Germans": otherhand.org

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Sarah]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is stuff you should I don't really think you could call it part of our ongoing true crime suite, but certainly unsolved mystery suite, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, semi solved mystery, I guess at this point because we're talking about what's known as the Death Valley Germans. Pretty good band name, but it's in fact a very sad story from July of 1996 when a blended family of German tourists came to the United States for a three week tour of California and Nevada and were never seen again alive.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they just vanished into thin Air essentially in Death Valley National Park. And there, I mean, it's weird. Like, essentially there was one guy who we'll meet later who got it as close to solved as possible just from sheer determination. But the family that you're talking about, they were made up of Egbert rimkes, who was 34. He was an architect. He was the dad. George. I'm not sure how to say George without an e. You took German. Are you familiar?

[Josh Clark]

No, I guess it's George.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. He was 11. He was Egbert's biological son. Connie Meyer. Cornelia Connie meyer. She was 27. She was Egbert's girlfriend. And Max was Connie's biological son from a previous relationship. He was 4. And Egbert had gone through a fairly difficult divorce recently. And so this trip was essentially meant to be like a fun bonding experience for the four of them to kind of form a family unit in this new reality, these new circumstances they were in.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So they got to LA on July 8th. They had a return flight to Dresden, which is where they were from, for July 27th. And on the docket was about a week or so in the LA area. Head on over to Las Vegas for a few days, go to Death Valley national park, check that out, head over to Yosemite from there, and then go back to LA and fly home. It's a pretty standard little itinerary for that kind of three week adventure, I would say.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. And for the adventure, they rented a car, a 96 Plymouth Voyager minivan. And they rented it from Dollar Rent a Car. Being German, they would have rented it from Dollar because that's the American subsidiary of Deutsche Mark Rent A Car.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it was due back on the 26th of July, which is the day before their flight back to Germany, right?

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

The problem is $rent a car never got their minivan back. And the family didn't make their flight to Germany. And not everybody noticed this. I mean, certainly no one in America paid much attention. But remember, Egbert had an ex wife who was the mom of George, and George's mom, Heike she was. She wanted to know where her son was, so she alerted the authorities. And very quickly Interpol put out an international alert for four missing German tourists last seen in Southern California. And here's their itinerary. And it went absolutely nowhere. This was the end of July, beginning of August 1996, and nothing happened for months.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think about, I guess until October 21st, when a ranger was flying around in a helicopter looking for Meth Labs. And he said, hey, this is a very remote part of Death Valley, even for Death Valley. And there's a Plymouth Voyager minivan with three flat tires that had clearly been, you know, mired in the sand. So immediately they're like, what is this thing? Once they figured out who the family was and this was who was missing, they were nowhere to be found. There were no signs of life, there were no signs of death. There was nothing at all. And so the mystery of the Death Valley Germans was born right there in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that the whole thing wouldn't be solved or close to being solved for another 15 years. And for those of us who aren't familiar with Death Valley, it's a national park, like I said, that straddles California and Nevada and it lives up to its name. It doesn't have the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth, but it has the second highest, and it's very close. The highest temperature ever recorded in Death Valley in The summer of 1913 was 134 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah. 56.7 degrees Celsius. Hot. I think the record was in Elaziza, Libya, in 1922. It was only 2 1/2 degrees hotter than that. So clearly Death Valley is very hot. And even in a regular summer, it's still crazy hot. And in 1996, in the summer, remember, they're in there hanging out in late July, which is the height of the summer of Death Valley. The daily high temperature, the average was 124°F and 91 was the low.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So it's scorching hot, which is just, you know, it's very dangerous conditions, especially if you're not used to that kind of thing, not prepared for that kind of thing. Apparently Death Valley is something that was, I guess, two days ago, years old when I found out, is a very popular tourist site for Germans. There was a writer in the 19th century named Carl Maye, spelled M A Y. German writer, had never been to Death Valley, but wrote a bunch of hugely popular travel adventure books set in the American Southwest, including Death Valley. Some were made into spaghetti westerns, including one called the Valley of death in 1968. But this dude, whom I've never heard of, sold 200 million books. So, like, you know, one of the top selling authors of all time. And so Germans, as a result, became fascinated with making that trek out to Death Valley. And that's what this family did.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You didn't know that I had Never.

