Selects: The Disappearance of Lars Mittank

In 2014, a young German man walked into an airport in Bulgaria with a flight booked, then suddenly ran out leaving all his posessions behind, never to be heard from again. This classic episode tells the story of Lars Mittank. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. When you're in do-it-yourself mode, the last thing you want to do is drop everything to pick up that one part or tool that you need. That's where MyLowe's Rewards and MyLowe's

• 0:45Josh Clark?

  Pro Rewards come in. Place your order and Lowe's handles the rest. Lowe's will make the run for you with free same-day delivery. Members get more at Lowe's. $25 minimum and loyalty membership required. Order eligible items by 2 p.m. Subject to weight and size restrictions and availability. Terms at Lowe's.com/shippingterms. Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, one for inventory, a separate one for accounting, that's software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your

• 1:26Josh Clark?

  business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at O D O O dot com. That's Odoo dot com.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. Chuck here on a Saturday with a little mystery true crime-y episode served up for you. It's the disappearance of Lars Metank. And I think it's Metank, and if I'm not mistaken, Josh and I probably pronounce it all sorts of ways because that's kind of what we do, much to the annoyance of many of you. We're very sorry. But I hope you enjoy it.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:11Josh Clark?

  Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there and there's Jerry and this is Stuff You Should Know at another True Life Mystery Edition.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  A true life mystery?

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:28Josh Clark?

  I don't, I don't want to say crime because I'm not 100% sure crime was involved. I'm sure it still falls under the umbrella of true crime, but it's, it's a mystery, a disappearance. How about that?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. And this one is, uh, this can be frustrating to research and this is our caveat in that, um, this situation, as you'll learn, happened in Bulgaria to a German man. And that's part of the reason it's hard to get great information. Um, there are plenty of people on the internet telling this story with different details and, uh, it's just sort of one of those cases where like, we can't get our hands on Bulgarian case files from the cops.

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  And read it ourselves. So, um, we did find a Redditor who did something last year, who claims that he got information from Lars's mother, who you're gonna meet, Sandra, not, she's not gonna be on the show. You're not gonna really meet her, but meet through our words.

• 3:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Uh, but you know, who knows? This is someone on Reddit and, um, all his, uh, sources were in German, so I couldn't double check those either.

• 3:36Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah. No, I mean, it's, that's a caveat that works for just about any true crime or disappearance case these days, just because there's so many people who, you know, take it in a story and run it through their own grinder. And, you know, like you said, little details, little facts get changed here and then somebody else picks up the same fact without double checking it. And now all of a sudden it's all over the place and you can't tell if that's because it's real or because a bunch of people just repeated the same incorrect fact. So, um, we're gonna definitely do our best, but one of the things about this story is there are enough, you know, totally verified facts to it that, that, you know, you, you don't really need to get completely lost in the details.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:22Josh Clark?

  People have gotten completely lost in the details, um, but they've still not solved the case. That hasn't helped anybody yet. So just the facts that are known are kind of strange enough.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think it's, it's always more comfortable for us when it's like, When there's a book that's been written about it, published by like a real publisher.

• 4:41Josh Clark?

  Like Beverly Cleary.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  It's not just internet dudes.

• 4:46Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Uh, but you know, a lot of times these more recent sort of missing person cases, it is just internet dudes. So, you know.

• 4:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  It is what it is.

• 4:54Josh Clark?

  And the dude that we're talking about, uh, is named Lars Matonk and he's known as the most famous missing person on YouTube because.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  I hate that.

• 5:03Josh Clark?

  He is, uh, it's pretty bad. Uh, it almost, it should have probably just scared us off of this episode to begin with.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  I know.

• 5:11Josh Clark?

  They, they, because you, you remember, um, uh, what was the name of that con? The YouTube convention we went to that one time?

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Oh, uh,

• 5:22Speaker 02

  it was something like Internet Con, but it wasn't that.

• 5:25Josh Clark?

  It was close to that. I can't remember. That almost put me off of YouTube forever.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  We blocked our, uh, memory bank because we. Did our, our biggest show ever there in front of about 12 people.

• 5:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was pretty bad, but.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  I'll think of it. And by the way, we should thank, uh, Dave, uh, Meishner, who was, uh, who's a listener who turned me on to this quite a while ago. So sorry it took so long to get to Dave.

• 5:48Josh Clark?

  So we're talking again, we're talking about Lars Matonk and he, uh, vanished from the face of the earth. Uh, as his mom put it, it was like the earth just swallowed him up, uh, back on July 8th, 2014, in a town, a resort town in Bulgaria on the Black Sea called Golden Sands, which looking at pictures of it, it looks like a pretty charming little place.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  VidCon.

• 6:12Josh Clark?

  VidCon, that's it. It might as well have been called Internet Con.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:17Josh Clark?

