Status: Untraced - E3: The Legend You Live

It started with a backpack at the 1996 centennial Olympic Games, a backpack that contained a bomb. While the authorities focused on the wrong suspect, a serial bomber planned his next attacks two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar.

And previously, we've aired episodes one and two in this feed.

And over the next few weeks, we'll be airing the remainder of the season, episodes three through ten. So if you haven't listened to the first two episodes, stop right now and search Status Untraced in your podcast app, that's Status Untraced. A new show presented by UP Vanished. Follow the show and listen to the entire season right now, and it's even ad-free for Tenderfoot Plus subscribers.

Hope you enjoy the show.

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.

Put this in your back pocket and you can just hand it to him.

It's kind of funny how this comes full circle.

Couple minutes.

Nice to meet you. Hey, nice to meet you. awesome.

Our host welcomes us inside his bungalow home, a familiar place for Alex, who spent countless hours in this same living room. Piecing together another missing person case, one interview into another, yeah.

All the way through, Alex knows, too. This is my day, like, boom, boom, until 9 p..m. but then the rest of my week is like, just empty.

This is Neil Strauss, a New York Times bestselling author and the host of the podcast To Live and Die in L.

All right, so let me go to my computer because I might want to read his.

Yeah, that'd be great.

While Neil has experience with true crime, that's not why we're here, we're here because he knew Justin Alexander.

So I ran a men's group called The Society. We have survival intensives, where they learn how to, like, evade interrogations and survive, like torture and escape from handcuffs. And Justin joined in 2012 and was just like a really positive, interesting, connected guy. I really, really liked him.

As we're chatting, Neil grabs his laptop and pulls up a document he says he hasn't read since 2013.

So, yeah, so when someone joins the group, the first thing I do is I talk to them for half an hour and I see, like, who they are and what they're about. And I'll ask them a number of questions and then I'll sort of read between the lines of what they say. So his goal is he wanted to improve his confidence, learn to command a room in any situation, be generally happier and more awesome, and become the best person. He can be in just about every arena, which is so Justin because he wants to do everything right.

It's interesting that he puts it that he wanted to be single, that that was like something that was important on there, too.

Yeah, like, I remember him saying, like, I normally break up with someone when they ask me to marry them, you know? So he definitely was your classic avoidance.

Which brings us back to your original assessment of him in a way.

Right, so this is what I wrote at the time, and this is I had not met him yet. We just talked on the phone for half an hour, which was interesting to look back on it. When Alex contacted me, I wrote, has turned himself into an awesome, adventurous, self-made guy.

Sometimes I get the feeling I'm lost.

Just hiding it is never enough. Now I find in every mirror a ghost.

Only once I saw the killer, once I saw the killer up close.

I don't fucking know what happened, but my feelings for what I know about Ashish and the area and what travelers do there. If he did get involved with some crooks, I am, like, 90 sure that it had to do with Ashish.

You probably remember this voice from the last episode. This is Linda Berrini, Justin Alexander's former romantic partner and first responder on his disappearance. She's the one who told me about the mafia who lurk in the Parvati Valley and the dangers of dealing hashish.

And I think the porter, the famous porter, yeah, I think that's a key element.

As a reminder, there were only three people on Justin's Trek Justin the Baba and a porter, a guy hired to carry supplies.

I don't remember if he mentioned the porter or not. It's like I've been racking my brain for years, trying to remember that detail, but it's not clear and that's very unfortunate.

Because what do they need a porter for?

For a kilogram of rice.

This porter's name is Anil Singh Kumar. He might be the only person from the hike that's still alive, but he's nearly impossible to find. The names Anil and a surname, Singh in Kumar, are extremely common in India. It's essentially the American equivalent of Matthew Johnson.

As far as I know, they don't know anything about the porter. I don't know if you were able to get some more information, but there was this porter and then there wasn't.

While Linda was the original point of contact, she never actually made it to India.

At some point, I got pushed out of the equation and they wouldn't listen to me. I was a pain in the ass. I was a pain in the ass, I admit it, but it was a bunch of people that had never been to India.

We really need to speak to someone who had boots on the ground, so I ask who I should reach out to for more answers.

Did you talk to Jonathan?

I recognize the name. In connection with articles about Justin's disappearance. He's reported as Jonathan Skeels, one of the two men who found Justin's belongings off the hiking trail.

I know that everybody was trying their best, I know it, I know it in my heart, including Jonathan, you know? But it also seemed very detached, you know, like people cared for a couple of months.

Well, thank you for being willing to talk about it. I know it's a lot.

