Insight: Looking Back / Looking Forward
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Hey guys, iHeartRadio recently announced the launch of the first ever iHeartRadio Podcast Awards. And Up and Vanish is nominated for Best Crime Podcast. This is the first major award show to recognize podcasting.

And you guys, the listeners, will help decide who wins. So if you enjoyed Up and Vanished, vote for us. Just go to iHeartPodcastAwards.com and you can vote up to five times per day. Or if it's easier, you can also tweet your vote by using the hashtag iHeartPodcastAwards, then hashtag Crime Podcast, and hashtag Up and Vanished. As always, thanks for your support. If you've enjoyed Up and Vanished, give us a vote.

That's iHeartPodcastAwards.com. Thanks, guys. This week, we'd like to take the opportunity to reflect. You may remember Danielle from Episode 3 and our second Insight episode. Danielle is Crystal's friend and former roommate from Denver. Yeah, those eyes, dude. There's something in those eyes. Like, seriously, it's cool. It reminds me of that Snow Queen from Frozen.

Like those different shades of blues. It really is like looking into a crystal, a water crystal, I guess you could say. She was, she could make a friend anywhere. She could make it. That girl was always exploring the city. Walking, she didn't have a car, so we bussing, foot, everywhere. She was everywhere.

She was definitely influenced by music and I think that's what also made our friendship connect. Yeah, music is a huge connection for us. If I remember right, she could belt out a couple melodic tones and she could scream pretty well too, like a nice little metal belt. She was in a band when she was in

Crestone. She was? Is she singing? Yeah, you should find it. It's on SoundCloud. They're called simulacrum, but she's doing vocals. She was? She... I didn't even know that. So she was... She was vibing. Scorpio trait, bipolar tendencies. Not saying she's clinically bipolar, but yes. She would be extremely happy and then she would experience the extreme lows. And those extreme lows, I understand, like, really get you stuck.

Weirdly enough, and sadly, one of Danielle and Crystal's mutual friends was found dead not too long before Crystal went missing.

This did not take place in Crestone and is unrelated to Crystal's disappearance. Still, the event was shocking. Danielle described talking to Crystal about it. This was their last correspondence. The messages, the last messages me and Crystal had, she was like, what really is chilling is she's like, one minute they're here and the next they're gone. And that's exactly what happened to Crystal.

You would never think somebody with her nature would just ever encounter anything like that. It never crossed my mind that Crystal would ever be in some sort of trouble because she would be able to get out of it. Not a problem. That's what she was good at, getting herself out of trouble. She's strong. She really is. She's a fighter, that's for sure. She wanted to change people's darkness. We all battle with our own personal darkness, but I mean, she definitely had a way to make you feel good about yourself.

There was definitely a nurturing character about her. She was a nurturer. And I think she was attracted to those people because she personally wanted to help them. I really do. You become with who you associate. And that's just what comes with being human. Not that she was a bad person because she made a bad decision, which I feel like they're alluding to. And I'm glad you're painting this picture because it seems like their picture painted is just...

Just low life, trash, just good riddance. Like what we're doing, we've just been sitting around discussing all day. And you have given me a lot of answers. Like you have, you're helping me heal right now because I finally know what's going on with my friend today. I think Crystal Browder's here. We had a talk.

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My car and I have been through so much together. But look, you already have a great offer from Carvana. That was fast. Well, I know my license plate didn't fit my heart, and those questions were easy. You're almost there. Now to just accept the offer and schedule a pickup or drop-off. How'd you do it? How are you so strong in letting go of your car? Well, I already made up my mind, and Carvana's so easy. Yeah, true. And sold. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. Crystal's life has often been described to us as nomadic and constantly in motion.

Crystal's childhood was very much a blueprint for her future inclination to stay moving. Jennifer, Crystal's aunt, was one of Crystal's many destinations. As Jennifer put it, her home was always a safe place to which Crystal could return. I mean, at the time, you know, she came to live with me so many different times when she was young. She came to live with me in California, Washington, Miami, everywhere I've ever been.

This time, I mean, when I moved to Texas, I wanted her to come, and she's just like, she says we were in the 1980s here. She loved Colorado, and I understood it. I wanted her to come here. She's very charismatic, lights up the room. She could, she would just, people would gather around her. She had such a beautiful voice. Remember, we went to this, um,

kind of like a carnival and she got up on stage and she sang for them just kind of like karaoke you know they were having different kids come on and when she came on the guy made her sing like four songs he wouldn't let the other kids sing because she just brought a crowd it was amazing i remember one time we were downtown and she saw a homeless man playing guitar and she

And he had like a dollar in there and she stood next to him and she started singing and like a whole crowd gathered and they all threw money in his little basket there. And she would just do stuff like that for anybody. It didn't matter. She didn't judge people. My niece, even if she broke up with somebody, she would have still remained friends with them. She didn't hold grudges like that.

She had a lot of love to give. I miss her like crazy. She said she never knew real love until Akasha was born. When I talk to Elijah and I get to talk to Akasha, she's so much like her mom. I see a picture that he posts and I'm like, I have the same picture of Crystal.

