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E078: The Lost Boys of Pickering
1.6k Plays5 years ago
Surely if a ship sank, drowning six separate individuals, there would be at least some shred of evidence, right? Yet when six teenage boys went missing in Pickering, Ontario, for many who analyze the case the only evidence of foul play is the fact that there's NO evidence.
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Transcript
Starting Your Own Podcast and Buzzsprout Benefits
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuth Hounds, have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought, I'd love to try this out on my own. Whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are. When Maggie and I first decided to start our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing.
00:00:26
Speaker
about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space, and each other, we knew that this was the way to go. It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful in getting analytical data about our number of downloads to track trends,
00:00:48
Speaker
and from where our listeners hail. Best yet, Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards. Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform. So, what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today. If you use our coffee and cases referral code, 709-643, linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show,
00:01:18
Speaker
but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan. It's that easy. Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. Join over a hundred thousand podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. Now it's time for the world to hear what you have to say.
00:01:40
Speaker
I don't know about you sleuth hounds, but I'm probably one of the most forgetful people on this planet. I'm constantly misplacing my phone, my car keys, the mail, my debit card. My husband jokes that I worry him with my bad memory and forgetfulness. I'm horrible with names. I forget details that other people can easily remember. I misplaced my passport for almost a year and a half. I looked everywhere.
00:02:04
Speaker
in closets, in my car, and all of my purses, in every drawer in our house, in every single cabinet, and it never turned up. When we moved, I thought, surely it will turn up as we pack, but nope, nothing. Not until we unpacked the last box did Anthony find my passport tucked away in a forgotten wallet that was in our old garage. It's easy to lose a cell phone. It's easy to lose a debit card. It's easy to lose your car keys.
The Mysterious Disappearance of Six Young Men
00:02:34
Speaker
What isn't so easy to do is lose a person, and I'm not talking about losing a child that's been abducted or a person who's forced into the backseat of a car. At least with those cases, you have somewhere to start. You know something. I'm not talking about losing one, but rather about losing six healthy young men in a single night, vanished without quite literally a single trace.
00:02:59
Speaker
Police searched the water, the shoreline, and contacted another country to be on the lookout for them. But despite all their searching, they found nothing. And what they did find led to more questions. Maybe police just haven't looked in the right places yet. Like me, they're looking all over, but missing something small and unnoticeable that could solve this case. Maybe they need a fresh set of ears to hear this story. This is the case of the Lost Boys of Pickering.
00:03:42
Speaker
So.
00:04:02
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the case will take those tips to law enforcement so justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:04:23
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, and to follow us on Instagram at Coffee Cases podcast and on TikTok at Coffee and Cases podcast. Because as these families know, conversation helps to keep their missing family member in the public consciousness, helping to keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:04:51
Speaker
All right, Sleuthounds, I have to warn you that this is not like a traditional missing person's case, like that you would be used to hearing on coughing cases.
00:05:00
Speaker
There aren't many theories and quite frankly, most people from the area of today's case would consider it solved, sort of. But we have several requests, we have had several requests to cover this case. And since it's still technically listed as unsolved, I thought that I would try to give it a go. So. So was it kind of like the Erica Baker where like, we know, but we can't convict.
00:05:29
Speaker
Um, it is kind of, no, it is more like we
00:05:38
Speaker
It's more like almost like diet love like there are it's not as crazy as that case obviously but like There are like theories, but none of them really make sense They're just they're just gone And we don't know where so it's kind of so with diet love there are all the crazy theories like the ball lightning But then most people are like avalanche. Yeah Yeah
00:06:07
Speaker
Of course, there's no ball lighting or spontaneous levitation or anything. But this week we are back in one of my favorite places, Canada.
Pickering and Lake Ontario's Geography
00:06:19
Speaker
You always end up in Canada. In particular, we're in the town of Pickering, Ontario.
00:06:30
Speaker
Which I had never heard of. But Pickering is a beautiful town and it's nestled next to Lake Ontario. And it's home to about 92,000 people. And when I say beautiful, I really mean it. There were pictures that looked like a seaside town on a postcard type perfect. And this is a far bigger town than normal. Normally what we're talking about.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's not like huge, huge, but it's a lot bigger than most places that we talk about. Yeah. And Allison, unlike you, I am not a huge lake person. I love the lake. My lake experiences have not been amazing, to say the least. The closest lake to the house where I grew up was really a pond. And that pond was probably not the cleanest.