I want to find out what happened, If somebody figures out what happened, I will help a hundred percent.

While the offer for help is reassuring, this is the last I hear from Linda. I don't hold it against her. I come to find. That's just how this group of people around Justin operate, spontaneous, constantly on the move and rarely checking their inboxes. I learned this the hard way.

Hello, hey, what's going on? Hey, how's it going? Good, good. We got a good connection on my end.

Thankfully, he did.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop around. She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

Like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

Yeah, well, yeah.

It's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

Did you know Justin before this as well? Yeah, yeah. We had met in 2015 and stayed in contact. He was friends with common friends. Surprisingly, Jonathan Skeels, the man who spearheaded the ground search for Justin, hadn't known Justin very long, only a year.

I was like, Well, I've been to the area where he's missing. I have lots of very influential friends in India, I have the financial means, I have the time. I'm pretty savvy. And I was looking at all these other friends of Justin's that were making nice social media posts, but no one was doing anything about it.

We continue to talk. And it becomes evident that Skeels, like we've been told, possesses the secrets of the search, intimate details we couldn't have learned anywhere else. With what he shares, Alex and I are able to piece together a timeline of the 2016 events. We're going to take you on a journey through this timeline. And I want to emphasize that these details are crucial, because when you see this case in its entirety, the facts appear in a whole new light.

I should return mid-September or so, if I'm not back by then, don't look for me.

Justin puts on his Instagram and blog the ominous message, saying he's headed with Baba Rawat to a spiritual ground called Montalai Lake. Two days later, he makes what will be his final post to Instagram and last calls to his mother, father and Linda Berrini.

And I was like, No, but he's up there and he's planning to stay for a while, you know? So I wouldn't get worried about Justin, he's a big boy.

A few days later, with no word from Justin, Chris hikes eight kilometers into the mountains to a campground called Kirganga. It's where Justin started the trek and where he was supposed to have returned. And when I did go, the baba was back.

He was in his hut, but there was no Justin.

So I went over and interrogated him gently, you know?

And I think at that time he had told me that they were walking back together.

And that Justin had decided to turn around and go back towards the lake with another group of trekkers. And I found that a little bizarre, I told Linda what I had heard. But that's kind of like when we started to feel that, yeah, there might be something a little weird going on.

It was just like, Oh yeah, okay. Another white boy lost in the mountain. It's not like common common, but it's happened quite often.

In contrast, through the GoFundMe gaining traction, more people learn about Justin's disappearance, including Jonathan Skeels. I told the group that I was working for I have to go to India.

And figure out what's happened to my mate. I don't know when I'll be back.

Sunday, October 9th, Skeels meet Susie Reeb at Heathrow Airport. Together, they embark on the long flight to New Delhi, where they meet with embassy officials, plead for help, and then continue north to the mountains. It's like an 8 a..m. arrival.

10 a.

And did you and Susie do the questioning? Yeah, I got video of us hearing him explain his side of the story.

Is that something they usually allow you to do? I'm sure that wouldn't happen in Mumbai or in Delhi, but in these little backstations, you know, there was a lot of attention being brought to it, so they were trying to appease me in any way.

As Babu Rawat is interrogated, officers and locals who were in the room translate his words. The first story was that Justin went back up into the mountains.

After they had a disagreement, the next version was Justin was ahead of him and it was pretty clear that his story was changing. There was just too many versions.

The porter is also questioned, but let go.

He was overstealing from all the different camps, you know, he had a serious drug habit.

October 13th As urgency mounts, Susie Reeb files an official missing persons report, and Skeels pays for a helicopter to scour the vast mountain terrain.

We just went flying around, just getting a survey of the area, just hoping that someone crawled out behind a rock with a broken leg, you know, waving a flag.

Unfortunately, nothing is found.

It's well accepted that the river, it tears up bodies and stuff that's never found. They talk about this one instance where a bus went off the side of a cliff and the river never gave the bus back. Or the 50 people that were in it.

They descend the mountain, scanning on and off the trail.

A couple hours later is when we were leapfrogging each other to vantage points, looking down around the river, and that's when he spotted his flute. We found a bunch of items there was like a headband, he was wearing, a lighter and a couple other bits.

October 21st, just after 7 p...m. The only prison guard on duty at the Manikaran police station allegedly steps outside to use the bathroom. When he returns, he discovers Babur Awat hanging by his cloth Dhoti.

There's two ways that story ends. He was committed suicide because he was ashamed of what he did. Maybe the local police were liking all the extra attention that was being bought because of the missing American, and maybe they just, you know, kindly strung him up.

