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[Music]
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next on Unsolved
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Mysteries the strange case of a
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21-year-old Army private who buys two
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handguns waves goodbye to his girlfriend
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and
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vanishes Bruce Lee his son Brandon Lee
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they were legendary martial arts stars
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and some say their shocking deaths were
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caused by an ancient curse strange
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lights over AR Iona the military says
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they're only flares hundreds of
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eyewitnesses say no way Alcatraz for
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years its chilly Waters were considered
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certain death but when three prisoners
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escaped on a makeshift raft no one knows
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for sure if they lived or
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died five cases with strange Clues and
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bizarre twists and secrets that you
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would never expect I I'm Dennis finina
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and this is Unsolved
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[Music]
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[Music]
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Mysteries
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[Music]
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four-o army base near moay
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California private Justin Berg winkl was
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a specialist United States Army 3 years
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after reporting for Duty he went awall
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absent without leave and vanished
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Without a
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Trace 3 months later an unsettling
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clue Justin's car was found Gathering
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dust in the parking lot of a
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motel it was odd his keys were locked
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inside along with his wallet credit
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cards and military
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ID no money you knew something was
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drastically wrong and you know like more
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or less that he had placed everything
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just the way he wanted it found just the
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way I looked at
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it
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so what could have happened to Justin
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Berg lnl when he enlisted Justin set his
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sights on the elite combat unit known as
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the Rangers however within 6 months
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Justin was yanked from the program after
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he was implicated in a shoplifting
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incident when I was back in language
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School me somebody ultimately Justin
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found himself assigned to kitchen duty
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serving up meals to some 1,000 soldiers
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when they put him in the cook section he
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really had a hard time time dealing with
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that at first but then he kind of
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refocused himself and said well if I
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want to be a ranger I'm going to have to
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get back in there and really Soldier to
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get back
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there on a weekend pass Justin met
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Yolanda an Tunis a computer science
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student at Santa clar University there
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was a rapport there and he asked me for
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my phone number and I gave it to him and
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then one weekend we spent a whole day in
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San Francisco and we knew you know I
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knew that he was a great guy before long
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just was driving 885 mi from Ford or to
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visit Yolanda at every
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opportunity but after a while she began
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to see the first signs of Justin's
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secretive life all of a sudden he'll
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just stop what he's doing with me in the
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afternoon and he'll just say I'm sorry
