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Argenics. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks
00:01:27
for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is a man with a reminder that there are no answers here.
00:01:34
When you look out, you don't see in. Here is the captain. >> It's good to be seen and good to see
00:01:39
you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. Today, oh, we love it. We are back at it
00:01:48
again with some more delicious Wonderlust IPA from Breakside Brewery. Employeeowned, just like True Crime
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Garage, this is the gold standard of traditional IPAs. Having won many awards over the years and inducted into the SIP
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Northwest Beer Hall of Fame back in 2017, we give it four and a half bottle caps out of five. And here's a cheers
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and praise and thank you to some of our good garage friends that are destined for the Hall of Fame themselves. First
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up, we have Pickpack Pimp in Louisville, Kentucky. >> And a big we like your chip goes out to
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Aaron and Cody in Springfield, Missouri. >> Next up, here's a cheers to the Cummings
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Family Firearms. Live free or die New Hampshire. And last, but certainly not least, we have Carrie and Brad Sigler
00:02:45
from Columbia, Missouri. Everybody we just mentioned, [music] they helped us fill up the old garage
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fridge for this week's shows. And for that, we thank you. >> Yeah. BW are you in beer run? If you
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need more true crime garage for your ear balls, and [music] you know you do, check out our bonus show, Off the
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Record, on Patreon and Apple Podcast subscription. [music] And Colonel, that's enough of the be is kn. All
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right, everybody. Gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true
00:03:14
crime. [music] [music] In the afternoon of August 7th, [music] 1988, 49year-old Keith Reinhardt walked off
00:03:37
into [music] the distance, presumably to take a hike in the mountains. When Keith
00:03:43
failed to return by the following morning, his absence did not go unnoticed. His buddy Ted Parker reported
00:03:52
Keith missing to the local authorities. It dawns on his friend and his friends that if Keith did go off to climb Mount
00:04:02
Pendleton as he had said he was going to, perhaps he wasn't joking and maybe he had suffered a fall or was injured in
00:04:13
some kind of hiking incident or experienced an unfortunate account encounter with a wild animal. So the
00:04:24
reports here, Captain, is while it was partly cloudy and 75° when Keith presumably left for the
00:04:32
mountain, even in August, even in the month of August, the weather can turn rapidly.
00:04:38
This is the mountains. Night temperatures can dip as low as 40° this time of year. Moreover, the risk of
00:04:47
exposure is real, as is that threat from wildlife such as a mountain lion or bears. The Clear Creek County Sheriff's
00:04:57
Department, they jump into action right away, organizing a massive search and rescue operation comprised of in excess
00:05:06
of 125 men and a dozen trained dogs. this from the Colorado Alpine Rescue Team. So, we have ground searchers, ground
00:05:17
rescuers who spend the next 7 days searching the rugged and difficult terrain on the side of the mountain. So,
00:05:26
they're combing the 3,000 vertical feet on a 60° slope. The following day, they are joined by an aerial search team with
00:05:37
army helicopters and small planes dispatched to fly over Pendleton Mountain in an attempt to locate the
00:05:44
missing man. This is all all this effort is met with no success. Although one K9
00:05:50
searcher appeared to pick up Keith's scent, two other search dogs failed to alert and it did not lead to any
00:05:59
significant discovery. Sources report that searchers felt like it was looking for the famous needle in a hay stack.
00:06:07
Their task was made exponentially more difficult by the fact that Keith had taken off with no backpack, food, or
00:06:15
other supplies. So, the more that Keith would have brought with him up into the mountain would be more ways of
00:06:22
potentially tracking his movements. >> Yeah, Hansel and Gretle leaving breadcrumbs. Searchers at one point were
00:06:29
encouraged when they discovered shoe prints consistent with that of tennis shoes that could possibly have been left
00:06:37
by Keith within the search area. However, this turns out to be a false lead rather quickly as they quickly find
00:06:45
out that shoe prints were found all over the mountain and there is nothing specific tying them to their missing
00:06:54
man. And then on August 12th, the search for the missing sports rider suffers a tragic blow
00:07:01
when a single engine Cessna 182 plane operated by Civil Air Patrol crashes on a low ridge into the Rocky Colorado
00:07:14
Rockies, killing pilot Terry Leens. Another passenger, the spotter, who was identified as Donald Droy,
00:07:24
is seriously injured in this crash as well. Donald survives thankfully. Unfortunately, Terry does not.
