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[Applause] [Music] [Applause] The Crowd Goes Wild that I wish that was like if you
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just walk in a room that that [Laughter] happens when I was a kid I always wanted
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like the song Dazed and Confused to just I like the beginning of that song so much I always wanted like anytime I walk
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in a room to just have the the start of that song just just play well was a captain on the wrestling team back in
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middle school and one of our jobs was to to find out um you know to find a song that we could come out
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to and so I think I just got the ACDC it was like a little box set type thing yeah we both we both had that like
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it was a maybe a live double disc yeah it came live or something like that ACDC dollar or something oh yeah yeah the the
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Angus the Angus dollar yeah and I think it was I think it was TNT t uh mhm TNT dynamite was either TNT or it was
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like thunder struck or something like that but so the you know we our our wrestling
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team was kind of a big deal because it was a a bunch of us tried out for the basketball team mhm and we were pretty
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good shoot the thrill but we didn't we didn't make the team for whatever reason like you played it
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well it was a lot of people sitting around after like they you know called the names out for the team mhm a lot of
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like kids sitting around like it was kind of like the first time you realized oh you know this guy that
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sucks you can see him talk his dad's talking to the coach mhm afterwards and there was like a bunch of
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guys you know over talking to the coach and you're going oh they're buddies and we just kicked
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their asses and but that didn't stop them from picking the you know these guys for the team and and there was a
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guy um that was new to our school very a athletic and he was like screw this let's join the wrestling team so the
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wrestling team I remember the group of us going to the wrestling practice and you know that five kids
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that were in the class or 10 kids that were in the class look up and there's now 30 of them us mhm and it was
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probably the biggest wrestling team that the school has ever seen and because after like a week we kept recruiting
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people like oh you want to come wrestle I think there was like nine people in my
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weight class but anyways we we got these hoodies almost everybody on the team shaved their head and so we would put
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the hoodies on and would come out and I just remember coming out to uh TNT or something like that but it it was a live
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version so the crowd was like and I remember like running around the circle and we had this you know kind
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of like warmup routine to do but at some point all the captains were like just keep your you you can take the hoodie
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off if you want but the captains were going to keep their hoodies on until it was done but it felt like such a like
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the crowd felt so freaking huge because they're blasting it over the loud system
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and it's the crowd from the ACDC lives it's it's like it's like you're playing to the laugh track almost
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you're you're going out and there's probably some people that are clapping or whatever but but you hear the you
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hear the audio and it sounds like we got a 10,000 50,000 screaming fans I I figured I'd pull off the hoodie and the
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placeat was going to be packed I remember pulling off the hoodie and it was just crickets and I was like oh yeah
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yeah this is the wrestling team nobody nobody cares so yeah but I wish I could remember if it was TNT
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or it might have been thunderstar because thunderstar has the better the intro the longer intro yeah yeah yeah
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the cool guitar tapping so this guy Matt Leen for the Knoxville News Sentinel there is a fascinating and a really I
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mean this is just a really well done piece of work here uh if you go to knoxnews.com I guess guessing that
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that's the Knoxville News website but knoxnews.com they have a missing in the Smokies
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Dennis Martin's disappearance still Haans Park 50 years later on Friday June 14 marks 50 years since a grinning
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Dennis Martin darted out of his family sight during a weekend camping trip he never came home so that's crazy I mean
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one one that it's been 50 years to I mean if this boy would have somehow survived or if he if in some weird way
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he is still alive he'd be 56 years old well right actually if you remember when we covered it so we covered it last year
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and that would have been September 2018 Dennis Martin it's episode 238 for anybody that wants to look up in the
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archives the garage kives um the if you remember correctly he was actually just days away from his seventh
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birthday so I'm by now I'm guessing he would have be he would be technically 57 years old yeah and this is this I tell
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you what out of all the cases that we've covered this one is one that just I mean
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such a mystery it it truly is and it almost it almost doesn't seem real for a couple reasons one it was so long ago
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but two just the The Disappearance and then absolutely no trace of the boy afterward just feels like something out
