The DISTURBING Case Of The Death Valley Germans

what is up people crew today we have a story for you it is about a family of four in 1996 they entered Death Valley Park and they disappeared without a trace before we get started guys we want to first say thank you to simply safe see that they are the ones for sponsoring this video more on that in a minute alright guys so on October 21st 1996 a Death Valley National Park officer named Dave Brenner they were flying over in a military helicopter if they were looking for meth labs it's like the meth lab we visited that one day in an other video you guys can see description ID around 11 o'clock in the morning he spotted something very very unusual because it was in the middle of freaking nowhere in the wash of anvil Canyon was a vehicle that should not have been there so the vehicle was located on an old miners Road that vehicles were not allowed to drive on anymore because it was a recently designated official wilderness area dave observed that it was a passenger minivan which he thought shouldn't have made it that far because it would have been a crazy crazy ride but don't worry guys we're gonna go out there and we're gonna check and see how crazy of a ride this is yeah but hold on let's get on with the story so dave said it was covered and like a huge layer of dust like it been sitting there for a really long time it was a lot 1996 playing with the Voyager minivan I mean one small little van that should never have probably been in this area according to him so whoever was driving this vehicle they drove it with flat tires on the back and it was like 200 feet that they drove through this wash the sandy area so Dave reported the van and then they began to unravel the mystery of who had been driving it the vehicle had been reported to the Los Angeles Police Department on September 10th and it was owned by dollar rental car had been rented on July 8th 1996 just three months earlier for Germans Eggbert York Cornelia and max travelled to the United States as tourists on July 22nd they entered Death Valley and were never seen again they were the ones obviously who rented this minivan the van was supposed to be returned on July 26 but obviously it was never returned and they had booked a flight to return to Germany on July 29th but they never arrived so you may be wondering like why didn't this rental company go ahead and report the car stolen and the reason was it's a policy of the dollar rental car company to wait 30 days before they report a vehicle stolen it was Eggbert cos he was 34 years old and he was an engineer then was his son George Weber he was 11 years old and then it was his girlfriend Cornelia Myers she was 28 years old and then her son Max Meier he was only four years old so this is what we know for sure this is what we know about the case let's tell you the facts of leading up to this July 22nd they had left the Treasure Island Hotel to head out to Death Valley on the same day they had arrived at Furnish Creek visitor center and they had bought two booklets about Death Valley in German somehow their van had ended up in anvil Canyon and nobody knew why but with some more research we're gonna uncover what they uncovered we're gonna go and follow their final steps to see if we can get in their head and feel and see exactly what they were seeing and feeling we're gonna go out there and we're gonna follow and trace all of the clues that were found which we're gonna get into so back at the van investigator Eric had flown in to conduct a search around the vehicle you found food wrappers near the van and a bunch of what they call cat holes where they were you know where they were using the restroom at with toilet paper and fecal matter inside the van they found beer which is very important clue luggage clothing a sleeping bag a tent toys in an unused spare Jack and tire which makes you wonder why they didn't try the chain I guess they couldn't I mean you have one spirit but good luck with that Death Valley has a visitor books that everyone could sign and they started to look into those to see if they had left any trace and they actually did find a note written by them it was at the Warm Springs mine site and it was dated July 23rd and it read in German that we are going over the past that would have left them six days to catch their flight back to Germany all right you guys we're gonna head out there right now and we're gonna just try to experience what they experienced and see exactly what they see okay but we wouldn't be able to do this guys without simply safe actually I just got a front door camera recording saying that my camera is recording something out there so why not just take a look and show you on the app what the heck is that it's incredibly effective reliable home security it's all monitored by professionals 24/7 we'll call you an emergency and send police help if needed it's really easy and intuitive to use simply save on thanks is simply safe we were able to actually go out to Death Valley as you know we have to travel to places like Death Valley for part of our work we have to leave our home we'd leave all of our valuables at home you guys know most of our videos have been taking place at home because we haven't been comfortable with leaving home so thanks is simply safe they allowed us to take off and to go and know that all of our belongings were safe at home being monitored 24/7 by the simply safe monitoring center items were simply safe simply safe has some really thoughtful features like reminders that your doors