00:07:32
>> Well, very sad because they're probably volunteering their time to try to find
00:07:37
this missing individual. And the terrain is going to be your nemesis. If it was a
00:07:43
flat plane, you can see for miles. With him going missing in this location, you really have to exert a crazy amount of
00:07:53
effort just to get into different locations to search for this individual. >> Yeah. And a search that started off with
00:08:00
125 good folks, >> almost as many people that live there. Well, that and so that was sort of an overview of the
00:08:11
search that would last seven days. The crash that took place is about 5 days into this massive search effort. But
00:08:19
following that terrible accident and then several days of heavy rainstorms, the search for Keith Reinhardt was
00:08:27
called off on Sunday, August 14th. And unfortunately, it ended with no clues as to his whereabouts. And this was using
00:08:37
all those ground searchers along with all of those dogs and helicopters and planes that had canvas this rugged
00:08:43
terrain in attempt to locate the missing sports rider. For the first time in its
00:08:48
30-year history, the Alpine Rescue Squad failed to locate and bring home the object of their search, breaking its
00:08:58
previously perfect record. Keith's son, Sven, tells the press that his father's friends never gave up hope. Even after
00:09:09
the search was called off, they declared that their intention was to band together and continue to search
00:09:15
themselves, which did in fact take place, but again to the same result where they end up with no clues as to
00:09:24
what happened to Keith Reinhardt. When his friends searched the apartment tucked behind that church that Keith was
00:09:31
renting, they discover what they think to be potentially a clue, but it would be a strange one, a strange clue. So,
00:09:39
next to his open computer is a recent newspaper article about the discovery of Tom Young's remains found in the
00:09:46
Rockies. Featuring the headline, Tom Young's body found. On the hard drive is a draft of his unfinished novel which
00:09:56
friends know is based on the disappearance naming his character Guy Gypson which seems to be again this is
00:10:04
other people's interpretation but it's regularly reported that it's amalgamation of both Keith who is
00:10:12
missing and the deceased Tom Young. And they state that Keith has outlined a story which reads like a recounting of
00:10:20
his own disappearance. So before Keith had set off on this uncharacteristic late afternoon hike,
00:10:28
the final words he had written were as follows. Quote, "Guy Gypsum changed into some hiking boots and dawned a heavy
00:10:38
flannel shirt. He understood it all now and his motivation. guy closed the door then walked off
00:10:47
towards the lush shadowless Colorado forest above. End quote. Investigators speculate whether this line implied
00:10:56
Keith had been considering suicide. Although again being in com conversation in communication with his wife Carolyn as
00:11:07
well as his grown children, the family says that this would be extremely out of character for Keith's positive outlook,
00:11:16
upbeat outlook, optimistic personality. And remember we talked about too it it sounded like Keith was excited quite
00:11:26
excited at the prospect of covering Michael Jordan in the Chicago Bulls when he did in fact return to work after this
00:11:34
trip. Yeah. He almost seemed like this trip was to reinvigorate himself into life. So that is
00:11:44
completely the opposite of somebody that's suicidal. But we have to remember that
00:11:50
sometimes suicide is spontaneous and so maybe there was some stuff going on that
00:11:55
he wasn't letting his friends and family know about. >> Can be impulsive too. >> Right
00:12:01
>> now Keith Reinhardt sadly has never been seen since that day. And this is more
00:12:06
than three decades ago. Since the day he told several folks around town, including his good friend Ted Parker,
00:12:12
that he intended to hike to the top of the mountain. Tom Young's death and the death of his best friend and companion,
00:12:19
his dog Gus, also remain a mystery. So what we are ultimately left with here, Captain, is a bevy of confounding
00:12:28
questions. Right. >> Right. >> What happened to Keith Reinhardt? Were Tom Young and his dog killed?
00:12:36
If so, by who? Or was that a suicide? If something nefarious happened to both of
00:12:43
these gentlemen, are their cases related in any way? So, let's explore something for a minute
00:12:50
here. Let's pretend >> that both Tom Young and Keith Reinhardt were in fact killed. Somebody wanted
00:13:00
Keith to disappear. Somebody wanted Tom Young gone as well. >> What's the motive?
00:13:05
>> What's the motive? The the first thing I would look at is beyond motive because
00:13:12
the first thing I would look at is with Tom Young and Keith Reinhardt's situation. If they were both taken out
00:13:18
by somebody, they share a very strong commonality. And that commonality is Ted Parker who they're both renting space
00:13:27
from in Silver Plume. >> Right >> now, it's not a >> the murderous Tom Parker. It's not a
00:13:36
very long skip in a jump to get to a conclusion that they probably shared a lot of commonalities within the town of
00:13:44
Silver Plume just based off of what a small tight-knit community it was. >> Correct.
00:13:51
>> But for us looking at this thing a thousand miles away, he is the thing that stands out the most. Couple things
00:13:59
that are very different from their situations, however, is Tom Young is not reported missing for a considerable
00:14:04
amount of time. Keith Reinhardt is reported missing the next day after he was to to go on this hike. And as Parker
00:14:14
puts it, he says I was asked to go with him because I was the guy that usually would get him to go on hikes with me.
