The Knife: Off Record – 124

Summary

The Knife: Off Record – Episode 124

Date: September 11, 2025
Hosts: Hannah Smith & Patia Eaton
Theme: Missing Persons in the Wilderness – The Disappearances of Sam Sayers and Robert Schock

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Overview

In this Off Record episode of The Knife, hosts Hannah Smith and Patia Eaton delve into the emotionally charged stories of two people who vanished in the Pacific Northwest wilderness: Sam Sayers, who has been missing since 2018, and Robert Schock, an ultra-marathoner who miraculously survived 30 days lost in the North Cascades in 2024. Through empathetic storytelling and personal reflections, Patia and Hannah examine the ripple effect of these disappearances—on families, investigators, and the broader community. The podcast centers around the real people behind the headlines, spotlighting the complexity of missing persons cases and the human determination to seek answers.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. Introduction and Episode Theme

[01:52]

• The hosts set the tone: both will share disappearance stories rooted in the North Cascades.
• Patia acknowledges her personal connection to the story of Samantha (Sam) Sayers, having become close with Sam’s mother Lisa Sayers during several years of correspondence.

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2. The Disappearance of Samantha Sayers (Told by Patia Eaton)

Personal Connection & Family Background

[02:34 – 07:03]

• Patia's friendship with Lisa Sayers highlighted the enduring trauma and resilience of families left searching for missing loved ones.
• Sam's upbringing: Pennsylvania roots, close-knit family, outdoor childhood, diagnosis of alopecia in high school leading to notable acts of bravery and self-acceptance.
  • “Her love for her daughter is something that I do now understand...and it really, like, drew me to Lisa and what she was going through and connected me to her story in this new way that I hadn’t experienced before.” — Patia Eaton [04:06]

Adult Life & Move to Seattle

[07:03 – 09:10]

• Sam follows her love of the outdoors to Seattle.
• Her relationships: a breakup with a former boyfriend, beginning a relationship with Kevin Dares, moving in together, and subsequent tension from financial strain.
• Hints of Sam’s uncertainty about her future and relationship.

Timeline Leading Up to Disappearance

[09:33 – 12:04]

• Sam had been considering moving home to Pennsylvania; relationship with Kevin was rocky but not officially ended.
• July 29, 2018: Sam has a public argument with Kevin about money.
• July 30: Facebook post inviting friends to hike Vesper Peak with her—no takers, decides to go solo.
  • Partial quote from Facebook post:
    • “Seattle friends I’m going hiking this Wednesday and tackling Vesper Peak...not a beginner’s hike, but anyone is welcome...Message me if you want to tag along...” [11:06]

The Hike and Immediate Aftermath

[13:53 – 19:40]

• July 31: Last texts with mother Lisa, who warns against hiking alone; reassurance from Sam.
• Aug 1, 2018: Sam leaves at 8am, heads to Vesper Peak trailhead, parks, signs in, and begins hike solo.
• Kevin and Sam had planned for her to check in by 6pm after the hike, but the call never comes.
  • “No one has seen or heard from Sam Sayers since August 1, 2018, which is now over seven years ago. And no trace of Sam Sayers has ever been found. Not an article of clothing, not a cell phone, nothing.” — Patia Eaton [17:01]

Kevin’s Actions and 911 Call

[18:07 – 21:56]

• Kevin drives to the trailhead to look for Sam; finds her car, attempts a night search, calls 911 at 1am.
  • 911 Call Playback [19:43]
  • Discussion of “I drove up from Seattle” slip in the 911 call and speculation on significance.

Search & Investigation

[22:01 – 27:26]

• Full-scale search begins August 2, 2018.
• Eyewitness sightings: Sam is seen around 11:30am ascending, later in the background of a video, and finally between 2–3pm at lunch near the summit. She then descends via the south side—a non-standard, confusing route.
• Family’s challenge launching cross-country to assist the search; Lisa and stepfather Ron arrive, frustrated that Sam’s car was not impounded nor thoroughly searched.

Unresolved Tensions & Theories

[33:25 – 47:44]

• Friction between Lisa and Kevin’s family regarding the GoFundMe, transparency, and media messaging (e.g., Sam referred to as Kevin’s fiancé).
• Extensive search ends on Aug 23, 2018—largest in Snohomish County, 14 dog teams, helicopters, drones, etc., but no trace found.
• Theories discussed:
  • Accidental injury or fall (possibly from taking risky selfies), evidence could be hidden by rugged terrain or wildlife.
  • Speculation about possible abduction, but no clear evidence.
  • “...that little voice that Lisa heard...telling her that [Sam was taken] is something that she really held onto and that she really kind of mulled over more as the search didn’t turn up any sign of Sam...” — Patia Eaton [41:17]

Legacy and Continuing Search

[47:45 – 50:04]

• Lisa never gave up hope; continued to search and advocate for Sam’s case until her death in 2025.

• Kevin continued search and rescue efforts, even helping recover remains of another missing hiker, Rachel Lakaduke, showing the profound, lasting impact.

  • “My hope in telling this story is not that I’m gonna break the case wide open, but to just keep Sam’s story in people’s minds, because she does deserve to be found.” — Patia Eaton [47:45]

• Emphasis on the importance of keeping missing persons’ stories alive to possibly spark new leads or recollections.

  • “...when time passes and people pass away, like, the memories of people can get lost. And she doesn’t want that to happen with Sam...It’s important that we keep talking about these things because you never know what might spark in someone who might hear. It could lead to discovery of her.” — Hannah Smith [48:25]

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3. The Disappearance and Rescue of Robert Schock (Told by Hannah Smith)

Introducing Robert Schock’s Story

[50:11 – 52:38]

• July 31, 2024: Robert Schock, a 39-year-old ultra-marathoner, sets off for a solo 20-mile trail run in the far north part of the North Cascades with his dog, Freddy.
• Robert is a seasoned outdoorsman, used to pushing boundaries and “van life.”
• North Cascades region context: rugged, vast, and remote.

Getting Lost

[52:39 – 57:02]

• Robert’s mom, Jan, spoke to him the night before; he promised to check in post-run.
• Freddy is found alone by the river on Aug 3, prompting authorities to search for Robert.
• Robert’s car found at the trailhead, wallet inside—a deputy speculates he intended not to return, which Jan dispels as “not unusual.”
• Three-day official ground search, along with Border Patrol helicopter overflights, yields no sign. Search is called off; presumed lost or dead.

Robert’s Account of Survival

[57:15 – 68:14]

• Robert’s own recollection after being found:
  • Gets disoriented after crossing river in a self-operated cable car with Freddy.
  • Misreads a trail sign, heads north into wilderness instead of south.
  • Frees Freddy, telling him to “go home”; Freddy cannot recross the river.
  • Loses shoes in a river, becomes barefoot and shirtless.
  • Brief, unsuccessful attempts to find trail or get help, including seeing helicopters that don’t spot him; foraging for berries and a lucky, non-poisonous mushroom.
  • Collapses on a riverbank, 11 miles from trailhead, reportedly lays there “awake” over a week, surviving on river water and hope.

Rescue & Aftermath

[66:09 – 70:55]

• Robert is eventually found after 30 days by a group of Pacific Northwest Trail Association (PNTA) workers, called to the area by his faint cries for help.
  • “I’m going to try one more time and yell for help. And so he just starts yelling as much as he can. He’s so weak. And lo and behold, someone hears him. It’s like finding a needle in the haystack.” — Hannah Smith [66:09]
• Workers cover him with jackets, give food, and call rescue—he’s 50 pounds lighter and near death, but survives.
• PNTA director’s Facebook post acknowledges the toll the discovery had on young volunteers and defends the thoroughness of official searches.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Her love for her daughter is something that I do now understand. And it really, like, drew me to Lisa and what she was going through and connected me to her story in this new way that I hadn’t experienced before.” — Patia Eaton [04:06]
• “No one has seen or heard from Sam Sayers since August 1, 2018...not an article of clothing, not a cell phone, nothing.” — Patia Eaton [17:01]
• 911 Call (Kevin reporting Sam missing):
  “Had a hiker, Samantha Sayers, who left early this morning for a day hike. Was supposed to be out by six. Didn’t hear from her. We drove up from—Sir, I drove up from Seattle...” [19:43]
• “When time passes and people pass away, memories of people can get lost. And [Lisa] doesn’t want that to happen with Sam...It’s important that we keep talking about these things because you never know what might spark in someone who might hear. It could lead to discovery of her.” — Hannah Smith [48:25]
• “He claims he was, like, cognizant for all of it and that he just laid there for over a week. And then he remembers laying on the riverbank one day and thinking that it was gonna be his last day alive. And so he thought, I’m going to try one more time and yell for help. And so he just starts yelling as much as he can. He’s so weak. And lo and behold, someone hears him. It’s like finding a needle in the haystack.” — Hannah Smith [66:09]
• “I wonder if Freddie knew it was a dangerous situation and so he was, like, going to find help.” — Hannah Smith [71:56]
• Hannah and Patia's banter about the dangers and attractions of hiking:
  • “Okay, everyone, let this be a sign. You cannot cross the river.” — Patia Eaton [59:10]
  • “You should be [afraid to hike alone].” — Patia Eaton [72:20]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:34] – [13:53]: Background on Sam Sayers, events leading up to August 1, 2018
• [14:19] – [27:26]: Details of the hike, disappearance, initial search & witness statements
• [30:16] – [36:17]: Lisa and Ron's arrival, frustrations with investigation, search details
• [40:10] – [41:17]: Scale of search, transition from rescue to recovery, Lisa’s intuition
• [47:45] – [50:04]: Unanswered questions, lasting impact, call to remember Sam
• [50:11] – [52:38]: Introduction to Robert Schock’s case
• [52:39] – [56:02]: Robert’s disappearance, finding Freddy, search efforts
• [57:15] – [68:14]: Robert’s survival story, rescue by PNTA volunteers
• [70:09] – [72:02]: Reflections, outcome, and lessons on missing persons in wilderness