00:07:26
Speaker
But Anthony, I mean, it was bigger than a pond. So I guess technically it was a lake. But Anthony loves to swim in the lake. And so in the summer, he would always want to swim. And by swim, I mean that I would literally climb onto Anthony's back like a spider monkey. A good picture. And he would carry me into the water. Because the mud in that lake brought back flashbacks of stepping in chicken poop as a kid.
00:07:56
Speaker
And if you've ever stopped in chicken poop, barefoot, like you know exactly what I'm talking about. And so he would like carry me in and I would find like a rock and like on one leg, like perch on it. And like, you don't splash me in the face. I'm not going to get, like my face is not going to go under in a lake. And like, I'm not going to just move around because I just,
00:08:20
Speaker
The water's green and I can't see what's around me and it just freaks me out. I will say it can be kind of creepy when fish nibble at your toes. Have you seen the people who do the pedicures and it's the, there's no way I could do that. No, that's gross. That creeps me out. Even at the ocean sometimes they nibble and I'm like,
00:08:48
Speaker
yeah this last year I had some fish who were like following me around and it was creeping me out too much I had to get out. yeah and like something else that bothers me about the lake I can't do like water snakes.
00:09:00
Speaker
Oh no. And sometimes like Anthony can say that he like saw them in the distance. He's probably trying to scare me but like he saw them in the distance and the first time we ever went to the lake I'm so naive but he was like you just need to be careful because there's a chupacabra and that's like a really big fish and it can like hurt you if it gets too close to you. I had no idea that that's not what a chupacabra is. It's like freaking out.
00:09:27
Speaker
But needless to say, the guys that are in our story today grew up around Lake Ontario and so they were used to all the lake things that I am not.
00:09:40
Speaker
So before we kind of get into the story, I wanna talk about just the geography of Lake Ontario because it's gonna come into play like later on in the episode. So obviously we know Lake Ontario is one of the five great lakes of North America. And it's surrounded on the North, the West and the Southwest by Canada, particularly Ontario. And then to the South and the East is like the United States, New York area.
00:10:09
Speaker
And their boundary is like the middle of Lake Ontario. Oh, okay. Yeah. And obviously that's where the provenance of Ontario got the same was from Lake Ontario. Gotcha. Some big cities that kind of border the lake are Toronto, Kingston and Hamilton on the Canadian side. And then on the United States side, it would be like Rochester, New York.
00:10:34
Speaker
Okay. So is this near Niagara Falls? Well, Niagara River is the river that feeds into Lake Ontario. Okay. Yeah. And like, I loved geography as a kid. So this was like up my alley when I was looking at this stuff. Something that I thought was cool is that while Lake Ontario is the smallest surface lake of the Great Lakes, it actually exceeds Lake Erie in volume. So it's like really...
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah and it's actually the 13th largest lake in the world. Wow. When the shoreline is measured including its islands it's about 712 miles of shore and then at the deepest it reaches
00:11:21
Speaker
like 802 feet deep at the deepest. That's deep. I know. And the average depth is 800 and like, or no, I'm sorry, 283, which I also feel like is super deep. And I would not have guessed that. And then I think I read, I'm not really sure, like I'm going to be honest, like the difference between nautical miles and like
00:11:45
Speaker
You know, landman miles or whatever. But the lake is about 168 nautical miles long. And then 53 statute miles wide. Also don't know what that is. It's a technical term. But it's wide. Yeah.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, I do think that that would freak me out the depth. It's like, you know, I keep thinking like when I'm swimming in the ocean, okay, but the part I'm swimming in, I'm still standing. Yeah, like I never get to where I can't stand. Right. And I can't imagine, can you imagine swimming in the ocean and it's 800 miles deeper than where you are? Like that to me blows my mind. Like I can't imagine that. I would just keep thinking of sea creatures.
The Night of the Disappearance
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, the lot of monsters are going to eat me. Yeah. The chupacabra and Anthony's earth. It's coming. Yeah. And so obviously Lake Ontario is going to be the center of today's story. Okay. So today's story centers around six young men
00:12:58
Speaker
There's 17-year-old Jay, 18-year-old Chad, 17-year-old Robbie, 17-year-old Jamie, 17-year-old Michael, and 17-year-old Danny. Okay, so they're all mostly 17, one 18-year-old. Yeah, and for the majority of the story, I'm just going to refer to them as the lost boys or the missing six. Okay. They're always just lumped together. Okay.
