The Unexplained Disappearances of Smiths Falls, Ontario

are you a man if so it's probably best you just avoid Rivers entirely at this point I'm Aiden Mattis and thanks for stopping by the lore Lodge wait that's the outro I'm Aiden Mattison welcome back to the lore [Music] LOD back in February we received an emailed tip from a Benjamin price about a set of disappearances in the small town of Smiths Falls Ontario between September of 2022 and November of 2023 Lawrence Bertram Robbie Thomas and Steve Tate all vanished from various locations in the town of 9200 people now the rate of adult missing persons cases in Ontario Canada is about 47 out of every 100,000 people this translates to about 7 to 8,000 people per year and over 90% of these cases are solved I say that because going into this I want to set some people's expectations it may seem like three men Vanishing from this one little town in just 14 months is a lot but in fact that's kind of within the expected range context is key however and there are reasons to believe that these disappearances may be connected first of all all three men knew each other now to what extent they had relationships is not necessarily known the media has gone as far as to say that these men were friends whereas the police have been a little bit more reserved about it they've said that these men were acquaintances and that they shared similar interests though they did not go into detail about what those interests might be we do know what they meant by similar interests however which was that all three of the men had an alleged history of drug issues I do want to say before we get any deeper into the video everything that is said in this video is my opinion based on a collective group of facts that I compiled it should not be interpreted that anything I am telling you is the opinion of the Smith Falls Police of the Ontario Provincial Police of the reporters I may site I want to be very clear this is all my opinions and nobody else should be held accountable for anything I say except maybe Aiden cuz he helped part of the reason I give that little disclaimer is that I did speak to officers at both the Smith Falls Police and the Ontario Provincial Police and I don't want any of this to be interpreted as me saying this is what they believe I do also want to take a moment to thank the Smiths Falls Police Department and the Ontario Provincial Police they were incredibly polite and as forthcoming as they could be when I spoke to them that is a very rare occurrence and I just deserves some praise and and genuine thanks I will also say that at first as I started researching this I was a little bit surprised to find that the police were investigating these as three separate incidents and then I began to kind of understand why not necessarily from an evidentiary perspective but more from a policy a uh procedure perspective I now have a better understanding of how the Canadians do things and they do things a little bit differently than we do I'll get into that later in the video in any case police have been investigating these as three separate incidents du due to a lack of hard evidence that they're connected there's plenty of circumstantial evidence just nothing that they can look at and say yeah we can now commit resource such as this this is an actual lead we can follow however the lack of transparency around the specific details of these cases has caused the rumor mill to start just churning things out however what those rumors even are is also being kept Under Wraps by the media and the police and this is actually kind of a big a big barrier I ran into in this video and it caused some difficulty in getting details uh I did my best and in the midst of all this secrecy is the concerning aspect that the police have yet to rule out Foul Play they have told people that there is no threat to the public safety but it should be noted that that's probably pretty careful wording this could be the police saying they don't know if it's foul play but if it was they believe that these men were targeted for reasons specific to them therefore nobody's in danger of being picked off randomly in the street but certain people people who maybe run in these circles should exercise caution even if there weren't any connections between these men and the disappearances turned out to be entirely unrelated Foul Play would still be a reasonable concern in Smith's Falls an old rail toown with a familiar history of falling on hard times as manufacturing moves away to cheaper markets as a result Smith's Falls has the same issues with crime and poverty that you would recognize in any old American small town in the appalachin or the Midwest and this is to the extent that the crime rate in Smith's Falls is 81% higher than the national average and over double the average for the province of Ontario but it wasn't always like this and you know what else wasn't always like this how easy it is to have a delicious meal right from your microwave with our partner for 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code lur Lodge 50 to get 50% off your first order you can also go to the link in our description and do the same and the savings don't stop there because if you use code lur Lodge 50 at factor75.com you will not only get that 50% off your first box but you will get 20% off your next month of boxes once again that's code lur Lodge 50 at factor75.com to get 50% off your first order and 20% off your next month of boxes and now that we're through that factor I want to go into something else that factors into most L Lodge videos which is a history segment and I will say that I I know this is a part that a lot of people skip once again you can do that very easily by going down to the little scrubber bar and just going to the next chapter though I will say that while the history segment in this video is actually fairly long it's a mysterious one it's kind of a cool story and I I think it's it's worth watching if you're just interested in sort of you know the the mysteries of the past but if you don't care for it totally understand we're not judging go ahead and skip to the next chapter [Music] the area that would become Smith's Falls was first settled in 1786 by an American named Thomas Smith a traitor who fled to Canada after choosing the side of tyranny during the American war of independence prior to Smith's settlement of the area however it was the domain of one of the tribes of the anishinabe culture specifically the Algonquin who are not to be confused with the broader language family of Al gangquan I will say throughout the Channel's history I have often used the term Algonquin to talk about the language group that was incorrect I changed it recently we like to grow here at the lodge we've talked about the anishinabe and the specific tribe of the Algonquin before but in this video I wanted to go into a little bit more detail on their very mysterious origin story which may contain a very weird connection to Europe according to their own oral tradition the initi ab left their original home in the dawn lands at the recommendation of seven prophets who came and foretold the coming of a light-skinned race their oral history further suggests that the inab came from the areas we now know as Nova Scotia New Brunswick Maine and New Foundland I also want to do a quick little disclaimer it doesn't seem to matter how I pronounce uh that island of newfinland is Newland is how I understood it to be pronounced Newland I I think people say I'm saying New Finland sometimes which is not what I'm saying I think that's just my accent as a Southeastern Pennsylvanian um and I've also heard new found blind I don't think that one's right either I I believe that the correct pronunciation would be Newen blind right yeah that's that's what I grew up hearing that's what it came up when I looked it up and that's what I'm saying it just may not sound that way in any case it seems that the initi ab were not from the island they were from the mainland and possibly they were from one of the furthest west tribes both archaeological evidence and tribal tradition suggest that they migrated out of this area around the year 1000 ad and that has some implications that I'd like to touch on once we're through the story the story is told in the form of seven prophecies six of which have been fulfilled before we get into what the prophecy actually were I do want to give a quick disclaimer that of course this is oral tradition which means that there were multiple versions of the story that have been passed down by multiple tribes it seems that the way that they try to keep it