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Final Thoughts & Reflections

• The episode closes with reflections on the fragility of life, the randomness of rescue, and the lifelong effect on those left behind or involved in search and rescue.
• The storytelling is deeply empathetic—giving space to uncertainty and emotional resonance for all involved.
• Both hosts recommend related media:
  • Patia: “Petty Crimes” podcast (“lighthearted, mostly comedy, completely petty”) [72:24]
  • Hannah: HBO documentary “Ren Faire” and podcasts about the Texas Renaissance Festival [73:02]

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Takeaways for Listeners

• The wilderness can be profoundly dangerous even for experienced hikers; small mistakes or misfortunes can quickly turn fatal.
• The search for missing people doesn’t end when official efforts do—families and communities often continue long after.
• Continuing to tell the stories of missing persons can keep hope alive and possibly lead to new information.
• Communities affected by loss and the volunteers who participate in rescues deserve recognition for the emotional burdens they bear.

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For more stories and updates, follow The Knife on Instagram @theknifepodcast and on Bluesky @theknifepodcast.bsky.social.

Transcript

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[Hannah Smith]

This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. Hello and welcome to the Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.

[Patia Eaton]

I'm Patia Eaton.

[Hannah Smith]

Today we both have stories of disappearances, but you're gonna go first. And this is a story that I know has become pretty personal to you over the years.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah, it has and I will just get right into it.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay, great.

[Patia Eaton]

So the story that I'm going to be telling you today started for me about two years ago when I met a woman named Lisa Sayers, whose daughter Samantha has been missing since August 1, 2018. And I initially had reached out to Lisa 2ish years ago now, a little over two years ago now, about working on a series about Sam's disappearance. And for a lot of reasons, that didn't happen the way we'd all hoped it would. But Lisa became my friend and we continued talking, we stayed in touch, and we got pretty close. And at this time, I had recently had a baby girl. And, you know, call it like postpartum hormones or just plain old human connection, Lisa's heartache and living in this world that was still turning, despite her daughter having just disappeared, was palpable. And it's a pain I hope I never fully understand. But her love for her daughter is something that I do now understand. And it really, like, drew me to Lysa and what she was going through and connected me to her story in this new way that I hadn't experienced before. And so when I met Lisa, she had survived cancer, but she was living with active disease. And unfortunately, her cancer returned and she did pass away in June of 2025. It was really difficult. You know, I spoke to Lisa maybe a day or two before she passed. She was just an incredible person. And Lisa had told me that her greatest fear was not dying, but it was leaving behind the people that she loved and not being able to continue to push for the search for Sam and for her to be found, because.

[Hannah Smith]

She was the one that was still pushing for that. Yeah. And I imagine that she would always want that to continue to be talked about and known about and, like, if anyone has any information about her daughter, for sure.

[Patia Eaton]

And so I'm going to tell the story of Sam's disappearance today, and I'm going to keep hoping that she will be found. So I want to start out with talking a little bit about Sam and who she was. Sam is from Pennsylvania. That's where Lisa is from. And she was living there with her two children, Sam and Sam's brother Ian. And their biological father was an alcoholic, and he was not really in the picture. And soon after having children, Lisa left. So I think she left when Sam was three and Ian was four. And about a year after that, Lisa met a man named Ron, and she and Ron were married. And I had so many conversations with Lysa, and I can't tell you how much we talked about Ron and just what a positive force he is in her life and in her children's lives, and he became their father. And so if I ever refer to Sam's father later in the episode, I just want to say that's who I'm talking about. I'm talking About Ron.

[Hannah Smith]

Got it.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. Ron also had a child when he came into the marriage, a son, Ryan, who's 10 years older than Sam. And so Sam was really close with both of her brothers, Ryan and Ian. They would go camping and fishing often. And this is where Sam's love of the outdoors really started to take hold. Her childhood was great. They had a loving, close knit family and Sam really thrived. But in high school, this scary thing started happening and her hair started falling out.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, wow.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And she was a performer. She loved musical theater. And you know, this is already a time when most adolescent girls are grappling with some level of physical insecurity. So it was really difficult. And it ended up that Sam was diagnosed with alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that results in hair loss. And this was at first, of course, really devastating for Sam. Her hair began falling out so rapidly that she started wearing a wig. But you know, I mentioned she was really involved in musical theater and the wig was sort of getting in the way. It was making it more difficult. And so eventually one day, Sam just took the wig off. And Lisa told me that a teacher actually wrote her a letter and said, you know, I've been living with alopecia and just feel so empowered by this teenage girl's bravery.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow. Yeah, that's really inspiring.

[Patia Eaton]

It is. And Lisa was really proud of Sam for that. Yeah. And so that's kind of who Sam was. She was just a person going through the stages of life that we all go through. But she was really bold and brave and adventurous. And so after college, Sam and her boyfriend at the time, really, they had a great relationship. They decided to visit Seattle and Sam really fell in love with it. You know, Seattle has this close proximity to lots of beautiful state parks and hiking, and it drew her in. And I'm actually from Seattle. I can attest to that. It's like stunning, especially in the summer. And so shortly after this move, she and her boyfriend broke up. But it was peaceful. They remained friends. And Sam started dating someone new, a man named Kevin Dares. Kevin's from Louisiana, so they're both transplants from somewhere else. They connected on that. They also really connected on their love of the outdoors. Kevin also loved hiking. And things moved pretty quickly and they moved in together. And Kevin was actually managing an apartment building. And so Sam moved in with him and she was cleaning apartments on the side. Cause he also had some sort of short term rental situation. And it was good. Sam seemed to like really be into that relationship for a time, but Things, according to Lisa, just became a little more difficult. Sam was really short on money. She wasn't making a lot of money cleaning these apartments and was having trouble finding a job. And, you know, that creates tension in a lot of relationships. Right. This, like, financial stress. And so Lisa remembers early summer 2018, hearing a lot from Sam that things were just a little rockier. She was a little more unhappy, felt a little bit lonely and confused about her future. And she had been trying to figure out a way to get back home to Pennsylvania, but she didn't have a lot of money for a plane ticket. It's also, breakups are just not that cut and dry usually.

[Hannah Smith]

So how long were they together?

[Patia Eaton]

I don't fully have an answer to that because Lisa's not sure that Sam told her when they first started dating, but, you know, well over a year.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay. And then they're living together. So the breakup is, I imagine then she's having to find somewhere to live, or they're still living together, maybe.

[Patia Eaton]

Right. There's so many logistics that go into breaking up with someone once you move in together, or even if you're both wanting to do that.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

And so now's a good time for me to tell you that I have never spoken with Kevin. We emailed briefly a couple of years ago, and he declined to speak with me about Sam's disappearance. And you know what? Like, that's totally fine. I'm sure that was a very traumatic experience for him, but I just want to call that out. So Sam disappears August 1, 2018. So I'm going to take you, actually right now back to a couple of days before that, which is July 29th. So as Lisa remembered it, on July 29th, she had a conversation with Sam where Sam told her that she had had a big fight with Kevin about money. And Lisa, you know, was troubled by this, but sort of not sure what she could do to help. She didn't have a lot of extra money to, you know, send. She was just kind of a listening ear and a source of support for Sam. They were very close.

[Hannah Smith]

They had broken up at this point, but they hadn't. She had been sorry.

