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Get started risk-free at greenlight.com slash Wondery. How are you doing tonight, Aaron? I'm doing better now that I'm hearing from you, Justin. Awesome. Do we have any announcements today?

Yes, I don't know if anybody's heard, but I am definitely going to be at the True Crime Podcast Festival this year in Boston, Massachusetts. That's July 18th through the 20th. Again, 2025. It's the only festival that brings together true crime creators, experts, and advocates to promote compassion, empathy, and respect. Use my code GENY20 for 20% off. Grab your spot now. Go to True Crime Podcast Festival and let me know if you're coming. I'd love to meet you.

So Aaron, tonight's case is one that went pretty viral, at least in the YouTube community. It's been talked about a lot with fellow YouTubers, podcasts. It is a disappearance and a weird mystery. I feel like this one has really gone off the rails and we'll talk about that later. But what are we talking about tonight?

Tonight, we're talking about the disappearance of Kenny Veach in November of 2014 in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. And yeah, he was a well-known YouTuber, had a fascinating channel. He loved adventure. He was a well-known hiker, seemed to have many talents, even an inventor. Yeah, we'll get into it. But he invented a spring action toilet roll replacement thing. And I'm like, I would have bought that. Yeah.

Well, you know what? It's so funny. You don't think we need a new invention for certain products, but I'll tell you what, you can always improve things. So he was born November 20th, 1966 in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada. And according to him, he'd been single for the majority of his life, but had a daughter, Victoria Veach, who was 23 years old at the time of his disappearance.

He also had a girlfriend named Sherian Pilgrim at the time that he went missing. Sherian said she used to go on hikes with him. They used to go on hikes together because obviously this is his passion. And they would go in the desert, which obviously they're in Vegas, so it's a lot of harsh desert climate there. But it is beautiful too. So she said that sometimes they would go on hikes that would last nine hours or

But Mike would do solo hikes by himself. She referred to it as wild hiking. And I have to say this, Aaron, wild hiking has a lot of different interpretations, but technically wild hiking is you're not exactly following any type of trail. You're just walking.

Going off trail, going wherever you want. And that's kind of the way I've interpreted what wild hiking means as far as everyone that talks about it online. And I would say, as we go through the story, you might find that that is the term and the definition that they would use as well. Because, well, yeah, we'll get to it.

But the pair had met seven years earlier at a country western dance hall, and they started dating. And, you know, she described him as her best friend. She said she felt like a kid when she was around Kenny. He had a lighthearted and fun-loving spirit and liked pranks and jokes. This really does come through on his videos, though, because he's always smiling. He's always making everything fun.

And his girlfriend said he was an amazing hiker as far as distance. He used to pride himself on how far he could hike, how far he could go without water. Have to jump in here, though. You have to take water with you and you have to stay hydrated because especially out in a desert, it can be very unforgiving. That's how many people have lost their lives just running out of water.

Sherian described herself as a safe hiker. She said Kenny took a lot of risks. He liked to rough it, he would say, and that's where he would go longer without water, and he would not really pay attention to where he was going. He would just keep going.

Yeah, playing with rattlesnakes and exploring caves that could

could have snakes coyotes and other critters in there that can bite you doesn't sound like my cup of tea but he enjoyed it and in some of the videos that i saw that you know he would shoot while he was hiking yeah he looked like he just put shoes or boots on jeans a shirt flannel shirt over it and he would just go he seemed very lightly dressed for a lot of occasions

Now, I know you don't have to be completely decked out with all of the things for a short hike, but this man would go on hikes that were all day, like 10, 20 mile hikes. I couldn't do that without water. I couldn't do that without the proper equipment myself. Yeah. And I'm thinking about these mine shafts too. They say that's one of the most dangerous things you can do because, you know, they were manmade as they say, and no one's been maintaining them. So that's a huge risk.

But again, if you like to live on the edge, you'll do these things. You know, his girlfriend, she's saying she would go down into some of these caves or mines, but she had to see the light. She had to have an eye on the entrance. She said, if there was a shallow point where I could just go down into it and I could still see the entrance, I'm good. But she would let Kenny go on ahead and explore away, but she would not go any deeper than that.