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but I have to go up to Montery and see
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some people but I'll be right back I'll
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be just saying just like that out of the
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blue bye see it four good and then he
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started getting more vague I can't tell
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you I really can discuss this with you
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right now now I'm doing
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something you know kind of secret and I
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I can't reveal it to you Justin always
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had a briefcase with him he would be
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very secretive about it he would never
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open it in front of me that was this one
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time and I kind of angled myself just to
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turn and look over my shoulder to see
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what he was
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doing all he's doing with that briefcase
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is taking pieces of paper out and
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shredding them with his hands just
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tearing them into little
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tiny tiny pieces I mean it to little
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squares this
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small whatever Justin was involved with
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it seemed to be veering out of
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control one day Yolanda found them alone
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in the living room saving what's
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wrong nothing you okay no yeah I'm
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fine then a strange phone call the
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mission's off what just tell him the
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mission's off
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hi Justin you had a phone call tonight
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some guy called and said that the
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mission's
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off what damn it damn it who are they
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who are these people you don't want to
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know Justin bought two handguns and more
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than 100 rounds of
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ammunition I se Berg
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Wile 0430 hours a few days later private
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Justin burgwinkle failed to report for
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kitchen duty back at his base now this
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is the duty Sergeant in the mess hall
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got an awall
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sir but for a man who had apparently
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gone awall Justin was not making much of
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an effort to
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hide what are you doing in fact he went
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to Yolanda that same night but listen
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don't worry Yolanda insisted that Justin
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call his parents I'm not awall I I
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wouldn't do anything like that
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and he just said I can't tell you
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anymore he said but I will straighten it
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up I just can't I'm doing something very
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important right now all right you've got
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to believe me and I'll explain it to you
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later I said to him at least call
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Captain
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heinselman you know at least call him
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and he said that he would Justin did
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call into the unit he did indicate that
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he was going to come back and that he
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had a couple more things to do once he
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got them uh them taken care of that he
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was going to come back to the unit and
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report back yet but Justin did not
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report back in instead he remained at
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Yolanda's and made secretive trips back
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to Fort
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Orton what's going on let me help you
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there's nothing you can do to help me
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then let me go with you I have to go
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okay
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Justin you know the movie White
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Sands watch that
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movie
