All language subtitles for Sasquatch.S01E03.1080p.WEB.H264-BIGDOC

Okay.

Should I just go?

Monsters aren't born,
they're made, we make them.

All of our monsters
are human-made.

The... We make them out
of the things we're afraid of,

we make them out
of the things we hate.

In our past, we, we became
fearful as an evolutionary mechanism

for survival.

Don't go in the cave. It's dark.

There could be something
in there that will eat you.

It's a human coping mechanism.

This notion of things
that are out of control,

things that we can't control.

It just seems to be hardwired
into the human psyche.

Did, did kinda tell
you why I was calling?

He mentioned that,

you know, that you'd
be a good guy to talk to

about kinda Spy Rock
and Mendo and the scene.

A confidential source told me

that in 1993

word on the mountain was that

had a hand in the murders

of three farm
workers from Mexico

at a dope patch
off Spy Rock Road.

Subsequent to that,

Ghostdance told me that
was pulled in for questioning

by the Mendocino
County Sheriff's Office

regarding a different
murder at a dope farm

off Spy Rock Road
that occurred in 2013.

How long have... Are
you still based, like...

Are you still based
in, in Mendo now?

Yeah, how... When did
you first get there, man?

Would it... Would Spy
Rock be a dangerous place

for my crew and I to just, like,
go and start trying to get interviews

came across to me

like somebody who's experienced
with handling interrogations.

Somebody that knew
how to issue a veiled threat.

Okay, let me ask you one more,

one more thing, man. I
mean, one of the stories,

one of the stories I heard
when I was working at that farm

was about a, a triple homicide

around Spy Rock Road in
October or November of 1993

where one version
of the story is that

an actual Sasquatch did it.

Do you know anything about that?

Okay.

All right, man. Well...

Just got out of a meeting
with a source on Spy Rock

and, um, dealing with
all these dopers up here,

it's, it's such a
nest of vipers.

It's hard to know what to
believe or how to gauge the truth.

One quality I'm looking for
is, consistency of information.

There are certain things
that keep coming up

Three guys from
Mexico, Hells Angels.

From sources in different
towns, from different generations.

These common
threads keep coming up.

Now, twice in the last 72 hours,

from two different
individuals, I've heard that, yes,

three men were murdered
on Spy Rock in the fall of 1993.

And they were murdered on
orders from a powerful grower

up here on Spy Rock.

The, first source says
the guys had gotten killed

because they had gotten
a local girl strung out

on heroin and meth.

The source today just
said, you know, quote,

you know, "They, they fucked
with the wrong guy's daughter,

and it got 'em killed."

So that's just another
angle to explore

and keep an eye and ear out for.

Thanks for agreeing
to do this, man.

I appreciate it.

So I met with this
Mendocino County investigator

who is only willing to talk to
us if his identity is protected,

because... he's got a
contract out on his life

because he killed a cartel
operative in a shootout.

I asked you when we met I wanted
to make sure about a guy named.

Okay.

I wasn't there when
these events took place,

but from people I knew there,

they told me the story

that probably one of
the first people here

to run a bigger operation

was a guy they called Bigfoot

who was up on Spy Rock.

A legendary guy.

- Interesting.
- Yeah.

Had all his family riding
around in off-road vehicles

with, you know, had
football fields of pot.

He was the legendary
big man on the mountain.

So there was a
common terminology,

anything that went
awry, "Bigfoot did it."

I'm realizing that

if was involved in
the triple homicide

up on Spy Rock
in the fall of 1993,

one possibility is that

he was following orders
or acting on behest

of somebody or maybe
just trying to curry favor

with someone much
higher up the food chain.

By reputation, would Bigfoot
have been the kind of guy

that would get somebody
else to do a killing for him?

I... Once again, I don't know,

but that's not at all what I
got from the people there was,

it was totally copacetic,

but it was like, don't come
up here and mess with us.

I was thinking back to that
night in the cabin in 1993,

and did I hear them say

"a" Bigfoot killed those guys,

or did I hear them say
Bigfoot killed those guys?

Because memory's
tricky like that

and I-I-I.

I don't know.

Could they have said, "I'm telling
you, Bigfoot killed those guys"?

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe.

So, have you ever heard
of an old-time grower

who also had property on
Spy Rock in the early 1990s

who goes by the
nickname Bigfoot?

When I lay this
story on this cop

about an old-time
grower on Spy Rock

known or nicknamed as Bigfoot,

without missing a beat he's like,
"That sounds like Bigfoot Gary."

Um...