00:13:27
Speaker
So here's what I can gather of the events of that night. So it was like early morning, March 17th, 1995.
00:13:38
Speaker
So I have read varying accounts of the first detail that we know of that night. Some reports say that all six boys were going to a party together. And then some reports say that five of the boys were together and that the sixth was picked up later in the night. But it seems like the majority of what I read lean towards all six being together.
00:14:05
Speaker
Okay. So that's what I'm going to go with for today. Does it even change the story if the sixth was picked up later? You know how like with Parley-Gosay, we were like, whichever version, it still ended up being the same. Yeah, whichever version, like, it's wouldn't have changed. Well, if he's at the party, or if he's picked up later, it doesn't change what happens. Okay.
00:14:27
Speaker
So Jay, Chad, Robbie, Jamie, Michael, and Danny are all on spring break, which for teachers is like one of the best times of the year because we use it to sleep or to catch up on grading, not to be productive around our homes, which is always what we plan, but never happens.
00:14:50
Speaker
Um, but for many of our students and Allison, I feel like, um, you teaching high school, this is more like towards you, but many students for spring break, like that's a time that they see as like free party time with their friends, especially when they're like 17 and 18. Oh yeah. A lot of them go actually
00:15:11
Speaker
on vacation, like a parental rent. And that's to you, I don't know. My little sleuthound, she's going to have to do a lot of convincing and I'll probably have to have met every single kid and their parents. So that was not really, I feel like a thing in Eastern Kentucky, but when we moved to Central Kentucky and I started coaching, like all the girls were like, we're going on spring break. And I'm like, with your mom? And they're like, no, she just rented the hotel. And I'm like, oh, OK, cool.
00:15:40
Speaker
I know. Too many bad situations that could happen. Like the one we're talking about right now. Oh, no. At 17 and 18, this was what these six had in mind, just relaxing with friends and drinking a little.
00:16:00
Speaker
So according to an extensive three-part article I found by Kristen Callis, Amanda, who is one of Jay's younger sisters, was 15 at the time of her brother's disappearance. And since Jay was only two years older than her, they actually shared like a friend group. Okay.
00:16:21
Speaker
And she told in this report that she had intended to go with Jay and the rest of the crew to Chad's apartment for a party. But she actually ended up getting sick. And so Jay was like, bye Felicia, like you're saying how I'm going to the party. 15. Okay, now we're getting even more because you know, they're going to be drinking. I wouldn't want
00:16:51
Speaker
You know, I don't know. That just seems too young. So I'm glad she was sick. So she was not there. Yeah. Um, and the next day is actually when Amanda heard from Jay's girlfriend with whom he had a baby and was living with that her brother never came home. Oh, so I'm guessing the girlfriend was like, Hey, have you seen your brother? You know, calling the sister.
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah. And, which I'll talk later on, but the girlfriend actually calls police like the night of this incident. Oh. Yes. And what happened in those like few short hours that lead to the disappearance of the six boys, we don't really know. But here's what we do know. We know that at some point the boys left the party and arrived at a local marina.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I'm guessing they were already drunk. Yes. When they're leaving a party. Yes. And now they're deciding to go near water. That's not all they decide to do. Oh, okay. We know for sure that at least three of them arrive at the marina because in that same article that I talked about above, um,
00:18:12
Speaker
There are reports that they left the party at 1240 a.m. on the 17th of March to go to the marina and we actually have reports of video footage and I say reports because that also comes into play later. Okay. That show three of the boys like safely at the marina and we're just going to kind of assume
00:18:44
Speaker
So they left the party saying that they were going to go like goof around at this Marina. Okay.
00:18:52
Speaker
And like Alison, I'm just going to tell you, like their definition of goofing off and our definition of goofing off are polar opposites. Like when we goof off, I feel like we get like raising canes to eat. Had that for dinner tonight. I know. We might make some Tik TOK videos. Oh yeah. Love that. We may, yeah, we may rant.