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okay Justin had made the same strange
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reference to the film White Sands in a
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conversation with his parents
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it's about gun running the FBI and the
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CIA and this
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one's against this one and you don't
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know who the good guy is and you don't
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know who the bad guy
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is this movie features a briefcase toing
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hero in the world of international arm
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smuggling then I thought are you working
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for the CIA you know it was all too
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confusing but that's that's the only
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clue if anything that he's ever given me
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you're later
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8 Days Later Justin left Yolanda's
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apartment at around 10:00 a.m. once
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again headed for
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Monteray but this time Justin Berg
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Winkle would never come
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back and I don't know if he ran away
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from the
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Army I don't know if he was kidnapped I
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don't know if he was murdered I do not
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have one clue what happened to
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him the wind swept outskirts of montere
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yielded one final clue in this puzzling
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case 3 months after Justin vanished his
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car was found in the parking lot of an
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isolated beach front motel near Fort ort
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Justin's name did not appear in the
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motel register his handguns were nowhere
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to be found but surprisingly his
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briefcase which he seldom let out of his
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sight had been stashed in the
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trunk tucked in Justin's wallet was his
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standard issue military dog tag
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we were driving down one time in his car
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and Justin had his dog text and he said
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do you know what they're for I kind of
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had an idea but I said just said no no
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what what are they for and he says well
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when a soldier dies they put in his
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teeth so you can identify him if you
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ever see these line around that means
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I'm
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dead is Justin Berg Winkle dead
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swallowed up by a shadowy secret life or
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did he simply run away and cover his
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disappearance with a Twisted Fantasy
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plucked from a Hollywood movie I really
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don't think it's possible that he ran
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away the three things he loves he loved
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his mother he loved his girlfriend
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deeply and he loved his car and in that
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day he just threw everything away he was
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everything was gone I just can't believe
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anybody could do that without any trace
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or
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anything if you have any information
00:09:23
about this case please log on to our
00:09:25
website at unsolved.com
00:09:32
next peculiar v-shaped formations of
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light appear over Phoenix defying
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explanation and frightening hundreds of
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eyewitnesses and later the mysterious
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death of martial arts star Brandon
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Lee
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[Music]
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this is what I've been doing on week's
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vacation this footage is from an actual
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videotape found on a highway near
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Stockton
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California I've never run across
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anything as Eerie as this
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tape um it was it frightened me as a
