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Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and [music] I'm solo today. Well, not technically solo. I am with
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Maggie today. But anyways, even though Brit's not here, I didn't want that to stop me from telling you guys this story
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because the one I have for you today is so wild it might sound like I'm describing the plot of [music] this
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year's hottest blockbuster release, but I promise it's all true. And one of the biggest leads in the case came from a
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crime junkie just like you who trusted their instincts. And we might be just one [music] crime junkie tip away from
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finally knowing what happened to the now [music] infamous pilot who murdered his
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wife, his secret lover, and her daughter and then vanished into the wilderness. Did he meet his end in the [music]
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forest? Or did this man use his survivalist and flying skills to launch a new life? Opinions are [music] split,
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but we have brand new information that's never been reported before that might finally help [music] determine where in
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the world is Michael Bullinger. July 12th, 2017 is shaping up to be a typical workday for 17-year-old Gina
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Hun. Gina helps maintain and clean campgrounds for her dad's management company in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And
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this morning, she's tasked with weed whacking at the Pacific Creek campground. Now, before she leaves,
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Gina's [music] dad's like, "Oh, hey, by the way, there is this abandoned car that someone dumped at campsite 4, which
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I've been meaning to have towed, but you know, for today, just kind of like work
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around it." And she does. But there is something about the white car at campsite 4 that she just can't shake.
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Part of it is the thick layer of dust on the windshield as if it's been there for
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weeks. But the other part is the context she has being [music] a local. I mean, she knows this is grizzly bear country.
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So Gina worries that the owner of the car went hiking and then maybe got attacked in the woods, which isn't
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unheard of in this area. So, after she finishes up all of her work, she walks back over to the car and just peers
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inside. Now, there's nothing too interesting. She sees a blanket, a hat, a disposable coffee cup, and she can't
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go snooping beyond that because the doors and the trunk are locked up tight. So, in true crime junkie fashion,
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because by the way, we talked to Gina and she is a legit listener of the show. I mean, like, [music] not then. We
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didn't start the podcast till 5 months after this, but crime junkies, I always say, are born, not made. [music] And by
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the way, hey girl. So, she snaps some photos of the car and its license plate to take back with her because there
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isn't a lick of cell service in [music] this campground or really anywhere near it. But when she gets home that evening,
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Gina hops on the computer and the first thing she looks up is missing hikers in the area. The second thing she Googles
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is the license plate. And when she types out Utah license plate 129UMP, her screen floods with headlines.
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Nationwide manhunt underway. Triple murder victims identified. Suspect in Idaho, triple homicide last seen in
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Ogden might be driving a White Ford [music] focus. Trust your gut, folks. Sometimes it's
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nothing, but sometimes you break a case cuz who knows if anyone would have connected the dots otherwise. So she
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flags this for her dad who in turn calls the police. And we don't see this every
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day, but here all law enforcement agencies are picking up the phone and talking to one another, sharing
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information. So by that same night, police investigating a triple murder in Canyon County, Idaho, 7 hours west, know
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that one of the cars they put into NCIC a few weeks ago in connection to their suspect, now has been found. Idaho
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authorities asked them to secure the car ASAP while they get on the road and start writing a search warrant. And in
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the meantime, [music] an Idaho detective sends a bulletpoint memo to the Wyoming
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authorities to get them up to speed on the crime that they're investigating and the fugitive that they're looking for,
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Michael Bullinger. And we actually obtained that memo. It reads, quote, "There is not a clear
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motive, but it appears Bullinger suddenly, uncontrollably, and explosively snapped over something.
