Disappearance of Dennis Martin /// True Crime Garage | Forensic Files

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] The Crowd Goes Wild that I wish that was like if you
just walk in a room that that [Laughter] happens when I was a kid I always wanted
like the song Dazed and Confused to just I like the beginning of that song so much I always wanted like anytime I walk
in a room to just have the the start of that song just just play well was a captain on the wrestling team back in
middle school and one of our jobs was to to find out um you know to find a song that we could come out
to and so I think I just got the ACDC it was like a little box set type thing yeah we both we both had that like
it was a maybe a live double disc yeah it came live or something like that ACDC dollar or something oh yeah yeah the the
Angus the Angus dollar yeah and I think it was I think it was TNT t uh mhm TNT dynamite was either TNT or it was
like thunder struck or something like that but so the you know we our our wrestling
team was kind of a big deal because it was a a bunch of us tried out for the basketball team mhm and we were pretty
good shoot the thrill but we didn't we didn't make the team for whatever reason like you played it
well it was a lot of people sitting around after like they you know called the names out for the team mhm a lot of
like kids sitting around like it was kind of like the first time you realized oh you know this guy that
sucks you can see him talk his dad's talking to the coach mhm afterwards and there was like a bunch of
guys you know over talking to the coach and you're going oh they're buddies and we just kicked
their asses and but that didn't stop them from picking the you know these guys for the team and and there was a
guy um that was new to our school very a athletic and he was like screw this let's join the wrestling team so the
wrestling team I remember the group of us going to the wrestling practice and you know that five kids
that were in the class or 10 kids that were in the class look up and there's now 30 of them us mhm and it was
probably the biggest wrestling team that the school has ever seen and because after like a week we kept recruiting
people like oh you want to come wrestle I think there was like nine people in my
weight class but anyways we we got these hoodies almost everybody on the team shaved their head and so we would put
the hoodies on and would come out and I just remember coming out to uh TNT or something like that but it it was a live
version so the crowd was like and I remember like running around the circle and we had this you know kind
of like warmup routine to do but at some point all the captains were like just keep your you you can take the hoodie
off if you want but the captains were going to keep their hoodies on until it was done but it felt like such a like
the crowd felt so freaking huge because they're blasting it over the loud system
and it's the crowd from the ACDC lives it's it's like it's like you're playing to the laugh track almost
you're you're going out and there's probably some people that are clapping or whatever but but you hear the you
hear the audio and it sounds like we got a 10,000 50,000 screaming fans I I figured I'd pull off the hoodie and the
placeat was going to be packed I remember pulling off the hoodie and it was just crickets and I was like oh yeah
yeah this is the wrestling team nobody nobody cares so yeah but I wish I could remember if it was TNT
or it might have been thunderstar because thunderstar has the better the intro the longer intro yeah yeah yeah
the cool guitar tapping so this guy Matt Leen for the Knoxville News Sentinel there is a fascinating and a really I
mean this is just a really well done piece of work here uh if you go to knoxnews.com I guess guessing that
that's the Knoxville News website but knoxnews.com they have a missing in the Smokies
Dennis Martin's disappearance still Haans Park 50 years later on Friday June 14 marks 50 years since a grinning
Dennis Martin darted out of his family sight during a weekend camping trip he never came home so that's crazy I mean
one one that it's been 50 years to I mean if this boy would have somehow survived or if he if in some weird way
he is still alive he'd be 56 years old well right actually if you remember when we covered it so we covered it last year
and that would have been September 2018 Dennis Martin it's episode 238 for anybody that wants to look up in the
archives the garage kives um the if you remember correctly he was actually just days away from his seventh
birthday so I'm by now I'm guessing he would have be he would be technically 57 years old yeah and this is this I tell
you what out of all the cases that we've covered this one is one that just I mean
such a mystery it it truly is and it almost it almost doesn't seem real for a couple reasons one it was so long ago
but two just the The Disappearance and then absolutely no trace of the boy afterward just feels like something out
of a movie and I and I do know I think it was in The Missing 411 documentary it's been years since I've watched
that you've seen that Missing 411 yeah what what are your thoughts about that documentary because I I I have I
