School of humans. There are many unsolved mysteries circling the Holy City of Rishakesh, Foreigners who vanish, unforeseen spiritual awakenings, the healing powers of the Ganges, a river where both salvation and death flow, and the unexplainable energy that draws seekers who believe the holy city is a fast track to enlightenment. One of those seekers was Russell, a Sri Lankan living in Melbourne who had his sights set on visiting Rishikesh. It's November twenty eighteen. Russell, a Sri Lankan living in Melbourne, is at the airport in Melbourne waiting for his flight to board. Though he's eventually going to meet up with his family in Sri Lanka for his cousin's wedding, he's traveling light materials. Things aren't important to Russell these days. He lives minimally and stopped buying stuff for the sake of buying it for a while now. But as he's gotten more dedicated to his spiritual journey, his family has noticed that he's detaching from the things that used to meet a lot to him, like cricket. One day, he gave his bats away and stopped playing a sport he used to love. Not long ago, he had a breakdown after he was scammed by a girlfriend. It left him financially ruined and tested his faith in humanity. He couldn't believe that someone he had loved, dated and lived with for a handful of years could be so deceitful. After hitting this breaking point, Russell's family noticed his deeper commitment to spiritual growth. But Russell was born a seeker, driven by curiosity, an interested in human connection. He spent nine months in Peru with Shaman's, studied multiple religions, and experimented with ayahuasca, and though he was raised Catholic, he's drawn Hinduism, which is why his sister Rosita is not surprised he's decided to take a quick detour to India before meeting up with his family at the wedding. Unlike Rosita, Russell isn't married and doesn't have kids, so he's thrown himself into self discovery and his quest for the next level of spirituality. This is what drew Russell to Rishikesh, a seeker with one intention for traveling there, but that is what might have killed him. An announcement echoes through the airport. The flight to Derroduna, India is boarding. When Russell lands in Derradun, he'll hop either a bus or taxi that will take him to his final destination, Rishikesh. As Russell steps into the line of passengers, he overhears someone talking about Vicisht Goufa, a cave carved into a steep cliff on the banks of the Ganges an hour from shiksh It's also known as the Jesus Cave, a name derived from lore that Jesus spent some of his lost years in India. The lost years refer to an eighteen year period of Jesus's life from ages twelve to twenty nine that are not documented in the New Testament. Various Swamis, male Hindu spiritual teachers in India claim that during these lost years, Jesus sought solitude and the cavern of Vishisht Gufa, and in the last century, two swamis with no knowledge of Jesus's connection to the cave said when visiting they had visions of Jesus meditating there. Russell plans to visit the sacred cave and cleanse himself in the river Ganges flowing through the center of Rishikesh. Ever since he's been practicing Hinduism, he's felt called to Mother Ganga. Like the Hindus, he believes she will wash away bad karma and evil spirits and provide a clean saying that will reawaken him. His phone vibrates. It's a WhatsApp message from his sister, Rosita, checking in on him. He lets her know he's boarding and he'll text her when he lands. He shuts off his phone in preparation for the thirteen hour flight, hands his ticket to the flight attendant, who scans it, then enters the dimly lit jet bridge, boarding a plane that will take him to a city he'll never return from. Unlike Jonathan and Ryan's stories, which were publicized by the media, this is the first time Russell's story has ever been told. I try to go through the emails, and it was just too hard, just emotionally. So I'll just tell you the story. That's how how I recall it, because I have blocked some of it out. This is Rosita, Russell's older sister. She's asked that I not use their surnames to keep anonymity. This is a deeply personal story to Rosita, but She also has controversial views about Rishi Cash and what happened to her brother there, so there is a security in remaining unknown. Rosita describes what Russell was seeking at that time. He was more interested in seeking for the next level of spirituality, basically not being born into a human form again, learning all the lessons you have to in these human form so you can move on to the next realm, move on to the next level. That's what I think Russell was doing. Rosita had a deep bond with her younger brother. I recognize this bond because I have it with my siblings. She's protective, devoted, and today, nearly two years after the loss of her brother, she's still heartbroken. As soon as he landed, he sent a message saying, hey, I arrived in Rishikesh. I'll see you guys in four days. This is the text Rosie I've been waiting for from her brother. But when she didn't hear from Russell on November twenty ninth, the night he was supposed to land and tree lunk, she started to worry, and when there was still no word on the morning of November thirty if, she called the front desk of his hotel to see if he had checked in, and I said, can you please put me for the root Russell was staying. They put me on hold and they come back and said he never checked in. Straight away I knew something was wrong. Her husband and cousins told her she was being paranoid. He must have dismissed his flight. But when it was confirmed by the airline that Russell never boarded his flight to Sri Lanka, Rosita's older brother Trevor, who didn't attend the wedding and was still in Australia, went to the local police station to file a missing person's report and was directed to the Australian Embassy in India, but the embassy wasn't exactly helpful. They kept dismissing Trevor, saying a lot of people decide to stay in India. They just decided to hang around and they decide not to contact family. And we're like, you don't understand. We don't do that. No matter where we go, we know exactly you know where our family may bizarre, but Rosita didn't know where Russell was, so paperwork was filed with the Australian Embassy in India and on December first, Russell was declared a missing person. It was official, which sent Rosita and her family down a rabbit hole of what fs Did he get beaten up? Has he been robbed? Is he lying in the hosspital? You know, all these horrible thoughts go through, but there's always hope that he's alive. And there was a huge thought that went through our mind. Has he decided to go into an Ushran? And only after he went missing we started doing some research on Rishikesh and then we just found out, oh gosh, we did not know about Rishikesh, the background, how there's so many people gone missing and have people decide just to let go of everything and you know, go into an USh Ran for thirty days or sixty days and