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There is a love triangle. most grizzly crime scene he has investigated in 20 years. Bodies were dumped in a pile, all
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shot in the head, covered in hay, in an outbuilding." End quote. Now, there's a lot packed into this memo. [music] So,
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let me break down for you exactly what I've come to learn about the crime scene in Idaho and everything that led up to
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this getaway car discovery. So 3 weeks before on June 18th, a deputy out in Caldwell, Idaho had been sent out to do
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a welfare check on a guy named Gerald Michael [music] Bullinger, who goes by Mike, and his wife Cheryl. Now, Mike's
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son had called in and said that no one had been able to get a hold of his dad or his stepmom, who [clears throat] live
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in Utah. But they'd recently bought a house [music] in Caldwell, so they're thinking maybe they're there. like could
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someone go and check because it wasn't a quick trip for the son who lives way down in New Mexico. Now, when the deputy
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pulls up to this house, he sees that there are cars in the driveway. Everything looks in order, but nobody
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answers the door when he knocks. So, he leaves. But the very next day, the same department gets another welfare check to
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the same address. But this time, it's a woman named Tammy calling from Utah. and
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she said that she was worried about her friend Nadia and Nadia's teenage daughter Payton because no one can get a
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hold of them and both have stopped posting on Facebook and apparently Nadia is like a prolific Facebook poster. So
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this is cause for concern. Now Tammy tells police Nadia and Payton just moved to Caldwell from Utah with Nadia's
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boyfriend Mike Bullinger. Now no one knows what's what at this point. They just send another deputy
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back out to the house again. They knock. No answer. Car is still there. But this
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time, the deputy decides to have a look around the property. And when he makes his way out back near a shed, he gets a
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whiff of that very distinct odor known to most in law enforcement. Decom. That is enough to at least open
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the door to the shed. And right away, he spots that three bodies. Now, because of
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how decomposed they were, he can't say who they are or even if the people he's looking at are men or women. But, of
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course, detectives are running the license plates of the cars that are at the house and taking into account the
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welfare check calls. And so, they're pretty sure that these three people are going to end up being Mike's wife,
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Cheryl Baker, Mike's girlfriend, Nadia Medley, and Nadia's daughter, 14-year-old Payton Medley. Police end up
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getting a search warrant for the house and the rest of the property. [music] Kind of expecting to find Mike's body,
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too, thinking this is some kind of murder suicide situation. But Michael isn't there. Meaning instead of murder
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suicide, they have a mass murder and a fugitive on the run. One who has had a big jump on them and who left little
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behind in the way of clues. I mean, there's no note and no murder weapon, even though it's clear that all three
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died of gunshot wounds, shot exactly where they were found, and not even the family pets were spared. Family members
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that we interviewed said that some caged birds found in [music] the house had died, though it's unclear how, but it is
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clear he shot the family dogs in what Sheriff Donahue with the Canyon County Sheriff's Office believes was an effort
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to prevent them from attracting any attention to the crime scene. Because even though their house in Caldwell,
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Idaho was on the outskirts of town, I mean, it's still within the greater Boise metro area. So, there were
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neighbors to the halfacre property. According to past reporting by the Associated Press, one of those neighbors
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told police that she thought she heard gunshots about 10 days before. She also thought she heard a woman's scream
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sometime between June 6th and the 10th, and it was like early in the morning whenever she heard it. And that lines up
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with the timeline that they start to build and what the coroner gives them, which is that the victims, who they
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confirm are 56-year-old Cheryl Baker, 47year-old Nadia Medley, and 14-year-old Payton Medley. The corner said they were
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all shot in the head likely on June 8th or June [music] 9th. Now, the other thing that's come into focus through
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interviewing everyone is that Michael Bowlinger was living a double life. one at this house in Caldwell where he moved
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with his girlfriend Nadia and her daughter and was playing pseudo stepdad and then another life in Ogden, Utah as
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Cheryl's husband planning a retirement together. And the truth of this shocks everyone when they find out Cheryl's
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brother told our reporter that he thought the two of them seemed pretty happy. Cheryl was Mike's second or maybe
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third wife. I've actually seen police reports that say Cheryl was his third wife, but I haven't been able to find
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any proof of a second wife. But either way, Cheryl and Mike had been together for like a decade and married about 5
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years. And in that time, they enjoyed plenty of hobbies together, like hiking and rafting. They seemed to genuinely
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enjoy one another. But for at least the last 2 years, Mike had been secretly dating Nadia. One of Nadia's relatives
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told us that she had no idea Mike was married. He says they met because Nadia was a massage therapist and Mike had
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been her client. And Nadia sure didn't act like their relationship was a secret or anything. I mean, everyone in her
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life knew about Mike. And Nadia had pictures of him all over her Facebook page. Now, cheating
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not totally a new concept for Mike. His first wife, Jackie, told the Idaho Statesman that Mike had cheated on her,
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too. And some believe that Cheryl had even begun to suspect it in the time leading up to her death. And Jackie even
