The Hill

A summer resident of Great Smoky Mountains National Park vanishes without a trace. The mystery surrounding how she disappeared and why grows with every passing decade.

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  Hi, park enthusiasts. It's Delia. If you listen to Park Predators, you already know that sometimes the most beautiful places can hide the darkest secrets. But what happens when the danger isn't miles from civilization? It's in your community, and sometimes even in your own backyard. On Crime Junkie, hosts Ashley and Britt dive into real cases every week, from missing persons to unsolved murders, breaking down what we know, what we don't, and the details that still don't sit right. If you care about the stories behind the headlines and the victims at the center of them, you'll want to check out Crime Junkie. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the story I'm going to tell you today takes place in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, very close to the Tennessee-North Carolina border. It's a bizarre missing persons case, which is a statement that feels like déjà vu for me to even say. Reason being, if you've been tuning into the podcast since the very beginning, you know that missing persons cases in this particular park is a subject I've broached before. Just go back and listen to The Local, an episode I did about Michael Heron's disappearance in 2008. The Field, which is the case of missing boy Dennis Martin from the late 1960s. And then there's also The Student, Treni Lynn Gibson's mind-boggling disappearance from 1976.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  All these cases are confounding, frustrating, and follow an eerie pattern. One moment, someone is visible, and then the next, they're just gone, never to be seen again with little to no clues left behind. Today's episode falls into that same category. It happened in the fall of 1981 on a trail in the southern part of the park that's been around since the 1930s. It's an attraction long loved by mountain bikers, hikers, and campers who are eager to see the region's beautiful streams and waterfalls. The iconic fog of the Smokies rises and falls here just like it does everywhere else in the park. And just like that fog, there's an opaqueness shielding answers in this particular case.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Perhaps by the end of this episode, you'll have landed on a theory that you feel certain about, but perhaps not. This is Park Predators.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Around 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, September 25, 1981, two women named Trula Gudger and Pauline Cannon were hiking on Deep Creek Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park with another one of their friends named Pauline Melton. Pauline, who most often went by the nickname Polly, had been walking with them when suddenly she started walking faster and got fairly far ahead of them. At that point in their hike, the trio had made it to the end of the trailhead and were about halfway back on their return trip. The route, which is a loop, is about 4.5 miles total, two-ish miles in and two-ish miles out. Seeing that Polly was going faster than them, Trula and Pauline called out to her, but Polly just glanced over her shoulder at them and laughed.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Then she continued onward over the top of a small hill. Her friends thought her behavior was odd, especially because they knew Polly smoked like two packs of cigarettes a day, so it seemed strange she'd suddenly gotten the burst of energy and raced so far ahead of them. When Trula and Pauline crested the hill Polly had gone over, they stopped a bit confused. Their friend was nowhere in sight. I have to imagine that in that moment, the women probably didn't panic or get too worried because they likely assumed Polly had outpaced them and would meet them back at the start of the trailhead. According to news coverage from that time, after finishing their hike around 4:30, Trula and Pauline returned to their camping trailers near Deep Creek Campground,