  But have, did you look at pictures of Golden Sands to get a feel for the place?

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, you know, looks like any lovely seaside hamlet.

• 6:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I couldn't get the impression of whether it was more like Destin or more like Panama City Beach. I just couldn't.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  It seems like a big party spot, if that's what you're wondering.

• 6:35Josh Clark?

  Okay, but like it also looked like it was fairly like clean and well-run and not just like, you know, just whatever kind of thing. I don't know. I place it between the two from what I can tell. But that's where that's where this event took place, where the disappearance took place. It's actually Varna, Bulgaria, which is the main town that Golden Sands Resort Beach Town is right outside of.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so as far as Lars, the young man who would go missing, he was born in February 1986 in northern Germany. He was an only child. He was a handsome kid, very popular. He was athletic. He was smart. He did well in school. After he ended up, after he graduated, he ended up getting a job at the GDF Suez Power Plant, about 100 miles from where he grew up, fixing small electrical machines. He was an engineer. And it seemed like he had a really good life and he enjoyed his job. He loved, and this will figure in, so put a pin in this, his one big love was his football club, his soccer team that he followed,

• 7:43Speaker 02

  which is, and you know, this is not how they would pronounce it, but the Werder Bremen Football Club.

• 7:48Josh Clark?

  Oh, really? How would they pronounce it?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Well, it's always just a little more German.

• 7:53Josh Clark?

  Let's see.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Like the guy, the Redditor?

• 7:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  He narrates his own documentary and he said it in a way that I'm not even gonna attempt.

• 8:02Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. All right. Fine. So that whole football club thing actually plays a role in this because it may be at the center of his disappearance. We're not 100% sure. But to kind of give you an idea of what kind of guy Lars Mittank was, or Mittank was, his dad had a stroke a couple of years before he disappeared. And his mom had to take care of his dad full-time. Lars was an only child. And he would come home, I guess about 100 miles from where he lived and worked, almost every weekend to help take care of his dad, which is not every guy in their late twenties would do that, you know? And apparently, he

• 8:44Josh Clark?

  was dedicated enough that his mom had to kind of encourage him to go along with five other friends of his to a week-long vacation at Golden Sands in Bulgaria in July, the end of June, beginning of July. He wasn't gonna go and his mom's like, no, you should totally go. You deserve a week off like this. So he went.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the, um, it's a big party scene. Like I said, it is well-known for young people from all over Europe going to take advantage of the resort deals, the all-inclusive places, the cheap booze, plenty of drugs to be had. Lars was the life of the party, according to his friends. I saw it anywhere from three to five friends. I know for sure two guys, and I think these were his high school mates, who were most prominent, named Tim Schultz and Paul Roman. But they were hanging out, going to the beach, playing soccer. The one weird thing that I think people may have made too much about online, as far as internet

• 9:47Speaker 02

  sleuthing goes, is his friends remarked that he didn't have much of an appetite on the trip, was eating like soup and salad and fruit, whereas they were, you know, it was an all-inclusive resort, so they were just like feasting on everything. And I think they thought it was odd that he wasn't, but I don't make a whole lot about that.

• 10:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah, neither did that one redditor slash documentarian who said that he apparently had kind of gotten, he'd been on a health kick, so he was kind of watching what he ate a little more. Yeah, some people have been like, there's your, there's your answer right there. That explains it all. Yeah, basically. So, I mean, the, the week went by pretty uneventfully. I think one of his friends later said on TV or in an interview that it went by really quick. On one, I think the second to last day, they went to watch a World Cup match. The World Cup in Brazil was going on at the time. And you may not know this about Europe, but they're really crazy about soccer, so much so that they

• 10:47Josh Clark?

  have their own word for it, football, which is goofy, but that's the way it goes. And so they went to this bar, Rock Bar, R-O-K-B-A-R, which sounds like a cool place, and they watched a match, I think Costa Rica and the Netherlands. And while they were there, there were a bunch of soccer fans there watching this, from all different clubs and countries. And there were some kids, I guess, who were recent high school graduates and were fans of FC Bayern, which is the rival to Werder Bremen. And I guess they kind of got into it verbally only with Lars and his friends.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I also saw places that there was actual physical confrontation.

• 11:33Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  We don't know for sure, but we do know that it wasn't the biggest deal and it wasn't the big fight that happened later on.

• 11:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  After this night out, the guys apparently go to this McDonald's, which is kind of an open air order at the open air window kind of thing. And Lars didn't want to eat because I guess he was on that health kick. And he sort of just stood nearby while his two buddies were ordering. They got their food, they turned around, he wasn't there. They don't see him for the rest of the night, but like I said, it's sort of like, you know, spring break party central. So if one of your friends disappears for the night and you're a bunch of dudes, you might just think like, all right, well, you know, maybe he ended up meeting somebody or maybe he just went out and partied some more, but it didn't send up these huge alarms that he didn't come back that night.

