March 19, 2024 • 48 mins
We probe into the provocative mystery of Barry and Louise Berman's unsolved homicide that cast a shadow over a tranquil area of the Mojave Desert in 1986. The Bermans vanished during a romantic retreat, their abandoned truck the only trace left behind. Author and journalist Doug Kari of "The Berman Murders: Unraveling the Mojave Desert's Most Mysterious Unsolved Crime" joins the podcast to discuss his debut book about the case. Kari spent the better part of a decade speaking to witnesses, visiting crime scenes, and piecing together a compelling theory built around a possible suspect.
This gripping tale of murder, mystery, and a haunting journey through the enchanting Mojave desert is a story you won't forget.
Buy the book! https://www.dougkari.com/ https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-berman-murders-doug-kari/1143786995 https://tinyurl.com/d2cn7ae9 Subscribe to "A Study of Strange" on your favorite podcast platform! Rate and Review to help us reach more listeners! Support our new Substack https://astudyofstrange.substack.com/Theme Music by Matt Glass Instagram: @astudyofstrange Support: astudyofstrange.substack.com Website: www.astudyofstrange.com Hosted by Michael May Email stories, comments, or ideas to astudyofstrange@gmail.com ©2022 Convergent Content, LLC
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Warning, this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing.
January 6th, 1986.
At remote hot springs in the Mojave Desert, Barry and Louise Berman were on
a couples trip and left camp for a morning walk.
Their 1982 Datsun truck was later found abandoned.
(00:21):
The Bermans were missing.
Something about their disappearance didn't sit right, and foul play was suspected
but the investigation was stalled from the start because no bodies had been found.
That is, until three years later, when a skull was discovered deep in the desert.
Authorities soon found more remains and they were confirmed to be the bodies of the Bermans.
(00:44):
They had been buried in a shallow grave and their clothes had been methodically hidden nearby.
Today, we discuss the still unsolved case and a plausible suspect with the man
who knows more about the case than anyone, author and journalist Doug Carey.
The bodies had been stripped of clothing and stacked and then carefully concealed with rocks and dirt.
(01:07):
It was obvious that it was a homicide and that they had been deliberately buried.
This is a study of Strange.
Music.
(01:33):
Welcome to the show. As usual, I'm your host, Michael May.
Not so usual, though. Today's episode is a special one.
Normally, I share strange and unsolved tales to a guest, but today I'm speaking
with author Doug Carey about his debut crime novel, The Berman Murders Unraveling,
The Mojave Desert's Most Mysterious Unsolved Crime.
Thank you for joining me, Doug. Doug. My pleasure, Michael. Thank you for having me.
(01:57):
And I'm going to read just a tad bit from your bio because I want my listeners
to kind of understand your expertise here.
So Carrie exposes the story of Barry Berman, heir to the Kahlua fortune and
his wife, Louise, who went missing in 1986 in Saline Valley,
a popular Mojave desert draw for nudists and eccentrics.
(02:18):
Doug brings a blend of scholarly research and good old-fashioned storytelling
to his writing. He believes in immersive investigation.
His true crime stories have run on the front pages of LA Weekly,
Las Vegas Review Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, and other respected outlets.
You have also practiced law and you do pro bono wilderness protection work for
desert survivors and outdoor groups that you co-founded.
(02:41):
And I'll ask you about that a little bit later on.
So this is your debut novel, but you're so fascinated and interested in these stories.
I'm surprised it kind of took you this long to write one.
Well, it's my debut true crime book, and I'm very happy.
It took me many years to put this project together. It became like an obsession.
(03:04):
And of course, there were a lot of ups and downs along the way.
But yeah, don't hold it against me. I'm a lawyer by background.
And that's where I learned a lot of the research skills and the doggedness that
it takes to pursue, whether it's a case or a story.
And then about 10 years ago, I started pursuing more journalism,
(03:27):
writing about true crime, and I got pulled into this story.
And yeah, now we've got the book, The Berman Murders. That's right.
And you spent how many years working on this story?
Well, off and on nine years, it really took a long time to develop the evidence
and to get interviews that I chased for a long time, do the site visits,
(03:50):
incredibly remote area, difficult to get to.
I went out there a number of times and there were just a lot of components involved.
Also, I was writing stories about the case along the way, including a cover story in LA Weekly.
And that story itself helped generate some new evidence in the form of tips
from prison informants.
(04:11):
So there were a lot of moving pieces to the story.
And for listeners, this is a double homicide, unsolved to a certain extent.
And do you want to tell people a short synopsis, just a little bit about the
case in your book? Look, so the setting is what drew me to the case.
The crimes took place in a place called Saline Valley, which is one of the most
(04:37):
remote regions in the Western United States.
You go on a two-lane highway towards Death Valley, and you're out in what could
fairly be called the middle of nowhere.
And from there, you make a turn onto a 50-mile, very rough dirt road when it's
even passable. But if you make it through, you come into this valley that's untouched by time.
(05:00):
It's absolutely pristine, beautiful desert wilderness with rippling sand dunes
and a silvery saltwater lake.
And in the middle of this extraordinary desert valley is a hot springs oasis,
natural hot springs that hippies and eccentrics and desert rats have developed
(05:22):
over the decades into this really cool hangout, kind of a counterculture hangout.
And when you first arrive there, you wouldn't be surprised to see people just
walking around naked except for maybe a hat and a pair of sandals.
So barry and louise berman were
on a romantic trip it was a makeup trip michael they
(05:43):
they had had some difficulties in their marriage they were
kind of a mismatch in a way she was she was 52 he was 35 she'd had kind of a
wild past barry was her fourth husband he was the heir apparent to the kalua
liquor fortune but they found themselves back together on this vacation they
(06:04):
go to the hot hot springs.
They arrive, they soak in one of the pools. The next morning,
they get up, they go for a walk, and they never come back.
And I want everybody to know this as well, because I'm fascinated with this case.
I worked on it a little bit myself on a TV show called Autobiography Cold Cases.
I was not the lead researcher or producer for that episode. That was my friend
(06:28):
Alexis Boozer. Obviously, we didn't have years.
In fact, we had COVID kind of limiting what we were allowed to do.
But there's certain things that stood out to me about this case that have never left my mind.
One is where this happened, and you just described Saline Valley.
But when you say remote, I,
I think one of the things I was reading about it early on was this is the modern
Wild West and untouched.
(06:50):
And how hard it is to get to this place, my crew went out, I think two or three
times and could never get there.
So this is, like you said, you can't always get there.
And there are some, what I'll put quotes around like locals,
but they don't technically live live there full time, but there are some people
that are kind of there most of the time.
(07:12):
And yeah, it's also, I think most people don't know everybody's real name.
It seems like everybody has a nickname in this area, which also is just something
that's completely interesting and strange about this case as well.
So they're not called locals, they're called regulars. Oh, oh,
all right. Or, or, or salineers.
(07:33):
Oh, okay, great. But, but among the folks who go out there, They call themselves
regulars. And yeah, they don't call them nicknames. They call them handles.
So lots of people have a handle. I don't think I have a handle,
at least not one that's been said to my face.
And I don't espouse a handle.
I've never embedded myself in the social scene out there, but I've been going there for decades.
(07:59):
And in fact, when you're at the hot springs, you look to the west and there's
this incredible view of the Inyo Mountains.
The east face of the Inyos is a 10,000-foot escarpment, just this sheer mountain range.
And there are deep canyons in those mountains.
(08:20):
All three of my children were baptized at the base of one of those canyons in
a little waterfall trickling off these desert mountains.
So that's how attached I am to the area, Michael.
And it is just an amazing place. It's kind of like a religion for some of the
people that are out there.
And when you're there, it's a little bit like being on a ship at sea.
(08:43):
The people around you become your friends. You might socialize.
People are smoking joints or having a drink.
And, you know, they're getting naked in hot tubs. It's not a hookup spot.
It's more of a back to nature.
But the bounds of conventional society don't apply.
Apply and the differences between people seem
(09:04):
to melt away and it's a it's a very peaceful communal kind
of a kind of a place so the notion that
two very peaceful there
were vegetarians they were barry and louise were adherents of of a religion
called rata soame they were devotees of of a punjabi guru they believed in transcendental
(09:26):
meditation they believed that the slaying of meat gives rise to bad karma they
wouldn't eat meat for two people in this place.
To just vanish and then later turn up miles away in a grave was mind-boggling
for those of us who love this area.
Yeah. And you talk about it being peaceful. And I think some listeners that
(09:49):
may not understand this when they hear nudist and eccentrics and in the middle
of the desert, why is it so shocking that people go missing here?
But it seems that there are unwritten rules, rules, unwritten laws about how
you behave and how respectful you're supposed to be to not just others around
you, but also the place itself. Correct?
(10:12):
Very much so. There's an unwritten code. And if you come in there and kind of
violate that code, you'll be talked to in a nice way.
A couple of people might come up and say, hey, you know, We don't really play
loud recorded music out here.
Or it's fine if a naked woman comes and gets in the tub.
(10:33):
Of course, it's fine to glance at her and say hello.
But we don't go around leering at women, that kind of thing.
It's a very respectful, very back-to-nature kind of environment.
And most people get with the program. They feel that energy.