And he didn't even know that he took it. He had a picture of her posted by the Golden Gate Bridge. And I have the same picture. She's outgoing. She's very talkative. Sassy, you know. She's a smart kid. My niece was a smart kid. Oh, my gosh.

She talks like a little adult as a child. I remember her challenging her English teacher and proving her teacher wrong. Akasha's the same. It's crazy. I know Akasha's her own person. She has no idea how much she is like her mother. My niece was a strong person. She wasn't weak. She's very...

you know, aware of people. She was everybody's counselor. Everybody came to her with their problems. That's a big burden to bear. She could read people like no other. And that's what, you know, made her so charismatic. She could just talk to you for a little bit and know you. And people don't have, like, financial backing or, you know, and you're not the, I guess, ideal person

And I wish you could have met her.

This is Nicole Brooks, a friend of Crystal's. They both belong to the same Denver women's tarot card group. I was always asking her for advice and what she thought I should do. It's just really, really surprising that this would happen to her because it just feels like, I don't know, it just feels like she would have had some kind of inkling about what she might have been getting mixed up into.

At the time when we were spending time together, I was in kind of a bad relationship and just wasn't really able to like get the momentum to get out of it. And she, looking from the outside in, she probably just so many times wanted to just slap me over the head and tell me like, dump him, dummy, and move on and live your life.

But she never did that, you know, she always had really insightful things to say that made me think and maybe kind of consider myself worse. She had that old soul energy, you know, it was like advice from like a grandmother or something, her wiring. She was able to kind of tap into like a higher dimension that us lay people are not able to. Since a lot of people have mentioned Crystal's musical talents throughout this podcast,

Here's a short excerpt from a song she recorded with local Crestone artists, Ara Kodak and Stimulus. You can find their music on SoundCloud. Life is a story You put your sights upon the stages Who cares? Go on, children Gasping for breath There's you Now you know no love Run, wake, child, children Don't pray, power's strong

We assembled some final thoughts and takeaways from some of Crystal's closest family and friends. Eli, Crystal's best friend Mikey, and the Irvin family, Debbie, Rodney, and Amy.

It's been really hard listening to the episodes, but I've been like, allude to them too, because like, I want to hear, you know, what Cassius has to say, what's going on with Brian, what you guys found out. And it's crazy because a lot of the way you guys been uncovering things is exactly how Rodney and I kind of cross all that and found out things. And there's a lot of stuff you guys came across that we didn't even know. The picture is a lot more clear now. I'm just like, I think there was a lot of progress.

There's not going to be, like, nothing comes of this. It just takes time. And, like, a lot of information just came out that we didn't have before. Maybe I'd be surprised because I don't know any of these people, but I think, would they really think it through to this point? But then not knowing any of the facts, like, when was she killed? How long did they have her body? I don't know. On the one hand...

I don't see these guys putting that much thought or effort into it. On the other hand, if she wasn't close by, where would she be? And since we have so few actual facts, it's really hard to do anything but speculate on a hundred different possibilities.

I don't know. Sometimes I feel like we're way out in no man's land and all this other stuff is going on that we never hear about or are privy to. We can't get that kind of info. So we just sit here and wonder, did they talk to this one? Did they follow up on this? And we don't really have any answers other than what you find out. And are any of them still down there? To me, that says volumes.

I want to know where she is. I don't think that they realized that they thought they buried, you know, the story, but really it was a seed. And I think it's going to come to light. I don't know how long it'll take. It could take 20 years. It could take six months. But I think that there's so many stories that link together. There's going to be something that's going to bring it to an outcome.

I don't want to be too impatient, but I don't want this to be dragging on for 12 years. I'm hoping that we get to find Crystal and bring her home, wherever home is. I was talking to Amy and she said, I think Crystal would want to be buried in Cresto. It's going to hinge on somebody with credible evidence, with somebody that really knows Cresto.

If we find a body, good. They'll bring us closure. But my goal is justice. And that's my play in this part. And this is why I'm here. We've got to be smart about this. We've got to be non-emotional. And we've got to get down to the bottom with this. We have enough resources to put people behind bars. If they want to play with fire, they can play with fire.

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Well, we got a minute. I'm going to buy that truck I've been wanting. What?

Wait, don't you need, like, weeks to shop for a car? I don't. Carvana makes it super convenient to find exactly what I want. Hold up. You're buying a car on your phone? Isn't that more of a laptop thing? You can shop wherever you want. I like to do my research, read reviews, compare models. Plus, Carvana has thousands of options. How'd you decide on that truck? Because I like it. Oh, that is a great reason. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way.

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The team at Tenderfoot TV would like to thank you all for listening to this season of Up and Vanished and putting forth so much interest and faith in Crystal's case. For everyone we've met during the course of this season, it has been an intense and humbling experience, and though the circumstances are bleak, I am personally grateful to have met all of you. There is no doubt in my mind that Crystal was truly loved. As for Crestone, it's one of the most raw and beautiful places I've ever visited.