just live this lifestyle. So that was a hope. This was twenty eighteen, so if Rosita googled Rishikesh, she'd obviously seen headlines for the disappearances of Ryan Chambers in two thousand and five and Jonathan Spallen in two thousand and twelve. Her hope that Russell hadn't met the same feat but would be found meditating in an ash room somewhere in Rishikesh was the preferable outcome, but what happened on December fifteenth, fourteen days after Russell was declared missing, made for a bleaker reality. Trevor got an email from the embassy's It stated that his suitcase and his belongings were found and they named the place and it was sort of for me, googled it. It was sort of under this bridge, and you know, horrible thoughts come in, like why under a bitch? You know, why he's suitcase and why his belonging said where is he? And that particular night, Trevor called me and said, Rasia, it's fifty to fifty fifty percent he's alive, fifty percent he's gone. And I sort of like refused to believe it. I'm like, don't say that. But things got weirder. The embassy was able to track the simcard that Russell purchased for his phone when he landed in India. They emailed the simcard information to Russell's family and there was only one thing left to do. Trevor found a friend who spoke Hendie and they dialed Indian person answered the phone and said, I knew someone was going to call. I found his wallet and the phone, but I actually handed the wallet into the Australian Embassy in India, but I kept the phone because I knew someone would call for him a clue, someone who might lead them to Russell. But when they contacted the embassy, no wallet had been turned in, which means there was no additional information about this unidentified source they had just spoken to. So they tried russell sim number again. The second phone call was made to that same number and the person picked up the phone again, and when the question was asked, where exactly did you find it? The person got very nervous and start hesitating to talk and was not comfortable at all too even as a way he found it, and then he hung up the phone and several other attempts were made to contact him, but that phone was switched off. Rosita said something was off. Either this guy was spooked and thought he might get into some sort of trouble speaking to them, or he had something to do with her brother's disappearance. Either way, it was another dead end until Rosita and her husband got the call they've been waiting for. Trevor called my husband and said, I'm going to send you a link. I want you to have a look at it, I think I found Russell. Trevor had found Russell, but not in the way anyone, especially his family, could ever have imagined. Like Crying Chambers and Jonathan's Ballen Russell was another missing Westerner in Rashia Cash and Tell. Rosita's husband, Sean, clicked on that link her brother Trevor sent Sean had a look at the link, and sure enough, it was a picture of Russell's dead body on that website. The website is a database that's run by the Indian Police called Unidentified Dead Bodies. It consists of close to ninety thousand bodies. It's disturbing to look through. But for Rosita, the database gave her access to her brother. So even though her husband and older brother persuaded her not to, she knew. In order to believe Russell was really gone, she had to identify her brother's dead body. He was just sort of lying on the ground. He's either washed up or pulled out. You could see he's bloated, you know. He was just wearing a white T shirt which looked turned into like a muddy color obviously from the dirty border. And it was in Depans, So for him to be in his underpans, that he was wearing a sarong, which he does when he goes to ritual you know, and like spiritual retreats or if he goes to Sri Lanka. And I could definitely picture him in India just wearing underpans and a sarong and a T shirt and his thongs or whatever, just walking around. You know, I don't know what you call it, but on his wrist, you know, in Hinduism or Buddhism, like they wear these cotton threads. It's spiritual. So he had some of that, but that was all. In Southeast Asia, locals and many visiting Westerners like Russell, wears ranks, which is a fabric draped around the body and tugged at the waist or under the arms. The cotton thread or threads on his wrist could have been a katuk, usually read it's a ritual protection thread tied by a priest or guru on the wrist of a devotee. Russell's body was dragged from the Ganges on December third, twenty eighteen, five days after he was supposed to fly to Sri Lanka. The Unidentified dead Body's database did not mention a cause of death. But before the family could even think of investigating, there was something they had to do first. My mom and I would you said, oh my god, we need to bring him home. They found him on the third of December. Now we're on the nineteenth. Russell's body had most likely been in the Ganges for those five days he was missing, which is why he was bloated when he was pulled from the river, and for the past seventeen days his body had been sitting in a morgue in India, but his family wanted him home so they could say their goodbyes properly with a Catholic funeral. When Trevor called the police station listed on Russell's profile to claim his body, they ran for another shock. Police told him that within three days of the body being found, that they cremated Russell and threw the ashes into the Gangi River. And we were absolutely devastated, you know, because it's where you used to burying our death. That's the way we say a goodbye. Now this is just heartbreaking to imagine. They had found Russell's body and all they wanted to do was bring him home and mourn him in the way they were accustomed to. With an open casket and burial, but he was cremated and in a way taken from them again. Additionally, because Russell's body had been cremated, there was no evidence to determine his cause of death until they received the coroner's report. So on the coroner's report, number one cause of death for Russell is death by drowning. Number two cause of death is blunt trauma to the head. Hearing about this blunt force trauma made Rosita think back to the first time she had seen Russell's picture on the database. Now, when I saw the picture of Russell, I could see this big bump on his forehead. Could be a possibility that someone hit him on the ahead and then he fell into the river or was pushed into the river. There are so many scenarios. But one scenario she wasn't expecting was how invested the Indian police suddenly were now that Russell's body had been identified on the database as an Australian citizen. She was also surprised by the new information they shared. Indian police sent the email saying that his suitcase and his passport was found in the hotel. Now you don't have to be a genius to work out that hold on the stories that you guys are sending us, it is not matching up. First, you said, when Russell was still missing, you said the suitcase