Right now, there are snitches

in and around
Laytonville, California,

who are asking
around on my behalf

about, about Bigfoot Gary,

about Hells Angels,
about murders.

One thing that would
make me feel a lot better

is if I were able
to find somebody

that put and Bigfoot
Gary together.

If I find somebody,
whether cop or crook,

that says, "Hey, yeah, when
was a young guy in the early '90s.

He worked for Bigfoot Gary."

Fuck, man, that would be huge.

One other thing I would
really like to know is

why they pulled in

and searched his property

in relation to the 2013 murder

of Hugo Olea-Lopez.

Okay? Why did
they key in on him?

Did they actually think that
he had anything to do with it?

I'd really like to know that.

There is some parallels
between his murder

and the original case in 1993,

in that he was a
Mexican national

on Spy Rock Road.

And in both cases,

you know, there were harvested
plants cut down but not stolen.

So it didn't look
like a rip-off.

Granted there's no indication
that a Sasquatch did it

but you strip that away, and
there's a lot of similarities.

Okay.

David?

- Hey, how are you?
- Good. Thanks.

- Nice to see you.
- Likewise.

- Come on in.
- Welcome to.

Okay. Thanks.

I came in in the fall of '13

after this case had
kind of slowed down

and the next group of cases
came in, as they always do.

I've been in communication
with the family

I began to get in
communication in '14

when I started to
follow up on the case.

I was the only Spanish-speaking
detective at the time,

so when she would call, I'd be
the one that would talk to her.

Um... and that's his wife.

And, you know, we've talked a bunch,
and she had some information she provided.

There's obviously some suspicions
of, of close contacts with him,

but there was
never any, any ability

to tie anybody down to anything.

I think so. I think
that's how it played out.

There was no
discovery of his, death.

There was, "This is where
he's at, and he's dead."

And then they go up and
they discovered him in a tent.

If you know Spy Rock, I
mean, you're so far out there,

you gotta know
where you're going.

We don't randomly
fall on a tent.

So whatever it
was, it was a target,

because it wasn't like that
was the only doper around.

There were other
ones in the area.

- He was targeted.
- It had to have been.

Um...

How hard is it for you
to investigate a homicide

when the victim is from... is an
undocumented, you know, worker...

It's difficult.

With the growers' cases where
you have Hispanic workers,

it's extremely difficult.

We thought there are more bodies
than we could even count right now

up in the hills.

Lot of unreported murders?

I'm sure there are.

And a lot of unsolveds.
It's pretty bad.

And it's not because we're not
trying. It's because we don't have

that cooperation from the
community, a lot of them.

Especially with marijuana
growers, you know,

who's going to be
willing to talk to us.

How are the Mexican immigrants

perceived in Mendocino?

What's like the level of
just out-and-out racism

in Mendocino County?

There's a voice that's
being put out there right now

all Hispanics are dope
growers, well, that's not true.

My dad came here
back in the late '60s.

Where I grew up, my
family and a couple others,

we were some of the first
Hispanics in the Valley.

There was definitely
racism then.

And I don't know
who you talked to.

I can imagine that the
Hispanic growers may not be

as open and forthcoming to you as
the old white hippie dope growers.

You know? They don't
talk to me and I'm Hispanic.

I've got another
Hispanic deputy.

We try our best,

but there's that fear of
being in the black market

and not wanting to get in
trouble for what they are doing.

Right.

Hugo's murder's going
to be a tough case to solve

because of what he was involved
in, because of where it happened.

I have no doubt that there
are a number of people

who live and grow
dope on Spy Rock Road

that know exactly...
who killed Hugo and why.

Um, I am of equally little doubt

that none of those people would
ever give it up to law enforcement.

Unfortunately, in our county

the last time I looked,
there were at least six,

not only unsolved homicides,

homicides where we don't
know who the victim was,

because there's no fingerprints on
file with the Department of Justice.

In America, they've never
been reported missing.

We've collected the
DNA on these people,

but DNA only works

if you have something
to compare it to.

I have walked into
marijuana gardens

where there's a dead
Hispanic on the ground

with no identification,

no tattoos,

and nobody in the area knows
who he is or how he got there.

We have a guaranteed
anonymous tip line,

that we would
welcome information on.

Because solving a
homicide is important.

For the family, for
law enforcement,

and for the victim.

- Okay?
- Okay.

This Mendocino County
Sheriff's Office investigator

put me in touch with
longtime resident of Laytonville,

longtime small-time
grower on Spy Rock.

As I got within about 10 feet of
the pickup, I could smell... meth.

Meth has a very distinctive

sickly sweet, sort of
burning plastic smell to it.