And I don't blame her. I think that's possibly a claustrophobia thing and just a, in general, safety for oneself. Well, Kenny's YouTube channel was Snakebit McGee. He started it in 2014, where he detailed his love of hiking in the Nevada deserts. He'd film himself climbing mountains and camping, and he'd bring back relics, old fossils, old cans, uniquely shaped rocks and dried plums.

plant life to decorate his home with. This is another thing he'd pride himself on is his decorating skills. So he'd been hiking and collecting things from his adventures since he was in his 20s, but the YouTube channel started in 2014.

In a video titled, Handsome Cowboy Sells Himself With His Home, published September 2, 2014, Kenny explained that he was looking to sell his house to somebody, but wanted to continue living there, cooking, cleaning, and caring, essentially being a caregiver to whomever lived there.

This can be interpreted as he's struggling financially. He needs money, so he's going to sell his house, but he needs a place to live too. So, hey, come by my house and I will continue living here and help you. He essentially says that, I forgot her name from the Brady Bunch, the lady, the housemaid. He's like, I'll be her. He showed how everything in the house was made by hand.

and had a significance to the history of the local area. He highlighted how important it was to him to be creative and learn new skills in order to create new pieces in his home, like leather curtains and accessories. He also was into antiques and only bought pieces for his home that had a backstory to them. He was house-proud, always commenting on how pristine he kept his living space.

Well, you know, we're going to get a bunch of messages now where people will tell you her name, the woman from the Brady Bunch. What was her name? Why are you asking me? I didn't watch the show.

But I'm saying, I know there will be people who write into us and thankfully so that way I can pass that on to you and let you know what her name was, because I know you're not going to remember to look it up. But yeah, I think this is definitely having to do with his financials because he doesn't want to lose his home. He also doesn't want his home changed. So if he continues to live there, someone else owns it, but he's the one taking care of everything.

He can maintain the house the way he wants pretty much, I would guess. So that's the dream is keep the home. Yeah, he gets a roommate essentially or someone else owns it, but then he can keep his home up the way he wants.

Yeah. Which I don't know how well of an idea, because if, if I'm buying your house, it's, it's my house now and I'm going to decorate it the way I want it. And you can clean up after me because I'm the one that owns the house. So it's, I, again, I think it's, he's feeling pressure, financial pressures, and he's trying to keep his life in whatever way he can.

Yeah, and he wasn't getting any traction on selling the house. And I think it's because of these things that he mentioned in the sale. People are going to want to come in and change it. They may not like the aesthetic. And so, yeah, it held him back. But I mean, he was all in on this idea. So he had been working as a service technician for a coffee company for 17 years. And he decided to leave that job. He told him he was done.

And this all happened about a year before he went missing. And it's just, he wanted to take some chances, not only with the hiking, but in his personal life. So he wanted to be an inventor. He wanted to go out on his own, be his own person. And another thing he thought about doing was

buying homes or working on homes, transforming them, giving them his style. And of course, like I said, inventing was very, very important to him. It was one of his passions. Yeah. You said, I've worked for corporations and companies and I've reached a point in my life where I want to do it my way. I want to live my life the way I see fit and not make money for other people. I can still make money for people, but my way. And actually had a friend that did this exact same job. He

He had to go around to convenience stores and whomever had rented or bought their coffee machines, and he would have to maintenance them. And it was kind of a grueling job because most of these convenience stores would be hours and hours apart. So he might only service one or two in a day, but he would have four to six hours of, as he called it, windscreen time driving from one location to another.

So it's not, I guess, not the most inspiring job. But for me, I think a day job can pay the bills so you can do your dreams and your hobbies. And I think he might have been a little premature on quitting his job.

I don't know. I could see, and maybe our audience could chime in, but I feel like there are people out there who have improved their lives by taking that chance and saying, look, I've got some skills. I've got some talent. I have my dreams. If I keep working here, then I'm losing time on doing what I want to do.

Anyway, with Kenny Veach, he had money saved. He wanted to open his own decorating company, Cowboy Design. He was also a fan of Shark Tank. I'm sure we've all seen that show. And he wanted to sell some of his inventions he had been making in his free time.