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matter of fact I thought about it that
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night when I went to
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bed despite a frame byf frame analysis
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of the video investigators were unable
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to match the fire recorded on the tape
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with any suspected arson fires reported
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in
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California the burning structure
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appeared to be a woodframe house perhaps
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in a rural area but no one knew exactly
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where it
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was I think the person who made this
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videotape and is responsible for the
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fire will without a doubt in my mind
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continue to set
00:10:55
fires
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update Redwood City
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California within minutes of our
00:11:03
broadcast several viewers from Redwood
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City contacted us and identifi the
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location of the house seen burning on
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the videotape as we were sitting here
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and we looked at the film on the TV we
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realized with utter shock that it was
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the house behind us that was on
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TV and our family was scared to say the
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least cuz we didn't realize that the
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film even existed and we called in
00:11:24
Unsolved Mysteries and gave all the
00:11:27
information investigators learned that
00:11:30
the house that was destroyed was under
00:11:32
construction at the time by an odd
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coincidence a local fire captain
00:11:37
happened to videotape the same fire on
00:11:39
that same
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night I had set up my video camera to
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film The Fire for training investigation
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purposes by comparing Captain D's tape
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with the video shot by the arsonist
00:11:52
investigators were able to confirm
00:11:54
Beyond a doubt the fire's
00:11:57
location
00:11:59
some of the calls received led us to a
00:12:02
17-year-old Woodside
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youth we interviewed that youth through
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that interview it led us to a
00:12:08
19-year-old Redwood City youth he was
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arrested and interviewed and
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subsequently admitted burning the
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house taking the video and was the one
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who talked on the
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videotape the two teenagers were
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suspected of setting 24 other fires but
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they were underage when the videotape
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was made one served the sentence at a
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juvenile hall the other was sent to a
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psychiatric
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hospital Phoenix
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Arizona all right you tell me what it is
00:12:49
March 13th
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1997 10 p.m. oh what do we got a man
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named Michael Kristen shot this
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videotape before I noted an entire
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display of lights comes on got a little
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excited at that time and I called my
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wife hey Sue take a look at this it was
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really quite
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unusual Michael Kristen wasn't
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alone this videotape was shot around the
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same time 15 miles away there's four of
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them look at there's three of them all
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together I got the third one in fact the
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bizarre lights were seen by thousands of
00:13:24
Arizona residents that night an
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unexplainable series of strange bright
00:13:29
lights seen over the Skies of Arizona
00:13:30
gets a lot of people wondering what the
00:13:32
heck they
00:13:34
saw some thought these lights were
00:13:38
UFOs but not surprisingly an official
00:13:41
explanation soon emerged they were not
00:13:44
UFOs they were flares dropped by the Air
00:13:47
National Guard in a night training
00:13:49
exercise what they were doing was
00:13:51
dropping uh night illumination flares
00:13:54
over the north tactical range at Luke
00:13:56
Air Force Base and a lot of people seem
00:13:58
to think that those flares could in fact
00:14:00
have been the quote unquote mysterious
00:14:03
lights flares well there's only one
00:14:08
problem with that the military said they
00:14:11
Dro flares between 9 and 10 p.m. that
