Vernon "Cody" Matthews

The Vanished Podcast

Wondery

True Crime, Society & Culture, Cold Case, Investigative, Find The Missing, Vanished, Missing Persons, Documentary, News, Disappeared, Exhibit C

4.5 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2016

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Cody headed to Pollock Pines, California for his college summer break. When he got there, he found that the cabin had been robbed. He last spoke with his mom on June 6, 2014 right before heading out for a hike. A massive search began the next day but no trace of Cody has ever been found. His parents moved to Pollock Pines to search for him and tragically, their home was destroyed in a fire just three months later, on Cody's 24th birthday. Cody's parents, Vern and Cyndi, shared their story with me for this episode. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to the vanished ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.
0:37.0	Some days I've had to talk to 150 different strangers while handing out flyers or handing out cards.
0:46.0	And this really hard. Then you go back to where you post in the flyer and you find that your son's picture is now in place with a poster for a lost cat.
0:58.0	Or the lost cat poster stays up for three weeks and your son's getting taken down there every day.
1:06.0	You can't hunt for your missing son from 500 miles away and be effective.
1:12.0	And we knew you couldn't try to split that time between looking for your missing son and work and be effective.
1:20.0	This is our new career. When we find them, then we'll retire. But this career has no benefits besides the fact that one day we're going to find him.
1:37.0	Hello and welcome to episode 45 of the vanished.
1:45.0	23 year old Cody Matthews set out to go on a hike in the fresh pond area of Pollock Pines, California around 6.30 p.m. on June 6th, 2014.
1:56.0	When he left, he took only limited provisions because he wasn't planning on going for a very long hike.
2:02.0	Despite the fact that Cody is an avid outdoorsman, he never made it back to his family's cabin. This is Cody's story.
2:10.0	I had the pleasure of speaking with Cody's parents, Vern and Cindy for the show. They have never given up hope that they will one day find Cody.
2:30.0	I find their dedication to be inspirational.
2:34.0	Just months after Cody vanished, they lost their home in a fire and had to live out of a tent for some time in order to continue searching for him.
2:42.0	Cody's story is not only the story of someone tragically disappearing, but also the story of the strength of the human spirit and how hope can keep us going through even the hardest of times.
2:54.0	Cindy told me a little bit about her son, Cody.
2:59.0	Cody from a very young age loved to the extreme dinosaurs.
3:05.0	When I wanted to try to teach him the strange alphabet, because some have that connection between the letter A and the words.
3:19.0	I had to teach him using a dinosaur scientific name.
3:23.0	So instead of ABC, he learned archeoptic, sprakiosaurus, cephalosaurus.
3:30.0	Anyway, it was just that he was completely enamored with dinosaurs.
3:38.0	So he went on to become an anthropologist at UC Berkeley.
	...

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