• 4:53Speaker 02

  where they found Robert, Polly's 78-year-old husband, sitting in he and Polly's trailer. His wife, though, wasn't with them, and he said he hadn't seen her since the group left. That concerned the women, so much so that they quickly roped in Pauline's husband to go back down the trail and search for her. When he returned without finding Polly, the group then contacted the National Park Service and reported her missing.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Around 5 o'clock, the NPS launched a formal search for the missing 58-year-old and closed Deep Creek Trail as well as a neighboring shorter trail. The search effort on that Friday night and in the following few days involved at least four park rangers and as many as 25 people. The terrain wasn't as treacherous as it was complicated. Carson Brewer reported for the Knoxville News Sentinel that there were several side trails that branched off Deep Creek Trail. Some of those paths connected to the nearby campground, while others shot directly off the main trailhead. A few of the trails led to nearby waterfalls, while others looped to the main road. An article by Dot Jackson for the Charlotte Observer explained that there were at least three bridges on Deep Creek Trail which one would have to cross while hiking.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  And of course, running right through all of this was Deep Creek itself, a stream of water that feeds several area waterfalls. So in the dark on that Friday night, searchers used lights to illuminate the creek and some of its deeper pools. You know, just in case Polly was in one of those, but she wasn't. The situation was perplexing because Polly was an experienced visitor who was familiar with the area she'd gone hiking in. United Press International reported that she'd been visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park, specifically the Deep Creek region, for at least two decades prior to her disappearance. According to a park ranger who spoke with the Asheville Citizen Times, Polly's friends said that the Deep Creek Trail was a path she'd hiked many, many times.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  It was considered a somewhat easy trail, so even if she had been unfamiliar with the terrain, it wasn't like it was the type of trail that would have been overtly challenging for most people to traverse. Carson Brewer's article for the Knoxville News Sentinel explained that Polly had high blood pressure and was a chronic smoker, but despite that, she was considered experienced enough to hike the trail with ease. The following morning, Saturday, September 26, authorities brought in several dogs to assist in the search. Those animals came from as far away as Virginia and as close as Haywood County, which is near the city of Asheville, North Carolina. Initially, NPS officials told the press that they didn't suspect foul play was involved,

• 7:24Speaker 02

  despite the fact that they thought the circumstances of Polly's disappearance were unusual. One park ranger publicly dispelled any suggestion that she might have been attacked by an animal or kidnapped. Reason being, according to him, Deep Creek Trail was well-traveled. So I think the implication there was if either of those scenarios had played out, someone should have heard or seen something. Polly was reportedly between 170 and 180 pounds and stood 5 feet 11 inches tall. And yet, according to park rangers, no one other than her two friends even remembered seeing her on the trail the day she vanished, let alone witnessing something untoward happening to her.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  It seems at that point, authorities' main theory was that she was just lost in the woods somewhere. The NPS speculated that she might have experienced a medical event, like a seizure, and gotten disoriented. Officials assumed that if that was what happened, it was unlikely she'd gotten very far. According to the coverage, Polly was also very afraid of snakes, so most people assumed she would have stayed as close to the trail as possible if she'd gotten lost, not ventured into untamed woods where snakes were more likely to be.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  But the optimistic outlook that she was just somewhere close by and waiting to be found waned the longer the search went on. The Monday after she was reported missing, the scent dogs that had been brought in from Virginia returned home. A blog by Unsolved Appalachia, published years later, explained that at one point, the dogs had stopped next to a downed tree where searchers suspected Polly might have rested for a bit. But after that one signal, the animals didn't find her scent anywhere else. So who knows if that was even legit? After the dog handlers left, only a few rangers and volunteers remained in the Deep Creek area to help look for her. On October 4, a little over a week into the investigation,

• 9:15Speaker 02

  a spokesman for the NPS told the press that the official search for Polly had been called off. He said a few guys would stick around to periodically check area trails, but other than that, most of the search activities that had been going on would be suspended indefinitely. A ranger told the Knoxville News Sentinel, "If she had been in the park, the dogs would have found her. They were well-trained. We're not going to be putting in a lot of manpower, but we'll be checking the area daily with only two or three rangers." End quote. An NPS spokesman went on to state that it was the agency's position that Polly was likely no longer in the park at that point. He admitted they didn't have any concrete evidence that proved that was the case,

• 9:57Speaker 02

  but there were several factors he suggested had indicated she wasn't there. One, not a single trace of her had been found, not by people who had boots on the ground nor the search dogs. And two, there was a roadway located near where she disappeared. So the NPS suspected that she might have walked to that road and perhaps gotten into a car. The last quarter mile of her hike would have taken her on that road, and cars were allowed to drive there, so it wasn't an unfounded theory. And three, Polly had relatives in at least three southeastern states, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida. So based on all those facts, it seems that's why the NPS was suggesting she'd left the park on her own.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  A ranger who spoke with United Press International about whether Polly was still in the park said, "If she is, then she is trying awfully hard not to be found." End quote.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  But the suggestion that the 58-year-old was hiding from searchers or had chosen to disappear seemed incongruent with the information authorities had uncovered. You see, when investigators took a look inside Polly and Robert's trailer, they realized she'd left behind several personal belongings, including her ID and cigarettes. Her abandoning those kinds of items would suggest she was planning to return. Dot Jackson reported for the Charlotte Observer that Polly had also recently filled a prescription for a tranquilizer. It's unclear from the coverage, though, what this medication was for or if it was a routine thing she would take. Some of the coverage I found, like The Charlie Project and a blog by Unsolved Appalachia, stated that she'd used Valium a few years prior to her disappearance to treat depression,