Offered to buy her
a drink at Boomer's.

She said no, she didn't want a drink,
then she offered me a hit of meth.

So I said, no, thanks.

And then she said that she wanted
to get in, get in my car and talk.

Well, I keep coming across the
name of a guy nicknamed Bigfoot.

Why is he nicknamed
Bigfoot, do you know?

He, um... Do you... Have you...

There was a guy by the
name of Hugo Olea-Lopez

that was killed on
Spy Rock, in 2013.

Um... he was a Mexican
guy that was shotgunned.

He was, like, guarding
a farm up there.

I don't know. I don't know.

Trying to find out
more about that

and, the connection

between that case
and, um, a triple murder

that I've heard about

that happened in
1993 in Spy Rock

near Iron Mountain.

I think that's why he
wanted us to talk, yeah.

And that was one of
the guys that got killed?

It's about, three a. M.,

about 10 hours after I met
with in a parking lot at Boomer's,

and, maybe a contact high,

like a tweaker contact
high, because I can't sleep.

Sorta tossing and turning,
my mind's spinning in circles,

going over what she,
laid on me in the car

and looking over the
notes I scrawled down

as soon as she
and I parted ways.

Could this be the one? Could we
be talking about the same murder?

I mean, obviously,
Spy Rock Road,

1993, is a very
violent place, okay.

There's probably multiple
homicides that have gone unsolved.

The biggest discrepancy
of course being that

she said that it was
two men that were killed

rather than three.

But the location's right.

The one other detail that
she seemed certain on

was that the name of one of the
men that was killed was Martinez.

I don't know. I mean, I
guess the next step is

to really pin her
down on the date.

You want to tell me about the,

crime that your son
witnessed in the 1990s?

Are you sure that he
told you it was two guys?

Do you remember
what year that was?

'96? You sure?

Fuck, man.

You know? Once I
started probing further,

it turned out that it was
off by a couple years.

So different multiple
homicide on Spy Rock Road.

Unsolved, unreported
bodies buried in the woods.

Why are there so many missing
people in Mendocino County?

This place is fucked
up beyond belief.

People pass through here, and
they just see how beautiful it is

in terms of the
natural environment.

They have no idea of the
shit that goes on in this area.

The rate of missing persons
cases in Mendocino County

and all throughout the Emerald
Triangle is per capita the highest

in the United States by far.

You hang out in these dope
towns, and all around you are signs

about missing people.

Billboards and
fliers in coffee shops

and grocery stores and bars.

I mean, just dozens,
hundreds of them.

And all those missing
persons fliers are literally signs

that there are
monsters among us.

Look, I learned when I was still
a little boy that monsters are real

and they will hurt you, okay.

But real-life monsters aren't
huge and hairy with fangs.

They're smiling and
friendly, until they're not.

So I'm attuned to monsters.

And the more time I spend
in the Emerald Triangle,

the more I sense a lot of them
up here, hurting a lot of people.

I mean, you go asking around

about three dead men, and the
question you get back the most is,

"Which three dead men?"

Over time, the big cry was,

we want to stop the
violence in cannabis

by legalizing it.

In truth, since legalization,

the violence has
escalated hundreds of folds,

not a little bit.

The laws and the way
they've carried them out

have been so draconian.

The black market

is five times bigger than
it was a couple years ago,

and the white market's a mess.

When you take the lifestyle away

and you crush all the
little people for corporate,

it becomes something different,
and it has that curse on it.

And so all of this has
created feuds and violence.

You guys know a guy named
Bigfoot Gary who lives around here?

No? All right.

Now I've kinda got a
target lock on Bigfoot Gary.

I really want a meeting
and to, like, look in his eyes

and put this story to him,
because I feel like I'd know.

I'd know whether or not

he was involved.

Okay.

How's it going?

Okay, cool.

Bandana works.

You're not a snitch,
you're a source.

Um, when did you
first meet Bigfoot Gary?

How many, how many
seasons did you work for Gary?

What was he like to work for?
What kind of a boss was he?

- All right, let's start over.
- Play a little different tack.

Wher... How, how high
up the, the food chain is he?

Like, where does
he fit in around here?

You think Gary is capable of killing
somebody or having them killed?

Which circumstances?

Take me through
what you've heard.

They're probably
still on the hill,

meaning their bodies.

If he had those
three guys killed

because they raped his daughter,

fucking good for him, you know.

As far as I'm concerned,
every rapist in the world

deserves to die screaming
and alone in pain in the woods.

So, good on Bigfoot
Gary if that's what he did.

If he killed these three guys
because he's a racist fuck,

you know, then he deserves
more than he's gonna get.