been left open or your windows been left open some of your entry sensors are open also it has very small sensor so you don't even notice they're there see that open closed parent honest prices with no contracts or hidden fees which was a big selling point for me because I like the idea that I can quickly just sign up for their monthly service and cancel at any time I want whenever I want it's equipped with the worst case scenarios it'll still work if you lose power Wi-Fi or the system is attacked it will still alert the monitoring center who will also still alert the authorities all right so let's talk about some of the components of the system that we are actually using first thing let's talk about is the intrusion sensor protects all your doors and windows from intrusion everywhere you put them you simply stick right under you barely even notice them and they protect them from intrusion now we have our motion sends herself say someone breaks a window and they crawl through the window they're gonna get nailed by your motion sensor but say that they that doesn't work you have also another failsafe they have a glass breaking sensor that it will actually detect when glass is broken these are also great in the locations we have huge windows we have the doorbell sensor and a camera that monitors our front door so when someone will come in to deliver a package we know immediately we also have a smoke detector which I really really like the smoke detector will pick up any fire at home and they will alert the fire department if it picks up smoke while you are away we also have the home base this is the brains of the system it also works when it's unplugged or loses power and also have this panic button which I really like we have the key fob which really makes it nice and easy to turn on and off the system and just like with long stir within like I think 200 feet has works perfect we also have the camera monitoring us so when we're out and if something happens in our house we get an alert motion or anything we can click on the camera we can see what's going on we also have the free sensor that will prevent frozen pipes so use a stick it anywheres you might worry about pipe freezing and it alerts you when it gets to a certain temperature one more sensor we have we have the flood sensor you stick it underneath your washing machine or anywheres like that and it will alert you when there's water so if there's any type of flood in your house guys this installed so easily all you do I didn't even use any screwdrivers or anything no tools required you just pull off the back right here it's a sticker and you stick the sensors everywhere as you want them and it's so easy to use I hadn't set up an mic I'd say a half hour I have the entire system set up and my home was protected by simply safe so the monitoring center will notify the place in the event you have a break-in that's right they will immediately notify and your stuff will be protected make sure you go and visit simply safe calm /eu that simply save calm for / ewu ebu and you guys can help support this channel you guys can protect your home you can protect your family and we love you guys thank you so much for your support you simply safe for sponsoring this video and allowing us to be able to go out to Death Valley that's it let's go all right you guys this is a very first location that Germans would have come I'm assuming it's the same place as 1996 and I'm assuming this is where they bought their visitor pamphlet before they headed off to the next okay we're gonna go right now you guys ready let's go let's go this is the exact road they took I will show you how we know in a minute we're gonna get up there you can see this is a sandy road that they were driving on this freaking sandy road right here which is very interesting because they were in a minivan we're in a four-wheel drive it's already pretty crazy so they were in a minivan and we are in a four-wheel drive we're gonna show you guys where they went let's go thinking in tag 9 now I love the front end not yet no now a little bit go little further you're not sinking in I can't tell it deep it is over there I know keep going we got to go so slow what's gonna take us forever just to go three miles to the first place they were I can understand why they probably didn't want to come back this way cuz we're literally driving like five miles an hour I'm actually doing 15 my surprise even in this frickin Road right here that is like we're going really slow and look at how far we have to go still why is the saying furnace creek that we couldn't want that way the furnace creek one here we go hit the beginning of warm school yeah okay warm springs road yeah furnace creek and warm springs so they would have come this way nay it would have been like so they could have technically come from that way but I doubt it in the minivan we're like right now guys we are in 4-wheel walk we'll have our Nissan Pathfinder this road is a little rough I don't want to go too fast cuz we don't wanna get a flat tire the Death Valley Americans I mean I'm glad we came out here because if we didn't come out here I would not have realized how crazy this road is are we driving crazy it's not a crazy road that in terms of like if you have like our Nissan Armada or something like that but if you have a minivan this is literally crazy I mean this is like in a minivan two-wheel drive minivan this road would have seemed pretty pretty intense yeah you have to go really slow it's just probably why they didn't want to come