They feel that vibe. And there's a real communal sense, a shared sense of belonging
and togetherness that cuts across other kinds of boundaries.
(10:57):
I mean, you'll have people of all political stripes from various backgrounds.
I say in the book, you might find firefighters on a weekend retreat and a magic
bus nearby with hippies. That's not just something I made up.
I've been there with friends of mine, mountaineering buddies of mine who are
(11:17):
firefighters, and nearby is a bunch of hippies in a magic bus.
And of course, as a guy who went to Berkeley in the 70s, I totally get both.
I relate to the mountaineer guys and I relate to the hippies.
And there is that very shared sense.
A lot of artists are drawn to the location, a lot of free thinker types.
(11:40):
It's an amazing spot. The silence is so pervasive that it's palpable.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's hard to describe. It's almost like being on another planet.
And I think it's possible that that sense of separateness, that sense of being
away from conventional society,
(12:00):
could be misinterpreted by somebody with deviant tendencies to think, hey, anything goes.
Right. And that could lead to trouble. Right. So let's back up just a little
bit here so people understand who the Bermans are.
Barry was the heir to the Kahlua fortune.
(12:21):
Louise is older than him, which is not the usual thing when you see in male-female relationships.
But yeah, what can you tell us about where they lived, how they met?
What kind of information do you want to share about them? Yeah,
they came from very different backgrounds, Michael, and that's part of what
makes them so fascinating as a couple.
Louise grew up in more working class circumstances and had a difficult childhood.
(12:44):
She was abused as a little girl. And rather than throwing the abuser out of
the house, her mother threw her out of the house and farmed her to live with
other people. but her mother was the kind who cycled through a lot of men.
Once the abuser was gone, Louise moved back in with her mom, but they never bonded.
And I think the abuse very much affected her and affected her outlook.
(13:08):
She became sexually active at a young age. She was married while still in high school.
And then she had three husbands before before Barry.
She had three children from two different men.
When she came into the 60s, she evolved from being kind of a glamorous,
(13:28):
coiffed secretary with manicured nails to being more of a 60s wild child,
doing drugs. She slept with a lot of men.
She went through some rough times. She even ended up in jail for a while.
Barry, on the other hand, was also very deeply influenced by the 60s, but in a different way.
Barry was 17 years younger and grew up in a family of almost unfathomable wealth,
(13:57):
at least for normal folks.
The Beverly Hills lifestyle that his father led was at a scale that is hard
to imagine. First of all, his wife was what you might call well-bred.
She'd been a child of a very wealthy New York family, had been sent to Switzerland to boarding school.
(14:19):
She was a bit aloof. She didn't believe that women such as her should be hands-on with their kids.
She wasn't the kind to give Barry a lot of hugs. His dad was all over the world doing mega deals.
Not only did he build the Kahlua brand into this massive, massive success,
but he was also involved in bringing
exotic, what were considered exotic beverages into the United States.
(14:43):
He spotted a trend that people might like brands from overseas.
So he was one of the people that spearheaded bringing Heineken to the United
States, J&B Scotch, et cetera.
And so he had massive success there, but he also got into the oil business,
real estate development on a huge scale, Huntington Harbor.
If you know Lake Arrowhead in Southern California. Yeah, he and his partners bought the entire lake.
(15:10):
They bought over 3,000 acres of the surrounding woodlands. They bought the entire village.
They're the ones who developed the golf course up there. I mean,
this guy was rolling big. He had a yacht named Kalua. He flew private.
He had a big lodge on the shores of Lake Arrowhead. He had a big place down in Acapulco.
(15:32):
He would hang with other wealthy entrepreneurs like Armand Hammer.
This is the scale that he rolled at. The Flying Tiger line, which was a predecessor
to FedEx, he and the founder had a 10,000 acre hunting preserve together. Wow.
This, that's Barry's dad. And he just didn't have a lot of time for his son.
He would kind of throw money at his son, but he didn't give him love and attention.
(15:55):
And because Barry grew up in such a frigid environment, he became kind of a
loner. He's a very thoughtful, pensive young man.
He would go up into the hills behind his house as he got into high school.
Maybe he would get stoned or he even, you know, would drop acid like a lot of folks in the 60s.
He developed a close circle of friends.
(16:16):
And when his dad bought the El Capitan Ranch, which was 3,500 acres of oceanfront
land north of Santa Barbara, there were some cottages by the ocean side on kind
of an isolated parcel of land.
And him and his friends would go out there for the weekend and they'd hang out.
Maybe they'd do mushrooms and surf, that kind of thing.
(16:37):
By the way, the land where they used to hang out is now or later was sold to
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
But that's one of those interesting connections.
But anyway, they both, Barry and Louise, both went looking for something that
was missing in their lives, Michael.
And they both found their way to this Punjabi guru, Charan Singh,
(17:00):
very charismatic. He had millions of followers worldwide, and it was at what's
called a satsang, which is a bit like Sunday service in a Christian church.
At a satsang in Santa Barbara, that's how they met. Louise was looking for a place to live.
She moved into one of the oceanfront cottages, actually became Barry's roommate,
(17:22):
and the two became intimate.
She was probably the first woman in the 35 years that Barry had been alive by
the time he passed away. way. He was 29 when they met, probably 30 when they became intimate.
She was probably the first woman he had ever slept. So here they are.
Five or so years after they meet. And as you said, they went through a rough patch.
(17:46):
This is a bit of a get back together sort of bonding trip out to the hot springs.
And I'd love to hear a little bit about the day or the night before they went
missing, because I know they got in the hot springs, correct?
And then what happened from there?
So it was January. So we're talking short days, longer nights.
(18:07):
They left home on this makeup trip. They were driving a four-wheel drive Datsun pickup.
Back then, not a lot of people had four-wheel drives. They weren't as much of a thing.
So Barry was an experienced traveler into the backcountry, especially by four-wheel drive.
He and a close friend of his, a jewelry maker named Arthur Korb,
also a disciple of Char and Singh, they would go on these trips to explore remote hot springs.
(18:31):
Well, Barry's profession was to craft decorative ironwork.
And he wanted, on their makeup trip, to go out to Scotty's Castle in Death Valley,
because Scotty's Castle, aka Death Valley Ranch, is an extraordinary mansion
that has a lot of beautiful wrought ironwork.
So Barry and Louise, after camping out one night, ended up at Scotty's Castle,
(18:56):
and he took a lot of photos of the ironwork and everything.
Anyway, eventually, they end up driving into Saline Valley.
Arthur Korb, The the jewelry maker close friend of Barry's had said hey if you're
gonna be out in that area You've got to check out the hot springs in saline Valley.
So they arrived after dark which speaks to Barry's confidence and his abilities
(19:20):
in the wilderness Because it's tough to navigate your way and it was a moonless night by the way so.
January 5, 1986, they arrive after dark.
And the hot springs, there's one main area that's been developed into bathing
pools where the water's been piped from the natural springs into these bathing pools.
(19:43):
And that place is kind of a social scene. There's a lawn, there's lots of palm
trees, there's a little outdoor library. It's a wonderful spot.
But for people who want a little more of a back
to nature experience a little less of a social scene from those
springs out in the middle of saline valley
at this oasis you go uphill about three quarters of a mile and there's a smaller
(20:06):
set of springs less developed and it's called palm spring palm singular some
people call it palm springs but has nothing to do with the city palm springs
it's just this little sub oasis places.
And that's where they pulled in late in the evening.
As I said, there's no moon in the sky. So in the total darkness,
(20:28):
they get out. They actually were wearing bathing suits, which is interesting.
They weren't prudish, but they were reserved. I think they probably would have
taken off their clothes if they'd been there longer.
But initially, they put on bathing suits and they slip into one of the tubs.
And in that tub were three men who were bathing under the the stars and chatting.
And that was their introduction to the hot springs at Saline Valley.
(20:54):
And can you share with us who was in the tub with them?
So this is where the story starts to get interesting because,
listen, somebody killed these people. It was clear.
We can talk about why that was clear and when and where the bodies were were found.
But right now, let's focus on the people. And Michael, your question,
(21:17):
because it's very pertinent.
There weren't a lot of people around up there.
Now, down at the main springs, yes, there were more people.
There were probably 50 people or so, something like that, at least a few dozen. I know that because...
A ranger who's also a mountaineering buddy of mine
happened to drive through oh wow yeah
(21:38):
he happened to drive through right before
the burmans arrived the day before the burmans arrived so he gave
me a picture of what he remembered a mental picture of what he remembered about
sort of the scene the new year's crowd was starting to disperse but there were
still a number of people but up at the up at the palm spring there were only
a a couple of groups there was a military man who was traveling alone.
(22:03):
There were three motorcycle riders from Modesto. And there was a family from Northern California.
I believe they were from Humboldt County, a dad and a mom and a 10-year-old boy.
And then there was the Bermans. And that was it. Those were the only people in camp.
So when they got into the hot tub, the military man who was traveling alone
was soaking, as were two of the three motorcycle riders.
(22:28):
And that's who they first met. One of the men, can I use his name?
Am I allowed to use his name? Absolutely.
Okay. So there's a guy named Mike, correct? Mike. Mike the Marine.
And he actually propositions a couple, and I can't remember,
is that the Bermans or is that somebody else?