and his belongings were found under a bridge. Well no, now that Russell has been found on the internet, now you're saying his suitcase and his passport and belonging in the hotel. And also there was another email stating that Russell was very aggressive and abusive towards the hotel's staff. So this is the hotel and Risha Cash where Russell stayed and where police were now saying they had found his suitcase and belongings, and according to the police, it's also where Russell was publicly aggressive to hotel staff, which was captured on hotel cameras November twenty eighth, two days before he was supposed to leave Risha Cash. So we requested for the video because now you know, now they're saying he was aggressive and abusive, chose the hotel staff and the guests, So I wanted to see the video to see what's going on. My thing was that's not Russell. If he was, then something's not right. The police never sent that footage to Rosie and her family. So you can imagine receiving this new, unsubstantiated information from the Indian police led to their suspicions towards not only the police, but institutions like the Australian Embassy in India that are supposed to advocate for their country citizens and protect them. But I've also learned from this experience that they Astralian Embassy in India have no power over what happens in India. This is something we followed up on. We'll get into that in a bed But first, if Russell's aggression was out of character, and his outburst at the hotel wasn't something fabricated by the police or embassy, then what happened. There is a huge possibility that Russell would have whatever they drink, that the Sadu's drink. You know, if there was an opportunity and it was presented to him, he could yet he would have taken it. This drink Rosida is talking about, that Sadu's or holy Men drink is infused with bang and intoxicant made from the leaves of the female cannabis plant. Bang is used by Hindus for spiritual purposes. They drink it to honor Shiva, the god of destruction, who is believed to have used the intoxicant to focus inward and harness his divine powers for the good of the world. Many Westerners who travel through India seek this extreme high that some say brings them closer to this elusive idea of enlightenment and can result in either a happy haze, paranoia, or just getting racked like one Western I read about who after drinking bang was bound to his bad and toilet viciously vomiting for three days strade. So it's pretty powerful stuff, which might explain Russell's behavior. Well, that makes sense. If he'd taken it, maybe then he would have had some sort of an episode, and maybe that's why he was aggressive or abusive if that email is correct. Rosita also has speculations about the Sadus, who, in her opinion, tempt foreigners with these intoxicants. So, having spoken to Indian born Australians, you know, one person mentioned that it's common knowledge that there's a lot of Sadus that are not doing the right thing. You know, they're just scammers who encourage the Westerners. You know, they think they're better off moving on to the next journey of spiritualism, meaning leaving the body that you know we're in. Apparently they encourage them to walk into the into the river. One person mentioned that it's common knowledge around Rishikesh for those people who live there that the Westerners come there to die. Like Rosita said, these theories were shared with her by Indian born Australians, So I don't know how much of this is true. It's just was told to me. We've dug into the veracity of these claims before and will again, but right now I want to focus on the effect these stories had on Rosita. When considering what happened to Russell, a seeker who traveled to Rishikesh specifically for a spiritual awakening, but was then found drowned and the same river he came to cleanse himself in, you can see how for Rosita these theories could start to feel more like truth. There was one theory that haunted her, and it's not about how Russell died, but what happened to him after he was found. This was something she felt she needed to share with another Australian family who would also experienced tragedy. In Rasha Cash, I don't know for what reason during that traumatic time that his name just came into my head. I just thought of him, and I just thought of Dyan Jock. She's speaking about Ryan Chambers, whose story we told in episode one and two, and whose disappearance she read about while researching Risha Cash after Russell went missing. There the Ryan's family deny his seeking anything spiritual in India, Rosita recognized her brother's language and Ryan's last journal entry, if I'm not gone, don't worry, I'm not dead. I'm just freeing minds. And to do that, I had to free my own. Ryan went missing in two thousand and five, and ten years later, there's my brother, who's you know, and he's full of breath Higgs saying the same words. So I thought that was quite interesting. Two people of two different generations, you know, two different backgrounds, talk in the same language. This and some darts. She'd started to connect around what happened to her brother in India compelled her to reach out to Ryan's parents, Jack and Diane. I wanted to reach out, but it took me a long time because you know, I was very traumatized, like the whole thing. So when I finally did reach out. I wanted to tell them my story, and she did. That's why I met Rosita. I was introduced to her by Jack after our interview as someone else who had lost a loved one and reach the cash. But what I didn't know is why she initially contacted Jack and Diane. You know, it was very hard for me to tell them, and obviously it's not very easy for them to hear it. But I did tell them. You know, I'm so sorry to tell you, but Ry Ryan's gone. They would have done exactly what they would have done to Russell. They would have cremated his body, got rid of the ash. Because there's no evidence, Rosita believes that what happened to Russell most likely happened to Ryan. The only difference is Russell's photo was taken and posted on the Unidentified Dead Bodies database, but Rosita thinks that was a mistake. He looked like a local where Trlanken born. So of course our skin color is dark and we do look like Indians. You know, people would mistake us. There was nothing that anyone would think, oh he's a Westerner or he's a foreigner, you know, And this is why Rosita believes Russell's body was posted under the Unidentified Dead Body's database, and other foreigners who blatantly stand out as Westerners are not featured on the site. I truly feel this is just my opinion that there is something going on there. We were just lucky that we found Russell's picture on the Internet and they made a mistake in uploading an Australian citizen onto that website. To my knowledge, haven't looked at it. I asked my brother because I'm not willing to go on that website. There is no white people's dead bodies on that Unidentified Dead Bodies in India website. I think it's just local