00:14:21
>> Right. But if I'm the investigator, I want to know, did he go on that hike or
00:14:26
does he have an alibi for that time period? Exactly. Exactly. And those are good questions. And I don't know how
00:14:33
quick they were looking into answering that question. I think they were more concerned that Keith did in fact go on
00:14:42
this hike and we got to go find him. He's up there somewhere. Maybe a broken ankle or something has happened to him.
00:14:53
and we have this very skilled rescue team at our beck and call. Let's send him up there and and get this guy and
00:15:02
bring him off of the mountain. >> Right. >> While I sit here three decades later, I don't have great
00:15:08
answers to any of these questions. >> Well, it's cuz you're an you're an idiot. And this is
00:15:17
this is a mystery layered with another mystery layered with another mystery, >> right?
00:15:23
>> And has continued to be that way for many folks for a lot of years. Now, some
00:15:29
additional information here that I do want to get into. This case has been featured twice on Unsolved
00:15:37
Mysteries amongst other places. first in season two with the late great Robert Stack
00:15:44
and then again in season six with Dennis Fina. >> I also enjoyed listening to our buddies
00:15:52
from Going West. They covered this a long time ago, but their coverage was really good.
00:15:58
>> I'm going to have to check that one out. Now, the Tom Young portion of this story
00:16:04
to me is the most frustrating part of the research and then trying to tell this story, this true crime story in the
00:16:14
best way that we can. If in fact Tom Young took his own life and let's also say if in fact Keith Reinhardt an
00:16:25
inexperienced hiker went up there into the mountains you could have a situation where it was a suicide and that
00:16:33
disappearance/suicide inspired this wannabe novelist to live in the story and take this hike.
00:16:43
And while an inexperienced hiker, he encounters some trouble up there and he was just simply never recovered. And we
00:16:49
have no real crime other than a still very mysterious story to report to you. But I think the door is open, wide open
00:16:58
on so many other possibilities here, >> right? >> And we're not the first to look at this
00:17:03
and be very curious about all of our findings, but it goes back to me to this Tom Young reporting. The most the most
00:17:12
frustrating part of this to me is the reporting on Tom Young's case because we are 10 years almost 10 years into our
00:17:22
garage life sentence. >> Yeah. I think our anniversary is next month maybe. >> Yeah. And we've been we've had many
00:17:33
requests for this case over the years. And I got to say, I've looked into it each time it's requested. I I look into
00:17:42
it briefly and I was always kind of turned off because my thought has always been the reports I always found, Captain
00:17:52
suggested say that Tom Young committed suicide. And for me, it seemed definitive on those times, on those
00:18:01
occasions when I looked into it. And so for me, I thought there's so many other cases out there that are unsolved cases
00:18:06
that deserve to be presented to the public where here it seems likely to me that there's no real crime.
00:18:16
There's there's a man who took his own life and then there's a man that got lost in the woods. But when you circle
00:18:21
back and do further digging on the Tom Young situation, >> right, >> you realize very quickly that it's not
00:18:28
so cut and dried, right? So, the Tom Young portion of this is very frustrating. I do have a call into the
00:18:38
local authorities requesting an interview to clear this matter up and I'm hoping to have that opportunity to
00:18:45
do so because this could simply be a simple mixup or good versus bad reporting about the outcome of the Tom
00:18:55
Young death investigation because it's reported vastly different depending on the source and to show you the extremes
00:19:03
of what the result of Tom Young's death investigation reporting is I offer up these three examples.
00:19:11
There's many examples out there, but to try to present it in a clear and concise
00:19:17
manner, I picked these three. First, from Unsolved Mysteries. And it states, "On July 31st, 1988, 10 months after Tom
00:19:27
Young disappeared, two hunters found the remains of Tom and his dog in the mountains near Silver near Silver Plume.
00:19:36
Each had died from a bullet wound to the head. Dave Danour of the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Department was one of
00:19:44
the first investigators to arrive on the scene." and he says, quote, "They were up there exploring some territory for
00:19:52
bow hunting season which was coming up and they found his remains." He's referring to the hunters. Also found at
00:19:59
the scene was a revolver. In a subsequent investigation, we found out that Tom had purchased a gun
00:20:05
approximately 4 days before he was last known to be in Silver Plume. The Tom Young case is closed and it has been
00:20:15
ruled a suicide both by the coroner's office and by the Clear Creek County Sheriff's Department. So that seems
00:20:24
pretty simple. The sheriff's department, the coroner agree this man took his own
00:20:29
life. There's no more need for investigation. However, let's explore something 10 years after. So this is 10
00:20:38
years after Keith Reinhardt goes missing. So almost 11 years after Tom Young went missing. This is from a
00:20:48
Chicago Times article on the 10-year anniversary of Keith's disappearance. So August 7th, 1998.