[Josh Clark]

Heard of this guy. Had you?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Okay, so this is popular with German tourists. But that's not to say that all German tourists who go to Death Valley die or get lost or even don't have a good time. Of course, it's a very popular place. But people do die in Death Valley national park every year, every summer in particular. And between 2007 and 2024, 68 people died in Death Valley. There's a lot of people who died simply from being exposed to the local weather. They died of hyperthermia. Most of them, I think 20 or not most, but 20% died of hyperthermia, which, if you've ever been in a hot sauna that got too hot for your comfort, imagine dying from that. That's dying from hyperthermia. I think the rest who died from exposure died from dehydration, because that can come on really quick, too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. So a day after this minivan is discovered by a helicopter in Death Valley, the ranger came back with a local sheriff on the ground to check it out. Or maybe they flew out there, who knows? But at any rate, at some point, their feet were on the ground. They opened the van up. They. Like I said, there were three flat tires. It was stuck up to its axles in the sand. And they determined that it had driven for at least a couple of hundred feet on the flat tires. The whole thing was covered in dust, you know, clearly hadn't been seen by anyone else or disturbed. That was the things you would expect to find from disappeared people on an adventurous vacation like this. Like their luggage and their clothes. Like nothing really weird. Empty water bottles, empty juice containers, a couple of unopened bottles of Bud Ice beer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Do you remember that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Dates, this thing in the mid-90s. I was never into the ice beers.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I think if I remember correctly, it just. It got you more crunk than the average beer.

[Josh Clark]

I feel like that was how they sold it. Who knows? I mean, that was before things like high gravity beers really came to the forefront. So maybe it was like, you know, these things have an extra percentage of abv.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think the slogan was Bud Ice, get you plastered.

[Josh Clark]

I remember the dry beers, too. I thought I was fancy in college at one point because I was drinking Michelob dry.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, at this point, speaking of fancy, I was drinking Zima.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I never went down the Zima road.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, they were. They went down easy.

[Josh Clark]

What was the flavor? What was it, like a Sprite?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, it was close to that. Like, you wouldn't take a sip of Zima and be like, that's Sprite. But that's probably the closest thing you could just mention off the top of your head. Some people put Jolly Ranchers in it, too, to flavor it even further. It also had a bit of, like, a dry. Like, in the sense that champagne can be dry. It had a little bit of that nothing that you'd be like, wow, it's a really dry drink. But. And I think ultimately it was malt liquor, which really could get you plastered, too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I used to drink the Mickey's Big Mouths in college and the occasional Giant Schlitz Tall Boy Can.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Those were the days. I keep it pretty simple these days, but.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but you're right, that Bud Ice definitely dates it to the mid-90s for sure. And like you said there, this is kind of important. That's why I'm going back to it. There were a couple of bottles of unopened Bud Ice beer still in the minivan.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then one other just sort of small clue as far as to show where they'd been. There was a business card from the Seahorse Resort in San Clemente, which is where they stayed, while I guess, seeing the LA area, which is not super close to la, so I guess maybe they wanted to be between LA and San Diego or something. I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think they just saw pictures of the view and were, like, there maybe, because the view is very nice. So there was a guidebook there, too, in German, a guidebook that they purchased or that was purchased at the Furnace Creek Visitor center in Death Valley. And like I said, it was in German. And so they went to the visitor center. Investigators did later, and they found that on July 22, there were two German language guidebooks sold at the visitor center at Furnace Creek, and none on July 23rd. So with that, they started to be able to begin to retrace their steps. That was the first clue that they were able to kind of extrapolate from.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So their second clue came when they found undeveloped rolls of film and cameras. So sort of like the end of the hangover, they were able to get those developed and pieced together, you know, at least roughly by way of the pictures they took, at least what they had done on their trip, maybe even, as we'll see, clues to. To where they. Like the last picture taken, obviously, would be the most instructive. So from these pictures, they realized they stayed in San Clemente for a little while, seeing the LA area. They drove up the California coast and then over to Las Vegas, Nevada. And there they stayed at the Treasure Island Hotel, which also dates this in the mid-90s. And there they found that the father, Egbert, had called his bank in Germany on July 12, tried to have another 1500 bucks wired to bank of America in San Clemente, but they sent it to the wrong bank. And at Treasure island, he, you know, he was clearly in need of some dough. He even faxed his ex wife and said, hey, which also dates this. Can you send more money? And she never responded.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, what I didn't get, and I didn't see anyone explain it is why he was just like, oh, well, they sent it to the LA branch of bank of America rather than San Clemente. I guess there's nothing I can do to go get it. He just never went and picked up the $1,500.