Indians that they're upload So when you know, they find the foreigner's body, they're not going to upload that onto that Internet. I think they've done exactly what they've done to Russell. They've promated the body, got rid of the evidence, so the person is missing. It's better to have missing people so that the foreigners still come to retrication and spend their money and you know, do their journey there, than to have them are dead, dead foreigners and that's not good for business. This is an extreme theory, but if you consider the ordeal Rosita and her family went through with the Indian authorities. Her reaction makes sense to me. I asked in Kite if she thought Rosida's reaction was justified and if others experienced this kind of mismanagement with authorities. Yes, it's uncommon to be frustrated with administrative processes in India. It's quite common. So when I hear Rosita talk about how tough it was for her to get information about her brother from the authorities, it is not hard for me to imagine. Even the part about not admitting the truth for fear of bad press is relatable. Every now and then we see some journalistic report with solid facts and evidence that gets dismissed by the government because they say it is some sort of conspiracy to defame the country. So that obviously creates mistrust in Indians and foreigners alike about the integrity of these official procedures. So this helps explain some of law enforcements mismanagement around Russell's case. But what about Rosia's contentious theory about what happens to missing foreigners in India. It's a question we've been investigating head on in this podcast. So this theory around a cover up is when we need to examine, which we'll do after the break. I want to examine Rosida's theory about some sort of cover up around missing foreigners in India. So I'm bringing am I producing team Gabby Anquita, who have been researching the topic and have their own thoughts. So just pulling up this Unidentified Dead Bodies database that Gabby's done a lot of research on. So, Gabby, since you're familiar with the site, could you tell us a little bit about it. So, yeah, the Unidentified Dead Bodies Database was started in two thousand and four, and it was started as a collaboration between police departments across the country, and it was mostly started as a something or like public interest. So yeah, it's about twenty nine thousand pages total, and then there's about ninety entries in the database. And I mean, the one thing that is kind of unhelpful about it is that more than half of the entries don't have photographs. I went through some of the latest entries in the database, and Gabby's right, there are quite a few without photos, but nearly every entry lists approximate age, sex, height, weight, complexion, face shape, what they're wearing, and any other identifiers in the body, like scars or tattoos. I'm looking at the latest entry in the database. It's listed just a few days ago. He's a fifty year old male. They give him an ID number and the district that he was found in, which was Delhi. The crime was on a railway in that district. The image below that profile is harder to look at. The sex is stated as male, but his face is mangled so it's hard to tell, and he's laying down in a pool of his own blood. Yeah, this is hard to look at. So if we go to the next page, there's a man laying in some dirt and fallen leaves. He looks almost malnourished. His collarbones and wristbones are sticking out, and his beard and eyes seemed to be half open. Profile says he's around thirty five, and they identify his religion as Hindu. And Keita looked at the entry with me. It also says reward amount of zero, which is a little bit sad when I think of the reward amount that families of missing people put when they want their family members back. It's almost just as if a person is just a serial number and date and so on, And I mean, I understand that it's really important, but the process can also really dehumanize someone. That could be really a shock for any family member or a loved one to look at this picture. Looking at bodies like this becomes desensitizing, which is disturbing. I mean, I understand the purpose of the site, but skimming through it feels just wrong. But we're not looking at this database for no reason. So Rosita has a theory that foreigners dead body, specifically white foreigners are not listed on this database. And the only reason Russell was was because he was a schu Lankan descent and so he had a darker complexion and was mistaken for a local. So I don't know. I mean, what are your guys thoughts on this? So, yeah, I've gone through I guess now at this point, I've gone through about two hundred pages of the database, and I think, you know, that assessment could be correct in that all of the entries that I've seen either they have a very apparent complexion or their complexion is listed. And I haven't really seen as many lighter complexioned people. I did see one person who did have a lighter complexion and they identified this person with they had some tattoos in English, which I mean that doesn't necessarily mean they are you know, they aren't from like a western country, you know, like Australia, US, England or whatever. And I mean that doesn't necessarily like I don't really know if there is a correlation between Rosida's theories and the fact that there aren't more white people showing up in the database. As Gaby said, a very small fraction of these entries is listed as having a light complexion, but it's hard to know for sure because of the status some of the bodies. And while just through observation we can't legitimately substantiate Rosida's theory that white foreigners aren't listed on this database, I think it's important to remember that the database features dead body entries from a country with a population of over one billion, so it makes sense that a majority of these entries are Indian. And Keita did some research about crimes against westerners in India and found that in twenty nineteen, only four hundred and nine crimes against foreigners were reported. That's a relatively small number. And Keita, what are your thoughts in Rosida's theory and this idea that there's some sort of cover up around dead foreigners in India. Yeah, I mean, I won't want to speculate without any kind of investigation into this, but because we live in India but have experienced corruption, and we have experienced things where facts are hidden or action is not taken on time, so it feels like one cannot entirely doole out the possibility. And also we keep hearing about either if people come out and critique of something that is happening in society or at the government level, then the fact that it is dismissed as being anti national. So these things to create suspicion in you and stop you from completely trusting the organizations that have been put in place to take care of these things. Gary, I know you've done more research around the Australian embassy and this idea of some sort