He made a promo video for it, and it's October 18, 2014. He published this submission video where he teased some of his inventions, including a laser tag gun, a redneck whistle, a new improved toilet roll holder, which is what I liked, and a bunch of t-shirt designs.

Obviously, this didn't get a lot of traction, and to my knowledge, he was not asked to be on Shark Tank. I will say that his video, as much as I enjoyed watching it, it's a little all over the place. I don't want to use the word manic or anything, but he's just kind of sporadic in jumping from one topic to the next. And if they would have asked him to be on Shark Tank, it would have been...

Because it would have been like, oh, this is somebody we can kick off and maybe make fun of or something because he doesn't have an organized business plan here. I've seen it with American Idol where they bring on people where they think they can just, you know, be dismissive of them. And it's kind of a I personally don't think it's a very nice thing to do. But I enjoyed watching his video. I would think if they ended up having him on, it's because he's got quite the personality.

So even if they didn't intend to help him, he would be kind of fun to have on. But, you know, these inventions aren't taking off. But there is something that happened on his YouTube that did take off. And in late 2014, Kenny left a comment under a YouTube video titled, Son of an Area 51 Technician. This video allegedly featured the son of an Area 51 technician talking about things his father had told him while intoxicated, while he was drunk.

And this comment, this video has since been deleted, but there are screenshots of it online. And here's Kenny's comment. That ain't nothing. I am a long distance hiker. One time during one of my hikes out by Nellis Air Force Base, I found a hidden cave. The entrance to the cave was shaped like a perfect capital M. I always enter every cave I find. But as I began to enter this particular cave, my whole body began to vibrate.

The closer I got to the cave entrance, the worse the vibrating became. Suddenly, I became very scared and hightailed it out of there. That was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me. Now, this comment got the interest of a lot of people, and so a lot of people started encouraging him to go out and find the cave again, to document it, upload it to his channel so people could check it out. And, you know, right here, I'm going to tell you, this is a guy who would go on wild hikes, and so if he found this cave...

The question was, could he find it again?

And people are questioning, okay, you go into every cave. Why didn't you go into this one? Well, he said he tried, but something prevented him. His body was vibrating. Now, of course, the internet's going to do what the internet's going to do. And they're either going to say, you're lying, you're making this up, or they're going to go down crazy conspiracy rabbit holes of there was an active denial system set up because that cave is a draconian.

direct route to Area 51 and they are preventing anyone from going through that cave. The rumors fly at this point. That's true. And you know, Area 51, I'm sure most, if not everyone has heard of this, but it's supposedly where the government has a lot of secrets, a lot of top secret aircraft being developed and tested out there.

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At this point, people are questioning him, making snarky comments towards him. And they're saying that cave doesn't exist and all of your hiking videos are fake because that's what everyone says on YouTube is your video is fake. And Kenny is being very, to me, he's being very professional and kind. And he's like, no, I do go on these hikes.

And just because I don't videotape 10 hours of my hike doesn't mean it's fake, but he's like, I'm going to find this cave and I'm going to prove you all wrong. October 18th, 2014, Kenny Veach uploaded a now infamous video titled M Cave Hike. This is the most popular video on his channel, which at the time of this writing sits at more than 3.7 million views. This is the cave that Kenny would go missing while allegedly searching for. It's,

Apparently located up in the mountains north of Las Vegas, many have claimed to have worked out a rough location of the cave, and there's even a Reddit post about this, but the official location remains a mystery, though Kenny had claimed the area he was in was referred to as the Sheep Range.

It lies in both Clark and Lincoln counties in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And the mountain peaks at 9,912 feet above sea level. So when you are hiking up there, the air can get a little thin. It can get pretty hot and dry. And at night, it can get really cold. It is pretty treacherous for

most amateur hikers. At least for myself, I would not want to go here. So at the beginning of this video, Kenny is standing next to the top of a mine in a canyon. He's dressed in stone-colored hiking gear with black knee pads and a bucket hat.