00:19:19
Speaker
Oh yeah, we always do that. But that's really, that's it. Yeah. For these six, goofing off meant something totally different. So when they say they are goofing off, what they really meant was that they were going to the local marina to steal some water equipment and head out onto the lake. So to be thieves.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah. And here are my two concerns with this. Okay. One, like you said, they stole something or multiple some things. They actually stole a boss, a replica of a Boston weller ship. I don't know what that is. Um, I didn't either. So I looked it up and according to, um, like Boston weller.com, it is like a hardcore.
00:20:06
Speaker
fishing boat like the military uses it like I kind of think it's like what the Coast Guard uses like the little like speedboat kind of looking thing okay and while the one that they used was reported to be a replica it was
00:20:22
Speaker
like still drivable on the water. Like it wasn't like a fake, it just wasn't the real deal. But it had been described as basically unsinkable. So keep that in mind. Okay, so these boats are unsinkable, supposedly.
00:20:38
Speaker
Supposedly, but so was the Titanic and we know how that went. Well, my little sleuth hound, we went over to my stepson and daughter-in-law's house for dinner one night, and she was trying to help wash dishes and broke a supposedly unbreakable plate. Why would that be her though? I know. It can happen.
00:21:03
Speaker
Oh, that is definitely her. Okay. So they steal the boat and they also steal a water tricycle from which what I can gather is like a glorified paddle boat. Okay.
00:21:17
Speaker
But the most like concerning, okay, not both of these things are concerning, but another concerning thing is the fact that these people are drunk. And while I don't know a lot about a lake, I do know that it is illegal to operate a boat while under the influence, just like it would be a car. Yeah, and I'm guessing that they also didn't have life jackets on.
00:21:40
Speaker
Oh, there were, it's confirmed there were no life jackets on the boat that they stole. And that is the most idiotic thing ever, because if you're drunk, if you hit your head, if you get a muscle cramp, I mean, whatever, you're a goner.
00:22:04
Speaker
So yeah, they're making all kinds of poor decisions right now. Which again, they're 17 and 18. So they're not cognitively developed at this point. But I feel like they should still know. Yes, they should. So like I say, we assume that all six are there, even though we only were able to confirm, sort of, that three were at this Frenchman's Bay, like a marina area. OK.
00:22:33
Speaker
Since that video footage was viewed by the family, confirming the sodding of the boys, there have been no more soddings. Like the case has sort of hit a brick wall. So I guess that's why we assume that all six are there because even if you see three, if all six are gone. You have to assume that they're all together. Yeah. Right. Okay.
00:23:02
Speaker
According to the history of 1995 podcasts that I listened to, like I said, the girlfriends of some of the boys actually do call police that night of the party. And in the podcast, it says that they got worried when like this goofing off slash adventure took longer than what they thought it should. And so they're like, we need to call police. P.S., how smart of these girlfriends to not get wrapped up in it and follow along. True, especially when I had the baby.
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, see, they're being responsible. And I feel like they're being good because they called the police, but the police, like in so many other cases that we cover, tell them to call back when they've been missing a day.
00:23:49
Speaker
Oh my gosh, again, wasted time. Yeah, this mentality drives me crazy. It always makes me wonder if police had responded quicker, would the outcome have been different? And in this case, their potential rescue out of this water would have needed to have been immediate. That's what I was going to say too. When you're talking about water,
00:24:19
Speaker
Like, that's not something where, okay, let's just wait. Right. And this isn't like lakes that I feel like I'm used to. This is like a huge lake, like with like waves and like current. So it's more like an ocean.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah. And like in March, Lake Ontario's water is cold. Oh yeah. I didn't even think about that. I didn't even think about the temperature. Yeah. I read online, I think it was like the average is like 37 degrees. So if they would have gone into the water, hypothermia would have set in within like minutes. Wow. So time is of the essence.
Search Delays and Emerging Clues
00:25:05
Speaker
But police do not respond to the case of the missing six until three days later. Three days? Yeah, because, and only because, someone finally makes a connection between the stolen Boston Whaler boat and the missing boys. Oh. That's the only reason that they get involved. Wow.
00:25:27
Speaker
So it's only then that searches begin and from my research, the searches seemed to be extensive. I know like National Guard searched the water, the local police searched along the shoreline, officials even contacted the United States to let them know that it's possible six young men may have crossed into the US from Canada. So I mean, they did a pretty good job, but their searches brought no leads.