of embassy cover up. Do you think there's truth in that? Unclear. I reached out to the Australian Embassy and never heard back from them, and of course that wouldn't mean that they would have talked to me and be like, yes, we're involved in lots of cover ups or anything. But there have been some other cases that are similar where there have been, you know, parents of foreigners who had died who were also frustrated with their embassies and with the police departments. If you are trying to like identify a cover up, you do google that. The thing that comes up first is if there was almost a proven, substantiated cover up that was going on in Goa. Goa is hundreds of miles away from Racia, Cash and the other areas we've covered so far. It's by the coast in the southwestern part of the country. It's a vacation destination for foreigners who want to lounge on the beach by day and hit up the clubs at night. But since two thousand and five, there have been two hundred and forty five foreigner deaths the local police determined as natural, but over the years, parents of some of these tourists managed to get second autopsies which reclassified the deaths as homicides. In two thousand and eight, fifteen year old British citizen Scarlet Keeling died in Goa. Her body was found in a pool of shallow water, bruised and semi naked. Authorities said it was an accidental death, but the second autopsy found that she was sexually assaulted and had suffered more than fifty injuries. There was another case of twenty two year old Felix Doll and again the police said it was an accidental death, but the second autopsy, done in Doll's home country of Finland, revealed that there were fatal injuries inflicted to his skull from a high impact weapon. Parents of ten of the foreigners who were killed wrote a letter to India's Prime Minister Modi in twenty seventeen to demand an unbiased and independent investigation into their children's deaths. The letter reads, the quality of the work of the police and GOA should be investigated. Instead of investigating the murders and killings, the local police want to cover up the truth. The investigation is needed to reveal the connections between the locals, the police and GOA, drug mafia and politicians and their involvement and the deaths of tourists and locals and GOA. In one interview, Felix Dahl's mother said that all the facts provided by the police were imaginary and followed that up by saying something similar to Rosita. She suspects these deaths were covered up so they don't affect tourism in the area. The cause of Russell's death is still unknown, but I'm grateful that Rosita shared his story because it's one that could potentially shed light on what happened to others who have gone missing in Raishikesh. Russell went to Rashikesh specifically seeking this next level of spirituality and maybe he found what he was looking for. As a believer in the Hindu faith, Russell revered the sacred Ganges were Hindu's embraced death as death defines life, her waters, offering them hope that one day they will be liberated from an endless cycle of birth and death and attain nirvana. He was on a spiritual journey, so we believe that he did die in the Ganges. So with the spiritual journey that he's when, it's a very auspicious way to die. So it's a very good blessing to die in that rivers. So I think we have to take comfort in that his beliefs and his journey. So yeah, I know that when it's my time, I will see him again. We've dug into many theories in this podcast, which happens when you investigate cases where people have gone missing. There are too many unknowns, which leads to even more speculations. But next week well unfold the story of Charlie Marinelli, whose experience in India is similar to the others we've shared, But unlike Ryan, Jonathan or Justin, Charlie's story is not swarming with theories. It provides answers. He pushed the edges in other ways in the past before and never went to this edge. I think he's in trouble because he was definitely looking at somebody in that dark room. Somebody was standing over him, watching him. Astray as a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. Today's episode of Astray Russell and Risha Cash was produced, written, and narrated by Me, Caroline Slaughter and Kita anand is my co producer and Gavie Watts as our supervising producer. Special thanks to Rosita for telling Russell's story. Astray was sound produced by Tune Welders, with score and sound design by Jason Shannon and mix by Harper Harris. Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Brian Lavin, and Elsie Crowley. Thanks for listening. School of Humans

School of humans. There are many unsolved mysteries circling the Holy City of Rishakesh, Foreigners who vanish, unforeseen spiritual awakenings, the healing powers of the Ganges, a river where both salvation and death flow, and the unexplainable energy that draws seekers who believe the holy city is a fast track to enlightenment. One of those seekers was Russell, a Sri Lankan living in Melbourne who had his sights set on visiting Rishikesh. It's November twenty eighteen. Russell, a Sri Lankan living in Melbourne, is at the airport in Melbourne waiting for his flight to board. Though he's eventually going to meet up with his family in Sri Lanka for his cousin's wedding, he's traveling light materials. Things aren't important to Russell these days. He lives minimally and stopped buying stuff for the sake of buying it for a while now. But as he's gotten more dedicated to his spiritual journey, his family has noticed that he's detaching from the things that used to meet a lot to him, like cricket. One day, he gave his bats away and stopped playing a sport he used to love. Not long ago, he had a breakdown after he was scammed by a girlfriend. It left him financially ruined and tested his faith in humanity. He couldn't believe that someone he had loved, dated and lived with for a handful of years could be so deceitful. After hitting this breaking point, Russell's family noticed his deeper commitment to spiritual growth. But Russell was born a seeker, driven by curiosity, an interested in human connection. He spent nine months in Peru with Shaman's, studied multiple religions, and experimented with ayahuasca, and though he was raised Catholic, he's drawn Hinduism, which is why his sister Rosita is not surprised he's decided to take a quick detour to India before meeting up with his family at the wedding. Unlike Rosita, Russell isn't married and doesn't have kids, so he's thrown himself into self discovery and his quest for the next level of spirituality. This is what drew Russell to Rishikesh, a seeker with one intention for traveling there, but that is what might have killed him. An announcement echoes through the airport. The flight to Derroduna, India is boarding. When Russell lands in Derradun, he'll hop either a bus or taxi that will take him to his final destination, Rishikesh. As Russell steps into the line of passengers, he overhears someone talking