straight or at least traditionally have tried to keep it straight over the last 600 or so years is by using wam belts which are basically uh you can think of these like mini versions of the Bayou tapestry if you're familiar with European history their Beed belts that have pictures on them that are used as storytelling AIDS as the elders teach it to the next generation from what I understand there's at least one main wam belt that is passed around from tribe to tribe I for in a process that I was not able to understand necessarily but that appears to exist and I decided that probably the best source to go with would be the story as it was told by Algonquin former Chief and Elder William commanda in the year 2000 Chief commanda was in possession of the wampum belt and at that time he was about 89 years old which means that he was born born sometime around 1911 and what that further means is that the elders that were around when he was learning things had probably themselves been around since at the very least the mid 1800s so we have a long tradition of Storytelling here and in this case it's a rather direct tradition of Storytelling commanda probably heard the story with minor differences from three generations back before him still there are some variance out there so I just want to make that clear I went with this one because I feel it's most likely to be the most tradition version but it begins with seven prophets appearing to the initi ab or at the time I guess the wabanaki and this is the story as read by commanda but with commentary from me and you'll be able to tell when it's commentary from me it begins like this seven prophets came to the inab they came at a time when the people were living a full and peaceful life on the northeastern coast of North America these prophets left the people with seven predictions of what the future would bring each of the prophecies was called a fire and each fire referred to a particular era of time that would come in the future future thus the teachings of the seven prophets are now called the seven fires as I said before while a concrete date for the beginning of this migration and thus the the giving of these prophecies hasn't necessarily been established we believe that it was around 1,000 ad for a variety of reasons and for context because this word is about to come up uh and I'm trying to pronounce it right uh midwin is the spiritual tradition of the inti ab I wouldn't necessarily call it a religion in the sense that you might understand from something like Catholicism but it was a a spiritual tradition and The Story Goes On as follows the first prophet said to the people in the time of the first fire the inish ab Nation will rise up and follow the sacred shell of the midwin lodge the midan lodge will serve as a rallying point for the people and its traditional ways will be the source of much strength the sacred megus will lead the way to the chosen ground of the inish ab you are to look for a turtle-shaped island that is linked to the purification of the earth you will find such an island at the beginning and end of your journey there will be seven stopping places along the way you will know the chosen ground has been reached when you come to a land where food grows on water if you do not move you will be destroyed now the megus shell it might be meis but I think it's megus is a ky shell a cowry shell again not sure that I'm getting these pronunciations right it's a type of shell and this shell I believe is typically created by snails sea snails it's also believed that the turtle-shaped island was in the area of present day Montreal and that this is where the first stopping place was and here at the first stopping place you had a split occur in the inti ab Nation one group followed the Ottawa River up the north while the other group continued along the St Lawrence River down towards the Great Lakes the group that became the Ottawa would eventually become the Algonquin nissing and the massaga those who took the southern route would become the Council of Three Fires and that's a group that we've talked about before that group kept going on South until they eventually reached Niagara Falls and there was their second stopping place and keep in mind this is all during that first fire that first era of anishinabe history after staying at iagra Falls for an unknown period of time they continued their migration West eventually ending up in the area of present day Detroit and this is where some of the versions differ one version says that they were on the Eastern shores of Lake St Clair while another seems to imply they were on the western shores of the Detroit River and around this time is when we get to the second fire the second prophet told the people you will know the second fire because at this time the nation will be camped by a large body of water in this time the direction of the Sacred shell will be lost the midow wiwin will diminish in strength a boy will be born to point the way back to the traditional ways he will show the direction to the Stepping Stones to the future of the anishinabe people now some iterations suggests that this is where the Council of Three Fires that uh Southern anishinabe Alliance originated and the evolution of these tribes as entities distinct from one another may be the result of a division of labor between the three essentially this may have begun as sort of a a clan division rather than a tribal Division and I say this because some of the Native sources that I read suggest that the Ottawa were responsible for the economy the ajibu were responsible for recordkeeping and the poaty were responsible for Spiritual matters you may notice the lack of any distinctive warrior class here and that could suggest that there was not much large scale Warfare going on at the time now tracing what happened during the second fire is a little bit difficult it's hard to understand because the sources don't necessarily agree on each other with each other this period seems to have been a time of some degree of settlement perhaps even expansion though other versions seem to suggest that they continued migrating all the way to the shores of Lake Michigan it's also unclear precisely how long this era lasted but because we know that a boy had to be born to remind them that they were supposed to be migrating to a very specific location suggests it was at least a few Generations in any case at some point after reaching present day Detroit they lost track of their mission of finding their promised land to the West ultimately the boy would lead his people along the shores of Lake Huron and then across a few Islands before they eventually ended up at manat tulan Island however this was not the end of their Journey and the third Prophet said to the people in the third fire the inish ab will find the path to their chosen ground a land in the west to which they must move their families this will be the land where food grows on water while they prospered on manat tulan island the Council of Three Fires ultimately spread to the mainland and the Ottawa ajibu and patami developed into separate yet uh closely aligned tribal entities but after this time came the fourth fire and the beginning of this this period of tribulation for the intian ab and their EAS cousins and based on the events of the fourth fire we can kind of date the end of the third fire period as being around the 16th century now based on what the fourth prophecy says will happen during the fourth fire we can kind of get a general idea of how long the first Three Fires lasted if not how long they each lasted individually the reason we can do this is because the fourth fire is the time that the Europeans show up and this is going to be for the French in the mid 1500s and according to William commanda this is what the fourth prophecy was the fourth fire was originally given by two prophets they come as one they told of the coming of the light-skinned race one of the prophets said you will know the future of our people by the face the light-skinned race wears if they come wearing the face of Brotherhood then there will be a time of wonderful change for generations to come they will bring new knowledge and articles that can be joined with the knowledge of this country in this way two Nations will join to make a mighty nation this new nation will be joined by two more so that four will for the mightiest nation of all you will know the face of the Brotherhood if the light-skinned race comes carrying no weapons if they come bearing only their knowledge and a handshake and when it comes to this whole Nations joining thing commanda interpreted