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>> [music] >> Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
00:01:11
for listening. I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man with a reminder that there is no way out of
00:01:18
here. >> [music] >> When you come in, you are in for good. Here is the captain. >> You'll never get out alive. It's good to
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be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. [music]
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This week we are excited to be featuring Wanderlust from the adventurous folks and brewers over Breakside Brewery.
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garage grade four >> [music] >> and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's give some praise and thank you to
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big we like to give goes out to Kristen Teknow in Florence, Kentucky. >> Here's a cheers to Louisiana in the Twin
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Illinois. Everybody we just mentioned went to truecrimegarage.com, clicked on the pint glass, helped us out
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with this week's beer fund for the beer run, and for that we thank you. >> Yeah, b w e d o u n beer run. [music]
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everybody gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer, let's talk some true crime. >> [music]
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[music] [music] [music] [music] >> Two men, each possibly grappling with his own version of a midlife crisis,
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vanish 10 months apart from the same tiny town in the Colorado Rockies under eerily similar circumstances.
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The odds of this happening seem frankly astronomical. Yet, in September of 1987,
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a solitary 47-year-old man and his faithful dog vanished from the near ghost town of Silver Plume, Colorado, a
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once booming silver hub a century earlier. Months later, in August of 1988, another man, staring down the barrel of
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50 years of age, retraced the missing man's steps to investigate the mystery. He, too, disappeared.
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Naturally, both disappearances had a profound and lasting impact upon the close-knit community of fewer than 200
00:04:32
residents. In a place where practically everyone knew one another, it isn't difficult to
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imagine the shock and grief that resulted when one of their own vanished without a trace or turned up dead.
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This is the true crime story of Tom Young who went missing on the dark side of the mountain
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and two, the story of Keith Reinhard who may have vanished forever. This is True Crime Garage.
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>> [music] [music] >> Today we are headed out to a place called Silver Plume, [music] Colorado.
00:05:21
This is a very picturesque old mining town located in Clear Creek County, which is in the center central western
00:05:30
part of Colorado. Currently, it is home to about 200 full-time residents living in the shadow of the mountains.
00:05:40
You have a few businesses and the train station down at the bottom of a ravine and some quaint homes with a lot of
00:05:48
windows that dot the mountainside at Silver Plume. Very interesting looking place. I've never been there before.
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Only 200 full-time residents, so this is a very unique place to live and visit. Between the town's founding and current
00:06:08
day, there was a massive fire and a deadly avalanche. So, this is a city that and town that is used to
00:06:19
its share of scares. And today's story is not far from that at all. Silver Plume is often described as a living
00:06:29
ghost town. After the silver crash of the 1890s, the town had seen some dark times and mysterious tragedies going all
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the way back to the late 1800s. Presiding over the town is a granite shrine marking the final resting place
00:06:48
of miner Clifford Griffin. In 1887, the Englishman came to Silver Plume following his fiance's death on the eve
00:06:58
of their wedding night in New York. >> [clears throat] >> According to findagrave, he quickly
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became wealthy upon discovering a rich vein of ore containing both silver and gold. But as it seems, he was very much
00:07:12
still overcome with grief. He spent his evenings alone in a modest mountainside cabin that he had built. He would sit
00:07:19
and play the violin late at night alone. On June 19, 1887, the 39-year-old dug a grave into the rock in front of
00:07:30
his cabin. Then the sharp sound of a gunshot rang out. When miners raced up to see what
00:07:37
had happened, they found Griffin had fallen face first into his grave dead from a bullet piercing his heart.
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A note found inside his cabin requested that he be left in his stone grave he had dug into the earth, and he was. The
00:07:54
miners erected a granite marker to stand over the grave. And I tell that story here, Captain, because this bizarre
00:08:04
mysterious story that we are going to tell today that takes place 100 years later after this Englishman, Clifford
00:08:12
Griffin, seemingly took his own life, this story has some markings that could be
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considered similar to the death of what the townsfolk will tell you is the strange death of Clifford Griffin. A
00:08:28
little more about Silver Plume, it is nestled deep within the Arapaho National Forest cradled between two peaks of the
00:08:36
Rocky Mountains in the Clear Creek Valley. This is very interesting because because it sits at
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the bottom between two mountains, Silver Plume sits draped in shadows. The north
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side sometimes experiences less than two and a half hours of direct sunlight a day
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and the south side is sunless for about six weeks of the year. Silver Plume is 46 miles to the west of Denver right off
00:09:06
of Interstate 70. Now that we got the skinny on the location, let's get into this week's true crime story. We have to
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introduce to you Keith Reinhard. He was born to parents John and Ruth on September 10th, 1938.