00:20:57
I do want to make sure that I include the leadin for this before I get to the Tom Young portion because this was
00:21:04
actually written not by an investigative journalist. This was written by another
00:21:09
sports writer from the Chicago area. So years later, Jim O'Donnell wrote about Keith Reinhardt. Jim, like
00:21:18
Keith, was a sports writer for Chicago and the surrounding area. Jim wrote in the Chicago Sun Times the following.
00:21:27
August 7th, 1988, Keith Reinhardt walked off the face of the earth. And he has never been seen,
00:21:36
tracked, or traced since. No bones, no body, no credit card trail, no postcards from the edge, nothing.
00:21:45
just an untouchably odd legacy, an unsolved mountain mystery that left many lives reordered in its wake. He ends the
00:21:57
article by saying, "A couple of years ago, a California-based writer allegedly uncovered evidence that a major
00:22:07
multinational defense contractor had been illegally dumping plutonium in the abandoned Colorado silver mines."
00:22:17
The writer also alleged that Tom Young had been aware of the environmental illegal alities. Yeah, somebody needs to
00:22:26
contact Doc Brown and Marty McFly >> and was in the process of whistleblowing when he was murdered. The writer also
00:22:34
states that Reinhardt was likely murdered because he had shown far too much interest in Young's disappearance.
00:22:42
The writer claims to have been present. I'm sorry. The writer claims to have presented enough evidence to the
00:22:50
sheriff's department in Silver Plume that the status of the file on Young has changed from suicide to unsolved.
00:22:59
No one at the sheriff's department this week would confirm or deny that. So, I was able to track down what book this
00:23:08
came from, >> right? >> And you can see the extremes here. First, it's unsolved mysteries, open and
00:23:15
closed case. We ruled it a suicide. The second one is, well, it was ruled this way, but according to this writer, it
00:23:24
was changed to unsolved. And that's how a lot of the story goes. In fact, it it gets even more intricate than that. And
00:23:31
and we'll see based off of this. This is from that California-based writer in a book titled Brother Tony's Boys by Mike
00:23:40
Eckles. Now, I want to be clear here. This is not a book about Tom Young's case or about Keith Reinard's case. They
00:23:49
are in this book. They are portion of this much much larger story. But the the pages that I present to you are this and
00:23:59
reads as follows. In October of 1987, Tom and his Labrador retriever Gus disappeared without a trace. In June of
00:24:08
1988, a friend of Tom's, Keith Reinhardt, a sports writer for the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, Illinois,
00:24:16
took a sbatical, moved to Silver Plume, and began researching and writing a book
00:24:21
about Tom's disappearance and soon phoned his wife Carolyn and told her, quote, "I'm working on a big story." End
00:24:29
quote. On August 7th, 1988, Keith went for an afternoon hike in the mountains, but failed to return. Two weeks later,
00:24:38
during a massive search for him, the remains of Tom and Gus, both shot to death, were found two miles outside of
00:24:47
Silver Plume, 10 months after they had disappeared. Keith remains missing to this day. So, we should jump in there
00:24:54
real quick, Captain, and and point out that this timeline doesn't match up with the timeline that we've presented in the
00:25:01
timeline that is most commonly discussed in this case, that the bodies of Tom and
00:25:06
Gus were found prior to Keith going out to hike in the mountains. >> Right. >> Continuing with the book, the Clear
00:25:14
Creek Coroner ruled Tom's death a suicide. 6 months later, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation examined the
00:25:21
evidence and found that whereas Tom's 25 caliber pistol was discovered near his body, Tom and Gus had both been shot to
00:25:31
death with multiple rounds of a 45 caliber weapon. Tom's death was reclassified as an unsolved homicide and
00:25:41
remains so as of 1996. It goes on to say, "During the 1989-90 television season, NBC's television's
00:25:54
Unsolved Mysteries, presented a segment detailing the story. In 1991, I not me, but the author of this book, Mike
00:26:03
Eckles, says I spoke with the segment's field producer, Todd Miller, and he told
00:26:10
me that his experiences in Clear Creek County dealing with local law enforcement in researching and filming
00:26:16
the story were the strangest he had ever experienced with Unsolved Mysteries. goes on to say, "In June of 1989, over
00:26:26
707 70 FBI agents swooped down on Rocky Flats with its nearly 20 tons of plutonium,
00:26:36
more than at any other nuclear plant in the US and seized two trailer truckloads
00:26:43
of documents from the plant's operator, defense contractor Rockwell International." Now, that's a pretty big
00:26:52
swing in the reporting of the outcome into the investigation of the death of Tom Young.