'Cause that means he knew a lot
of white people up here would buy

into the bullshit stereotype
of Mexicans being rapists.

And he'd get away with murder.

I really want to, meet him

and get a gauge of what
kind of monster he is.

Okay, so I just came
down off the mountain,

and I didn't have
any cell service.

So, as soon as I
got back on the grid,

I had two text messages
pop up, bang bang.

Both of them sent in
the last couple hours

from one of Bigfoot
Gary's neighbors

who is relaying a message
to me from Bigfoot Gary's wife.

Okay.

This is David.

Yeah.

Hi, Carolyn.

Okay, he didn't... He was...

He didn't have any business in Spy
Rock or Mendocino in the early '90s?

He wasn't growing dope
in Mendocino in the 1990s?

Any idea why people
would be telling me this shit?

Okay.

Could you ask Gary if he's,
if he's had a business partner

or he knows anybody named.

I'm...

Listen, is, is Gary
sitting next to you?

Could I talk to him or are
you the intermediary here?

Hey, Gary.

I'm looking specifically
at the fall of 1993,

harvest season 1993.

All right, a version of
the story I heard was that,

the guy on Spy Rock
named, nicknamed Bigfoot

had kill these guys

because these guys had sexually
assaulted Bigfoot's daughter.

No?

You didn't have a... You did not
have a daughter in 1993, Gary?

And you didn't kill
anybody in 1993?

Three, three guys from Mexico.

And you didn't kill
anybody in 1993?

The rumor mill on the mountain

is that Bigfoot Gary
arranged to have murdered

three guys who'd
raped his daughter.

The problem with that is that.

Bigfoot Gary didn't
have a daughter in 1993.

He's telling the truth
about that. I checked.

Okay?

So there's a disconnect between
the word on the mountain and reality.

And within that disconnect

is reasonable doubt
and then some.

So, you hold my feet to
the fire, I'm gonna say,

he's not our guy.

Bigfoot didn't do it.

There is this elusive truth

that I glimpsed, you
know, through the trees.

And it's like the same obsession

that drives Squatchers

to spend half their
lives in the woods.

They do it because
they're obsessed.

They're convinced
that they're always just

one step away

from getting the proof
they need. Right?

Am I just doing the same shit?

Am I just, like, out there
running around the woods,

like, convinced that
I'm just one move away

from, like, really
cracking this case

and being able to explain
exactly what happened in 1993?

Finding Bigfoot

would probably
fill a hole in my life.

My wish is for the
world to finally have proof

that this creature
actually exists.

I would give
anything to see one.

As scary as some
of these stories are

and how fearful we are

of that, you know,
"monster in the closet,"

we still want to figure it out.

To have that, "See, I
told you I'm not crazy."

"I told you when I was 10"

"what I saw out the window."

"You know, those eyes."

"And this is why.

It's right there."

The story of Sasquatch
or of man-like monsters

has been with us from
the very beginning.

Some of the earliest
literary traditions in the west

and, well, in the
east for that matter,

have included this
wild-man figure.

A representation of
perhaps our alter ego,

our lost connection
to wild places.

I think it's fair to
say that these stories

or mythologies about wild men

are really more about humans?

Yeah, it's always about humans.

It's never not about humans.

It's not about the giant beast.

And it gets back to this notion

of things that
are out of control,

things that we can't control.

Wild people are
beyond our control.

They live out in the woods.

They live very different
lifestyles from us.

If you get too close to
them, they might injure you.

There are people
who behave outside

of what the mainstream
considers normal behavior.

And that's where the
wild man comes from.

With these kinds of
investigations, you get a lead, right?

Or you see a path
that you want to follow.

And then you start following that
path away from square one. Okay?

And then you wind up, like,
pretty far deep into the labyrinth,

and sometimes
that path dead-ends.

And when that happens, that's when
you need to go back to the beginning.

You need to go back to square
one and be like, what have I missed?

I've gotten the name of two
people that I think have the number

of the guy that
owned the farm in '93,

and I've been jamming them
to pass on a message to him

for the better part of a year

that I'd like to talk to him.

Finally, word comes
back, like, "What about?"

I was like, "About a
Bigfoot story that I heard"

"at his A-frame
cabin in the fall of '93."

Word comes back, "Yeah,
he'll talk to you about that."

Hello, this is David.

Okay.

Don't fucking put in the
movie, whoever is editing this.

I'm serious, this
is gonna fucking...

Any... Okay, if I'm
scared about it, trust me.

I've a reason to be. I get
a bad vibe from that guy.