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He has one sibling, a sister Lynn. Keith grew up in the Chicago area. In the 1960s, Keith served this great
00:09:33
country in the United States Army and was stationed in Germany where he met his first wife, Astrid. They had a son
00:09:41
together. His name Sven. This was while he was still stationed abroad. The couple ultimately ended up returning
00:09:48
to the states, coming back to the states to live in the greater Chicago area. And
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once they did this, Captain, they welcomed two more children, another son, Kai Allen, and a daughter, Tiffany.
00:10:02
Eventually, however, the couple would separate, with Keith remaining a devoted father to
00:10:08
his three children. Sometime around 1966, Keith begins working as a sports writer
00:10:17
for the Daily Herald, a newspaper located in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights.
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Keith's beat was primarily local high school sports, but he also sometimes would cover the NFL
00:10:32
Chicago Bears and the NBA's Chicago Bulls. I pulled an example of Keith's work from this September 20th, 1975
00:10:41
article to give you a little example of Keith's work here. The headline was, "Wheeling collects 22-8
00:10:49
win by Keith Reinhard." And it reads, "Wheeling came up with a mixed bag of heroes Friday night and notched one in
00:10:57
the win column for new head coach Gary Clinon by downing the visitors from Fenton
00:11:05
22-8. A blend of hard-nosed running, key passing, and alert defense all played a
00:11:11
part in the first wildcat triumph of the campaign after two previous setbacks. The cats never trailed following a first
00:11:21
quarter touchdown and were never really threatened. Keith Reinhard, known to co-workers around the office as KR,
00:11:29
he was universally liked and described as a responsible and hard-working person, as well as a friend and a mentor
00:11:38
to his colleagues. He did marry again. It's reported that Keith was happily married to his second
00:11:44
wife, Carolyn. This is in As opposed to unhappily married to his first wife. This is in 1985 or '86, the sources vary
00:11:55
on when he married his second wife. But then, in early 1988, Keith seemed to be feeling the first
00:12:04
stirrings of what some would call a midlife crisis. In June of 1988, Keith was just months from turning 50 years of
00:12:14
age. And he had worked by this time in his life, captain, as a sports writer for 22 years, when he decided he needed
00:12:22
a break. He wanted to take stock of his accomplishments, do some soul-searching and reflection,
00:12:29
and chart a path for what may lay ahead. On the phone with his long-time friend,
00:12:34
his name Ted Parker, Keith decided that he was going to go out and visit the small former silver mining town of
00:12:43
Silver Plume, Colorado. I want to point out here something that is left out of this story frequently. Two things.
00:12:52
First, his friendship with this Ted Parker goes way, way back. Okay, so Keith was
00:12:58
turning 50. He's 6 years older than Ted Parker. The two actually grew up across the street
00:13:05
from one another. Knew each other at when they were boys. I believe that they first started talking to each other and
00:13:12
were aware of one another when Ted Parker was like five or six, and Keith would have been about 11 or 12. So,
00:13:20
they're from the same neighborhood, grew up across the street from one another. Ted Parker was a very good athlete when
00:13:27
he was in high school. Now, by the time Ted Parker's in high school, Keith would
00:13:30
have already graduated several years prior. Their friendship would be a lifetime friendship,
00:13:37
because at some point in Keith's adult life, Ted Parker's already living down in Silver Plume. Right. And he would go
00:13:47
down there for an annual visit and visit Ted Parker and basically stay for about a week or so down in Silver
00:13:56
Plume once a year, and it's reported that he did this for like 12 consecutive years before he actually decided to He's
00:14:04
ultimately going to decide to to move there for an extended stay. We shouldn't say move
00:14:10
there, but go and stay there for an extended stay in 1988. >> But doesn't he tell his wife, like, "If
00:14:18
I like it down here, if I find a path, I'd like you to come down with me?" Yeah, she's
00:14:25
>> Maybe a possible stay, long-term stay. Yeah, she's mostly on board with this,
00:14:30
it sounds like, but a little reluctant. He loves Silver Plume, has said so much that he visits there once a year,
00:14:39
consecutive years, and I think the idea was, he's like, "Hey, I I've reached this point in my
00:14:45
life, I can get a break from my job. They're willing to let me have an extended leave.