October 23rd A peculiar update is made to the GoFundMe.

That was more of, please tell us, like, clear your conscience kind of thing. Because we didn't really suspect him, you know, he was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time, is my conclusion.

Skeels goes on to tell us that he dismissed Anil Kumar because he didn't speak English and therefore viewed him as illiterate, uneducated and simple-minded. The presumption seems more like prejudice and also doesn't prove Anil Kumar. Clear of suspicion. And do you speak the native tongue? No, did you get a translator?

This guy to help out, but I didn't specifically get a guide, No.

Preparations are made for a final helicopter trip. This time a full police team joins Jonathan Skeels, as well as Susie Reeb and a tracker named Tom McElroy.

We went back with the Indian Forensic team, that was kind of a different show, you know? All the flows off the side of the mountain were starting to freeze over and it was getting cold at that point. They're like, Well, prime suspect dead. The family is acceptive that their son is not coming back, so their interest in solving the mystery waned pretty quickly.

Days later, a final team hikes to the location where Justin's items were found. They hope to uncover more belongings or a body, but they return empty-handed.

Oh, like, if you had the name of a police officer and you wanted to track him down, No, no.

I have mixed feelings about this search. On one hand, I'm impressed by Jonathan Skeels. He sacrificed weeks of his own time and leveraged every resource he could muster to try to find Justin. He didn't have any experience in this type of work, he didn't even know Justin that long.

Yeah.

For the next six months, Alex and I continue to research the case, and we keep coming back to the interrogation. Videos of the porter and the baba, which Skeels claims to have. When we last talked, he wasn't prepared to share them with us. But to get any further on this case, I need to know what was said in that room. So I come up with a plan and purchase a ticket determined to change Skeels mind.

I think four days ago.

I've gotten to know Skeels well since our initial call, but to get to know each other better, we decided to meet up. It's happenstance that he's here in La Ventana, Mexico, at the same time as someone else I want to meet. So he offered that I could crash at his place.

Yeah, sounds good, mezzanine up here for you.

La Ventana is known as one of the best locations in the world for kite surfing, and in the distance, surfers rip through the blue Ocean waves.

I mean, motorcycles is what connected all of us, but we weren't really what you'd call motorcycle guys. We were just kind of Peter Pan, fuck-off sort of guys that wanted to feel freedom.

This is Justin Chatwin. He claims to be a full-time drifter. But what he's best known for is his acting work, namely playing the character Jimmy Slash Steve in the series Shameless.

This idea of just nomadism, like, let's just live for today. And wherever we end up tonight, we'll get a hotel, and then tomorrow we worry about tomorrow.

I mean, we talked about it, but it wasn't like.

Well, Johnny, you actually did it, you never really went home.

As Chatwin mentioned, he Skeels and Justin Alexander connected over their shared love of nomadism and motorcycles. Although Skeels and Chatwin stay in touch. They actually haven't seen each other in a while. In fact, the last time they were together was in 2016, when they learned Justin Alexander was missing.

Both of us didn't know him. he was an acquaintance of mine, He wasn't even a friend. Would you call him a friend?

No.

You'd call him an acquaintance.

He was an acquaintance like a guy who was like, Oh, cool, definitely. Possibility of becoming friends.

Yeah, that's true, I would completely agree with that.

Chatwin says he first crossed paths with Justin Alexander in May 2015 while motorcycling in the Mojave Desert. They kept in contact through Instagram and eventually reconnected at a party in Big Sur.

And he was kind of, he was pretty quiet in crowds, didn't say much, but really good one-on-one.

And the ladies loved him.

And the ladies loved him.

After that party, Chatwin remembers leaving with Justin.

We got gas together and then I said, See you later. And when I left, I felt really sad. I don't know. I felt it was almost like I felt sorry for him, like I felt like he was really lonely. And wanting companionship and wanting a friend.

And that was the last time you saw him.

I think that was the last time I saw him.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was like, looking forward to getting to know him more, but hung out with him maybe four times.

Yeah.

Me once.

Yeah.

You know, people often ask me why I went, you know, why did I drop everything to go do it? Because I met him that one night, that's the only time I ever met him. I hadn't had the deep conversations like Justin had, but I had observed the nature of the man and I was impressed. And so, yeah, I decided that I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't go.

It just didn't seem very dangerous to me until Johnny got there and kind of, he texted me, like, a few things, you sounded traumatized.

Oh, really.

And dark, and I was like, Oh, this is serious.

