Man on a Mission (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

[0] On the night of June 17, 1977, Chuck Morgan, a father of four young girls, sped down a dark road outside of Tucson, Arizona, and as he drove, he constantly checked his rearview mirror to make sure no one was following him.

[1] Chuck was wearing a bulletproof vest, on his hip was a 357 magnum revolver, and in his pocket was one of his own teeth wrapped up in tissue paper.

[2] And by the end of that night, Chuck would drive his car way out into the desert off the road and become part of a mystery that has baffled investigators for almost 50 years.

[3] But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[4] So, if that's of interest to you, please replace the water in the Amazon Music Follow buttons Kuregg with water that has been sitting inside of a water gun outside all summer.

[5] Okay, let's get into today's story.

[6] I'm Dan Tibersky.

[7] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[8] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[9] What's the answer?

[10] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[11] Hysterical.

[12] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[13] Binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[14] On the morning of March 22nd, 1977, a 44 -year -old woman named Ruth Morgan rushed around her kitchen in the American city of 2020.

[15] Tucson, Arizona, like she did almost every day.

[16] Ruth was making sure her four daughters had everything they needed for school.

[17] As she did this, her girls all sat at the kitchen table eating their cereal and their father, Ruth's husband, 39 -year -old Chuck Morgan, sipped his coffee nearby.

[18] Ruth wished that Chuck would notice that she could really use some help right now getting the girl's stuff ready, but like he had been more and more recently, Chuck just seemed to be off in his own world.

[19] annoyed, Ruth opened the fridge, took out two lunches packed in paper bags, and handed them to her younger daughters, and then she grabbed two backpacks that were lying on the floor nearby, and she handed them to her older girls.

[20] Then a few minutes later, all four girls were hurrying out the door toward the car, with Ruth and Chuck following after them.

[21] As Chuck climbed into the driver's seat of their Mercury Cougar, Ruth, who was standing outside the car and would not be joining them, asked Chuck what time he'd be home from work.

[22] Chuck was going to drop the kids off and then go to his office.

[23] And for a second, Chuck didn't answer his wife.

[24] He just sat there looking totally exhausted.

[25] Chuck ran his own escrow company, which meant that his firm set up real estate deals between buyers and sellers to make sure the deals were conducted legally.

[26] And Tucson's real estate market was booming, so Chuck had been working a lot recently.

[27] Through the open car window, he turned and told Ruth that he was working on a huge deal so he didn't really know what time he'd be back.

[28] Ruth wished Chuck did not have to work so much, but she also knew that nothing she said could stop him.

[29] As long as she'd known him, Chuck had been incredibly driven to the point where sometimes Ruth worried about his health.

[30] He never took time off, and on the rare instances where he was not working, he didn't do things to relax, like watching TV or going and seeing his friends.

[31] Instead, it just seemed like Chuck bounced from one business deal or crisis to the next.

[32] And about once a year, he would push himself so hard with his work that he would basically have a nervous breakdown.

[33] At least that's what Ruth called it.

[34] And at that point, he would take a week off to recover, but that was it.

[35] The rest of the time, he basically worked 24 -7.

[36] But Ruth also knew that Chuck's insane work ethic and drive was definitely paying off.

[37] It had already made their family much more financially successful than they ever imagined possible.

[38] Chuck and Ruth had grown up in very modest household, and so now to be able to give their girls a comfortable upbringing was quite satisfying for the parents.

[39] And so on this typical Tuesday morning, Ruth did not push back on the possibility of Chuck needing to work late to finish this big deal.

[40] Instead, she just told him he looked great in his brown suit.

[41] She gave him a kiss and watched as he turned on the car, pulled out of the driveway, and headed off in the direction of the girls' school.

[42] That afternoon, the girls came home from school on their own power and Ruth sent them outside to play while she got dinner ready.

[43] She set a place at the table for the whole family, including Chuck, but when 6 o 'clock rolled around and Chuck was still not home, Ruth and the girls decided to just eat without him.

[44] And when Ruth got the girls bathed and into their pajamas and tucked them into their beds, Chuck was still not home.

[45] But Ruth was not worried.

[46] This really was kind of typical for Chuck.

[47] Chuck's real estate clients were mostly rich businessmen who were buying up land all across the state, and they wanted a lot for their money.

[48] They were always calling Chuck away for meetings out of town without any warning, and sometimes Chuck would be gone at these meetings for a couple of days at a time without any notice.

[49] And at the time, in 1977, there were no cell phones, and most people, including Ruth and her family, didn't have answering machines.

[50] And so when Ruth hadn't seen Chuck or heard from him, she just figured he must have tried calling the house earlier to let her know that he would indeed be out super late on this deal, but she just must have missed the call because she was out running errands, and so Chuck would just get back whenever he got back.

[51] So that night, Ruth went to bed alone, figuring that she would wake up and see Chuck in the morning, or at a minimum she would get a call the next day from Chuck to figure out where he was, what he was doing, and when to expect him home.

[52] But the next day, Chuck did not come home, and he didn't call.