it and several others that I came across interpreted this as the Europeans the Asians the Native Americans and the Africans and this wasn't to leave anybody out this was just to basically say that all the nations of the world could live in harmony and some variants of the story do support that because rather than saying Nations they say that the white and red Nation will join and that they will be joined by the yellow and black Nations which could be perceived as you know the the old terminology for some of these racial groups now I wouldn't recommend referring to any group of people in that way today but that seems to be where the this understanding comes from but as he said this was two prophets who came as one now what that seems to mean is that there are two possible directions this is kind of a fork in the road moment the other Prophet said beware if the light-skinned race comes wearing the face of death you must be careful because the face of Brotherhood and the face of death look very much alike if they come carrying a weapon beware if they come in suffering they could fool you their hearts may be filled with Greed for the riches of this land if they are indeed your brothers let them prove it do not accept them in total trust you shall know that the face they wear is one of death if the rivers run with poison and the fish become unfit to eat you shall know them by these many things and I do have to say if having done a considerable amount of study on the history of European and Native American relations these these prophecies probably weren't meant to be perceived as this can only go one of these two ways there were different colonies even within the same National Group you had French colonies that were hostile and French colonies that were friendly you had English colonies that were both like you look at the story of Rowan Oak which we have an entire video on some members of The roke Colony the original one really did want to work hand inand with the natives and some saw them as inferior and a people to be conquered so the face of Brotherhood and the face of death could be worn by people from the same Colony but I also find this section really interesting for another reason many sources have suggested that this story of seven prophecies either developed over time or that it was created later possibly within the last 300 years as a way of telling the story of the migration and while this would explain the prophecy's references to a light-skinned race that wouldn't appear for another 500 UND or so years it would not explain why the migration began around a th000 ad something must have happened to convince a massive portion of the abanaki population to just up and leave and I think that there is an interesting possibility to be considered Vikings it is now well known that the Norse established a short-lived Colony on the island of Newland and that they had both friendly and contentious interactions with the people of that Island if the traditional reason for the migration is correct that there was a light-skinned race coming that would either bring great Prosperity or great destruction then one must consider the possibility that the prophets did not arrive 600 years too early but at exactly the same time that Europeans first set foot on American soil which means this story could contain one of the earliest references to Native American and European relations in history but it seems that the fourth fire was supposed to be this time where they would kind of begin to understand what the relationship was to be with the white people and from the fifth Prophet we get in the time of the fifth fire there will come a time of great struggle that will grip the lives of all Native people at the waning of this fire there will come among the people one who holds a promise of great joy and salvation if the people accept this promise of a new way and abandon the old teachings then the struggle of the fifth fire will be with the people for many generations the promise that comes will prove to be a false promise all those who accept this promise will cause the near destruction of the people there are a few different interpretations of this prophecy some suggest that this will will be the Europeans inviting the natives to come and join european-american Society other versions say that there's not going to be one person that comes among them promising joy and salvation but people who come among them promising joy and salvation and for that reason some people interpret this to be a reference to the coming of Christianity and that the coming of Christianity and the acceptance of Christianity amongst the Native American peoples would lead to their destruction as a a separate entity a separate nation and commanda presented the following in addition to the actual prophecy he said when the fifth fire came to pass a great struggle did indeed grip the lives of all Native people the light-skin race launched a military attack on the Indian people throughout the country aimed at taking away their land and their independence as a free and Sovereign people it is now felt that the false promise that came at the end of the fifth fire was the materials and riches embodied in the way of life of the light-skinned race those who abandoned the ancient ways and accepted this new promise were a big factor in causing the near destruction of the native people on this land considering the history of North American Colonization the period of the fifth fire would have probably taken place between the late 17th and mid 19th centuries prior to this era most conflicts in North America which involved both European and Native Powers were either natives going to war and recruiting Europeans for their side or Europeans going to war and recruiting natives for their side so that mean that the period of the fourth fire was probably around the mid 1500s up through the mid 1600s but after this period of actual War during the fifth fire comes the sixth fire the prophet of of the sixth fire said in the time of the sixth fire it will be evident that the promise of the fifth fire came in a false way those deceived by This Promise will take their children away from the teachings of the elders grandsons and granddaughters will turn against the elders in this way the elders will lose their reason for living they will lose their purpose in life at this time a new sickness will come among the people the balance of many people will be disturbed the cup of life will almost become the cup of grief and commanda elaborated on this bit as well in the confusing times of the sixth fire it is said that a group of Aries came among the inish ab they gathered all the priests at the midn lodge they told the priests the midn way was in danger of being destroyed they gathered all the sacred bundles these were the uh they would keep bark tablets where they had a sort of system of writing that told the stories not just the migration one but a number of other important uh aspects of their beliefs that so that's the sacred bundles they gathered all the Scrolls that recorded the ceremonies all these things were placed in a hollowed out log from the Ironwood tree men were lowered over a cliff by long ropes they dug a hole in the cliff and buried the log where no one could find it thus the teachings of the elders were hidden out of sight but not out of memory it is said that when the time came that the Indian people could practice their religion without fear a line boy probably a lone boy I think that's a typo uh would dream where the Ironwood log full of sacred bundles and Scrolls was buried he would lead his people to the place and this is actually a very common sort of Trope in tribalistic societies the idea that there will be a a Chosen One figure who will return later on to overthrow the oppressor we see this quite a bit in ancient Hebrew materials we also see it in Celtic materials and we see it here in the Native American specifically in the inish ab but then we have the seventh fire as well and the seventh Prophet that came to the people long ago again this is right from commanda was said to be different from the other prophets he was young and had a strange light in his eyes now this could mean that he had a a passion this could be them saying he had fire in his eyes it could also be something that's supposed to be Supernatural and he said in the time of the seventh fire new people will emerge they will retrace their steps to find what was left by the trail their steps will take them to the elders who they will ask to guide them on their Journey but many of the elders will have fallen asleep they will