Yeah, it's all a bit of a blur. I mean, those days were pretty intense the first couple months in India. I was always getting the half-truths out of Linda and then had one epic blow-up with her, like Linda. I need all the information this time, not just the parts that you want me to hear. Because I'm out here, going in front of the police, and if it turns out that something else was going on, they could put me in jail.

And then, So, what did she give you?

You know, for a long time, she held out that he was carrying these vials of LSD.

Justin's father also mentioned the LSD vials, but this knowledge was never shared with the police or media. What was reported is that Justin had two backpacks, one which he took on the trek and is missing. The other was found at a guest house in Calga.

What was in the bag?

Well, so in his bag was just like regular little bits of clothes, like his, you know, medical kit, survival stuff, his passport and his credit card. And before I even got there, I was in contact with Chris, and, you know, Chris cryptically told me that there was like a kilo of hash in his bag.

A kilo of hash is 2.

I told him, you've got to get rid of that because that would have immediately become the focus. And I needed the full support of the local police in conducting the search. So I told Chris, I said, Just make that disappear.

But was he? Justin wasn't short on money, was he?

He wasn't flush, so I don't think he was trafficking. I think he had purchased advantageously and was, you know, selling it to other travelers just to fund his travels.

Oh, you think he was selling, huh?

Well, he reportedly had two vials of LSD and one had dried up and he was upset about that, and then he had like 120 tabs of Viagra.

Justin wrote online that he planned to travel more after India and possibly the rest of 2016. So, carrying medical supplies in bulk wouldn't be unusual, but 120 pills of Viagra, that's a striking number.

Yeah, I question why he had it. I mean, you know, maybe he was selling that too, I don't know.

I don't know. I've traveled a lot and I've always said, if you're looking for trouble and you're mixing in kind of darker worlds, you're going to find it. And it just sounds like that whole drug culture in India, it just seemed shady.

99.

These two debate theories for what feels like hours. And I take a step back to just listen, as Steele seems to be revealing details that he hadn't previously shared with me. It's then that Chatwin asks Steele his thoughts on what really happened, and I'm left stunned.

Well, I'm confident that he was murdered. What's that? I'm pretty confident that he was murdered.

The reason why is what kind of gets me.

Well, this barber probably lived on like $100 a month. So if you suspect, you know, the foreigner has a few hundred dollar bills in his pocket. He's got a phone, he's got maybe some other valuables.

But why, Justin? Then? Like, you could pick an easier target.

The weakest link could have killed Goliath on this corner. Just the one place where you'd be walking behind someone and you'd just tap them. And they would have gone right over and not been able to self-arrest. And when the barber is questioned, he wouldn't have one story and change the story, or get back and not report the fact that the guy was missing, right?

Then maybe they're afraid that they'll be blamed for his murder.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't necessarily consider that just because of how shifty the guy was.

The guy getting hung out of nowhere in the jail cell makes you go. There's something else like, that's what makes me go. Yeah, maybe there is something more. Did you guys interview other babas that knew him?

Yeah, that baba. yeah, everyone spoke badly about him, he was the bad baba.

Why would Justin pick that baba to go into the mountains with?

He's the guy that he had struck up a relationship with.

Trusting the wrong people.

Yeah, trusting the wrong people again.

I don't dismiss Skiels theory. His assessment is the closest thing we have to a possible motive for murder. The problem is, as Chatwin just demonstrated, it can be easily challenged. In an attempt to open the conversation and try to hear their thoughts on other scenarios, I ask if either of them believes Justin could still be alive.

I mean, one of the hashtags that he used a lot was Live Your Legend. You know, the whole thing of creating your own legend is definitely something that he was playing with.

But he wouldn't have done this to his mother, he had such a tight connection with his mother.

But haven't you ever had that thought of just what if I just could get away from everyone and everything? And just one day just start over as a new person? Without all my old shame and old feelings, and just recreate myself? I fucking have had that thought, what if he actually did it?

Yeah.

What do you think?

What do I think? To be honest? I really don't know. When I look at the facts, this is what I'm certain of. Justin was hiking down from Montelay Lake in early September with Babura Wat and Anil Kumar. On his way down, he passed by a group of hikers who took a photo with him.

I think you gotta contemplate how remote this area was, sure.

Eventually, to prove with certainty that Justin was murdered, Skeels offers to show me what I've been looking for.

Such a remote, wide place. Well, these were trekking trails, that was one trail up, one trail down, yeah, beside a river.

He opens his laptop and within a drop box, close to a terabyte in size, are all the photos and videos from the 2016 search, including the interrogations.

It looks like it, it's fresh.

You can take a look.

Oh, shit.

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