He points to a mountain range in the background of the shot and says that he left his vehicle way out there by the mountains at the very end of the valley. There are no roads or trails. Kenny says it's rough. He explains on the other side of the mountains is the Nellis Air Force Base bombing range. So he knows he's in the right area. He'd hiked in this area twice before, explaining that he had planned to do a 10-hour hike to find a specific cave that spooked him out the last time he was there. This is the M Cave.

The cave, he said, was west towards Mount Charleston, and to reach it, he would walk over a mountain, down into a canyon, and veer west. It's said that he didn't have a compass with him, but said he knew where he was simply by the canyons, mountains, ridges, all of the landmarks and orientation of where he was. There's questions here, Aaron, where he has a map on him, and people are like, why is he checking the map if he knows where he is? And I'm just thinking, everyone...

check some map just to orient themselves and to know which direction they want to head off in. But in this video, he said that he brought food and water. He tried to act as if he had no supplies to see how far he could get in the future if he ever found himself in a situation without supplies, which I don't know, Aaron, that's kind of a... I know he brought food and water, but it seems like he might have been not bringing enough, do you think?

Yeah, I don't know how to take this. It's possibly didn't bring enough because bringing enough water will slow you down. It's a lot more weight on you. But the problem is, again, you need to have hydration. And even in this video, he's claiming, oh, I've only had two gulps of water. That's not a good idea. But, you know, you can't make him do it the right way. And this is 14 minutes into the video. But this video started probably, I don't know, an hour. I'm just gasping.

guesstimating to get to this cave or this mine where he started the video. And then he's gone on another 15 minutes-ish where he says he hasn't eaten anything and he's taken two gulps of water. We don't know how much he's actually drank. Maybe he's just trying to act like a tough guy, but he's already been hiking. To me, if he's telling the truth here, it's not a good start to this hike. Yeah, and also in this video, he

he points out his pistol that he has hanging from his belt, saying that the last time he was there, he really felt uneasy and he didn't have the gun with him. So knowing that he was heading back, he was going to bring the gun with him. And he said he would have to go over another ridge before reaching a crevice that was narrow and kind of scary. Describing the cave, he said, sorry,

something about that cave just spooked me. Out of all the caves I've ever gone in, this one made my body vibrate. The closer I got to it, the crazier my body felt. And I was like, all right, I'm not going in there right now, but I'm coming back someday. So this is where a lot of speculation begins. People are wondering, is his vibrating, is that tied to feeling the effects of subterranean seismic activity or subterranean rumbling? That's when

rumbling starts in the ground before an earthquake? Or is it during earthquake seismic wave motion that can reach the air and actually be heard as a low sound? I mean, is there an earthquake happening or what? But some people are wondering if it could be just a sixth sense telling him that there's danger nearby, like an animal. Dr.

Spidey sense. Yeah. Kenny's Spidey sense. You know, and like I said, I, I'm pretty sure there's coyotes and other critters out there that can harm you. So he feels better having a gun on them. There is not a lot of other hikers or human activity in this area. And Kenny speculated that there were likely mountain lions, birds, snakes. And although he hadn't seen any on previous trips, uh,

He knows that these animals exist out here. He did see a tarantula and a desert tortoise and a large mountain goat, which even a mountain goat could be kind of scary. Yeah, and you can see him handling rattlesnakes in a video. Apparently he loved them. According to his girlfriend, Kenny had been bitten by one in the past and ended up in the hospital afterwards.

And he

And he did say that the cave was low, like lower to the ground. So he could walk past it and not notice it. It wasn't like up and above and this grandiose thing. There's caves all over this area. And he's walking by many in these videos. So, you know, dozens of caves. And he's like, that's not it. That's not it. And he's like, and I don't want to miss it because I could walk by it. So it doesn't seem like it's,

huge, like the size of, I don't know, a city bus or anything. It seems to be maybe the size large enough for a person to go into it, but that's about it from the way he explained it. So he went on to what he described as a long, second long, twisting and winding canyon, which he said he would have to follow as it became increasingly narrow, eventually leading to cliffs that

that he would have to climb down. It gets a little hairy, he said of the route. The environment then turned to flat desert again. Now, of course, he couldn't recall the exact location of the M Cave, but knew the general vicinity of it. Again, wild hike. He's just wandering. Now he's trying to find something he'd seen before. And like you said, he's passing along these other caves. And he said, hey, if you come out to this area, talking to his audience, there are a lot of caves that you can go spelunking in. And he said there are

a ton of small caves, in fact. And he said what set the M cave apart from the others was it was deep, dark, and level with the ground.

