If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available.

You can call or text 988 or chat at 988 lifeline.org in the U.S. and Canada.

This service is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week,

providing support from certified crisis response professionals.

For those outside North America, please contact your local emergency services or a regional crisis center immediately.

Thanks to our sponsors and Patreon supporters,

Astonishing Legends, is free to listen to.

We appreciate your support of them and us.

On the morning of February 27, 2006, a man prepares to leave his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

But he isn't packing a suitcase, and he isn't getting into his car.

Instead, he is systematically, almost clinically, severing all of his connections to the modern

world.

He unclasps his smartwatch and leaves it behind. He even takes off his

prescription glasses. When he finally walks out the front door, the details get muddy, as they always do

in the first few hours of a panic. Some sources claim he left his wallet behind. Others say he took it.

But we do know he took a 38 caliber revolver, and reports indicate he may have been carrying a red backpack.

He wasn't just wandering. He was prepared.

If this were an ordinary man, it would simply be a tragic local mystery, a silver alert broadcast across local highways.

But his family quickly made one thing clear.

He was not suffering from dementia.

He was not confused or disoriented.

This was a deliberate, lucid departure.

...