00:26:59
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00:33:03
>> All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. [music] Talk hands in the air. Cheers to
00:33:08
you, Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. [music] Now, my thought on the reporting is just
00:33:14
new information came out or came to light and that's why the reporting is different.
00:33:19
>> I hope that's correct, right? I mean, all of those all of the reporting could
00:33:24
be good reporting if that is in fact the case because it wouldn't be the first time that you start digging and looking
00:33:31
into a case and other folks start doing it as well. And it's reported one way on
00:33:36
day one or day 365, but then on day 1,000 or day 5,000, it's reported quite differently because a lot
00:33:45
more had been uncovered. Well, let me tell you what sticks out in my mind. When Keith calls his wife and says,
00:33:54
"Hey, I'm working on something big." H Now, some people just everything in their life is big. They're the center of
00:34:03
the story. They're the center of the universe. They're the man on fire. But Keith doesn't seem like that kind of
00:34:11
guy. When Keith says to his wife, "I'm working on something big." Well, a guy in a small town taking his life and
00:34:20
taking his dog's life. Not that big. Even if there was some weird cover up, not that big. But if he was murdered by
00:34:31
somebody that was dumping illegal waste in these mine in these mine shafts, well, that could be something big. So
00:34:41
then you have to wonder when Keith was going around and basically paying his condolences to Tom and talking to the
00:34:51
local people, which he probably didn't have tons of communication with prior that did he say something to somebody
00:35:00
that was connected to this illegal dumping and possibly responsible for Tom and Gus's murder. But then you just go,
00:35:10
how did this story get out anyways? Because however it gets out, one of they want to get rid of that
00:35:18
source as well if they were willing to get rid of two individuals and a dog. Don't you think they'd go after other
00:35:27
writers and other sources? >> Oh, absolutely. And so this is why I would like to get a
00:35:34
very clear answer from the local authorities because the way that this the big swing in the reporting on this
00:35:40
is that the ballistics were never tested and that left the door open to the locals thinking well maybe Tom didn't
00:35:49
take his own life and somebody somebody had a hand in that. Now, whether that's connected to Keith's disappearance or
00:35:56
not, very difficult to say [snorts] because even if Tom Young were to have been murdered, it's not inconceivable
00:36:03
that Keith, an inexperienced hiker, did in fact go on a hike and he just he lost
00:36:07
to the mountain that night and he's been lost forever. But this is going beyond that and saying, "Well, the Colorado
00:36:17
Bureau of Investigation examined the evidence found with Tom and Gus and found the caliber of bullet to be
00:36:26
different from the one that Tom had purchased." >> Well, also in that reporting, they're
00:36:31
saying that there's multiple gunshots, >> correct? >> Which is not impossible in a suicide, but most likely not
00:36:40
possible. but also inconsistent with all of the other reporting >> exactly >> that I and and here's what I wonder
00:36:47
about. >> Tell me, >> you know, when you're doing some of these stories, these bigger stories, and
00:36:52
that's what this book is about. It's about a it's about a completely different lengthy crime story. Uh, this
00:36:58
is part of the is having I hesitate to say that it's buried inside this book, the story of Keith and Tom because I've
00:37:07
not been able to read the book, but I'd like to talk with this Mike Eckles because I in my mind I think he leaves a
00:37:15
lot to be desired here. I would I would have preferred to have her to have read him saying, "I interviewed Keith's wife,
00:37:24
Carolyn, and this is what she told me." Instead, he's kind of reciting or or retelling of this. Oh, Keith called his
00:37:32
wife Carolyn and told her, "I I'm working on a really big story." >> Right. Is it is it direct information or
00:37:39
is it telephone? >> Yeah. Where'd you get that from? You know, was that just somebody speculation
00:37:46
sitting in the saloon at uh Silver Plume? Because this story to me, I think it's absolutely
00:37:55
fascinating. I I wish that it were like Keith's unfinished novel, a work of fiction, because this you can see this,
00:38:05
right? This feels like one of those movies we've seen before, one of those books we've read before where where a
00:38:12
man that just for whatever reason, something deep inside of him needed a break from his life. He shows up into
00:38:19
this town and while he's there, this small little town, he he's working in what was previously a bookstore of this
00:38:28
mystery man who mysteriously disappeared. And then when he was ultimately found dead in the woods,
00:38:35
the mystery surrounding the man's death were equally as mysterious. and he's one
00:38:41
day he's working away and he's just he's boxing up some things or going through some items that he found in the store
00:38:49
and he uncovers he uncovers this this really big piece of information that he goes, "Aha, I think I figured out why
00:38:58
that man went missing. I figure out why he was found in the woods, but he he's not sorted it all out yet.