00:25:54
Speaker
And I mean, when you're talking about what was it like 700 and some miles of shoreline? Yeah. Just a lot of miles to cover. Yeah. And like, I don't know about boats, but I feel like even going across a lake that size would take a while. I mean, I don't know, but I feel like it would. Yeah.
00:26:21
Speaker
In that same extensive article, the Calist article, it states that Jay's home, so one of the six became the base camp for operations. And his younger sister, who was only 12 at the time that he disappeared, said, we had so much family. We had neighbors dropping off food. It was ground zero, I guess, and it was a mess, she said. And she goes on to say,
00:26:47
Speaker
As time went on, I kind of started accepting it because Jay wouldn't do that to my mom or leave his daughter. And it seems like that is the general consensus. No one in the six families thought that the boys would run away and really neither did police.
00:27:08
Speaker
Despite the searches though, which to this day are still being conducted by family, the boat and the water tricycle were never found. No bodies were recovered, no pieces of clothing washed ashore, and as a result, the police stopped searching for the lost boys just a few days after they went missing, saying that they likely just drowned in the water.
00:27:31
Speaker
Okay, now I know this lake is deep, right? We talked about that, how it creeped me out, because it's like 800 and some feet deep at the deepest. And like 200, what'd you say on average, like 200 and some feet deep? Like 280, I think. I feel like there would have to be some kind of sonar that could detect metal, especially as big as this whaler ship.
00:28:00
Speaker
So there actually has been a private investigator, and I'll talk about him here in a little bit, but since you brought it up, we'll talk about this, that has been working on the case for several years. And he contacted a company that could do something similar to that, I believe. And this is just me recalling stuff that I've read. And they agreed to do it, but told him that
00:28:25
Speaker
in the days that they were actually searching, police also contacted them and said, hey, could you do this to Lake Ontario? And they were like, yeah, sure, no problem. But before they got out there to do it, the police were like, never mind. What? Yeah. And they can't figure out why it was called off. And I think I read that the family can't afford to pay for it out of pocket. But the police were like, it's OK. We change our mind. Oh.
00:28:55
Speaker
I'd be so upset because that would be the only way. And I know this boat's supposedly unthinkable, but it can't just disappear. Right. And it can't go on land.
00:29:07
Speaker
Right. So it can only go down. Right. And if it did like crash into the shore, they should have found it because they're ambising the area. But apparently like this was not the first run in with police that some of the boys may have had. And some people believe that kind of hampered how the investigation went. It probably did. Which we see tons of tons, which isn't frustrating. I don't know.
00:29:36
Speaker
One piece of evidence that finally did wash up on the New York coast was a gas can. So on March 29th, a lone gas can believed to have belonged to the 14 foot Boston Hoeiler replica. Police think that the boys stole washed up in Wilson, New York.
00:29:56
Speaker
but that private investigator whose name is Bruce Ricketts, and I want to add, he has been working free of charge on this case for years. Wow. Has questions about even the gas can and its location. Okay, what's he thinking?
00:30:13
Speaker
So he talked to several experts and they really can't figure out how the gas can got to Wilson, New York. They say, according to like the wind and the currents, the can should have and would have ended up in Rochester, New York, which is like 120 kilometers east of Wilson. Okay. So.
00:30:40
Speaker
what kind of things would make it end up in Wilson then instead of Rochester? I mean really the only thing that comes to my mind is if someone planted it there like they just assume because I think
00:30:53
Speaker
They're like almost basically right across from each other. So that's the only thing that really comes to my mind, but I didn't read anywhere where an expert said like, this is how it could have ended up here. Right. Well, the other thing is too, I mean, I know they're getting on this boat in Canada and I don't know how far like the marina where they were is from the US, like from New York.
00:31:21
Speaker
But that's an awful long way, it seems to me, in my head for a gas can to float. Yeah. And, like,
00:31:33
Speaker
According to experts, they would have only had enough gas to get halfway across the lake, which means that they too would have had to float to get to shore. So if the gas can made it there, like where's their ship at? Right. Just a lot of what ifs.