awaken to this new time with nothing to offer some of the elders will be silent because no one will ask anything of them the new people will have to be careful in how they approach the elders the task of the new people will not be easy if the new people will remain strong in their Quest the water drum of the midwin lodge will again sound its voice there will be the rebirth of the initial AB nation and a rekindling of Old Flames the sacred fire will again be lit it is at this time that the light-skinned race will be given a choice between two roads if they choose the right road then the seventh fire will light the eighth and final fire an eternal fire of Peace Love Brotherhood and Sisterhood if the light-skinned race makes the wrong choice of the roads then the destruction which they brought with them in coming to this country will come back to them and cause much suffering and death to all of Earth's people and while that may sound like a demand that the light-skinned race give up their beliefs their culture their society and particularly their religion it's not Chief Tom dasto of mixed Irish and Algonquin Heritage provides an opinion on the meaning of the seventh fire prophecy the light-skinned race will be at a Crossroads if they continue down the road of materialism it will be their destruction and for all Humanity as well but if the light-skinned race chooses to join with the natural people of this land on the spiritual path then they will again have the chance to create a nation the greatest spiritual Nation to ever have existed two other races will join these two races together they will light the eighth and final fire an eternal fire of Peace Harmony Brotherhood and Sisterhood so that's kind of just a sort of a quote of what commanda said but dstu continues in his own words saying we believe that the road towards blind materialism that the choice for the majority of humanity and especially the light-skinned or European American created an environment where nature and natural people have suffered immensely in the end it can only lead to our Collective destruction our way is above all a spiritual path we are not nor have we ever been slaves to the material path our strength lies in our native ability to go beyond all that happened to our people in the last 508 years this is from 2000 the joining together of the material knowledge of the West with the spiritual wisdom and values of the indigenous people of this land is a path of healing and survival for all Humanity so what dasto is kind of saying here is not that European Americans need to abandon all that they currently do all that they currently believe and have and go live the way that the inish ab did 500 years ago what he's saying is that rather than fighting one another we should bring our strengths together he continues the choice is in our hands reconciliation in accomplishing our vision as an isab people of a world where the grass is once again green the waterers fit to drink and the air pure our people the indigenous peoples from the Arctic to Terra del Fuego share a common Vision to Stand United in our hearts for the healing of our pain as well as the pain that all Humanity endures we have been through the fires of Oppression we have felt the whip of hate we have tasted our Blood and Tears as it ran into the bosom of our sacred Mother Earth the history of our two peoples one red one white has been written in Blood and suffering the lands where the inish ab lived from time IM Memorial were taken by Armed Force our people were killed genocide incarceration disease was and still is in many parts of this hemisphere the price to pay for being indigenous we must forgive there is no other option by forgiving we liberate not only ourselves but also our oppressor by forgiving we open the door to those who desire forgiveness it is not that we believe we are superior to those people who because of their fear blindness and isolation did not see us as we are their brother and sister their father and mother their lover their friend through forgiveness we allow the spirits of our ancestors to accomplish their mission which began so many centuries ago on these very Shores we offer our hands to you America and ask you once again to come with us along the path where the grass is still green the air is still pure and fish can still live in the waters when I first read that statement from dstu I was kind of floored actually at how powerful it is and I'm sure that if Tom dstu and I sat down and had a meal and just hung out and talked together we probably wouldn't agree on absolutely everything but in this I think he's right we cannot change the past we can only determine the future and that future can involve settler and Native standing together as equals partners and friends all of that said whatever does happen in the future it seems like something weird might be going on right now in Smiths Falls [Music] Ontario as I mentioned at the beginning of the video Smiths Falls isn't really doing too great with a very high crime rate and a staggering 10.1% unemployment rate it's actually worse than it sounds because the labor force participation rate a metric tracking the percentage of able-bodied adults who are employed or actively seeking work work is 133% lower than the Canadian national average in a place like that you'd almost expect people to go missing something that the op actually clarified to me was true people go missing there all the time they just usually turn up within 24 hours but plenty of them also don't come back so what is it about these specific cases that makes people think they're so strange in the 14 months between September of 2022 and November of 2023 42-year-old Lawrence Bertram 34-year-old Robbie Thompson and 34-year-old Steven Tate all disappeared from the same general area in smithf Falls Ontario Lawrence Bertram was the first of these three Vanishing on September 30th 2022 the 5'6 in tall 150lb man was last seen leaving a house on Church Street West he left on foot around 11:00 p.m. and he was reported missing 2 days later on October 2nd 2022 while the media and the police haven't given a specific address for which house this was on Church Street West I do think I figured it out though I won't be giving you the exact details in this video because I don't want to get the houses wrong and cause problems for innocent people that said if the people involved in investigating this do see this video I hope that they take what I'll be saying into account that is unless they have very concrete reasoning to not think that these are connected which was not the I did not get that sense from the conversations I had with law enforcement they seem to have be undecided as to whether or not these are actually connected or if Foul Play was involved what I can say about the location is that we know that the house was on the same block of Church Street West as Westminster Presbyterian Church the police investigated this as a missing person's case and they did request the assistance of the Ontario Provincial Police or op the op do have an office in Smith's Falls so this was actually very local for them currently it is still an open case and like I said Foul Play is still a consideration it does appear that the police have been having a problem with rumors being presented though they have not been specific about what those rumors are and they have asked people to stop spreading those rumors the only rumors I was able to find reference to online were that this was a a drug deal gone bad or that he owed somebody a debt uh it appears that the police perspective is unless you can prove this don't bring it to our attention that said I do feel that as far as rumors go that one is very reasonable now if you've been around watching the channel for a while you're probably noticing that I'm being unusually easy on the police here and the reasoning for that is that the the Canadian justice system works differently from the American justice system while law enforc is executive branch in both America and Canada and judicial is a judicial branch in both America and Canada what differs quite a bit are privacy laws what that means is that in the United States when somebody is convicted of a crime or even charged with a crime in Most states all of the information can be released their age uh at the very least what street they live on and what they were accused of in Canada there's a bit more of a process to that and the police departments aren't authorized to release that information to to journalists whereas in the United States police departments will often share what the coroner shared with them I don't