00:14:51
I'll go down to Silver Plume, and if I can make and sort of set up a life there, she can move down and and stay
00:14:58
with me." Keep in mind, I mean, his kids are all grown by this point. Right. He's
00:15:03
worked for the newspaper for 22 years, and it's not uncommon for folks, when they start to get up there in years, to
00:15:11
want to do a little soul-searching and maybe change their life in in what may seem like a dramatic fashion, but
00:15:18
really, the this whole idea of moving to a place like Silver Plume appeals to me.
00:15:24
It seems like you're living in this very beautiful mountainside community, where you can strap on your boots every
00:15:34
day and walk to everywhere that you want to go. And I think this might have been
00:15:38
one, an adventure for him, but two, also maybe a way to ease himself into retirement, right? Where he's where he
00:15:49
would only be doing what he wants to do, rather than reporting for work each and
00:15:53
every day. Well, the term midlife crisis isn't a great term, cuz for some people,
00:15:59
it's a it's a awakening. Oh, yes, a resurgence, if you will. So, Parker, his friend Ted
00:16:06
Parker, is interesting because this is a bit of a resource that most folks wouldn't have, right? Like, if you
00:16:15
just show up to a small town like Silver Plume, most of the time, I would assume you're
00:16:20
you're strolling in there and you don't know anybody. But he's known this guy for his
00:16:25
basically the entirety of his life, the majority of his life. And Parker is well set up down there in
00:16:32
Silver Plume. So, by this point, Parker is had been living there for a considerable amount of time.
00:16:39
He's running a small business. It sounds like he owns several buildings that are located there. Some of them he
00:16:49
restored. Now, although Silver Plume is little more than a dot on the map, Ted Parker's assuring his friend, like,
00:16:58
"Hey, if if you do want to come down here and try to hang out or have an extended
00:17:04
stay in this peaceful burg that's tucked within the shadow of the Rockies, this might be exactly what you need, my
00:17:12
friend." I mean, at some point, Ted Parker moved there and never went back to the Chicago area. Yeah, but I
00:17:18
question this, because if it's such a magical place, don't you think more people would live
00:17:25
there? I didn't I I don't know it to be magical. What I What I What I'm seeing here is Ted
00:17:33
Parker fell in love with this place, and at some point, Keith fell in love with this place to
00:17:39
the point where he returns to it year after year for an annual trip. So, this is probably something that the two
00:17:46
shared in common, and they seem to both love this place. There was a lot of thought, I think, that went into this
00:17:55
idea, because the general idea here, guys, is that Keith was going to go down there and just stay for 3 months.
00:18:03
And while it's commonly reported that he his intentions, his sole intention, was
00:18:10
to go down there on this extended vacation and start to write a novel. He had always wanted to write a novel. We
00:18:18
know he's a writer, he'd been writing for the newspaper for 22 years. That's always the short version of this. But
00:18:26
the longer version, and probably the more correct version, is Keith wanted a break from his life.
00:18:33
Keith wanted a break from his work. Yeah, he always wanted to write a novel, and that is certainly part of this
00:18:40
story, but he also said things to his wife and friends back in Chicago, like, "Look, I'm getting up there in age. I
00:18:47
want to get there I want to get in better shape. I want to focus on a few different things and try a few different
00:18:53
things before I get too old." You know, we got to keep in mind, you might live to be 80, 90 years old. Many of us won't
00:19:00
be hiking the mountains when we are 80 and 90 years old. Right. And so, that was part of this adventure. This was
00:19:07
going to be not just a a trip to hunker down and and bang out a novel. No, this was much more than that. The novel, in
00:19:17
my opinion, from what I can see, seems to just be a piece of that. He wanted to kind of go down there and live in this
00:19:23
town and experience this town for 90 days, for 3 months, rather than just 1 week. Well, like you said, it's a it's a
00:19:31
break from his current reality, but almost a refresh or a a new start to old Keith. To dive into his
00:19:41
relationship with his wife a little bit more, and this is from the sheriff's department out there.
00:19:49
This is not my opinion. The sheriff's department has reported on this that Keith stayed in regular contact with his
00:19:56
wife Carolyn. They would regularly have conversation phone conversations most nights.
00:20:03
When the sheriff's departments would speak to Carolyn, they would learn that she was often sad.
00:20:11
You know, she was sad about him being gone and she even said that the phone calls, while she enjoyed talking with
00:20:17
Keith, would kind of upset her. She was intending to go down there and visit with him. They had a scheduled visit.