[Josh Clark]

Well, maybe he didn't know. I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, I would still spend some time trying to figure out where my $1,500. That's about $3,000 in today's money. So it seems like he just shrugged it off from his actions. I just think that's really strange.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, it also could have been one of those things where they're like, well, sir, we don't know which bank it's in.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stop bothering us.

[Josh Clark]

And, like, we can find out in a week.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it could be.

[Josh Clark]

And, you know, they had a schedule, so who knows?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So the long and short of it, though, is they were low on funds now.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And luckily, if you're going through national parks like Death Valley and Yosemite, and the only thing you're doing after that is making it back to the airport to turn in your car and take your flight home. You can get by on some pretty low funds. You can still buy some Bud Ice. It wasn't particularly expensive. So they seem to kind of be making their way low on funds. And that actually helped track them a little bit further later on. But there was one other clue, too, and it was an American flag, and it had Butte Valley stone cabin on its label. That's where it belonged to in Death Valley. It's locally called the Geologist's cabin. And I think it is. It does what it says on the label, which is it houses geologists who are conducting experiments out there. So there's food there, there's water there, but they keep it locked. And if you're a geologist, it's kind of like a gas station bathroom. You have to go get the key first before you start using the geologist's cabin. So they seem to have just taken the flag as maybe a souvenir or something like that. Like, I know if I were in the Black Forest and I came across a German flag, I would take it and then take it back to America as a souvenir.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I guess that's what this was being used for back then because I think now you can actually stay there. Oh, really? Yeah, as like a, you know, along the Appalachian Trail and just sort of all over in national parks, there'll be like a remote cabin that, you know, you come, you can stay there. There might be some food and water rations if you need it. And the idea is that you're supposed to leave something and leave it better than you found it because I've seen pictures of people that you know in the 2010s that have stayed there and like it's a destination for people who are into Death Valley because it's super cool looking. It's out in the middle of nowhere. It's like a stone cabin and it's on a lot of people's list of like, I want to go stay at the geologist cabin. So I guess that just wasn't the deal back then.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Because it was locked up. What I don't get. Well, we'll get to what I don't get later.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Should we take a break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think that's a good spot.

[Josh Clark]

All right, we'll take a break and we'll come back with more on the Death Valley Germans right after this. Foreign support for the show Today comes from public.com. you're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, Chuck, so where we left off, they had pilfered the American flag from the geologist cabin. And right, like all of this stuff, this is just the stuff they found in the van. This is as far as the search has gone.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And so the rangers of the park start conducting their own investigation. And they go to like Furnace Creek Ranch, which is a resort, kind of upscale. There's a campground, but you have to pay for all those. And there was no record of the family staying at either of those places on July 22nd or 23rd or anytime, really. One of the other things they did was check logbooks. Apparently they pick up logbooks even at sites that don't have anyone working there. They'll still have a logbook. And they struck gold at one of them, the Warm Springs Mine logbook, which is an abandoned mine above Death Valley in the mountains, I guess on a ridge. And you can get to it. It's a road. There's a road that goes to it. It's nothing that you would normally call a road, but in Death Valley national park it might as well be a luxurious eight line, eight lane highway. Yeah, it's gravel, it's rough. But a Plymouth Voyager can get on this road to Warm Springs mine. And in the logbook they got a huge clue that would help track them down later.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they signed it, it was in German, apparently it was barely legible. And it said, we are going over the pass. Signed Connie, Egbert, George and max. So on October 23rd, this is two days after the minivan is found, they finally conduct a big four day search looking for this family. About 250 plus people, a couple of helicopters, eight horses. A lot of these were volunteers, but dozens of them were trained search and rescue people.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. No slouches.

[Josh Clark]

No slouches. Well, there was one slouch, but he didn't last long. Cause it was Death Valley.

[Chuck Bryant]

They let go of them, Eugene.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. And the only evidence from this four day search was an empty bottle of Bud Ice and a butt print basically in the sand next to it, where someone had clearly sat down and enjoyed that Bud Ice. It was about 1.7 miles away from the van. And yeah, clearly somebody took a little break in the shade and had that sweet, sweet, extra potent iced beer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. And they, they could even figure when they probably figured it was Egbert because the size of the butt print was fairly large. Well, that's how I saw it described. I think. I think they're just saying larger than say a woman's or a child's, which is the only other people with them in this party. Right. But it was on the east side of the bush. So that if he was taking refuge from it in the shade, that means that the sun would have been in the western part of the sky. So he would have been sitting there in late afternoon. Which seems ludicrous to even point out, but it would come into play later on.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's right. So again, in that visitor's log, it says we're going over the pass. The only pass near there was is called Mingle Pass. M E N G E L. And if you look on a map back in 1996, before you had, you know, smartphones and things like that, or people on the Internet saying, hey, don't go this way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

