Status: Untraced - E10: The Hero Project

But this isn't his story, it's a human story, one that I've become entangled with. I saw as soon as I turned the corner, basically someone bleeding out. The victims of these brutal attacks were left to pick up the pieces, forced to explore the gray areas between right and wrong, life and death, their once ordinary lives, and mine changed forever.

It kind of gave me a feeling of pending doom. And all the while, our country found itself facing down a long and ugly reckoning with a growing threat far-right homegrown religious terrorism. Listen to Flashpoint starting July 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The season finale of Status Untraced starts right now.

Thanks for going on this journey with us and stay tuned for more Up and Vanished coming very soon.

You're listening to Status Untraced, a production of Tenderfoot TV, in association with Odyssey. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast. This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

All right.

About time, huh?

Morning guys.

My fellowship consists of Alex Kabir Jagdish, who carries repelling gear, two porters and a man who wields a loaded rifle. We pass no one. Snow is imminent this time of year, so many do not continue on this far.

This is the path where Justin Alexander was last seen. It's been a long time since I set out into the wilderness alone, but this time is special. I want to do these ancient practices under an influence that may allow me to see the magic if it exists at all.

Marching on for hours, we finally reach a clearing perched atop a grassy knoll rests a rock hut.

Tundabush is the rest stop, where the porter was sent ahead to prepare food, where the mysterious couple passed by and did not stop, and where Baba arrived without Justin.

An old bridge sits across the river here, crumbled and decaying it once connected to grassy fields on the other side.

We rest, but not for long.

Yeah, this is definitely a lot steeper than I was anticipating.

I look at the ledge just a hundred yards away, in a valley swallowed by immense beauty. For such an epic life, it's such a strange place to be murdered, to die, or to leave it all behind.

In his final journal entry, Justin included a photo of what he packed a metal pot, a plastic cup, utensils, a leather journal, dry food and plastic wrap, and assorted camping essentials. Yet it was only a red Butane lighter, an umbrella, a backpack, rain cover stuffed with a scarf and head wrap, and a flute. Staff standing upright in the ground that were found.

What does the story these pieces tell?

In the moment, the chances of answering that question felt impossible. What I didn't know then was the things I was about to be told. The testimonies we were about to hear would start to bring this journey to an end.

Sometimes I get the feeling I'm lost. Yes, I admit it's never enough.

We're guided to a smoky tent when we're back in Kyrgyzstan. A burning wood stove crackles at the center, and cloth mats cover the floor.

Cross-legged, in the corner, sits a thin man with a scruffy gray beard, you shaking hands proper.

Ashok Giri is called by many as the Tundabhuj Baba. For the past eight summers he's lived at the Stony Hut at Tundabhuj. There. On the day Justin disappeared, he remembers Baba Rawat and Anil Kumar passing through and speaking with them.

I'm trying to wrap up loose ends and get definite answers. Given that Ashok Giri was with Baba Rawat moments after Justin disappeared. I want some clarity on the Holy Man's character. What was his demeanor like that day? Did he seem like someone who had just committed murder?

That Justin knew where they were going to be staying, so he'll head up to the same place straight away. He even shouted at the other Baba, Why did you leave him over there? The place where he left him is a dangerous point for people to cross over. He was seen yesterday, he actually sent Anil back to the place to go and look for him.

Anil He went there, he took almost three hours searching for him and he came back without any clue.

He hasn't heard of any tourists falling from there, but lots of porters have fallen from that place and went down straight to the river.

But not the tourists, they never heard about the tourists being fallen from there.

Jagdish tells Ashok Giri about the mysterious couple. The one Anil said was with Justin and would have passed by the hut. Ashok Giri doesn't recall seeing them, however, gives the name of someone we should speak to, a girl who possibly might know more about Baba Rawat, Justin and this couple.

He was doing all this stuff a lot, Sapna knew all this.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

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And he and me had a small fight.

And I and the Nepali porter started to walk in the front and he was behind and I came to my place. And I'm waiting for him, thinking he will come, but he didn't come and I have a feeling he's dead.

That's how he said it.

And then he also started to feel panic because after that, many people started to come there and question him. Every day was there, in his kutiya, in his house.

He sat there without fear, he didn't run away, he just sat there.

Sifting through a mix of rumors and accusations, only to unearth a sliver of the truth and a constant barrage of well-meaning suggestions. Talk to this person, visit that place.

Often led us down paths lined with more questions than answers. Is there a killer? Who is this couple? Do they exist? Who can we trust?

What happened to Justin?

Other than tracking down the porter, I've followed up on every lead we had, except one.

You see, I made a phone call months ago to a guy named Ashish Chauhan, a local who participated in the searches for Justin. Our conversation was brief, just ten minutes or so, but what he said now gnaws at me.

Since that initial call, Ashish has become something of a ghost. Can you call him on your Facebook?

On Facebook, Yeah, I mean, he knows it's me, fine, that's fine.

Responding here or there, he's been elusive and difficult to pin down.

Let's go try Arshdeep's phone.

I don't know what else to do other than pray, he shows, because as I replay what Ashish said, I'm convinced he found something.