know what the Canadian police know to the extent that I know what American police tend to know even if I were to file the Canadian equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act request there are certain things that by policy they can't give me that American police departments can so when an American Department tells me no I can't give you that I can often say actually you can and you're choosing not to American Police Department departments will often publish a lot more specific information about cases as well so I will know things like you know the the the decomposition level of a victim with Canadian cases all they're allowed to tell the public all they're allowed to tell journalists is whether or not it was Foul Play and what the cause of death was one example I can give is that in the United States if somebody is shot then the media will pretty much immediately know how many times they were shot where it happened what kind of gun it was uh what the injuries were if any of them were the Fatal shot or if it was blood loss or if they died on route to the hospital you will know a wealth of information with the Canadian police all they're allowed to tell you is that somebody got shot and that's why they died they can't tell you oh he had three gunshot wounds to the back of the head and we ruled it a suicide like in some American cases in fact in a lot of American cases involving shadowy government agencies so when the Canadian police tell me it wasn't Foul Play I have no way of gaining access to the documents supporting that opinion so I can't really evaluate whether or not they're doing their due diligence and that was a major roadblock in researching these cases and trying to determine if there was a connection all of that said I do think it's possible I may have found some but I wouldn't be able to say for sure unless I was able to see the uh the Police Department Records in any case the next disappearance was that of Robbie Thompson and that occurred between the 12th and 18th of October 2023 Thompson is 6'3 with a medium build and that is really all the information we get regarding his disappearance is just it was sometime between the 12th and 16th he's 6'3 and he's a little bulky but I was able to dig up some more information about Robbie through some news articles uh one article from December of 2022 and another from April of 2017 the 2017 arrest appears to have been for a patrol violation there was no resistance and it occurred at Thompson's residence on uh running Avenue the 2022 arrest occurred after a police officer spotted two adults with their head slumped forward in a parked vehicle on Aberdine Avenue this was across the rid River from the running Avenue address of the 2017 arrest claiming concern for the well-being of the occupants of the car police approached and found Thompson in a 44-year-old female unconscious and unresponsive with baggies of white powder visible Thompson was charged with operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated refusing to comply and two counts of possession of schedule one substances in Canada that carries a sentence of up to one year in jail per offense after the first violation and it's unclear if Thompson was ever convicted but even if he was he could have been out by October 23 once again this is another one of those issues with the Canadian privacy laws versus the American privacy laws the police were not allowed to tell me if Thompson was convicted and even if they could tell me if he was convicted they couldn't tell me what his sentence was the officer I spoke to on the phone from the op actually did tell me that this is something that they get with American journalists pretty frequently which is that we expect that they'll be able to tell us information and they can't and then a lot of American journalists just it it doesn't even compute the fact that the police wouldn't be allowed to tell you this so they just keep asking and I will say it it it definitely was kind of a culture shock moment for me even though I was still in America just the conversation was giving me culture shock of course I do want to be clear the the officer I spoke to at the opp could not have been more polite more friendly everything you would expect of a Canadian from his head down to his AB booots the third disappearance was that of Steve Tate who went missing on November 4th 2023 and he was last seen in the area of lavenia and Lombard around 6:00 a.m. Tate was 6'3 with a be and when he was last seen he was wearing a black zip up hoodie and gray joggers there isn't much more out there about Tate but like Bertram and Thompson he allegedly had a history of addiction unlike the others however his body actually was found it was located along a stretch of highway 15 between Kelly Jordan Road and Sturgis Road 2 to 3 miles from his last known location on November 8th it should be noted that the place where he was found was also about a mile and a half north of his res on Helen road I was also told by law enforcement that he was last seen leaving a party so I'm unsure if there's something that didn't make the media or that they uncovered later on and there you know he went missing later that day or if he was just leaving a party at 6:00 a.m. maybe he stayed over the party ran late I wasn't able to ascertain for sure but what I do know is that where he was last seen according to the media lavenia Lombard 6: a.m. body located 2 and 1/2 miles north between Kelly Jordan Road and sturis Road and about a mile mile and a half north of his own residence so if he was going home from a party he walked way past his house when law enforcement recovered the body and the coroner performed an autopsy it was determined that the cause of death was a hit and run by a vehicle and the police instructed people to be on the lookout for a dark colored hatchback or sedan with damage to the uh front passenger side now that part's interesting because it does suggest that somebody witnessed this happen in an American case I would ask who is the witness is the witness reliable where was the witness why did they say it was a dark colored sedan or a hatchback why didn't they know which one it was there's a whole bunch of questions that I would have gone through in the research process to try and ascertain whether this is you know something that should be considered as legitimate evidence or not but again because of the way Canadian policy is I can't find any of that information and part of the reason that frustrates me is that I frequently see that maybe a witness was not as reliable as you would think maybe we can look into their history determined they had a vendetta against somebody or there have been cases where I found out that somebody who said they were in a certain place wasn't there at all and so whatever they said happened was not in any way reliable and I'm not accusing the police of being incompetent or unable to do their jobs I'm just saying they have a lot less time to dedicate to each individual case than than I do I'm really not trying to sound arrogant here I just have a lot more time on my hands so it's very possible in this situation that the police know something that they're just not sharing and that there is every reason to believe they're correct it's also possible that we could be seeing a situation where somebody said something and they lied or they got it wrong or they weren't there and we would never know because that information isn't shared whatever the reasoning the police have is it seems that they also haven't determined whether or not this hit and run was accidental or if it was Foul Play on purpose I also am curious about one individual aspect which is if they determined that the hit and run absolutely happened on Highway 15 the reason I put it that way is that Tate left very early in the morning he was found outside of town not super far outside of town but beyond where he should have been going so I wonder if Steve was hit in town in a place where nobody saw it happen because it was early in the morning and then his body was dumped north of town to try and avoid anybody being caught for it that still doesn't really tell us it was foul play or not it just tells us that it was either Foul Play or someone was in an accident and panicked but there is also a little bit more to this story than I initially thought because the tip we received said that there had been three disappearances in 14 months and I found out that that's not necessarily true Greg morus was reported missing by his girlfriend on July 13th 2021 the Slender 6' 3 in tall 38-year-old was last seen leaving a residence on