Part 7: Kyle

Summary

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Wild Boys – Part 7: Kyle — Detailed Episode Summary

Podcast: Wild Boys (Chameleon, Campside Media / Sony Music Entertainment)
Episode: Part 7: Kyle
Host: Sam Mullins
Release Date: September 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

In Part 7, the podcast finally zeroes in on Kyle, the enigmatic older brother whose presence and motivations have long loomed over the Wild Boys tale. Sam Mullins sets out to find and interview Kyle, seeking to reconcile the vast difference between how the people of Vernon, the brothers’ family, and Rowan himself view Kyle. Is he a misled conspiracist, a cold manipulator, or a fiercely loyal protector? Through persistent effort, Sam gains unprecedented access to the Horne family and, after several near-misses, sits down with Kyle for a rare interview. The episode is an exploration of Kyle’s philosophies, family dynamics, the calculated runaway plan that landed the brothers in Canada, and the core values that drove one of the wildest deceptions in small-town Canadian history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rowan’s Unwavering Trust in Kyle

• Rowan recounts fleeing authorities and instinctively seeking out Kyle:
  • "Everything boils down to survival. That's why I had to run away." – Rowan ([01:19])
  • Rowan trusted only Kyle fully, excluding everyone else as potential confidantes ([02:06]).
• Rowan views Kyle as a hero: "If you understand Kyle's intentions and motives, you'll see there's no wrongdoing, nothing he needs to account for. If anything, he deserves a heroic badge of honor for being a protector." – Rowan ([03:09])
• The contrast is set: Rowan idolizes Kyle as his savior, while the Vernon community and even family have deep reservations or outright distrust.

2. The Chase for Kyle: Reluctance and Family Dynamics

• Sam travels to Nevada hoping to interview Kyle and the family, but Kyle disappears for work ("gerbil supplement farm"), and the parents bow out last minute ([04:14]).
• After a 5.5 hour interview with Rowan, Diana hesitatingly agrees to talk, then calls Kyle to encourage him to meet Sam ([06:54]).
  • "It's best if your point of view comes out in the story instead of people just judging you and guessing your intentions." — Diana (voicemail to Kyle, [06:54])
• Initial efforts fail, but on the verge of giving up, Sam receives a call from Kyle in Arizona, inviting an interview ([07:30–08:51]).

3. Meeting Kyle: First Impressions and Interview Atmosphere

• The meeting is set at a Sheraton in Mesa, Arizona. Kyle is guarded, bringing his own camcorder to record for "accountability," making Sam and team slightly unnerved ([10:19–10:55]).
  • "Keep you guys accountable. I don’t know you guys too well, so..." – Kyle ([10:51])
• Kyle pivots the interview, asking Sam about his background and establishing common ground over Vernon ([11:16–11:30]).
• The "gerbil farm" rumor is dismissed as telephone game nonsense ([12:01]).

4. Kyle’s Intellectual Path and Online Obsessions

• After high school, Kyle rejects mainstream education and culture to focus obsessively on "studying"—diving deep into internet rabbit holes, alternate science, and conspiracy ([15:16–15:43]).
  • "I would just literally study my whole days. And I don’t think there’s a lot of people who can do that, but I can. And it’s a blessing." – Kyle ([15:22])
• He becomes a self-styled seeker of "Truth," believing himself to see through global hoaxes while ironically being later accused of perpetrating one ([16:01]).
  • "I actually spend a lot of my life getting to the bottom of hoaxes and false deceits in the world." – Kyle ([16:01])
• Notable beliefs: Bible as a hoax, constructing alternative models of the universe, radical distrust of all established institutions.
  • "It's a complete hoax, completely mistranslated." – Kyle on the Bible ([16:29])
• Increasing extremity led his family to worry about his mental health; Diana said in an old interview: "Some of his ideas became so extreme, we wondered if Kyle was Ben a Leo." ([17:20])

5. Paranoia, Survivalism, and Pre-Canada Life

• Kyle’s preoccupation with doomsday scenarios and conspiracies led to physical and dietary experiments (rainbow diet, living off-grid plans) ([18:15]).
  • Diana: "He was doing things with color. I’m going to eat some kind of rainbow diet. Maybe on this day I’ll eat red and on this day all blue..." ([18:15])
• Documented radical statements: Kyle believed he was a prophet, planned to survive global catastrophe, and mused that urban populations would perish ([17:42], [18:25]).
• Anti-government notes led his mother to call the authorities, fearing he was a threat ([18:49–19:13]).