It looks like it's pretty possible to drive from Warm Springs, go through that Mingle Pass, into an adjacent valley, and then hit a dirt road toward Yosemite, which was their next destination. They didn't know, you know, they didn't have the knowledge that it wasn't going to be just like a little sort of rocky path, but something you really, really need a 4x4 vehicle for like full stop. It's not like, well, maybe we can make it in the Plymouth Voyager. Like you can't make it down this road with anything other than a 4x4. And even that's dicey.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I saw that. Not only do you need a 4x4, you need an experienced driver who has, who can get through this stuff too. Like you can't just put some yahoo in a 4x4 and expect them to make it. It's that dicey.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe a winch.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah, you just like go from boulder to bowler winching yourself over the pass, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So to get to the pass, you go by the geologist station. And remember they had the flag from the geologist station. So now they're really starting to retrace their footsteps. The problem is, is the van wasn't anywhere near the road to Mengele Pass. As a matter of fact, it wasn't really near anything that was a road, an actual road in Death Valley. It was essentially like they just drove through the middle of the desert, which is how they found the van.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So after this four day, very extensive search by at least 250 people, all they found was the beer bottle at the bush and the butt print. Yeah, that was it. Those were the only physical clues that they found. And you know, there's a lot of stuff going on in Death Valley at any given time in the whole area of Southern California. So these rescue groups got called off to other stuff and the park rangers went back about their business and the case just went totally cold for years and years and years. And it probably would have stayed that way if not for a guy named Tomahood who we'll meet in the, in a second. But in the interim that, that vacuum between the end of the initial search and Tom Mahood picking this whole thing up, people just kind of came up with their own theories to explain it because it was just. So they just vanished off of the face of the earth, it seemed like.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So, you know, one of the, I guess it was probably the most popular theory, and it makes sense in some ways, is that this was an intentional disappearing. Like, hey, let's. This family set it up to make it look like they've been disappeared. Because Egbert, he was going through a pretty rough custody battle with his ex wife. It was a pretty contentious divorce and apparently there were rumors that he had talked to his co workers about like kind of dropping out and moving to Costa Rica with his son. And so people are like, yeah, they purposefully disappeared so he could just get away from his ex wife and have sole custody of his son.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. One of the big problems with that is like if you're on a trip in la, you could disappear way more easily than in Death Valley. That's kind of a dumb place to stage your disappearance, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Well, I mean, I think staging a disappearance there is different than disappearing, you know what I mean?

[Chuck Bryant]

I guess I do. What about psychos and crooks?

[Josh Clark]

Sure. You know, they were looking for meth labs out there by helicopter. So the idea that there was a drug gang or just some ne' er do wells out there or just some random psychopath was rumors that circulated.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It didn't hurt that the Barker ranch where the Manson family hung around is not too far away.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I guess some people are like, well there you go. I guess there's some hundred year old Manson family member that they ran across who killed them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then there was a. This was the. Probably the most conspiracy theory minded of the conspiracy theories or the theories of what happened to them. Not too far away in the middle of the desert, in the middle of nowhere is the China Lake Naval Weapons center. Which is, which is a military testing range I've seen. Top secret. It seems to be quite top secret. And of course anytime you have a top secret military testing facility in the middle of nowhere, people are like, they're doing crazy stuff there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And the idea was that Egbert, either being a curious person, was drawn to the site. This is the real reason he wanted to go to Death Valley, was so he could sneak into China Lake Naval Weapons center and see what they were working on. Or perhaps he was a spy or something like that. And that the family had gotten caught trying to get into the weapons center and had either been sent to like a ghost prison or killed and buried in the desert. Who knows what the government will do when they're. This is the technology bandied about it on the Internet when their hybrid propulsion systems are at risk.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Some random German shows up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But also, I mean, could you get more vague than hybrid propulsion? Like what's it propelling? What is it a hybrid of? Yeah, but it's just so like futuristic sounding.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. I was driving down the highway the other day and I saw a pickup truck next to me that had a. I don't know what it was. It was a military green like something or other. Like it was in the, it was in the bed of a pickup truck on like a, on a pallet. But you know, it had a screen and buttons and it was square and it was clearly military. And then I looked at, I can't remember the name of the company that was transporting it but I looked up the company and it said like, you know, we manufacture things for the war fighter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Huh.

[Josh Clark]

I was like, what the hell is that next to me on the highway?