• 12:26Josh Clark?

  Yep. So when he did show up again, I don't know if it was later that night or the next morning, he said that he had been beaten up, actually, jumped by three or four Bulgarian guys and that he had gone to duck when one of them threw a punch and had actually taken a punch in his ear, which is a terrible place to get punched. And he said that he was quite convinced that it was those kids, those high school kids who were fans of Bayern, FC Bayern, that they'd gotten into it with at the bar earlier that night. Because apparently they had said, and this is just, I only saw this in one place, that

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  they had said that, they had shouted that it's easy to get, to pay somebody to beat other people up in Bulgaria. And so this happened close enough and close enough proximity to that other altercation that he just assumed that's why those guys jumped him. I mean, there's, apparently there was no other explanation for it. So that was his story. He showed up with a injured ear and the story that he had been jumped by some local Bulgarians.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, and his friends apparently didn't necessarily believe that story. Because he wasn't, you know, he didn't have black eyes or a bloody nose or anything. He looked fine, and he was acting fine. So they weren't too sure about that story. Again, with the internet's loose, I've seen people saying that like, he totally made up the story about the fight.

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  But that is all just people speculating online.

• 13:58Josh Clark?

  I know. If you ever want to see people just take a piece of information and then spin it to the nth degree, the most extreme possible interpretation of it, that you could do worse than hang out on the internet.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  So he goes to a doctor. He gets the diagnosis of a ruptured eardrum. Apparently went and saw a specialist at a hospital who confirmed it, said you should get surgery. And Lars is like, great, but I'm not getting that here. I'm gonna go back home to Germany if I'm gonna get surgery.

• 14:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  And then this is sort of one of the keys, is he was given an antibiotic named cefuroxime, and he was given the strongest possible dosage, which was about, I think it was 500 milligrams.

• 14:44Josh Clark?

  Yes, and that's a, just a general, I think, a cephalexin-based antibiotic. That doesn't really usually have many side effects, and if it does have side effects, it's typically something like an upset stomach. I saw that there's a condition where it turns huge patches of your skin very dark, all over the place, almost like your highlights have been shaded.

• 15:09Josh Clark?

  It's really interesting to look at, but that's, that's, has nothing to do with any other, anything that Lars exhibited, any behavior he exhibited.

• 15:20Josh Clark?

  It's just antibiotics. I mean, if you've ever taken antibiotics, you know that there's not really usually many side effects to it.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Right. So Lars catches, well, again, different information. I saw that his friends were gonna stay with him. He insisted they leave, so his friends eventually do catch that original flight out. And Lars stays behind, you know, because of his ear. He was a little concerned about, obviously with changes in the atmosphere and on pressurization on a plane, he didn't think it was a good idea. And I'm not sure if that original doctor told him that might have been a problem, but he knew it was gonna be a problem.

• 16:02Josh Clark?

  So a little bit about that original doctor. I saw that from the redditor who said that he spoke to the guy's, to his mother, that his mother said that Lars said that the doctor didn't really treat him. The first one did and said, "You should go to a specialist." But then when he went to the specialist, the specialist said, like, wouldn't speak to him in English, and Lars felt he had mocked him. And that apparently Sandra thought that that was really significant because that was not a word that Lars typically used. But he still managed to get the antibiotic from the doctor. The thing about the perforated or ruptured eardrum is, I was looking on the internet, it turns out, and the National Health Service says that if you have a perforated eardrum,

• 16:47Josh Clark?

  it would probably actually make flying more comfortable, not more dangerous. So I can understand Lars being worried about that, not being a trained medical professional. But if he's encountering at least three other medical professionals in Bulgaria, you would think one of them would be like, "Actually, no, that's, you're actually better off flying like this." Or would at the very least be like, "You don't have to worry about that at all. It's not, it's not a thing."

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Interesting.

• 17:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought so too.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  All right, well, let's take a break, and we will come back and talk about what happened after his friends left Lars alone in Bulgaria, right after this.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 17:42Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience, and Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  It was going to rival anything that was already built, and that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 18:08Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 18:15Speaker 05

  Through Alan's whole crew design, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 18:32Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 18:35Speaker 06

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  You know, you're never done decorating your home. You know what I mean?

• 18:44Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's a process. There's always something you could do, or buy, or update. The only question is, what's next? For us, our animals just wear out our rugs so quickly, it's usually a new rug.

• 18:55Josh Clark?

  Well, Chuck, whether you need a rug or whatever is next for you, you can go to Wayfair. It's the smart place to get it.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  That's right. Whatever your style, whatever your budget, whatever you're looking for, Wayfair makes it easy to find it, and you can feel good about your purchases too, because Wayfair verified products go through a thorough 10-point quality inspection.

• 19:14Josh Clark?