So that happens after the Bermans disappear, and it reveals a lot about what
(22:50):
may have been motivation.
So let's get down to the quick a little bit.
So when When the sheriff's department in New County Sheriff's Department started
to investigate the Berman's disappearance, they were able pretty quickly to
identify the motorcycle riders and to interview them.
(23:11):
And these guys were just very open, very willing to talk. They had nothing to hide.
They weren't trying to coordinate their stories. They had photos of what they'd been doing.
They freely admitted that they rode their motorcycles sometimes where they shouldn't have.
Because it is wilderness protected they admitted
oh yeah we did go off the road you know that kind
(23:33):
of thing these are just down-to-earth kind of rambunctious guys when i interviewed
them years later they were straight shooters they they sent me their original
photos oh wow that's great stamped on the back you could see where they had
gone that the day that the burmans disappeared disappeared.
The man named Mike, though, was much harder to track down.
(23:57):
And his whereabouts on the day and his activities on the day that the Bermans
disappeared was highly suggestive. And I'll tell you why. So they get up in the morning.
On monday january 6 and the the
woman from humboldt county in northern
california she was the hippie couple
(24:19):
with their 10 year old son she sees the burmans taking
off early with their backpacks going up the road when i say the road at palm
spring there's a rough jeep trail it's really a a road made more by years of
wheel tracks rather than a bulldozer ever having been run through there.
(24:40):
But it's a road of sorts, and it heads up the northeastern side of Saline Valley
and eventually crosses over a pass and goes down a very rugged canyon accessible
only by four-wheel drive and ends up in a place called Eureka Valley.
But people sometimes on a day hike will head up this road. We'll call it a road.
(25:05):
There's a couple of things they might want to see along the way.
There's a cabin. That's a whole side story there.
And then there's some natural undeveloped springs a couple miles up.
Now, we know that Louise had a sore ankle and didn't plan to do much hiking.
And we also know that they left their cameras behind. And typically,
if you're going on a long hike, you probably bring your cameras.
(25:28):
So that indicated that they were probably just out for a morning walk.
So after they leave camp, the motorcycle riders see the military man,
and he's taking some of his supplies out of his truck and leaving him in camp.
He's kind of prepping for a day trip.
He's got some extra gas, water.
He's got a shovel in the back. He's driving this little Datsun pickup truck. truck.
(25:51):
Coincidentally, the Bermans were also driving a Datsun. He's driving a little
Datsun pickup truck and slowly making his way up this road.
Well, fast forward, late in the afternoon, he comes back down the road.
By that time, another couple had arrived in camp.
An older guy, well-known mountaineer
(26:12):
in the Eastern Sierra, but they asked that I not use their names.
So I've respected that and his longtime partner, a very beautiful younger woman,
the two of them were well-known in the kind of the community of mountaineers out there.
They were both really, really committed outdoors people and artists.
(26:33):
When the military man, Mike, driving his little pickup gets back to camp,
he comes over and talks to them and particularly to her.
He's dirty. He's covered in dust. He seems edgy.
And he said, you know, I quit smoking, but I'd like to, do you have some cigarettes?
I'll trade you a can of peaches for a pack of cigarettes.
(26:56):
So they were like, sure. You know, they had some cigarettes,
so they traded him for a pack of cigarettes. And he starts chatting with this
younger, beautiful woman.
And in only a matter of minutes, he starts like hitting on her,
floating the idea of a threesome.
So whatever had happened, he came back into camp dirty, edgy,
(27:17):
and sexually energized.
And that was highly suggested. And law enforcement felt perhaps that suggested
a motive for why the Bermans are later found in a shallow grave miles away,
farther than they reasonably could have walked,
(27:37):
right? Right. So how did they get there?
Well, did they ride on the back of these little off-road dirt bikes?
I actually examined one of those dirt bikes. It's still, it's still around.
It's still at the house of one of the motorcycle riders.
He has it under a tarp. I took a look at it. There's no way you can get a second
(27:58):
person on it. There's no seat.
There's no passenger foot pegs, but a Datsun little pickup, you can get three
people in the cab. It's close quarters.
Right. You can get three people in the cab. So they disappear,
and again, if memory serves, please correct me if I'm wrong,
but they kind of put the pieces together that this couple is missing when the
(28:21):
truck, their Datsun, their 1982 Datsun is just sitting around for a while.
And a gentleman discovers the truck, and doesn't he radio the police like,
hey, something may have happened to these folks?
So out here at this oasis, it was a little bit of anarchy.
Technically, though, this is federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
(28:45):
And at a certain point, the Bureau of Land Management felt like we need to have
some measure of control out there. Well, there was a guy who was living out
there. He was called Chili Bob.
Chili Bob lived in a little trailer year round. He loved to drink beer and he
just became a fixture. And he had a two-way radio.
And so the Bureau of Land Management thought, well, we will anoint him as the campground host.
(29:09):
And then if any problems happen, he can radio in and radio for assistance. assistance.
So eventually somebody reports to Chili Bob, hey, there's this truck up at the
Palm Spring and people aren't around.
There was a couple there, but they vanished and haven't come back.
And so he radios into the sheriff's office for assistance.
(29:32):
Well, when the sheriff's deputy finally comes out, and that takes a while,
they finally get out there and they realize, hey, hey, these people are nowhere to be found.
And meanwhile, their family and friends are saying, hey, they were due back home days ago.
And now all of a sudden, it becomes a big thing, especially when the sheriff's
(29:52):
office finds out this unassuming hippie type guy who disappeared is actually
the heir to a massive fortune.
And his father, who is wealthy and connected, is asking, where the hell is my son?
What are you going to go do to find him? Well, that spurs a massive search.
There were aerial assets brought in from the California Highway Patrol, from.
(30:17):
China Lake Naval Weapons Center, from the Stockton National Guard.
There were ground teams from adjacent counties. It became like a war zone out there.
Dozens and dozens of trained searchers, off-road vehicles, helicopter assets,
everybody out there looking.
The search goes on for two weeks solid and not a trace.
(30:40):
And they continue searching. And then Jules Berman, Berman, Barry's dad,
does a private search and nothing turns up. The Bermans are just gone.
And there's all kinds of theories. Were they kidnapped for ransom?
Only there's no ransom demand.
Some of the people in Saline Valley were like, oops, a UFO must have gotten them. Right, right.
(31:03):
The sheriff's office was like, wait a minute, they're disciples of a Punjabi guru.
Is this some kind of a cult thing. But all those false leads get quickly eliminated.
And the sheriff's office starts to zero in on, this looks like foul play.
We've got two people that are gone.
(31:23):
We've scoured the desert. And in this wilderness, although it's very rugged,
you can see things from the air.
And the searching was done at low altitude, crisscrossing for days.
And it just It just didn't seem reasonable that they were lost in somewhere.
They explored canyons and ridges. I mean, it was a very thorough search and not a sign.
(31:50):
How long was it until they discovered the bodies? Almost three years.
So they disappear in January 1986.
In November 1988, about seven miles up this rugged road that I was talking about
that leads away from the Palm Spring campground into some of the most remote
(32:11):
desert wilderness in the western United States.
About seven rugged miles up that road.
And then off the road, there was a hiker that was coming down from,
he was a desert peaks kind of guy.
And I understand exactly what he was doing because I've done a lot of desert
peak bagging and getting into some of these remote peaks and adding them to
(32:35):
your list as part of the accomplishment.
This is what people who were into bagging desert peaks And there was a route
into a couple of peaks that you would go up this corridor, it was called this rough road,
and then you could cross a rugged area of the desert and then scale some adjacent mountains,
(32:57):
a mountain range called the last chance range.
And you could get into the last chance range by going that way.
Now, not many people do it. I mean, it's a very rugged approach, but it's very elegant.
It allows you access to some really interesting lines.
And if you're a mountaineer that really wants a clean, direct, very difficult route.
(33:17):
Ascent route in some country that rarely sees any people.
This is an area where you might you might go So this guy that's that's coming
down from from a hike into this remote area.
He's a desert peak bagger He's crossing through this area of desert and he sees
something shiny and it turns out.
(33:39):
It's a human skull So he takes the skull puts it in his little pack and brings
it down to the lower warm springs, the main hot springs in Saline Valley.
At that point, Chili Bob was gone from Saline Valley.
A guy named Major Tom was the campground host.
Major Tom radioed into the sheriff's office and it became apparent to everybody,
(34:03):
hey, this probably connects to the Berman case.
So the next day when the investigators navigators go back to the scene with
the hiker and with Major Tom,
they end up finding the rest of the remains in a kind of a trough of a desert dry wash.
Now, a desert dry wash is like a dry riverbed. It's where intermittent water
(34:27):
flow over thousands of years has carved creek beds and river banks.
And in a place called a cut bank, where you've got kind of a shallow trough
between a a bigger bank and a smaller bank, there was this trough in there.
The bodies had been stripped of clothing and stacked and then carefully concealed with rocks and dirt.
(34:49):
It was obvious that it was a homicide and that they had been deliberately buried.
Wow. So I guess one of my questions for you was.
What sort of evidence around these these bones pointed
to homicide and i think you just answered that was there
anything else about the discovery of the bones that really pointed to that or
(35:09):
just the fact that they were obviously concealed they had obviously been concealed
the coroner's report was inconclusive couldn't determine a cause of death there
was something again highly suggestive found with the remains,
a tiny handcuff key.
