With undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of San Francisco, David Paulides has worked in law enforcement in the San Francisco Bay Area - on everything from street crimes, SWAT, and vice, to a variety of assignments in the detective division. He has become an expert on the disproportionate number of mysterious disappearances happening in our national parks, and discussed the most recent hair-raising cases and the patterns which appear with most of them.
Paulides covered some of the similar profile points between the rural disappearances he has investigated and the so-called 'Smiley Face Killer' cases in which college age men have mysteriously vanished from cities in the Great Lakes and East Coast regions of the United States. Canines are unable to track to where these people have disappeared, he revealed, noting that alcohol is often involved. "[They] almost seem to disappear under the noses of their friends and family," Paulides said. When bodies are found it is in areas that have been repeatedly searched, sometimes up to ten times, he added.
Bodies recovered in water are an even greater mystery. In several cases, coroners have found that while the victim may have disappeared several days ago the body was only in the water for two days, Paulides explained. Perhaps even stranger is that no cause of death can be determined, he noted. According to Paulides, a similar string of deaths have also occurred in the canals of Manchester, UK, where 61 young men have died over the past nine years. He questioned how investigators there have been unable to connect the cases. Paulides also commented on a movie based on his Missing 411 book series as well as provided updates on several individual disappearances.
True Nightmares
In the first hour, New York based performer Todd Robbins talked about his work on the Investigation Discovery channel's new series True Nightmares. Robbins said the series is partly inspired by his own Off-Broadway show, Play Dead—a mixture of magic, murder, and the paranormal which he co-wrote with fellow magician Teller. He described True Nightmares as a throwback to Rod Serling's Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, as Robbins himself appears in the opening and closing, as well as within the re-enactments.
One of the quirky tales covered in the latest episode looks into the mysterious disappearance of the wife of the Sausage King of Chicago. Robbins shared the account of a little known black widow serial killer, Belle Gunness, who is estimated to have murdered 40-50 men, staged her own death, and framed her farmhand.
News segment guests: Jerome Corsi / Peter Davenport