Status: Untraced - E4: Under One More Rock

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.

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.

As promised, here is Status Untraced Episode 4.

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.

Jonathan Skeels kindly shared his dropbox containing hundreds of videos and photos from the 2016 search. And we begin to comb through it. These are the most notable finds.

Maybe they can say something about what happened that day.

Why didn't he say that before?

Most of the interrogations are conducted in Hindi, so I send them to a translation service and await a response.

I saw the flute, flute, flute.

Yes.

I see the flute of the guy who is missing.

Oh God, this is the flute, right?

It looks like it, it's fresh.

You can take a look, oh shit.

Don't touch it.

I'm not touching anything.

Oh, fucking hell.

Fucking baba.

Using a stick, they poke at a backpack rain cover that has been rolled up. Inside is a brown fabric shawl and a grey head wrap.

Oh, fuck.

Skills takes hold of the camera, and his attention is drawn to the mystery surrounding one particular item the flute staff.

It looks like there's an impression like someone was sitting, almost.

Like a flagpole, the flute staff is jammed straight into the ground right behind it, a slight impression in the grass, as if someone sat down. I can't make sense of it. It's as if these items were intentionally left behind.

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'm Liam Luxon and this is status Untraced episode 4 under One More Rock.

I don't know you think about like.

This is where she was.

And her son's all the way in India.

Yeah.

It's kind of like a.

Completely different world.

It's almost too massive to even comprehend.

Are we late, are we on time?

We're right on time.

Alex and I reconvened and quickly made plans for another trip, this time headed north to Salem, Oregon, a small town an hour outside of Portland. We've intended to make a trip here for some time to visit Justin's mother, Susie Reeb. She's invited us to an Italian restaurant in town, and as we walk by, we spot her sitting by a large window.

I think that's her right there, hey.

Susie welcomes us with warm hugs, radiating kindness. She's draped in a bohemian blouse and adorned with turquoise jewelry. I imagine she would have glowed in the sunlight if it weren't for the dreary skies. Though, given the situation, everything feels a bit gray. We try to keep the conversation lighthearted, but naturally, we find ourselves talking about Justin.

For me, it was the greatest experience to be a mother and to be his mother, yeah.

Occasionally, as Susie shares anecdotes about her son, her eyes cloud and drift towards the window, as if in a distant place. The loss of losing her only child is something she says will never heal, but she tries to cope with trips to Utah.

I'm going back, that's kind of like my sacred place, it's where I go, and it was very healing for me. After Justin's murder, it's been hard to say that word.

This is also part of the reason we're here to try to better grasp the murder theory. Where did it originate, from? What evidence points to foul play? And why does Justin's mother so full-heartedly believe her son was killed? We wrap dinner and meet at a shared office.

How did you feel trying to reach out to the embassy?

And just nobody seemed to be getting back to you.

Crazy, frustrated, angry, just beyond angry. Yeah, you know. By that time, all I cared about was getting there, boots on the ground and begin. I just felt I had to move now.

The first article announcing Justin's disappearance was not from India, but the Portland Tribune on October 8th. In it, Susie is quoted saying I want to make noise, I want people aware of this.

And the Kulu police? They were not initially supportive. They were just like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard this before, yeah, yeah, yeah, and they were just discounting our interest. No, he's just gone missing.

Two days after arriving in Kulu, Susie filed an FIR first information report, the official missing person submission. Thanks to Jonathan Skeels, I now have a copy.

We suspect Baba or his porter have done something wrong or not telling the truth, and are potentially responsible for his kidnapping with intention to murder.

It's the first documented record of any criminal accusation against Baba Rawat and Anil Kumar. After the FIR submission, India media outlets such as Midday, The Indian Express and Hill Post started reporting on Justin's disappearance. According to Susie, law enforcement also became more proactive in the case, particularly regarding Baba Rawat.

Police knew that they had to be on board because it was getting too much notoriety. I had been on TV, the articles in the newspaper, it was all over about Justin and his situation. We were rattling a lot of chains. They're like, Well, do you want us to have this guy arrested?

I ask what made Susie so sure of Baba Rawat's guilt? and she refers to her last call with Justin.

And this last experience he had with Rawat, I didn't feel good about it. In fact, I felt it was dangerous. It sounds strange, but just in my mother's heart, something was not okay. I felt that he was a nefarious character in my heart and in my gut.

What about Anil, the porter that was with him? Did you ever feel that he had some involvement in the disappearance?

Let's put it this way. It was a team effort and I know that later that the porter helped in the search effort when I left.

Did you guys ever see a body of Rawat?

I wouldn't want to see, I wouldn't care.

After Baba Rawat's death, the Indian authorities cleaned house. The prison guard was suspended and every officer involved with the case, including the superintendent, have since been discharged or restationed. Across India, the F.I.R.'s mention of kidnapping and murder definitely made waves and put a spotlight on Justin's disappearance. But something about it leaves me uneasy. Were these murder claims based on anything solid?

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.

It's 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.

No, 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, 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.

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 Plus.

When you were in India, but Justin's Google account and his password, you haven't gotten access into that yet, correct?