Church Street he was wearing a green button-up black jeans and tan shoes and he sported a scruffy red beard and glasses police said that they believed he had left on foot and that he did not have access to a vehicle or a phone his body was located by a cyclist on September 20th 2021 in a wooded area off William Street West but the police have not given further details aside from saying that in this case they don't suspect Foul Play of course no information on what his cause of death was or how long he had been deceased was given because Canada what I did find a little bit interesting is that his body was located across the street from a former op communications center and it didn't seem like it was all that deep into the tree line from what I could tell it was within 100 yard of the roadway currently Smith Falls Police and the op have yet to come to a conclusion about whether these deaths are connected or if Foul Play was even involved in three of them so with that in mind let's go over the details that we do [Music] have some of the things we can look at to ascertain whether a set of incidents are connected are the similarities between the potential victims we do this a lot with cases attributed to the smiley face killer Theory as well as the Missing 411 phenomenon and we can apply that here as well we know the least about Robbie Thompson's disappearance aside from the fact that the 6'3 in tall medium bu 34-year-old went missing between the 12th and 18th of October 2023 as for his history we know that the man was arrested for possession of schedule one drugs and DUI in 2022 and of violating his parle in 2017 which of course implies a prior charge and conviction this means means that as a potential victim Thompson himself has a history of petty crime and that is relevant in forming a victim pool but as Thompson is still missing we have no way of knowing if he is alive or not and if he has passed away what his cause of death would have been looking at the oldest of the victims that we found Lawrence Bertram is a 42-year-old white 5'6 in tall man with a lean build and was last seen leaving a house on Church Street West around 11:00 p.m. on the 30th of September 2022 of course like Thompson Bertram did have a history of drug use but from what I can tell he was not a known criminal so that would potentially be a factor in the victimology here and though whoever was in the house with him the night he disappeared may have a solid idea where he was supposed to be going he has yet to be found so again we don't know if he died or how he died the first of the men to disappear possibly in connection to these other guys Greg morius was a 38-year-old man of lean build standing 6'3 and may have a very direct connection to Bertram I say that because both of them were last seen leaving a house on Church Street West and like I said I was able to determine which house Bertram was leaving but we don't know which house morus was leaving the language in a lot of the media reporting isn't particularly clear so it's difficult to tell whether the residence he left was his own or whether he was a visitor either way police do know if it's the same house that Bertram left and if it is I do think that would be something that warrants investigation and just to give you an idea of how I ascertained which house Bertram was at and why I'm confident about it in one of the articles about his disappearance there is an image and in that image the image has a caption and the caption says that the vigil was being held a certain number of doors down from the house bertrum was last seen at those are the lengths that I had to go to to figure out where he was that night in any case morius disappeared July 13th 2021 and was found just off William Street West across from the op Communication Center on September 20th 2021 once again cause of death was not released and Foul Play was not suspected looking at the publicly available information and the possible similarities to the Lawrence Bertram disappearance I would like to know their reasoning for not suspecting Foul Play here and if there's any possibility these two cases are connected I would hope that they would consider reinvestigating the most recent potential victim 34-year-old Steve Tate was also 6' 3 in tall white and of medium build so all of these men are white all of them have beards three of them are 6'3 and for the most part they seem to be between 150 and 250 lb it does seem that Tate's record was clean I couldn't find any reports of him being arrested or convicted but his roommates would be arrested for possession of schedule one substances as well as illegal Firearms just a few weeks after he died I I do have to say as an American looking at the picture of the illegal weapons was just hilarious one of them was an M1 grand one appeared to maybe be a Lee Enfield like bolt action rifle from the first world war another one was just your standard AR-15 with a brace like the these are these are guns that my friends and I just go out and shoot for fun like I said just major culture shock this episode I would actually be somewhat impressed if someone performed a bank robbery with a Lee Enfield M1 grand I could see although they do be heavy anyway I did speak to local law enforcement personnel and they did tell me that Tate was last seen leaving a party I'm unclear on whether or not that's new information that supersedes the him being seen at 6:00 a.m. but it may be that he was seen at 6:00 a.m. leaving a party that went all night and when the sort of substances that these men were typically around are involved it's not shocking to believe that they wouldn't stop partying until the sun came up we also know of course that his body was discovered 2 to 3 miles north of where he was last seen and that this was beyond his home also as previously mentioned the coroner determined that the most likely cause of death was a hit and run and police said that they suspected a dark colored hatchback or sedan and of course they did not present their reasoning for these findings so when we look at those what connections do we have well we know that three of the men were allegedly drug users one of them I it was unclear but I have my suspicions all four men were white all four men had facial hair three of the four were over 6 feet tall Bertram being the exception while not all of them appeared to have known criminal records they did all appear to associate with people who did and all four disappeared within the same 30mon span from basically within a one mile radius of one another the question would then be is that enough to definitively say these are connected and I think the answer is a resounding no there is much more information that only the police have that would be needed to to make any determination in any direction here and working with what we do have I'm of the opinion that while it is a it might seem a little suspicious that three of the men were 6' 3 in tall I don't necessarily think that that is enough to connect this I know that there will probably be people in the comments cuz there always are who say well the police would know better than you and yes the police have more details than I do but I think that there's this misconception that the police always know better than the journalists and the reason I say that is the the department as a whole does handle all the cases but different officers might be assigned to each one in fact different sections of an individual Department might handle different cases you might have the missing person unit working on one case and the homicide unit working on another and they may not talk to each other enough to notice Connections in the United States this is why FBI agents are often called in to localities to assist the search because they can look at all of the information that the local cops just don't have the time to go through so I'm not trying to say that the police are incompetent I'm not trying to say that they're covering anything up in this case I'm just saying that they don't necessarily have the bandwidth to notice the connections that somebody who's an investigator a journalist does at the same time they do have information that the investigative journalist does not which if they were to share with one another might lead to Revelations hint hint wink wink that's not just directed at the op or dis smiss Falls PD or the RCMP that's directed at any Police Department we have ever tried to talk to because nobody has ever said yes here's everything even on cases that are 40 years old and when I say that I'm I'm not exaggerating about the 40 years thing uh Stacy arus went missing 