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night the most impressive sightings
00:14:17
however occurred much earlier long
00:14:20
before 900
00:14:22
p.m. 8:10 p.m. it was nearly an hour
00:14:26
before the military would begin dropping
00:14:29
flakes Ross nickel and his family were
00:14:31
on Highway 89 just outside Chino Valley
00:14:34
90 Mi north of Phoenix hey Dad do you
00:14:38
see that light over there where Over the
00:14:41
Horizon oh yeah I saw some lights in a
00:14:46
very small pattern and what they really
00:14:48
looked like at that point was some just
00:14:50
dim Stars several of them in a very
00:14:52
tight
00:14:54
pattern
00:14:56
wow they were white like stars when when
00:14:58
they were coming towards us and at that
00:15:00
point they changed colors and went from
00:15:02
white to Red they were just overhead at
00:15:05
that point and they were in my
00:15:07
estimation not very high off the ground
00:15:08
I'm guessing 1,000 ft and there was
00:15:11
absolutely no sound during the whole
00:15:13
time from the start to the Finish there
00:15:15
was absolutely no sound what is
00:15:20
it 8:30 p.m. those lights 20 minutes
00:15:24
later 90 Mi
00:15:27
South looks like a line of Fighters a
00:15:30
commercial airline pilot and his wife
00:15:32
were driving home after dinner are you
00:15:35
sure been flying for 29 years now and
00:15:38
I'm not used to looking up in the sky
00:15:39
and not being able to figure out what
00:15:41
I'm
00:15:43
seeing I looked at it then and tried to
00:15:46
make it into an airliner I realized
00:15:48
again ah it's going too slow and oh by
00:15:51
the way there's no noise at all
00:15:52
definitely not Fighters and then the
00:15:54
next thing that struck me is that yeah
00:15:56
and why would his Landing lights be
00:15:58
pointed straight down Ross nickel and
00:16:01
his family had seen the lights
00:16:04
here the pilot and his wife saw them
00:16:08
here it seemed to be on a southerly
00:16:11
course 14 Mi Southeast a young woman and
00:16:15
her boyfriend had another
00:16:18
[Music]
00:16:20
sighting what is that looks like it's
00:16:24
keep in mind the military would not
00:16:26
begin dropping flares for another half
00:16:28
hour
00:16:29
it was very clear in my mind that it was
00:16:32
one solid
00:16:35
craft the lights were traveling too
00:16:38
perfectly spaced apart and there was a
00:16:41
void clearly between the lights that
00:16:45
blacked out the Stars when it came down
00:16:47
the whole thing just slowed I don't know
00:16:50
maybe to a stop or it hovered for a
00:16:52
second and then what looked like one
00:16:54
solid red oval object it just turned red
00:16:57
and shot straight up and disappeared
00:17:00
gone completely
00:17:07
gone 8:45 p.m. still 15 minutes before
00:17:12
the military would begin dropping flares
00:17:15
and 80 Mi South another sighting hey
00:17:18
Jimmy you see those lights over to the
00:17:20
east I tried everything I could to
00:17:22
explain them away they didn't look like
00:17:24
flood lights they didn't really look
00:17:26
like spotlights there was something
00:17:27
different about them that I had never
00:17:29
seen
00:17:30
[Music]
00:17:31
before if you lived in Phoenix these
00:17:34
flares some of them were dropped at 14
00:17:36
and 15,000 ft they burn very bright they
00:17:39
burn for 5 to 6 minutes they are
00:17:41
suspended by a parachute and it's a
00:17:43
large flare you would be able to see
00:17:46
those flares I would imagine for 150
00:17:48
maybe even 200
00:17:50
miles I'm certain that the lights that I
00:17:53
saw were not aerial flares as used by
00:17:56
the
00:17:56
military I've seen them from the ground
00:17:59
I've seen them from the air and these
00:18:01
weren't
00:18:04
flares and probably the major reason
00:18:07
that these were almost certainly not
00:18:09
flares dropped by the military was
00:18:11
they're
00:18:12
dangerous they would never ever be
00:18:15
dropped over a population Center The
00:18:18
Mystery of the Phoenix Lights may never
00:18:20
be solved for the military the case is
00:18:23
closed but for hundreds of eyewitnesses
00:18:26
the question remains if they are not
00:18:30
flares what are they we've been sending
00:18:33
radio signals out in space for over 50
00:18:35
years now trying to locate intelligent
00:18:38
life so why would it be hard for us to
00:18:42
think that at some point in time
00:18:44
somebody finally answered the
00:18:46
[Music]
00:18:49
call in a moment the untimely deaths of
00:18:53
legendary action Stars Bruce Lee and his
00:18:55
son Brandon could they be victims of of
00:18:58
an ancient curse and later a special
00:19:01
Unsolved Mysteries report on legendary
00:19:03
Escape from
00:19:16
Alcatraz Bruce
00:19:19
Lee Brandon
00:19:22
Lee a father and son linked by the
00:19:25
action-packed World of Martial Arts
00:19:27
films and some Say by an ancient Chinese
00:19:31
curse that killed them
00:19:36
both Bruce Lee's film career began in
00:19:39
Hong
00:19:43
Kong I mean you got to put the whole hip
00:19:46
into it and snap
00:19:49
it he almost single-handedly created an
00:19:52
audience for martial arts film and was
00:19:54
an international
00:19:57
star when he was just 32 years old he
00:20:00
took a prescription drug for a headache
00:20:02
and laid down for a nap Bruce Lee never
00:20:06
got up I was at the hospital when they
00:20:09
brought Bruce in I kept thinking he's
00:20:13
going to snap out of this you know but I
00:20:16
didn't know that he was already
00:20:18
gone Bruce Lee's Funeral Drew more than
00:20:21
25,000
00:20:24
MERS some said that Lee died from a
00:20:26
family curse
00:20:28
the first victim was not Bruce but his
00:20:31
older brother who died as an
00:20:33
infant after an unprecedented 9-day
00:20:37
inquest the coroner announced his
00:20:39
findings Bruce Lee died from a freak
00:20:42
allergic reaction to a pain
00:20:47
remedy here we have this Paragon of
00:20:49
Fitness you know the the one of the most
00:20:51
lethal human beings with his hands or
00:20:53
his feet taken out you know essentially
00:20:55
by a headache
00:20:56
tablet at at the time Bruce's son
00:20:59
Brandon was just 8 years old and already
00:21:03
he was following in his Father's
00:21:04
Footsteps I started training with my dad
00:21:07
really as soon as I could walk I mean my
00:21:10
dad was a really diligent trainer he