00:39:06
So, he's got to he's got to do a little investigation on his own, >> right? and he's got to keep his
00:39:11
investigation under wraps a little bit. He can't blow the lid off of this thing too early until he fully understands it
00:39:19
because maybe he doesn't know who's responsible yet and somebody catches wind of this and now they've figured
00:39:24
out, you know what, I'm going to follow that man up into the mountain or I'm going to entice him with another
00:39:32
adventure from which he will not return. So, there's a lot of meat on the bone here. There's a lot hanging on these
00:39:41
trees that I want to sort out. I think I think as mysterious as this story is, it's possible that it could very well
00:39:50
well be cleaned up nice and neat and a bow put on top of it depending on what the local authorities say is their final
00:39:58
stance, their solid stance all these years later on Tom Young's death and a conversation
00:40:07
with Mike Eckles to figure out where he got some of this information. >> Yeah. Or is it simpler? Cuz what I was
00:40:13
thinking was, let's say he hears some rumors of what could have happened to Tom Young. And during these rumors, they
00:40:23
go, "Well, maybe it's a murder." And if it's a murder, what we think is that Tom
00:40:28
Young discovered that people were dumping >> plutonium >> plutonium illegally in these mine shafts. And so,
00:40:40
so our buddy Keith just hears this rumor, out of shape, inexperienced, unprepared, decides, well, I'm going to
00:40:48
go up and look into these mine shafts. Well, most of them are blocked off or in locations
00:40:56
that probably should be blocked off. But what if he went up there and started going down a mine shaft again, out of
00:41:04
shape, and inexperienced, [clears throat] unprepared, and then something happens.
00:41:09
And maybe the rumor mill wasn't ever true about what Tom Young discovered, but the mystery of his death is still
00:41:19
what is responsible for Keith going missing. >> Yeah. Keith may be investigating a a
00:41:25
mystery without any real clues. Yeah, I was talking to my buddy about this case as well and and what he [snorts] was
00:41:32
pondering was, is it possible that Keith in some way wanted to go missing, maybe
00:41:39
even just for a time period? Well, I'm going to go up there. They'll eventually find me and that will just add to the
00:41:47
story or add to my experience to help me finish the book cuz we do have this draft of the book. But my push back on
00:41:56
that was, well, wouldn't you want to finish the book? So then if you did go missing
00:42:04
that, man, that those book sales would go bonkers. >> Yeah, I he [snorts] would not knowing
00:42:11
Keith, it's very difficult for me to say that he would even consider something of
00:42:16
that nature, but stranger things have certainly occurred. Now, in fairness to the local authorities, the Clear Creek
00:42:28
County Sheriff's Department, who was the lead on this, we went very briefly through
00:42:36
the search of Keith Reinhardt. If in fact everything reported by the sheriff's department is true,
00:42:43
then they went to a great deal of effort and expense to try to find this man. In
00:42:52
fact, it was reported by others that at the time that it was one of the largest,
00:42:58
most expensive searches in state history. Yeah. >> In state history. So to me, if that is
00:43:06
in fact true, then that means that if they were wanting to cover something up, >> well, why spend all the money?
00:43:13
>> They either knew 1,000% though they being the people responsible for the cover up may just a few people. They
00:43:21
knew 1,000% that either the local authorities don't have a clue or if the local authorities are involved, which
00:43:28
that's what Mike Eckle's book is kind of hinting at, right? when he's like, I talked to the guy from Unsolved
00:43:34
Mysteries and he said this was >> dealing with the local authorities was one of the strangest experiences he ever
00:43:40
had while working for Unsolved Mysteries. That that's kind of like hinting at the local authorities had
00:43:46
some involvement in what in the demise of both of these men. So that would mean that those local authorities, the the
00:43:54
best cover up, right, is to make it look like there's no cover up. Bring everybody in, search for the clues,
00:43:59
search for the answers. But I know before you start searching 1,000% you're going to find nothing. So I have I'm at
00:44:06
zero risk here. >> Right. >> We do get very detailed reports from the sheriff's department regarding the
00:44:13
search and even open speculation by the investigators from the sheriff's department. And one thing that I thought
00:44:21
was really interesting the way that they reported it was let's go back to that party, right? because the party took
00:44:28
place the night before. We've experienced this with many other gatherings, especially larger gatherings
00:44:36
that happen to fall into our timeline on a missing person's case or a homicide case. And what do we find at every one
00:44:44
of those large gatherings? you get a very wide array and very varying opinions of what the person was doing at
00:44:54
the party, what they were experiencing at the party. And so let's go back to that unknown woman that that Greta or
00:45:04
Gretchen woman >> according to the local sheriff's department has never been identified.