00:20:25
She was going to come down and spend a few days with Keith, but then as you will see,
00:20:31
things got went off the rails here before that could happen. And the captain's absolutely right.
00:20:38
There was some talk that if things go well for Keith while he's down here, he will permanently stay and Carolyn
00:20:45
will eventually join her husband down and set up roots in Silver Plume. Upon his
00:20:55
arrival to the town, Keith rented an apartment behind an abandoned Catholic Church. He
00:21:02
also leased the adjacent space across from his friend Ted Parker's business. So, Ted Parker
00:21:11
owned and ran the KP Cafe. This, from my understanding at the time, was the only
00:21:17
cafe in town. In addition to being a journalist and a writer, Keith Reinhardt was also a skilled
00:21:26
amateur photographer and he opened up So, he's running this small antique shop that he's leasing
00:21:35
from his friend Ted Parker, but a big part of that what he wanted to do with that antique shop here, Captain, was
00:21:42
he's going to display and sell his matted and framed photographs and some other items. So, the space that
00:21:51
Keith was renting for the shop was formally a bookstore. The name of that bookstore was the Charing Cross Station
00:22:00
Bookstore. This had actually been run by a local man. His name is Tom Young. Now,
00:22:08
not much is known about Tom Young. In particular, not much is known about his early life. But what we do know
00:22:17
may be more mysterious than the Keith Reinhardt part of this very, very strange story. We do know that Tom Young
00:22:24
had been an art teacher at Arvada High School. He was a US Army Special Forces veteran.
00:22:34
In 1969 at the age of 30, Tom pulled up stakes and moved to the mountain hamlet of Silver Plume,
00:22:42
Colorado. Upon his arrival in town, Tom settled in on the south side of Pendleton Mountain,
00:22:51
which was perpetually shrouded from the sunshine for a portion of the year. The south side of the mountain is also
00:23:01
known as the dark side due to a strange environmental quirk based on the town's position between two towering peaks of
00:23:10
the Rockies. Tom was considered to be creative, a touch eccentric. >> [clears throat]
00:23:17
>> He was generally well regarded by the locals in Silver Plume. He But he was a man that was very private.
00:23:25
Not extremely outgoing. And the locals seemed to respect his privacy. And although he kept mostly to
00:23:31
himself, folks got used to seeing him throughout town and among the hiking paths.
00:23:39
Now, one thing that he was well known for was his dog. So, he has this this deer dog that that
00:23:47
you can't even call this a dog because it's more of Tom's companion. The two went everywhere together. He had a black
00:23:56
Labrador Retriever named Gus, who was always by his side. Old Gus. Old Gus. >> What a great name for a dog. Especially
00:24:05
a black Labrador Retriever. Tom owned and operated, as we said, a small bookstore on Main Street in Silver
00:24:11
Plume in the old Knights of Pythias building in the tiny village of fewer than So, today it's 200
00:24:20
residents, but at the time, I believe the residency was more of close to 150, 140. So, very small
00:24:30
very small community here. And the important thing to note is that the bookstore that Tom ran would then
00:24:38
become the antique {slash} photograph store run by Keith Reinhardt. On September
00:24:47
7th, 1987. So, this is a little less than a year prior to Keith Reinhardt arriving
00:24:57
to stay for his extended stay in Silver Plume. Tom Young on this day is 47 years old.
00:25:05
He closes the front door of his bookstore and along with his faithful companion Gus
00:25:12
walked off toward the majestic Rocky Mountains and then seemingly vanished without a
00:25:20
trace. Now, at first, Captain, it was assumed he had gone on a lengthy vacation.
00:25:27
So, his disappearance sort of goes unnoticed. Tom had told friends that he might be visiting Europe at some
00:25:37
point. In fact, he had mentioned that this trip might be sooner rather than later. So, in the
00:25:43
short term, if Tom was unaccounted for or could not be reached by friends, they just sort of assumed that he had
00:25:50
went on this trip that he had been talking about. But as the weeks passed and no one had heard from Tom,
00:25:57
his friends and family grew concerned. So, they report him missing to the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office, who then
00:26:04
opened up an investigation. What they find here, Captain, is the authorities say they find no
00:26:10
evidence that Tom had traveled abroad or traveled outside of Silver Plume. There
00:26:15
was no record of any type of plane ticket and Gus was not at the kennel that Tom would
00:26:23
typically use to board him if he needed to leave town. So, neither man nor dog could be located
00:26:32
by the authorities. And they checked Tom's apartment, obviously. His vehicle, a Chevy Blazer, was sitting in the
00:26:40
driveway exactly where he had left it when he had locked up his store for the day. So, the last time this man could be
00:26:47
accounted for was on September 7th, 1987. Tom Young and his steadfast companion Gus
00:26:57
seem to have disappeared into thin air, leaving behind a mystery that confounded
00:27:02
authorities and unsettled the close-knit [music] town of Silver Plume, Colorado.