00:21:12
always had people over at the house
00:21:13
practicing in fact I remember when I was
00:21:15
a little kid a lot of my friends didn't
00:21:17
want to come over to the house because
00:21:19
there were always these men out in the
00:21:20
backyard screaming and breaking things
00:21:22
you know like father like
00:21:27
son
00:21:30
Brandon followed Bruce's path to the big
00:21:32
screen and he himself was a star of
00:21:34
martial arts films then Brandon was
00:21:37
fatally shot on the set of his fifth
00:21:40
feature the crow under mysterious
00:21:44
circumstances he was just 28 years old
00:21:48
was he also a victim of the Lee family
00:21:53
curse just like Bruce Lee's death the
00:21:56
shooting of Brandon Lee renew n
00:21:58
speculation about the family curse but
00:22:01
can this tragedy really be attributed to
00:22:03
Supernatural forces in a special
00:22:06
television interview detectives in
00:22:08
charge of the case set the record
00:22:11
straight few are the evidence forms we
00:22:13
need to fill after nearly 50
00:22:15
eyewitnesses and a more than a dozen
00:22:17
ballistics test detectives Rodney
00:22:19
Simmons and Brian Pettis pieced together
00:22:21
the strange 6 week journey of the bullet
00:22:24
that was destined to kill Brandon Lee
00:22:28
they were filming a pawn shop scene and
00:22:32
they needed items from our actual pawn
00:22:34
shop so uh they went to one of the local
00:22:36
pawn shops in uh Wilmington a stage hand
00:22:39
gathered hundreds of props among them
00:22:42
was a box of live 44 magnum
00:22:44
bullets the first link in the Fatal
00:22:47
chain of events was now in
00:22:50
place the dresses set up with all the
00:22:53
items that they received they had placed
00:22:55
the 44 rounds on a counter that was was
00:22:58
used in the scene where' these come from
00:23:00
I we get those at a punch up earlier
00:23:03
these are
00:23:04
live stock coordinator said when he
00:23:06
found the live ammunition on the set he
00:23:08
was livid the bottom line rule is that
00:23:11
you don't have live ammunition on the
00:23:13
set a stunt coordinator locked the
00:23:16
bullets in the trunk of his
00:23:18
car but it was one of these bullets that
00:23:20
would eventually kill Brandon
00:23:23
Lee a live bullet has a lead tip a load
00:23:26
of gunpowder and an explosive charge
00:23:28
known as a
00:23:30
primer when the trigger is pulled the
00:23:33
hammer hits the primer the primer
00:23:35
detonates powder ignites and the lead
00:23:38
tip flies toward the target two kinds of
00:23:42
bullets can be found on film and
00:23:43
television sets blanks are bullets with
00:23:47
a harmless disc of cardboard instead of
00:23:49
a lead tip and have a smaller gunpowder
00:23:51
load they may have one qu or 1/ half the
00:23:54
normal charge when fired blank screw
00:23:57
create a visible but harmless flash a
00:24:01
dummy round looks like a bullet but
00:24:03
cannot be fired it has the cartridge and
00:24:06
the lead tip only no gunpowder no
00:24:12
primer on the set of the crow the crew
00:24:15
needed blanks to save time the Fateful
00:24:18
decision was made to modify the live
00:24:21
rounds that they had the crew removed
00:24:25
the lead tip and the powder leaving the
00:24:27
car cartridge and the primer and while
00:24:30
they were making the blanks they
00:24:33
realized that they needed some dummy
00:24:34
bullets
00:24:36
also so what they did they fired off the
00:24:39
blanks that they
00:24:42
made and took those casings and put the
00:24:45
lead tips back in the
00:24:48
casings but what they didn't do was
00:24:51
check the primers to see if they' all
00:24:53
been fired when they made the dummy
00:24:55
rounds so they got some mixed up so they
00:24:58
made at least one dummy round that had a
00:25:00
primer still
00:25:01
intact that one dummy round had an
00:25:04
explosive primer and a lead
00:25:10
tip then the crew used the dummy rounds
00:25:13
for closeups of someone firing a 44
00:25:19
magnum what was that the detectives say
00:25:22
that at least two people heard a popping
00:25:25
noise no one realized that it was the
00:25:27
sound of a primer firing no one realized
00:25:30
that the primer had exploded with just
00:25:32
enough Force to dislodge the lead tip
00:25:35
and wedge it into the gun barrel there
00:25:38
it would remain undetected for another
00:25:41
14 days about 2 weeks after the second
00:25:44
unit filmed the gun the scene came up it
00:25:47
was a death scene for Brandon's
00:25:49
character and for this scene the
00:25:52
director chose to use a full load
00:25:55
blank they called for the 4 for Magnum
00:25:58
loaded it with the full charge blanks at
00:26:03
this time the lead tip is still lodged
00:26:05
inside the barrel um he gives the gun to
00:26:10
the actor that bullet being lodged in
00:26:12
the barrel and that full load blank that
00:26:15
was the equivalent of a live 44 round
00:26:18
and it was projected out of the gun and
00:26:20
into Brandon
00:26:24
Le North Carolina officials concluding
00:26:27
Ed that the film company's biggest
00:26:30
failures were not having a gun expert on
00:26:33
the set and taking shortcuts to save
00:26:35
time and
00:26:37
money however the chain of negligence
00:26:40
involved so many people that convicting
00:26:42
any one of them was unlikely no criminal
00:26:46
charges were ever filed in the end it
00:26:49
seems that Brandon Lee was truly a
00:26:51
victim of
00:26:53
circumstance or was he as some claim the
00:26:57
final casualty of the family
00:27:00
[Music]
00:27:02
curse next the legendary Escape from
00:27:07
Alcatraz for months three men tunnel
00:27:11
their way out of the notorious prison
00:27:13
and then paddled away on a homemade raft
00:27:17
the guards say that they drowned in the
00:27:19
icy San Francisco Waters but did
00:27:26
they
00:27:33
San Francisco in the bay sits The
00:27:37
Rock
00:27:39
Alcatraz some say the nation's most
00:27:42
notorious
00:27:44
prison it stands in the middle of San
00:27:46
Francisco's icy cold Bay its treacherous
00:27:50
Waters were the best guarantee that
00:27:52
nobody would successfully escape and
00:27:54
nobody
00:27:56
did until until June the 11th
00:28:00
1962 on that night three men broke out
00:28:03
of their cell housee and vanished into
00:28:06
the waves in a homemade
00:28:08
raft John angland his brother Clarence