But what happened here, Justin, at the end of this video? Well, he keeps walking around and he doesn't locate the M cave and disappointed. He says he's going to return to his truck and later uploaded the video to the channel and viewers asked him to try again in the comment section. You know, this was very disappointing for him, I guess, because he's, he couldn't find this cave and that was his whole thing. But,

He vowed he would go back and try again. And underneath that comment, someone named Lemmy Kilmister warned. They said, no, do not go back there. If you find that cave entrance, don't go in. You won't get out.

Now, I don't know if this person's name is any kind of reference to Motorhead, but they're giving Kenny a warning. Now, if nothing were to happen with this story, Aaron, that would just be another internet troll saying, don't go back there, you know, it's going to be dangerous. But something does happen here. And that's, I guess, why this one internet comment feels very foreboding and like...

It was definitely a warning to Kenny. Yeah. And a lot is made over this video trying to say that too many people were pushing Kenny to go back despite not finding the cave because they needed to see it. They needed to know more.

I take issue with this. People are curious. And Kenny's the one that already has taken many risks. This is just another risk. I mean, for Kenny, it's business as usual. Don't you agree? Yeah. But at the same time, he was kind of pushing the envelope here with, I don't need to bring that much food and water just in case I'm ever caught out here without it. And then he plays with rattlesnakes and he goes into strange caves and

And of course, the internet, they just want more and more and more. Go big, go big. And Kenny is going to oblige. Yeah, and the night before he heads out on this other hike, he and his girlfriend, Sherry Ann, they went to go see a movie. The movie was Birdman, which starred Michael Keaton, who was in the role of Riggan Thompson, a washed-up Hollywood actor who was famous for his role of a character named Birdman. Now, I don't want to get into this movie too much, but it does have...

Yeah. And she said that he kind of struggled with depression and other things. So she was just wanting to show him how much she cared.

Now, she says that he was supposed to leave at 6 a.m. that morning and return after two or three nights. So early morning start, and she's not expecting to hear from him for at least three days, maybe four.

That's a long hike, especially if he's packing light. But again, this is what he does. She's not too worried about him, but he doesn't return. He doesn't show back up. And so his girlfriend reported him missing to police and a search of the road where he was known to have driven up and park his vehicle was performed.

His car was found by the Red Rock Search and Rescue team three miles along the trailhead near Corn Creek Road. There were no signs of a struggle or anything that appeared to be foul play. The vehicle was on all fours and working just fine, so they just assumed that he parked it there and went on his hike. The Red Rock Search and Rescue team searched the surrounding area and

And outside the mineshaft in Kenny's MK video, they found his cell phone and some coins that were around this mineshaft. And this mineshaft is kind of where most of his videos started. And people think, well, why would he leave his phone and some coins outside of this mineshaft unless he wanted them to be found or missing?

Maybe he didn't want to lose his phone in the mineshaft in case he fell or something. I don't know.

So this hike started November 10th, and like his girlfriend said, was supposed to begin around 6 a.m. So many people were following this case, including Kenny's sister-in-law, and they all found it strange that the coins and the cell phone looked as though they were just placed there and left. Sherian believes Kenny may have left it there to avoid being tracked by the GPS on his phone because she thinks he went there with the intention of not coming back.

Think about it. You know, if he's supposed to go find this cave and document it, well, he doesn't have a video camera and now he doesn't have a cell phone. So that's one theory, right? Red Rock search and rescue commander Dave Cummings told News 3, we found his cell phone close to a very vertical old mine shaft and we can't find another trail. It doesn't mean he's down the mine shaft, but we have tracked him as far as we can.

We are having our other crews come in from the search areas. This is no joke. Again, very remote area. He can leave his vehicle out there. No problem because there probably isn't going to be another human coming along unless they're looking for him. And so it's not easy to just go out there and search for days and days because it takes a toll on people that are searching. So they feel like they've searched as best they can. They can't find him. So they're going to pull the crews back.