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe it was a military issue chicken Cooper.

[Josh Clark]

It might have been something. It was probably something that silly because these guys were just driving it in a pickup truck. There were no. They didn't look armed. I mean they may have been armed, but it's not like it was surrounded by Humvees or something like that. But it was definitely something weird to see.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, I'm curious. Hopefully one of our listeners can tell us what that probably was.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was like a trash compactor or something.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so this is where it would have been left. Like he was looking for hybrid propulsion. They ran across some methods, manufacturers. He intentionally staged the, the disappearance. That's just. That was it. Like everybody was like we're probably never going to figure out what happened to him. But there's this one guy who I mentioned earlier who found out about this. His name's Tom Mahood. He's a retired civil engineer. He lives in Orange, California. And he, he got bored in his retirement and started looking for things to do and did a whole bunch of different stuff. But one of the things he did was desert exploration, which is a very specific kind of hiking exploration. Like you can find yourself in real trouble really quickly in the desert. So it takes, it's a certain set of skills. Right. And so Tom Hood had this and he got interested in the story of the Death Valley Germans and he put those.

[Josh Clark]

Support for the show today comes from public.com you're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is you're engaged with your investments and public gets that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto, it's all there. Plus an industry leading 3.6% APY high yield cash account.

[Josh Clark]

Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing.

[Sponsor Voice]

All investing involves risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Crypto trading provided by ZeroHash. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

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[Hari Kondabolu]

On the Podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.

[Sarah]

Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician.

[Hari Kondabolu]

And I'm Hari Kondabolu, a comedian and someone who once googled Do I have scurvy at 3am on health stuff we're.

[Sarah]

Talking about health in a different way.

[Hari Kondabolu]

It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also.

[Sarah]

What our health says about us and the way we're living.

[Hari Kondabolu]

Like our episode where we look at.

[Sarah]

Diabetes in the United states. I mean, 50% of Americans are pre diabetic.

[Hari Kondabolu]

How preventable is type 2?

[Sarah]

Extremely. Or our in depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are.

[Hari Kondabolu]

Oh, it's hard to explain to rest of the world that like your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like you don't even know.

[Sarah]

You don't know.

[Josh Clark]

You don't know.

[Sarah]

It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in.

[Hari Kondabolu]

Listen to health stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

Two things together and he became kind of obsessed with solving the whole thing.

[Josh Clark]

That sounds like a pretty good place for our second break, eh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

We met Tom Mahood and he's going, guys Cut to break. Build attention.

[Chuck Bryant]

I was gonna say, I think Tom Mahood would, would approve too.

[Josh Clark]

All right, we'll be right back with more on Tom Mahood right after this. Sam. All right, so Tom Mahood is on the scene. Like Liam Neeson, he has a particular set of skills and he had heard about this case in 2008 for the first time. And in 2009, 13 years after their disappearance, he said, you know what, I'm taking it upon myself to figure out what happened to this family. He went out to the site, he went out to where the van was found. He brought a camera, he retraced the steps all the way to the beer bottle bush. That butt print was long gone. I like to think that Tom maybe sat in that spot and had a butt ice, if he could get his hands on any. In 2009, he looked around, headed back home. When he got home, he was looking at the maps, he was looking at the pictures and he said, wait a minute, I have a theory about how they ended up there and where they might have gone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And remember that four day search was really thorough. Like if you read Tom Hood's blog, otherhand.org he has an extensive multi part description of this whole thing, the case, his search, all that stuff called Hunt for the Death Valley Germans, it's totally worth reading. But on this he, he praises the, the search like he's like, this was a really good search, but they didn't search everywhere. One of the places they didn't search was south. The reason they didn't search south is because there's nothing there. He would have to be a complete idiot to try to go south. The only thing there is China Lake Naval Weapon center, and that is really remote. It's in the middle of nowhere. And he started to try to think about why somebody would go south. And he put himself in the mindset of some German tourists visiting America in a national park. And that's how he ended up cracking the whole thing.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. So he was like, they're low on money. So that's a, that's a bit of a clue or an indicator of what they might do. Yeah, they didn't have a lot of time. It was July 22nd and they needed to be back to LA in four days and they still wanted to go to Yosemite. That was on their itinerary.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So that was a time crunch, that was a money crunch. And then one of the last pictures on the camera, you know, I mentioned, obviously the last ones would be the Most instructive as to pinpointing where they were and what they were doing was sunset in Death Valley. And the rangers said, hey, this is. We know the sunset. That's Hanipaw Canyon on the west side of Death Valley. And we know it was taken on July 22nd because it was. You know, pictures were dated, and that was the night they arrived at the park. We knew that they couldn't afford to camp out at Furnace Creek or get a room at that hotel. And so, you know, like most national parks or I guess all of them, there are places where you can backcountry camp for free. Just, you know, there are areas, and a lot of times you have to, like, apply and fill out a little thing so they know where you are. But you can camp in the back country at Hanapa Canyon. And this is just not a very touristy area as far as Death Valley goes. It's. The east side is more tourist friendly, and this is, again, on the west side.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Hours and hours away from the welcome center. Have you been to Death Valley? I have not.

