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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 26-year-old Marshall Awasa from Alberta, Canada, was just a typical guy who loved fitness and bodybuilding and had a passion for the outdoors. But on November 17, 2019, he mysteriously vanished after stopping by his storage locker.
Today, his disappearance has left behind very few clues and many unanswered questions. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 240, The Disappearance of Marshall Awasa. ♪
Thank you.
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast with a forensic science twist. Each episode features real stories highlighting how forensic science was used, from fingerprinting to criminal profiling to DNA. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold.
Every story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings. As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases, conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Now, let's get to this week's episode.
According to the National U.S. Missing Persons Database, roughly 2,300 Americans are reported missing every single day. These numbers are similar in our neighbors to the north, Canada. Most of these people eventually show up, but that's not always the case. Some of these people remained missing. That's exactly what happened to 26-year-old Marsha Lee Wassa in November 2019.
He mysteriously disappeared after stopping by his storage locker in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Six days later, his burned-out truck was discovered. Within days, the Find Marshall Iwasa Facebook page was created. Today, it has 15,900 members and counting. All people there to help find the missing 26-year-old. What happened to Marshall? And is there anything forensic science can do to help?
Before November 2019, Marshall Iwasa was just a typical 26-year-old guy. He was born on January 3, 1993, in Leftbridge, Alberta, just over an hour from the Montana-U.S. border. His family described him as quiet, reserved, very gentle, and kind. Growing up, Marshall had always been athletic, playing both football and rugby. He was a very good player, and he was a very good player.
He also loved the outdoors. One of his favorite things to do was to go camping with family and friends. And speaking of friends, he kept a close circle of them from elementary school through high school. And after high school, he turned his athleticism into a passion for bodybuilding. He worked in a grocery store to make some money before working some manual labor jobs in southern Alberta, an area known for its oil and gas industry.
In his 20s, Marshall lived with friends in Lethbridge until he enrolled in the IT program for software development at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and moved to Calgary. That's where he was until he disappeared. Let's now go to November of 2019. On Sunday, November 17th, 2019, Marshall spent the day doing laundry and chores around his house that he rented in Calgary, Alberta.
Once he finished up, he drove his dark blue GMC Sierra truck two hours south to the city where he had grown up, Lethbridge. That night, Marshall spent a few hours at his mom Tammy's house, helping her with a computer problem. The two sat at the kitchen table and everything seemed completely fine with him. Later on, this is what his mom told Peak News Magazine about that night. Quote,
He stopped in. He sat at the table in my kitchen. He worked on my computer. We chatted a bit. There was nothing I could specifically say that was different about him. There was nothing different about him. There was no warnings or red flags or anything. He was Marshall, my kid. I go back over and over and over that last visit, trying to find if there was something that I missed.
but there was no indication that there was anything wrong, end quote. He left his mom's place around 11 p.m., wearing a green hoodie, black pants, and red high-top sneakers. Tammy didn't know it at the time, but that would be the last time she ever saw him. Before heading out the door, he told his mom he needed to stop and get something from his storage locker, which he shared with his sister for the past six years.
The locker itself was located in the Northside Industrial Area between Shering and Churchill, about 15 to 20 minutes away. After that, he said he planned to go back to his house in Calgary, but he never made it. So what happened to Marshall Iwasa between stopping at his mom's place and going to his storage locker? Well, let's start with ground zero, the storage locker.
Like I mentioned a couple minutes ago, Marshall apparently needed to go there to pick up some computer things. But when he got to the locker, he wasn't able to get inside. In fact, he spent pretty much the entire night trying to gain access to it. He kept putting in his code, but it wasn't working. It wasn't until the facility opened at 6 a.m. the following morning that he was finally able to get in.
Now, once he did get inside, that's really where the mystery of this story begins. Because Marshall stayed inside that storage locker for over two hours. And what's strange is that nothing appeared to have been taken out of the locker. So what was he doing inside of there for over two hours? After that, he completely disappeared, with the last known sighting of him in the area at around 8.30pm.
No one knows where he went. There's no video footage of him leaving the area. He wasn't seen with anyone else, and he's never been heard from since. Six days later, November 23rd, a group of hikers discovered his burned truck at the end of a remote logging road leading toward the Bryan Weddington Hut near Pemberton, British Columbia, a spot about 745 miles away from the storage locker.
Right off the bat, there are so many strange things about this. Number one, the location itself. Marshall's family said that he had absolutely no ties to the area and had never mentioned it before. So what business would his truck have to be there? And how would he even know that this place existed?
Number two, the route to that particular location is inaccessible by GPS, requires a four-wheel drive, and is a 14-hour drive from Lethbridge, where the storage locker is. Then, from the trailhead, it's another two- to three-hour hike to the hut, which requires online registration for anyone wishing to use it. So it's not just a place you happen to stumble upon. You have to know that it's there.