have some good thoughts and some bad thoughts I think it's worth watching oh I agree there that's that's where I
think people need to start right yeah when when you're giv a recommendation start with is it worth watching oh it
Not only was it worth watching it was entertaining and fascinating because there is so many Mysteries involved and
most of the if I'm remembering correctly most most of the documentary focuses on
children who end up going missing in these these huge state parks yeah and what's cool about this article on the
Knox News is you get to see 20 I believe it's 20 a lot of pictures pictures and so it's really interesting to see um the
search how how many people were searching mhm um well they had like 240 people up there by day two you know the
the day after yeah so he went missing in the let's say afternoon early evening and they did their best to to
search that night his grandfather even hiking like miles to get to where the park rangers were station and then the
park rangers and a bunch of people got involved in the search that night but remember there was a like a crazy storm
that came in that night and we're talking about like this wasn't just a rain this was this was a crazy
thunderstorm high winds flash flooding um so the the article is so well done I I don't know how many pages
it is it's pretty lengthy and what's really cool like you said there's a lot of pictures that I've never seen before
yeah there's a part a couple of the pictures that seem like it's like Vietnam it almost it some of the
pictures look moviees yeah right and and so um they are we won't go through the whole thing cuz it's it's a lengthy
article and and that's up to anybody if they want to venture over to knoxnews.com and check it out but really
they they site a few different things depending on who you're talking to um this I found to be interesting was that
they they mentioned bears and I know that we probably mentioned Bears when we discussed this but they were talking
about how unusually Brazen the the Bears were that season and had to do with a drought
from the year before and and a lack of of acorns and other food that they would they would typically typically just find
lying around in their travels and so they were saying that the Bears were a little more aggressive and also
venturing into areas that they may not have in the past because of this well we covered the Dior Coons is that how you
say it Dior Coons um but cases are very similar but also very different because I believe in in the
Dennis Martin case there was actually some evidence left behind and and in the Dr Coons it's like
we we don't even have evidence that he was there yeah and and you have the the sheriff's statement in Dior Coon's case
of if anybody knows a family out there that has a son or a little boy now and didn't have one before that's who we
need to talk to because they kind of very suspicious that maybe the mother Andor mother and father gave Dior away
and I know I know these child cases are very sad to one they're sad for us to cover and two they're sad to listen to I
get it but dior's case is is very weird in the way that I I actually hope and pray that they gave
him away but gave him away to somebody that loved him and is treating him as they would raise their own son yeah and
I think in a weird way it's like um a different version of Gone Baby Gone yeah and I think with dior's case that
could be a a very could be a possibility with with with high probability percentage I
think in that one and Dennis Martin's case to me completely different in the sense that it seemed like the boy going
missing Dennis or Denny as his uh family called him him going missing like just seemed to control his father's life and
his grandfather's lives for for the rest of their days it it was something that haunted them that they never really quit
looking for this little boy uh and I said that the article cites the the aggressiveness of the bears but then you
have Park Rangers who really kind of hone in on the the storm that took place that night saying
that it would have been difficult for an adult to survive out there in those circumstances we're talking about an
individual with no you know no hat no jacket nothing like that I mean he he literally disappeared with the the
clothes on his back and his shoes on his feet and they were saying that for an adult to survive out there just that one
night the temperature got so cold and it was so miserable out there they don't think that a a child would
have would have lived much longer than you know maybe even into the early morning hours yeah it's difficult for me
too because the the little Metro Parks that we have around here you can walk you they have these different paths or
whatever but you can walk like the big path where you basically go through the whole park and it'll take you an hour or
maybe more and those feel somewhat big while you're there but this park is you know the the entrance is the size of my
park right you know I mean this is um It's a Great Smoky Mountains National Park yeah I mean that it's
um well and what's interesting too is like the parks I'm going to like I said there's they might have a path or a
walkway or hiking trail or something around the whole perimeter of the park but these they have walking trails and