00:27:11
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rosettastone.com/pod50 and start learning today. >> [music] [music] >> All right, we are back. Cheers, mates.
00:31:14
[music] Thanks for joining us here in the garage. For not one mystery, but seems like two mysteries. Yeah, and I
00:31:21
think you could easily go we might have three or four mysteries here. This is a story that bear with us
00:31:29
for a minute, because it takes a moment to set this one up. But this is in all the time we've been
00:31:37
chilling here in the garage, this one is about as strange as as they come. So, let's fast forward here.
00:31:45
Several months, right? So, Tom Young, along with his black Labrador, Gus, they vanish without a trace less than a
00:31:55
year before Keith Reinhardt arrives to stay in Silver Plume. And of course, we know the mysterious circumstances
00:32:03
surrounding that disappearance. Yeah. Keith knew the circumstances as well. So, Keith, this part's
00:32:13
interesting, because remember Keith would regularly visit Silver Plume. And as you kind of keep going back to,
00:32:19
there's not a whole lot of people there. So, if you're going there and hanging out for a week, year after year after
00:32:25
year, you're going to kind of bump into everybody at some point or pass them in walking or maybe chit-chat with them at
00:32:32
some point. And Tom had been there for a while, for for many years before he went
00:32:37
missing. So, while they didn't know each other very well, it's reported that Keith and Tom were
00:32:45
acquaintances. And so, he they had met on more than one occasion. Keith gets there, he learns that this guy's
00:32:52
missing. He also learns that, "Oh, I'm now taking over his bookstore and running an antique shop out of it."
00:33:01
The guy's been missing for a little less than a year. Keith was first intrigued by the
00:33:07
disappearance story, then inspired, and ultimately, the townsfolk say he became obsessed
00:33:15
with Tom's story. >> Well, like you were saying, he he wanted to go there and possibly write a book,
00:33:20
but I don't think he had a subject matter for that book. >> Correct. From what I could find, when he
00:33:26
left the Chicago area, he had this dream of of starting a novel, subject unknown. He arrives
00:33:36
into Silver Plume, learns about this disappearance of this man that he that he knew.
00:33:42
And keep in mind, what's missing from our telling of this story and from everybody else's is, what are they
00:33:49
talking about at the tavern? What are they talking about at the church? What are the rumors in Silver Plume about the
00:33:56
disappearance of Tom Young? I'm sure they are all over the shop and range from very simple, easy to understand to
00:34:03
very mysterious, could have been anything. And so, Keith arrives in the town and he's like, "Whoa, here's this
00:34:11
story. And not only is this story very interesting to me, I'm kind of walking in this man's footsteps a bit, working
00:34:21
in the same space Right. with my antique store." People of Silver Plume say he became obsessed with Tom Young's story,
00:34:30
the story of his disappearance. And then this very quickly becomes the subject of his
00:34:36
novel. Now, I've not seen, not had the not been able to read any of his workings on
00:34:44
this novel. It doesn't sound like he got very far into the process, but what I want to point out from the little bit
00:34:51
that I've been made aware of, it sounds like this was going to be the inspiration for
00:34:58
a work of fiction. He wasn't working on document a documentary about this missing man
00:35:06
that's all factual and in his own personal investigation. >> Yeah, but more like a based on a true
00:35:12
story. >> I don't even think it was that. I I mean, really, when you examine a lot of
00:35:16
good fiction out there, a lot of it is surrounded in truth and fact, uh real-life experiences and such. I think
00:35:25
that that that's what he was that was the yarn that he was going to spin. Right. So, 9 months before Keith
00:35:33
Reinhardt arrives in Silver Plume, 47-year-old Tom Young vanishes after closing the front door and locking up
00:35:38
his Charing Cross Station bookstore for the day. That brings us back around full
00:35:44
circle to 49-year-old sports writer Keith Reinhardt leaving the Chicago suburban area for the small mining town
00:35:52
of Colorado, Silver Plume, as said, with his wife's reluctant blessing. He takes this 3-month leave of absence
00:36:01
from his job as a journalist, and he's there with his good friend, lifetime friend, Ted Parker,
00:36:08
who is running the KP Cafe across the street from Keith Reinhardt's now antique store.