And finally, number three, this place is so remote that it took the police two days to even get there. That's because one of their vehicles was damaged in their first attempt. And it only gets weirder and weirder from here. On top of being completely burned to almost nothing, parts of the truck had been stripped, like the steering column, which is a little odd considering that Marshall had just finished paying off the loan to the truck.
I think it seems weird to think that someone would want to damage their own car or at least put it at risk of being damaged if they just spent years trying to pay it off. Why would you want to risk damaging it by driving to such a remote place if you intended to come back? To this day, we have no idea where parts of the truck went. Even the police deny having any of it in their possession, including the missing steering column.
Scattered on the ground all around the truck were some of Marshall's personal items. His ID, two passports, some of his clothes including his toiletries, and some damaged electronics like a laptop and three smashed cell phones. All of these items were eventually linked back to him. But they also found a PlayStation and an Xbox, which were initially believed to have belonged to Marshall himself.
But in January of the following year, his sister Paige confirmed that Marshall's own Xbox and PlayStation were found at his house. So that means that the two gaming consoles that were found at the scene didn't even belong to him. So who do they belong to? Well, the simple answer is we have absolutely no idea. Even today, we still don't know who they belong to.
The list of items they couldn't find were his contact lenses, contact solution, a Mountain Hardware Scrambler 30 backpack, his SAIT-issued Samsung laptop, his wallet, which was believed to be a Nixon wallet with a screen port for a license, and his most recent cell phone, a pearl-colored Samsung Galaxy S6. All of those items are still missing today.
When it comes to how the fire started, the police never officially investigated it until seven months after Marshall went missing. And even then, their results came back inconclusive. It wasn't until the family hired their own private investigator that they learned it was started by arson.
The PI found an open Zippo lighter tucked between the seat and the car's console. So he thought the fire had clearly started in the passenger compartment. But again, that's what the family's private investigator found. The police never really did their own investigation until months and months later. Who knows what took them so long?
On a side note here, before moving on, Marshall's truck was actually found two days before the police got there, November 22nd. But because the group of hikers didn't have cell phone service, they weren't able to call the authorities until the following day. But before they reported it, the hikers apparently took some photographs of the scene with their own cameras, the truck and everything that was scattered around it.
Then, when the police began their own investigation, they took some photos themselves. Well, here's another food for thought. There are some weird discrepancies between the photos that the hikers took and the photos that the police took two days later. Some of the items photographed by the hikers appear to have been moved or stolen and were no longer in the photos taken by the police. So had the area been tampered with?
Was someone else there during those two days between when the hikers photographed the scene and when the police did? I don't know. I also want to mention here just how creepy this entire location is. It looks so much like a crime scene. If you haven't heard of this case before or just you haven't seen the photos of the truck, then I really recommend you jump online real quick and look them up.
Because to me, it looks so much like a crime scene. The burned truck, all of the items just scattered around everywhere. It's all very, very eerie, like something really bad happened here. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust or is it...
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Now going back to the story, one strange thing was that Marshall's financial trail ended November 15th. That's two full days before he went missing. So even if he drove his truck to that particular location, he never used a credit card to stop and get gas or anything. It's possible that he used cash, but if he did, no one reported seeing him, which seems a little unlikely for a couple of reasons.
The first is that from the moment Marshall was reported missing, his story was plastered everywhere. So if you lived anywhere in this area, it would have been really hard for you not to know about this case.
And second, Marshall's physical appearance. He's a pretty recognizable guy. He's got longer brown hair, a lot of tattoos. He's very built, very muscular. In my opinion, he's a pretty tough guy to miss.
So if he stopped somewhere between the storage locker and where his truck was ultimately found, then I think someone should have been able to recognize him. But apparently nobody did. There's also no security footage of him at any of the gas stations along the way. We know for sure that he would have had to stop and get gas at some point on his trip. It was just too far of a drive to make it on a single tank of gas.
So there are four possible routes that he could have taken from the storage unit to the location where his truck was. The first route would have taken anywhere from about 12 hours to 12 hours and 50 minutes via the Trans-Canada Highway. The second route would have taken 13 hours to 13 hours and 30 minutes via Crow's Nest Highway and the Trans-Canada Highway.
The third way would have taken him a little bit longer, 14 to 14 and a half hours via Crow's Nest Highway and BC-3 West. Then finally, he could have just taken the BC-5 South, but that was the longest route and would have taken around 16 hours or even longer. So no matter which direction that he went, he would have had to stop and get gas.
So I think this really begs the question, who drove Marshall's truck there? Or was he really able to stop without using his credit cards and without anyone else seeing him? Then it was discovered that he had dropped out of school without telling his friends and family. If you remember, he had been a computer science student at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology when he disappeared. Or so his family thought.