and some you know places to like shelter houses and stuff like that but then it just goes into the the wild mhm it backs
these little Parks back up into the wild and those don't have paths and those don't have shelters it's just you know
hundreds and hundreds of Acres of wild mhm well and so we have they say nearly 15 00 Searchers
from Park Rangers and FBI agents to Backcountry hunters in Green Beret combed a stretch of nearly 60
square miles 6060 square miles and still walked away empty-handed really with no trace of the
little boy the the thing here too I like is the the Green Beret are brought in on this
now that group they were saying if we searched an area if we didn't find him he's not there so basically they're
saying whatever areas we searched you can just put a big fat X on those because if he was in any of the areas we
searched we would have found them now they didn't they didn't specifically cover the whole 60 square miles
themselves but then you have you have Park Rangers what what really went on within
this missing person's case was learning future tactics and strategies for conducting a search for an individual in
a in an area this large they really learned through trial and error through the through the real life exercise of
trying to find this boy what to do and what not to do in the future and unfortunately we don't know what
happened to Denny Martin but the the fortunate thing that came from that is there's actually been lives
saved and people found because of techniques and strategies that were created because of this real life
emergency yeah I can't remember what case it was off the top of my head but when they were searching for somebody
they had ways of marking trees to block off different areas to let people know hey we we've already searched here mhm
um um I can't can't remember what case that was well and you'll remember in in Dennis Martin's case they were saying we
had so many people up here searching and it wasn't there was no way to really organize the thing so sometimes they
were searching an area two or three times right when it might not have been necessary but I guess at the end of the
day you go well I'd rather double check a spot than to than to than to worry about how I'm going to spend days or
weeks trying to org organiz this search the the Rangers do point out that nowadays they very likely while
they were they were excited and and grateful that so many people turned out to help in the search and turned out so
quickly but what they say nowadays is we wouldn't we wouldn't bring all those people in or all those Vehicles into the
area so quickly because the you know you have trained Park Rangers who know to track people in
the woods and the methods that they use to track somebody that stuff is easily destroyed when you bring in all these
volunteers and vehicles that are that are uh you know driving over top of possible prints or trampling over trails
and through the woods so they think that a lot of that stuff was probably lost if
there would have been any Trace that it was lost because bringing in all these search
that's great but the people have to know what to look for and an untrained an unskilled tracker does not
and it's just like it's just like contaminating a crime scene you know if in the efforts to save lives with
ambulance EMT fire police their number one goal was always to save life to protect life
and sometimes crime scenes become contaminated by the rescue efforts of The Rescuers
so and and that's probably may have been what happened here in Dennis's case that
if there was some kind of Trace some kind of way or evidence to track the boy it might have been lost one due to the
storm and two to all the people that came into the area now in the article they do cite what we cited when we
covered the the case was that his father Dennis's father believes that the boy may have been
kidnapped the issue with that is it's such a short window of time that that he's unaccounted for unless you factor
in that maybe he wandered away and he kept getting further and further from the family but Martin's father says
within 5 minutes they were looking for the boy now park rangers state that even if they were walking in calling out to
him or Dennis was calling out to them that the way that the the landscape is and the winds out there even before the
storm the Rangers say I doubt they could hear each other and you know that makes makes it uh even
even much more difficult and then we do have that statement the weird statement of the
guy remember the guy there was a guy that said that he and his son or daughter I can't remember which but two
people were traveling in an area walking trails they were out looking they were hoping to see a bear you know yeah this
was like a month after though bring your Camp no well they reported a month after
okay so they I think they reported a month after but it wasn't a month after that
this supposed sighting happened where this gentleman says that he saw a guy a man but he couldn't make out much of the
man's features or give a good description of the man because he said that the man had his back turned to him
most of the time and was walking and the eyewitness believes that the man was doing his best to not be