6. Kyle’s “Core Value”: Uncompromising Personal Freedom

• Brother Gabriel explains Kyle’s worldview: "Extreme personal freedom is more important than life or death. So how do you debate that with somebody?" ([21:16])
• This philosophy is Kyle’s compass; protecting Rowan from forced hospitalization became a moral imperative.
  • "If you see the world through Kyle’s 23-year-old eyes, there was no other choice. Of course he took Rowan to Canada." – Sam ([22:47])
  • "I’m the kind of person who’ll side with freedom." – Kyle ([24:02])

7. The Escape Plan: Night Runs, Camping, and Getting to Canada

• Rowan hides in the woods near the family home; Kyle supplies him covertly, bringing fruits and gear at night ([25:05–25:41]).
• The brothers plan their departure; cousin Jared is recruited to drive them close to the Canadian border ([27:51–28:12]).
  • Sam tries to confirm details, but Kyle stays mum: "Well, I’ll let Jared confirm." ([28:12])
• Jared is described as "not a normie," reflecting the brothers' penchant for unconventional allies ([28:29]).

8. Border Crossing: Nerve, Instinct, and Self-Assurance

• The boys, with minimal supplies and no ID, approach the Osoyoos crossing—a risky move post-9/11 ([29:14–31:08]).
• Kyle’s self-assurance his defining feature: "It’s hard to explain. I knew we can walk right across. You just gotta trust certain instincts." – Kyle ([32:04])
• Confidently, the brothers stride between the cars and cross the 49th parallel undetected ([32:11–32:25]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Kyle’s Motives:
  • "If you understand Kyle's intentions and motives, you'll see there's no wrongdoing, nothing he needs to account for. If anything, he deserves a heroic badge of honor for being a protector." – Rowan ([03:09])
• On Self-Study:
  • "I would just literally study my whole days. And I don’t think there’s a lot of people who can do that, but I can. And it’s a blessing." – Kyle ([15:22])
• On Hoaxes:
  • "I actually spend a lot of my life getting to the bottom of hoaxes and false deceits in the world." – Kyle ([16:01])
• On Family Worries:
  • "Some of his ideas became so extreme, we wondered if Kyle was Ben a Leo." – Diana ([17:20])
• On Radical Freedom:
  • "Extreme personal freedom is more important than life or death." – Gabriel ([21:16])
• On Becoming Rowan’s Protector:
  • "He knows I’m not the kind of person who would, you know, like, ‘Oh, the authorities say, you know, you have to be locked up.’ I’m the kind of person who’ll side with freedom." – Kyle ([24:02])
• On Crossing Into Canada:
  • "I knew we can walk right across. You just gotta trust certain instincts." – Kyle ([32:04])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|--------------------| | 01:11 | Rowan flees and seeks out Kyle | | 03:09 | Rowan’s defense of Kyle as a hero | | 04:25 | Kyle's absence due to ‘gerbil supplement farm’ | | 06:54 | Diana’s voicemail urging Kyle to talk to Sam | | 08:51 | Kyle finally agrees to interview in Arizona | | 10:01 | First meeting with Kyle at Sheraton | | 12:01 | Kyle rebuts rumor about the gerbil farm | | 15:16 | Kyle’s obsessive study habits explained | | 16:01 | Kyle discusses his drive to uncover truth and hoaxes | | 17:20 | Family recounts concerns over Kyle’s mental health | | 18:15 | Kyle experiments with diet and color | | 19:01 | Diana calls authorities over Kyle’s anti-police statement | | 21:16 | Gabriel explains Kyle’s philosophy of personal freedom | | 24:02 | Kyle explains his resistance to authority over Rowan | | 25:05 | Kyle and Rowan’s first nights of planning the escape | | 27:51 | Cousin Jared’s role in driving them to the border | | 32:04 | Kyle’s confidence in crossing into Canada |

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Takeaways & Episode Tone

Part 7 of Wild Boys is reflective, sometimes tense, and richly psychological. It provides critical context to Kyle’s character, neither vilifying nor exonerating him, but painting a nuanced portrait of radical conviction, ideological insularity, and unorthodox compassion. This episode reframes the infamous “wild boys” incident less as a random fraud and more as the foreseeable product of one brother’s unwavering commitment to his core beliefs—no matter how fringe or risky.