about Vicisht Goufa, a cave carved into a steep cliff on the banks of the Ganges an hour from shiksh It's also known as the Jesus Cave, a name derived from lore that Jesus spent some of his lost years in India. The lost years refer to an eighteen year period of Jesus's life from ages twelve to twenty nine that are not documented in the New Testament. Various Swamis, male Hindu spiritual teachers in India claim that during these lost years, Jesus sought solitude and the cavern of Vishisht Gufa, and in the last century, two swamis with no knowledge of Jesus's connection to the cave said when visiting they had visions of Jesus meditating there. Russell plans to visit the sacred cave and cleanse himself in the river Ganges flowing through the center of Rishikesh. Ever since he's been practicing Hinduism, he's felt called to Mother Ganga. Like the Hindus, he believes she will wash away bad karma and evil spirits and provide a clean saying that will reawaken him. His phone vibrates. It's a WhatsApp message from his sister, Rosita, checking in on him. He lets her know he's boarding and he'll text her when he lands. He shuts off his phone in preparation for the thirteen hour flight, hands his ticket to the flight attendant, who scans it, then enters the dimly lit jet bridge, boarding a plane that will take him to a city he'll never return from. Unlike Jonathan and Ryan's stories, which were publicized by the media, this is the first time Russell's story has ever been told. I try to go through the emails, and it was just too hard, just emotionally. So I'll just tell you the story. That's how how I recall it, because I have blocked some of it out. This is Rosita, Russell's older sister. She's asked that I not use their surnames to keep anonymity. This is a deeply personal story to Rosita, but She also has controversial views about Rishi Cash and what happened to her brother there, so there is a security in remaining unknown. Rosita describes what Russell was seeking at that time. He was more interested in seeking for the next level of spirituality, basically not being born into a human form again, learning all the lessons you have to in these human form so you can move on to the next realm, move on to the next level. That's what I think Russell was doing. Rosita had a deep bond with her younger brother. I recognize this bond because I have it with my siblings. She's protective, devoted, and today, nearly two years after the loss of her brother, she's still heartbroken. As soon as he landed, he sent a message saying, hey, I arrived in Rishikesh. I'll see you guys in four days. This is the text Rosie I've been waiting for from her brother. But when she didn't hear from Russell on November twenty ninth, the night he was supposed to land and tree lunk, she started to worry, and when there was still no word on the morning of November thirty if, she called the front desk of his hotel to see if he had checked in, and I said, can you please put me for the root Russell was staying. They put me on hold and they come back and said he never checked in. Straight away I knew something was wrong. Her husband and cousins told her she was being paranoid. He must have dismissed his flight. But when it was confirmed by the airline that Russell never boarded his flight to Sri Lanka, Rosita's older brother Trevor, who didn't attend the wedding and was still in Australia, went to the local police station to file a missing person's report and was directed to the Australian Embassy in India, but the embassy wasn't exactly helpful. They kept dismissing Trevor, saying a lot of people decide to stay in India. They just decided to hang around and they decide not to contact family. And we're like, you don't understand. We don't do that. No matter where we go, we know exactly you know where our family may bizarre, but Rosita didn't know where Russell was, so paperwork was filed with the Australian Embassy in India and on December first, Russell was declared a missing person. It was official, which sent Rosita and her family down a rabbit hole of what fs Did he get beaten up? Has he been robbed? Is he lying in the hosspital? You know, all these horrible thoughts go through, but there's always hope that he's alive. And there was a huge thought that went through our mind. Has he decided to go into an Ushran? And only after he went missing we started doing some research on Rishikesh and then we just found out, oh gosh, we did not know about Rishikesh, the background, how there's so many people gone missing and have people decide just to let go of everything and you know, go into an USh Ran for thirty days or sixty days and just live this lifestyle. So that was a hope. This was twenty eighteen, so if Rosita googled Rishikesh, she'd obviously seen headlines for the disappearances of Ryan Chambers in two thousand and five and Jonathan Spallen in two thousand and twelve. Her hope that Russell hadn't met the same feat but would be found meditating in an ash room somewhere in Rishikesh was the preferable outcome, but what happened on December fifteenth, fourteen days after Russell was declared missing, made for a bleaker reality. Trevor got an email from the embassy's It stated that his suitcase and his belongings were found and they named the place and it was sort of for me, googled it. It was sort of under this bridge, and you know, horrible thoughts come in, like why under a bitch? You know, why he's suitcase and why his belonging said where is he? And that particular night, Trevor called me and said, Rasia, it's fifty to fifty fifty percent he's alive, fifty percent he's gone. And I sort of like refused to believe it. I'm like, don't say that. But things got weirder. The embassy was able to track the simcard that Russell purchased for his phone when he landed in India. They emailed the simcard information to Russell's family and there was only one thing left to do. Trevor found a friend who spoke Hendie and they dialed Indian person answered the phone and said, I knew someone was going to call. I found his wallet and the phone, but I actually handed the wallet into the Australian Embassy in India, but I kept the phone because I knew someone would call for him a clue, someone who might lead them to Russell. But when they contacted the embassy, no wallet had been turned in, which means there was no additional information about this unidentified source they had just spoken to. So they tried russell sim number again. The second phone call was made to that same number and the person picked up the phone again, and when the question was asked, where exactly did you find it? The person got very nervous and start hesitating to talk and was not comfortable at all too even as a way he found it, and then he hung up the phone and several other attempts were made to contact him, but that phone was switched off. Rosita said something was off. Either this guy was spooked and thought he might get into some sort of trouble speaking to them, or he had something to do with her brother's