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made allegations to that same news outlet that Mike [music] had been physically abusive toward her. But
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still, he doesn't have much of a criminal history to speak of. So, how does someone go from affair to murdering
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three people? One of whom isn't even one of the women you're tangled up with. One
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of them is a child. I don't know if anyone but Michael will know exactly what happened in that house or in that
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shed back in June of 2017. But investigators have a pretty good theory of what happened. According to
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property records, Michael and Cheryl bought that Idaho house that spring. He sold this to Cheryl as a place that they
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could eventually move to, a place where they could enjoy their retirement, which
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was right around the corner. But what Mike [music] actually wanted it for was his other little family. Because
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according to neighbors and Facebook posts, shortly after purchasing it, Nadia and Payton moved in and they
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thought they were living with Mike. Now, maybe Mike was going back and forth to keep up this ruse, but like, how long
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could this have worked? Eventually, Cheryl is going to want to move in or at a minimum visit the house in Idaho. It
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was inevitable that his two worlds were going to collide. It was just a matter of when, and when came sooner than he
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ever planned. [music] I am popping on to start a conversation about a case. I cannot get it out of my
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head. A true mind bender. [music] a huge twist your way. You gut check all your assumptions cuz this is a case that
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starts [music] like so many before. >> Hi, crime junkies. [cheering] >> No one knows why Cheryl showed up
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unannounced at the house in Idaho in early June. Cheryl's siblings said that she had prior plans that week to be at a
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religious event out [music] of town, but like something must have changed. Was she suspicious like her brother thinks
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she was? Or was she trying to just surprise her husband? Either way, when she arrived on either June 8th or 9th,
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all of Mike's lies were exposed. What was said, how long it took him to make up his mind about what he was going
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to do, nobody knows. But somehow, at some point, he marched all three women to the shed and executed them. And after
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he had time to gather his things and make a plan, he grabs a bite to eat before becoming the most wanted fugitive
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across multiple states, he enjoys a solo sitdown breakfast at a local Caldwell joint called The Griddle on June 10th.
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And then after breakfast, Mike drives back to his other house that he shares with Cheryl in Ogden, Utah. This is like
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a 4 and 1/2 hour drive. And it's confirmed he did this through surveillance cameras that captured him.
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What we know is that he leaves his pickup truck there at the house, hops on a bicycle, and then rides that bicycle
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to a nearby car dealership where he picks up Cheryl's white Ford Focus that was being serviced. Now, the next
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morning, a text message is sent from Cheryl's phone to one of her longtime friends. But her family and the police
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firmly believe that it was Michael who was sending that [music] message, and it said, quote, "Take care of my dogs. I
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don't know if I'm coming back." End quote. Now, at this point, Cheryl's family was already worried about her,
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but this text sent off a frenzy [music] among them. Because none of this was like her. She wasn't the type to up and
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leave on a whim. Or if she were going to, she had far more care for the people in her life than to leave them behind
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wondering what happened to her. She was a Buddhist and a beloved teacher. She started out her career at the Utah
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School for the Deaf and Blind and later taught art school. She loved her students and making quilts for her loved
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ones. And she spent all her free time rafting rivers or hiking with her dogs. Now, no one knows why Mike did this
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truck to bike to car switcheroo in Utah, but I assume it's because he knows that
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these bodies are going to be found any minute, and he wants to be in a car that isn't registered directly to him. Not
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that the car of the wife you just murdered is any better, but I don't know what he's thinking at this point. Police
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say that Mike, after he sent that text from her phone, drives 5 hours away, where he's caught on surveillance
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cameras again, entering Grand Teton National Park through the Maran entrance in Wyoming. [music] That is at 10:34
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a.m. on June 11th, and he's still in Cheryl's white Ford Focus. Now, what's really interesting is where he entered
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the national park. You can get to the campground where his car is eventually found by our crime junkie Gina in about
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30 minutes. But when we interviewed the campground host Paul, he said that he first noticed the car on June 23rd. And
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as far as he knows, it sat there until Gina blew the whistle on July 12th. Now granted, it's not like he had his eyes
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on it every single minute of every single day. He worked a lot of campgrounds and would pop by this one
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like once or twice [music] a week. But he told us that sometimes hikers park in campsites not realizing that they need
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to pay the camping fee if they wanted to park there overnight. So he left a note
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on this car's windshield. A few days later, he leaves another note, but he never did see anyone in or around the
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car. So the real question to me isn't even if this car moved after June 23rd. Like I think the answer is no. To me,
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the real question is where was the car and Michael between when he entered this park on June 11th and then when his car
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first gets spotted abandoned on the 23rd, but that is still a mystery. No one has him on any other surveillance
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cameras that we know of, [music] and there are no other sightings of him in that time frame.