00:45:08
>> Greta Van Fleet. The other thing though too is the sheriff's report on it is the
00:45:14
same as our experience has been where they talk to some people and they would say, "Oh yeah, Keith was drinking a bit
00:45:23
a lot. He was talking to everybody. He was telling stories. He kept talking about Tom Young's death and Tom Young
00:45:30
being found up there on the mountain." And then they would talk to other people that were at the exact same party and
00:45:35
like I don't remember him drinking anything. I I don't think I didn't see him talking with anybody. They talked to
00:45:42
somebody else. Yeah. He never mentioned Tom uh when I spoke with him. He just talked about, you know, regular stuff.
00:45:49
And then there's other people. Some people report this unknown mysterious woman. Other people never mention this
00:45:54
woman. Didn't see her. Didn't see her with Keith. >> But wasn't this event loosely for Tom?
00:46:02
>> Yes. It was reported as a >> memorial service and then other venues it's reported as a beer party to
00:46:13
celebrate the memory of Tom Young. So So every account that I could find that gives a title to what this event was,
00:46:21
>> right, >> has Tom Young's name on it, >> right? So, it wouldn't be weird for Keith to be talking about Tom, and it
00:46:28
wouldn't be weird for anybody to talk about local rumor or speculation. And it also wouldn't be out of the realm
00:46:37
of possibility that some lady came into town to celebrate Tom's life that wasn't
00:46:44
known to the locals, >> right? >> And then when people go, "Well, but the story was so big. Wouldn't she come
00:46:50
forward?" Well, not necessarily. And also, what if she was just in again for the day or so to celebrate Tom's life
00:47:00
and whatever encounter she had with Keith was a nothing burger in her mind, something that she didn't feel like she
00:47:09
had to contact local law enforcement. And we have no proof either for or against that she ever made contact with
00:47:20
local law enforcement because that's information that maybe they don't want to Well, the report now keep in mind
00:47:28
this report is from a long time ago. So, um these reports are from early 1989 from the sheriff's department. Some of
00:47:38
the reports are from March and others are from April. But they they openly say whether this woman existed or not, we
00:47:48
don't know. We could never we could never find her. We we attempted to figure out who this woman was, but
00:47:55
>> we don't know who she is. And further, >> out of the room full of people we talked
00:48:01
to, some report a women woman and some do not. So, they're also saying like we're not even 1,000% sure she existed,
00:48:10
>> right? But what I'm saying is since that time period, if she has presented herself to law enforcement, they have no
00:48:17
responsibility to the public to tell us that. >> Correct. Correct. And with the Unsolved
00:48:24
Mysteries presentation, at least the season 2 presentation, they Unsolved Mysteries was openly asking for the
00:48:33
woman to come forward. So they they may have spoke to this person, they may not have, but they I mean they did track
00:48:40
down a lot of stuff, a lot of potential leads regarding Keith that they provided
00:48:46
answers to in these reports, >> right? And so that that leads me to believe that they again going back to
00:48:55
the search that they put in a lot of effort to attempting to find this man or at least determine what happened to him.
00:49:03
>> And like I said, if he went into a mine shaft, that would be difficult no matter
00:49:06
how much time and effort you're putting into cuz again, we have a crash where somebody died
00:49:15
looking for this individual. So you you have to protect yourself even when you're looking for this missing
00:49:21
individual. So I think the mine shafts I think it would be safe to say that they weren't
00:49:27
thoroughly investigated because >> no >> it would just be too dangerous to do so.
00:49:31
>> This as you stated earlier is a very different location difficult location to
00:49:36
search. I mean regardless of who's responsible for the death of Tom Young, >> right? There's no reason to believe that
00:49:45
he wasn't there dead in the woods on the side of the mountain for 10 months before he was found. [snorts] When you
00:49:53
when you blow that up, it's very reasonable to believe that Keith is still up there somewhere and he's just
00:50:00
never been found. Again, regardless of who is responsible or not responsible for what happened to Keith,
00:50:07
>> right? In simplest terms, did somebody murder Keith or did he or did he die from the elements? But just because we
00:50:16
didn't find a body doesn't mean it doesn't exist. >> So, this is from one of those earlier
00:50:22
sheriff department reports on the Keith Reinard investigation and search efforts to find him or
00:50:31
recover him. It says, "A total of 8,364 person hours were spent looking for Keith. The initial estimates and
00:50:40
reported value of services totaled over three $326,000. Assistance that was provided by everyone
00:50:49
from the garage across the street, meaning the garage across the street from the sheriff's department to
00:50:55
Reinhard's paper all the way back in in Illinois. all of this and there has never been a single piece of physical
00:51:04
evidence as to where Keith Reinhardt went. >> So, >> and it goes it goes on to say th this is
00:51:11
another thing too. >> This whole case is another thing. Well, but again, I would like to talk to Mike
00:51:18