Of all the people, honestly,

tha-that we've been deal...
That I've been dealing with,

he's the one that has
me the most concerned.

I remember two tweakers
that stopped by the cabin.

Yeah.

They were freaked out. They
said they'd seen some bodies.

They said that they'd
seen Bigfoot tracks.

It's true.

What he tells me is that

those three guys needed to go.

Okay.

He proceeds to tell me

that Mexican workers
would get jobs on farms,

but really it was kinda
part of a campaign

to... you know, not take over,
but to move in on the territory.

So what they were
doing is, for example,

they would... a bunch
of them would get jobs,

would hire on with,
like, an elderly farmer

and just essentially just
take over his operation.

Just be like, "This is ours now.
What are you gonna do about it?"

Somebody at this meeting
made the comment of, like,

"Fuck, I wish we had, like,
Chupacabras around here

which would scare
these guys off."

And then immediately,
someone was like,

"We got something
better than Chupacabra."

And so they started introducing

into this rumor-based
information ecosystem

of the Emerald Triangle

stories about...
ferocious Sasquatches

terrorizing farmers.

And so those were the stories

that I was hearing secondhand
from all these farmworkers,

and I and everybody
else that was in that scene

at the time.

And so that's another
piece that falls into place.

Things make a little
bit more sense now.

I'm like, okay,

how do you make it look like a
Sasquatch murdered three guys?

He's like, bolt
cutters, pickaxes,

you know, and forklifts.

Meaning chop 'em
up, run 'em over,

bash 'em in.

Were you involved
in that decision?

Let me just ask
you straight out.

Just for, like, kind of
for the record, okay.

Three men actually
died in October 1993.

Is that what you're saying, okay,
that the bodies that those guys

who came to your cabin
said they saw that night,

those were actual dead bodies?

They basically framed
Sasquatch for the murder.

These dope growers framed
Sasquatch for a triple murder

to terrorize guys from Mexico

that were on their turf.

He said that what they
did is they arranged

for chatterboxes, as he put it,

to see the bodies

and that that guy that had
come to that cabin that night,

the guy that was on crystal meth,
he was one of the chatterboxes.

All right? Because that's the way
that the story would get spread.

Okay?

The other guy was in on
it too, took him up there.

"Holy shit! They're
fucking dead.

Look at their bodies.
Look at these tracks."

Okay?

"Fucking Bigfoot killed
these three guys, man."

What are some of the motivations
why people would make up

a Sasquatch story?

Well, the... and this may
lead us back to Spy Rock.

People want to scare
other people away.

I know in the Amazon
that many times

people come up
with terrible stories

of monsters and
ghosts and stuff,

and it's to scare people away.

There's something of value,
it's a good fishing ground,

it's a good hunting ground.

So they do that to keep
the other people away.

Myth is super-powerful.

People are afraid
of the unknown.

It's an ancient story
from the beginning of time.

Look at the propaganda
in this country.

Look at the propaganda
around the world.

I mean, we create stories.
We identify the other,

the immigrants, we demonize them

so we can empower ourselves

and maintain control
over the culture.

I could see that happening,

just in how I knew people
from that area to behave

when they felt
threatened by outsiders.

But this was
obviously like a killing

where people witnessed
the aftermath of it

and were then told to
go tell people about it.

And that's why I heard about it.

'Cause if it was just about killing
these guys for what they had done,

no one would have
heard about it, right?

Plenty of people have
been killed up there

and buried in a shallow grave
on a mountaintop and never found.

They really did these
guys in to send a message.

There's exploitive
people out here

and exploitive situations
waiting to happen, you know.

That darkness from the mining
camps and from the first logging camps

that, you know, took the land
away from the indigenous people,

that trauma never stopped,
and it just snowballed

into trauma for everybody
that's come since then.

It gets paved over
and painted over

and developed over constantly,

but in the more rural
areas, like out here,

it's there, you can
feel it, you know.

I don't think you can stop
it or erase it at this point.

This started as

a ghost story about three guys
getting killed on a dope farm in 1993.

I have moved with every step

of this endeavor
towards believing that

these three murders
actually occurred.

This is, like, not an
easily solvable case.

I mean, there's no police
report, there's no bodies.

I think it's impossible
that I would ever,

with absolute certainty,

feel like I knew exactly
what had happened and why.

At least I have a story that I
tell myself that makes sense now.

No, I don't fucking
think Bigfoot did it.

No.

I don't believe in Bigfoot, but
I sure as hell believe in greed.

And that greed turns
people into monsters.

It's not Bigfoot making all those
people disappear in the woods.