Ooh, that is very interesting. Twist that around a little bit.
(35:34):
Yeah, yeah. Think about what that suggests.
That's really interesting. So again, I don't want to give away too much of your
book because it is worthy of a read, but I do want to talk a little bit more
about Mike because it's not hidden knowledge.
People can do some research and discover some information about him and his tie to this case.
But I'd love to know more about your investigation and how you were able to
(35:59):
learn more about Mike, who was the military gentleman you talked about that
was with them and had the other Datsun pickup truck.
So the sheriff's office eventually zeroed in on the military guy,
and it was quite an amazing endeavor.
And I'll leave that to the reader to find out how they were able to track him down.
(36:20):
And interview him, and he was all over the board when they interviewed him.
Let's leave that for the book.
But what I will say is they were able to identify somebody who was highly suspicious.
Who gave inconsistent answers about what he did, who certainly had the means
(36:42):
to be able to kill the Bermans and –.
And possibly had a sexual motivation based on his behavior afterwards.
So his name is Michael Pepe. He has never been arrested, never been charged.
And so what I do in the book is lay out the
evidence that led investigators to believe that he was the perpetrator and new
(37:09):
evidence in the form of jailhouse informants who came came forward and talked
about what they said were confessions by him that he was bragging about these killings in prison.
Because he is in prison, later in his life, he committed unimaginably heinous
(37:29):
and violent sex crimes against little girls.
And again, that was probably something that was simmering in him and didn't
just happen to come out when he was in his 50s.
And it's my theory that this could provide a possible motive or explanation
for what happened with the Bermans.
(37:51):
We know for a fact he would go off the rails with little girls and tie them
up, rape them, gag them, beat them, leave them bleeding.
So we know for a fact he did that. Yeah.
We can look back at the Berman case and say, this is a possible motivation.
(38:14):
There was a handcuff key. He had met them the night before in the hot tub.
He drove in the same direction that they were walking.
They were found farther than they reasonably would have walked on their own.
It's highly likely that they got there at least part of the way in motor vehicle,
and it starts to come together of a possible motive and an opportunity.
(38:40):
For Michael Pepe to be the perpetrator. But again, he's never been charged.
It was similar to our TV show, if I remember correctly.
And I'm hoping, Alexis, a call for Alexis Boozer Sterling.
If you're listening to this episode, we should connect because I'm having trouble
remembering all the stuff we came up with.
But I do know that we talked a lot about Michael Pepe and came to some similar
(39:03):
conclusions in our own investigation, which was not near as in-depth as yours.
And I do want my listeners to check out your book. It's a really fascinating book.
And again, I don't want to give too much away. So I don't want to say anything
more about him or the case, but it's a fascinating case that even after all
this time, even after you're reading your book this week, it's one that I've never forgotten about.
(39:25):
It's one that stayed with me and I think always will for a variety of reasons.
But before we go, I do want to talk to you about your connection and your history.
You told me a little bit about it to the Mojave, to the desert region and some
of the plans you may have for future true crime and seeing if it ties in with the Mojave region.
But tell me about it. Was it your grandmother who was a prospector?
(39:48):
She was. Yeah, my grandmother, after my grandfather died, my grandmother just
did something rather amazing.
She was living in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's where where she was from
and where I was born and raised.
So when, gosh, I was, I don't even know if I'd been born yet,
(40:08):
or I was probably one or two years old.
My grandfather died and my grandmother takes a trip down to Mexico.
On her way back, she passes through the Mojave Desert and just decides to sell
her house in the Bay Area and relocate to a little cabin,
a little artistic little cabin cabin in the middle of this lonely desert Valley
(40:30):
with Joshua trees all around and mountains.
And she becomes a prospector. She had a four wheel drive truck before four wheel
drives were a thing. She was driving in a big four wheel drive truck.
She would sometimes strap a, a Jocelyn 44 revolver to her hip.
She said she could talk to rattlesnakes. She said, Oh, I'm not afraid of rattlesnake's
(40:52):
child, I can feel the energy and talk to them and tell them it's okay, relax.
And she was a very spiritual person, a very unique person, very colorful,
built some outbuildings.
She had one that looked like an old miner's cabin complete with a pot belly
stove and all these old bottles and relics on shelves.
(41:13):
I mean, imagine you're a little boy and you're brought into this environment and turned loose.
I mean, that was it. I was hooked for life. And so as soon as I made enough
money and was old enough, I was 16 years old, I bought my own four-wheel drive
and started going out in the desert to explore.
And I guess I'm still doing it. Yeah, you are. Yeah.
(41:35):
And eventually I found my way into Saline Valley and into the surrounding mountains.
I did a lot of desert mountaineering out there.
One of the firefighters I was talking about real close, became a real close buddy.
And he and I would go on these amazing adventures, bagging peaks and exploring,
you know, hidden places in the desert.
And that became a passion. And when the Bermans disappeared,
(41:58):
I mean, it really affected me. I just didn't.
This valley, listen, there are places in the desert that feel edgy.
I mean, and that's true still today.
I mean, there's meth labs and there's spots where you may not want to go knock
on the door of that particular house, you know, and there may be kind of junkyard
dogs barking and that kind of thing.
(42:19):
But this valley, Sailing Valley, was not like that.
It was a peaceful place, untouched by that kind of thing.
And the notion that two people had been murdered in that environment and that
the killer had never been caught, that just kind of cast a pall over things.
And it gnawed at me for years. So eventually, in 2014, I decided I'm going to
(42:44):
look back into this case.
And one thing led to another.
And then the sheriff's department decided, what the heck, they'll cooperate and turn over records.
I began tracking people down, interviewing them. Eventually,
I got some of Pepe's family members to talk with me, and one thing led to another.
And yeah, just the project over nine years went past articles and built into a book.
(43:12):
And the Mojave itself, you talk about this draw to it.
For someone like me that loves strange stories- You're known for your love of
the strange stories. My love of the strange stories. But the Mojave itself is this wonderful place.
And I say wonderful because of fascinating stories, not always wonderful things,
but it has connections to history in really interesting ways.
It has connections to Charles Manson, it has connections to Japanese internment
(43:34):
camps, it has connections to UFO sightings, it has connections to,
you know, the Air Force and military training and a lot of missing people,
a lot of, you know, like you said, people making meth.
And there's just a wild, wild scene that can happen.
But the most of it, 99.9% of it is just beautiful nature and wonderful places.
(43:55):
I'm actually camping in the Mojave in two weeks with my son,
Red Rock Canyon, which I've never been to near sort of Edwards Air Force Base-ish area.
And I'm really looking forward to it. But so in terms of what's next for you,
are you looking at more cases in that region?
Are you looking outside of that region? Or is just something interesting coming up to you?
(44:17):
I mine the deserts for stories. That's my passion.
So I range from Arizona, California, Nevada, wherever the story might lead, northern Mexico.
The next book I'm working on, A Rose, I'm in Nevada right now.
I'm in the process of relocating to Nevada.
(44:39):
I do a lot of writing for the Las Vegas Review Journal. But there was a story,
and some of your listeners might remember it, just back in 2022,
an 18-year-old girl in Fernley, Nevada, was on her way to work.
She actually worked at the Tesla Gigafactory. She worked for Panasonic.
It's a joint venture, that factory. And if you work for Panasonic and you live
(45:00):
in Fernley, which is kind of a rural suburb, it's sort of a part suburb of Reno
and part still just a rural community.
She parked her car in a Walmart parking lot intending to catch an early morning
shuttle bus that would take her out to the Tesla factory.
And she was sitting in her car and a 41-year-old construction supervisor,
(45:22):
an accomplished guy, well-respected at work. He has a $60,000 truck.
He's got a girlfriend at home.
He stalks through the parking lot, forces his way into her car,
drives with her, with another human being, a little girl, drives with her for
over an hour out in the middle of the Nevada desert to a place where he has
(45:44):
pre-dug a grave. He rapes her.
He murders her. He shoots her in the back of the head. He buries her and then
comes home to his girlfriend.
Hi, honey, I'm home. I mean, who does that?
And that's what I'm exploring in the book. And I'm also chronicling the amazing
effort by the family of this wonderful girl, Naomi Urian.
(46:09):
I want to talk about her life because she was a wonderful spirit,
a beautiful girl, and her family and what they did to try to help find her,
and then the efforts by law enforcement to quickly crack the case and bring
the perpetrator to justice.
Justice so it's an it's an amazing story
(46:30):
but I what makes it a book-length story I've already written some articles on
it but what makes it a book-length story is probing the depths of the darkness
of the human spirit that would cause a man in midlife to do something so horrific.
(46:51):
Well, keep up the good work. I think these stories, as hard as they are sometimes,
I think they're important to share and important to learn from and research.
So I'm really looking forward to more of your work. And thank you for coming
on. Is there anything else you want to tell us about? Any information?
I'm going to provide some links to where people can buy the book,
(47:12):
but if there's anything you want to plug right in. Well, here it is,
The Berman Murders, and it's been a labor of love.
And Roman and Littlefield's a publisher, a very respected publisher.
I was really lucky to be able to work with them and some great editors.