As it turns out, he had actually dropped out before being put on academic probation and never told his family. He also supposedly stopped renewing his cell phone plan, again without letting his family know. None of this was discovered until after he went missing. So what could have caused him to drop out of school? Well, maybe stress. According to an interview with Marshall's sister Paige for the website CanadaUnsolved.com,
She thought her brother was a little stressed out about school that year. And even though she admits that her brother was a pretty private person and didn't always share everything that was going on with his personal life, she knows that he wouldn't lie to her about anything. Marshall was known for his quiet and reserved demeanor, but he also had a very close relationship with his family, especially his sister.
She also said that besides school, she wasn't aware of any other, quote, major stressors going on in his life at the time.
Now it's worth mentioning here that it doesn't seem like Marshall was ever really into school that much anyway. In the same article for CanadaUnsolved.com, his family says that he would sometimes say things like, in my field, sometimes you don't need a degree. It's more about who you know and what your experiences are.
So maybe Marshall dropped out because he really didn't see the point in getting his degree. He thought that he could move up in the industry without having to waste his time and money on a formal education. Either way, no one knows the real reason why he left school because he never mentioned it to anyone.
One thought early on was that he might have crossed into the U.S. Now, he didn't have any ties there, but he was close enough to the border to at least explore this as a possibility. But right after he was reported missing, the U.S. and Canadian Border Patrol's officers were notified, and they confirmed that he never illegally crossed into the U.S. So that theory is pretty much taken off the table. There's zero evidence that he ever left the country.
Next up, pawn shops. Pawn shops all across Canada were also searched. Nothing there either. Any area where Marshall was known to hang out was also searched, but again, nothing. By December 4th, 2019, the authorities announced that they were suspending the search due to, quote, ongoing snowmelt. Then later that month, the investigation was turned over to the Leftbridge Police Service.
Up until then, the case was being handled by the BC RCMP. Fast forward to May 2020. On Friday, May 22, 2020, police cadaver dogs searched the truck site and the surrounding area. But later that night, the family was notified that nothing was found. Then another major search happened in June, with dozens of police officers, search and rescue teams, and even helicopters, but nothing.
This now brings us to where we are today. Marshall is still very much missing and nothing significant has turned up over the last few years. He was last seen on November 17th, 2019, which means that he's been missing for well over four years. His family has never heard from him. There's been zero activity on his cell phone or financial accounts. He hasn't contacted anyone and
And if this case involves a death, his body has never been found. So how does this case ever get solved? Well, let's talk about the forensic evidence and see if there's still anything that can be used to help us figure out where Marshall is or what happened to him. Well, one of the most obvious places to look for evidence would be his truck.
If our suspicions are correct that someone else drove it to where it was dumped, then there should be some of that person's fingerprints or their DNA on it. We could collect them, run them through databases, and hopefully get a match. Then we would have the answer to the question, who drove the truck? DNA might also help us figure out if a crime happened at all.
Now, we're going to talk about some of the theories in this case a little bit later in the episode, but one of them is suicide. But if we could find some foreign DNA or some foreign fingerprints on his truck, then maybe we could rule that out. On the other hand, if only Marshall's prints and DNA were inside the truck, then maybe suicide is a valid theory. But there's a couple problems with that.
Number one, and the biggest problem in my opinion, it's been completely burned out. Again, you should look up photos of it online so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. Since it's been burned so badly, it's possible that there aren't any more usable prints or usable DNA, especially if any type of accelerants were used. A fire could easily destroy all usable forensic evidence.
Now, I'm not saying that it's impossible to find anything, but it's going to be a long shot. The second problem is that the police have never tried to test it for DNA. Now, you're probably wondering, why not? Well, that's because the police haven't considered Marshall's case a criminal one. So they haven't used any of their resources to have anything tested.
On the flip side, if they did consider this a criminal case, then they would have probably tested it. In a press conference, the police said, quote, End quote.
So I guess until the police agree to do it, no DNA testing will ever be done. Now, besides the truck, what about all the other items that were found around it, like the smashed cell phones and the gaming consoles? Well, we've pretty much run into the same problem. The police simply won't test anything for DNA unless it's classified as a criminal investigation.
It's also unclear whether the police ever looked for things like footprints or maybe tire tracks in the area. We don't know if there's any evidence suggesting that anyone else was at the scene or not. Again, because the police didn't look. When it comes to digital forensic evidence, there is virtually nothing.
By the time Marshall's family learned about his burned-out truck and reported him missing, the storage unit recorded over their security tapes, and we've never been able to find any type of footage of him after 8.30 in the morning on the day that he disappeared. Now, part of the reason why the Find Marshall Iwasa Facebook page was created to begin with was so that the family could help look for any type of surveillance camera footage that might have captured him.
but so far, nothing's been found, so no type of digital forensic evidence has been used either. There was, however, a strange digital clue. As the family sent occasional messages to Marshall's Snapchat account, they realized that some of the messages were being marked as red as if someone had a cell phone and was opening the Snapchat notifications.