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But that's the window of time when the bodies are found and when a bolo went out for him in the state of Idaho. Now,
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who knows if he had access to the internet or news at that time. But I do find it interesting that the triple
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murders start to get splashed all over the news around June 20th or so. And then Mike's car gets abandoned just a
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few days later. So, all of this brings me to the moment I have been dying to tell you about. what they found inside
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his car. And this is exclusive, brand spanking new information. Our reporter Emily has been working on this case for
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literal years. I mean, before she was even at Audio Chuck, she covered this area of Jackson Hole for a local
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newspaper. And she got these details back in 2017, but it was off the record then. And she has been sitting on it
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this whole time. But patience paid off because during her reporting for this episode, Sheriff Donahghue gave us
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permission to finally share all of this. So, I'm actually going to read directly
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from an investigative report which gives the results of the search warrant. One, the trunk compartment of the Ford
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Focus was opened and it contained a full complement of camping equipment. Two, the camping inventory included sleeping
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bag, tent, cot, daypack, survival gear, matches, fire starter, space blanket, and first aid kit, blue plastic tarp,
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outdoor clothes, boots, an all-purpose utility tool, and two water bottles. One was full of water and the other was
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empty. No food were present in the trunk or inside the car, and there was an empty cooler in the trunk.
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Three. Tucked just inside the trunk compartment was an empty leather holster that once protected a handgun. The
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missing handgun from the leather holster appeared to have been a large revolver.
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Four. Conspicuously located inside the trunk compartment was all the personal identifications belonging to Gerald Mike
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Bullinger. This included his wallet full of personal documents, [music] a laptop,
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nearly $3,600 in cash, and his Utah driver's license. All of this was found in Bowlinger's brown canvas dayack. Also
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in the dayack was a 357 revolver in a holster. The pistol was fully loaded. Five. Remarkably left behind in the
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trunk of the Ford Focus were all three murdered victims smartphones and Bullinger's own smartphone. Six. Also
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left behind in the trunk, which unequivocally tied Bullinger to the homicide crime scene, two women's
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purses. One purse with Nadia Medley's personal identification and the other purse with the identification of Cheryl
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Baker in wallet. Both of the murdered adult female victims. Now, Sheriff Donahue would not confirm
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if the gun that was found in the trunk was the murder weapon. All he would say is that the murder weapon has been
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located and it was found [music] outside of the state of Idaho. Now, the car, the trunk or whatever is an easy
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conclusion to jump to, right, of where they could have found it. But I think it's a good reminder to tell you that
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Michael's house where he dropped his truck off is also outside of the state of Idaho. So, [music] is that where he
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picked up all that survivalist gear and cash? or did he make other stops that we
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just don't know about at other places where a gun might have been left? Whatever the case, it's the empty gun
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holster that they found that makes them believe wherever Mike is now, he is quite literally armed [music] and
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dangerous. A massive manhunt gets underway for Mike in northwest Wyoming. And to prepare for the searches,
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authorities are gathering intel from Mike's friends and family. And they learn some very interesting things.
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First of which is that Mike grew up in Billings, Montana, and he has extensive family [music] there. And fun fact, pull
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up a map. If you drive from Ogden, Utah to Billings, Montana, where are you going to pass through if you take a
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route that avoids major highways? Why? right through western Wyoming, Jackson Hole in particular. And the authorities
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find out that Mike was actually registered to attend a motorcycle event in Billings that took place June 26th to
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June 30th. The dude had no issue throwing back some eggs and sausage right after killing his wife,
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girlfriend, and a young girl he treated like a stepdaughter. [music] How far-fetched is it to think that he
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dumped his car around June 23rd when it's first spotted and then somehow made his way up to Billings just in time for
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this event? And one more fun fact, while Michael did have a motorcycle that was left at his house in Utah, according to
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an internal police bulletin that we obtained, it stated that Mike also had access to another unknown motorcycle.