• 11:39Speaker 02

  but she reportedly stopped taking that by September 1981. Those same sources also stated that her husband, Robert, reportedly had a prescription for the same medication, and interestingly, he'd noticed his pills were missing after his wife vanished. But no one knew if she'd taken them, they'd gotten lost, or what. I think the broader point, though, about Polly having a prescription filled right before she vanished was that it seemed to indicate she was planning to stick around, not voluntarily disappear. But I think the one clue, above all, that pointed toward her having every intention of coming home was the fact that, prior to going hiking, she'd prepared a pot of spaghetti sauce for her and her husband. It was reportedly still sitting on their stove when everyone realized she was missing.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  So the question became, if she'd gone through the trouble of making the sauce, why would she have chosen to not come back? It was a detail no one could make sense of. Now, park rangers had noted that the weather during the first week she was missing was fairly mild, meaning it wasn't cold. So it seemed unlikely she'd perish from exposure. If the reality was she'd simply gotten lost in the park, some folks believed it was possible she was still alive. Whereas, the more time passed, others said they believed she wouldn't have lasted very long. Basically, everyone had an opinion, but no one knew anything for sure.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  For several years prior to this, Polly, Robert, and their retired friends had been spending summers in the Deep Creek area for an extended period of time. During the winter months, the Meltons lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and when summer hit, they headed toward Bryson City, North Carolina. According to coverage by the Knoxville News Sentinel and United Press International, the couple and their group of friends would lease a private tract of land near the boundary of the park and live in trailers there for months at a time. That was the only way they could reside in the area for as long as they wanted to without having issues with the NPS. Rangers only allowed campers to reside in Deep Creek Campground for certain months of the year, and the Meltons and their friends usually stayed longer. So leasing the plot of land adjacent to the park's boundary and doing things their

• 13:46Speaker 02

  own way was a win-win. Dot Jackson reported for the Charlotte Observer that Polly's dad, Fred, and her husband, Robert, actually co-owned the parcel of land where the trailer campground was located. In fact, prior to marrying Robert, Polly and her sister Kit had been there with their dad many times, and that's seemingly how Polly and Robert became so close. Prior to marrying him, she'd been widowed by two other men. Her first husband, who she'd married in 1951 in North Carolina, had died. And after that, she'd remarried another man from Birmingham, Alabama, who would die in 1970. His obituary says he passed away from a lengthy illness, but later reporting specified it was throat cancer. And it was after that she'd grown closer with Robert and eventually married him.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  The couple's friends told the press that the cluster of families who lived on the plot of land Robert and Polly's dad owned were notoriously private and didn't let strangers into their close circle. The Meltons and their friends had one hard and fast rule: Never let anyone new into their trailer compound unless the entire group agreed it was okay. Basically, getting close to newcomers or quickly trusting folks who were unfamiliar to their group was a no-no. Polly's friends told park staff that because of that, it would have been out of character for her to get into a stranger's car. They suggested she would have only done so if she'd been forced to. Meanwhile, Polly's husband, Robert, was taking the situation very hard. News coverage from the time states that he had ongoing health issues, including heart

• 15:16Speaker 02

  problems. And in the wake of his wife's disappearance, he'd been so plagued with worry, and I imagine stress, that he had to be hospitalized in Bryson City. One article I read said he suffered a stroke, but whatever the specific ailment was, it seems like things never improved for him. Not long after Polly disappeared, he was moved to a nursing home in Jacksonville, where he remained for quite some time. I found an obituary in the Florida Times Union from October 1982 and a find a grave profile which state that a man with his exact name died in early October 1982. But I couldn't confirm if that is the same Robert. All the information and details line up, so if it is him, then he didn't live very long after Polly disappeared.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Anyway, back in early November 1981, 40 days into the investigation, it wasn't just Robert who was hurting and desperately seeking answers about what happened to Polly. Her sister Kit decided it was time to speak to the press and have her family's wishes heard.