They did send a specialist team, the Henderson Fire Department, down the mine shaft. They didn't find anything. Kenny's sidearm, camping gear, backpack were missing from his home and were not found during this desert search. His spelunking gear was unaccounted for also. So they assume he has all of this on his person.

But they do search his home, and Kenny's family members allowed police to go in, look through all of his stuff, looking for clues pertaining to his disappearance. And as well as several journals and poems discussing his depression and frustrations, police found the words, helped me, typed out more than 50 times on his computer.

They take all of this in and they're listening to his girlfriend, they're listening to his family members. They're thinking he might have been depressed. They're thinking he might have planned this, but they don't have a lot of clues yet. Besides, I personally think the help me, help me typed out 50 times is kind of a big clue. Yeah.

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So this is where things sort of fall off. Except in July of 2018, a man broke into the Enchanted Forest Reiki Center on South Jones Boulevard in Las Vegas. Now, there is video from the security camera in the business that shows it being broken into. This business was owned by a woman named Debbie, who was the wife of Kenny's brother, Ray. Susan Veach said she watched the security footage of the break-in

and says she instantly recognized the man in the footage as the missing Kenny Veach. So she called Kenny's daughter and stayed on the line while she viewed the footage, saying, She later said she was unsure if the man in the footage truly was Kenny, and Kenny's brother said Kenny didn't know about the store.

I'm going to let you describe the break-in, Justin, but right here, you just don't know if people are saying that's Kenny, people who know him, because they kind of want it to be. And maybe the person in the footage is similar enough.

I watched the video many times. It's very short. It lasts approximately 42 seconds. The man is entering through a window. He scrambles around the counter. He does kind of look for something in particular. He ends up grabbing like an iPad or something. And then as he starts to leave, he drops something on the floor. And before picking it up, he actually grabs

his knee specifically, like he's in pain. And it's essentially theorized that he's possibly feeling around the desk for a firearm or a key or drawer to a safe, and then he jets out. But this moment, Aaron, where he stops and grabs his knee like he's in pain, this is a clue here. This is very much going to be

be a hint to whether or not this is Kenny, besides the fact that we have his family member saying, yeah, that looks like my dad. I think that's him. But when you look at the video, it's kind of night vision. And when you look at a photo or a video of Kenny, to me, it's just, it could be two similar looking white guys. But it does seem a little interesting that this shop does belong to a family member, somebody that he might know.

And even his own daughter is like, that looks like my dad. But you're saying that him grabbing or motioning as if there's something wrong with his leg, that's a clue. Yeah, apparently he had injured his leg or knee on a previous hike and needed to be rescued.

Yeah, he actually would boast about that. They only needed rescuing one time. So according to both Kenny's daughter and former girlfriend, Kenny would record everything he did. And so they say that's why it's so odd that he didn't record himself in or around the M cave if he had found it that third time.

Kenny's sister-in-law Susan Veach has a theory of her own. She believed Kenny's channel was another one of his money-spinning ideas, and that his lack of footage of the M-Cave, the story he said about the cave being spooky or scary in nature, and him saying that he would return with a gun, gave off big production vibes.

She admitted that she felt disappointed and angry at the idea that Kenny may have planned to voluntarily go missing and allowed search and rescue resources to be used looking for him, not to mention the anguish it caused his daughter and other loved ones. So that's one idea that this was all about the production. But does that necessarily mean that he meant to go missing? Because Kenny's brother doesn't believe Kenny would leave his daughter.

He did acknowledge that Kenny was depressed. After posting the MK video, Kenny's social media began to get way more attention, way more followers. And Susan Veach believed Kenny could have orchestrated the whole thing. Although since he had never been heard from again, it's difficult to see how he could have benefited from all of this.

Kenny's daughter theorized that her father may have wanted to live off-grid and said if he was determined to do so, that he would be able to keep a low profile and his outdoor skills would have allowed him to at least survive for long periods of time off-grid. So she's saying it's possible for him to have done this and lived off-grid or disappeared.