00:28:12
and Frank Morris the brilliant
00:28:13
Mastermind of the
00:28:15
Escape were never seen
00:28:20
again 10 days later authorities
00:28:23
discovered pieces of the raft it had
00:28:25
broken up at Sea the three convicts
00:28:28
appeared to have swam for it did they
00:28:30
make
00:28:31
it the debate
00:28:34
continues if they went into the water
00:28:37
they were drowned within 30 minutes they
00:28:39
succumbed to hypothermia and drowned I
00:28:42
felt that they didn't make it but I
00:28:44
thought we'd find a body and we didn't
00:28:47
find a
00:28:48
body in the many years that have passed
00:28:50
since that June night no trace of Frank
00:28:53
Morris John angland and Clarence angland
00:28:56
has ever been found they may still be at
00:28:59
large and
00:29:00
perhaps are still in
00:29:05
hiding Alcatraz was the most dreaded
00:29:08
prison in America and it was virtually
00:29:11
escape proof 14 escapes were attempted
00:29:14
eight men died and all the rest were
00:29:17
recaptured except three many former
00:29:21
inmates believe the angland brothers and
00:29:23
Frank moris made it all the way to
00:29:26
Freedom
00:29:29
if you call a Bureau of Prisons today
00:29:31
they will tell you no one escaped from
00:29:34
Alcatraz they made it this is an
00:29:36
embarrassment who's going to admit to
00:29:39
that Don duni a professor at Meritt
00:29:42
College in Oakland co-wrote a manuscript
00:29:44
about the escape with inmate Clarence
00:29:47
Kars Kars was a close Confidant of the
00:29:50
three convicts who
00:29:52
escaped these guys made it they made it
00:29:55
because Clarence said they did and I
00:29:58
trust that Clarence K spent 18 years on
00:30:02
alcatra arriving when he was just 18
00:30:05
years
00:30:06
[Music]
00:30:08
old out CH down KS was the most
00:30:12
important inmate on Alcatraz he had
00:30:16
gained the respect of virtually all the
00:30:19
other inmates because he knew how to
00:30:23
keep his mouth shut he was in a sense
00:30:25
The Godfather of
00:30:28
alatri Kar said that the plot to escape
00:30:31
began with an inmate named Allan
00:30:35
West West was assigned to paint the top
00:30:37
tier of the cell block at the
00:30:40
prison one day while working there he
00:30:42
discovered that you can get access to
00:30:44
the prison's roof by cutting around any
00:30:46
of the ventilation shafts and pushing
00:30:49
them
00:30:50
out Wes noticed that the ventilation
00:30:55
duck was constructed in such a way so
00:30:59
that there were crossbars in between you
00:31:03
couldn't cut the bars but Wes discovered
00:31:06
that all you had to do was cut the
00:31:09
entire duck from its surrounding support
00:31:12
and just shove the whole thing
00:31:16
out west Enlisted the help of Two
00:31:19
Brothers John and Clarence angland both
00:31:21
convicted bank robbers who had a history
00:31:24
of escapes from other institutions the
00:31:27
Anglin were expert raftsmen because
00:31:30
they'd grown up in the Florida swamp
00:31:32
they knew how to construct rafts they
00:31:34
knew how to negotiate current they were
00:31:36
expert swimmers as
00:31:39
well perhaps the most pivotal figure in
00:31:42
the plot was an inmate named Frank moris
00:31:45
he was a thinker anything connected with
00:31:48
this Escape that had any real brains
00:31:51
behind it can be credited to
00:31:56
moris
00:31:59
KS told Morris about a utility Corridor
00:32:02
that ran the length and height of the
00:32:04
cell block inside the corridor were
00:32:07
Heating and water pipes that formed a
00:32:09
makeshift ladder to a ventilation
00:32:12
shaft Morris knew they could dig through
00:32:14
their cell walls to this hidden Corridor
00:32:17
during music hour in the early part of
00:32:20
the evening there was what they call a
00:32:22
music
00:32:23
hour and anybody who had a string
00:32:26
instrument could play when that music is
00:32:29
playing it has an effect of deafening
00:32:32
the officer who is making his
00:32:35
inspections the inmates that were
00:32:37
digging were just digging
00:32:39
away the angland west and Morse dug out
00:32:43
the rear of their respective
00:32:45
cells West also used the time to craft
00:32:48
false ventilation fronts to hide their
00:32:51
work the convicts devised another
00:32:54
brilliant Ploy so that they wouldn't be
00:32:56
missed during head counts they decided
00:32:59
that they would have to make dummy heads
00:33:02
to be in their bunk in case one of them
00:33:04
was not in there when the guard would go
00:33:06
by this was at a time when the lights
00:33:08
were turned low and it would be
00:33:10
difficult to recognize other than the
00:33:13
face was in the
00:33:15
bed Morris asked me about how you mix
00:33:19
flesh tone cuz see I'm an I'm an artist
00:33:21
I did I did a lot of oil painting on
00:33:24
alcatra I begin to wonder what why is he
00:33:27
so interested in flesh tone and then I
00:33:29
begin to put it all together because
00:33:31
they needed a flesh tone color for the
00:33:33
dummy heads the dummies were made from
00:33:36
soap concrete powder and stolen paint
00:33:40
one of the angland worked in the barber
00:33:42
shop and he swiped some hair to paste on
00:33:44
the dummy's heads for an extra Touch of
00:33:51
realism for the next 8 months mors and
00:33:55
the angland brothers left their cells at
00:33:57
night to drill out the ventilation shaft
00:34:00
and to collect the items they needed for
00:34:02
their
00:34:04
escape in his manuscript Clarence KS
00:34:07
wrote many times through the years I had
00:34:09
met men who had tried to
00:34:11
escape but their flaw had been too
00:34:14
little planning and being too
00:34:16
hasty they hadn't been thorough in their
00:34:19
thinking and that's what defeated
00:34:22
them but not this
00:34:25
time
00:34:29
in a moment the dramatic events of June
00:34:31
11th
00:34:33
1962 the day of the
00:34:35
[Music]
00:34:45
escape alcatra
00:34:48
prison
00:34:51
1962 for the guards on patrol that
00:34:53
spring the countdowns the routines the
00:34:55
boredom were no different than any other
00:34:58
time but many inmates knew
00:35:03
differently during the days right under
00:35:05
the Gaze of their Keepers they helped
00:35:07
the four Escapes in their
00:35:11
preparations secretly passing them
00:35:14
raincoats using these raincoats the men
00:35:17
made their life preservers in their