[Josh Clark]

I did a TV commercial for a couple of days in Death Valley.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so it's huge, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, I was just in one little tiny part of it, obviously, but it's massive.

[Chuck Bryant]

Please do it.

[Josh Clark]

It looks big on a map.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, there you go. So this clue to Hanaupah Canyon kind of showed. I guess being in the mindset of Egbert kind of helped Tomahood figure out what their next move would be. And so if you look at a map and you're in Hannepah Canyon and you're trying to get to Yosemite, it would make sense to go this route past the Warm Springs mine toward Mango Pass. Right. And so he knows now that he's kind of in Egbert's head because it's. All this stuff is kind of making sense to him now why they did what they did. Ultimately, again, they're trying to look for the fastest, cheapest way to get to Yosemite from Death Valley. So they went by the geologist cabin. Again, not open for business at the time. And Mahood essentially says that he probably thought it was a visitor center or something like that, but it wasn't, so they continued on. And as they were driving to Mengele Pass, they came upon roads that were like, okay, this is not a good road. This is not even a gravel road. This is kind of rough, but the minivan can take it if I drive slowly, if I drive carefully. And Egbert was doing a Fairly good job, it seems. But when they got to Mangle Pass, which is all they had to do is cross Mangle Pass, make it a little further, and they could take a road to Yosemite. But when they got there, they were stopped dead in their tracks. There was just no way to pass it. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Not eating that. Sweet, sweet Plymouth Voyager. If this episode isn't sponsored by Bud Ice and Plymouth Voyager, then we're doing something wrong. We need a time machine. I guess it could live alongside the 2012 Camry. Probably.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The 1996 Plymouth Voyager. It's right.

[Josh Clark]

And then just the sound of a Bud Ice cap being twisted off and.

[Chuck Bryant]

Somebody glugging it and then hitting the ground.

[Josh Clark]

So they realized that they can't get through there. They have. There's. The only way to go is back. It would have been around between 12:30 and 1:30pm by this point, at least 105 degrees. So they backtrack to that geologist cabin. It's still locked. And this is what I meant earlier when what I don't understand at this point, I don't understand why they didn't break into this cabin. This is dire circumstances. And get some food and water.

[Chuck Bryant]

Here's the thing. Tom Mahood explains this really well. He was saying, no, these are German tourists. They're safe in America. They're in a national park. To them, it was not a dire situation yet that they were still on track. They were just having a little trouble. And the map that they had was misleading them all over the place. So he, being in Egbert's head, said Egbert made the decision rather than go drive all the way back to the visitor center to get out of the park in a way that you know how to do, but that's going to cost you many, many hours, and it's going to take a really long time to get to Yosemite. Why would you not follow these roads on the map that are essentially a shortcut to Yosemite? It's going to take hours off of your trip. If the map shows a road there, why would you not take it? And the problem is their map showed them roads that either were really misleading and weren't really roads or weren't roads at all. That was the map that Egbert was dealing with, and that was what ultimately got them killed.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The one thing I couldn't find was what the gas situation was like in that car.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't see that either.

[Josh Clark]

I looked too. Cause that would have really factored in, obviously, because if you've ever taken out west road trips or anywhere in the world where there's just few and far between gas stations. I mean, I almost got trapped a couple of times. Low on gas, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's nerve wracking.