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I wish I had any more information on that, but I don't. Now, I don't know how deeply they look into this motorcycle
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event to see if he showed up or if they would even know, but I know they did go search his parents' house in Billings,
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and they found no sign of him there. Though, I'm not sure when those searches happened. Mike's family members have
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never spoken publicly, and they didn't return any of our calls. His son, Bryant, did text Emily back, but he
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declined to do an interview. Now, the other thing they learn about Mike is that he is a career pilot who can fly
00:22:35
almost any type of plane. He also has experience as a backcountry wilderness guide, specifically in Montana and guess
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where else? Northwest Wyoming. In fact, his son Bryant told police that his dad's favorite place is the
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Thoroughfare, which straddles the southeast corner of Yellowstone National Park. And when I looked this up, I have
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never heard of a better place for a fugitive to hide. The thoroughare is the most remote place in the United States
00:23:04
outside of Alaska. You can only get there by foot or horseback and there are ranger cabins just kind of like dotted
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for miles along the river. So with that intel, the FBI, US Marshals, park rangers, Forest Service, and local cops
00:23:20
all set out to find this 60-year-old fugitive. They deploy four different K-9 teams. They close down roads. They set
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up checkpoints, evacuate the nearest subdivisions to the campsite, and search every house, garage, crawl space, and
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shed looking for this guy. They also check flight logs at Jackson Hole Airport, which conveniently is only like
00:23:41
20 m away from where Mike left the car. They're also checking tail numbers of private planes to try and see if Mike
00:23:48
could have gained access to one of those in June or July. And they announced in the local news that if anyone picked up
00:23:54
a hitchhiker in the past month who looked like Mike Bullinger, please call police. Hitchhiking is actually super
00:24:01
common in this area even today because of all the rafting that happens on the river. They also send cops and rangers
00:24:08
out on horseback and in helicopters with infrared to check the cabins out in the
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thoroughfare, half expecting to find Mike just like holed up with his gun. But despite those searches that
00:24:19
continued around the clock, day and night for days, all of it results in a whole lot of nothing. So, if he's not
00:24:31
there, where in the actual world could he be? By now, there is an official warrant out for Mike's arrest, and news
00:24:39
of what happened is spreading far and wide. So, hundreds of tips are coming in both in Idaho and Wyoming, which is
00:24:47
great, but also not because Mike is the most averagel looking 60-year-old, 6' tall, 240lb white guy with gray hair.
00:24:57
Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr said that he looks like everybody's grandpa. Carr's office alone worked 64 tips in
00:25:05
those weeks during the manhunt. Someone reported seeing him in the produce section of the local grocery store, at a
00:25:11
Walmart in Michigan, at the Dairy Queen in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Most of them obviously turned out not to be him.
00:25:19
Otherwise, I might be telling you a different story. But there was one credible tip that came in from a family
00:25:27
who'd been out hiking near the Pacific Creek campground. [music] That's where the Ford Focus was found.
00:25:33
and they reported a strange interaction with a man on the trail in early July. On July 1st, a local district ranger,
00:25:44
his wife, and two of their teen kids are hiking on the trail that starts at the Pacific Creek campground. Now, it's
00:25:51
about 4:45 p.m. when the ranger stops to cut down a tree that's on the path. And
00:25:56
his wife and kids decide to just keep going. And a little ways up the trail, mom and kids come across a gray-haired
00:26:03
man wearing a baseball hat and jeans, but most of his clothes are dirty, like he'd been out there for some time. The
00:26:11
thing is, he isn't carrying a hiking pack or water or anything. Mom notices that this man turns his face away as
00:26:19
they pass him, and she says hello, but the man doesn't even reply. Now, at the time, she thinks his behavior is odd,
00:26:27
but she doesn't really give it another thought until July 16th when she sees Mike Bullinger's picture on the news.
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She immediately thinks that is the man she saw on the trail, so she reports it to police.
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When asked on a scale from 1 to 10 how certain she was it was him, she said seven or eight. Now, the problem with
00:26:50
this sighting is snow. Even though we're talking about midsummer in July, the campground is at a high altitude, almost
00:26:58
7,000 ft above sea level, and the trail goes up even higher from there. So, if you tried to hike that trail, say in mid
00:27:06
June when the car was down, you'd come across a ton of snow pretty quickly. And so, if it is him, we know a lot of his
00:27:14
camping and survival stuff is back at the car in the trunk. So, this isn't a perfect lead, but it is the best lead
00:27:21
they've had. And law enforcement considers this July 1st trail sighting legit. So, they search that trail area
00:27:29
extensively during the manhunt. They do find a spot where it looks like someone started a campfire, but no Mike there,
00:27:37
no gun, no piles of clothes or anything. So, after more false sightings, the manhunt gets scaled way back towards the
00:27:47
end of July, and police are left with three competing theories about Mike's whereabouts. One, he's hiding in the
00:27:56
woods undetected. Two, he used the missing gun to take his own life and they just haven't come
00:28:02
across his body yet. or three. Mike Bullinger somehow managed to leave the area and the guy who was
00:28:10
living two lives now has started a third somewhere without a thought given to the
00:28:16
devastation he left behind. Now, I haven't talked much yet about Nadia and Payton, and I want to because this was a
00:28:25
motheraughter duo who had a lot of life to look forward to. Nadia was a widow and raising Payton on her own after
00:28:32
losing her husband in 2014. And it's clear from her social media how much she loved her daughter. A few days before
00:28:39
they died on June 3rd, Nadia posted a picture of Payton showing [music] off the makeup that she'd done for a Pride
00:28:44
social media video. And Payton was a typical teen girl. I mean, her Facebook is full of like moody selfies and she
00:28:51
loved animals, volleyball, writing, and soccer. One of Payton's school friends told KUTV back then that she called Mike
00:28:58
dad. So many people believe that Mike just got caught off guard by Cheryl and feeling backed into a corner, he
00:29:06
snapped. But I don't know. I can't help but wonder if this was his plan the [music] whole time. Or even if he was
00:29:14
backed into a corner, why did he have to resort to murder? I mean, the man had cheated and gotten divorced before.