  And with over 20 million 5-star reviews, Wayfair must be doing something right. You can find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 19:39Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgart, Vivgart is also known as its generic name, Fgartigamod Alpha F Cab. You'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 20:16Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of Vivgart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  All right, so Lars's buddies go back home to Germany. Lars is left there by himself, which is pretty key as far as understanding that they weren't worried about him. He wasn't behaving weird. He seemed fine. He seemed like Lars. Otherwise, one of them probably would have raised some sort of alarm bells and been like, hey, maybe we should stay here. But they said he seemed relaxed. He was in a good mood. And so they took off. Being summer, Lars had a hard time getting a hotel room because everything was booked up and he was staying on extra. So he ends up having to check into the hotel color Varna, which was a really seedy place that this cab driver takes him to.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Apparently, a lot of drug dealers, a lot of sex workers. But that was kind of the only place available. And we don't know a lot about what happened that night other than these phone calls and texts that he exchanges with his mom.

• 21:41Josh Clark?

  So one thing, though, about the hotel color, I looked at it. TripAdvisor gives it a four out of five and Booking.com has it at 7.8 out of 10. And it is definitely cheap. I think rooms are like 25 American dollars a night, which is suspiciously cheap. And that, yeah, there is like probably some criminal activity there, but that it's not like... It's not like a trap house hotel or anything like that. But it was, the fact that it was his only option, I think, kind of tells you quite a bit too about it.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 22:13Josh Clark?

  So he goes to this hotel, he checks in. Apparently, the, the person behind the counter made a copy, a photocopy of his credit card. And according to his mother, that did not sit very well with Lars. And at 11:00 PM, after he's checked into the hotel, he calls his mom. I think it's the first phone, first of many phone calls that evening. And he tells her that he wants her to block his credit card. Because he's kind of sketched out by this hotelier who has made a photocopy of his card. He's worried that they're going to use it for fraud. And he can just unfreeze it when he gets back. That's the first phone call he makes.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, there ends up being another call where he has left the hotel. He said that he was hiding on a hill. And I think he even said that he was at risk of falling. So it must have been sort of some sort of a really steep type of situation, I guess.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  But he said that there were four men after him that were trying to kill him, or that intended to kill him at least. And he said, "Don't call me back because my phone, I don't want my phone to ring." I'm not sure, I knew he didn't have his smartphone with him. He left that at home. And brought sort of a cheaper phone. So I don't know if it didn't have a way to turn the ringer off or not, or if he was just not thinking clearly. But he said not to call him back. He eventually texts his mom, "What is Serapham 500?", which was that antibiotic. Which you might think means like he's feeling weird and like, "What is this I've taken?"

• 23:46Josh Clark?

  That to me says that, that if he was behaving weirdly or experiencing some differing behavior, that he guessed that that's what it was. That's the only explanation for that, because they found that he had taken three of them. So he knew that he had that in his system, which I guess if he was acting weird, maybe that's what he thought it was. That's what sticks out to me.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think was it, it was either that night or the following morning when he asks, I think it was the following morning, um, you know, she had booked a flight, uh, home for him. He doesn't get back in touch with her, which really worries her. But the next morning, he does get back in touch. This is two days after this bar fight. She's relieved. He says he's going to go to the airport and, uh, can he get 500 euros, uh, wired, you know, money-grammed or whatever.

• 24:41Josh Clark?

  Western Union?

• 24:42Speaker 02

  Do they have Western Union over there?

• 24:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, supposedly there's a real detail in there in that it was Western Union.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  Well, what's the, what makes Western Union important?

• 24:51Josh Clark?

  So his mother had never heard of Western Union and Lars hadn't either, but apparently he talked to another German tourist at the airport who had told him to use it. And he was able to describe to his mom how to use Western Union in a way that she understood how to use Western Union after he explained it, which said to his mom that he had his wits about him. He wasn't out of his mind. He wasn't, um, wasted on drugs or anything like that. He was very much with it mentally.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  All right, so he, um, and I saw two different things here. Either his mom urged him to go to the airport doctor just to make sure he's good to fly, or there was some requirement that he do so. Uh, but either way, he goes to the airport medical center. And this is where things get a little confusing because, uh, it's really all over the place whether or not he goes in right away or whether he goes in later. But he apparently calls his mom, tells her, hey, they said I shouldn't fly or drive, but he hadn't even gone to see the doctor at that point. Uh, and then, once he does see the doctor, the doctor ends up giving a few different versions of what happened while he was in there, which is either, you know, some people

• 26:05Speaker 02

  think that looks really shady. I think it could have just been like, at the time, this doctor, you know, you're not making some really, uh, big mental notes about this random patient that comes in.

• 26:15Josh Clark?

  Like this guy's going to be an international mystery in an hour.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, you know, it could have been innocent that he, his story changed, or it could be shady.