Eckles on this because it's we talked earlier, we started off talking about this case with the mountains casting a
00:51:26
shadow over the town of Silver Plume, but Mike Eckle's book is casting a shadow over the local authorities here,
00:51:36
>> right? >> The local authorities, they're not of this type like, well, we searched high
00:51:40
and low for him. We, you know, he he he's he's gone. We did everything we could. They're not they don't have that
00:51:45
stance at all. Not in these reports. And the in these reports, they're leaving the door open and they're openly saying,
00:51:52
"Look, we did try our best, but this is a very big mystery." So, let me read this part uh to you here. This is the
00:51:59
last page of the seven-page report, and it says, "This is one of the largest searches in Colorado history. And after
00:52:07
hundreds of questions being asked by dozens of people, the big question still remains. As Sheriff Cahill put it, we
00:52:15
would restart the search immediately if any new leads came in. We have yet to receive that new lead. Reinhardt told
00:52:23
Perry Davis that he was going to climb the mountain, and nothing I've seen or heard has made me doubt it. Alpine
00:52:32
rescue team will be back in Silver Plume when the weather clears for training and
00:52:37
additional searching until Keith Reinhardt is found. However, nothing can be ruled out. Reinhardt would have gone
00:52:46
under I7, Interstate 70 to go to Pendleton Mountain. At that time of the afternoon on a Sunday, the eastbound
00:52:56
tourist traffic would be heavy. Someone could have gotten off the interstate and
00:53:01
offered Keith an alternative adventure, forced or voluntary. He could have contacted a visitor to the Georgetown
00:53:10
Loop Railroad which is right there. As well liked as Keith was, there may have been
00:53:19
someone in Silver Plume who was the exception who followed him up the hill. He could have simply hiked a different
00:53:28
mountain or intentionally disappeared or blank question mark. The investigation will continue.
00:53:40
[music] [music] Want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each [music] and
00:53:55
every week. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and make sure you check out Off the Record. We're diving into some
00:54:03
fascinating cases over there on Patreon and Apple podcast subscriptions. Colonel, do we have any recommended
00:54:10
reading for the beautiful listeners? >> We do have some recommended reading and it's a it's a case that's eerily similar
00:54:17
to the story we just told you this week in the garage. Before I get to that though, I do want to mention something
00:54:22
that I think is something we need to reintroduce to our listeners and point out to the new listeners that we have is
00:54:30
we do have a blog on our website and we set up a new blog for each and every case. It's not uncommon that after we
00:54:40
cover a case that we get an email question or a question on X that's directed to us to continue the
00:54:49
discussion about that case. The reason why I like to direct folks to the blog is it opens up the conversation to other
00:54:56
people, to other thinkers, to other minds where people can read your question or comment about the case and
00:55:03
they can chime in. One thing that I love about our show, especially the early years, that blog was very active and
00:55:10
there was a lot of conversations on there about these cases. So, a case like this one that inspires a lot of
00:55:17
conversation, a lot of questions, a lot of comments. The blog is really the best
00:55:21
place to do it because it opens up, it's an open forum to everybody that want to
00:55:25
get involved. The book that I want to recommend this week is called Missing When the Sun Sets. And when the sun
00:55:34
sets, sun is purposely spelled s o n, not s u n. So missing when the sun sets, the Jared Adider story by Allan
00:55:45
Adiderado and Arland Adaro. On October 2nd, 1999, 3-year-old Jared Adider vanished on a
00:55:55
group hike in the Comanche Peak Wilderness. As the hours turned into days and the days into months, Jared's
00:56:02
father, Allan, goes through hell and high water to combat nightmarish circumstances, hindering the search,
00:56:10
threatening the very core of his existence. Circumstances which would bring most ordinary people to the
00:56:18
breaking point and beyond. This story, this true story takes place in Colorado. This is another missing person's case
00:56:29
hiking up the mountain from the great state of Colorado. Sadly, in this story, there is a airplane crash. I believe it
00:56:38
was either an airplane crash or a helicopter crash. Very similar to the Keith Reinhardt story. It has so many
00:56:44
similarities. It's just strange. And sadly, on top of that, Allan Adiderado, who never stopped searching for answers
00:56:53
regarding his son's case, passed away earlier this year at the age of 67, 26 years after his son Jared went missing.
00:57:03
Again, that title is Missing When the Sun Sets, the Jared Adider story. You can find that recommendation and many
00:57:11
more, not just books, but also podcast and documentaries on our website's recommended page, true crime garage.com.
00:57:18
And until next week, >> be good, be kind, and don't litter. [music] [music] >> [music]
00:57:58
>> Clorox toilet [music] wand. It's all in one. Clorox toilet wand. It's all in one. Hey, what does allinone mean?
00:58:08
>> The caddy, the wand, the pre-loaded pad. There's a cleaner in there. >> So, Clorox toilet wand is all I need to
00:58:17
clean a toilet. [music] >> Toilet cleans. Use as directed.