[Patia Eaton]

Okay, so they hadn't broken up. Sam, as Lisa remembers it, had just been sort of toying with the idea. In conversations with Lisa, she was like.

[Hannah Smith]

Maybe we'll break up and I'll move home kind of thing. Right, I see. But they were still together.

[Patia Eaton]

They were still together. And, you know, I think it was one of those things where some days were bad, some days were good. It sounds like it was a little bit tumultuous. So on July 29, Lisa remembers this conversation with Sam that Sam says, look, Kevin and I got into a big fight about money. Lisa had mentioned to me at one point an email that she got from a man named Joe Corzi, who had emailed her and told her about this fight because it happened in public outside a bar and that he had witnessed it. But I've never seen that email. I've never spoken to Joe. But Lisa was very convinced that this fight happened. Not physical, just verbal. So on July 30, 2018, Sam Sayers, who's 27 at the time, posts a status on her Facebook page and she says, seattle Friends I'm going hiking this Wednesday and tackling Vesper Peak 8 miles round trip 4,200ft Elevation gain spikes recommended but should not be totally necessary. This is not a beginner's hike, but anyone is welcome. Who feels up for it leaving early a.m. potentially not back until 6 or 7, depending on speed and how long you spend at the summit. Message me if you want to tag along. I have three spaces in my admittedly small car.

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[Patia Eaton]

So Sam doesn't end up getting any bites on this invitation to join her on her hike up Vesper Peak. But she's undeterred. She's going to go anyway. Kevin couldn't go. He had a work conflict. But she was like, whatever, I have the day off. I'm going to go do this hike. So the next day on July 31st. So Facebook post is happening July 30th. The next day is July 31st, and the hike happens August 1st. So we're in the day before the hike right now.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Patia Eaton]

So Lisa and Sam texted for what would be the last time on this day, July 31st.

[Hannah Smith]

And.

[Patia Eaton]

And Lisa tells Sam, I'm concerned about you going hiking alone. Sam reassures Lisa, I'll be fine. I've done this hike before. And that's true. She had done this hike before. And Sam, you know, told Lisa she didn't think it would be that difficult. And this doesn't fully quash Lisa's worry, but, you know, what could she do? Sam is a grown woman. She's living across the country. She can't just say, no, don't go. She knew there was no trying to stop her. And so the next morning, August 1, 2018, at around 8 o' clock in the morning, Sam says goodbye to Kevin, gets in her car, and drives approximately 90 minutes to two hours to the Sunrise Mine trailhead to hike Vesper Peak. And we know that she gets there because she signs in at the registry at the front of the hike and she begins her ascent. On her way there, Kevin had texted her. He said, I know you don't need me to tell you this, but the terrain can be dangerous. And she replied with something like, I know. I love you. Things were good, he said. He's quoted in another interview he did, saying that he was 110% sure that he would see her later that night. And Kevin was right. The terrain can be dangerous. Vesper Peak is in the North Cascades. The North Cascades have a nickname, the American Alps, because it is this vast and rugged country with thick timber, deep valleys, jagged peaks. This hike is not this, like, zigzaggy, flat dirt trail or the kind of hike that I've ventured out on. This is like, you know, she brought walking sticks. This is like rocks and glaciers. This is.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. She had said in her post, spikes recommended, which I think means on your shoes for walking over, like, ice or rocky terrain, perhaps.

[Patia Eaton]

Totally. Yeah. There's still snow on the ground at that elevation. You know, there's glaciers, there's ice, there's snow. And so it was a moderately difficult hike, at least. So we know that Sam parks at the trailhead sometime around 10am we know she signs this register and she begins her ascent now before leaving on the hike. Sam and Kevin, according to Kevin, who. Because this part comes out later. Because why would it have come out before? They make an agreement that she'll call and check in with him somehow at about 6pm when she is done with the hike.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Patia Eaton]

But this call never comes. And no one has seen or heard from Sam Sayers since August 1, 2018, which is now over seven years ago.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

And no trace of Sam Sayers has ever been found. Not an article of clothing, not a cell phone, nothing.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow. Yeah, nothing. They found her car, I'm guessing. Or her car was still in the parking lot. Yeah, I'm sure you'll get into that.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah, I will. I will get into that. Because it is, I think, an interesting part of this.

[Hannah Smith]

Do we know if she went into the park alone? Like, is that something that's listed when you sign in? How many people are in your vehicle?

[Patia Eaton]

We don't know. Other than that she never told anyone if she ended up going with someone else. And she does end up being spotted on the hike and she wasn't with anyone. So she signs in solo at the registry. I think the conclusion from the investigation that ends up happening is she was alone.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

Ugh. It has to be such a bad feeling to be expecting that phone call and then just. It never comes.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

And then you're, I imagine, wondering, like, well, how worried should I be? Was there just a delay? When do you take action? Like, when Kevin didn't get that phone call, what did he do next?

[Patia Eaton]

Kevin has given a couple of interviews where he runs people through what he did when he doesn't get that call. And some of his actions or choices that night never really sat well with Lisa. But Kevin's never been a suspect in the investigation at all. So Kevin, when Sam's call doesn't come, his Response is by 7:15, he's on his way there himself to look for her. He stops at a gas station, buys a flashlight, gets to the trailhead, where we can later confirm he's there around 10pm at the trailhead. Because a witness later says, hey, I ran into Kevin at the trailhead at this time. But he finds Sam's car, a blue Ford Fiesta, sitting at the trailhead. And he's like, okay, so I gotta go find her. She's injured somewhere. That's a sort of assumption. So he heads up the trail with this flashlight.

[Hannah Smith]

I mean, this trail that's dangerous in the daylight, I can only imagine climbing it or hiking it at night would be really dangerous.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And you know, I'm from Washington state and it does stay very light out very late there. But at 10pm the sun is setting. So he goes up and he's searching for Sam for hours on his own. And then his flashlight breaks somehow and he heads back down the mountain. So at 1:00am Technically, August 2nd, Kevin calls 911 and I actually have the 911 call.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, okay.

[911 Operator]

911. What's the address of the emergency? It's out in the woods on Mount Vesper. Vesper Peak. Let's see. And what's going on? Had a hiker, Samantha Sayers, who left early this morning for a day hike. Was supposed to be out by six. Didn't hear from her. We drove up from. Sir, I drove up from Seattle, hit the trail at 10. Flashlight broke on the scramble. Cannot find her car still out there. And are you on the trail? No, I had to drive up all the way back. There's no service. I'm at the pay phone by the service center. My flashlight broke on a scramble. I got to go try and find some flashlights and batteries somewhere. All right, I'm going to bring my supervisor on the line. Stay with me. Okay.

[Hannah Smith]

Huh. I mean, it's interesting that he said we drove up and then he corrected himself to I drove up. Like, what do you think about that?

[Patia Eaton]

You know, I don't know that I would have thought anything about it, but it was something that Lisa pointed out to me and that because her relationship with Kevin ends up dissolving, she never really felt like she could understand why he said we at first. But, you know, I know. And our editor knows, like, I misspeak all the time, so.

[Hannah Smith]

Could have just been one of those things.

[Patia Eaton]

Could have just been one of those things. But it was certainly not like the most conventional reaction to not getting the phone call you thought you would get when she got off of the hike.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. I mean, in all these scenarios, it's so tempting to read into people's reactions or 911 calls. But really, I always think, I don't know, like, I don't know how I would be also calling 911. I always think I would want to just like, clearly give the information that seems needed. Right. Yeah. And I don't think we can read too much into how someone sounds emotionally in those moments.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah, totally. And we could get into the weeds on this, but everyone has their own response to trauma.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

So after this 911 call, police dispatch arrives. And by the next morning, August 2nd in the morning, a full search is underway for Sam. Yeah, it's unconventional that Kevin went and looked by himself with a flashlight, but that's what he did. And I actually had this other conversation with a good friend of Kevin's about this decision, which I pressed on that because it is weird, or I should say, in my opinion, it's like, it's not how I would have handled it. But he said, look, Kevin's my best friend, and he is from Louisiana and an area where calling law enforcement to help if you feel like someone's lost is not the first thing you do. You would just go out and look for them yourselves. Because, you know, that countryside and Kevin knew this hike. They had done it before. Plus, I think, and I'm speculating. Cause I haven't talked to Kevin, but some people feel a little more hesitant to take the time of law enforcement than others. And also, like, what if he got there and Sam was at her car and had run out of gas? Like you don't know. But before moving on, I want to play a clip from a new segment where Kevin gave a short interview.

[Gwen Washington]

Kristen Nielsen reports.

