Then we got the tips about Maple Mills, and everything came into focus…
I work quickly, and as I lay out the details of the case, the basics of this disappearance, things start to fall into place, and a completed episode emerges in front of me.
The idea for the podcast arrived about a year ago, on a night like tonight. I was lying awake in bed, wallowing in helplessness, when all of a sudden, something shifted. I’d had enough. There had to be something I could do. Somehow, I found myself at my desk, waking up my laptop, opening my browser.
I’ve always been kind of afraid of the internet, wary of the endless storm of terrible stories. Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, awful politicians saying hateful things—terrible garbage news that fills the online space so quickly that a major event begins to feel like last year’s news in just a few short hours. The only thing that doesn’t change is that nothing ever gets better.
But on that night, instead of pulling back from the internet, I leaned into it. In the tiny search window, cursor blinking on and off, my fingers hesitated above the keyboard. Then I typed missing people, and the screen came to life. Pages and pages of news sites, small-town papers, blogs, social media pages, and many, many, many stories. Stories just like mine.
Like Sibby’s.
Before long, I’d fallen down a rabbit hole of missing persons cases from all over the country, even the world. I skimmed message board after message board, and I began to notice something interesting. People were actually trying to solve these cases.
There were a lot of stupid theories, of course, but there were also many smart, serious people sharing clues and trying to dig into the cases in a real way. “Armchair detectives,” most people would call them, although I started to think of them as “laptop detectives.”
I wasn’t interested in being a laptop detective. I didn’t want to get too involved; it was just too close for comfort, and besides, I’ve already proven I’m a shitty detective. But I knew what it was like to be on the other side of one of these stories, wishing someone, somewhere, would come up with a solution. The laptop detectives needed an outlet, somewhere to bring their ideas and find some attention.
So I started a podcast. How hard can it be? I wondered. I bought a microphone online, downloaded some basic free recording software, and gave it a shot.
Turned out it was plenty hard. For the first few episodes, I tried to do a roundup of cases that I’d read about, but that landed flat. I decided I needed a focus.
So on my fourth episode, I picked one case. It was a brother and sister who’d been taken from their home after school, before their parents had come home from work. The day I uploaded it, an anonymous tip landed in my inbox, a tip I forwarded to the police, and that led to the kids being found in the home of a disgruntled former babysitter. They were returned safe and sound, and afterward, the police thanked the podcast for the information.
After that, Radio Silent fell into a groove. I would find a case, research it as much as I could, turn it into a story, and let the listeners take it from there. As first, I discovered the cases myself by searching around online, but it wasn’t long before I started getting emails from listeners, drawing my attention to cases that would make a good fit for the podcast.
Radio Silent breaks a lot of podcasting rules; I keep myself anonymous, there’s not a lot of consistency to the stories I choose, and I don’t even stick to a regular schedule—I post when it makes sense—but somehow, it struck a chord. Gradually, listener numbers started to grow, and I learned that the laptop detectives really were willing to help. In almost no time, they’d surpassed my wildest expectations, bringing me clues and tips and self-organizing into an online community, the LDA, short for the Laptop Detective Agency. I compile the research, sift through the clues and leads, choose the cases to focus on, and record, edit, and upload the podcast, but the real work happens thanks to the LDA. And it’s real work. Working together, we’ve found people.
A fifteen-year-old runaway who was found alive and safe in Seattle after she’d run away to find an old boyfriend. An elderly man who disappeared from a nursing home and was discovered a hundred miles away in his childhood hometown.
And then there was Danny Lurlee, an asshole who faked his own abduction. Thanks to the LDA, he was tracked down trying to cross the border into Mexico.
I’ll be honest, that one seriously pissed me off. I wasted three episodes on that jerk.
Obviously, not all of our cases end well. Murder. Suicide. Tragic accidents. There’s no way to avoid this because not every story has a happy ending. But take it from me, even a sad ending is better than no ending at all, and that’s always been my goal: to deliver an ending to as many unfinished stories as possible.
I don’t do much. I just bring together the facts. Listen to people when they tell me they have information. Tell my listeners about a missing person.
They do the real work. I just tell stories.
I hope that telling them might make up for the story I wasn’t able to tell properly all those years ago.
The story that never had an ending.
HOST: Just over a year ago, Nathan and Cassandra’s grandfather, Walter, died. Nathan took the death really hard. The two had always been especially close, and over the years, they had spent a lot of time together at Grandpa Walt’s hunting camp, which just so happens to sit in the woods outside of Maple Mills.
CASSANDRA CHESTNUT: Over the holidays, my dad and his sisters had decided to sell the camp. None of us ever use it, and it takes time and money to keep it up, so they figured they’d unload it and split up the cash.
Nobody thought to ask Nathan if he had an opinion…
HOST: Upon receiving the listener tips that I passed on, Cassandra and her parents notified police of their suspicion and immediately drove to Maple Mills. As they approached the darkened hunting camp, they saw smoke coming from the chimney.
NATHAN CHESTNUT: So it was definitely the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but I was pissed off, okay? Nobody even thought about asking me about Grandpa Walt’s cabin, and I was the only one in the family who actually cared about the place. Anyway, I had almost a week before school started up again, so I packed some things and caught the bus to Maple Mills, so I could spend a few final nights hanging out there. I knew that my folks would say no if I asked to go, so I planned to text them when I got there, tell them I was safe and I’d be back in a couple of days. But my phone died, and I didn’t count on the power being shut off…Anyway, I convinced myself that they’d know where I’d gone and wouldn’t worry, which was fu—um, really stupid of me. Obviously.
CASSANDRA CHESTNUT: (laughing) Oh man, he is in such deep shit. The cops were pretty good about it, since it was ultimately a misunderstanding, and they’re not going to press charges or anything. But my parents are a different story. He’s going to be grounded until he’s thirty.
HOST: So all’s well that ends well with Nathan Chestnut, but as we all know, not every story has such a positive result. The world is full of missing people, and the sad truth is that many of them will never come home. But I believe there’s a story behind every missing person, and maybe, just maybe, if we begin to dig up the details together, we can find our way to some more happy endings.
Is there something you can do to help?
Listen up.