back this way I mean if I put this in two-wheel drive would be a lot harder to drive I mean if we have if you have a Jeep or something that's made for offroad though this is nothing this is just like you could probably do like 50 miles an hour down this but in a minivan like this is almost feels like a minivan this Nissan know we're in Nissan Pathfinder feels like a minivan it's really not that much ground clearance no no wonder why they would have never wanted to go back and it's taking us freaking forever to get there I could understand why it's really bumpy that's crazy bumpy so they're probably thinking you know what the heck put down I don't want to try this all the way back holy moly probably they didn't turn around when I kept getting worse and worse take your time homie exile I don't know if we're gonna be able to make it guys it's taking us about an hour wow that's probably huge that big mountain of stuff came from right there I don't know if we're gonna be able make it much further it's already 3 o'clock we've been doing it's like an hour and a half and that's how bad these roads are I honestly don't know if we're gonna make it all the way they're a freakin minivan yeah we're taking forever it's kind of crazy I mean look at these rocks I'm glad we brought this car cuz this is exactly what Cornelia and eggbert must have been feeling like you know they're driving this road you don't think it's gonna get any worse than this so I don't know if we're gonna make it all the way but let's get to this first location still a mile away but three or four minutes [Music] alright guys so this is the exact location where Eggbert and Cornelia had come they came right here they probably explored this place I think we should - what do ya say they sign right here this is where they signed and they said going over the path now you guys we brought this vehicle today because we wanted to feel what they were feeling when they came out here but I'm gonna tell you guys we're not gonna be able to probably make it to the geologists cabin that's down on the road here because it's that crazy I have no idea how they made it this far but just knowing that they were right here and they had signed right here they had signed this just like this who signed it today is someone saying today it's signed like every three days let's go explore this building let's go check him out y'all just cabin is nine miles down the road still from here where they land it took us an hour in that car just to get our and a half I'd say yeah I don't know half just to climb up this spot so let's go check out this spot you guys realizing that they would have probably come up here and check this out themselves Oh check that out freaking swimming pool dude how sick let it have been to have a swimming pool out here wanting to swim in yeah that's pretty nasty look at that that is so sick think about that they had a swimming pool out here I don't know why but I think that is awesome what an awesome place for a swim pool so this over here I think we got some more buildings all up in the all up in here look tons of building oh wow what the heck this tree came down holy he's imagined to be you know when this thing came down this is prolly snaky territory sounds so crazy dude there's all kinds of buildings up here in buildings it's on it's all empty now it's all gone through so I'm already over it yeah I don't even want to go see the rest no no like a thousand of people have been here it's a pathway here I'm wondering where this pathway went I wanted to see the old photos of this place we could find I bet you this place is awesome I think I think it's really cool there's some more buildings guys but like this is a part of the park it's already all been gone through there's really nothing to discover or see that not a thousand people have already been here to do I think we could try to go a little further to see if the road gets any better kind of really to feel like what Egbert and Cornelia would have felt like cuz they would have probably been like you know let's just continue one slightly better backbench might even better I don't think so cuz it seems like they haven't put any rock on this thing in a long time when you say you should we try you guys we're gonna try to make it we're gonna take a little far let's go so after they left there they came down here and they went down the road this wall what is that up there like a frickin generator will have their usually these will be really cool explore but I always feel like when it's part of a park it's kind of boring to me we're gonna try to go down here where they went but I'm not really sure if we're gonna be able to make it let's go let's go alright guys this is the end of the road unfortunately look at this road in front of me there's no way this car can make it up this road how the Eggbert and cornelia made it up this farm courses changed a lot probably over the years unfortunately we wanted to make it all the way to where the van was but we can't and what we tried we just decided we were gonna try to feel like what they would have felt like but I'm telling you I don't want to end up stuck out here so we're heading out how do I look behind me you look alright rocks behind me no you're good there's a smallish one okay asses get my turn to go oh my god don't scrape don't go for it don't go for it have to you're gonna skip okay now I'm gonna go back again watch whoa okay stop stop stop get it good okay whew to me it's like crazy because lookit this car doesn't have any clearance but think