Yeah, she also noted that he was in low spirits leading up to his disappearance because usually when they talked, he was upbeat and they had some excited chats, as she put it. His girlfriend also said that Kenny told her he was depressed. Now, depression ran in the family and Kenny's own father had taken his own life when Kenny was in his early 20s. She said Kenny had said he had thoughts of and about suicide ever since.

He told me if he did decide to do it, he would never do it in his house and that nobody would ever find him. She said, I believe that Kenny actually used his gun.

This is pretty sad. And it's just, it's a fact of life that any one of us or a good portion of us can be depressed at times. And it really feels like Kenny had all these dreams and he took all these risks and it wasn't really panning out. He never got the success that he was searching for. There was a episode called

Real Life Nightmare, where retired Los Angeles Metro Police Detective Dan Hawley talks about Kenny's disappearance and he says, many people go to secluded areas to take their lives. It's embarrassing to them and they don't want to burden others with their suicide. And so this is a theory that he went out into the desert with no intention of returning.

But his family, at least his brother and daughter, don't believe he took his own life. But perhaps he took risks he shouldn't have, became dehydrated, confused, maybe got bit by a snake, maybe got injured, and died out in the desert due to, I guess, natural circumstances and not taking of his own life.

Yeah, and this becomes a thing. You know, it depends on what camp you fall in. Do you fall into the brother and daughter camp where it was probably an accident or the risks became too great? Or do you fall into the camp of his girlfriend? There's a comment attributed to her. It definitely has her name, but there's no way to prove it was actually her making the comment explaining that she was Kenny's girlfriend at the time he went missing and said this.

I am the girlfriend that Kenny spoke of in the video. There are so many posts. I had no idea until a friend let me know. So many people are wondering what happened and guessing different things. You are heartfelt about the sadness around what has happened with Kenny. He has not been found and I feel that he probably will not be found for many, many months, if ever. I want to share what I know and feel about what happened so that you might bring some closure and understanding in your own lives.

Kenny absolutely loved hiking in the desert. It was his very, very favorite thing to do. We hiked and camped together all over the Nevada desert, sometimes nine hours in a day. We found many abandoned mining towns, usually referred to as ghost towns, by Nevada hikers. We explored many caves and mine shafts. We were always careful how we explored them, but Kenny was a bit more daring than I was. We wore snake guards, sun-protected clothing, used walking sticks, brought enough water and food for the hiking hours, and we went to the

and had extra water food in the car. And she went on to say he rarely drank all his water. We took wonderful pictures of all sorts of things we saw, rusted cars, old falling down buildings, cemeteries, mines, wild animals, tarantulas, scorpions, trees, cactus, and flowers. Our deserts are beautiful if you have a love for deserts.

They are not spooky scary, but you do have to be careful of the terrain and, of course, bring enough water and food. We always were excited when we saw desert wildlife like the bighorn sheep in the video. They are stunningly beautiful to see in person in our desert. We would stand quietly still to watch them as long as possible. I was so very excited to see the one he filmed in his video. I want you to know that I do not think Kenny had an accident, and these are her words,

I believe he committed suicide. He battled depression for many years and would not take medication or see a doctor. He quit his job a little more than a year before he disappeared. He wanted to see if he could sell his inventions and do what he called cowboy interior design for homes. He bought his first home five years ago and had an amazing ability of decorating in this style. He was not successful in getting a business going and was running out of money after a year of not working. He no longer wanted to work in a job for someone else

And as his money decreased, he became more and more depressed. He really did not look for another job. In early October, with seeing his depression increase, I said to him, you aren't going to pull a Robin Williams on me, are you? This is when he opened up more about his depression and his thoughts much of his life about suicide. His father committed suicide when Kenny was in his early 20s. When I asked him the question, he answered me with, if I decide to do it, you will be okay because you are good at the law of allowing.

He asked me what I would think of him if he did it. He also said if he decided to do it, no one will ever find me. It would be easy to do something like this in our desert with the number of natural caves and mines. He could hike many miles in a day, so there is no telling where or how far he could have hiked during his three-day, two-night solo hike. When he did not call me after the third day of being gone, I called missing persons. The search for him was started within a couple of days of my call.