00:29:20
Like, what happened this time? And I wanted to do more than just ask the question. I mean, there is something
00:29:26
about family annihilators I feel like I just have to get to the bottom of. What were the signs? How do you know if there
00:29:34
is potential for the man that you love to one day turn on you in the worst possible way? So, we actually reached
00:29:40
out to a forensic psychologist, [music] Jeffrey Frasier, to get his take. Jeff says that Bullinger appears to have an
00:29:48
insecure attachment style, which makes him highly reactive to potential public humiliation. I haven't touched on this
00:29:55
yet, but Mike was actually brought up in an LDS household. Jeff says that people
00:30:00
who are brought up in rigid religious households might lack coping skills when confronted unexpectedly. We don't know
00:30:07
if that was the case for Mike, but if so, it leans more toward the theory that he was surprised and panicked. [music]
00:30:15
Now, the background with his first wife and the fact that he was in this second or maybe third marriage living a double
00:30:22
life for so long also makes Jeff think that Bullinger lacks empathy. [music] So, while most people might admit fault
00:30:29
or ask for forgiveness or feel shame, Bullinger is more likely to be violent because he doesn't have those same
00:30:36
barriers between a logical solution and homicide. Jeff actually brought John List up when we were asking him about
00:30:44
Bullinger. And for those of you unfamiliar, in 1971 in New Jersey, John List killed his mom, his wife, and his
00:30:51
three kids at their house and then disappeared. He assumed a new identity, got remarried, and went 18 years totally
00:31:00
undetected. And when he finally did get caught, he said he was in major debt and
00:31:04
just wanted to spare his family the shame of losing their New Jersey mansion. It's like White Lotus season 3,
00:31:10
anybody? Now, [music] we don't know that Bullinger was facing any money problems.
00:31:15
Cheryl and Mike were both employed. They didn't seem to have any like significant
00:31:20
debt, [music] but one of Cheryl's loved ones did tell us that Mike was pressuring Cheryl to put his name on the
00:31:25
deed of the Utah house before they moved to Idaho. Almost as if he was worried he
00:31:30
wouldn't be getting any of the cash from that sale, but Cheryl had said no. Now,
00:31:34
something else I find interesting about Mike and all of his relationships is the
00:31:39
fact that every woman he was with had very different religious [music] beliefs. His first wife, Jackie, was LDS
00:31:47
like Mike. Cheryl was Buddhist. Nadia was atheist. Now, Jeff, the forensic psychologist we interviewed, didn't have
00:31:54
any strong theories about this, but I kind of wonder if this was Mike's way of making sure none of his overlapping
00:32:02
lovers ever crossed paths socially. Now, over the next year, there are more sightings reported of Mike Bullinger
00:32:10
around the country, but nothing noteworthy. The only thing that becomes of great interest to police doesn't
00:32:16
happen until the summer of 2018. And this isn't a sighting of Mike. Someone hiking up the Pacific Creek Trail finds
00:32:25
a gun. This backpacker named Ben found it under a log in the creek. And it seems like a bit of a miracle, like the
00:32:32
water and the light hit this thing just right so that somehow he saw something shiny and then went digging for [music]
00:32:38
it. The thing is fully loaded, too. So, he takes it with him, calls the sheriff's office the next day when they
00:32:44
finally get cell service, and then as soon as Ben tells the deputy where exactly he found it and what kind of gun
00:32:50
it is, the deputy has this like, oh, moment where he's like, "This could be Michael Bullinger's gun, the one that he
00:32:58
took off with." It's a Ruger 357, which would fit in the empty gun holster. So Ben drops this gun off and a detective
00:33:06
contacts the ATF to search the serial number. And interestingly, the gun is registered to not Mike Bowlinger, but
00:33:17
instead to an older man who lives in Utah. Like what are the odds? Now, when police reach out to the gun owner, he
00:33:26
says that he bought the gun in 1980 in Utah, but he hasn't seen the gun in like 20 years. [music]
00:33:32
He said he sold it to someone, but he doesn't remember who. Now, the cops check out his story. They confirm as
00:33:39
much as they can. Yes, he did in fact buy it from a dealer in 1980 in Utah, but beyond that, there's no paper trail.