about even how much longer a van would have been I know when we're having like a really hard time just transversing this in this vehicle and this vehicle is like a pathfinder supposed to be kind of like off-road even though you could tell us we barely off-road capable but it does have four-wheel drive but it's 10 times more off-road people than a van would have been yeah I don't know what the heck they were thinking we can't even get back to the prospectors cabin well yeah especially in 120 degrees with no water yeah they had no water and we have water that's true they had no water wait what the hell dude what if there's someone out there like a ranger yeah maybe they keep a closer eye on it now since what happened to them I don't know take a look over here maybe keep a close eye on it especially alright guys so we're gonna finish the story back at the home base what happened pretty disappointed guys I wanted to take you there and tell you the story but at the same time I feel like this was a unique experience because we were basically feeling what they must hate they must have had something like like we even feel like oh my god this is crazy yeah and it's taking us so long to get back here why the heck ya want to turn around already and that's what we're thinking about that we know you can't get we won't be able to get out if we go nine miles that way we have to come the entire way back and it's taking us hours just to get up this road in this car so I could totally understand what they must have been feeling at that point so we're gonna finish the story when we get back we're gonna tell you exactly what happened even more details we're gonna go into theories we're gonna take some of the mysteries of it all I mean this story was pretty crazy okay guys we are back yeah we are now back at home and we are gonna finish the rest of story and tell you everything else that we know unfortunately we couldn't make it any further you guys we wanted to feel like what they felt that's why we rented a small car we almost rented a minivan and I'm glad we didn't because we wouldn't even have gotten that far younger wheelbase would have gotten hung up on a lot more stuff I have no idea how they made as far as they did anyways now let's talk about where they went after Warm Springs yeah the place we were not able to make it fun geologists cabin alright guys so the geologists cabin is about nine miles away from the Warm Springs cabin it took us about two hours at power and a half two hours it came exactly to get from just a main road we travel 11 miles 14 miles to Warm Springs and it was gonna be conditional nine miles to the geologists cabin and then even further to get you to where you could hike to their damn spot it would have taken us hours to get there so the geologists cabin is an old miners cabin that has now been repurposed into like all the called a survival shelter yeah anyone's allowed to stay there and it's fully stocked with food and water and it was still stocked with food and water back then when they went missing but how do we know that they were there so we know that they were there because in the van one of the things they found was an American flag that had the name of that cabin on it that they took from that cabin I'll be able to say they deserved what happened to them because they took this flag I don't really think they deserve that because they took the flag no the thing is is this is like a public cabin they might have thought it was like a geocache where they could take certain things and who knows maybe they left a few things that's basically what it is is like a giant geocache people bring water there so people may end up there any might drink some of the water yeah plus I have little kids with them and like what if one of them started throwing a big tantrum and then they're already stressed because the road was crazy in there like okay fine here have them have the flag it's not a big deal everything I've always watched or read about it makes it seem like the Germans I don't want anyone calling Germans I want to call them by their names because I feel like that dehumanizes them they act like they were just like Egbert and Cornelia were just like cruising down these roads and just like he's happy he's a jolly good time yeah just having a great old time I've been in situations like that and I baby what happened is they didn't anticipate the roads being so freakin crazy and they started running out of time and they started to panic because they're on a time crunch they had to get back to catch their flight that's right and so they probably stopped there and who knows what happened they stopped at this place for just a little while and the kids were probably all like unhappy I don't think they had much food or water with them know they had some snacks which is why they found the wrappers around their car but they had no water they only had beer and wine yeah so they were probably I would think they were probably in a panic mode maybe like they needed to get out of there another thing is people criticize them for not having the food or water but they're running low on money that's right and another thing that we need to mention really quickly is that what they signed in there we're going over the pass some people think that that meant that they were going over mangal pass which is insane which is totally insane it's impossible in the end you could barely do it in a regular four-wheel-drive vehicle it's really hard yeah it's pretty it's a pretty brutal pass I don't know maybe