[53] And it was the same story the next day.

[54] But again, Ruth had seen this behavior from Chuck before.

[55] It was rare, but Chuck did sometimes just kind of vanish for days at a stretch on certain deals.

[56] And so, at 2 a .m. on March 25th, three days after Ruth last saw Chuck or heard from Chuck, it was when he drove off to drop the girls at school, Ruth lay awake in her and Chuck's upstairs bedroom, trying to now convince herself that Chuck was fine, that everything was okay, that this was totally normal.

[57] But she now knew that this was officially the longest stretch of time she had ever gone without hearing from Chuck.

[58] And deep down, she started to feel like something had to be wrong.

[59] But as she lay there stressing out about all sorts of what -if scenarios, she heard the family dog barking downstairs.

[60] And instantly, Ruth let out a sigh of relief.

[61] The dog must be barking because Chuck was walking in the door.

[62] He was home.

[63] So Ruth climbed at a bed, she walked into the hallway, flipped on the light, and began heading downstairs.

[64] And as she descended the steps, she called out to Chuck, but no one answered.

[65] When she got to the first floor, there was still no answer, and the dog was now starting to bark even louder.

[66] And suddenly the hairs on Ruth's arms stood up.

[67] If Chuck wasn't home, why was the dog barking?

[68] What was going on?

[69] She dashed across the living room into the kitchen, she turned on the light, and saw the family dog up on its hind legs, pawing at the back door and barking.

[70] Ruth very slowly crept toward that door and pulled back the curtain that covered a small window on it and she looked outside.

[71] And what she saw took her breath away.

[72] It was Chuck.

[73] However, he was just standing there on the back step, not making any attempt to come in the house.

[74] And he had this crazed look on his face.

[75] And when he saw Ruth, he didn't react.

[76] He just stood there staring.

[77] Ruth had no idea what her husband was doing.

[78] She was just relieved that he was home.

[79] And so she reached down and fumbled with the lock, she opened the door, and frantically told Chuck to come in and tell her what was going on, where had he been?

[80] But once the door was open, Chuck kind of just staggered into the kitchen and literally fell into Ruth's arms.

[81] She dragged him across the room and put him in one of the kitchen chairs, and then once he was seated, Ruth finally got a good look at her husband, and she nearly screamed.

[82] Chuck's eyes were totally bloodshot like he hadn't slept in days, and his wrists were bound.

[83] with zip ties, and he had a plastic handcuff on one of his ankles.

[84] But what scared Ruth most of all was that Chuck still was just not speaking.

[85] She asked him again to tell her what was going on, but he just sat there silent, looking off into the distance.

[86] Ruth ran to a kitchen drawer and grabbed a knife, and then she rushed to Chuck and cut the ties around his wrists, and when Chuck's hands were free, he finally began to communicate with Ruth, but not with words, instead with hand gestures.

[87] He motioned towards a notepat and pen sitting on the counter nearby, and so Ruth, understanding what he was asking for, reached over and grabbed the pen and paper and handed them to Chuck.

[88] And as he wrote, Ruth, who was now kind of hovering over his shoulder, couldn't believe the words on the paper.

[89] When Chuck was done, Ruth ran to the phone and said they had to call 911 right now.

[90] But at this, Chuck banged on the table and shook his head at her to stop.

[91] Then, in huge letters on the pad, he told Ruth that if they called the cops, their whole family would be killed.

[92] Ruth moved away from the phone and started crying.

[93] Chuck began to stand up and Ruth instinctively grabbed him and supported him on her shoulder and then just walked him upstairs to their bedroom where he lay down and fell asleep almost instantly.

[94] And after he was asleep, Ruth, not knowing what else to do, just did a quick check of the girls and was very relieved to see that none of them had woken up to the commotion of their father returning, then Ruth headed back to her own bedroom and laid down next to Chuck, but she didn't shut her eyes.

[95] Instead, she lay awake trying to figure out what the heck just happened and what she was going to do about it.

[96] On the notepad, Chuck had written that he'd been kidnapped and tortured for two days before managing to escape and that now his throat was coated with a hallucinogenic drug that made it impossible for him to talk and could maybe even kill him if he ingested it.

[97] It should be noted here that we don't really know if he meant the drug was painted inside of his throat or if it was painted on the outside of his neck.

[98] We just don't know.

[99] The whole thing just seemed totally insane and so Ruth, as she lay there, started to wonder if maybe this was one of Chuck's annual nervous breakdowns from overworking.

[100] But if it was, then this was the most bizarre far and extreme breakdown she had ever seen.

[101] If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good, you are a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious.

[102] And if that's the case, then I've got some good news.

[103] We just launched a brand new Strange Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[104] And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome.

[105] In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.

[106] Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

[107] Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a prime member, you can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[108] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[109] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[110] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[111] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[112] She's like, I can't.

[113] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[114] It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

[115] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[116] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[117] Well, you were holding something back.

[118] Intentionally.

[119] Yeah, yeah.

[120] Well, yeah.

[121] No, it's hysteria.

[122] It's all in your head.

