#Grateful dead members for free#

“Several years later, his ID washed up on shore. “He claimed that people were chasing him.” Possibly suspecting that the intruder was high on drugs, the woman stepped inside to call police and told the kid to stay put. An ardent follower of the Dead who trailed the group from concert to concert, he vanished in 2004, “after freaking out in a lady’s yard in Maine,” said Lindsey. Lindsey and Brennan said that they spent a lot of time researching superfan Jeremy Alex. In 2015, his identity as Jason Callahan got sussed out through a combination of Dead fans responding to a graphic reconstruction of his face and DNA research. Online, the crash victim would be dubbed Grateful Doe.

His pocket contained only a Dead ticket stub and a note signed by two girls with a drawing of Jerry Garcia at the bottom. Then there was the hitchhiker whose face was dismembered beyond recognition from a 1995 car accident. Her ID was unknown, but her thigh bore a recognizable image: the tattoo of the tiger illustration that adorned Jerry Garcia’s guitar. One of the more mysterious cases was that of the murdered girl found on the side of a New Jersey road in 1991. Alamy Stock Photo Rendering of what “Grateful Doe,” believed to be Jason Callahan, might look like now. Grateful Dead plays the Oakland Coliseum in California in February 1992. There were opportunistic drug dealers.”īrennan and Lindsey uncovered enough weird deaths to sour the hallucinatory buzz of a marathon Dead show - and, considering that sets have been known to last four hours, that’s a lot of spilled blood and lifeless bodies. “People who attended shows in the ’80s told us about seeing bad people. In that environment, classic Deadheads were friendly, stoned and open to making new buds who shared their musical affinities.Īll of that, according to Brennan, opened the door for grim endings: “There were people who’d take you into a Volkswagen bus, and you’re never seen again” - as was the possible outcome for two Brooklyn teenagers who hitchhiked to a 1973 festival in Watkins Glen, NY.

#Grateful dead members for free#

Tenderfoot TV/Cadence13īefore a typical concert, followers of the band routinely circulated through chill scenes where pot smoke permeated the air, Hacky Sacks got kicked back and forth, ticketless fans roamed around hoping for “a miracle” that would get them into the show for free and illegal drugs - ranging from psychedelic mushrooms to balloons full of nitrous oxide (dubbed “hippie crack”) - were for sale. “People expected peace and love but came across wolves in sheep’s clothing.” “Dead and Gone” premieres Oct. “Grateful Dead fans sometimes had anything-goes lifestyles that made them vulnerable and put them in harm’s way,” said Lindsey. Michael Ochs ArchivesĪs Lindsey puts it in the podcast, “Todd has established a set of unsolved cases, all with one thing in common: the Grateful Dead.” Then Lindsey reels off some dozen examples of Deadheads who died under mysterious or suspicious circumstances, before, after or while seeing the band. Lindsey credits their breakthrough to “a mysterious tip from a fellow Deadhead.” Grateful Dead members in an undated photo. Not wanting to tip his hand, Lindsey allowed that he and his podcast partner Jake Brennan found the person who they believe committed the crime.

“Dead and Gone” investigates the crime as well as the conviction while aiming to find out who really offed the young music fans. “It was easy to pin it on him, and the police wrapped up their investigation in one day.” “They met at a Grateful Dead show,” podcast co-creator Payne Lindsey told The Post, maintaining that the man convicted of the homicide (who later died in jail) was actually innocent. Post-concert, Mary Gioia and Greg Kniffin, 22 and 18, respectively, from Schenectady, NY, and Wilton, Conn., planned to crash there for a night or two.

The double-murder dates back to 1985 and took place in a homeless enclave known as Rainbow Village, near San Francisco. The podcast centers on a particular case in which two Deadheads were killed and the wrong man seems to have been convicted. Considering himself the world’s first cyber-sleuth, Matthews uses the Internet to solve cold murders and identify missing persons through crowdsourcing.

It’s inspired by the findings of armchair detective Todd Matthews, who discovered that an outsized number of Grateful Dead fans fall victim to foul play. That seems to be the subtext of “Dead and Gone,” a podcast premiering Thursday, October 15. Trash man who fatally struck tourist quotes Grateful Dead at drug case sentencingĬall yourself a Deadhead? You might get more than you bargained for. Liquor company CEO allegedly took acid before flip that led to fatal fall at Citi Fieldĭead & Company fan falls to his death at Citi Field show On this day in history The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia was born