they this meant they were going over the passes and the hill who knows what they really meant by that but they were trying to get to you somebody isn't that right yes they had to go to you as so many after that that's why they were going that way it was a shortcut so from the geologists cabin we don't really know what happened in the meantime but they did try to go to mango pass they would have easily known that there was no way they were gonna make it something happened and they went there backtracked a little ways and they ended up in anvil Canyon ok they took off on this road now another thing that needs to be mentioned about these roads is on the maps out there and and another thing we should mention is they might have been lost a lot of people seem to think that they knew where they were going but at the old they had was a map I don't believe they had any GPS it's so freakin easy to get lost in the middle of nowhere some people seem to think this was like a multiple day trip but they may have just been trying to go fast because they had to return the rental car they had to catch a flight so it would have easily gotten dark by the time they are in that area they're all going in one whole suite we are out there all the time in this kind of environment you could find this environment all over Nevada I don't know why people pay money to go Death Valley but whatever but it's so easy to get lost like I use my GPS like all the time when I'm following my own tracks out of places cuz it's so freakin easy to get lost in these locations who knows what time was I'm betting it was probably nighttime didn't snows mentioned the map showed that that was a road it showed that was a road which is very important to mention guys we did some research on this and we found out in Germany if it's marked as a road you don't need a four-wheel drive it's a freaking Road yeah these people were not from here so they had no idea what they were expecting a lot of people say that people from Europe have like no clue how vast the United States is like they think you could go from one side to the other and like a day yeah but yeah that's probably why they thought it would be so easy if they are trying to cross over to go to Yosemite they probably thought that would be easy-peasy probably could do it in like a half hour yeah exactly so somehow they took this road to anvil canyon up into the canyon and are down into the canyon we didn't get there to even see em you tried probably thought it was a shortcut cuz Todd tells me right there if they're thinking it's a shortcut if I mean we're just speculating they're trying to get the heck out of there as quickly as possible and they were most likely already panicking and so they got stuck or everyone who's been in that area which I was hoping to take you guys to said it's crazy there should have been no van there so guys bye based on the vehicle they had two flat tires in the back and one flat tire in the front and only one spare tire and they were sunken deep into the sand that's right exactly some have speculated that what they did once you get in the sand you're trying to go as fast as you can because if you lose any momentum you're gonna sink and that's it some believe that he was going really fast and then he actually took the wrong turn I guess that's all speculation we don't know all we know is our vehicle ended up in this location so it needs to be mentioned right now guys the weather was a major factor it was at between a hundred and a hundred and twenty five degrees out there during this time so no one knows what happened to them during this time and months later the van so they conducted massive searches in the whole area they went all over the canyon and they searched the entire area but they came out empty-handed and they ended up calling off the searches that was until 2009 when Tom LaHood started looking in this case and he got hooked on it and I can tell you from our experience that looking for missing people that that's really easy to do it's really easy to start like becoming obsessive about trying to find people and it's so hard to stop once you start during this time Tom LaHood was taking all his extra time he could to look at everything about the case I figure out were they searched and where they hadn't searched and he found an area that they had in searched which I believe was south from that location they searched all the other areas really really really well but they did not search south so that's where he decided he was gonna conduct his own search Tom had to figure out why they would go south and that's when he realized there's a Naval Air Weapons base just south of where their van yeah it's about nine miles and in Europe these bases arm and around the border so if they could have just gotten to the border of that base they would have been safe least they thought so what they didn't know most of our bases a lot of them are in Fast areas of nothingness offense no offense yeah there's no perimeter fence even around it because there's nothing out there nothing during the original searches they found a bottle a bush I had a bottle underneath it and supposedly like an imprint of a but sitting underneath it okay like Eggbert had sat there so that's where they went to they know they went up this way up they went down and volcanion and anyone south they look for the easiest route down because that's usually what people will take and they followed it and it was less Walker I want to mention this because I don't think les Walker gets enough credit for