seen and when the man and his his child came out of the Woods he says there was there was a vehicle up near our vehicle
when we went into the woods then I see this guy who looks to me like he's moving in a way that he doesn't want to
be seen and the eyewitness says I don't think this guy knows that I saw him but he says you know we come out of
the woods and that car's gone I don't know if it belonged to the man that I saw but it's kind of crazy that the it
was once there and now is not and he just described that as like a late model Chevy a late model White Chevrolet yeah
vehicle so you're right the authorities didn't hear about this for about a month
and and this happened uh and then after it happened he learned about the Martin disappearance that you know a day later
basically because he they didn't their trip end and they went home to wherever they were from and then he gets home and
he's like oh and learns of this boy going missing and then he's like wait a second I might have seen something of
importance here yeah but then I think he said on it I mean this is also just a different time period too and and the
people's characters are different right and and people's are their demeanor is different so a little more reserved I
would assume and um and I think it took him a minute to contact authorities about it mhm and and wellfully so cuz I
mean you don't know if it had anything to do with it or not well and you wonder too you you probably just dismiss it and
then it festers the thought of it possibly being connected festers to the point where you're like all right I got
to I have to [ __ ] get off the pot here I I need to just call this thing in and and be done with it and um when in
doubt let the authorities check it out right that could be a that's a new shirt when in doubt let the authorities check
it out well and I I believe that what the park rangers came up with in resp response to that possible
eyewitness um according to his statement anyway is they they say it's about nine
miles from where Dennis was last seen yeah and where where this man says he saw a man in the
woods the problem with that then becomes the time frame that this eyewitness gives is
only like an hour and a half to two hours after the boy was last seen right I don't have a problem with that because
we we know that this man had a vehicle so is it possible that he moved him and then it moved him and was took him to
another part of the woods was going to do something to the boy and then there was people around and
he was like well this ain't going to work now I got to move him again yeah I think I think they're just pointing out
if if if you were to believe that the boy made his way that distance and that time they think it to be highly right
right you know very very unlikely that and that's a tough thing though too it's like but
then then again MH what's the math on not finding any trace of this boy at all 60 square
miles I mean it's just it's really I I swear I think it's one of the the bigger Mysteries that we've we've covered but I
think a bear could you know move a kid pretty easily I agree yeah that doesn't mean there wouldn't be some trace of
evidence but but I don't know I I I think um you know I I followed this guy uh like a
YouTube vlogger and he lives in Montana and he's constantly showing like Bears on their property and
they're they're not that afraid of the humans you know it's something that they have to watch out for to the point where
I believe he got his wife like they call him bear dogs um that will they'll go like hiking with with uh humans and
they're they're just kind of loud enough and and scary enough to scare the bears
away but if the Bears aren't scared away well then you got a dead human and dead
dogs yeah and I think we did a very good job covering the Dennis Martin disappearance but this article is
fantastic and and they have a it's worth checking out just for the pictures toward the end they have a dig deeper
section where where I'm guessing you can click on missing in the Smokies Dennis Martin's disappearance still Hans Park
50 years later then they have a timeline for the case it's a bunch more articles
that were written about this case yeah and then Mysteries of the Smokies five missing people never found and then of
course Lessons Learned turned in Dennis Martin disappearance still saves lives in the smokies and Beyond yeah it's
crazy his birthday would have been June 20th [Music] [Applause]

Disappearance of Dennis Martin /// True Crime Garage Off The Record /// Episode:61 Recorded: 6-24-19 Nic and the Captain discuss: the Disappearance of Dennis Martin. www.truecrimegarage.com #truecrime #crime #crimenews #truecrimepodcast #dennismartin

Brief Summary

The episode covers Dennis Martin's disappearance and its impact on search techniques, intertwined with personal wrestling stories.

Key points

The Mystery of Dennis Martin. 50 years later, Dennis Martin's disappearance remains unsolved, leaving haunting questions.
Dennis Martin's Disappearance. Exploring the mysterious case of Dennis Martin, who went missing in the Smokies.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I wish I could remember if it was TNT or Thunderstruck.

4:36WatchFeb 20, 2025

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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