00:35:18
cells at night and then stashed them in
00:35:21
the Escape
00:35:23
tunnels in a secret workplace hidden by
00:35:26
blankets the angland and Morris took
00:35:28
turns assembling a raft that were also
00:35:31
made out of the pilford
00:35:34
raincoats at last the time to escape had
00:35:37
finally
00:35:39
arrived time to
00:35:41
go quietly the angland left their cells
00:35:44
for the last time and for the first time
00:35:47
Wes tried to slip through the hole in
00:35:49
his cell
00:35:51
wall Frank what the hell is matter I
00:35:54
can't get through the holes too small
00:35:57
everybody's upstairs ready to go
00:35:59
suddenly there's an iron bar that had
00:36:02
been used as part of the reinforced
00:36:05
masonry when the cell housee had
00:36:07
originally been built no one knew was
00:36:10
there Alan West the original instigator
00:36:13
of the plan was stuck
00:36:17
Frank fress blast this hole is not big
00:36:20
enough he needs more help no way
00:36:24
[Music]
00:36:25
reling
00:36:30
[Music]
00:36:33
now the escapes had to figure out how to
00:36:36
quietly inflate their huge
00:36:38
[Music]
00:36:41
raft Frank Morris came up with an
00:36:43
ingenious idea he had received a small
00:36:47
accordion it's called a concertina for
00:36:49
use during the daily music
00:36:52
hour they had taken the keys out of the
00:36:55
concertina and there therefore you could
00:36:57
put your hand on one strap the
00:36:59
constantina and push it up and down it
00:37:01
would operate just like a
00:37:04
Bellow Frank Morris John angland and
00:37:07
Clarence angland had made it off the
00:37:12
rock it's a
00:37:14
dummy dummy in
00:37:18
152 the following day an extensive
00:37:21
search began it was one of the largest
00:37:24
manhunts
00:37:25
ever
00:37:28
we were ordered to go out in the bay and
00:37:30
course start looking around the idland
00:37:33
and then over AEL Island scanning the
00:37:35
beaches to see if anything that
00:37:37
pertained to them might have washed up
00:37:39
it became evident that we weren't going
00:37:41
to find them whether we had made it or
00:37:44
not no one knew for
00:37:46
sure and for 24 hours nothing was found
00:37:50
then remnants of the escapes raft began
00:37:53
to
00:37:54
surface and so too did a controversy on
00:37:57
whether or not the men
00:37:59
survived the only weak point in this
00:38:02
Escape was the failure to really take
00:38:05
Serious consideration of that water out
00:38:08
there the day after the escape a
00:38:11
homemade or was discovered floating
00:38:14
between Alcatraz and Angel Island this
00:38:17
paddle matched the one that the convicts
00:38:18
had left behind in the Cell
00:38:21
Block 2 days after the breakout a rubber
00:38:24
wrapped packet was also discovered from
00:38:26
floating near Angel Island it contained
00:38:28
an address book 80 family photographs
00:38:32
and a money order that belonged to one
00:38:34
of the
00:38:36
escapees 10 days after the Escape pieces
00:38:39
of the convict's raft were found only 50
00:38:41
yard off the east shore of
00:38:45
Alcatraz probably the earliest they
00:38:47
could have gotten into the water would
00:38:49
be 10:30 the outgoing tide started that
00:38:52
night at 10:00 and that outgoing tide is
00:38:56
very very strong and I firmly believe
00:38:59
that they were taken by the current into
00:39:01
the Pacific
00:39:04
Ocean the day of the escape a Norwegian
00:39:07
ship spotted a body floating 20 mi past
00:39:10
the Golden Gate Bridge though unable to
00:39:13
retrieve it their description of it
00:39:15
matched that of Frank
00:39:20
Morris but there is some compelling
00:39:23
evidence to suggest that at least one of
00:39:25
the men survived
00:39:27
the day after the escape a man claiming
00:39:29
to be John angland called the San
00:39:32
Francisco Law Firm known to represent
00:39:34
alcatra inmates he said I'm John angland
00:39:38
and I want you to contact the US
00:39:40
Marshall's office I said well I'm not
00:39:42
going to do that unless I know why and
00:39:44
he said do you know who I am and I said
00:39:47
no he said read the newspaper and he
00:39:48
hung
00:39:49
up a few weeks after the break Clarence
00:39:53
Kar claimed that he received a postcard
00:39:55
from the Escape
00:39:57
in it they gave the pre-arranged code
00:39:59
words that confirmed their escape the
00:40:02
card read gone
00:40:05
fishing Clarence Kar believed that the
00:40:08
men had helped from the outside arranged
00:40:11
by a convict on the inside Clarence
00:40:15
shared with me that Ellsworth Bumpy
00:40:18
Johnson underworld king of Harlem had
00:40:22
arranged for a boat to be out there to
00:40:25
pick the angland and Morris
00:40:29
up according to Clarence KS the boat
00:40:32
then took the convicts to Pier 13 in San
00:40:35
Francisco's 100p Point District my
00:40:38
feeling is that's just something that KS
00:40:40
has dreamed up and that there is not the
00:40:42
slightest possibility there's any truth
00:40:44
in it Alan West was interrogated
00:40:47
repeatedly about Bumpy Johnson he was
00:40:50
also pressed to reveal any other
00:40:52
contacts who might have helped the
00:40:54
convicts he denied any existence
00:40:57
West wouldn't have CED out west was
00:41:00
people he was solid people it his day I
00:41:02
don't believe we ever told him
00:41:04
nothing today the FBI and prison
00:41:07
authorities have not changed their
00:41:09
opinion they believe that the men
00:41:11
drowned within minutes of hitting the
00:41:13
water of course we never are [ __ ] sure
00:41:17
enough to say well we know they're dead
00:41:19
but we were pretty sure that they were
00:41:21
dead because there was no trace of them
00:41:25
whatsoever
00:41:26
however they're still on the missing
00:41:28
list and not the dead list even though
00:41:32
Alcatraz ceased prison operations many
00:41:34
years ago the infamous Escape continues
00:41:37
to puzzle investigators in fact over the
00:41:40
years thousands of leads have been
00:41:42
investigated but to no
00:41:46
avail will this legendary case ever be
00:41:49
solved maybe not but for now the arrest
00:41:53
warrants for the Three Fugitives remain
00:41:55
active and and the search for the
00:41:57
answers goes
00:42:00
on if you have any information about any
00:42:03
of our cases please contact us at
00:42:07
unsolved.com
00:42:21
[Music]
00:42:36
[Music]