this I don't see anybody ever mentioning les Walker it's always Tom LaHood Tom LaHood well les Walker is the one who actually found the bones so as they were hiking les started finding items first of all he found a wine bottle after he found a wine bottle he thought he found toilet paper but then after he looked a little bit closer he realized that it was a daily planner in German and then les said we have some bones down here Jing around this area and then less found a wallet full of ID cards all of which I said Cornelia Meier yes they're all Cornelius sleeve it was her ID her credit cards just her entire wallet of all her stuff want to mention right now guys that all this stuff was found about eight or nine miles away from the bottle bush from the van and it was like a hundred and twenty to one hundred and twenty four degrees so this was a very very very long hike and even when Tom was searching it in the winter it was a crazy hike he said in the environment was just super rocky and super hard to hike so in the same area they found a toothbrush toothpaste they found a shoe which could have belonged either a woman or a little kid and a bud ice bottled that matched what they left in the van so the bones that they found were forensic ly identified as both being a male and a female only Egberts remains are in good enough condition to be verified and confirmed with DNA and Cornelia's were too dried out according to Tom the children have never been found that's one of the mysteries now if there's a lot of mysteries here that we want to go over but first of all we did find something that was kind of touching what should we say that for the end we'll say that for the end they were only about four miles past the survival cabin that they went to exactly it had food and water had everything they needed to survive and it would have probably had been visited by that time why did they go in the direction they did it something I guess we will never ever know but the only idea that we have is that on their maps it said that it was a naval base and they thought that they would get help there yeah exactly and they thought they'd build to get to their flight and return their rental car in time so guys a lot of things people don't like don't seem to talk about in this is the fact that they had children with them and who knows at what time that this happened at but they could become whiny they could become needy especially if they're hungry and thirsty exactly and so they were probably in a rush to get out of there guys I can only imagine though how hard this must have been for the family as Eggbert and Cornelia saw their poor little children you know starving and and going without food and water I could only imagine the hell they would have been yeah I mean how awful of a death that must have been for these people I just can't imagine it and I hope if you guys ever decide to come here anybody even if you're a and this happens to everybody this is only happened to non-american so I don't want to make it sound like that because it could happen to anybody the reason I say that those because our country is so big that most people that come from places like Germany they don't understand how vast that we have these areas of expanse that have nothing like and nobody around forever you can go a week without seeing people I mean look at David they didn't see that van for what three months here's what I suggest you guys if you're gonna go out there get a personal locator beacon satellite phones are okay unless I don't know about them they usually can't like transmit your exact GPS locations that what I think I like about having a personal locator beacon as you press a button and it tells them exactly where you're at you don't have to try to guess where you're out you don't have to tell them where you're at it literally will tell the search-and-rescue how to find you guys and they work so if you're gonna go out there and you're gonna explore make sure you take first of all tons and tons of water enough food to last you a long time and a personal locator beacon guys now you can't say that about them because I don't even think those existed back when they went missing I don't think no they didn't exist I'm not saying that what they did was wrong guys all I'm saying is today there's no excuses for that back then things were different guys they didn't have the technology so the mystery is is where's the children and the other mystery is why in the heck did you just go back to the cabin let us know what you guys think in the comments below any theories you might have and why they decided to go that way instead of going to the geologist cabin subscribe hit that Bell button so you're notified right away of our new videos and we're gonna do some more and once they think you to simply safe one more time for making this video possible alright you guys until next time [Music]

Channel: Explore With Us

Views: 497,252

Rating: 4.7021308 out of 5

Keywords: explore with us, journalism, documentary, death valley germans, death valley national park, death valley, cornelia meyer, egbert rimkus, national park disappearances, missing 411, national park, badwater basin, anvil canyon, investigation, mysteries, ewu crew, investigate, investigative journalism, unsolved mysteries, missing 411 stories, tom mahood, les walker, true stories, mini doc, missing person cases, david paulides, theories, disappeared, eerie, true scary stories

Id: YJ2c9Mskf2s

Length: 29min 24sec (1764 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2019