Over 30 search and rescue team members searched three different times on foot. One helicopter flyover was done, and there was no trace of Kenny or any of his camping things. They found his car in the area I told them it would be. They did find his cell phone by the mine shaft in the video. The mine shaft was only about a four-hour hike from his car. Now, she goes on to talk about how she believes he left his phone behind because it had GPS on it.

And she also talks about how he didn't bring his video camera with him. It was left at home. She said, this is proof he didn't intend to film anything. And I guess she posted all this because she wants everyone to understand how well she knew him and how she trusted him as in he's probably not going to die from an accident. If he doesn't come back, it's because he doesn't want to come back. And she has reasons why he wouldn't, you know?

So anyway, she does close this out saying, if you're going to go out there, you would need to have two or three days out there to hike and everything. But that's not going to happen.

but there's a lot of heat out there, so you need to bring enough water. So she's encouraging people, bring water. And she also talked about her experiences with Kenny saying, she will always remember them and have a place of love in her heart for him and the things they did together. She said she's healing from the loss and looking forward to new experiences with desert hiking, camping, and taking beautiful pictures of the desert. She closes with, enjoy your adventures of life and thank you for the kind, loving comments sent my way. Much love, Sharon.

Yeah. I mean, she's obviously saying he isn't coming back. He isn't alive. And obviously she thinks he took his own life. I think that's a possibility. I think he could have actually become injured or hurt. That's always a possibility. And then you have his family and his daughter who were like, I think he intentionally went off grid and disappeared. Yeah.

There's lots of rumors surrounding if he intentionally did this, you know, went off grid. And we have the video of the break-in. And there's a lot of hoopla around his home not being foreclosed on for, I guess, several years is what they allege. I will say this, Aaron. I haven't been able to find any valid proof that...

his home wasn't foreclosed on. They're claiming that somebody was still paying the mortgage on it, but mortgage companies aren't swooping in and three, six months and taking your home all the time. Sometimes they'll let it sit before they take possession because it's not a priority for them. So I don't know if there's any validity to his home not being foreclosed on immediately or

But I do take into account that video of the break-in and even his own daughter saying, that looks like my dad. And then you have the knee injury in the video. But that said, I don't look at that video and say, oh, that's absolutely Kenny Veach. I can't tell. I can't tell. It just looks like a white dude and a shirt and pants. And he's in there so fast, you can't get a good look at him.

Yeah, and of course, there's also this theory that because he was close to Area 51 that Kenny may have either on purpose or by accident stumbled into that area where he could have been killed. It is a protected area. No one's supposed to know about it. It's like an open secret. And that's another way he could have died. But one thing we can say is with this video, if you watch the break-in video, if that is Kenny, then he didn't die out there in the desert.

There's just no way to know for sure. So this remains a mystery because his body has not been found. The area where he supposedly was was so remote that it's not easy to search that area. Although it does feel like they gave it a real go.

I would love to know what our audience thinks. I would love to know your opinions. Do you think he's alive? Do you think he's dead? Do you think he was detained at Area 51 and now they're doing experiments on him? Because that's what the internet says. I'm just being facetious myself. But I'm always curious to know what people think because

I am a little persuaded by that break-in video that maybe he didn't take his life that day. But again, that's just because his own daughter says, that's my dad.

But it's hard to tell. Yeah, so let us know. Hit us up on our social media, our Patreon, Facebook, you name it. Let us know what you think happened to Kenny Veach, even if it's just what you hope happened to him. If you hope that he was beamed up by aliens or if he went to live somewhere else under a new identity, let us know that. And in the meantime, you can find all of the content we talked about on YouTube. You just search Kenny Veach, you'll find it all.

Anything else before we go, Justin? We're going to be doing a Beyond the Episode on this, so subscribe to our Patreon and you can hear all our other thoughts about the internet backlash, the theories, and how we feel this might have gone down. ♪♪♪

Every big moment starts with a big dream. But what happens when that big dream turns out to be a big flop?

From Wondery and At Will Media, I'm Misha Brown, and this is The Big Flop. Every week, comedians join me to chronicle the biggest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time, like Quibi. It's kind of like when you give yourself your own nickname and you try to, like, get other people to do it. And the 2019 movie adaptation of Catastrophe.

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