No, and I have connections at Google, yeah, and if that was possible, it would have been done by now. I think there was a big search for his phone, that was the big thing because that's where he did everything.

Justin's digital accounts are of interest because they could hold a wealth of information, like location tracking and final communications. With no leads, we postpone looking into the accounts, and as our interview winds down, Susie makes a kind offer.

So, you know, I have a lot of magnificent experiences and stories, but they're a little too woo-woo for you guys. But I have his first pair of shoes and I have the flute staff downstairs. You said you might want to see it.

I would love to see that.

So before we go, I can, just because my car's right out here.

She leads us outside to her car, parked on the side of the street. One by one, she pulls Justin's trinkets and personal belongings out of her trunk.

Oh, look at this, wow, that is cool.

Do you want to try it on?

She encourages me to try on and feel the weight of Justin's brown leather jacket.

This is the head wrap.

I run my fingers over the tattered gray head wrap.

But here it is here, seeing it now in the real flesh, not just seeing it.

And then she presents an item that has been circling my thoughts the flute walking staff.

That's sturdy, too.

Yeah.

Hey, merging you in perfect.

I believe I have both you guys here. Hi, good morning.

Morning.

This is our first time meeting, but a voice I'm familiar with. Jaden Brandt is a private detective and founder of Origin Investigations who aided in the searches for Adaya Shabani and Elaine Park. The missing person cases that are the focus of the podcast To Live and Die in L..A.

Hey, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're actually trying to investigate this case, not simply document it, correct?

There has been a decent amount of investigation into the guy that went missing. There is one suspect, though, that was arrested and then let go.

He's either an Indian national or he's Nepal national.

And so our goal is to try to track him down.

You know, whether we're looking for a subject or we're trying to get information on an individual or a company or things like that. Doing that here in the U.

Jaden's foreign connections are predominantly in China and Thailand, but he offers to dig up what contacts he can for PIS in India independently. Alex and I plan to do the same.

Okay, so what do you guys have now? Do you have devices of his?

We have nothing of his currently.

Okay.

In terms of getting it from Google, that's not really going to happen. Okay, the first thing I'm thinking is if you can get access to a phone that has his same number. You can start to look at trying to get into some of those accounts through two-factor authentication.

Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of security on your online accounts. You've probably seen it before you log in with your username and password, and then to confirm it's really you, a secret pin is sent to your phone. This sort of security is also used when resetting your account passwords.

Alex and I have been talking about, you know, maybe there's a way that we can get into his Google account and track like the location. So if you have his phone number and you figure out if that phone number is still active or if it isn't active....

Okay, so here's.

Yeah.

I just call and I leave messages.

This is true your number can be reassigned if you don't pay your phone bill.

So I don't know what's going on. I will give you the number, hold on.

So I'm going to need to reach out to those people and try to kind of explain the scenario. Because the idea is that we're going to try to go to his Google account and then say we forgot the password. Because it should send a two-form authorization code to the phone and then hopefully find something.

Well, I'm okay with whatever you need to do. Shall I give you the number?

Absolutely yes, please.

Okay.

Perfect from your knowledge, that was the one he was calling you from.

Yeah.

Okay, and then the other question is, what email do you think he would have had attached to his Google account?

Probably.

It's disbanded, Jonathan, and I just checked that last month, too.

The other thing that we could look through.

Yeah.

We might be able to get his Apple account through that somehow as well, actually, so that would be kind of our possibilities there, but we'll try the Google one first. Okay, and this may be a complete dead end, but whatever option we can possibly take to maybe find something.

I have a similar conversation with Justin's father, Terry Shetler, and with both parents permission. I launch into tracking down the current phone number owner. I call Justin's number, it rings and I get a voicemail.

Thank you for calling.

This number is now owned and operated by a private company in Northern California. And I spend the next couple of weeks trying to get in touch with someone. Finally, their secretary, who, for the sake of the podcast we'll call Savannah, picked up. She didn't recognize the number and, after talking to her boss, insisted that the company didn't own it. A little thrown off, I called the number again.

I know this is asking you a lot, but could I actually have you? Just call that number? Because it goes directly to a voicemail and it sounds a lot like the same voice, which I believe is your voice.

Savannah calls the number herself and agrees with me It's her voice. She promises to look into the ownership of the number and what they can do to transfer it. So while Savannah begins that process, I decide to look into one more lead, a tracking expert who analyzed the location where Justin's items were found.

When everybody was worried about him dying in India, I remember just being like, Yeah, it's Justin, he never dies.

Tom McElroy, a wilderness survival instructor, met Justin when they were both young adults, training in the art of survival. Susie put me in touch with Tom, saying that the two men had been like brothers since they were teenagers.

He's the guy that gets hit by a truck and he falls out of a tree and cracks his head. But he always just pops back up and sews his head together with some duct tape, and then he's fine. This larger-than-life kind of guy that seemed like nothing could ever get him.

Tom wasn't initially involved in the search, but decided to fly to India midway through October.