Let's talk later on.

And he's on his way.

Do we know he's going to be there? Nope.

No, we do not.

Surprised, I watch a taxi drop off at the front lobby, and shortly after there's a knock on our door.

He manages Himalayan Drifters. It's an outfit that offers a variety of services, including search and rescue.

No one went anywhere, no one went anywhere, not even the local search and rescue companies came forward, still missing, still missing.

There's not a single poster around. Go to Manikarn Police station, just find out the board. They can't remove anything unless that guy is either declared dead or hasn't been found. If he's been missing, that board has to be with his name.

And just check out how many names are there? To my knowledge, in this one past decade, more than 100 people have gone missing here, but around five, six names, that's all.

Untraced.

Have you ever had anyone show back up?

14 years and suddenly one day he showed up here in Kusul and people recognized him. So you'll find such cases, lots of them.

Easily, mostly Germans, Russians, some Israelis.

Got to hear that this Justin guy is missing, so I volunteered with, the family said. I'll be happy to go for the search and rescue, but you'll need to cover basic charges because search and rescue is quite expensive. But I asked them to just pay the basic and I'll happily search for him.

So we took around.

12 people in my team and around 8 cops, so I was leading a total number of 20 people. And for 14 days, we stayed up in the mountains, so there were 3 search and rescue teams involved. I was hired by the family and in total around there were 50 people in the mountains searching for him.

We called up the cops, we gathered up all the evidence and got back.

But there were lots of things that no one was discussing.

So not every cop will stay for 14 days, they will switch like 7 days, 5 days. Someone will go and some new guy will come, so every time new guy will come and he will tell us the story about. Like, hitting the baba. They would say like, this is bad karma.

What we are doing is sin, right? So hitting a baba with whom we have nothing. In fact, there is no case against him. He told that to the cops that it hurts.

Let me smoke, give me my joint, but they never gave it to him, and it was beatings and pain only.

Baba Rawat suffered from beatings, the tumors and withdrawal. Imagine the torment that does to the mind of a frail man.

Perhaps he saw only one way out.

Do you have more you found?

There is no evidence, no fact to it, but I heard that not recently. Around one and a half years back, I was on the trail of Khir Ganga. I met a guy who is from Naktan. He told me, Do you know that there was an update on that guy's death? Which guy?

That American guy for whom you were searching? So I told him what he heard about him, so he told me there was one. Gaddi. Gaddi is a shepherd, right? So these shepherds are migrants who stay up there in the mountains for, like, entire summer.

So one of them saw him tumbling down the mountain with the bag and all.

So he never told that to cops, but he told that to locals. And then I was a bit curious because he was suggesting a very particular crime. From where he could see this, and I asked him, Where did he see him? He gave me an exact location where he fell.

You know the story, right? Where he went missing at the same spot that's called Pathrigarh. So from that certain point, when they were coming back to Tundabhuj, there's a stretch, right, very dangerous stretch, in fact. So that's the place we really searched for and we found his belongings there.

And if you believe me and the person who told that story of him falling down quite matches the location.

How would he know where was the location?

So I think, yeah, this might have been the case.

It's very hard to wrap your mind around this thought that a guy like Justin could trip at such a point. But even I have, because, like, I was not careful enough.

So that's accidents, it happens, and it happens quite often in mountains.

These were the culprits behind the knife point robbery.

Unaware of Dhruv Agarwal or the web of disappearances, these boys were merely outsiders who attempted the theft on a whim, an act of teenage stupidity.

Eventually, we part ways with the heart of the Parvati Valley and return to the capital, Kulu, continuing our quest for Anil Kumar's whereabouts.

We were ready to give up until a moment of pure luck came from our guide, Kabir.

It's all the vegetables, it is the vegetables.

Wrapped in the warmth of a home-cooked meal, we spend our last night among the mountains with Arshdeep and Kabir.

We recount the adventures and misadventures, and we flick through photos, captured moments of our journey, the memories that we'll keep forever.

That night, Arshdeep vows to continue to search for the porter during his motorcycle trips. As we prepare to leave. I entrust him with one of our recorders. And I can feel that if there's a small beacon of hope to solve this case, it's this.

In a flash, we're back on the plane, the engine roars, the propellers whirl, and once again we rise above the clouds.

The mountain peaks now don a growing white cloak, hinting at the approach of a cold winter.

I should feel tired, maybe even relieved, but I don't.

Instead, there's that pull, a yearning to stay, to explore the untrodden paths, the foods not yet tasted, the beauty not yet seen.

Entangled with that desire is a heaviness.

I walk a path that Justin Alexander will never see to the end.

I get to go home.

We think it was murdered, but I don't have any proof that someone murdered him.

Bioter Mushalik and I will stay in touch talking about Bruno and sharing updates on the podcast.

I'll brief Justin Alexander's mother on our trip.

And through the podcast rollout, I'll keep up with Justin's father.

I know that the items found tell a story about Justin's final moments. A butane lighter for fires and hashish. An umbrella to shield the rain, a scarf and head wrap cocooned within a rain cover protected from becoming damp, and a flute staff lodged into soft mud.