00:33:47
But like in this country, there wouldn't be if it was a private sale. Now, this man seemingly has no ties to Michael
00:33:54
Bullinger other than being about the same age and also living in Utah in a town about 30 minutes from Ogden where
00:34:01
Michael lived. And he says he has no idea how his gun wound up in Wyoming. Detectives checked with various agencies
00:34:07
in Utah to see if the gun had been pawned. They even checked with the manufacturer Ruger to see if the gun
00:34:13
ever made it back to them for maintenance, but no go. Now, something I learned during our research for this
00:34:19
episode is that in the Mountain West, large revolvers are also known as bear guns. Basically, if you're going hiking
00:34:27
in grizzly bear areas such as this, it is highly suggested that you carry a revolver for your own safety.
00:34:34
Which makes me wonder, when Bullinger left his car, he might have grabbed that gun for his own safety, not necessarily
00:34:44
to use it on himself. I mean, think about it. He's familiar with this area. He knows the grizzlies are active there,
00:34:51
and he would have known that they're especially dangerous to encounter in June because they've been hibernating
00:34:57
[music] all winter, just woke up, and they are hungry AF. But maybe it's just the weirdest coincidence of all time
00:35:06
that this Utah gun that fits his empty holster shows up near an area where we also have the only potential credible
00:35:14
sighting of him. A retired investigator that we interviewed who processed the gun says he thinks it looked like it had
00:35:22
not been in the woods for a year. Essentially, it was like too clean looking. But to play devil's advocate,
00:35:30
it's a stainless steel gun that was in a creek and the reports note corrosion on
00:35:35
the bullet. So, I don't know. We actually got some evidence pictures of the gun and Mike's holster that you can
00:35:42
check out on the blog post for this episode. Listen, I'm no gun expert, so if you are and you have a strong opinion
00:35:48
on this, find me, DM me, or email us tipsaudio.com. In the end, while this gun is highly
00:35:55
suspicious, police can't rule it in or out of this case definitively. So, it kind of got logged into evidence kept
00:36:03
until 2020 when for reasons unknown, even to current investigators, it was destroyed. Maybe Emily reached out to
00:36:12
the retired investigator who processed the gun, and he says he logged it into evidence, and as far as he knows, it is
00:36:18
still sitting in evidence. But a different retired evidence technician made a report saying that the gun was
00:36:25
destroyed in 2020. And when Emily reached out to him, he [music] couldn't remember anything about the gun. The
00:36:30
current detective says he's doing evidence inventory sometime soon. And he promises he will call us if he comes
00:36:37
across the gun. If this gun was Michael Boolinger's, [music] I think we would be able to say that he
00:36:44
didn't die by suicide because they would expect there to be at least one missing
00:36:49
bullet from the gun. But this one was fully loaded. Still, just to be sure, a few days after this gun was found in
00:36:58
August 2018, cadaavver dogs were taken to the area, and they did show interest in a spot up the trail. Not as high up
00:37:06
as where the gun was found, but actually closer to the spot that the family thought they saw Michael. So that week,
00:37:12
the US Marshalss came back to Jackson Hole and put together a task force of federal agents and local deputies to do
00:37:18
another search up Pacific Creek Trail. Our reporter Emily actually got to tag along on this search and recorded audio
00:37:25
of the whole thing where a detective talks through what they're looking for and why and where. I'm actually going to
00:37:31
be dropping that audio in our field notes in the fan club along with some crime scene photos. So, fan club
00:37:37
members, make sure you look for that. They end up searching a 4 mile radius that day, but nothing is found, [music]
00:37:45
which is hard for me to wrap my head around. Like, if he died out there in the wilderness, like so many people
00:37:51
still believe, how have they done all this searching and found zero trace of him? Now, along this line, there are two
00:38:00
leading theories with the most popular one being that he died and his remains got scattered by the affforementioned
00:38:07
grizzly bears. Another theory an investigator floated to us was that Bullinger started hiking up, hit snow,
00:38:15
tried to cross the creek, and got like swept downstream. And the probability of this is really dependent on the water