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  According to Dot Jackson's article for the Charlotte Observer that I mentioned earlier, in early November 1981, Polly's sister Kit, who lived in North Carolina, expressed that it had been difficult to even begin the grieving process because there were so many unanswered questions in her sister's case. By that time, pretty much everyone who'd been living on the trailer campground when Polly vanished had left the area. With the seasons changing, the surrounding woods also no longer looked the way they had when she disappeared. Leaves had covered the ground where she'd last been seen, and that would likely pose challenges to anyone who wanted to see things as they appeared in September. To make matters worse, the NPS had made no progress in their investigation. Naturally, one would assume they would have leaned on other entities for help, but

• 19:03Speaker 02

  in this case, that didn't happen. The Swain County Sheriff's Office, which was the local agency in that region, hadn't been initially notified by the NPS that Polly was even missing. It was actually Kit, her sister, who called the sheriff's office at like 10 o'clock at night on September 25th to let them know what was up. No deputies were asked to help out in the search either. To further complicate matters, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, also known as the NC-SBI, hadn't been invited to the party either. And because no evidence of foul play had been found, the FBI never came on board. So, long story short, the NPS remained adamant that Polly was simply a missing person,

• 19:44Speaker 02

  and her case would remain listed as such until additional information proved otherwise. The then-chief ranger of Great Smoky Mountains National Park told reporter Dot Jackson in part, quote, "There was no indication anywhere that she was abducted or dragged off the trail," end quote. But the complete lack of communication from Polly bothered her sister Kit. She told the Charlotte Observer that they'd grown up playing in the woods, and for as long as she could remember, Polly was particularly close with their father. She described her sister as a daddy's girl, and about a month after she disappeared, their dad turned 89 years old. So for Kit, it seemed unimaginable that her sister would have let his birthday pass

• 20:26Speaker 02

  without so much as a phone call, if in fact she was just out there living her life. Kit, as well as Polly's stepmother, Velma, also told the newspaper that they believed Polly would have been wearing several pieces of jewelry while she was hiking. It was kind of her thing to don a lot of jewels, no matter the situation. And some of her accessories would have included a diamond watchband, her diamond-encrusted engagement ring and wedding band, and another diamond ring. So Kit and Velma couldn't help but speculate as to whether someone on the trail who saw Polly with all those valuables might have targeted her. But there just wasn't enough evidence, at least none that investigators could find, pointing toward that scenario. Kit emphasized in her interviews with the Charlotte Observer that in her heart of hearts,

• 21:11Speaker 02

  she didn't think her sister was still alive anymore, but she was convinced her body was still in the park waiting to be found. She told the newspaper, quote, "I wake up seeing Polly sitting like she's just resting with her back against a tree," end quote. Trula Gudger, one of Polly's two hiking companions, told the Charlotte Observer that, in her opinion, her friend's disappearance was likely related to a medical event. She remarked, quote, "I think she is still in those woods. I don't think she walked out of there. What I really think is that something just popped into her head, she had an aneurysm or something, and she walked off the trail, and they just never found her," end quote. None of the source material explicitly states this,