The trail was treacherous that day and most likely slickened by sporadic showers. Forecast data from 2016 confirm so.

I've heard Justin was murdered, I've heard he disappeared on his own will. I've heard he fell off that cliff and is gone. What happened to him? The answer?

The truth?

It's simply the version of the story you wish to believe. I have a theory, something I'll reveal at a later time. Because no matter how it ends, it's not the most important chapter of his life.

I think about, you know, I don't want to be a self-absorbed narcissist. And I feel weird posting a selfie of me riding a motorcycle. Like, I don't know. I think about this a lot. And you know, like, maybe I should just live my life and just keep it to myself. But there's something nice to share who you are with the world.

And I feel like what I'm doing is I'm living out the life of my heroes and I'm sharing my heroic self. In his 36 years, Justin lived more lives than I've ever dreamt of. He strived to be his most authentic self. He walked the razor's edge and he pushed the limits of human endurance.

But that type of life requires balance, it requires recognizing the line between adventuring boldly and adventuring blindly. Both come at a risk, the latter widens it.

Survival, and ultimately truly living, calls for wellness of the body and mind. There is no doubt Justin Alexander struggled with that. He was human and he was flawed. But even in all his failures, there are lessons to be learned.

I definitely became a social outsider, the quiet, loner kid, and I found my solace in nature. And so I basically decided that, you know, I didn't really fit in socially. So fuck everybody and fuck society. I'm going to go, like, be a hero.

Recently, Terry Shetler dug up some of his son's old diaries and journals.

If I could do anything in life, what would it be if I were infinitely wealthy? what would I do? What is it that just thinking about it makes me excited to be alive? These have all the same answer. I would make myself into my own hero, meaning I would create an imaginary hero, someone I wish I could be, and then become him.

I need to do this while I'm young. Perhaps, in the meantime, I should start a journal called the Hero Project to document my transformations between now and then.

I asked Terry if he believes that the day-one journals we recovered from Justin's iCloud were the foundation to this project. He says, Yes.

Justin Alexander changed my life, I never met him and he changed my life, and I know I'm not the only one.

That's the impact of his legacy, all of it, the good, the bad, his wisdoms.

His musings, his shortcomings, his benevolence, his quest for meaning in the face of the unknown, his kindness to strangers.

His unwavering courage to follow his heart, he wanted so dearly to become a hero. I wish I could have gotten the chance to tell him he already was one.

What he accomplished propels me to challenge my doubts and think about my purpose.

I've held onto a bucket list of cities I want to travel to and things I wish to experience in this life. But now it's different. I don't want to pursue it for the thrill, but for growth, to find ways to give back and inspire. And more and more. I've been dreaming about it, talking about it, contemplating when to devise a plan for it.

But on a random Wednesday morning, I act on it.

I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm just going to book it right now. I book a flight for 3 o'clock that afternoon, the destination.

San Jose, Costa Rica.

I don't have a place to stay, I don't know anyone there, I don't know what adventures await me, but I surrender, I just go.

And it's everything.

We're still taking tips, so if you want to reach out, please email us at statusuntraced at gmail dot com or leave us a message at 507-407-2833..

Make sure you're following the podcast to stay updated on all our latest episodes because there's something special you won't want to miss. A roundtable discussion featuring myself, Payne Lindsey, along with Jonathan Skiels and Alex Vespistead. We'll dive deep into the mystery of what happened to Justin, sharing our thoughts and insights. You'll get to hear various theories, including my own, as we explore the case in detail.

This is a project that took us countless hours to weave together. We set out to accomplish a lot, but at the end of the day, there was one goal I constantly thought about. Is this the way Justin would want his legacy? Told? To answer that? I would go back to his words, and one particular journal entry from 2014 spoke to me.

It reads Become the adventurer through YouTube, blog and Facebook. Eventually, a network will pick me up and fund my lifestyle. Not hardcore survivor man, but more rugged going, tribal type with style, be authentic.

A bit of both worlds sex, drugs and adventure never sell out. I am who I want to be, I am awesome.

To do something dangerous with style.

I am humbled to have been able to share Justin's story and none of it could have been possible without this incredible team. Status Untraced is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. Our executive producers are Alex Vespistead, Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey. Producers are Meredith Stedman and myself. supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan.

Consulting producer is Jonathan Skeels. Associate editors are David Bash and Charles Rosner of GetUp Productions, with additional editing by Sydney Evans, voice acting provided by Johnny Lavallee, artwork by Trevor Eiler.

Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme song is Colder Heavens by Blanco White mix by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group.

We are forever grateful for Arshdeep Sharma and Kabir Sharman. We hope to see you again soon. A big shout-out to Kirk Vespistead, our accounting wizard, for keeping all our numbers in check throughout the series. And also a special shout-out to Susie Dunner for putting up with our late nights and ramblings for the past four years. Lastly, I can't express enough my gratitude to each and every person who took the time to interview with us.

It's your stories that keep Justin's legacy alive. I hope to be able to share my next adventure with you soon, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with Justin's motto.

Be kind and do epic shit.