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For further episodes, subscribe to The Binge or follow Wild Boys on your podcast platform of choice.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Host]

Hi, binge crew. When you're finished listening to this true crime story, go see Hunting Matthew Nichols in theaters. This film has all the elements of the true crime stories we a sprawling mystery, intrepid investigators, powerful people who know more than they let on. Two decades after her brother mysteriously disappeared on Vancouver Island, a documentary filmmaker sets out to solve his missing person's case. But when a disturbing piece of evidence is revealed, she comes to believe her brother might still be alive. The film is in select theaters now, but you can immerse yourself in the story by going to huntingmatthewnickolls.com right now. That's huntingmatthewnichols.com and welcome to the hunt.

[Producer/Interviewer]

What is. What do you want me to say?

[Kyle]

You have found Chameleon Season three Wild

[Announcer]

Boys a production of Campside Media.

[Kyle]

Oh,

[Producer/Interviewer]

a heads up. This show contains discussions of an eating disorder. If you or someone you know is struggling with eating disorders, please listen with care.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

When Rowan was peeling his orange in the family kitchen and saw the uniformed officer at the front door, he ran without a second thought.

[Rowan]

Everything boils down to survival.

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

That's why I had to run away.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

He didn't have an elaborate plan for what would come next. He just knew he had to run.

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

I just didn't think that far ahead. I just, like, ran, ran behind some building complex, behind some bushes, and in

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

the bushes he waited, his mind still racing as the morning sun swung high above him before eventually dipping behind the trees. Several anxious hours later, when it was finally dark, Rowan crept out of the bushes, not knowing exactly what to do, but knowing exactly who. Who would. Rowan made his way across the manicured lawns of suburbia, slinking through the dark all the way back to his house, where he snuck into the backyard and crept up to his brother's window.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Was there anyone else that you would

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

consider, like, tapping on their door?

[Rowan]

No, just Kyle. Yeah, Kyle's the only person I trusted fully.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Roan trusted Kyle with the same conviction that Vernon would come to distrust him. Completely out of touch with how serious the situation was. Being a good, likely sociopath that he was. Always had an answer. Felt like he was brainwashing him. He had a somewhat kind of detached kind of coldness.

[Interviewer]

I thought, you know, this is a kid that's got some real problems. I think you'd have to spend a lot of time with him to really be able to understand. I just. I don't know.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

I don't know. Spending time with Kyle is exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to understand this enigma Especially after talking to Rowan. The gap between how the people of Vernon saw Kyle and how Rowan sees Kyle was, let's say, vast.

[Rowan]

If you understand Kyle's intentions and motives, you'll see there's no. No wrongdoing, nothing he needs to account for. If anything, he deserves a heroic badge of honor for being a protector.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

So while I had Rowan on the line, I put the feelers out to see if there was a possibility Kyle would talk to me.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Does Kyle live in town?

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Do you. Do you see him a lot?

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

He lives with me.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Oh, is that right?

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

That's so cool. I would love to talk to him too.

[Rowan]

Yeah, I'm sure he'd love to talk with you.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

The rest of the family would be down to talk too. Rowan said. So we booked a flight to Nevada, where the plan was to talk to Rowan, Kyle and Diana and Roger, their parents. But when I arrived, the plan immediately fell apart. We heard from a friend of Rowan's that Kyle left town shortly after we arrived and. And was working out of state for a guy with a supplement company and who had other stuff going on, like

[Kyle]

a farm or something. And this guy likes gerbils and he wants to get like literally 800 gerbils. And I was like, to do what with.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Okay, so bummer, no Kyle on account of the gerbil supplement farm. And then I found out that Diana and Roger suddenly were out too. So we came home all this way and now we just had Rowan. But he promised that if our conversation went well, he'd vouch for us and try and get his mom to talk to us. So after a marathon five and a half hour conversation with Rowan, he says

[Rowan]

through tears, I'm giving you guys a good rating. I. I will tell my. I will tell my mom to do the interview.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Later that night, though, we're informed that even with Rowan's endorsement, Diana's still not interested. But then, a lucky break.

[Producer/Interviewer]

We're in front of like this hot springs joint.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

After our interview with Rowan, he accidentally forgot to take off his lavalier mic. So we arranged to meet with Roger, the boy's dad, in the hot springs parking lot to get our mic back. I knew that if I was going to convince him and his wife Diana to talk with us, thus keeping the dream of talking to Kyle alive, this would be my final opportunity to give my impassioned plea. It was a traditional high stakes handoff situation. A near empty parking lot. Both cars parked not at all between the lines. The gift shop employees of the hot springs peering through the Windows being like, are those guys coming in? Should I start the paperwork for a towel rental?