• 21:54Speaker 02

  but I found myself thinking a lot about Trula's suggestion. You see, like I mentioned earlier, Deep Creek and the other creeks that the trail was near did have some bridges. I wonder if one of the reasons Polly was never found might be because she accidentally fell into one of those waterways and drifted out of the search area. If she did have a medical event, like Trula suggested, and then fell and floated away, that's a scenario that makes a lot of sense with the information we know. But that's just one of many theories that can't be proven.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Over the years, there's been some speculation about Polly and Robert's relationship, but according to Dot Jackson's reporting for the Charlotte Observer, the couple's marriage was reportedly good. He told folks that they got along well, and there was no reason in his mind why she'd choose to leave him. They'd only been married for about six years, but, like I said earlier, because her father and Robert were business partners, it seems they'd been in one another's lives for even longer than that. And for any of you wondering if perhaps Robert was involved in Polly's disappearance, I personally don't think that's likely. Remember, he was in his late 70s when she vanished. He was also in poor health. It would be kind of a stretch to think that he could have personally harmed her just given the circumstances and the fact that there would have been people in their community

• 23:09Speaker 02

  who might have witnessed a potential incident between them. Sure, anything is possible, but that theory is low on my list. Not to mention, there's nothing in the available source material that supports such a scenario.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Anyway, by the end of December 1981, Kit and several family members from Charlotte had banded together to raise money for a reward fund. They'd also crafted a letter to North Carolina's then-governor to ask him for assistance in a private search. It seems Kit was really the tip of the spear with these endeavors, because by that point, she was very frustrated with everything. She told the Asheville Citizen Times that when she'd call investigators inquiring about the progress of the case, no one would call her back. She'd been told that there was nothing more authorities could do until additional information surfaced, which I have to imagine was extremely disheartening to hear. In the NPS's defense, though, the park's then-assistant chief ranger told the newspaper that despite Polly's case appearing to be inactive,

• 24:07Speaker 02

  he and other park staff were routinely checking areas near where she'd vanished. The problem was, they never found anything. When she disappeared, Polly had been wearing eyeglasses, a pink-and-white sleeveless shirt, tan slacks, and size 8.5 low-cut shoes. She didn't have a purse or jacket with her, and she also wasn't carrying any cigarettes, which, being that she was a chronic smoker, was a noteworthy detail. After she vanished, there was also no activity on any of her financial accounts, which is usually a bad sign in missing persons cases. So by the end of November 1982, more than two years into the investigation, the state of North Carolina formally announced a reward for information in the case. But even with that, things remained at a standstill.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Another decade went by, and in 1993, with still no answers about what happened to her sister, Kit wrote a letter to the editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel. In it, she emphasized that she still believed Polly was in the park somewhere. She was thankful journalists were continuing to keep the story alive, but of course, the pain of not knowing what happened was taxing for her and her family. An obituary I found for Kit from 2009 states that she eventually died at the age of 84. Unfortunately, she never got the answers about her sister's case that she so desperately sought. In the years after that, stories about Polly's disappearance routinely surfaced in news articles about Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but it was always lumped in with the other notorious missing persons cases

• 25:36Speaker 02

  from the Smokies that preceded hers: Dennis Martin, Tranny Lynn Gibson, and so forth. It was only decades after Polly was reported missing that more information about her life and the circumstances leading up to her disappearance emerged. And some of that information is very interesting.

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  One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene: a dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks. The couple that lived there had 21 kids.

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  It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.

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  Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.

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  Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.

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  That's the one time that we called the cops, because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun.

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  I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?

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  I'm Ava Kaufman. The Journey is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 27:37Speaker 02

  I want to briefly back up for just a minute, because context is so crucial in this particular case. In 1981, the Charlotte Observer reported that Polly was very involved in the Bryson City community in North Carolina. At least during the summer months, she was living there and not residing at her Florida home. Dot Jackson reported that the 58-year-old and her father Fred regularly attended Victory Baptist Church in Bryson City. And for about four years prior to her disappearance, she'd been volunteering with a hot meal program in the town which provided food to older adults in the community. Fast forward a few decades, though, and according to that blog, Unsolved Appalachia, it was Polly's volunteer work that became a new point of interest in her case. The coverage explains