Put my heart into it. I'd be honored if your listeners would read it.
I was very excited that you wrote this book and that you came my way.
(47:34):
And I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Michael. Much appreciated. it.
Thank you for listening to A Study of Strange. Before you leave,
hit that subscribe button to stay up to date.
We have a couple of big true crime episodes that are connected to Back to Back.
I think that's going to start next week.
Leave us a rating and review.
(47:55):
Visit our sub stack for more content, which you can find through our website
astudyofstrange.com in the support tab.
Send me ideas, comments, anything you like through astudyofstrange at gmail.com.
Thank you again for listening. Good night.
Warning, this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing.
January 6th, 1986.
At remote hot springs in the Mojave Desert, Barry and Louise Berman were on
a couples trip and left camp for a morning walk.
Their 1982 Datsun truck was later found abandoned.
(00:21):
The Bermans were missing.
Something about their disappearance didn't sit right, and foul play was suspected
but the investigation was stalled from the start because no bodies had been found.
That is, until three years later, when a skull was discovered deep in the desert.
Authorities soon found more remains and they were confirmed to be the bodies of the Bermans.
(00:44):
They had been buried in a shallow grave and their clothes had been methodically hidden nearby.
Today, we discuss the still unsolved case and a plausible suspect with the man
who knows more about the case than anyone, author and journalist Doug Carey.
The bodies had been stripped of clothing and stacked and then carefully concealed with rocks and dirt.
(01:07):
It was obvious that it was a homicide and that they had been deliberately buried.
This is a study of Strange.
Music.
(01:33):
Welcome to the show. As usual, I'm your host, Michael May.
Not so usual, though. Today's episode is a special one.
Normally, I share strange and unsolved tales to a guest, but today I'm speaking
with author Doug Carey about his debut crime novel, The Berman Murders Unraveling,
The Mojave Desert's Most Mysterious Unsolved Crime.
Thank you for joining me, Doug. Doug. My pleasure, Michael. Thank you for having me.
(01:57):
And I'm going to read just a tad bit from your bio because I want my listeners
to kind of understand your expertise here.
So Carrie exposes the story of Barry Berman, heir to the Kahlua fortune and
his wife, Louise, who went missing in 1986 in Saline Valley,
a popular Mojave desert draw for nudists and eccentrics.
(02:18):
Doug brings a blend of scholarly research and good old-fashioned storytelling
to his writing. He believes in immersive investigation.
His true crime stories have run on the front pages of LA Weekly,
Las Vegas Review Journal, San Francisco Daily Journal, and other respected outlets.
You have also practiced law and you do pro bono wilderness protection work for
desert survivors and outdoor groups that you co-founded.
(02:41):
And I'll ask you about that a little bit later on.
So this is your debut novel, but you're so fascinated and interested in these stories.
I'm surprised it kind of took you this long to write one.
Well, it's my debut true crime book, and I'm very happy.
It took me many years to put this project together. It became like an obsession.
(03:04):
And of course, there were a lot of ups and downs along the way.
But yeah, don't hold it against me. I'm a lawyer by background.
And that's where I learned a lot of the research skills and the doggedness that
it takes to pursue, whether it's a case or a story.
And then about 10 years ago, I started pursuing more journalism,
(03:27):
writing about true crime, and I got pulled into this story.
And yeah, now we've got the book, The Berman Murders. That's right.
And you spent how many years working on this story?
Well, off and on nine years, it really took a long time to develop the evidence
and to get interviews that I chased for a long time, do the site visits,
(03:50):
incredibly remote area, difficult to get to.
I went out there a number of times and there were just a lot of components involved.
Also, I was writing stories about the case along the way, including a cover story in LA Weekly.
And that story itself helped generate some new evidence in the form of tips
from prison informants.
(04:11):
So there were a lot of moving pieces to the story.
And for listeners, this is a double homicide, unsolved to a certain extent.
And do you want to tell people a short synopsis, just a little bit about the
case in your book? Look, so the setting is what drew me to the case.
The crimes took place in a place called Saline Valley, which is one of the most
(04:37):
remote regions in the Western United States.
You go on a two-lane highway towards Death Valley, and you're out in what could
fairly be called the middle of nowhere.
And from there, you make a turn onto a 50-mile, very rough dirt road when it's
even passable. But if you make it through, you come into this valley that's untouched by time.
(05:00):
It's absolutely pristine, beautiful desert wilderness with rippling sand dunes
and a silvery saltwater lake.
And in the middle of this extraordinary desert valley is a hot springs oasis,
natural hot springs that hippies and eccentrics and desert rats have developed
(05:22):
over the decades into this really cool hangout, kind of a counterculture hangout.
And when you first arrive there, you wouldn't be surprised to see people just
walking around naked except for maybe a hat and a pair of sandals.
So barry and louise berman were
on a romantic trip it was a makeup trip michael they
(05:43):
they had had some difficulties in their marriage they were
kind of a mismatch in a way she was she was 52 he was 35 she'd had kind of a
wild past barry was her fourth husband he was the heir apparent to the kalua
liquor fortune but they found themselves back together on this vacation they
(06:04):
go to the hot hot springs.
They arrive, they soak in one of the pools. The next morning,
they get up, they go for a walk, and they never come back.
And I want everybody to know this as well, because I'm fascinated with this case.
I worked on it a little bit myself on a TV show called Autobiography Cold Cases.
I was not the lead researcher or producer for that episode. That was my friend
(06:28):
Alexis Boozer. Obviously, we didn't have years.
In fact, we had COVID kind of limiting what we were allowed to do.
But there's certain things that stood out to me about this case that have never left my mind.
One is where this happened, and you just described Saline Valley.
But when you say remote, I,
I think one of the things I was reading about it early on was this is the modern
Wild West and untouched.
(06:50):
And how hard it is to get to this place, my crew went out, I think two or three
times and could never get there.
So this is, like you said, you can't always get there.
And there are some, what I'll put quotes around like locals,
but they don't technically live live there full time, but there are some people
that are kind of there most of the time.
(07:12):
And yeah, it's also, I think most people don't know everybody's real name.
It seems like everybody has a nickname in this area, which also is just something
that's completely interesting and strange about this case as well.
So they're not called locals, they're called regulars. Oh, oh,
all right. Or, or, or salineers.
(07:33):
Oh, okay, great. But, but among the folks who go out there, They call themselves
regulars. And yeah, they don't call them nicknames. They call them handles.
So lots of people have a handle. I don't think I have a handle,
at least not one that's been said to my face.
And I don't espouse a handle.
I've never embedded myself in the social scene out there, but I've been going there for decades.
(07:59):
And in fact, when you're at the hot springs, you look to the west and there's
this incredible view of the Inyo Mountains.
The east face of the Inyos is a 10,000-foot escarpment, just this sheer mountain range.
And there are deep canyons in those mountains.
(08:20):
All three of my children were baptized at the base of one of those canyons in
a little waterfall trickling off these desert mountains.
So that's how attached I am to the area, Michael.
And it is just an amazing place. It's kind of like a religion for some of the
people that are out there.
And when you're there, it's a little bit like being on a ship at sea.
(08:43):
The people around you become your friends. You might socialize.
People are smoking joints or having a drink.
And, you know, they're getting naked in hot tubs. It's not a hookup spot.
It's more of a back to nature.
But the bounds of conventional society don't apply.
Apply and the differences between people seem
(09:04):
to melt away and it's a it's a very peaceful communal kind
of a kind of a place so the notion that
two very peaceful there
were vegetarians they were barry and louise were adherents of of a religion
called rata soame they were devotees of of a punjabi guru they believed in transcendental
(09:26):
meditation they believed that the slaying of meat gives rise to bad karma they
wouldn't eat meat for two people in this place.
To just vanish and then later turn up miles away in a grave was mind-boggling
for those of us who love this area.
Yeah. And you talk about it being peaceful. And I think some listeners that
(09:49):
may not understand this when they hear nudist and eccentrics and in the middle
of the desert, why is it so shocking that people go missing here?
But it seems that there are unwritten rules, rules, unwritten laws about how
you behave and how respectful you're supposed to be to not just others around
you, but also the place itself. Correct?
(10:12):
Very much so. There's an unwritten code. And if you come in there and kind of
violate that code, you'll be talked to in a nice way.
A couple of people might come up and say, hey, you know, We don't really play
loud recorded music out here.
Or it's fine if a naked woman comes and gets in the tub.
(10:33):
Of course, it's fine to glance at her and say hello.
But we don't go around leering at women, that kind of thing.
It's a very respectful, very back-to-nature kind of environment.
And most people get with the program. They feel that energy.
They feel that vibe. And there's a real communal sense, a shared sense of belonging
and togetherness that cuts across other kinds of boundaries.
(10:57):
I mean, you'll have people of all political stripes from various backgrounds.
I say in the book, you might find firefighters on a weekend retreat and a magic
bus nearby with hippies. That's not just something I made up.
I've been there with friends of mine, mountaineering buddies of mine who are
(11:17):
firefighters, and nearby is a bunch of hippies in a magic bus.
And of course, as a guy who went to Berkeley in the 70s, I totally get both.
I relate to the mountaineer guys and I relate to the hippies.
And there is that very shared sense.