• 26:24Josh Clark?

  It could be. So from, uh, from what I saw, that the doctor, um, changed his story three times and that a airline employee came in. And then later, it was an airport employee came in, which I think kind of across the internet became a construction worker because the airport had recently undergone or was undergoing renovations. And then I guess the third story was that the doctor said that no one had come in and that Lars had excused himself to go to the toilet and did not come back. The doctor was expecting him to come back, he just never came back. What the doctor didn't know, if that was in fact what happened, was that Lars wasn't coming back because he was sprinting through the airport

• 27:06Josh Clark?

  and running out of the airport and into the surrounding countryside.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and in the version where someone does come in, what that means is, is that literally a human being, another person walks into the examination room and apparently really freaked out, if that version is correct, really freaked out Lars, who was already obviously feeling a little bit paranoid.

• 27:31Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  And was like, what is this person doing in here? In the one version of the story, the doctor tries to explain, hey, it's just a construction guy, or no, this is an airline employee that's gonna actually walk you to the plane.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  It's a little frustrating to not know the exact truth, but no matter what happens, we do know that he sprinted from the airport because that part is actually on YouTube and on CCTV. And that's why he's the most famous disappeared person on YouTube because it's very compelling to watch this young kid drop all, and you don't see him drop his stuff, but clearly he walks in with a backpack and a duffel bag and he sprints with nothing in his hands at like full, you know, 21-year-old athletic gallop out of there, as if someone is chasing him.

• 28:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so, but there's a couple of weird things about it if you watch the video. And again, you can go anywhere on the internet and see this. I think there's a good 30 seconds of it cut together that he is running in the airport and then when he gets outside, he kind of like walks and then jogs a little bit and runs some more. But then I saw somebody on, I think it was Reddit too, on a different post. Their unresolved mysteries group is just really good. But somebody pointed out that if you watch him, he's not really like looking behind him. He's not, he's not looking to see somebody coming after him. And it kind of puts a different spin on things because you do think, well, surely he's running for his life.

• 29:03Josh Clark?

  But if you're running for your life, it does seem like you would be a lot more concerned about who is coming after you and would probably look behind you a little more. He doesn't quite do that, actually. He's, it's a very strange run, but it's also not like the run of a person who's out of their mind. That's, that was what stood out to me is that he doesn't seem to at all be out of his mind.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and another couple of details here that was tough to verify. Supposedly in the doctor's office, he said, I don't want to die here. I have to get out of here. Don't know if that's true or not, but supposedly that's what he said. And then the mom, Sandra, evidently saw, she went over there to, you know, do her own investigating, obviously right after it happened, and supposedly saw footage directly from the airport that had a lot of different stuff that was not included in the footage that went to the police. And she said in the footage that she saw was that when he leaves the airport, he stands there, like checks his pocket as if he's checking to make sure he has his passport

• 30:12Speaker 02

  and his wallet and stuff, and kind of looks around and orients himself for a minute.

• 30:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Like, should I go this way? Should I go that way? If you look at other places on the internet and you just look at that footage, it looks like he just bolstered from the airport and then continues to either kind of walk or jog and never stops, never checks his pockets, never orients himself at all.

• 30:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so he actually walks within 20 feet of a couple of cops who are standing, talking to one another in the parking lot. He walks past them. He goes behind a sand pile and then eventually goes over, I think, is it actually on camera, him going over the fence or is it just presumed that he went over the fence?

• 30:53Speaker 02

  No, it's on camera, but it's one of those things where it's like they had to circle and highlight him because he's so far in the distance. But he goes over a barbed wire fence into a full bloom sunflower field,

• 31:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  which are very, very tall and literally disappears, never to be seen again.

• 31:09Josh Clark?

  No, and on the other side of that sunflower field, very importantly, is the A2 highway. So who knows what happened? And then beyond that, there's a lot of woods. I wouldn't call it like the most densely forested place on earth, but there's a pretty decent sized woods around there. There's also a lot of farm fields too, that's exposed and out in the open. But there's a highway on the other side of it. And that's, to me, is extremely important.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  All right, should we take another break?

• 31:36Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  All right, we're gonna take another break and bring it home with what happened from there. And then some of the theories about what happened to Largematac.

• 32:02Josh Clark?

  Everyone has a story to tell. What's yours? The moment you met your partner, landed that promotion? For people living with a rare disease, life can feel divided into before the diagnosis and all the after moments that follow. On Voices of Vivgard, Vivgard is also known as its generic name, Fgartigamod Alpha F-Cab, you'll hear powerful stories from people facing challenges and embracing a life with a rare disease.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  Join host Andra Stratten as she guides listeners through honest conversations about life after diagnosis. You'll hear how each guest worked with her care team on their treatment plan, as well as their personal challenges, setbacks, progress, and moments of connection.