[Producer/Interviewer]

This conversation is going longer than I anticipated.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

My producer, Aboukar, watched the conversation with Roger through the windshield. It was a desperate and sweaty performance like all other Sam Mullins monologues before it.

[Producer/Interviewer]

I think he may be convincing him. Oh, my God, there's a lot of laughing. Sam is coming back. I think he may have done it. I think he may.

[Diana]

Did you do it?

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

What a sweet guy.

[Kyle]

Okay.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Truly. Later that night, I get a voice message on Facebook. I hit play.

[Diana]

Hi, Sam, this is Diana. And I have decided to meet with you tomorrow at 10 in the morning.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

So we talk along with Diana the next day, and it goes great. And I tell her I just honestly can't imagine telling this story without Kyle. So at the end of our interview, she borrows her husband's phone and calls Kyle to leave a message.

[Diana]

Hey, Kyle, we're really hoping you'll meet with Sam. They're very nice. You know, it's best if your point of view comes out in the story instead of people just judging you and guessing your intentions. Please consider meeting with them. I'd like you to call us and let us know. Okay, bye.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

And I felt so confident that he'd call us. I mean, if my mom tells me to call someone, I do. But we don't hear from him. No call, no Kyle.

[Producer/Interviewer]

How we may have lost Kyle May. Because we don't know definitively why.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Oh, we've lost Kyle. I sound like Eeyore there. And honestly, I felt like Eeyore booking my flight home for the next day, too. I packed my bags, I swam in the pool. My huevos rancheros the next morning had an air of finality to them. We hop in the rental car and we start driving through the Nevada desert toward the airport when my phone rings in Arizona. Number Kyle. Yeah. And based on whether or not you were interested in talking to us, we were gonna either come to you or I was gonna fly back to Canada. Kyle says, come to Arizona. Okay. Okay, perfect. Well, thanks so much, Kyle. And we'll. Yeah, we'll be in touch later today. So we make plans to fly to Phoenix, where we hope we'll finally get to sit across from the most mysterious piece of the puzzle. I'm Sam Mullins, and from Campside Media, this is Chameleon. Wild Boys Part 7 KY.

[Announcer]

You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

The next morning, we wake up in Arizona My producer Aboukar and I waited for Kyle at the Sheraton in Mesa. Kyle said that he'd come to the hotel to meet us, which was sad for those of us hoping to get to see a gerbil this reporting trip like Timothy from the CBC. Seventeen years earlier, I wasn't 100% sure I'd be sitting down with Kyle until I was actually sitting down with Kyle. 11:00am passed. No Kyle. 11:10, 11:20. As I listened back to the tape of this moment, before I meet Kyle, I heard that I was mumbling something. So I turned the volume all the way up and you can hear me anxiously rehearsing how I'm going to greet Kyle. Kyle, it's such a pleasure to finally meet you. Kyle, such a pleasure to finally meet you. I too am human with words. And then

[Producer/Interviewer]

Kyle's here.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Kyle, what a pleasure to finally meet you.

[Kyle]

Good to see you.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Kyle walks in. He looks the same, just 20 years older, the same patchy beard. He's wearing a black tee and cargo shorts. His hair. A party at the back. How are you today?

[Kyle]

Good.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Good. Yeah. So this is our room. We're all set up. We sit down. Kyle finds a place for his gallon sized jug of water. We're in the desert, man. You gotta hydrate. And as we get settled, he starts setting up a camcorder. Old school, palm sized, with a screen that flips out and turns it on. Yeah, you're. You're recording video also. I see. Doesn't matter. I see.

[Producer/Interviewer]

Okay. I'm just curious what you want it for.

[Kyle]

Keep you guys accountable. I don't know you guys too well, so.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Something about people showing up to a recorded interview with their own recording device is unnerving. But I suppose that was its desired effect.

[Kyle]

Nice and close.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Once our even playing field was established, we began. Or rather he did.

[Kyle]

I know you want to get maybe as much from me as possible, but can you tell me like a little bit about yourself?

[Narrator/Announcer]

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Well, like I said, I grew up in Vernon and.

[Kyle]

But did you like growing up in Vernon?