disappearance. Either way, it was another dead end until Rosita and her husband got the call they've been waiting for. Trevor called my husband and said, I'm going to send you a link. I want you to have a look at it, I think I found Russell. Trevor had found Russell, but not in the way anyone, especially his family, could ever have imagined. Like Crying Chambers and Jonathan's Ballen Russell was another missing Westerner in Rashia Cash and Tell. Rosita's husband, Sean, clicked on that link her brother Trevor sent Sean had a look at the link, and sure enough, it was a picture of Russell's dead body on that website. The website is a database that's run by the Indian Police called Unidentified Dead Bodies. It consists of close to ninety thousand bodies. It's disturbing to look through. But for Rosita, the database gave her access to her brother. So even though her husband and older brother persuaded her not to, she knew. In order to believe Russell was really gone, she had to identify her brother's dead body. He was just sort of lying on the ground. He's either washed up or pulled out. You could see he's bloated, you know. He was just wearing a white T shirt which looked turned into like a muddy color obviously from the dirty border. And it was in Depans, So for him to be in his underpans, that he was wearing a sarong, which he does when he goes to ritual you know, and like spiritual retreats or if he goes to Sri Lanka. And I could definitely picture him in India just wearing underpans and a sarong and a T shirt and his thongs or whatever, just walking around. You know, I don't know what you call it, but on his wrist, you know, in Hinduism or Buddhism, like they wear these cotton threads. It's spiritual. So he had some of that, but that was all. In Southeast Asia, locals and many visiting Westerners like Russell, wears ranks, which is a fabric draped around the body and tugged at the waist or under the arms. The cotton thread or threads on his wrist could have been a katuk, usually read it's a ritual protection thread tied by a priest or guru on the wrist of a devotee. Russell's body was dragged from the Ganges on December third, twenty eighteen, five days after he was supposed to fly to Sri Lanka. The Unidentified dead Body's database did not mention a cause of death. But before the family could even think of investigating, there was something they had to do first. My mom and I would you said, oh my god, we need to bring him home. They found him on the third of December. Now we're on the nineteenth. Russell's body had most likely been in the Ganges for those five days he was missing, which is why he was bloated when he was pulled from the river, and for the past seventeen days his body had been sitting in a morgue in India, but his family wanted him home so they could say their goodbyes properly with a Catholic funeral. When Trevor called the police station listed on Russell's profile to claim his body, they ran for another shock. Police told him that within three days of the body being found, that they cremated Russell and threw the ashes into the Gangi River. And we were absolutely devastated, you know, because it's where you used to burying our death. That's the way we say a goodbye. Now this is just heartbreaking to imagine. They had found Russell's body and all they wanted to do was bring him home and mourn him in the way they were accustomed to. With an open casket and burial, but he was cremated and in a way taken from them again. Additionally, because Russell's body had been cremated, there was no evidence to determine his cause of death until they received the coroner's report. So on the coroner's report, number one cause of death for Russell is death by drowning. Number two cause of death is blunt trauma to the head. Hearing about this blunt force trauma made Rosita think back to the first time she had seen Russell's picture on the database. Now, when I saw the picture of Russell, I could see this big bump on his forehead. Could be a possibility that someone hit him on the ahead and then he fell into the river or was pushed into the river. There are so many scenarios. But one scenario she wasn't expecting was how invested the Indian police suddenly were now that Russell's body had been identified on the database as an Australian citizen. She was also surprised by the new information they shared. Indian police sent the email saying that his suitcase and his passport was found in the hotel. Now you don't have to be a genius to work out that hold on the stories that you guys are sending us, it is not matching up. First, you said, when Russell was still missing, you said the suitcase and his belongings were found under a bridge. Well no, now that Russell has been found on the internet, now you're saying his suitcase and his passport and belonging in the hotel. And also there was another email stating that Russell was very aggressive and abusive towards the hotel's staff. So this is the hotel and Risha Cash where Russell stayed and where police were now saying they had found his suitcase and belongings, and according to the police, it's also where Russell was publicly aggressive to hotel staff, which was captured on hotel cameras November twenty eighth, two days before he was supposed to leave Risha Cash. So we requested for the video because now you know, now they're saying he was aggressive and abusive, chose the hotel staff and the guests, So I wanted to see the video to see what's going on. My thing was that's not Russell. If he was, then something's not right. The police never sent that footage to Rosie and her family. So you can imagine receiving this new, unsubstantiated information from the Indian police led to their suspicions towards not only the police, but institutions like the Australian Embassy in India that are supposed to advocate for their country citizens and protect them. But I've also learned from this experience that they Astralian Embassy in India have no power over what happens in India. This is something we followed up on. We'll get into that in a bed But first, if Russell's aggression was out of character, and his outburst at the hotel wasn't something fabricated by the police or embassy, then what happened. There is a huge possibility that Russell would have whatever they drink, that the Sadu's drink. You know, if there was an opportunity and it was presented to him, he could yet he would have taken it. This drink Rosida is talking about, that Sadu's or holy Men drink is infused with bang and intoxicant made from the leaves of the female cannabis plant. Bang is used by Hindus for spiritual purposes. They drink it to honor Shiva, the god of destruction, who is believed to have used the intoxicant to focus inward and harness his divine powers for the good of the world. Many Westerners who travel through India seek this extreme high that some say brings them closer to this elusive idea of enlightenment and can result in either a happy haze, paranoia, or just getting racked like one Western I read about who after