• 32:38Josh Clark?

  These stories reveal that life is bigger than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Listen to Voices of Vivgard on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 32:55Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 33:17Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you can trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 33:57Josh Clark?

  World Mental Health Day takes place in October, and it's really meant to be more than just awareness. It's about actually taking the next step and getting support if you need it.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  But a lot of people still talk themselves out of therapy. They think it's too expensive. They're not sure if it'll actually work. They don't know how to find the right therapist, or they just get overwhelmed trying to navigate the whole system.

• 34:16Josh Clark?

  And that's exactly what Rula is built to fix. Rula makes therapy feel a lot more approachable, a lot more human. You can find a therapist who actually fits your needs, not just whoever's available. And with insurance, sessions average around $15 copay.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can sign up in just a few minutes. You can get matched with the right provider and even book something as soon as the next day.

• 34:36Josh Clark?

  And it's not just about starting. Rula helps you stay consistent and actually make progress because taking care of your mental health isn't a one-time thing. So if you've been thinking about therapy, don't talk yourself out of it. This is a really easy way to take that first step.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  So turn off the talk track that's keeping you from progress and head to rula.com, that is R-U-L-A dot com, to find a therapist the easy way.

• 35:14Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, just to recap, Lars Matonk has fled, is a really good way to put it, the airport, leaving behind in the doctor's office, all of his stuff, including his wallet, phone, and passport.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Now, is that verified?

• 35:29Josh Clark?

  I saw that basically everywhere, including in the Sun.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Except for his mom speculating that she saw him checking his pockets for that stuff.

• 35:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I didn't, I thought that was very confusing. But I saw it in the Sun, which I realize is not the most credible source, but sadly, it is one of the most credible sources when it comes to researching this case. I saw it on a Yale article. It's basically everywhere that his wallet, passport, and phone were left behind. But I mean, that's a really good point. Like, we're totally, we're lost in the sunflower field as far as that stuff concerns. We don't know. We gotta get our hands on the police report. And even that, I read, when Lars's mom hired a Bulgarian lawyer as an investigator,

• 36:18Josh Clark?

  they got weird conflicting information about, you know, what was found with him or not, or what was left behind by him or not. So even his mom probably couldn't say for certain what was there.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I get the picture that it was a frustrating experience working with the Bulgarian police. Seems like Germany got involved with Interpol, but they had some frustrations as well. There's some speculation that they intentionally kind of kept this story on the down-low because they didn't want it to affect tourism.

• 36:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I could see that.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  Other people say that, well, maybe not that, but it just wasn't widely known. It was some German kid. It wasn't all over the newspapers. And so people, you know, they didn't necessarily even know what was going on if they saw this flyer, or they maybe not have, maybe they didn't even run it on the evening news.

• 37:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and so like, if it was three Weeks, four weeks after the disappearance that like news started to really spread, or maybe news never really spread. If you were a driver and you gave a kid a ride on the A2 highway outside of the airport, you might not have ever put two and two together. Or if you saw some kid running through a field into the woods, you might not have ever heard of Lars Matonk either. So there's, it's possible there's people out there with information who just aren't, aren't, don't know to cough it up. Although that's probably exceedingly unlikely these days because of the exposure that this story's gotten.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, one interesting tidbit is that they did find that those 500 euros were untouched in his account. And I don't think we mentioned, I think some people speculate the fact that it was 500 euros on the nose and that it was Western Union and he had never used it, meant that he was being told by somebody to get 500 euros wired via this way.

• 38:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  But again, that's just internet speculation.

• 38:23Josh Clark?

  Well, I also saw that it was his mom's decision. He just asked her to wire him some money.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Some money.

• 38:28Josh Clark?

  She had decided that that, that was according to that documentarian. Who knows? We really need to get Sander Matonk on here, dude.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  One of the cool things that happened through this, through his mother investigating this, is various leads came in over the years, like, hey, there's this guy that speaks German, he could be Lars. She would go check it out. There's this other guy. Over the years, she has ended up finding 15 German expatriates in Bulgaria. Some were addicts, some were mentally ill. Some were actually reunited with their families, some didn't want to be reunited. But she found all these people. So like every time that happened, it gave her hope that even though the chances, you know, with a case like this is if you don't Find this person within the first, you know, few days or the first week. It's like very slim to no chance.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  All of these things gave her hope that she could, if she just kept at it, that she might eventually find her son.

• 39:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was really surprised to see that there was a stat in here that said that something like only 3% of missing persons cases aren't resolved within the first year in Germany.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:39Josh Clark?