A lot of artists are drawn to the location, a lot of free thinker types.
(11:40):
It's an amazing spot. The silence is so pervasive that it's palpable.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's hard to describe. It's almost like being on another planet.
And I think it's possible that that sense of separateness, that sense of being
away from conventional society,
(12:00):
could be misinterpreted by somebody with deviant tendencies to think, hey, anything goes.
Right. And that could lead to trouble. Right. So let's back up just a little
bit here so people understand who the Bermans are.
Barry was the heir to the Kahlua fortune.
(12:21):
Louise is older than him, which is not the usual thing when you see in male-female relationships.
But yeah, what can you tell us about where they lived, how they met?
What kind of information do you want to share about them? Yeah,
they came from very different backgrounds, Michael, and that's part of what
makes them so fascinating as a couple.
Louise grew up in more working class circumstances and had a difficult childhood.
(12:44):
She was abused as a little girl. And rather than throwing the abuser out of
the house, her mother threw her out of the house and farmed her to live with
other people. but her mother was the kind who cycled through a lot of men.
Once the abuser was gone, Louise moved back in with her mom, but they never bonded.
And I think the abuse very much affected her and affected her outlook.
(13:08):
She became sexually active at a young age. She was married while still in high school.
And then she had three husbands before before Barry.
She had three children from two different men.
When she came into the 60s, she evolved from being kind of a glamorous,
(13:28):
coiffed secretary with manicured nails to being more of a 60s wild child,
doing drugs. She slept with a lot of men.
She went through some rough times. She even ended up in jail for a while.
Barry, on the other hand, was also very deeply influenced by the 60s, but in a different way.
Barry was 17 years younger and grew up in a family of almost unfathomable wealth,
(13:57):
at least for normal folks.
The Beverly Hills lifestyle that his father led was at a scale that is hard
to imagine. First of all, his wife was what you might call well-bred.
She'd been a child of a very wealthy New York family, had been sent to Switzerland to boarding school.
(14:19):
She was a bit aloof. She didn't believe that women such as her should be hands-on with their kids.
She wasn't the kind to give Barry a lot of hugs. His dad was all over the world doing mega deals.
Not only did he build the Kahlua brand into this massive, massive success,
but he was also involved in bringing
exotic, what were considered exotic beverages into the United States.
(14:43):
He spotted a trend that people might like brands from overseas.
So he was one of the people that spearheaded bringing Heineken to the United
States, J&B Scotch, et cetera.
And so he had massive success there, but he also got into the oil business,
real estate development on a huge scale, Huntington Harbor.
If you know Lake Arrowhead in Southern California. Yeah, he and his partners bought the entire lake.
(15:10):
They bought over 3,000 acres of the surrounding woodlands. They bought the entire village.
They're the ones who developed the golf course up there. I mean,
this guy was rolling big. He had a yacht named Kalua. He flew private.
He had a big lodge on the shores of Lake Arrowhead. He had a big place down in Acapulco.
(15:32):
He would hang with other wealthy entrepreneurs like Armand Hammer.
This is the scale that he rolled at. The Flying Tiger line, which was a predecessor
to FedEx, he and the founder had a 10,000 acre hunting preserve together. Wow.
This, that's Barry's dad. And he just didn't have a lot of time for his son.
He would kind of throw money at his son, but he didn't give him love and attention.
(15:55):
And because Barry grew up in such a frigid environment, he became kind of a
loner. He's a very thoughtful, pensive young man.
He would go up into the hills behind his house as he got into high school.
Maybe he would get stoned or he even, you know, would drop acid like a lot of folks in the 60s.
He developed a close circle of friends.
(16:16):
And when his dad bought the El Capitan Ranch, which was 3,500 acres of oceanfront
land north of Santa Barbara, there were some cottages by the ocean side on kind
of an isolated parcel of land.
And him and his friends would go out there for the weekend and they'd hang out.
Maybe they'd do mushrooms and surf, that kind of thing.
(16:37):
By the way, the land where they used to hang out is now or later was sold to
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
But that's one of those interesting connections.
But anyway, they both, Barry and Louise, both went looking for something that
was missing in their lives, Michael.
And they both found their way to this Punjabi guru, Charan Singh,
(17:00):
very charismatic. He had millions of followers worldwide, and it was at what's
called a satsang, which is a bit like Sunday service in a Christian church.
At a satsang in Santa Barbara, that's how they met. Louise was looking for a place to live.
She moved into one of the oceanfront cottages, actually became Barry's roommate,
(17:22):
and the two became intimate.
She was probably the first woman in the 35 years that Barry had been alive by
the time he passed away. way. He was 29 when they met, probably 30 when they became intimate.
She was probably the first woman he had ever slept. So here they are.
Five or so years after they meet. And as you said, they went through a rough patch.
(17:46):
This is a bit of a get back together sort of bonding trip out to the hot springs.
And I'd love to hear a little bit about the day or the night before they went
missing, because I know they got in the hot springs, correct?
And then what happened from there?
So it was January. So we're talking short days, longer nights.
(18:07):
They left home on this makeup trip. They were driving a four-wheel drive Datsun pickup.
Back then, not a lot of people had four-wheel drives. They weren't as much of a thing.
So Barry was an experienced traveler into the backcountry, especially by four-wheel drive.
He and a close friend of his, a jewelry maker named Arthur Korb,
also a disciple of Char and Singh, they would go on these trips to explore remote hot springs.
(18:31):
Well, Barry's profession was to craft decorative ironwork.
And he wanted, on their makeup trip, to go out to Scotty's Castle in Death Valley,
because Scotty's Castle, aka Death Valley Ranch, is an extraordinary mansion
that has a lot of beautiful wrought ironwork.
So Barry and Louise, after camping out one night, ended up at Scotty's Castle,
(18:56):
and he took a lot of photos of the ironwork and everything.
Anyway, eventually, they end up driving into Saline Valley.
Arthur Korb, The the jewelry maker close friend of Barry's had said hey if you're
gonna be out in that area You've got to check out the hot springs in saline Valley.
So they arrived after dark which speaks to Barry's confidence and his abilities
(19:20):
in the wilderness Because it's tough to navigate your way and it was a moonless night by the way so.
January 5, 1986, they arrive after dark.
And the hot springs, there's one main area that's been developed into bathing
pools where the water's been piped from the natural springs into these bathing pools.
(19:43):
And that place is kind of a social scene. There's a lawn, there's lots of palm
trees, there's a little outdoor library. It's a wonderful spot.
But for people who want a little more of a back
to nature experience a little less of a social scene from those
springs out in the middle of saline valley
at this oasis you go uphill about three quarters of a mile and there's a smaller
(20:06):
set of springs less developed and it's called palm spring palm singular some
people call it palm springs but has nothing to do with the city palm springs
it's just this little sub oasis places.
And that's where they pulled in late in the evening.
As I said, there's no moon in the sky. So in the total darkness,
(20:28):
they get out. They actually were wearing bathing suits, which is interesting.
They weren't prudish, but they were reserved. I think they probably would have
taken off their clothes if they'd been there longer.
But initially, they put on bathing suits and they slip into one of the tubs.
And in that tub were three men who were bathing under the the stars and chatting.
And that was their introduction to the hot springs at Saline Valley.
(20:54):
And can you share with us who was in the tub with them?
So this is where the story starts to get interesting because,
listen, somebody killed these people. It was clear.
We can talk about why that was clear and when and where the bodies were were found.
But right now, let's focus on the people. And Michael, your question,
(21:17):
because it's very pertinent.
There weren't a lot of people around up there.
Now, down at the main springs, yes, there were more people.
There were probably 50 people or so, something like that, at least a few dozen. I know that because...
A ranger who's also a mountaineering buddy of mine
happened to drive through oh wow yeah
(21:38):
he happened to drive through right before
the burmans arrived the day before the burmans arrived so he gave
me a picture of what he remembered a mental picture of what he remembered about
sort of the scene the new year's crowd was starting to disperse but there were
still a number of people but up at the up at the palm spring there were only
a a couple of groups there was a military man who was traveling alone.
(22:03):
There were three motorcycle riders from Modesto. And there was a family from Northern California.
I believe they were from Humboldt County, a dad and a mom and a 10-year-old boy.
And then there was the Bermans. And that was it. Those were the only people in camp.
So when they got into the hot tub, the military man who was traveling alone
was soaking, as were two of the three motorcycle riders.
(22:28):
And that's who they first met. One of the men, can I use his name?
Am I allowed to use his name? Absolutely.
Okay. So there's a guy named Mike, correct? Mike. Mike the Marine.
And he actually propositions a couple, and I can't remember,
is that the Bermans or is that somebody else?
So that happens after the Bermans disappear, and it reveals a lot about what
(22:50):
may have been motivation.
So let's get down to the quick a little bit.
So when When the sheriff's department in New County Sheriff's Department started
to investigate the Berman's disappearance, they were able pretty quickly to
identify the motorcycle riders and to interview them.
(23:11):
And these guys were just very open, very willing to talk. They had nothing to hide.
They weren't trying to coordinate their stories. They had photos of what they'd been doing.
They freely admitted that they rode their motorcycles sometimes where they shouldn't have.