00:38:22
levels at the time. The water would have been high in June 2017 from snow runoff,
00:38:27
but his body would have likely gotten caught up in some brush in the creek along the way. I mean, you would think
00:38:33
that if that happened, someone would have eventually found him, unless the stream took him all the way to the Snake
00:38:38
River, which is where Pacific Creek dumps [music] out. But that is miles and miles downstream. And you know what? Put
00:38:46
the how aside. There is something else that bothers me more. Why? If he was planning to die by
00:38:54
suicide, why not do it at the original crime scene or at the car? Why disappear first? This is a fact that really
00:39:05
bothers the families of the victims, who, by the way, are split on the theories themselves. Some of them think
00:39:12
he's likely dead. And then others told us that Bullinger was too egotistical to ever take his own life. And they believe
00:39:20
that he straight up got away with murder. What if somehow he did get out and somehow he got on a plane? We know
00:39:30
he's a pilot. That opens up a lot of doors. He could be anywhere. Cheryl's brother told us that Bullinger flew
00:39:37
planes both commercially and privately, and his clients in the private sector were ultra wealthy and well-connected. I
00:39:45
think that's why some of them think, even though it's tough to make yourself go missing these days, that he could
00:39:50
have pulled it off. And it doesn't seem like law enforcement has done much surveillance ever since making their
00:39:55
suicide theory public. [music] I do know they checked his phone. They confirmed that he did make some calls on the road
00:40:02
around June 10th, but Idaho authorities have been tight lipped about who he talked to or any digital data that they
00:40:09
have beyond that. But something I want to toss out into the world in case it could be helpful here is a trick that a
00:40:14
detective used in a different case that we covered earlier this year. He actually got a search warrant for the
00:40:21
email of his prime suspect in case the suspect decided to talk to anyone about the crime in the days after our episode
00:40:28
dropped. In the Bullinger case, I feel like a tactic like this could be useful in case he's made contact with anyone or
00:40:36
in case he decides to. And who knows, maybe they're already doing this and they're just not sharing it with us.
00:40:43
This case reminds me so much of the Travis Decker manhunt which is unfolding right now. He's the father in Washington
00:40:51
State accused of killing his three daughters before vanishing. The efforts being made to find him have been
00:40:57
exhaustive and a few months into searching, the authorities are just now scaling back those searches. And
00:41:03
hopefully Travis gets found before it turns into a case like Mike Bullingers where we're talking about it years
00:41:10
later. The Bullinger case is still open. Mike Bullinger is an active fugitive on
00:41:16
the wanted list for the US Marshall Service. And if he turns up alive one day, Sheriff Donahue in Idaho says they are
00:41:23
ready to prosecute him. If he is still alive, Bullinger would be 68 years old, an age that none of his victims, Cheryl,
00:41:31
Nadia, or Payton, got to see. And that's what's so heartbreaking. All of these women still had a lot of life to live.
00:41:39
They had a lot to offer the world. Cheryl had just retired, and Sweet Payton was only 14. And at this point,
00:41:46
what everyone wants, family and police, is just some closure, some finality to this whole saga. Let's hope they get it
00:41:56
one way or another. So, if you know anything about this case, if you know anything about the whereabouts of Gerald
00:42:03
Michael Bullinger, please contact the Canyon County Sheriff's Office in Idaho. And if you're hiking in Jackson Hole and
00:42:10
find something that might be connected to this case in the Pacific Creek area of the Bridger Teton National Forest,
00:42:18
call the Teton County Sheriff's Office in Wyoming. We're going to put all of the contact information in the show
00:42:24
notes. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkypodcast.com. [music]
00:42:32
And don't forget, if you want to listen to more episodes like this and all of our episodes completely adree, plus
00:42:38
extra episodes that have never been released, be sure to join the CrimeJunkie fan club. You can follow us
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on Instagram and Tik Tok at CrimeJunkie [music] Podcast. And me and Brick will be back next week for a brand new
00:42:50
episode.