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of a movie and I and I do know I think it was in The Missing 411 documentary it's been years since I've watched
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that you've seen that Missing 411 yeah what what are your thoughts about that documentary because I I I have I
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have some good thoughts and some bad thoughts I think it's worth watching oh I agree there that's that's where I
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think people need to start right yeah when when you're giv a recommendation start with is it worth watching oh it
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Not only was it worth watching it was entertaining and fascinating because there is so many Mysteries involved and
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most of the if I'm remembering correctly most most of the documentary focuses on
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children who end up going missing in these these huge state parks yeah and what's cool about this article on the
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Knox News is you get to see 20 I believe it's 20 a lot of pictures pictures and so it's really interesting to see um the
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search how how many people were searching mhm um well they had like 240 people up there by day two you know the
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the day after yeah so he went missing in the let's say afternoon early evening and they did their best to to
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search that night his grandfather even hiking like miles to get to where the park rangers were station and then the
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park rangers and a bunch of people got involved in the search that night but remember there was a like a crazy storm
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that came in that night and we're talking about like this wasn't just a rain this was this was a crazy
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thunderstorm high winds flash flooding um so the the article is so well done I I don't know how many pages
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it is it's pretty lengthy and what's really cool like you said there's a lot of pictures that I've never seen before
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yeah there's a part a couple of the pictures that seem like it's like Vietnam it almost it some of the
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pictures look moviees yeah right and and so um they are we won't go through the whole thing cuz it's it's a lengthy
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article and and that's up to anybody if they want to venture over to knoxnews.com and check it out but really
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they they site a few different things depending on who you're talking to um this I found to be interesting was that
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they they mentioned bears and I know that we probably mentioned Bears when we discussed this but they were talking
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about how unusually Brazen the the Bears were that season and had to do with a drought
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from the year before and and a lack of of acorns and other food that they would they would typically typically just find
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lying around in their travels and so they were saying that the Bears were a little more aggressive and also
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venturing into areas that they may not have in the past because of this well we covered the Dior Coons is that how you
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say it Dior Coons um but cases are very similar but also very different because I believe in in the
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Dennis Martin case there was actually some evidence left behind and and in the Dr Coons it's like
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we we don't even have evidence that he was there yeah and and you have the the sheriff's statement in Dior Coon's case
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of if anybody knows a family out there that has a son or a little boy now and didn't have one before that's who we
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need to talk to because they kind of very suspicious that maybe the mother Andor mother and father gave Dior away
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and I know I know these child cases are very sad to one they're sad for us to cover and two they're sad to listen to I
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get it but dior's case is is very weird in the way that I I actually hope and pray that they gave
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him away but gave him away to somebody that loved him and is treating him as they would raise their own son yeah and
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I think in a weird way it's like um a different version of Gone Baby Gone yeah and I think with dior's case that
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could be a a very could be a possibility with with with high probability percentage I
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think in that one and Dennis Martin's case to me completely different in the sense that it seemed like the boy going
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missing Dennis or Denny as his uh family called him him going missing like just seemed to control his father's life and
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his grandfather's lives for for the rest of their days it it was something that haunted them that they never really quit
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looking for this little boy uh and I said that the article cites the the aggressiveness of the bears but then you
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have Park Rangers who really kind of hone in on the the storm that took place that night saying
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that it would have been difficult for an adult to survive out there in those circumstances we're talking about an
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individual with no you know no hat no jacket nothing like that I mean he he literally disappeared with the the
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clothes on his back and his shoes on his feet and they were saying that for an adult to survive out there just that one
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night the temperature got so cold and it was so miserable out there they don't think that a a child would
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have would have lived much longer than you know maybe even into the early morning hours yeah it's difficult for me
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too because the the little Metro Parks that we have around here you can walk you they have these different paths or
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whatever but you can walk like the big path where you basically go through the whole park and it'll take you an hour or