So that's it. We don't have any fingerprints or DNA because the police won't test for it. We don't have any digital clues besides Snapchat. And since Marshall's gone missing, no additional forensic evidence has surfaced. So at this point, we need the police to classify this as a criminal investigation before any official DNA testing can be done to help get us some of these answers.
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So now let's talk about some of the possible theories. But first, I want to say that these are all just theories. I can't reiterate enough that we don't have many answers when it comes to this case. So everything I'm about to talk about right now is pure speculation. That's all. So the first theory is suicide. That seems to be the theory that the police believe in the most.
If they really suspected foul play, then they would have already done the much-needed forensic testing on the case. But we already know that they haven't. Why not? Well, the police haven't outright said that they think this is a suicide case. But I think it's pretty fair to say that it seems like that way anyway. So what's the evidence for suicide? Well, the first is Marshall's behavior before he went missing.
One, he dropped out of college without telling his family. And two, he reportedly stopped paying his cell phone bill, again, without telling anyone. Both of these things might suggest that he was experiencing some type of stress or some type of personal troubles in the week leading up to his disappearance. But if this is a case of suicide, then where's his body? Why haven't we found it yet?
Wouldn't it be inside the burned out truck? And where are all the other missing items, like his current cell phone or his university-issued laptop? Where are those items? Marshall's family has some pretty strong opinions about this suicide theory. Simply put, they don't buy it. They don't think he was depressed or having any personal troubles.
And when it comes down to it, they think the police were too quick to rule this as a suicide because they really didn't have any other ideas. It was an easy out. If Marshall killed himself, then there's nothing to investigate. Theory number two, his disappearance was somehow connected to drugs. This is a theory that's been talked about a lot online, and I think because of the burned out truck.
But really, there's zero evidence of that either. There's no evidence suggesting that Marshall did drugs or was involved with anyone who did. So I don't really want to go down a rabbit hole on something that there's just no evidence on. Then, of course, theory number three, Marshall was murdered for reasons not involving drugs. Now, we have no idea the exact circumstances surrounding his murder, but that's definitely a possibility.
It would certainly explain things like the truck and the missing items. Maybe he encountered trouble at the storage locker. But if Marshall was the victim of foul play, where's his body then? Then as far as other theories go, well, you can probably find a dozen of them online. But none of them really seem to check off all the boxes or answer all the many unanswered questions.
So I guess if you're curious about the other theories, you can definitely hop on Reddit or somewhere else online because there's no shortage of them. I just don't want to speculate too much here. Between 2019 and today, dozens of other missing men from Canada have been compared to this one. One of them is 30-year-old Daniel Roche, who was last seen in the Squamish Valley on November 25, 2019, and reported missing on January 7th.
His case has been connected to this one because after looking at photos taken in Marshall's case, his family believes that some of the possessions scattered around the truck looked like they belonged to Daniel. Daniel also went missing just a few days after the truck was found, but so far there's no evidence connecting either case.
The same can be said about a dozen other missing men from Canada, but again, none of them have been linked to Marshall's case either. Over four years later, nobody knows what happened after 8.30 a.m. on Monday, November 18th. There's no way of knowing which route his truck took from Lethbridge to Pemberton. There's been no trace of his missing personal items, and there's been zero financial or phone activity since Marshall was last seen.
In 2022, the story was featured on Never Seen Again, a television documentary series on Paramount+. It's also been covered on CBS, Discovery+, and many other true crime podcasts just like mine. Hopefully this episode helps to spread the word about Marshall's story. His family and friends deserve to know what happened to him. And if foul play was involved, they deserve justice.
I think the biggest thing that we can do right now to help is simply share his story. Join the Find Marshall Iwasa Facebook group. Share this podcast episode. Whatever it is, keep sharing and keep talking about him. Someone out there probably knows something. We just need someone with information to finally come forward. I also hope that more awareness will help persuade the police to officially label Marshall's case a criminal investigation.
Because if it is, then we can get some DNA and forensic testing done. But until then, our hands are pretty much tied when it comes to any type of forensic testing that may help answer some very important questions. Marshall Iwasa is described as 5'11", 170 pounds, with brown eyes and curly brown shoulder-length hair.
His truck is a dark blue four-door 2009 GMC Sierra with the Alberta license plate BLL1099. If he's still alive, he would be 31 years old as of 2024.
Anyone with information about his whereabouts, his disappearance, or have any video footage from November of 2019 is asked to contact Crime Stoppers or the Lethbridge Police. The police can be reached at 403-328-4444 and Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or p3tips.com.
Marshall's case number is 19-03-0078. To share your thoughts on this story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash Forensic Tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode.
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Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.