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Locations Unknown

Derek Joseph Lueking - Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Locations Unknown

Unknown Media Group

Places & Travel, True Crime, Society & Culture

4.4897 Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

March 17th, 2012: a 24-year-old leaves a hotel in Cherokee, North Carolina, before dawn and drives into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Hours later, his Ford Escape is found with his wallet, keys, cash, and survival gear still inside. A short note says, “Don’t follow me.” Search teams, helicopters, K-9 units, and volunteers scour the Appalachian Trail corridor, steep drainages, and dense off-trail terrain, but find nothing. No clothing, no gear, no trace. Join us this week as we investigate the baffling disappearance of Derek Joseph Lueking.

Learn more about Locations Unknown: https://linktr.ee/LocationsUnknown

Check out our other shows on the Unknown Media Network:
Crime Off The Grid
Off The Trails
Hike N' Seek 
Who Runs This Park

Relish

New Patreon Shoutouts: Gwen Picklo

Get 35% of all orders at The Hiker's Cachethe official store of Locations Unknown, by becoming a member on Patreon!

Want to help the show out and get even more Locations Unknown content!  For as little as $5 a month, you can become a Patron of Locations Unknown and get access to our episodes early, special members only episode, free swag, swag contests, and discounts to our Locations Unknown Store!  Become a Patron of the Locations Unknown Podcast by visiting our Patreon page.  (https://www.patreon.com/locationsunknown)  

All our Patreon only content (Audio & Video) can now be accessed via Spotify.  (Active subscription to our Patreon channel is required.) -- Locations Unknown Subscriber Only Show | Podcast on Spotify  

Want to call into the show and leave us a message?  Now you can!  Call 208-391-6913 and leave Locations Unknown a voice message and we may air it on a future message! 

View live recordings of the show on our YouTube channel: Locations Unknown - YouTube

View Epispode Sources (Coming Soon)

Presented by Unknown Media Group.

Hosts:
Mike Van de Bogert 
Joe Erato

Intro/Outro “Cornfield Chase” – Cinematic Waves & Rafael Krux (licensed) → https://soundcloud.com/cinematicwav3s/cornfield-chase

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/locations-unknown--6183838/support.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness.

0:13.0

Join us as we dive into the deep end of the unexplainable and try to piece together what happened.

0:20.0

You are listening to locations unknown. Oh, what's up everybody and welcome back to another episode of Locations Unknown.

0:58.9

I'm your co-host, Joe Eradone.

1:00.4

With me as always is the type of guy that refers to the hard coating of an M&M as the skin.

1:06.6

Mike Van Bogart.

1:08.3

Thank you, Jill. I've never heard that before.

1:29.3

That is just... That's a good one. It's so gross. It is gross. The skin. I love the skin on my M&Ms. Yeah, it just grosses me out hearing that, but that's a good one. I read that and I was like, ooh, that's going to be a good one. Well, thank you to everyone who's tuned in for another episode.

1:32.6

Before we get going here, just a couple quick announcements first.

1:33.8

New Patreon shoutouts.

1:35.5

Only got one this week.

1:39.4

So thank you to Gwen Piccolo for supporting the show.

1:40.0

Thanks, Gwen.

1:41.8

We really appreciate it.

1:43.9

We're slowly getting better equipment. Someday we'll have a whole team of little minions for us that will do our bidding.

1:49.9

Yeah, absolutely.

1:51.3

But right now it's just me and Joe.

1:53.7

You want to call the show.

1:54.6

You can call 28391-6913 leave a voicemail or text.

1:59.3

I think someone recently texted it and said, do you get texts?

2:02.8

I forgot to respond.

2:06.6

And I forgot to respond. So I will text you back, whoever that was. That's awesome.

...

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