It's truly one of its kind, and I understand why Crystal loved it too. As Payne stated in the finale, though our weekly episodes are finished for now, our pursuit of answers is far from done. Please share this case with your friends and family, and don't let the spark go out. We won't either. This season of Up and Vanished has featured the work of our composer Matt Pusty, also known as Makeup and Vanity Set.

Matt worked more closely than ever on this season, even traveling with our team out to Colorado. We asked Matt to share his experience gathering the sounds of Crestone. I went out to Crestone with the specific purpose of field recording, just trying to gather as much sound as I could from the actual place. Payne was very careful to make it really important that I go to Crestone.

There is something really critical to going to a place and being there and really trying to connect. I don't think it would have been possible to write the music without going there. The place itself is not like other places. It's very unique and strange.

It's like there's equal parts, you know, things in Crestone that are very beautiful. And, you know, there's a lot of things in Crestone that are very earthy and holistic. But at the same time, there's like this kind of undercurrent of darkness there that just kept coming up.

I loved the people in Crestone. Every person that we met there was a character. It was extremely interesting. It had an extremely interesting story, whether they were vague about it or not. A lot of people there were just incredibly forthcoming. But I thought everybody there just had something very unique about them. I really loved that. I loved meeting a lot of those people firsthand. I really identified with...

the location, you know, being at the base of the mountain and, you know, seeing this tiny town and the people in it, you know, there was a certain vibe that you got from being there where it almost felt like when you stepped out

the car the first time you got into Crestone, you did kind of feel like everyone was watching you. You felt like there were always eyes on you. There's a certain creepiness about that, but it also lent itself to that atmosphere. There was a lot of care to have a lot of deference to the place itself, to the people involved. Those are characters in a story that's being told, but they're real people. So it was really important to...

treat that in a really precious way when I was writing music. The experience of being there firsthand and looking up and seeing the apartment that Crystal lived in and knowing that we're sort of walking around, talking to people that knew her firsthand in the space that she occupied. I think with Crystal, I really gravitated towards her, um,

her identity as a mother I thought was incredibly endearing touching to me personally you know I'm a father and so I really gravitated to her relationship with her daughter also the other thing was with Crystal that

that I gravitated towards was that she herself was a musician. A lot of people spoke to the fact that she was a really beautiful singer and a musician in her own right. The other thing I really connected to and questioned was just the, the

the sheer amount of spirituality that was there. And I didn't know, I knew that it was a spiritual place, but not to the degree that I experienced when I was there. And what I mean by that is just seeing firsthand all these different temples and spiritual centers and places of healing. For all of the commentary that may exist out there about whether people subscribe to that or not, it was really inspiring.

inspiring and powerful to be in that place firsthand and to witness people and to hear people's stories about going there and finding some type of spiritual healing that has helped them in their life. That was a really powerful thing to hear.

one thing that really struck me is when we drove up the road and went to all these spiritual centers it was very convenient because they're like basically all on this one road and driving up getting out of the car walking around with this big microphone you know it definitely must have looked really weird to these people but at the same time like all of those places yielded

Just an immense amount of sound and material. And specifically, we were at the ashram, and there was a storm sort of blowing in from the distance because you could see for miles from up on the mountains.

And so you'd hear this like, you'd hear this like rolling thunder off in the distance. And I don't know, it was just, it was really powerful to just be up there and experience that. And, you know, a lot, and then going back and listening to that stuff later, you could feel it.

There was a lot of texture to the sounds of Crestone. In some cases, they're almost like otherworldly because they're not sounds you hear every day. But it was amazing how much a lot of that really stuck with me after I had left. There's two tracks that sort of close out the soundtrack. There's a song called A Place in the Mountain and there's another song called Vanishing Point. Both of those tracks were written in Crestone. So I think those two really...

speak to that experience for me anyways. So I think that it's pretty fair to say that that place will haunt me for a while, you know, and I'm okay with that. Haunting is maybe a negative connotation, but I see it as a positive because it resonated with me in a way that I was not prepared for. You can find a selection of the songs Matt composed for this season on any streaming platform, Spotify, iTunes, etc.

It's labeled Up and Vanished, original season two soundtrack. Here's Vanishing Point, one of the two songs that Matt says really reminds him of his time on season two and in Crestone. Up and Vanished is an investigative podcast told weekly, produced for Tenderfoot TV by Payne Lindsay, Mike Rooney, and me, Meredith Steadman. Executive producers Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Additional production by Resonate Recordings, as well as Mason Lindsay, Rob Ricotta, and Christina Dana.

Our intern is Hallie Bidal. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme song is Ophelia, performed by Ezra Rose. Our cover art is by Trevor Eiler. Special thanks to the team at Cadence 13. Visit us on social media via at Up and Vanished. Thanks for listening. Where you can join in on our discussion board. If you're enjoying Up and Vanished, tell a friend, family member, or co-worker about it. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts.

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