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Oh, oh, yeah, totally.

[Kyle]

So you know why we stay there?

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Yeah, exactly. It's a perfect little town. It's a good spot for you guys to land. Felt like a good place to start. Start our shared love of Vernon. Next order of business. Address the gerbil in the room. So, Kyle, I heard a rumor from someone. Rowan and Kyle, they're gonna like, they're gonna move to Arizona to like a gerbil farm. And I'm like, What? What do you think he's talking about?

[Kyle]

Just people playing telephone. That's so far off, so far off from reality.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

We spent the next 90 minutes going through all the questions that had been burning in my brain for the past year while I was doing the dishes or pushing my kid on the swing or laying in bed at night. And as I started to get answers from Kyle, I had the same feeling I'd had talking to Rowan a few days earlier. The more I started to understand the boys, the more I understood that this wasn't a random thing that happened. This was a sort of inevitable thing that happened. Kyle was the second kid. His family remembers him being especially bright, a good athlete, good at drawing. Kyle and Rowan weren't close when they were younger. Rowan was born six and a half years after Kyle. An age gap that felt less significant, though, as Rowan became a teenager and started to grow into the kinds of ideas and topics that Kyle was also drawn to.

[Rowan]

As soon as I started getting really weird and branching off into my philosophies, I kind of almost escaped into my own world. At that time, that was in my room. Most of that.

[Kyle]

I think we're sharing the same room. So we just had more conversations where

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

we talk about deep philosophical stuff, spiritual stuff.

[Kyle]

That's how we started to become more close.

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

I talk less about the deep philosophical stuff with other members of my family. It's mainly just me and Kyle.

[Kyle]

Yeah, if I had a conversation with my sister or my older brother, I feel like the conversation wouldn't go as deep.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Gabriel concurs. Sometimes he'd engage with his little brothers,

[Gabriel]

but only in digestible doses, because it's a lot, because, you know, you get them on an area they're interested in, they'll talk about it a long time.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Long before they were holed up in a fruit room in Vernon together, the two brothers in their shared bedroom started talking about the big questions of life. And those questions quickly veered off the beaten path.

[Announcer]

You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Both of the Horne brothers turned away from mainstream sources and toward the Internet. This was now the late 90s, early 2000s, and they each went deep into the rabbit holes of the rabbit holes of the early Internet. The oldest of the Horn boys, Gabriel made a website about his brothers right after they left Vernon. On it, he wrote a bio of Kyle. He said that in high school, Kyle became disenchanted with and suspicious of the education system. He felt his teachers were Quote, willing participants in a system designed to brainwash America's youth. When he graduated high school, Kyle left mainstream education behind. And for the next few years, he didn't really leave the house, didn't really work. It got to the point where even his siblings started to complain, like, Kyle's got to do something with his life. But according to Kyle, he was doing something.

[Kyle]

I heard someone say something like, I don't believe in work. Is that the.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Did someone say that? I've heard versions of that, yeah.

[Kyle]

Well, that's not exactly true. So I would spend back then, you know, and this started when I was 18. I would spend like my whole day just studying. So I wouldn't play games, I wouldn't watch movies, I wouldn't listen to music. I would just literally study my whole days. And I don't think there's a lot of people who can do that, but I can. And it's a blessing.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Blessed with the ability to obsessively focus, Kyle made studying the far corners of the Internet his full time job. The more he studied, the more he felt like he understood the capital T truth behind what he believed were just mountains of mainstream lies.

[Kyle]

I started to see more into, behind the hoaxes that were going on, you know, see more deeply into the world. You know, it's as ironic as it is that I'm portrayed as some sort of elaborate hoaxer. I actually spend a lot of my life getting to the bottom of hoaxes and false deceits in the world.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

He started retranslating the Bible and he began spotting passages that he felt mainstream Christianity had completely misinterpreted.

[Kyle]

It's a complete hoax, completely mistranslated.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

He was also retranslating our understanding of the physical universe. His brother Gabriel wrote that Kyle constructed and came to believe in a different model for the universe other than the standard solar system. Gabriel said his brother developed detailed diagrams of his new model and posted them online. It was around this time, Gabriel said, that Kyle's friends and family started to think, quote, he, he might be a little off, unquote, off in ways that were both kind of common. 20 year old boy who's been swallowed whole by the Internet stuff, but also off in ways that became troubling to his loved ones. Diana talked about this in the second CBC disclosure documentary about the boys.