Because it is wilderness protected they admitted
oh yeah we did go off the road you know that kind
(23:33):
of thing these are just down-to-earth kind of rambunctious guys when i interviewed
them years later they were straight shooters they they sent me their original
photos oh wow that's great stamped on the back you could see where they had
gone that the day that the burmans disappeared disappeared.
The man named Mike, though, was much harder to track down.
(23:57):
And his whereabouts on the day and his activities on the day that the Bermans
disappeared was highly suggestive. And I'll tell you why. So they get up in the morning.
On monday january 6 and the the
woman from humboldt county in northern
california she was the hippie couple
(24:19):
with their 10 year old son she sees the burmans taking
off early with their backpacks going up the road when i say the road at palm
spring there's a rough jeep trail it's really a a road made more by years of
wheel tracks rather than a bulldozer ever having been run through there.
(24:40):
But it's a road of sorts, and it heads up the northeastern side of Saline Valley
and eventually crosses over a pass and goes down a very rugged canyon accessible
only by four-wheel drive and ends up in a place called Eureka Valley.
But people sometimes on a day hike will head up this road. We'll call it a road.
(25:05):
There's a couple of things they might want to see along the way.
There's a cabin. That's a whole side story there.
And then there's some natural undeveloped springs a couple miles up.
Now, we know that Louise had a sore ankle and didn't plan to do much hiking.
And we also know that they left their cameras behind. And typically,
if you're going on a long hike, you probably bring your cameras.
(25:28):
So that indicated that they were probably just out for a morning walk.
So after they leave camp, the motorcycle riders see the military man,
and he's taking some of his supplies out of his truck and leaving him in camp.
He's kind of prepping for a day trip.
He's got some extra gas, water.
He's got a shovel in the back. He's driving this little Datsun pickup truck. truck.
(25:51):
Coincidentally, the Bermans were also driving a Datsun. He's driving a little
Datsun pickup truck and slowly making his way up this road.
Well, fast forward, late in the afternoon, he comes back down the road.
By that time, another couple had arrived in camp.
An older guy, well-known mountaineer
(26:12):
in the Eastern Sierra, but they asked that I not use their names.
So I've respected that and his longtime partner, a very beautiful younger woman,
the two of them were well-known in the kind of the community of mountaineers out there.
They were both really, really committed outdoors people and artists.
(26:33):
When the military man, Mike, driving his little pickup gets back to camp,
he comes over and talks to them and particularly to her.
He's dirty. He's covered in dust. He seems edgy.
And he said, you know, I quit smoking, but I'd like to, do you have some cigarettes?
I'll trade you a can of peaches for a pack of cigarettes.
(26:56):
So they were like, sure. You know, they had some cigarettes,
so they traded him for a pack of cigarettes. And he starts chatting with this
younger, beautiful woman.
And in only a matter of minutes, he starts like hitting on her,
floating the idea of a threesome.
So whatever had happened, he came back into camp dirty, edgy,
(27:17):
and sexually energized.
And that was highly suggested. And law enforcement felt perhaps that suggested
a motive for why the Bermans are later found in a shallow grave miles away,
farther than they reasonably could have walked,
(27:37):
right? Right. So how did they get there?
Well, did they ride on the back of these little off-road dirt bikes?
I actually examined one of those dirt bikes. It's still, it's still around.
It's still at the house of one of the motorcycle riders.
He has it under a tarp. I took a look at it. There's no way you can get a second
(27:58):
person on it. There's no seat.
There's no passenger foot pegs, but a Datsun little pickup, you can get three
people in the cab. It's close quarters.
Right. You can get three people in the cab. So they disappear,
and again, if memory serves, please correct me if I'm wrong,
but they kind of put the pieces together that this couple is missing when the
(28:21):
truck, their Datsun, their 1982 Datsun is just sitting around for a while.
And a gentleman discovers the truck, and doesn't he radio the police like,
hey, something may have happened to these folks?
So out here at this oasis, it was a little bit of anarchy.
Technically, though, this is federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
(28:45):
And at a certain point, the Bureau of Land Management felt like we need to have
some measure of control out there. Well, there was a guy who was living out
there. He was called Chili Bob.
Chili Bob lived in a little trailer year round. He loved to drink beer and he
just became a fixture. And he had a two-way radio.
And so the Bureau of Land Management thought, well, we will anoint him as the campground host.
(29:09):
And then if any problems happen, he can radio in and radio for assistance. assistance.
So eventually somebody reports to Chili Bob, hey, there's this truck up at the
Palm Spring and people aren't around.
There was a couple there, but they vanished and haven't come back.
And so he radios into the sheriff's office for assistance.
(29:32):
Well, when the sheriff's deputy finally comes out, and that takes a while,
they finally get out there and they realize, hey, hey, these people are nowhere to be found.
And meanwhile, their family and friends are saying, hey, they were due back home days ago.
And now all of a sudden, it becomes a big thing, especially when the sheriff's
(29:52):
office finds out this unassuming hippie type guy who disappeared is actually
the heir to a massive fortune.
And his father, who is wealthy and connected, is asking, where the hell is my son?
What are you going to go do to find him? Well, that spurs a massive search.
There were aerial assets brought in from the California Highway Patrol, from.
(30:17):
China Lake Naval Weapons Center, from the Stockton National Guard.
There were ground teams from adjacent counties. It became like a war zone out there.
Dozens and dozens of trained searchers, off-road vehicles, helicopter assets,
everybody out there looking.
The search goes on for two weeks solid and not a trace.
(30:40):
And they continue searching. And then Jules Berman, Berman, Barry's dad,
does a private search and nothing turns up. The Bermans are just gone.
And there's all kinds of theories. Were they kidnapped for ransom?
Only there's no ransom demand.
Some of the people in Saline Valley were like, oops, a UFO must have gotten them. Right, right.
(31:03):
The sheriff's office was like, wait a minute, they're disciples of a Punjabi guru.
Is this some kind of a cult thing. But all those false leads get quickly eliminated.
And the sheriff's office starts to zero in on, this looks like foul play.
We've got two people that are gone.
(31:23):
We've scoured the desert. And in this wilderness, although it's very rugged,
you can see things from the air.
And the searching was done at low altitude, crisscrossing for days.
And it just It just didn't seem reasonable that they were lost in somewhere.
They explored canyons and ridges. I mean, it was a very thorough search and not a sign.
(31:50):
How long was it until they discovered the bodies? Almost three years.
So they disappear in January 1986.
In November 1988, about seven miles up this rugged road that I was talking about
that leads away from the Palm Spring campground into some of the most remote
(32:11):
desert wilderness in the western United States.
About seven rugged miles up that road.
And then off the road, there was a hiker that was coming down from,
he was a desert peaks kind of guy.
And I understand exactly what he was doing because I've done a lot of desert
peak bagging and getting into some of these remote peaks and adding them to
(32:35):
your list as part of the accomplishment.
This is what people who were into bagging desert peaks And there was a route
into a couple of peaks that you would go up this corridor, it was called this rough road,
and then you could cross a rugged area of the desert and then scale some adjacent mountains,
(32:57):
a mountain range called the last chance range.
And you could get into the last chance range by going that way.
Now, not many people do it. I mean, it's a very rugged approach, but it's very elegant.
It allows you access to some really interesting lines.
And if you're a mountaineer that really wants a clean, direct, very difficult route.
(33:17):
Ascent route in some country that rarely sees any people.
This is an area where you might you might go So this guy that's that's coming
down from from a hike into this remote area.
He's a desert peak bagger He's crossing through this area of desert and he sees
something shiny and it turns out.
(33:39):
It's a human skull So he takes the skull puts it in his little pack and brings
it down to the lower warm springs, the main hot springs in Saline Valley.
At that point, Chili Bob was gone from Saline Valley.
A guy named Major Tom was the campground host.
Major Tom radioed into the sheriff's office and it became apparent to everybody,
(34:03):
hey, this probably connects to the Berman case.
So the next day when the investigators navigators go back to the scene with
the hiker and with Major Tom,
they end up finding the rest of the remains in a kind of a trough of a desert dry wash.
Now, a desert dry wash is like a dry riverbed. It's where intermittent water
(34:27):
flow over thousands of years has carved creek beds and river banks.
And in a place called a cut bank, where you've got kind of a shallow trough
between a a bigger bank and a smaller bank, there was this trough in there.
The bodies had been stripped of clothing and stacked and then carefully concealed with rocks and dirt.
(34:49):
It was obvious that it was a homicide and that they had been deliberately buried.
Wow. So I guess one of my questions for you was.
What sort of evidence around these these bones pointed
to homicide and i think you just answered that was there
anything else about the discovery of the bones that really pointed to that or
(35:09):
just the fact that they were obviously concealed they had obviously been concealed
the coroner's report was inconclusive couldn't determine a cause of death there
was something again highly suggestive found with the remains,
a tiny handcuff key.
Ooh, that is very interesting. Twist that around a little bit.
(35:34):
Yeah, yeah. Think about what that suggests.
That's really interesting. So again, I don't want to give away too much of your
book because it is worthy of a read, but I do want to talk a little bit more
about Mike because it's not hidden knowledge.
People can do some research and discover some information about him and his tie to this case.
But I'd love to know more about your investigation and how you were able to
(35:59):
learn more about Mike, who was the military gentleman you talked about that
was with them and had the other Datsun pickup truck.