  Not even in Germany, but among German citizens.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought it would be a lot higher than that, but that's, that's actually not, not bad as far as I can tell.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:51Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, one of those people, by the way, who was found that was thought to be, there's like a whole thing where people are following this case and anytime something ends up on the internet, it ends up being passed along to Sandra Matonk, who will basically post on her Instagram like, hey, this was sent from this town. Can somebody go see if they can find this homeless guy and, and get me more pictures of him so we can figure out if it's Lars? Like she does this kind of frequently. There was one where a guy turned up in Brazil who looks a lot like Lars, but disheveled with the beard and his hair kind of crazy.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:27Josh Clark?

  And that turned out to be a different man who was missing from British Columbia, named Anton Pilpa, who was reunited with his family after five years. And they think that he hitchhiked, hitchhiked and walked from British Columbia down to Brazil and then kind of lived around Rio, I think Rio, on his own for a while during a mental break.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Man, so some of the theories over the years that have been formed, the one that seems most obvious to me is that along with the ear injury, there was some sort of a head injury, maybe a concussion left untreated that led to erratic behavior. And paranoia, maybe, and that, you know, once he had left and had no money and no phone and no passport, he sort of was just sort of perhaps lost his memory and lost in Bulgaria and still lost in Bulgaria.

• 41:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's entirely possible, especially if it was a head injury that was getting worse and worse by the hour. That could definitely explain the erratic behavior of leaving his stuff and running through the airport and jumping the fence into a sunflower field. Because if you think about it, everything up to that point, you can explain by him being intimidated in a hotel he didn't feel comfortable in by some guys who aimed to rob him. And even if those guys didn't aim to rob him, just him thinking that they were going to rob him explains everything else up to that point. The thing that makes it inexplicable

• 42:08Josh Clark?

  as far as I'm concerned, is him leaving the airport the way they did and potentially leaving everything behind. That throws everything out the window and actually makes the idea of a traumatic brain injury a lot more possible in my mind. The problem is, is if that's what happened to him, it's really possible that he's up there, you know, out in the woods somewhere still and just hasn't been found and is dead probably by now.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, or I suppose he could have just, you know, wandered into a town and assimilated.

• 42:40Josh Clark?

  Well, his mom apparently does believe that he's still out there, which is why she tries to shake down every lead she can, but thinks that he does have memory loss and that that's why he's still out there just and has never contacted her.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Another theory is that, you know, maybe everything he said is true. Maybe there were men following him. Maybe it had something to do with that fight and these guys that may or may not have been hired to beat him up. Apparently, the human trafficking in Bulgaria is a problem. And maybe, you know, a young handsome fit man like Lars could have been a target for human trafficking. And that he really like had every right to be anxious and nervous because otherwise he seemed like he was okay. It's all very confusing and frustrating. I can't imagine what Sandra Matonk has been going through for these years.

• 43:33Josh Clark?

  Oh dude, just can't even. I mean, when you, when you, when you don't have closure like that, your imagination's left to just fill in whatever blanks. And, you know, in a situation like that, people's imaginations tend to go to the darkest places. I can't imagine the stuff that she's come up with, or that people have suggested to her too.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:52Josh Clark?

  You know, being caught up in it and forgetting like, this is the mom, like this is real to her. This is her life. This isn't just something on the internet.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Uh, so what, what about the trucker?

• 44:00Josh Clark?

  Oh, so that's one of the leads, um, uh, that there was a trucker in, uh, what, where was it? Brandenburg? The trucker, so there was a trucker that in 2019 picked up a hitchhiker in Dresden and drove him all the way to, to Brandenburg, I guess. Um, and he said later on, he didn't know about the Lars Matonk case at the time, but he said later on, he found out about it and said, oh man, that's gotta be the kid that I picked up. And so, um, his, his mom shook down the story and I don't think that she ever got in touch with the truck driver, or else the truck driver was just like, here's what I think, but I can't, I can't say either way. And I don't know where he went. So there's

• 44:43Josh Clark?

  like a, a be on the lookout among, you know, Lars Matonk watchers in Brandenburg from that story.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:49Josh Clark?

  There was another-

• 44:51Speaker 02

  But stuff like that that kept her going.

• 44:52Josh Clark?

  Totally. Um, I saw there was another one about a man in Dusseldorf, um, that the whole thing lasted for about two hours. That's how fast things get done. She posted pictures that somebody had sent her of a man, a homeless man in Dusseldorf, um, and asked for more pictures and they, within two hours, the cops in Dusseldorf had picked the guy up and verified that it was not Lars.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think the head injury and loss of memory, like, he would want to get back to Germany. By all accounts, he had a good life, enjoyed his job, was a pretty happy guy and loved Germany. So like, the idea of him choosing to stay there of his own, like, sound mind just doesn't seem likely at all.

• 45:34Josh Clark?

  No, and unfortunately, that really strongly suggests foul play is a possibility, too. The fact that he has not turned up, he has every reason to, like you say, turn, turn back up again, get back to his life.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:47Josh Clark?