00:31:56
Speaker
This was the only piece of evidence that was ever linked to the boys and I think we have to use the term linked loosely because police are just saying like oh yeah that looks like the gas can that was on the boat that they had that like there's no way that they can really confirm that that it was. Right it could be a gas can off any boat. Right which could maybe explain how it got there. So um private investigator Ricketts has
00:32:25
Speaker
a different opinion than police. He said in this History of Nazi 95 podcast that it would be basically impossible for nothing to turn up, right? Like if we had one person, sure, you know, but you know, maybe they were weighed down by some heavy clothes and they weren't able to float up to the surface. But like, if you really think about it statistically,
00:32:50
Speaker
It would be nearly impossible for six people missing from the same time and same place. And like, for nothing to show up. For nothing, yeah. Like he says, there should be a hat, a glove, remains. Some things should have floated to the surface, but nothing has been found on the shoreline or in the water that belongs to the boys.
00:33:16
Speaker
So it's almost like alien abduction or something. Yeah. Like where did they go? That's what I'm saying. Like it's not as crazy as diet love past, but it's like that. Like you can't, there's no like good way to explain what happened. Yeah. Cause it's not like they all jumped off and decided to swim and then somehow drowned because then you'd see the boat. Right. And if the boat sank.
00:33:40
Speaker
then you'd think at least one of them, or like Ricketts thought, some part of their clothing would have floated to the top. Well, there is after three long years
00:33:58
Speaker
a sort of breakthrough. Family members are sure that they have a clue and a lead because randomly a pair of red pants matching the pants that Jay had on that night. And when I say matching, like I'm not just saying like they looked alike, they were matching down to like the end seam size matching matching.
00:34:22
Speaker
And they actually wash up on the shore. So of course the family is like ecstatic. They think, you know, this is it. We have something concrete. Like we're going to be able to like identify these as J's and move on with this case. Yeah. Or potentially even find him and bury their child. Right. But
00:34:42
Speaker
To the family's disbelief and to mine when I was reading this, the police refused to do DNA testing on the pants, despite the fact that there was DNA recovered from the pants. Okay. So you're telling me that there's video surveillance that would seem to show at least three of the boys at this marina?
00:35:07
Speaker
So we're pretty daggone sure that they stole this Boston whaler boat, but the police refuse to allow someone, and it doesn't cost them anything, to do a sonar search of the lake to see if anything can be found. And they're refusing to do DNA tests on the pants where we know that there's DNA. And let me add to your list.
00:35:36
Speaker
And that video that, you know, was used to identify the boys. It was viewed by members of their families. I mean, it was used to place the boys at the Marina the night that they disappeared has from all that I've read. Just it's lost. It didn't, we can't confirm that it existed. What video?
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, even though family members have said to the news, like, we saw a video of them there. And like some of the police have been like, what video? I mean, there and we've covered several cases, Maggie, Nancy. Yes, that's what I was gonna say last week. Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook, remember the police departments merged and they lost some of the evidence.
00:36:34
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like if I can hang on to my students' papers amidst craziness for like... Which really have no value in terms of people's livelihoods. This would be like my rolling pin that my grandma left to me. I know where this rolling pin is.
00:37:02
Speaker
There is no time ever that you would be like, Alison, where's that rolling pin? And I would say, I don't know. It's not like what you were mentioning at the beginning, losing a car keys. I've done that, right? Misplacing an ink pen, using your debit card and leaving it. But what you value, which I would think the evidence should be that for law enforcement, shouldn't just disappear.
00:37:30
Speaker
Right. It should have a special place. Like when we moved, all of my like wedding stuff, my childhood teddy bear that I've had since I was like three, all the stuff that my grandmother has given me were in special boxes that were transported into my car and went directly into the new house. Like they never went to a storage unit. They didn't go anywhere. Like that I was not there because like you said, like I value that and I feel like evidence should be treated the same.
00:37:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I agree Finally though the battle of the pants ended Several years later when police finally say like okay, we'll DNA test the pants Oh, okay after a fight, but always and like I even saw petitions online Like to have these pants tested for DNA. I mean according to the DNA testing though there were no traces of
00:38:28
Speaker
of any of the six on those pants. So they yield no new clues to the fate of Pickering's lost boys. Wow. I was hoping. Yeah. And one of the sisters said they had a significant amount of DNA from those genes, but it didn't match my brother, which is sad.
00:38:50
Speaker
So what could have happened to the Pickering Six? And this is like kind of what we've been talking about, like where did they go? Right. Most people from the area, much like the Diet Law Pass and the hypothermia, believe that the boys just drowned in Lake Ontario.
