In August 2004, American student David Sneddon disappeared while hiking in China’s Tiger Leaping Gorge. Despite official claims that he fell into the Jinsha River, his family’s investigation uncovered multiple witness accounts suggesting he survived and reached Shangri-La. A guide, Keith Chu Chung, reported hiking with David, who spoke fluent Mandarin, Korean, and English, to…

Part 1 of 2 – David Sneddon, a 24-year-old Brigham Young University student from Logan, Utah, disappeared on August 14, 2004, while hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan, China, after completing Mandarin language classes in Beijing. A devout Mormon, Eagle Scout, and experienced hiker fluent in Korean and Mandarin, David was described as smart, outgoing,…

Joshua Maddux, an 18-year-old from Woodland Park, Colorado, vanished on May 8, 2008, after going for a walk. A bright, creative teen who loved nature, he seemed happy despite the 2006 suicide of his brother. After five days, his family reported him missing, but searches yielded nothing. In August 2015, his body was found in…

Poon Lim, born in 1918 on Hainan Island, China, grew up in a fishing village before moving to Malaysia at age ten. As Japan invaded China in the 1930s, sparking the Second Sino-Japanese War, Lim’s father sent him away to avoid conscription, possibly fearing atrocities like the Nanjing Massacre. Lim joined the British Merchant Navy…

In May 2014, the murders of Russell and Shirley Dermond, a couple in their late eighties, shook the residents of Putnam County, Georgia. The decapitated body of Russell Dermond was found on May 6, 2014, in the garage of the house he owned on Lake Oconee. Neither his head nor his wife, Shirley, could be located…

In 2018 a soccer team made up of 12 boys and their coach was trapped inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand. All hope seemed lost when the boys had been lost for 10 days with their exact location inside the cave unknown and no sign of life.  This episode chronicles a miraculous survival story…

Chapters: 00:00 Welcome to The Dark Oak 01:40 100th Episode Celebration and Giveaway 07:10 What Happened to Mary Day? 01:00:30 The Branch of Hope   Mary Louise Day, born in 1968 in Little Falls, New York, grew up in a turbulent household with her sisters Kathy and Sherrie, marked by instability, foster care, and abuse….

Hannah Upp, a 32-year-old teacher, disappeared from St. Thomas on September 14, 2017, after a swim, amidst Hurricanes Irma and Maria. She had dissociative fugue, a condition causing identity loss, and had vanished twice before—once in 2008 in New York, found in the Hudson River after three weeks, and in 2012 in Maryland, found in…

When Ellen Greenberg, a first-grade teacher at Juniata Park Academy, was found dead in her locked (from the inside) Manayunk apartment in 2011 with more than 20 stab wounds, authorities initially ruled her death a suicide. During her autopsy, the medical examiner discovered that one of Ellen’s stab wounds could have potentially cut through her…

When Ellen Greenberg, a first-grade teacher at Juniata Park Academy, was found dead in her locked (from the inside) Manayunk apartment in 2011 with more than 20 stab wounds, authorities initially ruled her death a suicide. During her autopsy, the medical examiner discovered that one of Ellen’s stab wounds could have potentially cut through her…