[Hannah Smith]

Missing since August 1, Kevin dares her fiance has turned his home into a command base for volunteers who stepped up to help find her. He explains that moment when he realized something was seriously wrong.

[911 Operator]

I'll never forget that moment standing at the base of Headless, and it's about.

[Patia Eaton]

Midnight and you can't see anything and.

[911 Operator]

You have to step back and you realize that you can't do this yourself.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. I mean, this is what he says in the 911 call. Like, he's realizing he needs help.

[Hannah Smith]

That makes sense to me. Yeah, it makes sense that he would think, I'll just go find her. And then he has to realize, wait, that's not the situation.

[Patia Eaton]

Totally. And so the other thing I do want to flag that. Like, I know Lisa was thinking about a lot, and I've thought about myself, is that this drive from the Belltown apartment to the trailhead only has, you know, intermittent cell phone service at best. And one of my sort of questions that I would ask Kevin if he ever decided to speak with me is like, were you concerned that on the drive you would miss a call from Sam or she would call and you wouldn't have Seen and you guys would just drive right past each other. But then I guess if you get to the trailhead and her car isn't there, maybe you assume she's gone home and then you just turn around. I mean, those are the questions I have about his decision more than I have about his intent.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. So Sam's disappearance is pretty quickly making local news, not only in Seattle, but back in Pennsylvania, in Girard, Pennsylvania, where Lisa and her family are now living. And so as her disappearance makes the news, hikers who were on besper Peak on August 1st or hiking that same trail start calling in with their sightings of Sam. And here is what they learn from these calls. So the first sighting of Sam in the morning of her hike is at around 11:30am she passed by a group of hikers from the YMCA while she's on her way up to the summit. The next time Sam is spotted is actually because someone happened to be taking a video and she's spotted in the background.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And she has walking sticks. It's a very rocky. I think that's what Kevin was referring to as the scramble. It's like a very rocky, very steep area with ice and parts from glaciers. And so you can see her. Also, Sam was dressed pretty lightly, so that was noticeable for people. She often hiked in just a hoodie and a sports bra, sometimes a beanie.

[Hannah Smith]

Whereas other people were wearing like full arm's length garb because it's cold or just to hide from the sun?

[Patia Eaton]

Both. Yeah. And just I think in the hiking world, which I'm not a part of, there's different levels of preparedness that I think people find to be like the safest way to go about it.

[Hannah Smith]

So did she have a pack, a daycare?

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah, she had a small pack with her, which is where she kept the food that she had packed for herself that day.

[Hannah Smith]

What time was the video sighting?

[Patia Eaton]

The video sighting of Sam? The video's taken maybe around lunchtime. So the final sighting of Sam that day comes from a witness who calls law enforcement in Snohomish county and says, I saw Sam. She was sitting down, eating lunch just below the summit. He says she was eating a sandwich. Kevin remembers that's what she had packed that day. And he estimates that this sighting was between 2 and 3pm he then watched as Sam began her descent down a snow covered ridge on the south side of the mountain that they're on.

[Hannah Smith]

Hmm.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And so that's not the typical way back down. So he was sort of confused by this and kind of tried to wave to her, maybe. Couldn't tell if she fully waved back and thought, you know, she's probably looking for a private place to maybe use the restroom or, you know, we don't know.

[Hannah Smith]

Interesting. Yeah. So does that indicate that she had already summited and was on her way back down?

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah, I think that's sort of the way the investigation interprets this, is that she had summited and now she's, you know, the second half of her hike.

[Hannah Smith]

Mm.

[Patia Eaton]

And the south side of this mountain is not the way back to her car. But, you know, I think it's just one of those moments where you could replay it a million times, but I think we all sort of assume people have a plan. And so he calls that in. And that's her last known sighting. So this is what police are learning now. I want to go back to Pennsylvania in the moment that Lisa's finding out Sam is missing.

[Andrea Gunning]

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[Gwen Washington]

I'm Glen Washington, the host of Snap Judgment from kqed. Every week, we don't just tell stories, we drop you inside them. Real people, real voices, real moments that split a life in two. What do you believe? What do you risk? What do you want? Snap Judgment. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast.

[Patia Eaton]

Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

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[Patia Eaton]

Whoa. This thing moves.

[Lenovo Advertiser]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech [e-mail] Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon. Powered by Intel Core Ultra processors. So you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.

[Patia Eaton]

So on August 2nd. So this is the morning of August 2nd, the search is beginning. The calls are coming in. Lisa wakes up and immediately reaches for her phone, like so many of us do, and she sees a Facebook post from Kevin and it says, sos, sos Missing hiker. And this is how Lisa learns that this.

[Hannah Smith]

Call her.

[Patia Eaton]

He didn't call her. So this is like, yeah, when I. Kevin. Rough, rough choice. Lisa's, of course, now, like, jolted awake by this, like, the worst adrenaline rush you could ever have as a person. And she calls Kevin and said that he reassured her that he was confident they would find Sam. You know, the way she remembers it, he did not say, you need to rush out here. We're gonna find her. She's probably just injured. And I wanna just spend one moment on this is that in missing persons cases, which I've gone down a lot of rabbit holes with missing persons cases, we've done a lot of interviews. You really, when you speak to the families, recognize the logistical nightmare it is when a loved one goes missing miles from where you live. Because most of us cannot just pick up and spend this indefinite amount of time physically searching for someone.

[Hannah Smith]

Right.

[Patia Eaton]

It takes a lot of organizing and the means to do it financially. And this is true for Lisa and for Ron. So they had two large dogs. Ron had a job that he would have to get time off of, and his work was really accommodating. And they ended up getting out there pretty quickly. But it's no small thing to do that and to buy these cross country.

[Hannah Smith]

Tickets and you don't know how long you're gonna be there. Right.

[Patia Eaton]

There's so many unknowns. And so on August 3rd, Lisa and Ron fly into Seattle, and Kevin is driving them around in Sam's car, which had never been impounded. And that always bothered Lisa about the investigation is like, why did you not impound her car? Lisa was really frustrated by this. She was surprised because she said she looked down and I think it was in the cup holder, she finds this sort of bracelet that she had gotten Sam that she thought Sam would have been wearing. There was also a beanie in the car that she thought Sam would have been wearing. You know, she wondered, did Sam make it back to her car? And something happened at the trailhead.

[Hannah Smith]

Hmm.

[Patia Eaton]

If so, though, where were the rest of her belongings? Why wouldn't they have found anything?

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, like, was there anything else in her car, like her ID or anything else?

[Patia Eaton]

No, no, that's all that there was that Lisa recalls. But, you know, the car was not looked at by law enforcement.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. So another day passes. There's no sign of Sam. There are helicopters in the air, a search and rescue team on the ground, detectives from Snohomish County. A massive search is happening. Lisa's barely sleeping. She is sick with worry and just very confused about the whole thing. And something that started to bother Lisa as she spent more time in the Seattle area while the search is happening is that Kevin and others were now referring to Sam as his fiance.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, I noticed that in the news clip and was gonna ask you about that. Mm.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. So Lysa says that Sam never once mentioned an engagement to Kevin or that he had proposed. That was something that she felt was just odd. She thought that Sam and her were close enough that if that had happened, she would know about it.

[Hannah Smith]

Did Kevin say that they had gotten engaged?

[Patia Eaton]

You know, I don't know exactly what he said to people or who even said that to people, but multiple people, she said, were referring to Sam as his fiance, and she was just very confused by that because in her memory, Sam was, like, thinking about leaving the relationship.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

So Lisa is not physically on the mountain looking for Sam. She's asked to not be there because it's a danger, and they don't want to spend time helping someone else off the mountain. Doesn't mean she doesn't visit the area, but she's not, like, physically turning over rocks. Like, that's not. And that was at the request of the search and rescue and the sheriff's office. But things start getting a little sour between Lysa and Kevin's family, who has also flown in. Lysa said that Kevin made comments about how she wasn't doing enough, and she just felt like that was so unfair because she didn't feel that she was going to be a help physically searching on the mountain.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, you don't want to get into a situation where someone else is hurt on the mountain or, you know, even him going out there at night, that could have happened to him. And then you would have two people that are, you know, potentially missing.

[Patia Eaton]

Totally.

[Hannah Smith]

You know, so as this search is happening, and I imagine the days are going by, what do we know about what she had in her day pack? You said that she packed light. How much food did she Have. Were there water sources nearby? What was the timeline that people guessed on how long she could survive out there?