• 28:21Speaker 02

  that normally, her daily routine involved going to where she and the other volunteers prepared the food and then passing the meals out to people who needed them. But for some reason, on September 25, 1981, the day she disappeared, Polly veered from her normal routine. She did not volunteer at the hot lunch program that day. Why? No one knows. But the reporting went on to explain that another anomaly occurred at the hot meal program right before September 25. Apparently, in the four years or so that Polly volunteered with that program, she'd never used the phone in the facility. However, on September 24, the day before she vanished, she reportedly placed several calls from that landline.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Who did she dial? How long did the calls last? Investigators were never able to answer these questions, because apparently, they were unable to figure out who was associated with the numbers she'd called. Shannon Ballard, the host of the Southern Mysteries podcast, reported at least one of the calls was believed to have gone to a local number, but beyond that, the calls were just a mystery. I don't know if the NPS just didn't try hard enough to track down the information, or if the phone records were lost, or if they just learned about the calls too late. But regardless, what stands out to me most about these calls is that they happened so close to when Polly vanished. As far as I can tell, it doesn't appear that anyone came forward and said, like, "Hey, I talked with her that day,"

• 29:49Speaker 02

  or, "Yeah, we chatted, and this isn't suspicious." One would think that if you were the person she'd spoken with, you'd let everyone know that. Author Juanita Baldwin, who co-wrote a book with Esther Grub titled Unsolved Disappearances in the Great Smoky Mountains, told WBIR TV that as part of her research, she'd interviewed some of Polly's surviving friends and gone through records that the Park Service had kept. After reviewing everything, she strongly suspected that Polly had chosen to vanish. She speculated that the 58-year-old had likely become exhausted with caring for her ailing husband and decided to start a new life. A potential clue that seemed to support Juanita's theory was the fact that way back in April 1982,

• 30:33Speaker 02

  someone had signed a check under the name Polly Melton, and it had been successfully cashed somewhere in Birmingham, Alabama. And if you'll remember, Polly's second husband, the one who died from throat cancer, was from Birmingham. And it was reported that up until his death in 1970, while they'd been married, she'd lived in Alabama. But investigators reportedly looked into this mysterious check, and it didn't go anywhere. Juanita Baldwin told WBIR that authorities could never prove if the handwriting was even Polly's. The blog post I mentioned earlier by Unsolved Appalachia stated that the whole check lead basically just ended up being one big dead end.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  So where does that leave us? Still in the unknown. Some intriguing details I found, though, about Polly and her life have to do with her and her previous husbands, and their loose connections to government work. Now, I'm not implying that there is a "there" there, but it's worth following the known facts for a minute. Polly's first husband, this guy named Earl Bozeman, worked for the US Army. Her second husband, a man named Tom McKeithen, was an administrator for a food services company, but he had a brother who was a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force. Census records show that Polly herself worked as a stenographer, and according to the host of Southern Mysteries podcast, she may have held a position at the Pentagon at some point.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Now, I wasn't able to corroborate that specific detail about her work history, so take it with a grain of salt. But then again, there isn't very much information out there about Polly's life or career prior to her disappearance. I know she didn't have any children, and because she'd been married three times, she'd gone by a few different last names. On top of that, her headstone and marriage records indicate her maiden name was actually Pauline Thelma McAllister. Yet in most of the coverage about her, she's usually referred to as either Thelma or Polly. If her disappearance was a situation where she chose to go missing to possibly reinvent herself, how would she have pulled that off alone? Why would she have done that at 58 years old?

• 32:42Speaker 02

  There are any number of questions we could ask, but the answers might always be a mystery. If Polly were still alive today, she'd be over 100 years old. It seems unlikely she's living, but regardless, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, also known as NAMIS, and the National Park Service still have her missing person profile up on their websites. They ask anyone with information or tips to contact Great Smoky Mountains National Park Headquarters in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Information for that office can be found in the show notes and blog post for this episode. If you find yourself hiking along the Deep Creek Trail anytime soon, remember this call-out. Maybe you might find something worth reporting.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  In the dark, even the most familiar trail can feel like it leads somewhere else. Every rustle becomes a warning, every shadow, a doorway. In Full Body Chills, those doorways open into worlds pulled straight from your nightmares. This spooky season classic returns with chillingly tales, immersive sound, and no promise that you'll find your way back. So step off the familiar path if you dare. Listen to new episodes of Full Body Chills every week, wherever you get your podcasts.