Ongoing Mystery and Families' Quest for Answers
00:39:06
Speaker
But there are a few other theories that have been thrown out. Well, I just don't believe the drowning thing because where's the boat? That's what I keep coming back to. Like where's the boat? And the paddle boat.
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah. Cause we're not finding anything. Yeah, nothing. There are some that believe this was all an elaborate hoax by the boys that they planned this accident, quote unquote, so that they could run away. But why would they do that? And how would they do that? Because one, the one has a baby. Mm-hmm.
00:39:43
Speaker
They're a tight knit group of friends that have friends beyond just the six of them that I don't think that they would want to leave. And nearly every single family member that has ever been interviewed said there is no way that the boys would run away. Also, you're planning an elaborate hoax. What are you doing with the boat that you stole? Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
Because unless you're the Hulk, like when you got to your destination, you can't just pick it up and carry it. Yeah. You got to dock it somewhere. Yeah. And then they're going to know where you stopped. Right. And like I said, experts have said that the boys only had enough gas to get them halfway across the lake and they would have had to float in to New York. So like we would have had a boat.
00:40:31
Speaker
but we don't. Yeah, you'd think if it were a grand hoax that they would have planned ahead. Yeah. And they would have gas. Yeah, exactly. So there's also a theory that the boys were in like a horrific accident while on the water. Some claim that the boat carrying the Pickering Six was struck by like a passing freight, which I did not even know was a thing that was on lakes.
00:40:57
Speaker
So now I know. Well, I guess, you know, you've seen there's like those flat barges hearing like coal or whatever. Like near Ashland. Okay. I'm there now. Okay. And like while this could be possible, like what kind of damage would this cause though? Like are we, this may sound graphic and I'm not trying to mean it that way, but like if they were struck by a barge, like
00:41:22
Speaker
Are they ripped to like? Oh yeah. Cause again, there'd be evidence. Like they're ripped and they, there's no way to trace them. But like, I feel like in that case, some things are going to float to the surface. I might sink, but like some stuff should be floating somewhere. And what about whoever's driving this freight? You're just like, I think I get a speed bump.
00:41:48
Speaker
Yeah, like they're not going to report it? Yeah. I'm not a fan of that theory either. No. And in the callous article, Ricketts questions, a third possibility. He wants, like he wonders if drugs may have had something to do with the boy's disappearance. So he says, quote, the area was a hotspot at one point in time. There was an awful lot of smuggling going on.
00:42:14
Speaker
from Durham, which is near Pickering, to the area of New York and back." I don't know that he necessarily means the boys were smuggling drugs, but maybe just that they
00:42:29
Speaker
floated upon something they shouldn't see type thing or they got in the way of like a drug trafficking thing. Which again, I can understand if they were all just on say a paddle boat or something like that. But even if they came across the wrong people or saw the wrong thing, what did those people do with the boat? Right.
00:42:59
Speaker
I mean, I'm assuming it would be like stealing a car, like you would probably have to paint it and like, you know, redo how it looked to make it noticeable. Unless they're trying to say that, you know, whoever potentially maybe was there, kidnapped them, like abducted them and sunk the boat. Which I guess could have happened. Which would explain why the boat's not there and no piece of them.
00:43:30
Speaker
appears. That's true. And that may be like the best explanation. Because, you know, if it was something that they got into in between something, like, like you said, if they were just shot, the boat would still have ended up on the shore somewhere. So I kind of feel like maybe it is like they sank the boat and took the boys on board. Mm hmm.
00:44:00
Speaker
So honestly, I don't know what happened to the lost boys of Pickering, but I do believe that something should have turned up somewhere. Agreed. At the end of the day, no matter what theory you're walking away from today's show with, six families are left grieving. That's right, sleuth hounds. Six families. If the boys were lost, if they were victims of a drug deal gone wrong,
00:44:27
Speaker
or died in a boating accident, these six families deserve to know what happened. They deserve answers. It's easy to forget about tragedies like this when your family's safe at home. It's hard to forget about tragedies like this when your son is lost.
00:44:45
Speaker
because of one choice these young men will be forever known as the Lost Boys. But it's my hope we can help their families find them or at least find out what happened to them. Maybe one day we'll read a headline that says the Lost Boys of Pickering have been found. Until then we have to keep sharing their story and keep believing that answers are out there somewhere.
00:45:08
Speaker
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00:45:36
Speaker
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