Sarah Kaelin (17:23)
This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On a perfectly crisp, clear morning in April 2025, I am back in Washington, this time with forensic anthropologist Marion Davidson in tow we're driving down the SeaTac strip straight to the Schmidt family farm. For this first day, I mainly want to walk the old Schmidt family farm and surrounding area with Marian so that she can get an idea of the landscape, the soil, the layout of the farm versus adjacent properties. And of course, start laying eyes on where these mines are supposed to be hidden among the heavy growth forest, rushing creek and steep rocky hillsides. I'm very excited about the potential value of a trip like this, but it has all come together really quickly. From the airport, Marion and I drive right to the farm. The busy highway gives way to a two lane road. We pass a few working farms and then reach the small road that leads to the farm. I slow down as we approach the driveway, remembering it's a sharp right turn onto gravel. All right, so this is the farm. Okay, I have all new people for you. Aaron and Lindsay, the current landowners, are waiting for us outside. We make introductions, then Marion gets right down to business. We've got two days. There is no time to waste. I want to see the mine same. Marion and I have been doing quite a bit of research on the property. Property. And we've discussed the tips I've received. In Marian's experience, any kind of overgrown mine could definitely be a dumping spot. For one very simple reason. Why dig if you don't have to dig? Digging is hard work. Even a shallow grave is backbreaking. Time consuming labor under the best of circumstances and messy. Contrary to what movies might lead us to believe, if someone's trying to quickly and discreetly get rid of a body, it's a hell of a lot easier to use some kind of pre existing hiding spot than to dig a fresh grave. For her part, Marian's been digging into the types of mines in this area. No pun intended. She hasn't worked a case like this one before. In preparing to fly out here, she did extensive research and spoke with colleagues all over the world who had excavated mines for clandestine graves before. So that she knew how to prepare and what to expect. From there, she researched the mines specific to western Washington. The types, the sizes, the protocols for excavating. She is a research scientist in every sense of the term. And though she has questions that can't really be answered until we're on the ground, she tells me that she's starting to get a handle on what it might take. I am relying on her expertise completely. So now it's my turn to ask questions. What kind of mines exist in this part of Washington? What are we looking for? Most of the Mines out here were for coal. There are other things that can be mined, but I said most of them are for coal. And most of the entrances looked huge, big enough for teams of people to walk into them. Now, this is just Marion's general research on the area. The tips I received talked about mine shafts, specifically the kind a person could fall into. Maybe we're looking for a combination. We start walking. From what I've been told about specific mines that may have been close to the farm and accessible in 1992, we need to head closer to the creek. It's down a steep hill bordering the edge of the original property. We walk along the road for about five minutes, curving to the left, then to the right. As we work our way down, we're shrouded by enormous tall trees on both sides. Sides. This is the kind of forest I've always imagined covering large swaths of the Pacific Northwest. When we arrive in the general area referenced in the anonymous tips, we're staring up at a hillside so high and steep, it damn near feels like a small mountain. We're definitely in the right place. But how can this be? How could anyone, even two people, successfully navigate this evergreen and thick brush covered terrain, straight uphill in the dead of night carrying a body? Very helpfully, Aaron, the homeowner actually found an old map of the mines. He found this from 1932. These are the mines, and this is not a road. He thinks this is like the tunnel. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like underground. This is the bridge. That is the mine. Wow. Side note, I'm definitely recruiting Aaron to my investigative team. As I'm looking over the map, Marion's already gearing up. This overlay map is showing a spot just southeast of us that actually has a small flat area we can get to without too much difficulty, we think anyway. And that appears to be the spot where a mine entrance was once semi exposed. So this is the ridge. It's literally like right up there. I want to walk up there. Okay. We start climbing. It's not as steep as the other spot, but it is still completely, completely overgrown. And it's difficult to get good footing. Oh, you all right? Short. Too short. The terrain is tough. Luckily and uncharacteristically, it hasn't rained at all in the previous few days, so it's not really muddy. But balance is still tricky because the brush is so thick, I can't actually see the gray ground I'm trying to get a foothold on. At a certain point, it's just too hard to Navigate at my height and without the right boots and gloves. Marion keeps going on her own. Like, it should be literally, like right there. Marian is better equipped and she makes it to the flat spot we're interested in. But even so, she too is concerned about taking a wrong step when she can't see the earth under her feet through all the thick growth and plant debris. After all, the entire reason we're looking here is that we believe there are mines with obscured openings that one could easily drop or drag something or fall into. She's moving pretty hesitantly, and I can't blame her one bit. Marion eventually comes back down panting. No luck. So all of the old coal mine photos are like, the entrances were like as big as a shed. They were huge.