[Diana (continued)]

Some of his ideas became so extreme, we wondered if Kyle was Ben a Leo.

[Interviewer]

Like, what can you tell us?

[Kyle]

I don't know.

[Diana (continued)]

Okay. He said that he thought that Michael Jackson might be Michael the archangel. And if Someone says something like that now, you're thinking they're way out in Looney Tuneville. They really aren't saying.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

In an article after the boys left Vernon, Kyle said that a natural disaster will soon destroy everyone on earth except for a few. And that quote, I'm a prophet of the most high God and that's how I know these things. Gabriel said Kyle was obsessed with being one of the few who'd survive. So he also became obsessed with his diet. Around the same time that Rowan was experimenting with his diet, Diana started to notice Kyle was trying things too.

[Diana]

He was doing things with color. I'm going to eat some kind of rainbow diet. Maybe on this day I'll eat red and on this day all blue or something. And I thought that was kind of weird.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

His older brother's website also said that Kyle believed people in or around big cities would be killed. So he started to make plans to move to, that's right, a remote corner of Canada. As Kyle's beliefs grew more conspiratorial, they also became more anti authority. Diana from CBC disclosure again, because of

[Diana (continued)]

his distrust for the government and different

[Diana]

things,

[Diana (continued)]

he wrote down on something that blow up police cars.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

It was at this point that Diana called the authorities.

[Diana (continued)]

And that's what I showed as evidence to the policeman that I feel he's a threat to society.

[Interviewer]

Did you talk to him about it?

[Diana (continued)]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

And what did he say?

[Diana (continued)]

He said, I wouldn't really do that.

[Interviewer]

Why did he write it?

[Kyle]

I don't know the answer to that.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

This was all, of course, all almost 20 years ago, when Kyle was young. Half a lifetime ago. The police and eventual FBI investigations were brief and they were dropped. But in the aftermath of Vernon, there was a lot of open speculation by the media, people of Vernon, even his own family members about Kyle's state of mind. And I'm wondering how you, like, felt having so many people speculating about your mental health in that.

[Kyle]

I don't care. I don't know. I don't know. Whatever they said and why they said it, who cares? Yeah, I don't think they really. They don't think that.

[Diana]

I don't think that anymore about him. I think it's completely sane. But at the time we had our doubts.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

She regrets what she said on camera in the interview and chalks up what she said to feeling defensive about some of the questions about her fitness as a mother.

[Diana]

Because they said, well, do you really think you're a good mother? And I think I threw Kyle under the bus to protect myself, you know, well, you know, you can't blame me for not getting mad at him. You know, he's, he's crazy, you know, so that was probably a self defense mechanism.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

And it was around the time that the FBI was checking out Kyle that Kyle saw a different set of authorities start meddling in his little brother's life too.

[Kyle]

There started to be like some feeling that, okay, well if Rowan's not going to become the right weight, that they would take him or force him or something. And so Rowan started to be concerned. And that's where I sort of started

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

hearing Ron would tell Kyle about the measurements and threats from the doctors and CPs. And it's here that Kyle's deepest corest belief gets tripped, setting in motion Kyle's commitment to protect his little brother. But protect him in a way that will confound every other person in this story, but in a way that makes perfect sense to Kyle.

[Gabriel]

Kyle's working from a different set of core values.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Their brother Gabriel, again, like that extreme

[Gabriel]

personal freedom is more important than life or death. So how do you debate that with somebody? Right? You have to appeal to something above him that he respects to counter that view.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

For Kyle, as he looked at Rowan's situation, he felt, well, there is nothing above personal freedom as a value. And as we know, Kyle doesn't take his beliefs lightly or arrive at them casually. He will follow them through to their furthest end, say all the way to Canada with his little brother in tow. Because Gabriel says he cares a lot

[Gabriel]

about making sense and being congruent.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

If you can understand Kyle's core beliefs, there actually is a through line that if not mainstream, if not in some cases safe, they are congruent.

[Gabriel]

He probably felt it would have been wrong to not help Rowan in the way that he did, to not manufacture that story and help Rowan act out his radical personal freedom. So just coming reconciled to the fact that that is how Kyle sees things, which is tough to do. But once you accept that, hey, for Kyle, that Rowan's freedom to live the way he wanted came before Rowan's health and safety.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

If you see the world through Kyle's 23 year old eyes, there was no other choice. Of course he took Rowan to Canada. When CPS started pestering Rowan, Kyle was incensed.