00:36:17
Ted Parker would later tell many people that when he starts to make Keith aware of
00:36:28
the prior occupant's unknown fate, Tom Young's unknown fate, Right. as said, like
00:36:36
I think I think it's important to include this part. He says that it was almost like nothing
00:36:41
that had piqued Keith's interest so much in many, many years. You know, kind of that aha moment. You had said an
00:36:50
awakening earlier. That's how I would kind of describe what Ted Parker is saying about him
00:36:57
telling his friend Keith about this other man disappearing. Well, you said he wasn't that far along in the process,
00:37:03
but I think this is hard to decipher. And you'd know this better than most people, cuz you actually wrote a book.
00:37:10
But I've talked to some writers where like, "Well, I just got to do the research. I just got to do the planning.
00:37:16
The writing's not going to take me that long once I have this portion done." That's quite [snorts] insightful. I
00:37:23
would agree with that. I I think everybody has a different process. Right. But I'm with you on that. Even
00:37:29
oftentimes for the stories we tell here in the garage, one of the hardest parts for me is,
00:37:35
well, what's the shape of that story? Right. Again, without being able to review his work, and there's not great
00:37:42
reporting on his work with this novel. The reporting is that the authorities do find some stuff, and and we'll get into
00:37:51
that later, but the best I could come up with here, Captain, was it sounds like he was well on his way working through
00:38:00
the outline of the soon-to-be novel. He was fleshing out the Tom Young character,
00:38:08
and some reports state that he was creating his other protagonist, and then other
00:38:15
reports say that the Tom Young character was going to be named Guy Gypsum. So, either Guy Gypsum, without having seen
00:38:22
the work, is either another character and Tom Young would be a character, or the real-life Tom Young is going to
00:38:30
morph into this fictional character of Guy Gypsum for his book. >> Which was my nickname in high school.
00:38:37
>> Mine was the midnight hammer. The character appears to be, from what folks who knew both,
00:38:45
they say they believe the character was a combination of both Keith and Tom Young.
00:38:52
Which some would even say that Keith was starting to see the two as almost kindred spirits,
00:39:00
right? [snorts] That they for some reason they were both put in the same place at different times.
00:39:05
But it's often reported that they both had that they had very different personalities, where Keith was very
00:39:11
outgoing, very positive, very optimistic. Right. Tom Young was more reserved, kept to himself, would prefer
00:39:20
to read alone rather than hang out with a whole bunch of people. Yeah, but maybe
00:39:24
he just viewed it as serendipitous that he came across this story when he's looking for subject matter for his
00:39:31
novel. Six weeks after Keith arrives in Colorado, so this is more than 10 months
00:39:39
after he was last seen, the skeletal remains of the missing Tom Young and his dog Gus are discovered.
00:39:47
Hunters stumble across the remains on Mount Sherman. This is about an hour's hike outside of
00:39:54
the town of Silver Plume. Tom's skeleton is found propped up near a tree and Gus's remains were found a
00:40:01
short distance away. Also nearby, they found a gun. This is a Smith & Wesson Model 36 and a backpack.
00:40:11
Both man and dog had suffered a gunshot wound to the head. Local authorities learn that Tom Young
00:40:19
had purchased a gun 4 days before he went missing and then they rule his death a suicide.
00:40:26
The autopsy report lists suicide as the manner of death. This is something we're going to circle
00:40:32
back to. So, bear with me, please. Most reports state that no ballistics were ever performed on the
00:40:40
bullets that killed each. Now, locals, however, were not so certain that Tom died by his own hand.
00:40:49
Their belief, they couldn't fathom the idea that Tom would ever hurt his loyal companion Gus. So, because of
00:41:00
that, the locals suspect some foul play. Then, there were whispers that surfaced
00:41:07
that when this man was found, eventually located, that a tarp was placed over his body.