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maybe more and those feel somewhat big while you're there but this park is you know the the entrance is the size of my
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park right you know I mean this is um It's a Great Smoky Mountains National Park yeah I mean that it's
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um well and what's interesting too is like the parks I'm going to like I said there's they might have a path or a
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walkway or hiking trail or something around the whole perimeter of the park but these they have walking trails and
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and some you know places to like shelter houses and stuff like that but then it just goes into the the wild mhm it backs
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these little Parks back up into the wild and those don't have paths and those don't have shelters it's just you know
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hundreds and hundreds of Acres of wild mhm well and so we have they say nearly 15 00 Searchers
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from Park Rangers and FBI agents to Backcountry hunters in Green Beret combed a stretch of nearly 60
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square miles 6060 square miles and still walked away empty-handed really with no trace of the
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little boy the the thing here too I like is the the Green Beret are brought in on this
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now that group they were saying if we searched an area if we didn't find him he's not there so basically they're
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saying whatever areas we searched you can just put a big fat X on those because if he was in any of the areas we
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searched we would have found them now they didn't they didn't specifically cover the whole 60 square miles
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themselves but then you have you have Park Rangers what what really went on within
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this missing person's case was learning future tactics and strategies for conducting a search for an individual in
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a in an area this large they really learned through trial and error through the through the real life exercise of
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trying to find this boy what to do and what not to do in the future and unfortunately we don't know what
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happened to Denny Martin but the the fortunate thing that came from that is there's actually been lives
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saved and people found because of techniques and strategies that were created because of this real life
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emergency yeah I can't remember what case it was off the top of my head but when they were searching for somebody
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they had ways of marking trees to block off different areas to let people know hey we we've already searched here mhm
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um um I can't can't remember what case that was well and you'll remember in in Dennis Martin's case they were saying we
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had so many people up here searching and it wasn't there was no way to really organize the thing so sometimes they
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were searching an area two or three times right when it might not have been necessary but I guess at the end of the
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day you go well I'd rather double check a spot than to than to than to worry about how I'm going to spend days or
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weeks trying to org organiz this search the the Rangers do point out that nowadays they very likely while
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they were they were excited and and grateful that so many people turned out to help in the search and turned out so
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quickly but what they say nowadays is we wouldn't we wouldn't bring all those people in or all those Vehicles into the
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area so quickly because the you know you have trained Park Rangers who know to track people in
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the woods and the methods that they use to track somebody that stuff is easily destroyed when you bring in all these
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volunteers and vehicles that are that are uh you know driving over top of possible prints or trampling over trails
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and through the woods so they think that a lot of that stuff was probably lost if
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there would have been any Trace that it was lost because bringing in all these search
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that's great but the people have to know what to look for and an untrained an unskilled tracker does not
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and it's just like it's just like contaminating a crime scene you know if in the efforts to save lives with
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ambulance EMT fire police their number one goal was always to save life to protect life
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and sometimes crime scenes become contaminated by the rescue efforts of The Rescuers
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so and and that's probably may have been what happened here in Dennis's case that
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if there was some kind of Trace some kind of way or evidence to track the boy it might have been lost one due to the
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storm and two to all the people that came into the area now in the article they do cite what we cited when we
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covered the the case was that his father Dennis's father believes that the boy may have been
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kidnapped the issue with that is it's such a short window of time that that he's unaccounted for unless you factor
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in that maybe he wandered away and he kept getting further and further from the family but Martin's father says
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within 5 minutes they were looking for the boy now park rangers state that even if they were walking in calling out to
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him or Dennis was calling out to them that the way that the the landscape is and the winds out there even before the
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storm the Rangers say I doubt they could hear each other and you know that makes makes it uh even