So the sheriff's office eventually zeroed in on the military guy,
and it was quite an amazing endeavor.
And I'll leave that to the reader to find out how they were able to track him down.
(36:20):
And interview him, and he was all over the board when they interviewed him.
Let's leave that for the book.
But what I will say is they were able to identify somebody who was highly suspicious.
Who gave inconsistent answers about what he did, who certainly had the means
(36:42):
to be able to kill the Bermans and –.
And possibly had a sexual motivation based on his behavior afterwards.
So his name is Michael Pepe. He has never been arrested, never been charged.
And so what I do in the book is lay out the
evidence that led investigators to believe that he was the perpetrator and new
(37:09):
evidence in the form of jailhouse informants who came came forward and talked
about what they said were confessions by him that he was bragging about these killings in prison.
Because he is in prison, later in his life, he committed unimaginably heinous
(37:29):
and violent sex crimes against little girls.
And again, that was probably something that was simmering in him and didn't
just happen to come out when he was in his 50s.
And it's my theory that this could provide a possible motive or explanation
for what happened with the Bermans.
(37:51):
We know for a fact he would go off the rails with little girls and tie them
up, rape them, gag them, beat them, leave them bleeding.
So we know for a fact he did that. Yeah.
We can look back at the Berman case and say, this is a possible motivation.
(38:14):
There was a handcuff key. He had met them the night before in the hot tub.
He drove in the same direction that they were walking.
They were found farther than they reasonably would have walked on their own.
It's highly likely that they got there at least part of the way in motor vehicle,
and it starts to come together of a possible motive and an opportunity.
(38:40):
For Michael Pepe to be the perpetrator. But again, he's never been charged.
It was similar to our TV show, if I remember correctly.
And I'm hoping, Alexis, a call for Alexis Boozer Sterling.
If you're listening to this episode, we should connect because I'm having trouble
remembering all the stuff we came up with.
But I do know that we talked a lot about Michael Pepe and came to some similar
(39:03):
conclusions in our own investigation, which was not near as in-depth as yours.
And I do want my listeners to check out your book. It's a really fascinating book.
And again, I don't want to give too much away. So I don't want to say anything
more about him or the case, but it's a fascinating case that even after all
this time, even after you're reading your book this week, it's one that I've never forgotten about.
(39:25):
It's one that stayed with me and I think always will for a variety of reasons.
But before we go, I do want to talk to you about your connection and your history.
You told me a little bit about it to the Mojave, to the desert region and some
of the plans you may have for future true crime and seeing if it ties in with the Mojave region.
But tell me about it. Was it your grandmother who was a prospector?
(39:48):
She was. Yeah, my grandmother, after my grandfather died, my grandmother just
did something rather amazing.
She was living in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's where where she was from
and where I was born and raised.
So when, gosh, I was, I don't even know if I'd been born yet,
(40:08):
or I was probably one or two years old.
My grandfather died and my grandmother takes a trip down to Mexico.
On her way back, she passes through the Mojave Desert and just decides to sell
her house in the Bay Area and relocate to a little cabin,
a little artistic little cabin cabin in the middle of this lonely desert Valley
(40:30):
with Joshua trees all around and mountains.
And she becomes a prospector. She had a four wheel drive truck before four wheel
drives were a thing. She was driving in a big four wheel drive truck.
She would sometimes strap a, a Jocelyn 44 revolver to her hip.
She said she could talk to rattlesnakes. She said, Oh, I'm not afraid of rattlesnake's
(40:52):
child, I can feel the energy and talk to them and tell them it's okay, relax.
And she was a very spiritual person, a very unique person, very colorful,
built some outbuildings.
She had one that looked like an old miner's cabin complete with a pot belly
stove and all these old bottles and relics on shelves.
(41:13):
I mean, imagine you're a little boy and you're brought into this environment and turned loose.
I mean, that was it. I was hooked for life. And so as soon as I made enough
money and was old enough, I was 16 years old, I bought my own four-wheel drive
and started going out in the desert to explore.
And I guess I'm still doing it. Yeah, you are. Yeah.
(41:35):
And eventually I found my way into Saline Valley and into the surrounding mountains.
I did a lot of desert mountaineering out there.
One of the firefighters I was talking about real close, became a real close buddy.
And he and I would go on these amazing adventures, bagging peaks and exploring,
you know, hidden places in the desert.
And that became a passion. And when the Bermans disappeared,
(41:58):
I mean, it really affected me. I just didn't.
This valley, listen, there are places in the desert that feel edgy.
I mean, and that's true still today.
I mean, there's meth labs and there's spots where you may not want to go knock
on the door of that particular house, you know, and there may be kind of junkyard
dogs barking and that kind of thing.
(42:19):
But this valley, Sailing Valley, was not like that.
It was a peaceful place, untouched by that kind of thing.
And the notion that two people had been murdered in that environment and that
the killer had never been caught, that just kind of cast a pall over things.
And it gnawed at me for years. So eventually, in 2014, I decided I'm going to
(42:44):
look back into this case.
And one thing led to another.
And then the sheriff's department decided, what the heck, they'll cooperate and turn over records.
I began tracking people down, interviewing them. Eventually,
I got some of Pepe's family members to talk with me, and one thing led to another.
And yeah, just the project over nine years went past articles and built into a book.
(43:12):
And the Mojave itself, you talk about this draw to it.
For someone like me that loves strange stories- You're known for your love of
the strange stories. My love of the strange stories. But the Mojave itself is this wonderful place.
And I say wonderful because of fascinating stories, not always wonderful things,
but it has connections to history in really interesting ways.
It has connections to Charles Manson, it has connections to Japanese internment
(43:34):
camps, it has connections to UFO sightings, it has connections to,
you know, the Air Force and military training and a lot of missing people,
a lot of, you know, like you said, people making meth.
And there's just a wild, wild scene that can happen.
But the most of it, 99.9% of it is just beautiful nature and wonderful places.
(43:55):
I'm actually camping in the Mojave in two weeks with my son,
Red Rock Canyon, which I've never been to near sort of Edwards Air Force Base-ish area.
And I'm really looking forward to it. But so in terms of what's next for you,
are you looking at more cases in that region?
Are you looking outside of that region? Or is just something interesting coming up to you?
(44:17):
I mine the deserts for stories. That's my passion.
So I range from Arizona, California, Nevada, wherever the story might lead, northern Mexico.
The next book I'm working on, A Rose, I'm in Nevada right now.
I'm in the process of relocating to Nevada.
(44:39):
I do a lot of writing for the Las Vegas Review Journal. But there was a story,
and some of your listeners might remember it, just back in 2022,
an 18-year-old girl in Fernley, Nevada, was on her way to work.
She actually worked at the Tesla Gigafactory. She worked for Panasonic.
It's a joint venture, that factory. And if you work for Panasonic and you live
(45:00):
in Fernley, which is kind of a rural suburb, it's sort of a part suburb of Reno
and part still just a rural community.
She parked her car in a Walmart parking lot intending to catch an early morning
shuttle bus that would take her out to the Tesla factory.
And she was sitting in her car and a 41-year-old construction supervisor,
(45:22):
an accomplished guy, well-respected at work. He has a $60,000 truck.
He's got a girlfriend at home.
He stalks through the parking lot, forces his way into her car,
drives with her, with another human being, a little girl, drives with her for
over an hour out in the middle of the Nevada desert to a place where he has
(45:44):
pre-dug a grave. He rapes her.
He murders her. He shoots her in the back of the head. He buries her and then
comes home to his girlfriend.
Hi, honey, I'm home. I mean, who does that?
And that's what I'm exploring in the book. And I'm also chronicling the amazing
effort by the family of this wonderful girl, Naomi Urian.
(46:09):
I want to talk about her life because she was a wonderful spirit,
a beautiful girl, and her family and what they did to try to help find her,
and then the efforts by law enforcement to quickly crack the case and bring
the perpetrator to justice.
Justice so it's an it's an amazing story
(46:30):
but I what makes it a book-length story I've already written some articles on
it but what makes it a book-length story is probing the depths of the darkness
of the human spirit that would cause a man in midlife to do something so horrific.
(46:51):
Well, keep up the good work. I think these stories, as hard as they are sometimes,
I think they're important to share and important to learn from and research.
So I'm really looking forward to more of your work. And thank you for coming
on. Is there anything else you want to tell us about? Any information?
I'm going to provide some links to where people can buy the book,
(47:12):
but if there's anything you want to plug right in. Well, here it is,
The Berman Murders, and it's been a labor of love.
And Roman and Littlefield's a publisher, a very respected publisher.
I was really lucky to be able to work with them and some great editors.
Put my heart into it. I'd be honored if your listeners would read it.
I was very excited that you wrote this book and that you came my way.
(47:34):
And I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Michael. Much appreciated. it.
Thank you for listening to A Study of Strange. Before you leave,
hit that subscribe button to stay up to date.
We have a couple of big true crime episodes that are connected to Back to Back.
I think that's going to start next week.
Leave us a rating and review.
(47:55):
Visit our sub stack for more content, which you can find through our website
astudyofstrange.com in the support tab.
Send me ideas, comments, anything you like through astudyofstrange at gmail.com.
Thank you again for listening. Good night.
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