1982 or 1983 and when people file foyer requests about her disappearance they are given redacted documents or told no the reason frequently given the the section they cite says that open cases that are being handled by law enforcement can't be released to the public the law enforcement agency involved in The Disappearance of Stacy arus was the National Park Service that is a federal level agency that in 40 years has been unable to close the case if you the federal government cannot close a case on your own after 40 years the response to Independent investigators trying to help you should not be we're the government we know better than you it should be you know what please help me as an example of the whole private investigation can help close cases that the police cannot uh we can go look at the boy in the box where we did that the boy in the Box was found in Philadelphia in 1957 at the time police had absolutely no way of closing the case they compiled all of the evidence they could they found what the box was for they found specifically which item number was in the Box they tracked down who had purchased the box it turned out to be completely unconnected even as DNA analysis became a forensic staple going into the late 1990s they were unable to connect this boy's DNA to any living person that they had on profile on file on file police even had another break in the case When a Woman by the name of Martha Davis who is usually referred to by a pseudonym in most works on the case but she had passed away and all of her family had passed away by the time we got to this so we felt comfortable giving her real name because we wanted to give people all of the possible factual information there was out there anyway she came forward and told police that she knew what happened to the boy in the Box because she was there she told them a very detailed story that her psychiatrist corroborated she had maintained since the 1980s and this was in the 2000s her roommate from college also corroborated that Martha had told her a truncated version of the same story when they were in school together in the 1960s and just to be clear not that there is any shame in having a psychiatrist but this was looked at as a reason not to believe her in 2002 uh she had a psychiatrist for depression and anxiety she did not have any sort of psychosis any sort of schizophrenia delusions dementia none of it she was just there for depression and anxiety that were a result of the abuse she suffered as a child which was largely the same kind of abuse suffered by the boy in the Box she also even knew details that she could only have possibly known if she was there and she was ignored partially because the the officers involved just didn't want to believe a woman who sought mental help no I'm not going to go into what the abuse was but you can go watch our original boy in the Box video I had enough trouble describing all of that once I would not like to do it again and also you get to see me back when I was a little bit chunky and my hair is terrible in that video like go watch it just cuz that that said oh my God's a dark story but there is of course a reason I'm telling you all of this which is that in 20 I want to say it was late 2020 early 2021 uh the identity of the boy in the Box was actually uncovered but not by the police it was uncovered when a random man went and got a DNA test which popped up in an international database for cold cases which had the IDE uh the DNA of the boy in the box so the Philadelphia Police Department and the FBI were in no way involved in that that International Organization then went to the man who had submitted the DNA test and asked him if he could have his mother take one and what I believe it determined was that his mother's cousin was a parent of the boy in the Box using that information they were able to narrow it down to a zarelli family and the boy in the Box was Joseph Augustus zarelli now in the course of our coverage of the investigation we took all of that information compiled it and were able to figure out precisely who his dad was we chose not to release the name because we didn't want to inform the family in improperly basically we didn't want the family to find out that hey it was their grandfather who sold a boy to a woman who ended up murdering him we didn't think that that was our place and also we didn't want to get sued of course like two weeks later the Philadelphia Inquirer came out and said that their investigators as well as Internet sloths had concluded as to who the boy in the Box's parents were and they published the information we are still waiting on the Philadelphia inquire to name the internet sleuths who they got their information from we're in your backyard but they probably won't so uh regardless our point is that a couple of guys in their mid 20s were able to take decades worth of research and investigation and police notes and therapy notes put it together and figure something out that it took the police 65 years and a very lucky DNA test to figure out now like I said that was a summary of how we did the whole thing if you want to see how we figured it out and why I say we figured it out not you know we were following the investigation just I would recommend going to watch the video that's really the only way I can get it to you without going through the whole story here so my point in saying all of this is that police departments have the information but they don't seem to have the bandwidth so in situations where nobody innocent could be harmed by releasing that information to investigators private investigators I I think that they should sorry for the long-winded rant about about that situation at hand but the reason I give that to you is because I wanted to give you the scope of what we're dealing with why we feel the way we do about it before I tell you what my current thoughts are on these cases because they might surprise you I do think it's very possible there is a connection between a couple of these cases but not all of them to start I think Bertram and morius could very well be connected I think that because Lawrence Bertram is still missing but there is a very good possibility that the last place he was seen alive was the same house where Greg morus was last seen alive we also know that morius was found and it could be that the reason Bertram hasn't been is because whoever did Kill morius thought to hide the body further away this time I also think it's very interesting that his body ended up near what is not a police station but is a police building where it was almost guaranteed to be found eventually there's also the fact that both men were a very similar age 38 and 42 but I think that what this all hinges on is the address from which they went missing if they both left that same house on Church Street West I'm going to have a very difficult time believing that there is no connection between these two what the connection is kind of hard to say if it is the same house then I think a possibility is that that it was a situation with a drug deal gone wrong maybe somebody didn't have the money anything along those lines and both Bertram and morius may have been targeted for that reason by whoever lived in the house if it were just the same street there is a possibility that works for both the same street and the same house which is that this is vigilantism I took a look down the street on on Google Maps and the most recent dat is from 2022 it looks like it's a pretty rough neighborhood part of me wonders if there is somebody who is watching that neighborhood who knows that maybe there are certain kinds of deals that go down there somebody who misses the days when Smith's Falls was you know a very nice place to live that didn't have these same issues with crime and poverty and maybe that person decided that they were going to go ahead and handle it themselves it could be that they wanted the police to know which is why they left morus near a police building or it could be that they left morus there because that was the most convenient location and they actually didn't want to be caught which is why Bertram was hidden so much better aside from them leaving the same house I think the one way we'd know for sure is if we found Lawrence Bertram and if the cause of death matched with Greg morus if that were to be the case and that cause of death wasn't necessarily self-inflicted then I I believe there would be a very strong possibility of a connection between these two things and I think that they should be reinvestigated as connected killings because it could possibly be a vigilante or a serial killer