[123] It's not physical.

[124] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[125] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[126] Or is it something else entirely?

[127] Something's wrong.

[128] here.

[129] Something's not right.

[130] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[131] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[132] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[133] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

[134] It took almost a week for Chuck to recover from whatever had happened to him, and during that time, he only communicated with Ruth via notes on a notepad.

[135] Again, he was convinced there was a drug painted either on or in his throat that he had to avoid ingesting, and so not talking was his solution.

[136] At the beginning of this recovery week, Ruth asked Chuck lots of questions about where he had been and what had happened, but again, she got virtually no answers from him.

[137] And so pretty early on in that week, Ruth just began focusing on nursing her husband back to health, which included giving him water through an eyedropper, because he had written that if he drank too much liquid at one time, this hallucinogenic drug coating his throat might activate and attack his nervous system.

[138] Finally, after that week of recovery was up and Chuck got out of bed and started talking again, Ruth now demanded answers about this whole crazy situation.

[139] But nothing Chuck said to her made any sense.

[140] Chuck told Ruth that owning his escrow business was not his only job.

[141] In addition to his escrow business, he was actually an undercover agent for the U .S. Treasury Department.

[142] The Treasury Department is a federal agency that investigates financial crimes.

[143] Chuck didn't say who had kidnapped him, but he said they knew he had information that could send them to prison for a long time.

[144] As Ruth listened to what her husband was saying, she simply didn't believe him.

[145] Instead, she thought this really had to be one of his big annual nervous breakdowns and that eventually he would just snap out of this and be normal Chuck again.

[146] And so when Chuck insisted that Ruth not tell anyone what he had told her about his real identity and the trouble he had now gotten into, Ruth didn't really care and said, fine, I won't tell anyone.

[147] But over the next couple of months, Chuck did not snap out of it.

[148] He did not become normal Chuck.

[149] Instead, his mental state seemed to get worse and worse.

[150] He started wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a 357 magnum revolver, which is a very powerful pistol whenever he left the house.

[151] He also bought a special belt that could conceal a knife in the buckle, and he grew a big thick beard to disguise his face.

[152] He was also convinced that someone had bugged their home phone, so he started to leave the house and go to pay phones whenever he had to make calls.

[153] And whenever Ruth, who was now becoming very seriously concerned for her husband, asked him what was going on or what he was so scared of, he would just tell her the less she knew, the safer she'd be.

[154] On the morning of June 7th, so about two and a half months after Chuck had stumbled in their back door, insisting he had been kidnapped and drugged, Ruth wound up driving the girls to school that morning.

[155] When she left, Chuck told her he would be going to his office that day.

[156] After Ruth left, Chuck headed to a payphone near their house and called his staff, informing them that he would be there in about a half an hour.

[157] But he never showed up.

[158] And eventually, someone from his staff called the police.

[159] Even though Ruth had done what her husband had asked and had not gone to police or told anyone about his strange behavior, she couldn't help but feel incredibly relieved when she heard that the Tucson police had put out a missing person alert for Chuck.

[160] However, when the police spoke to her, she opted to continue keeping Chuck's secret, mostly because she was worried if she told them what he told her, they would think he was crazy or dangerous.

[161] And so all she told police was that she was just very worried about him and hoped he would come home soon.

[162] Nine days later, on the night of June 16th, Chuck had still not been found, he was still missing, no one knew where he was, and this night Ruth was home, she was sitting on the couch, staring at the television, but she wasn't really watching it.

[163] Her mind was wandering, wondering where the heck her husband was, and she couldn't help but think that something terrible had happened to him.

[164] And as she sat there staring blankly at the TV, the phone rang in the kitchen.

[165] And suddenly, Ruth felt a jolt of energy, thinking maybe it was Chuck.

[166] And so she ran to the kitchen, she answered the phone, but instead of hearing her husband's voice, she heard a woman's voice that she didn't recognize.

[167] And in a quiet voice, the strange woman said, Ruthie, Chuck is all right.

[168] Ecclesiasties 12, 1 through 8.

[169] Then the woman hung up.

[170] Ruth just stood there for a second, holding the phone to her ear listening to the dial tone.

[171] Now she was even more confused.

[172] Was this some sign that Chuck really was an undercover agent for the Treasury Department?

[173] And this woman maybe worked with him there?

[174] And maybe she was like his handler.

[175] And maybe she was now reaching out to Ruth with some code.

[176] I mean, Ruth had no idea.

[177] But at least now, Ruth had a clue about what happened to her husband.

[178] She had this Bible passage, Ecclesiastes 12, 1 through 8.

[179] So Ruth hung up the phone and ran to a bookshelf in the living room.

[180] She stretched up to reach the top shelf and she grabbed her family Bible and then Ruth rushed with the Bible to the couch.

[181] She sat down and flipped through the pages until she got to the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verses 1 through 8.

[182] Ruth read the verses but she didn't understand what they could possibly have to do with Chuck.

[183] They read in part quote, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road.

[184] him before the silver cord is severed and the golden bowl is