[Patia Eaton]

So I never got an answer on how long she might have survived based on what she had. But I think it was Kevin who estimated she had packed four sandwiches because he had been with her that morning. And Lisa also said that she felt like Sam was strong and resilient and could have stayed alive even in a very difficult or painful situation until she was found. She really felt this because of how much time that Sam had spent outdoors as a child and all the hiking she'd done previously. But, you know, Sam was dressed very light, and it does get cold up there at nighttime, even in the summer. Obviously, the terrain leaves a lot of risk of injury, so this was a concern. And by August 5th, so she's been missing now less than a week. Lisa said that there was already a different energy with law enforcement and search and rescue. And she recalled a moment where a police sergeant told her that. That Sam was likely dead and she should go home. Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Patia Eaton]

And Lisa was angered by this and obviously sad. But at the time, you know, she's fighting to keep the search going for Sam. You know, you don't have time to sit around and just, like, be sad. So Lisa's angered by this and tells this police sergeant, no. Like, Sam is young and healthy, and if she's lost on the mountain, she could still be alive. She could just be injured. And while all of this is happening, someone had set up a GoFundMe to help with this search for Sam. This was not at Lisa's request, but she was then glad to have funds to continue to stay there in Seattle and to make later additional trips. And Kevin, while the search is happening, is putting together these Ziploc bags of food with notes to Sam and sort of him and others are scattering them about the mountain. And, you know, there's a lot of wildlife. There's also just the thought of, like, if Sam is moving around and finding these packs of food to stay alive. That seems pretty unlikely, because if we haven't found her, she could probably be injured and stationary. Is this a good use of time and resources? Is this even safe to have these civilian people out on this dangerous train dropping off Ziplocs in case she comes upon one of them? This was sort of like. I think Lisa saw it as performative, but I think that going back to what we were talking about earlier, it's like, you really don't know what you would do in that situation. And everyone responds to these Things differently.

[Hannah Smith]

And the reality is that none of them could do anything. Search and rescue teams were looking, and what they could actually do was so limited. And I feel like for some people, it's so hard to. To be in that position where you can't do anything. So it sounds to me like one of those things where they just created something that they could do so they could feel like they were doing something.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And Lysa, in the same vein, made pancakes for search and rescue workers because she's like, well, what can I do to keep people motivated, to keep people feeling like a part of this team with this mission to bring home Sam? And I remember her just like this was a moment in one of our conversations where she really became very emotional. It's like she could sort of feel going back in time and this week, missing, the hope starting to dwindle. And as you know, Sam's mother just wanting to sort of pull that back up and bring back that hopeful energy, because all you want is people so determined to find her and to not give up. And so at a week in, that's when sort of the demeanor starts to shift around her disappearance. And even though Lisa and I were talking about this many years after Sam's disappearance, she still would note a lot how surreal it felt to talk about Sam and know that she was still missing after all of these years. Like, Lisa really had this hope that Sam would be found. And I'll get into why that is. So all of this tension is brewing with Kevin's family, particularly now about the money that's been raised in the GoFundMe to help with expenses. You know, Ron is unable to work while he's traveling to Washington State. They have two large dogs at home that need to be cared for. Lisa just felt really uncomfortable with the gofundmes and maybe a lack of transparency or a perceived lack of transparency about how that money was being spent. She did get some of that money for their expenses, but things got really muddy between her and Kevin's family, including Kevin. But she was just. Her utmost concern was finding Sam.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. And I imagine that they searched the south pass or the south slope where someone had seen her going down, you know, but there's so much to search.

[Patia Eaton]

There's so much to search. Yeah. And, you know, this search becomes the biggest and most extensive search in Snohomish county history. It included 14 dog teams, helicopters, drone operators, Sheriff's Marine unit searched Spotta Lake, which is on that hike. There were 70 searchers on foot. It was massive. And so the search formally ends on August 23, 2018. Sam is now 22 days missing. Yeah, little over three weeks. And the search turned up no sign of her. So Lisa started to wonder if Sam had been. And in fact, in that moment, when she rolled over and read the Facebook post from Kevin, the first time she realizes that anything has happened, she said she had this intuition that Sam had been taken in that moment. And that little voice that Lysa heard, you know, maybe her intuition or whatever, telling her that is something that she really held onto and that she really kind of mulled over more as the search didn't turn up. Any sign of Sam, that she could.

[Hannah Smith]

Have been kidnapped on her way down the trail, perhaps?

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah, I don't think she really knew, but she just questioned why the bracelet was in the car, why the beanie was in the car, and it just gave her a lot of pause. But law enforcement was not looking in the direction of a kidnapping. And I haven't spoken with a detective on the case, but I can understand that you have a missing hiker, she's seen on the hike, and there are a lot of people calling in that say that they saw her on the way up. There's no one calling in saying they saw her on the way down. Yeah, except for this person who says that they saw her going down this south side of the ridge, which he didn't understand why she would go that direction. So I had a brief conversation with a representative from Snohomish county, and she did tell me. And this, I think is very strange, that I think as far as today, but definitely when we spoke, that Sam is the only missing hiker on Vesper Peak who has never been found. And I wanna say I don't know what happened to Sam, but I hope that the search for her continues. And, you know, personally, I don't think it particularly matters what I think, but what has always stuck with me is all the people that jumped in to say where they had seen her and that none of those people saw her coming back. And, you know, I think that it's easy to underestimate Mother Nature and the wilderness wildlife up there. I don't know, we've all done things that maybe we shouldn't have or put ourself in more dangerous situations. So Kevin has also continued searching. So Lisa has continued sort of virtually at this point, before she passed posting a lot about Sam on her Facebook page, she hired her own drone operators to run more image searches that didn't turn up anything, but she never stopped looking when this search ended, it didn't end anything for Lisa. And Kevin also continued searching and he searched physically and he actually got involved with a private search and rescue group, I guess you could call them, a guy by the name of Bud Carr, who I did speak with at one point. And together they actually went out searching for another missing hiker whose name is Rachel Lakaduke, and they ended up finding her remains.

[Hannah Smith]

Wow.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. So it's a crazy story. Rachel was also hiking in this area, different trail than Sam was on. And In October of 2019, she's heading up this trail. She has the intention of spending one night by herself up there and a storm is coming in and she runs into these hikers on her way up who are heading back down and they're like, the weather's really turning, you should head back. And she doesn't and she vanishes. And so In August of 2021, Kevin dares and Bud Carr actually find her remains.

[Hannah Smith]

You know, the fact that Kevin has gone on to look for Sam around Mount Vesper and also joined teams to look for missing hikers, it kind of is one small thing that shows you how much this clearly impacted him in his life and obviously impacted Lysa's life and I'm sure also Ron and Sam's brothers as well. I mean, there's no right way to grieve someone. Right. And obviously, as you talked about, sounds like Kevin and Lysa didn't have the best relationship after this happened. You know, that makes sense to me. But yeah, I think it's cool that Kevin has spent his time helping find other hikers.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And this person Rachel, whose remains he and Bud actually end up finding, you know, she wasn't far off of the trail, but it just didn't take her being that far off of the trail for her to go completely unseen, her remains to go completely unseen for years.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Because it is very densely forested area, boulders. I don't know what elevation she was at, but at the lower elevations in these mountain ranges in Washington, it's almost like a rainforest environment. So that's sort of a crazy part of the story. But I wanna talk about just a couple of the theories before I wrap this up, which is that Sam on her Instagram posted a lot of pictures, taking sort of cliffside selfies, very dangerous looking selfies. And this is a theory that perhaps she got too close to the edge and fell into places that would be extremely difficult to search. And I had an off the record conversation with a member of the search and rescue team who told me that at the base of a lot of these peaks or cliff edges is still snow and huge rocks, and you could fall in a very small area and be impossible to find, and it wouldn't be safe to send someone in to look for you. And even if it was, it would be incredibly difficult to search all of those possible areas. You could maybe search some of them, but could you search all of them? Maybe not. And so Lisa never felt like Sam would have done that. She felt like Sam's judgment was much better than maybe an accidental fall because of taking a cliffside selfie. But it is one theory that's sort of out there. And then, of course, there's, well, why haven't we found any trace of her? You know? Cause if she has these walking sticks, I'm sure she put them down before she took a picture, you know?

[Hannah Smith]

Right.

[Patia Eaton]

Where are the walking sticks? Strange.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. That doesn't add up.

[Patia Eaton]

Doesn't add up. Why is the beanie in her car? Why is this bracelet in her car that she would have been wearing?

[Hannah Smith]

Do they know in the video, was she wearing a beanie?

[Patia Eaton]

So it's hard to tell, but, yes. It could have been a hood. Could have been a beanie.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And then the issue of, like, why nothing? You know, why, why nothing? And the wildlife in this area now, going back to those go bags Kevin was spreading around the mountain for her in case she found them, those were. What do you call it? Like, wildlife got to those.

[Hannah Smith]

Ripped open. Eaten.

[Patia Eaton]

Ripped open and gone.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. And that's why you have bear boxes, like, when you're backpacking, that bears can't get into.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. Another reason I don't hike. So the. So the issue of wildlife. If someone goes missing and someone is injured or they pass away and their remains and their belongings are out there, wildlife could really spread those things out and make it even harder to find.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

That's one possible reason she hasn't been found. So, you know, this doesn't have a happy ending. This doesn't have resolution. My hope in telling this story is not that I'm gonna break the case wide open, but to just keep Sam's story in people's minds because she does deserve to be found. And, you know, there's a lot of sort of Reddit warriors saying she was overconfident, she shouldn't have been hiking alone. She was underprepared, she was underdressed. But, like, we've all done things we shouldn't have done. So even if you believe that just it means nothing to me. Like, let's find her.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. I'm so glad that you told this story today. There's a lot that I didn't know about it. You had sort of mentioned speaking with Leisa over the years, and I knew that you were working at one point on turning this into, like a multi part series that didn't end up happening. And I just want to point out again, there's so many stories like this, but you're telling this story and you talked with Leisa for hours upon hours upon hours over years about her missing daughter. And this was such an important story for her to get out to the world, because as we've talked about before, when time passes and people pass away, like, the memories of people can get lost. And she doesn't want that to happen with Sam. Obviously, there's people still alive who love Sam very much. But it's important that we keep talking about these things because you never know what might spark in someone who might hear. It could lead to discovery of her.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah, absolutely. And Lisa still had hope. She never lost that hope. And cancer is brutal, and she may have lost energy and the ability to continue searching, but, like, she never lost hope.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

As time went on and Lisa didn't get answers, she would meet with psychics and she would take emails from people who said that they had sightings at the trailhead of Sam possibly being abducted. And I looked into those and wasn't able to find anything that I felt like was compelling enough to really dig into. But, you know, Lisa's not the only person who doesn't think Sam's on the mountain.

[Hannah Smith]

Hmm. Okay.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

Well, thanks for telling that story.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. I'm glad that I finally had a chance to tell it.

[Hannah Smith]

Okay. So when I knew you were gonna be telling this story, I wanted to also tell a story of someone going missing out in nature in a national park. And this also takes place in the North Cascades. It's just outside of North Cascades national park in Washington, actually. And it happened in July of 2024 last year.

[Patia Eaton]

Oh, wow. So recent.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. A man named Robert Schock set off on the Hannigan Trailhead on July 31. It's interesting, the timing, also in July.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

Which makes sense because when I was looking up that national park, there's a range they tell people to visit. It's like between late June and early September.

[Patia Eaton]

And let me just say, everyone who visits Seattle in the summer is like, most beautiful place I've ever seen.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

That's the moment yeah, it's gorgeous. Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

I was looking at pictures. I've never been to the Cascades National Park. I don't think I've been up to Washington. And it's just stunning. And the pictures of this area where Robert Schock was, I was like, blown away.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

So he was 39 years old at the time and he was an ultra marathon runner, which, you know, A Marathon is 26.2 miles and an ultra marathon runner runs. The races are like anywhere from 50 miles to 100 miles.

[Patia Eaton]

Good for them.

[Hannah Smith]

Just not the same kind of person I am.

[Patia Eaton]

No, no, no.

[Hannah Smith]

But yeah, I mentioned that because he was going on a 20 mile trail run. But in context, he's used to running like way longer than that.

[Patia Eaton]

Okay.

[Hannah Smith]

But it's a trail run. You know, there's elevation. So he. Similarly to the story you told, Sam brought like a day pack. Robert packed light. He was wearing a day pack with. He had a map. He was wearing shorts and running shoes, no shirt, because I think he just wanted to keep things as light as possible for the long run. But he also brought with him his dog, a chocolate lab named Freddy.

[Patia Eaton]

Cute.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. And Robert was really familiar with the North Cascades region. He was kind of an outdoorsman. He hiked and camped regularly in the area. So it wasn't like he was some newbie who had never been out on a trail before. He was described as a wanderer and a musician originally from Blaine, Washington. But he actually didn't have a permanent address at the time. He lived in his van with Freddie. He was kind of a wanderer, and it seemed like he just lived that sort of alternative lifestyle. He wasn't that interested in the classic American dream. He didn't want the 9 to 5. He liked to sort of roam around and do his thing.

[Patia Eaton]

I mean, I don't like the 9 to 5 either, but I don't like to roam.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

I just want to be at my house.

[Hannah Smith]

Van. Life is a certain kind of life.

[Patia Eaton]

Oh, yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

And I looked at pictures of him. He's got a long beard, long hair, and Freddy the chocolate lab is really cute. So he had been to this area many times, but it had been a couple of years. And the North Cascades national park is huge. There's about 500,000 acres of land. And this part where he was was very north, almost to Canada. He was close to Copper Mountain and the Chilliwack river, which runs through there. So it was super far north. And he was feeling kind of adventurous that day. And so he planned a Route that would combine a couple of trails and would be a 20 mile sort of makeshift loop, which really isn't that uncommon. If you're used to hiking. You might not want to just do one trail. But if you're familiar with trailheads and trail signs, it's not that hard to say, well, they'll just turn left here and then I'll connect to this trail. So that was his plan. But what he didn't realize or had forgotten, I don't know, is that there had been fires in the area a couple of years before. And so some of the land where he was going in this route was technically closed off, and the trails had been destroyed by fire, and there had been some regrowth. It had been a couple of years. But when that happens, the trail is not the same. There's not even really a trail. It has to be restored. So, you know, he set off on the path and he never returned to the trailhead. His mom, Jan Thompson, lived in North Carolina at the time, and she obviously knew her son, knew he was an adventurous guy, and would go out on these long trail runs. And she reportedly spoke with him on the phone the night before and asked him to call her when he got done with his run. And he never called. She didn't worry too much because she just thought, well, he's really self reliant. He'll call me soon. But then on August 3rd, Freddy the dog was found on the east side of the Chilliwack river alone. So his dog was found first. And the Chilliwack river is this big, rushing, cold river, not something you can just easily cross. So the Whatcom County Humane Society called Jan and told her that they'd found Freddy. So then Jan reported Robert missing.

[Patia Eaton]

Okay.

[Hannah Smith]

And, you know, Freddie was fine. He had one sore paw, but he was doing just fine and he fully recovered. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. So then Jan said that when she reported him missing, a deputy called her back within minutes and let her know they had located Robert's car at the trailhead. It makes me wonder if they had already sort of been looking after finding the dog. They found his car with the window halfway down on the passenger side, and his wallet was also in his car. His mother would later say that the deputy who called her thought that that was a sign that Robert left and didn't plan to come back. That was how he interpreted it, that.

[Patia Eaton]

He left his wallet in the car.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

That's so strange to me because, like, what's he gonna spend his money on, on a trail like you don't need your wallet.

[Hannah Smith]

I don't know if he thought it was like, I'm going into the woods and never returning kind of thing.

[Patia Eaton]

I mean, I don't know, I'm a dog person. Don't have one right now. But you wouldn't bring your dog with you on sort of a final journey.

[Hannah Smith]

No. Especially if you're a dog lover. Like you don't want. Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

You would never do that to Freddie.

[Hannah Smith]

No. Not to Chocolate Lab Freddie.

[Patia Eaton]

No.

[Hannah Smith]

So Jan did not buy that. She said, this is not unusual behavior for my son. He probably just didn't want to bring his wallet on the run, left it in the car, left the window down, like that's just sort of normal. And she always believed, no, we'll find him. He'll come back. So the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office deputies and national park rangers performed detailed ground searches over three days in August. On Aug. 16, the U.S. border Patrol flew over the Chilliwack Basin looking for him in a helicopter. But he wasn't found. And so the search was called off. You know, this story does have a happy ending. I'll just tell you right now, but the fact that the search was called off, and I'll get into that later, but like they did a thorough search and then the search was called off. That's gotta feel so terrible. Just having the search called off like that decision would feel horrible.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

But Robert was found in like a wild turn of events. And he was found after being out in the wilderness for 30 days. And the way he was found was sort of random happenstance. And I'm gonna get into it, but I'm gonna just run you through Robert's account of what happened after he was found. So he said he started off on the trail that day, July 31, and all was well. He ran seven miles on the trail at which point it intersects with the Chilliwack River. And I thought this was kind of interesting. I had never heard of this, but I guess there are these cable cars that are suspended over the river that you can use to cross it. Did you know this?

[Patia Eaton]

No, I don't go. I don't go up there.

[Hannah Smith]

I have been backpacking and hiking, but I've never been in a place where.

[Patia Eaton]

They have this, where you just self operated, go above the river.

[Hannah Smith]

I looked up, I actually found a video on YouTube of someone crossing in the cable car, crossing the Chilliwack River. I don't know if it was the same crossing point.

[Patia Eaton]

No, I don't know that A cable car that I'm operating myself is all that reassuring to me. Like, I'd probably just be like, oh, I can turn around now.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. I mean, I'll show you the video. It's like a metal sort of box without a lid. Like a metal basket that you would get in. It looks like it fit maybe one or two people that's connected to a cable that runs across the river. And then you have a little pulley, and you're pulling yourself across this rushing river below.

[Patia Eaton]

No, and it's just like.

[Hannah Smith]

It's not like there's someone there operating it. You just hike up there, and then you're like, here we go.

[Patia Eaton]

That's so much worse than I thought. I was picturing picturing that, like, tram in Palm Springs.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, no, it's not even that fancy.

[Patia Eaton]

And I don't even like that.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, yeah. It's like, for hikers, because you can't cross the river. So you just, like, climb these stairs, get into this basket, go across.

[Patia Eaton]

Okay, everyone, let this be a sign. You cannot cross the river.

[Hannah Smith]

So Robert and Freddie get into the cable car, and he pulls them across the river. So it's after they cross the river that things sort of start to go wrong. And Robert starts to get disoriented, and he's starting to get into some of that area that had been burned and then regrew. So I don't know if he knows that it had been burned, but he's sort of like, things don't quite look like they should. He sees a sign, a trail sign that is pointing north, indicating that the Canadian border is 20 miles away. But for some reason, he feels like the sign has been tampered with or changed because he needs to go south. But for whatever reason, he thinks this sign has been, like, switched backwards. So he goes in the direction of the sign, which he thinks is south, but is actually north. And this is not going on any path now. It's just sort of wandering out into the wilderness.

[Patia Eaton]

A backward sign, like in a cartoon, where it, like, swaps, and you're like, oh, no.

[Hannah Smith]

Totally.

[Patia Eaton]

What a nightmare.

[Hannah Smith]

And so he just wanders. He starts wandering north into the wilderness, which is. Yeah, like, heavily forested.

[Patia Eaton]

And is this where Freddie turns back? He's like, no.

[Hannah Smith]

Well, he actually sends his dog back. Yeah. I mean, it gets confusing. And he gave, like, a couple of interviews when he first got back, but then hasn't really spoken about it. I think he said he was gonna, like, write a book or something, but it's unclear exactly what was Going through his mind. But he does, I think, within the first day. Send Freddie home. He's like, freddie, go home. So Freddy obeys, and Freddy trots back, but can't cross back over the river. Right. Because he can't get. He can't pulley himself across the river.

[Patia Eaton]

Oh, my gosh.

[Hannah Smith]

So Freddie heads back, and then that's where he's found later by the river. And Robert, I think, knew, like, he could have turned around. He had enough energy. He could have turned around. But he thought again that he was going the right way and that he just needed to find the path and that he could do it. This feels kind of familiar to me. I mean, I think that if you are a hiker and you're on a path, like, it doesn't feel good to have to turn around. Like, you wouldn't turn around unless you really felt like you needed to. I went on a backpacking trip with a couple friends a few years ago, and at one point, we lost the path. But, like, we knew the direction we were going. And we also had, like, AllTrails app on our phones. But, you know, there was, like, an hour where we were kind of, like, wandering. And the idea of turning back after you have this heavy pack and you've been hiking all day, it just feels like such a defeat that you're like, no, we can just find. I'm sure we'll just find it here in a second. And then we did. Right. So I think a lot of people have that mindset when they're out hiking. But he was never gonna find the path. Cause he had turned the wrong way.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

So.

[Patia Eaton]

And the wildfires.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. There was no trail, really. He's just wandering north. Nightmare. So then at some point, he takes off his shoes to wash them in a river he finds, and they wash away. So he's barefoot now. It's hard to sort of comprehend. So he's barefoot and he doesn't have a shirt. He's just wearing shorts.

[Patia Eaton]

Oh, right. He has no shirt.

[Hannah Smith]

He has no shirt.

[Patia Eaton]

He has spare time.

[Hannah Smith]

He has shorts.

[Patia Eaton]

30 days, no shirt.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, just shorts. And he has a little tiny, like, backpack, like, day pack. But the details on what happens next are sort of blurry. He does have a phone, but doesn't have service. And then, like, day two, the phone dies. He says by day three, he's starting to worry.

[Patia Eaton]

Okay, this is one difference between me and Robert. I'm starting to worry. Hour one.

[Hannah Smith]

Hour one.

[Patia Eaton]

Hour one.

[Hannah Smith]

Hour one. That I'm not on a trail, and I'm like, there doesn't even seem to be a trail. I'm like, maybe I need to worry here. Yeah. I think that points to how much of an outdoors man he was. He's like, I'll figure it out. I'm barefoot. It's fine. But he's growing more and more disoriented and hungry on day three. So now he's, like, off the path and starting to feel disoriented. So, like, how can he even make his way back? He said he ate some berries off of some bushes and then found a large mushroom and knew that it was a risk to eat it because it could be poisonous. But he was like, I have to do this because I have no food and I'm gonna die. So he ate it, and it was fine. It wasn't poisonous and probably ended up saving his life because it gave him, like, more sustenance.

[Patia Eaton]

Oh, my God.

[Hannah Smith]

So he starts heading back, trying to retrace his steps. Cause he realizes now that he's in a really bad situation. And he, like, hurts his toe or hurts his foot because he's just, like, barefoot, but he's super disoriented. At one point, he remembers helicopters circling, and he's yelling and waving his hands, but, you know, they didn't see him. It's like, you're so tiny, and there's trees everywhere. It's interesting thinking about that, because the U.S. border Patrol was looking for him by helicopter on August 16th. So that means he would have been out there 16 days at that point.

[Patia Eaton]

Right.

[Hannah Smith]

Which indicates that he was still walking around and, like, coherent. Wow.

[Patia Eaton]

It's like, if you're not in a clearing, how can they see you?

[Hannah Smith]

You'd have to be in a clearing.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

That's what's so different about that versus, like, hiking in California. There's a lot of just sort of open space, desert type of hiking where someone could potentially see you easier.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. And even those, like, heat detector cameras. I wonder if they had those. I've heard about those, but wow, that's 16 days is so long.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. So he finally is making his way back. He's able to retrace his steps, and then at some point, he just collapses on a riverbank. And he can't get up because he's so tired and he's so malnourished. He turns out that he was 11 miles from the trailhead at that point and only half a mile from something called a horse ford.

[Patia Eaton]

What is that?

[Hannah Smith]

I thought you might know that.

[Patia Eaton]

I mean, it sounds like the way I Hear the word hors d' oeuvre in my head.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, well, I thought as a horse girl growing up, you might know. But I looked it up. It's just like a place where horses can cross a river.

[Patia Eaton]

Because I went in pretty little circles. Okay.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. So I guess there was a crossing point where horses and maybe other people could cross about a half a mile. Cause remember, the river is, like, not really crossable. Right. So he lays there for days and yells for help, and no one comes. And he said he slept during the day with the warmth of the sun, but it was too cold at night. Like, had a risk of getting hypothermia because it would get down into the 40s and there were rainstorms that were cold. He says he was awake for the entire endeavor and that he was probably laying on the riverbank for more than a week.

[Patia Eaton]

What? He thinks he was awake for a week?

[Hannah Smith]

He claims he was, like, cognizant for all of it and that he just laid there for over a week. And then he remembers laying on the riverbank one day and thinking that it was gonna be his last day alive. And so he thought, I'm going to try one more time and yell for help. And so he just starts yelling as much as he can. He's so weak. And lo and behold, someone hears him. It's like finding a needle in the haystack. There is this nonprofit organization called Pacific Northwest Trail association, and they help maintain and repair the trails. And there was a group of volunteers who were returning to camp after working out on the trails. After a 10 hour day, they had been, like, hauling boulders and doing other difficult manual labor. And they were headed back, and this guy named Miles Cottingham, one of the trail workers, was sort of walking a little bit aways from the rest of the people for some reason. And that's probably how he heard Robert Schoch's calls. Because you think about the noise of the river, you think about if you're talking with people, wow. So he's like, I thought I heard something. And got the attention of his crewmates. And we're like, we should go check this out. I guess he must have thought like, that sounds like a human. But you think you're working a 10 hour day, and then you're like, well, let's go investigate this thing over here.

[Patia Eaton]

There's one person with him. Like, I really want to be done.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, I'm ready for dinner. Can we just. It's probably like a deer, you know, Robert said he thought it was A pack of wolves coming at him because he was so disoriented. And then he realized it was people, and they found him. They called for help. They covered him with their jackets because he was so cold. They gave him little bits of food, but he was not in good condition. He was 50 pounds underweight and in shock and very close to death. But he was helicoptered out of there, and he ended up recovering.

[Patia Eaton]

Oh, my God.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah, so that's the story, really.

[Patia Eaton]

So he was out there 30 days, most of which he had no shoes, and he also had only a little backpack. So he ran out of food very quickly. Oh, my gosh. That is so scary. That is like a nightmare.

[Hannah Smith]

Nightmare. He was able to drink water from the river. I guess he found water, but. Yeah. And then he ate that mushroom.

[Patia Eaton]

I hate mushrooms.

[Hannah Smith]

Really?

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

I love them. But, like, the idea of eating a mushroom in the wild is so scary because you have no idea. Right.

[Patia Eaton]

That could send you on a real ride.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Wow. So he's alive and well.

[Hannah Smith]

He's alive and well.

[Patia Eaton]

That's great.

[Hannah Smith]

Another thing I wanted to mention, there was a Facebook post from the Pacific North Trail Association, PNTA director. He made a post after all this happened, I think in response to. Some people were giving them a hard time, forever calling the search off because they ended up finding him. And other people were also saying it was staged. I mean, people just say whatever they want on the Internet. And so he made a post. He wrote. PNTA crews are made up of youth and young adults, many of whom come from trailside communities along the length of the pnt. While most are just getting their foot in the door along the path to a career in public land management, they are hardworking, highly productive, and ultra committed. While we provide some training, yada yada, there is nothing that can fully prepare anyone to handle the mental and emotional burden of providing aid to someone like Robert under the circumstances that they found him in. Yeah, I mean, I want to, like, acknowledge that, because that wasn't something I thought of right away, but I think it was pretty traumatic to the people who found him, who were these young volunteers. And his body was in a pretty dire, extreme state, and, like, he was so close to death, and they did save his life, but it was, like, pretty traumatic for them, I think. And, you know, he also just said, these are professional searches. You know, we did a thorough search, and there was no failure on the search and rescue teams on their side. The fact that, like, he was in a place where they wouldn't even know.

[Patia Eaton]

To look you know, 11 miles from the trail is so far. When you're thinking about, like, that one, he's going in the opposite direction that he intended to go in.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Two, it's like there had been these fires that made everything harder to navigate. And three, I mean, there's so many. The list goes on. But, like, just the forest out there is so dense. You could be 100ft and not have any way of, like, really seeing or getting closer to finding someone.

[Hannah Smith]

Totally. And so the fact that he was found was just really amazing and kind of a. Just happenstance.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. Especially because I imagine if he's this marathon runner, he's in pretty good physical shape. You're not probably not carrying a lot of extra body fat. And that is something that, you know, if you're going without food, you would really be relying on. And the fact that his body was able to sustain 30 days in the wilderness is, like, mind boggling.

[Hannah Smith]

Totally mind boggling.

[Patia Eaton]

Well, I'm glad that he's okay, and I'm glad that Freddie got his dad back.

[Hannah Smith]

Me too. Yeah. Freddie's the real hero of this story.

[Patia Eaton]

I mean, wow. No one would know that he was missing until Freddie was found.

[Hannah Smith]

I know. Yeah. Interesting that he sent Freddie back.

[Patia Eaton]

Maybe he knew that. Maybe he thought, well, Freddie's microchipped or has a collar, and someone will be like, this guy should have his dog. And, I mean, my last dog would have never left my side. He'd been like, we're in this together. But only because he's, like, disobedient and anxious. So it would have been useless to me. But, wow.

[Hannah Smith]

I wonder if Freddie knew it was a. A dangerous situation and so he was, like, going to find help.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah.

[Hannah Smith]

What an obedient dog.

[Patia Eaton]

Yeah. Sometimes I feel like animals just know.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Well, I'm glad that we were able to end on a happier note. And, yeah, I'm gonna continue not hiking.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah. I mean, I will still hike, but I'm gonna be very careful. And I don't hike alone. That's good, because I'm too scared.

[Patia Eaton]

You should be. Okay. I do have a wreck this week.

[Hannah Smith]

Great.

[Patia Eaton]

It's called Petty Crimes. It's a podcast that investigates real life interpersonal drama to uncover who is guilty of a petty crime.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, my gosh. That sounds so good.

[Patia Eaton]

It's so good. It's, like, light hearted. One of the hosts was an SNL writer, and the other is a retired model. Part two crime, mostly comedy. Completely petty.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh, my gosh.

[Patia Eaton]

And, yeah, they are just so great. And every time I listen to them. I'm like, oh, my mood is lifted.

[Hannah Smith]

Ah, I love it. Yeah. Are they doing interviews or they're just talking about other people's stories.

[Patia Eaton]

The episodes I've listened to, they're just telling stories people have sent them.

[Hannah Smith]

Very cool. Yeah, okay, I'll definitely listen. My recommendation, I can't remember if we've talked about this or if you've watched this or not. I think my brother recommended this documentary to me. It's not really true crime, but a jail adjacent in some ways. It's called Ren Faire.

[Patia Eaton]

Never heard of it.

[Hannah Smith]

Oh my gosh. It's so interesting. It is a three part documentary that follows the Texas Renaissance Festival and the founder. It's in this small town in Texas and essentially I think it's its own town. The founder is this really bizarro guy who moved there and sort of bought a town and then created the. I think it's the largest Ren Fair in the US and there's a segment of people who live there full time.

[Patia Eaton]

Do they like full time?

[Hannah Smith]

Dress that's dressed? Yeah, not all of them, but some of them. And the documentary is basically the guy who started it, who goes by King George. He is getting older and he's trying to decide who he's gonna make the next director of the Renaissance Faire. And it is like a battle for the crown. It is sort of like, what was that succession except Renaissance Faire. And it is so interesting and bizarre. There's also some like seedy sort of underbelly type of stuff that's going on, which will lead into the like, true crime part of it. It's not a true crime documentary at all. It's just an interesting documentary about the Texas Renaissance Festival.

[Patia Eaton]

I know absolute nothing about Renaissance Fairs other than that they exist. So I can't wait to watch it.

[Hannah Smith]

It's really, really interesting. And then it made me start looking into the Renaissance Fair a little bit more after I watched it and I found this podcast. I don't know that I should recommend it because I actually haven't listened to it yet, but it's called Crime Waves Renaissance Texas. It's all about the Texas Renaissance Festival and they cover multiple crimes that happened there throughout the ages. Like there was a murder that happened there and there's been multiple accusations of sexual assau.

[Patia Eaton]

Oh, God.

[Hannah Smith]

And so I'm not recommending it, but if you listen to it and like it, let me know because I'll probably listen to it as well.

[Patia Eaton]

I'll probably listen.

[Hannah Smith]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Well, thanks for listening.

[Hannah Smith]

That's our show today.

[Patia Eaton]

We'll see you next week.

[Hannah Smith]

Bye.

[Patia Eaton]

If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is the knifexactlyrightmedia.com or you can follow us on Instagram at the knife Podcast or BlueSkyenife Podcast.

[Hannah Smith]

This has been been an exactly right production hosted and produced by me, Hannah.

[Patia Eaton]

Smith and me, Patia Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breyfogel and Alexis Amorosi.

[Hannah Smith]

This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

[Patia Eaton]

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

[Hannah Smith]

Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

[Patia Eaton]

Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

[Hannah Smith]

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer. Foreign.

[Gwen Washington]

Fox one is now live. It's the new way to stream all your Fox favorites all in one place. That means NFL Sundays and college football games. Breaking news with the Fox voices you trust and your favorite show streamed as they happen. So nothing gets spoiled. With Fox one, you get it all live. Edge of your seat plays, jaw dropping moments and that feeling like you're right there in the action. Start your seven day trial today. Offers are subject to change. Go to Fox one for complete terms and conditions. Fox one we live for life. Streaming now. Can small acts make a real impact in the world? Sometimes a small thing has the power to become more something big and meaningful. And when it comes to helping children, no act is too small. When you fill up at the Purple Giving Pump at Shell, a portion of your purchase will be donated to support charities in your community. The Giving Pump. Easy to stop, Easy Easy to donate. From 9125 to 103125 participating Shell stations will donate a minimum of $0.01 per gallon of the fuel pump from the giving pump or a minimum donation of $300. It's football season and now you can get anything you need for game day delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost. Almost anything. You can't get a running back but baby back ribs. Yes, Uber Eats official on demand food delivery partner of the NFL.