[Kyle]

They shouldn't be trying to take him. You know, they're sort of like Nazis come and take people away who. But you know, he was becoming thinner, but at the time he wasn't and you know, I'm there to help him get away from them.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Kyle, who'd been completely stationary, whose entire life had been online for years by then. Finally had a real world cause, a real world purpose, a call to action. And he was ready.

[Announcer]

You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

When CPS showed up to take Rowan away and Rowan ran for his life, Kyle was ready to be tapped.

[Kyle]

He knows I'm not the kind of person who would, you know, like, oh, the authorities say, you know, you have to be locked up. And I'm not that kind of person. I'm the kind of person who'll side with freedom.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

So when night finally came, Roan crept back to his block, scanning the streets for police cars along the way. When he caught view of his house, he watched the lights in the windows carefully as they turned off one by one until there was only one light left, and he tiptoed toward it.

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

I went to my brother's back door, his back window, and, like, knocked on it.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Kyle was sitting in the shared room where they'd spent so many hours philosophizing about right and wrong, as if in preparation for a moment just like this, when he heard a noise.

[Kyle]

He tapped in my window and. And I went out.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

In hushed tones, the brothers began plotting. First, let's triage. Let's find you a place for tonight. Kyle quietly grabbed some gear from the family camping supplies and looked for a good spot for Rowan.

[Kyle]

It was a camping situation.

[Rowan]

Just a little wilderness area next to our house. There's just a little windy little river and then some trees. And so I just camped out in a tent there and, you know, I

[Kyle]

explained, and I'd be bringing him food.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Kyle crept back to the house. For the next week, Kyle would wait until dark, wait until the house was quiet, and then head to the makeshift camp.

[Kyle]

If not every night, every other night, you know, if I missed one night, I'd go the next night and he

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

would just bring me, you know, he would, like, get a big backpack full of, like, Costco fruits and stuff and bring it. Bring it to me at the tent.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

And there at the tent, they started to hatch their plans. A plan Kyle had already been thinking about for a while.

[Kyle]

I said probably years, maybe a couple years earlier, that I'd maybe go to Canada.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

When his parents would pester him, get a job or move out, Kyle, for years now, his response had always been, I'm moving to Canada. But there'd never been any urgency or enough details to make his family think that this was a real thing. That Kyle might actually follow through on.

[Diana]

And I don't even remember why he was planning a trip to Canada, but he had been planning it prior.

[Gabriel]

Totally vague. I don't remember any plan.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

But he seemed serious. This time.

[Gabriel]

I'm gonna go for it, because it also gets him out of the house. Like, you need to experience the world. So you go. Whatever it is, it's a good thing.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

The timing felt weird, though. As the rest of the family was searching for Rowan, Kyle suddenly stood up and said, I think it's time for me to make good on that trip to Canada that I've been planning for years now. And, no, of course I don't know where Rowan is, so, of course I'm not taking him with me.

[Diana]

But, you know, sure. It was suspicious. And I tried to make sure he went out prepared, you know, with a backpack and tent and sleeping bag and

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

maybe $500 for your trip to Canada, Kyle. And if he happened to have Rowan with him, then hopefully that would cover both of them. Diana didn't know for sure that he'd be taking Rowan.

[Diana]

He wouldn't tell us because he suspected. And it's probably true. We would have turned him in because, you know, even if I didn't want him in the hospital, I think I wanted him even less to be homeless.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Rowan would rather be homeless. He'd rather be anywhere on earth other than being in a hospital being force fed. He knew how concerned his mom was about him, and that's why he kept her in the dark, only bringing Kyle into the fold. Kyle said goodbye and promised that he'd call with updates. And then he made his way to the wooded area where Roan was camping when they brought a third conspirator into the plot.

[Rowan (continued)/Gabriel]

Then my cousin Jared helped. Drove us to Canada.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

I tried to get Kyle to corroborate that it was cousin Jared. How did you get from Roseville to Osoyuz?

[Kyle]

A friend drove us.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Rowan told me it was Jared. My cousin Jared. Is that right?

[Kyle]

Well, I'll let Jared confirm.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Hooray.

[Rowan]

Right.

[Kyle]

I'm not gonna say this is a

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

good example of why Rowan trusts Kyle. And he trusted Jared for kind of the same reasons.