[Josh Clark]

So we don't know the gas situation. He's in his head speculating this stuff seems pretty logical to me. The shortcut that they took started off pretty easy. They're almost lured into it because they felt like, all right, this Plymouth Voyager, I know this car. It can take it. But eventually they descended into Anvil Canyon, and this is where the road becomes awash. It's a dry creek bed. Dry creek beds are. You know, there's a lot of sediment, a lot of loose gravel, a lot of sand, and it's really easy to get stuck in one of those. I've been stuck in one of those. And the only way to kind of to avoid getting stuck is just to keep that thing going forward as quickly as you can. Not dangerous, obviously, but just kind of keep those wheels going forward. What you don't want to do is stop. And it looks like that's what Egbert was doing, was trying to go pretty quickly through that gravel. And that's ultimately what how he got those tires, you know, popped.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. How they ended up in the middle of the sand up to their axle is there is a fork right behind them. And the fork veered to the. They took the veer, I think, to the left and realized, oh, no, we want to go to the right. This left isn't actually the road. And he tried to cut over through the, I guess, median between them, and that was just nothing but sand that they got stuck in. So now they're stuck. And Tom Mahood makes the case that they still didn't view this as a survival situation yet. This is a deeply inconvenient issue that surely they could get help with. Right? I mean, again, they're in a national park, but they're four miles from the geologist's cabin. That's something they could do. But again, this is totally in the wrong direction, and they're hoping to find somebody a little closer to help them pull their van out of trouble and get some new tires. So this is where they think that Egbert walked off with a bottle of Bud ice and sat in the shade and tried to figure out what to do next.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, clearly he's worried about survival if he's drinking a beer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Because that will dehydrate you even further. Not sure if Egbert knew that, but he's German. Plenty of beer over there. You would think he would know that. And again, in his defense, too, now that I'm coming around to this idea, he may not have even known, like, who knows what you can see in the window of that geologist cabin if there were like, you know, big water bottles or something within plain view or not. So he may not have thought like, hey, maybe we should go back there and get some rations at least.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Cause you may not have seen any. Again, just speculating here, but directly south of that site, again, is that China Lake Military Base. And what Tom Mahood reckoned was, hey, maybe he knew about this base and maybe he figured at least there will be people there. Maybe there's a perimeter fence with cameras, maybe there's some dudes patrolling the perimeter. But at the very least, even if it's a top secret place, we could probably go get some help or something and they could drive us out of here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You know, if we show up at the fence of a secret military base, they're going to come to us. Essentially. Makes a lot of sense. And on the map that Egbert was using, the border of the China Lake Naval Weapons center is marked off. So to him, it looked like that fence, that perimeter fence was just a few miles walk from where they were now, where the. Where the van was stuck. Right, right. The reason why they didn't search south in the initial four day search was because China Lake doesn't have a perimeter fence. It's so isolated in the middle of this very deadly desert that they're like, if you try to hike to us, you're going to die. You're so dead. We don't even need to put up a fence. And so this is Tomahood figuring this out. Like, if you are in Europe and you go to a military installation, there's going to be a fence, it's going to be patrolled. And that would been a really smart idea to just take the shortcut to the military installation to get help. Unfortunately, it was just doomed not to work out because there was no fence whatsoever. And at some point, Egbert figured that out, and then it started to sink in that they were in really big trouble.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So Tomahood wants to find at least some human remains. At this point, he's. I don't want to get in Tomahood's head, but. And say, like, he was obsessed, but he was very much into the idea of finding out what happened to this family. Let's just say that he got his friend Les Walker and said, all right, let's get together another team. Let's go search south this time. About an hour after they started this search, he found an empty wine bottle under a bush. He said, here's another clue. Then he found a crumpled up piece of paper. He thought it might have been toilet paper at first. It turned out it was pages from a daily planner in German. So he said, really, the trail is hot at this point, like, literally and figuratively. And not too long after that, his buddy Les radios and says, tom, we have some bones here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So I guess Les Walker had come to the base of a cliff that was about 30ft tall, and it would make sense that this is where you would find the bones of somebody stranded in the desert, because it was the only place that was offering shade.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And the bones were strewn about. They were sun bleached. But the thing that gave it away that these were definitely the family, the remains of the family. Cornelia's wallet was found with them. Like, all the credit cards had her name on it. And so Les and Tom left the bones in situ, but they took the wallet because they were afraid that they were going to be taken for a couple of local yahoos who were trying to. Who came up with a wild story. But now they had physical proof that they had discovered the Death Valley Germans, and that got things moving really quickly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So this was nine miles from that abandoned minivan. So to make it nine miles, and that kind of heat really speaks a lot to their tenacity, trying to get out of there and trying to save themselves. Very, very sad with young kids, too. Yeah. I mean, Max was four years old, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That's just. Yeah. Devastating to think about. They were, like, you've mentioned, four miles from the border of that naval base, and they were headed in the right direction, like they were kind of doing the right thing to what they thought was a reasonable idea of rescue. You know, looking back, they. You know, they got those bones DNA tested. I think they were positively matched with only Egbert. Is that right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But that's not to say that it wasn't Connie. It's obviously Connie. There were no confirmed remains of the children. That part is very troublesome to me still.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The closest they found was a small shoe that it was so beaten up that it could have been Connie's shoe, it could have been a woman's small shoe, but it also could have been a kid's shoe. So that's the. That's the only physical evidence they found that could possibly be linked to the kids. The bones were distributed all over in this kind of one site at the base of the cliff because it was. There was a wash, I think, on either side of the cliff. So over the course of all these years, 15 years, the rains and the ensuing torrents of water would have essentially spread the bones out. I don't know that that would have done anything just to the kids bones. I don't know. Maybe they were so light that they got carried away and spread and dispersed even further. I'm not sure. But it is sad that they never found the kids remains too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I just can't imagine anything more terrifying than being with your family like that. And slowly dying of sunstroke and dehydration and malnutrition is just over the course of who knows how many days. It's brutal.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The thing that gets me is that thinking of what it must have been like for Egbert to climb some ridge and be able to see for dozens of miles and see that there was no perimeter fence anywhere and for it to just hit you then. And then you have to walk back and I guess tell your girlfriend, like, yeah, we're in trouble.