  I saw that this on the State Department's website for Bulgarian human trafficking. Like, Bulgaria does have a human trafficking problem, but it seems to be typically targeting Bulgarians, especially Romani people, who end up getting forced to beg on the streets or forced into hard labor if you're a man. That it doesn't necessarily target tourists. And I think the Bulgarian officials would probably not put up with that because it would harm tourism so dramatically. So it's fairly unlikely that, like, a blonde German guy named, you know, Lars would be, would end up begging on the streets of France at the behest of the Bulgarian mafia.

• 46:28Josh Clark?

  And I also saw another theory that he was a drug mule and he flipped out and was scared he was going to get caught and ran out of the airport.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I saw a drug thing, too.

• 46:37Josh Clark?

  What really kind of undermines that theory is that no drugs were found in his stuff. So it's possible he took drugs. A lot of people are like, well, clearly he was on drugs. Like, why else would you do that? That's a possibility as well. But again, if you really look at some of his behavior, it, the, yes, the fact that he ran out of the airport and jumped over a fence, that's erratic behavior. But if you look at the way he was behaving during that erratic behavior, he's not acting erratic, if that makes any sense. It's, it's, it's just, it's one of the most bizarre mysteries I've ever heard. So kudos to you and Dave Meishner for coming up with this one.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I knew nothing about it until Dave said it, so.

• 47:21Josh Clark?

  Way to go, Dave. Yeah, we need to spend more time on YouTube, I guess. We totally missed this one.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  So we can go back to VidCon.

• 47:27Josh Clark?

  Right. You got anything else?

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 47:30Josh Clark?

  All right. Well, if you want to know more about Lars Matonk, go out and solve the mystery, will you? At least for his dear mother's sake. And since we said his dear mother's sake, it's time for listener mail.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this, this is another kid writing in. This is actually from Dad. My son Hans colored a picture of you podcasting today unprompted.

• 47:52Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Which, did you see this picture?

• 47:54Josh Clark?

  No, I gotta bring it up.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  It was very cute. Which I thought was awesome. Said we should send it to Josh and Chuck and his eyes lit up. He wrote out what he wanted to type in an email to you. And I thought it was better to just send you his note. I've been listening to the show for the last 10 years or so and introduced my son a few months ago. We read books before bed, including yours, and then listen to the podcast as he falls asleep. I'm thankful that I'm able to share this with Hans. He's a smart kid with incredible memory, so we'll often bring up facts he's learned from you guys, which I had already forgotten.

• 48:24Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  And the picture is adorable.

• 48:29Josh Clark?

  What's the name of the guy who sent it? I'm looking for it.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Sam.

• 48:33Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  And it's a picture with magic marker and you are sitting upright at a table. And he actually nailed it because you're on the left. You know, back in the before times when we were actually in our studio.

• 48:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  He has it right. You're on the left, I'm on the right. I am, it looks like I'm passing out, though. I'm kind of slumped over.

• 48:53Josh Clark?

  That's awesome.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  But he's got two little microphones and then two little pieces of paper with a handwritten thing that says "notes" pointing at the paper.

• 49:02Josh Clark?

  Uh huh. Nice.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  And it says, "I listen to your show almost every night." And then there's a handwritten letter, which is great, which I'll read as best I can. "I love your show, Chuck and Josh. Today I listened to your S Y S K about earwax. I told my mom and had some of your tips. Hey, have you guys made a football episode, like touchdown? But if not, can you make one? I listen to almost all the episodes, except ones that my parents don't let me watch. I also have your book. I have read some of the chapters in it and they are great." I like that you guys have different types of episodes, like short stuff and just regular episodes. I'm your biggest fan. I'm the second grade. Yours sincerely. And

• 49:47Speaker 02

  that is Hans, last name redacted because he's a kid.

• 49:51Josh Clark?

  Hans, that was amazing. I'm going to find the picture. I haven't been able to find it yet, but that was a beautiful letter and you have a super cool name, by the way.

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Yes, I love it. And thank you, Dad Sam, and whoever else is in the family, helping to support the show. We really appreciate it.

• 50:06Josh Clark?

  Yep. Well, if you want to get in touch with us like Hans, maybe try drawing a picture. What are you waiting for? We love pictures. You can send them off to us here at [email protected].

• 50:23Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 50:39Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford ability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 51:10Speaker 06

  Hey folks, it's Matt Altmaix.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  And Joel Larsgaard from the How To Money Podcast.

• 51:14Speaker 06

  If you travel for work like I do, you know that every trip is an opportunity to get more from the miles that you are already earning. Whether you are heading to your next client meeting or catching a flight home, those miles can go a long way.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  And for a limited time, new Delta SkyMiles Business Card members can earn 200,000 bonus miles, the highest miles offer this year with the Delta SkyMiles Reserve Business American Express Card. Apply today at delta.com/podcast. Offer ends November 4th. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.