I think I was teaching a class or something right at that time and so I didn't go right away. I also wasn't sure if I was going to be the most helpful person. I was thinking more like somebody that spoke the language and knew the culture would be better. Because, you know, I was just another guy walking around, looking under rocks. And it just kind of turned out that a week later, they needed more help. And so I basically packed all my stuff and was on a plane that evening. 30 hours later, being on a helicopter flying up to 10,000 feet to go, look for Justin's body. So it all just moved really quick at that point.

I notice the words Justin's body and ask why that's the verbiage he uses.

I think at that point, I really kind of had given up hope that we were going to find Justin just hanging out and okay. But at the same time, of course, every time I turned a corner on the trail, my mind was like, totally waiting to see Justin, wrapped in blankets, walking around the corner with a busted leg. Just feeling like, Oh my god, Tom, what are you doing here, you know?

Reiterating Tom's observations, he says, standing where Justin's flute staff was found. There appeared to be one distinct line of broken branches from something that fell down the cliff face to that spot. He also said search teams possibly experimented with throwing logs and rocks higher up off the cliff to see how they fell. In addition to that broken line, he observed two other tracks here.

I could find a trail of two people, it was a very obvious track. If I had gotten there before, anybody else had gotten there, I would have been able to track it. But the fact that Jonathan and a bunch of people had already walked down there, I couldn't tell the difference between his tracks and tracks from before that.

Tom inspected this location two months after Justin was last seen. So really, these tracks could belong to anyone? However, further up the cliff, he made another discovery.

So I hiked slightly up the cliff and then found there was a jacket actually stuck halfway up the cliff that nobody had found. They took the jacket and they said they did some forensics on it and didn't find anything that would indicate that it was his jacket. But yeah, the jacket never led to anything. We never saw it in a picture or anything like that, so who knows?

Tom says he then reached the top of the cliff, where the trail is.

So I saw two sets of tracks coming in and standing at that spot, and so the tracks didn't look like they were a month old. They looked more recent at the time. But everybody told me nobody's been out here.

Tom later found out that statement wasn't true. He came across photographs of search teams actively walking in the area earlier in the week. The discovery muddled his entire analysis, but one thing remained clear.

I was like, OK, it confirmed something heavy went off the cliff and broke branches all the way down. And so from there, I just assumed that that's a likely story of what happened, why his stuff was there. So I was like, Well, either. His body continued all the way down the river and it could be anywhere. We're never going to find it, or there's probably a 50 chance that it got caught underwater.

Tom's findings provide the clearest picture of what actually happened at the site yet. I can't get past the flute staff jutting straight out of the ground. How did it end up like that?

Before I got to India, I was like, there's no way somebody would plant that staff in the ground. And then somewhere in there, I just kind of was like, Well, doesn't make any sense any other way. We got a bunch of logs and threw them off the cliff and every single time, those logs would hit where that staff was. And then the logs would continue to bounce into the river.

I agree with Tom. It's weird the way the walking staff was found. It's like something out of a mystery novel. There's only a few scenarios that make sense one, Justin fell off the cliff and, in a desperate attempt to save himself, jammed the flute staff into the ground.

I'm on my way to the Sprint store to see if I can talk to them and then probably head back to T-Mobile after that, hopefully with some results.

Savannah got approval to transfer Justin's old phone number. While that's excellent news, I soon find my challenge isn't over. I take a visit to T-Mobile and the employees claim the transfer request can only be dealt with over the phone. But when I dial up T-Mobile Tech Support, they claim the transfer request can only be made in store.

So I'm just sitting in my car on the phone. And then I had to take it in there, give it to the manager, the manager had to talk to him. The whole thing is just so, utterly absurd.

This whole ordeal drags on for days. I'm on the phone for hours, I pour my heart out to multiple T-Mobile employees and at one point call me a complete idiot. I almost accidentally lose ownership of the number entirely, but I don't give up.

But um, we did it.

We fucking finally did it. It only took me six hours of being at T-mobile over the last couple days.

Wow, wow, okay, we got to get into the Google account.

I know.

Alex and I meet at an office in L.

How are you feeling?

Fuck, I'm nervous. I power up my computer. We're going to try to get into one of Justin's email accounts.

Should we just try it?

Click Forgot Password?

Okay.

And the last password you remember?

We start with a forgot password method.

Try another way.

Oh God, this is so fucking crazy that this is a thing. Um, the number is send.

Right?

A two-form authentication pin is sent to the iPhone. I use this pin to reset Justin's email password and, like Clockwork, we're in Justin's Yahoo account. But it's not what we were expecting.

Weird.

It's empty.

Does.

That can't be right, is it?

Do things just get deleted after a certain point?

There is no data in Justin's email accounts, no received emails, no sent messages, no saved drafts, no search history.

Go to manage your Google account here you go.

Rediscover.

Location history is paused.

Fuck.

It's been turned off.

He doesn't have it anything.

Ugh.

No luck with Google, but I want to try to turn over one more stone, Justin's iCloud.

Hang on.

Let's try to get this Apple ID.

We sign in.

Continue.

Text message.

Cool.

Enable.

Huh.

What is this?

We're in it.

If you have tips or information on the individuals in this podcast that you'd like to share, please email us at statusuntraced at gmail.