[Rowan]

I thought Jared was solid. I wasn't worried about Jared.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

What is it about him that he's

[Rowan]

more, you know, unconventional? So unconventional people you tend to like. If you see yourself as unconventional, you vibe with people who also are unconventional in their own way. Because then it's like, well, yeah, we're not the normies. We can vibe with each other. Right?

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Right. Right. We can trust you. You get it?

[Kyle]

Yeah.

[Rowan]

Exactly.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Jared was not a normie, which is very high praise coming from from the Horne brothers. And he had something that they needed. A vehicle and a driver's license. He agreed to drive them the almost 900 miles out of California through Oregon to Washington state. No plan, just head for the border. Like so many on the lam before them, they were fueled by nothing but hope. And their mom's now $482. When they get just a few miles from the Oroville Osoyu border crossing, cousin Jared lets them out. It seems like it might be a little risky for their very kind cousin to drive them right to the line. One of these boys is on a missing persons list with an APB out for him. So the boys hop out of the truck, grab their gear and say goodbye. And they hitch for the final stretch until they're facing the Osoyus crossing. It's a moderately busy one, usually operating with just one lane in each direction. These are not inconspicuous boys. They're both over six feet, Kyle, six and a half, scruffy, carrying camping gear that screams nothing to see here. We're for sure not running from anything. Rowan had no idea whatsoever, and. And Kyle might have had something, but certainly no permit, passport or driver's license. Nothing that would be considered sufficient by a Canadian border official. It's also worth noting that this was an especially not good time to be trying to cross the border illegally. It was less than two years after 911 when the crossing was within sight. Kyle and Rowan hung back a little bit to suss things out.

[Kyle]

And I wasn't sure at first, but I assessed the situation.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Kyle watched the interactions between the agents and the vehicles very closely, watching the pace, the timing, like a kid watching double Dutch skipping ropes, looking for a place to jump in. Rowan is beside himself.

[Rowan]

I'm thinking this is a risk. I'm thinking my heart's pounding like they could catch me right here and it could be over. Like we realized that they could have had some or the Canadian border could have had somehow been notified or something.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

But then something clicks in. Kyle. They may not have had IDs, but they did have one other thing. Something that will get them across the border, something that will get them all the way to Vernon. Something that will convince an entire town to believe a wild story and take them in. As their brother Gabriel says, Kyle's very

[Gabriel]

self assured on a lot of things, right?

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Especially on things where he felt righteous, saving his little brother's life, preserving his freedom. People close to Kyle told me about this remarkable self assuredness that he's capable of, especially in moments where most people lose their nerve, something will speak to him.

[Kyle]

And then I knew.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

He knew. He knew that in broad daylight that he and his brother could cross an international border no problem.

[Kyle]

It's hard to explain. I knew we can walk right across. You just gotta trust certain instincts.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Kyle took the lead as Rowan slinked behind, mustering as much confidence as he could, being careful not to meet the

[Narrator/Announcer]

eyes of a border agent.

[Rowan]

I was totally trying to act calm, right? You gotta act calm. You gotta act like you're not hiding something.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

They walk between all the cars in line and step across the 49th parallel.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Chameleon is a production of Campside Media with Sony Music. Wild Boys was reported and written by me, Sam Mullins. It's produced by Abukara Dahn and our editor is Karen Duffin. Our senior producer is Ashley Ann Krigbom. Sound design and mixing by Hannis Brown and Garrett Tiedemann.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Original music by Hannis Brown, Garrett Tiedemann,

[Narrator/Announcer]

Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Our fact checker is Alex Yavlon. Special thanks to our operations team, Doug Slaywin, Alia Papes and Allison Haney. The executive producers at Campside Media are Matt Sher, Vanessa Gregoriadis, Josh Dean and Adam Hoff. If you or someone you know is struggling with your relationship with food, please know you're not alone. There are free confidential helplines with people just waiting to help in the US you can call or text the National Eating disorder association at 1-800-931-2237. That's 1-800-931-2237. In Canada, the National Eating Disorder Information Centre hotline is 1-866-633-4220. That's 1-866-633-4220. Don't want to wait until next week for the next episode of Chameleon? You don't have to subscribe to Chameleon Uninterrupted on Apple Podcasts to listen to the next episode Right now, you'll get early access to new episodes every week completely ad free.

[Sam Mullins (Reporter/Narrator)]

Plus you'll unlock episodes of our exclusive bonus series Art of the Con.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Just visit the Chameleon show page on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today.