00:41:14
All right, I want to stop our timeline right here for a moment, pause it, because we need to get eyeballs deep
00:41:21
into this part of the story here. It might help to clear any confusion, but it also will very likely add further
00:41:30
to the mystery. So, these two men, about the same age, they rent the same space for a small shop from the same guy. The
00:41:37
one to do it first, Tom Young, vanishes along with his dog and only after several weeks
00:41:43
of Keith Reinhard arriving for an extended stay in Silver Plume, Tom Young and his dog, their bodies are found,
00:41:50
both shot and killed, found in the woods. Authorities say suicide, townsfolk are really curious and wonder if it
00:41:59
could have been something else. Well, not to critique you, but you're you're not hitting home the idea that these
00:42:05
bodies were found underneath a tarp. For good reason. The reporting is all over the shop on
00:42:12
the finding of Tom Young. Right. And that's interesting that you bring that up, because I too have seen reports that
00:42:18
say both man and dog were found under the tarp. I've also seen a report that states that the dog was found a distance
00:42:24
away and only Tom Young was found under a tarp. The general consensus seems to be, well, he didn't shoot himself and
00:42:31
then hide his body under a tarp. It's also not entirely impossible that he was already under the tarp before he shot
00:42:37
himself. Exactly. And the dog may have already been there with him as well. And this could be a
00:42:45
nothing burger because narrative matters. And what we've learned over these 10 years of
00:42:51
doing this show is there's little details that sometimes make the story a little bit more of a story. Like Brian
00:43:01
Shaffer went into a bar and is never seen leaving the bar. What happened to him? Did he leave the
00:43:08
bar? Little details that once you start investigating the case and you start talking to other individuals that
00:43:14
investigated case, they're like, well, one, this guy could have shot himself underneath the tarp.
00:43:21
And then that explains it away and it's a simple explanation. Or he wasn't found underneath the tarp,
00:43:30
it's a nothing burger. It would be really insightful to figure out where the first
00:43:36
version of this tarp portion of the story go, but the thing here too that the two major parts of this, Captain,
00:43:43
are very obviously the tarp, number one, but also the gun. Right? So, some reports never mention a
00:43:50
tarp, others do. As far as the gun and the ballistics of such are concerned, I would like to crowdsource this to all
00:43:59
of our garage friends out there, because here's what I have. Some reports stating
00:44:03
it was a suicide dog-side, other reports stating that it was changed from suicide
00:44:10
to mysterious death or even unsolved. Here's a man with his dog, Gus. And they're like famous
00:44:18
in that town to be the best of buddies. Do we have any understanding of the health of the dog? [snorts]
00:44:26
Because I do know some dog owners that are like, hey, if I if I'm going to have to put him down, I'm going to put him
00:44:33
down myself. I would say more importantly, do we know have a great understanding of the physical health or
00:44:38
mental health of Tom Young? Right. Because while it seems inconceivable to most of us
00:44:48
regular folks, there are many, many occasions, sadly, where a mother or father or both
00:44:57
have wiped out their family or killed their kids before killing themselves. Right.
00:45:03
But, regardless of Here's one thing that makes me stick with this story and want
00:45:09
to sink my teeth into it more. Regardless of the reporting, one thing that seems extremely
00:45:15
consistent is authorities say suicide, the people of Silver Plume who would have known Tom
00:45:24
Young very well, they're all very suspicious of this ruling. And a lot of talk in town at the time
00:45:33
that maybe the authorities got it wrong. So, whether it was changed to mysterious
00:45:38
death or unsolved, Right. Further digging is required here. Now, locals arrange for a memorial
00:45:47
service to honor Tom Young and Gus. So, this is going to take place on August 6th. Keith attends this service and it
00:45:59
it's referred to as a service a lot of times, but I think we should refer to it as what it it is sounds like to me, more
00:46:06
of a party, right? A celebration of this man and dog's life. Uh because it it's referred to in the
00:46:12
local papers as a beer party that a lot of people attended. So, Keith attends this service or party. His
00:46:19
fascination with the mysterious circumstances surrounding this man's disappearance have increased since the
00:46:26
discovery of the remains. Earlier that same day, so this service party takes place in the
00:46:33
evening and it sounds like it goes late into the night. But, earlier the same day, Keith had
00:46:39
actually contacted his bosses at the Daily Herald. And he's requesting that when he returns from his
00:46:49
sabbatical, that he be able to cover the Chicago Bulls for the paper. Remember, this is right at
00:46:56
the height of Michael Jordan's rise to superstardom. Yeah, this would have been a big deal, cuz like you said, he mostly
00:47:03
did high school sports. Yeah, filling in on occasion for the Bears and the Bulls, but I I believe
00:47:10
what's happening here is the the person in charge of covering the Bulls was either moving on to another
00:47:17
position with the paper or was leaving the paper. And when he became aware of this opening, he wanted to
00:47:24
toss his hat in the ring for consideration. To me, this is one of the markers in our
00:47:30
timeline that doesn't seem to be in dispute. And so, to me, this is a clear indication that Keith was
00:47:37
had every intention of returning to his life after this 3-month break was completed. So, he's
00:47:44
making plans for the future here. As said, the party is on August 6th. Keith attends that party. It's held at
00:47:52
the KP building in Silver Plume, hosted by a Denver radio station. By now, the writer is fully obsessed
00:48:00
with the mysterious disappearance. Sources report that Keith was seen talking at length with a woman
00:48:07
whose name was either Greta or Gretchen at the event. People believe she was from out of town.