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even much more difficult and then we do have that statement the weird statement of the
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guy remember the guy there was a guy that said that he and his son or daughter I can't remember which but two
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people were traveling in an area walking trails they were out looking they were hoping to see a bear you know yeah this
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was like a month after though bring your Camp no well they reported a month after
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okay so they I think they reported a month after but it wasn't a month after that
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this supposed sighting happened where this gentleman says that he saw a guy a man but he couldn't make out much of the
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man's features or give a good description of the man because he said that the man had his back turned to him
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most of the time and was walking and the eyewitness believes that the man was doing his best to not be
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seen and when the man and his his child came out of the Woods he says there was there was a vehicle up near our vehicle
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when we went into the woods then I see this guy who looks to me like he's moving in a way that he doesn't want to
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be seen and the eyewitness says I don't think this guy knows that I saw him but he says you know we come out of
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the woods and that car's gone I don't know if it belonged to the man that I saw but it's kind of crazy that the it
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was once there and now is not and he just described that as like a late model Chevy a late model White Chevrolet yeah
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vehicle so you're right the authorities didn't hear about this for about a month
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and and this happened uh and then after it happened he learned about the Martin disappearance that you know a day later
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basically because he they didn't their trip end and they went home to wherever they were from and then he gets home and
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he's like oh and learns of this boy going missing and then he's like wait a second I might have seen something of
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importance here yeah but then I think he said on it I mean this is also just a different time period too and and the
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people's characters are different right and and people's are their demeanor is different so a little more reserved I
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would assume and um and I think it took him a minute to contact authorities about it mhm and and wellfully so cuz I
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mean you don't know if it had anything to do with it or not well and you wonder too you you probably just dismiss it and
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then it festers the thought of it possibly being connected festers to the point where you're like all right I got
00:22:06
to I have to [ __ ] get off the pot here I I need to just call this thing in and and be done with it and um when in
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doubt let the authorities check it out right that could be a that's a new shirt when in doubt let the authorities check
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it out well and I I believe that what the park rangers came up with in resp response to that possible
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eyewitness um according to his statement anyway is they they say it's about nine
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miles from where Dennis was last seen yeah and where where this man says he saw a man in the
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woods the problem with that then becomes the time frame that this eyewitness gives is
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only like an hour and a half to two hours after the boy was last seen right I don't have a problem with that because
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we we know that this man had a vehicle so is it possible that he moved him and then it moved him and was took him to
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another part of the woods was going to do something to the boy and then there was people around and
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he was like well this ain't going to work now I got to move him again yeah I think I think they're just pointing out
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if if if you were to believe that the boy made his way that distance and that time they think it to be highly right
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right you know very very unlikely that and that's a tough thing though too it's like but
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then then again MH what's the math on not finding any trace of this boy at all 60 square
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miles I mean it's just it's really I I swear I think it's one of the the bigger Mysteries that we've we've covered but I
00:23:58
think a bear could you know move a kid pretty easily I agree yeah that doesn't mean there wouldn't be some trace of
00:24:07
evidence but but I don't know I I I think um you know I I followed this guy uh like a
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YouTube vlogger and he lives in Montana and he's constantly showing like Bears on their property and
00:24:23
they're they're not that afraid of the humans you know it's something that they have to watch out for to the point where
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I believe he got his wife like they call him bear dogs um that will they'll go like hiking with with uh humans and
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they're they're just kind of loud enough and and scary enough to scare the bears
00:24:44
away but if the Bears aren't scared away well then you got a dead human and dead
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dogs yeah and I think we did a very good job covering the Dennis Martin disappearance but this article is
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fantastic and and they have a it's worth checking out just for the pictures toward the end they have a dig deeper
00:25:07
section where where I'm guessing you can click on missing in the Smokies Dennis Martin's disappearance still Hans Park
00:25:14
50 years later then they have a timeline for the case it's a bunch more articles
00:25:20
that were written about this case yeah and then Mysteries of the Smokies five missing people never found and then of
00:25:27
course Lessons Learned turned in Dennis Martin disappearance still saves lives in the smokies and Beyond yeah it's
00:25:35
crazy his birthday would have been June 20th [Music] [Applause]