[Josh Clark]

We salute to you, Tom Mahood, for picking this case up and bringing about some sort of resolution. Obviously feel awful for his ex wife back in Germany, you know, that her son was taken from her on this fun sort of bonding trip and never came home. It was just a very sad story.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. Yeah. And I mean, that's as close to solved as it gets. And it seems pretty solved.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Agreed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, since we don't have anything more to say about the Death Valley Germans except rest in peace, all four of you, I think it's time for listener mail.

[Josh Clark]

This is about the Far side. We did an episode on Gary Larson's great cartoon the Far side and got a lot of great feedback. It's clearly a beloved cartoon that we heard from a lot of people that just really enjoyed our tribute. Hey, guys. The Far side was also a huge part of my comedy experience in my middle school to high school years. Been happy to share it with my son, who's 11, who laughs out loud or sometimes says, I don't get this one. Your podcast made me think about how polarizing the humor of the Far side can be. And sometimes you just don't get it or don't really like it. My mom always thought it was such a dumb comic, but would see me laughing on and on, reading the Far side galleries. One day she had the paper first and really liked the Far side from that day and laughed out loud and said, oh Pete, you're gonna love this one. And it was Grandma Worm telling the little worms how grandpa got the ax and made them, you know, chopped up into little worms. And I said, eh, it's okay, but she was insistent, don't you get it? And I said, ma, I get it. He cut himself into more worms. My mom was so mad about my reaction that she couldn't talk to me for a couple of hours, but I think that's what's so brilliant about Gary Larson. Any single cartoon could be the funniest thing ever to a particular person and not so much to another, even if they love it. Thanks so much for the show guys and the countless hours that you have given to entertain me and my family. And that is from Pete and hello to Pete and your family and your 11 year old son.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, hello Pete. Thank you for that. Yeah, we got a lot of people sending their favorite on Far sides.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was fun.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yep, thanks to everybody who wrote in about the Far side and if you haven't listened to that episode yet, strongly recommend it's a good one. And if you want to be like Pete and send us a good email like he did, you can send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Sarah]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Josh Clark]

Support for the show today comes from public.com you're thoughtful about where your money goes. You've got core holdings, some recurring crypto buys, maybe even a few strategic options plays on the side. The point is, you're engaged with your investments and Public gets that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's why they built an investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can put together a multi asset portfolio for the long haul. Stocks, bonds, options, crypto. It's all there plus an industry leading 3.6% APY high yield cash account.

[Josh Clark]

Switch to the platform built for those who take investing seriously. Go to public.comsysk and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.comsysk paid for by Public Investing.

[Sponsor Voice]

All investing involves risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Crypto trading provided by ZeroHash Complete disclosures [e-mail] Disclosures.

[Hari Kondabolu]

On the podcast Health Stuff we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.

[Sarah]

I'm Dr. Priyanka Wali, a double board certified physician.

[Hari Kondabolu]

And I'm Hari Kondabolu, a comedian and someone who once googled Do I have scurvy at 3am and on our show we're talking about health in a different way. Like our episode where we look at.

[Sarah]

Diabetes in the United states. I mean, 50% of Americans are pre diabetic.

[Hari Kondabolu]

How preventable is type 2?

[Sarah]

Extremely. Listen to Health Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kyle McLaughlin]

Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called what Are We Even Doing? Where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high speed rollercoaster we call reality. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what Are We Even doing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast.