3. The Showdown

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Unforgotten
Host: Free Range Productions (Host: Wes Ferguson)
Episode: S4E3 — "The Showdown"
Release Date: December 22, 2025

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Episode Overview

In "The Showdown," the Unforgotten delves deep into the intense dispute between local law enforcement, wildlife experts, and the medical examiner over the mysterious death of Christopher Whiteley in Hood County, Texas. Officially ruled a mountain lion attack, the case sets off a rare and heated inter-agency debate when wildlife professionals insist the evidence doesn’t fit. This episode centers on the now-infamous meeting at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s office, exploring what was said, what was left undone, and how the divide leaves the case—and public trust—in a state of uncertainty.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening the Divide: Official Narratives Collide

• (01:01) Wes Ferguson lays out the conflicting positions:
  • Sheriff’s Office / Medical Examiner: Declare cause of death as mountain lion attack—the first ever in Texas.
  • Wildlife Biologists & Trackers: Strongly disagree; lack of tracks, claw marks, or credible mountain lion evidence.
• (01:32) Jonah Evans (state mammalogist, Texas Parks & Wildlife): Explains the differences in mountain lion bite marks, emphasizing that their attacks leave very distinct, but often small, evidence.
  • Quote: “You’d see significant claw marks, and then when they bite, they bite around the throat and they squeeze down...” — Jonah Evans (03:08)

2. The Lost DNA Opportunity

• (04:26) Jonah Evans urges that swabbing Christopher’s wound for saliva could have provided definitive DNA evidence.
• (04:38) Too late—the body was already thoroughly washed, allegedly “bleached” as a Covid precaution—eliminating all DNA traces.
  • Quote: “Had we been able to do a DNA swab of the bite, this would have been easily solved right away.” — Jonah Evans (05:04)

3. The Public Dispute Goes National

• (07:10) Charlie Scudder (Dallas Morning News reporter) discusses receiving two press releases in two days—first from the sheriff (mountain lion), then from Parks & Wildlife (no evidence).
  • Quote: “To have two agencies investigating the same case and coming to wildly different conclusions... that doesn’t happen.” — Charlie Scudder (07:44)
• News coverage spotlights the rare, public friction.
• (08:58) News Anchor: “Authorities are at odds... the departments are at odds over what really happened...”

4. The Infamous Meeting: Clashing Experts

• (11:09) Agencies convene at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s office:
  • Tarrant County ME staff, Hood County Sheriff’s, Texas Parks & Wildlife, Mike Bodenchuk (mountain lion expert).
• Mike arrives with a mountain lion skull to demonstrate jaw and bite structure.
  • Quote: “He wasn't expecting... He thought they were going to just have a chat. He didn’t know they were going to be right there with the body.” — Charlie Scudder (11:29)
• (12:18) Mike: “That meeting started almost hostilely.”

Notable Exchange ([14:22–15:43])

• Mike Bodenchuk:
  • “The sheriff’s office said, ‘You people are telling me it’s one thing and these people are telling me another and you’re making us look like idiots.’” (14:22)
  • “Cats have got tremendous strength...But the absence of claw marks absolutely made this not a cat kill.” (15:00–15:40)
• Medical Examiner Response: Defensive of their decision—point to their "seven board-certified examiners," refuse to change stance.
• (16:59) Charlie Scudder:
  • “From the moment he walked in, it was not a discussion. It was a defense...of the predetermined outcome that this was a wildlife attack.”

5. Jonah Evans: The Lone Dissent | The Paper Trail

• (17:26) Jonah calls in to listen—carefully documents concerns in a journal “to protect himself.”
• (18:13–19:11) Charlie explains how most wildlife experts saw any further involvement as inappropriate, suspecting homicide and not wanting to contaminate a crime scene.
• (20:10) Jonah recounts ME’s push to change the official statement to a "dog bite" despite lack of evidence.
• Jonah’s written account:
  • Highlights the “tense” atmosphere, lack of evidence for dog or mountain lion attack, and absence of classic animal attack signs—no defensive wounds, no parallel claw scratches, and details suggesting possible homicide.
  • Full read-aloud (20:39–22:47), excerpt:
    • “I’m really concerned about the possibility that a murderer is out there right now and has gotten away with this crime. ... No investigation was undertaken to find out.”

6. Forensic Dead Ends and Official Closure

• (26:15) DNA analysis on Christopher’s clothing finds only human DNA; two dog hairs located, yet easily explained by prior contacts.
• (28:05) Lt. Johnny Rose (Hood County Sheriff’s):
  • “What’s big enough to take down a man... would be a mountain lion, but I have no proof."
  • “Can a dog take you down? ... there’s no proof that it was a dog either.”
• (29:07) No predator returns to the site; camera only captures deer, falcons, and cows.
• (29:57) Toxicology: Christopher had methamphetamine in his blood (321 ng/ml), but it wasn’t a lethal amount.
• (30:12) January 21, 2021: ME certifies death as accidental animal attack. Case closed by the sheriff's office the next day.
• (30:12) Charlie:
  • “At the end of the day there was a killer out there. Right. Whether a person, animal, or something else—everyone agreed...the wounds could not have been self-inflicted.”

7. Lingering Uncertainty and Reporter's Pursuit

• (31:31) Charlie underscores the disturbing inaction:
  • “So we're not going to do anything about this. Right. Like nobody's going to make any movement to bring this person...or whatever to justice.”
• (32:29) The inability to agree on a cause of death or pursue further investigation means public safety is left unresolved.
• (32:52) Despite the official closure, Charlie’s personal investigation is only beginning—he files records requests and seeks more answers.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Mike Bodenchuk (14:22):
  “The sheriff's office said, 'You people are telling me it's one thing and these people are telling me another and you're making us look like idiots.'”
• Jonah Evans (20:39–22:47):
  “I’m really concerned about the possibility that a murderer is out there right now and has gotten away with this crime.”
• Charlie Scudder (30:12):
  “Everyone agreed that the wounds could not have been self-inflicted. So therefore, something did this.”
• Lt. Johnny Rose (28:05):
  “What’s big enough to take down a man... would be a mountain lion, but I have no proof...”

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:01 — Introduction of the two official sides and their conflicting narratives
• 03:08 — Jonah Evans explains mountain lion attack signatures
• 04:26–05:13 — Missed opportunity for DNA evidence; consequences and suspicions
• 07:10–08:22 — Reporter Charlie Scudder describes the moment dueling press releases upend the local news
• 11:09–15:43 — Scene at Tarrant County Medical Examiner: The meeting, the skull, and expert confrontation
• 16:59 — “Not a discussion, a defense” — Prejudgment and resistance to evidence
• 18:13–20:39 — Jonah’s meticulous journaling; experts’ homicide suspicions
• 20:39–22:47 — Detailed reading: Jonah’s post-meeting reflections and growing unease
• 28:05 — Sheriff's office admits lack of proof for any animal attack
• 30:12–31:31 — Case closed but unanswered; the unresolved danger lingers
• 32:52 — Charlie launches his own investigation as the law enforcement closes theirs

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Tone and Delivery

The episode maintains an investigative tone, marked by both professional rigor and a sense of deep frustration among the experts at the resistance to evidence and lack of cooperation. There is a persistent undercurrent of skepticism and urgency—both from the wildlife professionals and the journalists—contrasted by the defensiveness and bureaucratic inertia of law enforcement and forensic officials.

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Summary Takeaway

"The Showdown" powerfully illustrates how institutional tunnel vision, lost opportunities for basic forensic testing, and breakdowns in inter-agency trust can prevent justice—or even certainty. It leaves listeners with the chilling question: with all this confusion, is a killer really still out there?

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For expanded case files, photographs, and subsequent updates, visit unforgottenpod.com.

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End of summary.

Transcript

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[Wes Ferguson]

Okay, the lines are being drawn. On one side, you've got the sheriff's office in Hood County, Texas, blaming a mountain lion for the mauling death of Christopher Whiteley, making him the first fatal victim of a lion attack in state history. And the medical examiner who did Christopher's autopsy says, yeah, it probably was a mountain lion. And then on the other side, you have all the game wardens, trackers and wildlife biologists who look at the same kill site and the same injuries and say, there's absolutely no way. Where are the tracks, the claw marks? You know, there would be one simple way to settle this dispute once and for all. Why not swab Christopher's wound for DNA?

[Jonah Evans]

Hey, can you hear me now?

[Charlie Scudder]

I can hear you now. Can you hear me?

[Jonah Evans]

I can. Okay, good to meet you. You're Charlie?

[Charlie Scudder]

Yes. Charlie, nice to meet you.

[Wes Ferguson]

This is Jonah Evans on the phone with Charlie Scudder back when Charlie was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. Jonah is a biologist and wildlife tracker.

[Jonah Evans]

I got obsessed with animal track and sign stuff when I was about 18 years old and started studying with every expert I could find around the country.

[Wes Ferguson]

He's the co author of a book.

[Jonah Evans]

Co authored Animal Tracks and Sign of California.

[Wes Ferguson]

He's created smartphone apps to help people track and identify animals in the field. And he teaches his colleagues how to track wildlife, too.

[Jonah Evans]

Over 200 Texas Parks and wildlife biologists have gone through my courses.

[Wes Ferguson]

At the time of Christopher's death, Jonah was the state mammalogist for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. If you've never heard the word mammalogist, and I sure hadn't, it just means he specializes in mammals, specifically rare and threatened mammals like mountain lions. Jonah was sent the photos of Christopher around the same time the photos were first shared with Mike Bodenchuk the federal mountain lion expert you heard from in the last episode, to Jonah, looking at all the photos, it was abundantly clear that a mountain lion hadn't attacked Christopher for all the same reasons Mike has already mentioned.

[Jonah Evans]

You'd see significant claw marks, and then when they bite, they bite around the throat and they squeeze down to close the airway.

[Wes Ferguson]

Jonah says mountain lion bite marks are actually kind of small.

[Jonah Evans]

Oftentimes, it's really hard to even find the marks on the neck of a deer. Like, you have to kind of dig around in the hair and pull the hair aside to see these little canine marks where it went in. What you don't see is ripped, torn, exposed skin.

[Wes Ferguson]

In fact, Jonah was skeptical that an animal involved in Christopher's death in any way. He felt so strongly about that point, he didn't even want any Texas parks and wildlife biologists to visit the kill site at all.

[Jonah Evans]

When I saw the first photos of this, my initial concerns were, this is not a mountain lion. Our staff, if we go there, are going to be disturbing potential evidence of some other situation. And I spent, you know, that whole evening talking to people about it, evaluating photos, and I actually was trying to convince our other biologists not to go there. And then our leadership eventually decided that we should probably go there. We were invited. Law enforcement asked that we could go there and confirm and provide some expertise.

[Wes Ferguson]

It was Jonah who asked if someone could swab the wound for saliva, allowing them to conduct a DNA test. If a mountain lion really did attack Christopher, DNA would eliminate all doubt. But it was too late. The staff at the medical examiner's office had already given Christopher's body a thorough Washington wiping away any potential DNA. Later, the sheriff's office would claim that Christopher's body was bleached as a Covid precaution. Jonah was surprised the medical examiner would scrub Christopher's body so quickly, since from everything he could tell, they hadn't really determined the cause of death.

[Jonah Evans]

Had we been able to do a DNA swab of the bite, this would have been easily solved right away. If that was a bite.

[Wes Ferguson]

Instead, the drama was just getting started. From Free Range Productions in association with the Dallas Morning News, this is season four of the Unforgotten Killsite. I'm your host, Wes Ferguson, and this is episode three, the Showdown.

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I don't know if you really feel like remembering what was happening five years ago in December 2020 when Christopher Whiteley died, but there was a lot of tumultuous stuff going on in our country back then. You had the COVID 19 pandemic. And there were spikes in deaths all over the country. There was the rollout of vaccines. And we also just had the presidential election. Like a lot of people at the time. Charlie Scudder was working from home.

[Charlie Scudder]

I was breaking news reporter at the Dallas Morning News, and I was on Saturday shift that day. We had a bunch of like, had to do stories that we did every week. Covid numbers, you know, new cases, that kind of thing. And then it was just troll around, see what's happening, if any press releases come in, write them up, that kind of thing. And we got one pretty quick from the county sheriff's office saying that someone had been killed in an animal attack by a possible mountain lion. And that's news. That that itself was big news. And I remember looking back, like hindsight 20 20, it should have been even bigger news because that's so rare. But I remember the original thing of just guy got attacked by mountain lion, that being a story. And I wrote up that quick, brief story, just like three paragraphs or something like that posted to the web.

[Wes Ferguson]

Charlie filed his write up and finished his Saturday shift. One day later, another news release crossed his desk. This one was from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and it directly contradicted the message Hood county had just put out. Parks and Wildlife said there was no evidence whatsoever that a mountain lion had attacked Christopher. I'll just be honest. This kind of high profile, direct conflict is catnip for journalists.

[Charlie Scudder]

The Parks and Wildlife press release came out that said we disagree. And that's rare.

[Mike Bodenchuk]

Right?

[Charlie Scudder]

Like, that doesn't happen that you have two agencies investigating the same case and coming to wildly different conclusions. I remember thinking at the time, like, give it a couple days, they'll shake it out. Like.

[Wes Ferguson]

But I don't know. I mean, to have two different public agencies, you know, one on the county level, to publicly, you know, be in disagreement is not unheard of, but I think would be pretty rare because they're all scrambling behind the scenes to put on kind of a unified face.

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[Wes Ferguson]

So to me, that was really remarkable.

[Charlie Scudder]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I should say, like, at the time I was thinking, oh, they'll sort it out. And then when they didn't, that's when my kind of red flag started to go up. We know now that behind the scenes there was chaos of them trying to figure out how do we, you know, how do we tell reporters like me what is going on and what we actually think about this, because it was just such dramatically different conclusions.

[Wes Ferguson]

You have to keep in Mind. All of this is happening over the weekend and it's the top story around.

[News Anchor]

Now to a death investigation in Texas where authorities are at odds over whether a 28 year old man died in an attack from a mountain lion.

[Charlie Scudder]

The body of Christopher Allen Whiteley was found.

[Wes Ferguson]

There's now a debate over exactly what.

[Charlie Scudder]

Happened to him here.

[News Anchor]

The entire investigation is still under wraps, but we can tell tell you that now the sheriff's office and the Parks and Wildlife departments are at odds over what really happened here and whether or not they can label his death a predatory attack. None of the evidence reviewed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department indicates an attack by a mountain lion or other wild animal.

[Mike Bodenchuk]

That's their opinion. I guess everybody's got one and I've got to go off of facts. But the facts that I have are it shows a, it wasn't done by a knife, a gun or anything like that. I believe it to be a large cat.

[Wes Ferguson]

The disagreement between the Sheriff's office and Texas Parks and Wildlife has spilled into the public and it's not a great look. On Monday, Mike Bodenchuk, the federal mountain light expert, was back in Fort Worth where Christopher's body was still being held in the office of the Tarrant County Medical examiner.

[Charlie Scudder]

This was a few days after Christopher's body had been found, after those competing press releases had been released. Mike Bodenchuk is the guy when it comes to mountain lions in this region. He's trapped him, he's tagged him, he's, he knows mountain lions like nobody else. And he was one of the people who was called to the scene and to go look for evidence and at the time possibly track and trap this mountain lion, this alleged mountain lion. And he quickly came to the conclusion that many of the wildlife biologists did before they even got to the scene. Like this is very, very unlikely. Pushes back a bunch of wildlife officials. Texas Parks and Wildlife pushes back and says, hang on, hang on, we're not quite sure about this. Tarrant County Medical examiner is moving full steam with what they have.

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Even so, the opposing sides do agree to meet.

[Charlie Scudder]

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office, the Hood County Sheriff's Department, at least one game warden from Parks and Wildlife and Mike Bodenchuk decide to meet at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office.

[Wes Ferguson]

Mike actually has a mountain lion skull that he brings with him.

[Charlie Scudder]

He's walking through downtown Fort Worth with this mountain lion skull tucked under his arm and carries it in just to show them, kind of he wants to show them what the bite mark would look like and as a, you know, like an educational tool, like he does. And they bring him in, you know, again, Covid time, I guess, get all checked out, make sure he's all gowned up. They have to put on all this, you know, the ppe. They go into the back and there's Christopher's body. And he wasn't expecting that. He said that they thought they were going to just have a chat. He didn't know that they were going to be right there. So that was jarring for him to step in and see that. And the meeting got pretty heated pretty fast.

[Mike Bodenchuk]

That meeting started almost hostilely.

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[Wes Ferguson]

You went into that meeting and it was kind of hostile from the get go. Do you remember what was said to you that gave you that impression?

[Mike Bodenchuk]

The sheriff's office said, you people are telling me it's one thing and these people are telling me another and you're making us look like idiots.

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This is Mike Bodenchuk again.

[Mike Bodenchuk]

Then the examiner said, look, I've got these Seven people, and they're all board certified. And you don't know what you're talking about. And then we started talking. But that was the. That was the premise from the start. I knew I was poking my finger in their eye, but I. I don't know a lot, but I know a lot about mountain lions. And so I wasn't going to change my opinion. To make them feel better about theirs.

[Wes Ferguson]

Mike showed them his mountain lion skull.

[Mike Bodenchuk]

Cats have got tremendous strength. Jaw bones, for their length are very, very thick and strong. But not only the spacing of the canines, but the. I'll call it bite radius. How much was bitten makes a difference. And we had that conversation in that setting, in that room. I showed them he can only open his mouth this wide. This is a lion's skull. This is how wide. They don't know mountain lions any more than I know homicide. But the absence of claw marks absolutely made this not a cat kill.

[Wes Ferguson]

Did the bring in the skull help?

[Mike Bodenchuk]

It helped me illustrate my point. I don't know if they'd already considered that or not. It's hard to talk about bite radius without a visual.

[Wes Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Charlie Scudder]

He used the skull to show that the bite marks didn't match, that you couldn't even open the jaws wide enough to make it work. And the officials from the medical examiner's office were holding their ground. Hood county, from what I understand, Hood county was kind of, oh, well, we'll just do whatever. I'll do what they say. And between Boat and Chuck and the wildlife officials and Tarrant County Medical Examiner's office, there was a lot of back and forth. And Bodenchuk finally said, I can tell you definitively this is not a mountain lion. And they said, well, do you have expertise in. Or you don't have expertise in human attacks, do you? And he said, no, but I can tell you that this is not a mountain lion. Well, do you have expertise in other animals, like dog attacks? He admitted, no, I don't have expertise in dog attacks. I said, okay, so it could have been another animal. And that's what they went with.

[Wes Ferguson]

I think in your story, you said, like, even when the meeting started, it was already clear they had made up their minds.

[Charlie Scudder]

Yes, from the moment he walked in, it was not a discussion. It was a defense. Wow. It was a defense of the predetermined outcome that this was a wildlife attack.

[Wes Ferguson]

And the whole time that this tense meeting is going on, you have Texas Parks and Wildlife state mammalologist Jonah Evans listening in.

[Charlie Scudder]

That's right.

[Wes Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Charlie Scudder]

Jonah was on the phone I called.

[Jonah Evans]

In for that one.

[Wes Ferguson]

That's Jonah again, from his interview with Charlie for the Dallas Morning News.

[Jonah Evans]

I was on the phone. The rest of them were in the presence of the body. And it seemed like there was a lot of concern that there was different stories coming out from different places.

[Charlie Scudder]

Joan is another person who, if you want someone in Texas to talk about cougars, he's the guy. There were a lot of experts in that room who rightfully, I think, said very clearly, this was. This could not. There's. There is no way that this could have been a male attack. There's just no way.

[Wes Ferguson]

And you were able to get his journal where he chronicled all of these concerns.

[Charlie Scudder]

He very quickly realized this could eventually be a problem, I think, even thinking about possible legal repercussions down the road, because, let's face it, if they're saying they. Most of the wildlife experts believed this is certainly not a wildlife attack. Therefore, without saying it directly, it has to be human. This has to be murder. So many of them didn't even want to go to the scene because they're like, we're not csi. We don't want to touch any evidence. We don't want to have anything to do with this. This is a murder. And Jonah started taking copious notes and a really, really full journal. I think in part to protect himself. You know, I didn't ask him this straight up, but, like, he wanted a record of everything that was said in case something happened down the line and, you know, he was called to talk about it.

[Wes Ferguson]

I mean, that's a smart way to cover yourself.

[Charlie Scudder]

Yeah. Yes.

[Wes Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Charlie Scudder]

Get those receipts.

[Wes Ferguson]

In his notes from the meeting, which Charlie acquired through a public information request, Jonah wrote that the mood was tense since Jonah refused to agree that a mountain lion killed Christopher. They asked if he would change the Parks and Wildlife Department's official statement to indicate that his neck wound could have come from a dog bite. But Jonah had seen plenty of dog bites in his career, and he didn't think this was a bite. Jonah even asked what evidence they had for the dog bite, and apparently they didn't have any. This is what Jonah wrote word for word. They loudly restated the qualifications of all the people in the room and said they have reviewed hundreds of dog bites and that they are never wrong and that there is absolutely no way this was a homicide or suicide. Then another person said, let me address the elephant in the room here. We are all looking like a bunch of idiots right now, and we need to come together around this being a Dog bite. And here's what Jonah told them. He said that if someone would take the time to review the evidence with him, and if he found it convincing, he would consider changing the Parks and Wildlife statement.

[Jonah Evans]

I offered to have a detailed conversation about the evidence. You know, if somebody wants to educate me about what details you're seeing that are different than what I'm seeing, I'd be more than happy to have that discussion. But that was never followed up on.

[Wes Ferguson]

This is what Jonah wrote right afterward, and, well, I'm just going to read it to you. Here he is. I left the meeting questioning whether the people running the meeting were more concerned with finding out the true cause of death or whether their reputation would be damaged if they retracted their original statement. Perhaps the concern is that if it is a homicide, they may have severely mishandled the case. The biggest concern to me is that the sheriff's office and the medical Examiner's office are now ardent that this is a dog bite. However, the evidence appears very shaky. There isn't a clear pattern of canine teeth that would enable a spread measurement. Also, the victim was found shirtless, but is completely lacking any defensive wounds, such as bites to his hands or arms. His body is covered in scratches from the brush, but no parallel scratches that would suggest claws. Also, no signs of a struggle. There was a major puddle of blood fairly close to where the body was found, with blood also spattered on nearby vegetation. I was told that the victim's pant legs were covered with blood from waist to knees, but not below the knees. This seems to imply the victim may have been kneeling. Also, the neck wound appears very haphazard and random, and I find myself unable to shake the possibility that this was a homicide. Perhaps it was even done intentionally to try to look like a bite wound. I don't think I can 100% rule out the possibility of a dog bite, but it is so difficult to imagine how it could have happened. Why were there no other bites on the body? How could a dog tear out a person's throat without leaving tracks or signs of a struggle? It just doesn't easily add up. And I don't understand how the sheriff's office and the ME could so quickly rule out a homicide. I'm really concerned about the possibility that a murderer is out there right now and has gotten away with this crime. Also, even if it is a dog bite, the dog may have been intentionally directed to attack the victim or the owner of the dog could be negligent in allowing a dangerous animal to roam free. Regardless, no investigation was undertaken to find out.

[Jonah Evans]

They said the case is closed as an animal attack. And that was sort of their final word on it. We did not have much communication with them. I never had the sheriff, the responding officer, you know, call me and ask me and, you know, for a lot of information. And I don't know that the other wildlife experts did either.

[Charlie Scudder]

Why do you think folks were so adamant to keep on this, this idea?

[Jonah Evans]

You know, it's, it was, it's actually, I mean, it's not right for me to speculate about that. I don't, I don't. Yeah, I don't think I know what's in their head.

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[Wes Ferguson]

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[Wes Ferguson]

His journal, I get the impression that Jonah was pretty disillusioned with the medical examiners, the sheriff, and the whole process when their big meeting ended. Mike Bodenchuk, on the other hand, feels like they made some progress that day. Did you get the sense that they were finally coming around here?

[Mike Bodenchuk]

Yes. Yes.

[Wes Ferguson]

The autopsy had shown that Christopher didn't have any trauma to his trachea, commonly called the windpipe. And this had been an important clue for Mike. In his experience, a large animal bite would have crushed the windpipe. And this was one of the main reasons he didn't believe an animal had killed Christopher. But the medical examiner staff argued that human windpipes are flexible, and Christopher's windpipe, not being crushed really couldn't rule out the animal attack theory. From what I've read, this is pretty unlikely, but it is possible. With that in mind, he agreed to defer to the expertise of the medical examiner team. There were still a few more loose ends to tie up. They'd missed their chance to search for DNA on Christopher's wounds, but Mike said the sheriff's office could send off some of Christopher's nail clippings, his clothes and boots, to the USDA's National Wildlife Research center for analysis. There seemed to have been some tears and possible bite marks on the pockets of Christopher's jeans, so the lab swabbed those for DNA as well. All they found was human DNA. The report doesn't say if it was Christopher's DNA or someone else's. More than a month had passed since Christopher's death, and there was already mold growing on his pants, which could have hurt their chances of finding animal saliva, if there was any. They also found four hairs, two on Christopher's jeans and two on his boots. Two of the hairs were human, but one of the hairs on his jeans and one of the hairs on his boots turned out to belong to a domestic dog. Maybe this was important. Or maybe not, since Christopher sometimes stayed at a house with small dogs. Sheriff's Lt. Johnny Rose was skeptical.

[Johnny Rose]

What's big enough to take down a man, you know, in this area would be a mountain lion, but I have no proof it's a mountain lion.

[Wes Ferguson]

This Is from an interview Johnny did with freelance journalist Morgan o' hanlon back in 2021.

[Johnny Rose]

Can a dog take you down? Take a grown man down? I don't know that that's possible. It could, you know, maybe steal an animal and, you know, there's no proof that it was a dog either.

[Wes Ferguson]

During their visit to the kill site, the wildlife professionals had placed a motion activated game camera to see if anything ever came back looking for their prey. Mike even placed a dead beaver over the kill site, Beaver being a favorite snack of mountain lions. One of the game wardens also canvassed the surrounding woods for several hours with his search dog, Woodrow, but they found nothing of value. Apparently, Christopher's missing shirt was long gone because it was never recovered. Over the next week, the only animals that showed up on the game camera were deer, falcons, and cows. The sheriff's office had also requested a toxicology test of Christopher's body. He tested positive for methamphetamines, amphetamines, and trace thc. I don't know if this will mean anything to you, but he had 321 nanograms per milliliter of meth in his blood. From what I've read, that's enough to get you high, but it's not crazy. And it's nowhere close to a toxic or lethal amount of drugs, Even if you factor in the few days between the time that Christopher died and when the test was happening. Of course, Christopher had that horrible neck wound and the tiny scratches all over his body probably caused from running through the brush. But everything else checked out normal. And despite the ugly punctures to his throat, there was no blunt or sharp force trauma to his neck cartilage or his hyoid bone, the small U shaped bone that often breaks when a victim is strangled or throttled. On January 21, 2021, about a month and a half after Christopher was killed, his death was certified as an accident, that he was attacked by an animal of some sort. One day later, the sheriff's office announced to the public that it had closed its investigation. Here's Charlie again.

[Charlie Scudder]

We got the updated press release that was from hood county, and they said the autopsy is done. We've concluded it was an animal attack. And they said in their press release, Parks and wildlife still disagrees with us, but we're going ahead with what we think. And that's, you know, weird, right? Like the fact. The fact that they called it out, like they could have easily just let it go. Not mention the fact that parks and wildlife had a different Conclusion I probably would have, would have still raised an eyebrow, but not as big of a one. But when you have two officials, three or four at that point, because you also have the Tarrant county medical examiner, USDA got involved, all kind of at odds. That's weird. And especially when it's a, a death.

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Yeah.

[Charlie Scudder]

Right. Like at the end of the day there was a killer out there. Right. Whether it was a person or an animal or something else, everyone agreed that those, the wounds could not have been self inflicted. So therefore something did this too.

[Wes Ferguson]

A killer was on the loose.

[Charlie Scudder]

Yeah, exactly. And, and if it was an animal, our protocol is to go find that animal trap and put that animal down. That's unusual behavior. And if there's a killer mountain lion on the loose, we go get that mountain lion. Right. And that was not happening. If this was a homicide, there's usually an investigation to find that killer. Right. And that wasn't happening. So immediately it was like this. So we're not going to do anything about this. Right. Like nobody's going to make any movement to bring this person or persons or animals or whatever to justice. I guess trying to imagine bringing a mountain lion into court, but.

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[Charlie Scudder]

Which is part of what complicates this whole thing because you can't really say definitively it was one kind of death or another because there nobody could agree on it.

[Jonah Evans]

Right.

[Charlie Scudder]

But yeah, it just immediately was like, okay, this, this needs some, I need some time and space for this. So I immediately, when they said the case was closed, shot out a bunch of records, requests to the Hood County Sheriff's Office, the USDA Wildlife Service and Texas Parks and Wildlife. I reached out to some of my sources in Texas Parks and Wildlife who were at the scene, who visited the scene to talk a little bit about what they remembered and started chasing it down.

[Wes Ferguson]

The sheriff's office might have concluded its investigation, but Charlie's was just heating up. That's next time on the Unforgotten Foreign. Thank you for listening to the Unforgotten to dig deeper into the story and see photos, case files and more, check out our [e-mail] the Unforgotten is a free range production. Season 4 kill site was produced here at Free Range in association with the Dallas Morning News. Editing by Aislin Gaddis Sound design and audio engineering from Austin Sisler with Eastside Studios. Charlie Scudder and I are executive producers. Special thanks to Morgan O'. Hanlon. Don't forget on forgottenpod.com, see you soon.

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[Wes Ferguson]

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