00:48:13
Rumor has it that she may have hailed from Denver. He also seems to be having a good time,
00:48:20
drinking freely and getting pretty buzzed while loudly confiding in party-goers that he doesn't believe that
00:48:27
Tom Young's death was a suicide. He also declares to all attendees of his intention to hike to the top of the of
00:48:36
Mount Pendleton. It's reported that his friends first take this declaration with
00:48:42
a grain of salt because Keith is not an experienced hiker. He's not in great shape. Not in great shape.
00:48:52
And he has a fear of heights. So, the following afternoon, Keith closes up his antique shop a bit earlier than normal.
00:49:01
Most reports say around 2:30 p.m. And despite this fear of heights, his inexperience as a hiker and potentially
00:49:11
a hangover from the party from the previous night, Keith then walks around town and he goes to the cafe,
00:49:18
amongst other places. He's telling people that he encounters that he is off to go to the top of Pendleton Mountain,
00:49:26
stating he expects to be back by 10:00 p.m. that night and advising friends to call authorities
00:49:33
if he's not back in the morning. It's believed that at some point Keith sets off on this journey.
00:49:39
Given that it's about a 6-hour round trip to the peak of Mount Pinalton, by now it is already late afternoon.
00:49:46
Locals were skeptical that this dude serious. Some of them even said, "Oh, but we
00:49:52
thought he was pulling our leg." Because it's awfully late in the day to be leaving on
00:49:58
this hiking trip. And his friend Ted Parker >> Yeah, his friend Ted Parker, who owns
00:50:03
the cafe, also said, "I assumed he was kidding." But part of this Ted Parker version
00:50:10
of this day is he says Keith asked me if I wanted to go with him. I think he'd asked Ted Parker at the party the night
00:50:23
before. Ted Parker says, "I told him no, I wasn't going to go with him." This is
00:50:28
interesting because Parker would say that Keith, the limited times that he would actually go out on a hike or
00:50:36
attempt to go up the mountains, was always in Ted Parker's presence. Ted Parker liked the hike. Keith was kind of
00:50:44
tagging along. And on a couple of those occasions, he had experienced vertigo, Keith had,
00:50:52
and was not able to keep up with Ted Parker. Parker says that he just sort of assumed that Keith was
00:50:59
pulling his leg. They're good buddies. And when Ted Parker said, "No, I'm not going to go hiking. I don't have the
00:51:05
time or or I don't have the you know, I'm not able to go with you." He just assumed that Keith's pulling his leg and
00:51:12
that Keith was not going to go and would wait till another date and time when Parker could
00:51:18
accompany him. Right. Parker also says that he believes that Keith Reinhardt had
00:51:24
made no preparations for such a hike, brought no supplies with him, no water, no protective clothing or foot gear
00:51:31
other than the clothing on his back. The only thing it's believed that Keith Reinhardt
00:51:37
took with him, if he did go on the hike, would be a can of soda. >> [laughter] >> Sounds
00:51:46
Sounds like the way the captain would pack. [clears throat] >> Yeah, that's based off of what is
00:51:50
believed to be the last known sighting of Keith, which takes place sometime between 4:30 and 5:05 p.m. when he
00:51:58
stopped into the Buckley's General Store on the northern edge of town and purchased a can of soda. So, the can
00:52:09
of soda part comes from somebody else, another person in this story, another location.
00:52:15
Talking to folks in town, the authorities would put together that same timeline and state
00:52:24
that Keith was last seen wearing only a T-shirt, a dark red and black flannel plaid
00:52:32
shirt, blue jeans, and beat-up tennis shoes. If Keith Reinhardt did go up into the mountains that
00:52:43
evening on August 7th, 1988, regardless of where he went, he's never been seen again.
00:52:52
>> [music] >> Want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. Thanks for telling
00:53:02
your mother. Thanks [music] for telling your brother. Stick around for part two.
00:53:06
And then till then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. >> [music] [music] [music]
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