right I say all of this with the disclaimer that once again there is information the police have that I do not and it is simply my job to not take their word for it that's what we do here we question narratives whether it's the official narrative whether it's a conspiracy theory it is our job to take what is being said and determine if it has factual basis now why did I not include the other two well for a couple of different reasons actually actually with Tate his disappearance is death I will admit is a little odd to me I don't necessarily know that I believe it was an accident I think it's weird that he was so far past his own home I think it's weird that they apparently have a witness statement it also just seems kind of odd that as recently as 2023 somebody could walk 3 miles through town and not be seen by anybody even at 6:00 a.m. because so many people have ring doorbells so many people have security cameras and especially in an area like this where it seems like you'd maybe want to have precautions against Crime I'm just very surprised to hear that nobody has seen him however the last place he was seen was nowhere near Church Street West and he wouldn't have necessarily had to go near Church Street West walking home I do fully believe that his cause of death could be a hit and run the only question I would have is why was he a mile and a half past his house when it occurred and why was he walking along the side of a highway I would wonder about the possibility of somebody hitting him in town putting him into the back of the car and then dumping him along the highway in order to hide their track but of course it's also possible that maybe he was walking to a job maybe he was walking to somebody else's house maybe I'm wrong about where his residence was pretty confident I have the right one but nobody from the police has confirmed it to me so foul play definitely possible don't really see any reason to connect it to these other cases aside from him being the same height as one of the victims once again it has to be made clear that nobody has confirmed to me that morus was a drug user that's just something that I'm looking at as a possibility and again this is all based off of vague information given by the police and that brings us to the last of the cases which is Robbie Thompson who I just really see no reason to connect to these other ones first of all we don't know where he was last seen or even when he went missing we just have a Six-Day window where he may have gone missing we also don't have a body he has not been found it is possible that Thompson was a victim of Foul Play It's also possible that he I mean we we know that this is a guy who has been so intoxicated that he couldn't even move or respond whil while in officer was trying to speak to him while he was in his car so it would be believable that this is a guy who could get too uh you know too lit so to speak and end up in the rido river and I would like to be very clear that that does not make him a smiley face killer disappearance we do kind of see this on the internet as I'm looking for new cases to look at where anytime somebody dies under a circumstance like they were found in a river or they went missing in a national park people immediately jump to smiley face Killers or to missing 4 onone and then it takes me about 5 minutes of looking into the actual details of the case to see probably not so with all of the information available I'm sorry that I can't offer something more concrete I was really hoping to be able to totally debunk or to prove that something is weird in this case that's not going to be possible unless Canadian policy changes quite a bit I already gave you the rant about why I think that this police policy that is present in Canada to a large extent but also in the United States uh to a lesser extent I I've already gone through why I think that is potentially harmful especially with very old cold cases I but I'm not going to rehash that what I will say is that no matter what you're doing who you're out with where where you're going watch out for each other use the buddy system I know it sounds silly it sounds a little juvenile you look at it and you think I'm a grown man you know I'm I'm a big boy I'm a big girl I can handle myself fact of the matter is you never know what's out there anything could happen and while you shouldn't go through life concerned uh and paranoid all the time it is very important to know your limits to know that it's okay to ask for help and that you should look out for the ones you care about we have seen far too many situations from Jim mcgrogan separating from his friends uh in Vil Colorado to Riley strain separating from his friends in Nashville Tennessee where people think it's going to be okay they think their budd's going to be fine on their own and then something just utterly unexpectable happens you may regret leaving a party because one of your friends got to drunk and had to go home you might regret leaving a bar and not talking to that girl because your friend got kicked out but you will always regret losing one of your friends so all of that put out there we're very curious to know what you guys think if there's anything that we missed if there's other cases that we're not aware of maybe you're from around the Smiths Falls area or you're from somewhere nearby maybe you know somebody who visited and went missing please let us know in the comments please let us know if there's anything you think we should know anybody else we should look into and uh you know if you want to support what we're doing here at the lore Lodge you can subscribe to our patreon or now our YouTube channel for just $1 that $1 gets you access to a number of things including early announcements about things like this Alaska trip we're doing with trova trip it also gets you access to some exclusive content we have a new Liquor Lodge podcast where Aiden and I have a few drinks and talk nonsense about history and lore there are higher pric tiers uh over on patreon is the best place to do those because they do get you more perks uh little things like mugs and posters we're also working on a new line of merch with bunker branding and we have our coffee Mount Pocono perk which is delicious I designed it myself I was a barista for many years and I worked in an artisan Roastery I promise you will not regret it you can also catch our podcast live Sunday nights at 7:00 p.m. eastern Time or on any platform beginning the Tuesday Morning After the Show Goes live aside from the podcast we also have multiple other channels here on the redacted media Network yeah that's what it's called now uh those are the weird Bible the history Hut the lore lounge and my personal Channel Aiden stus where I stream video games and music and reaction and commentary and all sorts of fun stuff those are three nights a week Tuesday Thursday and Friday you should also be on the lookout for a set of new channels coming to our Network that aren't really going to be hosted by us which is kind of cool and new we will be guests now and then and in the first episode of each show but those are coming very soon they are going to be the last call lounge with celo and off the record with Luke Eckles and those are just just two of a set we have coming I we we kind of made a big boy move and got ourselves a studio space that like aside from this one that we built lastly we have our Discord that is bit. l/j jointhe Lodge it is the best place to get announcements for everything that we do on this channel and our others and if you like playing video games we uh we usually we get together and we play some hell divers some hold fast there's there's good times we even done jackbox and I said that one was last but I did forget I have to thank Factor not because they obligated me to but I genuinely think that it is a good product and I would recommend it all that said I'm Aiden Mattis and welcome to the lore Lodge thank you for stopping by the L LOD [Music]

Channel: The Lore Lodge

Views: 124,609

Keywords: the lore lodge, lore, folklore, history, culture, education, entertainment, social studies, humanities, anthropology, aidan mattis, missing, canada, ottowa, native, tribal, stories, disappearance, connected, smiths falls, missing persons, serial killer, organized crime, vigilante, ontario, smiths falls ontario, missing people, missing persons cases, unsolved mysteries, strange disappearances, unexplained disappearance, unexplained disappearances, missing persons mysteries, missing person

Id: qL8qrpHnvxw

Length: 63min 47sec (3827 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024