drinking bang was bound to his bad and toilet viciously vomiting for three days strade. So it's pretty powerful stuff, which might explain Russell's behavior. Well, that makes sense. If he'd taken it, maybe then he would have had some sort of an episode, and maybe that's why he was aggressive or abusive if that email is correct. Rosita also has speculations about the Sadus, who, in her opinion, tempt foreigners with these intoxicants. So, having spoken to Indian born Australians, you know, one person mentioned that it's common knowledge that there's a lot of Sadus that are not doing the right thing. You know, they're just scammers who encourage the Westerners. You know, they think they're better off moving on to the next journey of spiritualism, meaning leaving the body that you know we're in. Apparently they encourage them to walk into the into the river. One person mentioned that it's common knowledge around Rishikesh for those people who live there that the Westerners come there to die. Like Rosita said, these theories were shared with her by Indian born Australians, So I don't know how much of this is true. It's just was told to me. We've dug into the veracity of these claims before and will again, but right now I want to focus on the effect these stories had on Rosita. When considering what happened to Russell, a seeker who traveled to Rishikesh specifically for a spiritual awakening, but was then found drowned and the same river he came to cleanse himself in, you can see how for Rosita these theories could start to feel more like truth. There was one theory that haunted her, and it's not about how Russell died, but what happened to him after he was found. This was something she felt she needed to share with another Australian family who would also experienced tragedy. In Rasha Cash, I don't know for what reason during that traumatic time that his name just came into my head. I just thought of him, and I just thought of Dyan Jock. She's speaking about Ryan Chambers, whose story we told in episode one and two, and whose disappearance she read about while researching Risha Cash after Russell went missing. There the Ryan's family deny his seeking anything spiritual in India, Rosita recognized her brother's language and Ryan's last journal entry, if I'm not gone, don't worry, I'm not dead. I'm just freeing minds. And to do that, I had to free my own. Ryan went missing in two thousand and five, and ten years later, there's my brother, who's you know, and he's full of breath Higgs saying the same words. So I thought that was quite interesting. Two people of two different generations, you know, two different backgrounds, talk in the same language. This and some darts. She'd started to connect around what happened to her brother in India compelled her to reach out to Ryan's parents, Jack and Diane. I wanted to reach out, but it took me a long time because you know, I was very traumatized, like the whole thing. So when I finally did reach out. I wanted to tell them my story, and she did. That's why I met Rosita. I was introduced to her by Jack after our interview as someone else who had lost a loved one and reach the cash. But what I didn't know is why she initially contacted Jack and Diane. You know, it was very hard for me to tell them, and obviously it's not very easy for them to hear it. But I did tell them. You know, I'm so sorry to tell you, but Ry Ryan's gone. They would have done exactly what they would have done to Russell. They would have cremated his body, got rid of the ash. Because there's no evidence, Rosita believes that what happened to Russell most likely happened to Ryan. The only difference is Russell's photo was taken and posted on the Unidentified Dead Bodies database, but Rosita thinks that was a mistake. He looked like a local where Trlanken born. So of course our skin color is dark and we do look like Indians. You know, people would mistake us. There was nothing that anyone would think, oh he's a Westerner or he's a foreigner, you know, And this is why Rosita believes Russell's body was posted under the Unidentified Dead Body's database, and other foreigners who blatantly stand out as Westerners are not featured on the site. I truly feel this is just my opinion that there is something going on there. We were just lucky that we found Russell's picture on the Internet and they made a mistake in uploading an Australian citizen onto that website. To my knowledge, haven't looked at it. I asked my brother because I'm not willing to go on that website. There is no white people's dead bodies on that Unidentified Dead Bodies in India website. I think it's just local Indians that they're upload So when you know, they find the foreigner's body, they're not going to upload that onto that Internet. I think they've done exactly what they've done to Russell. They've promated the body, got rid of the evidence, so the person is missing. It's better to have missing people so that the foreigners still come to retrication and spend their money and you know, do their journey there, than to have them are dead, dead foreigners and that's not good for business. This is an extreme theory, but if you consider the ordeal Rosita and her family went through with the Indian authorities. Her reaction makes sense to me. I asked in Kite if she thought Rosida's reaction was justified and if others experienced this kind of mismanagement with authorities. Yes, it's uncommon to be frustrated with administrative processes in India. It's quite common. So when I hear Rosita talk about how tough it was for her to get information about her brother from the authorities, it is not hard for me to imagine. Even the part about not admitting the truth for fear of bad press is relatable. Every now and then we see some journalistic report with solid facts and evidence that gets dismissed by the government because they say it is some sort of conspiracy to defame the country. So that obviously creates mistrust in Indians and foreigners alike about the integrity of these official procedures. So this helps explain some of law enforcements mismanagement around Russell's case. But what about Rosia's contentious theory about what happens to missing foreigners in India. It's a question we've been investigating head on in this podcast. So this theory around a cover up is when we need to examine, which we'll do after the break. I want to examine Rosida's theory about some sort of cover up around missing foreigners in India. So I'm bringing am I producing team Gabby Anquita, who have been researching the topic and have their own thoughts. So just pulling up this Unidentified Dead Bodies database that Gabby's done a lot of research on. So, Gabby, since you're familiar with the site, could you tell us a little bit about it. So, yeah, the Unidentified Dead Bodies Database was started in two thousand and four, and it was started as a collaboration between police departments across the country, and it was mostly started as a something or like public interest. So yeah, it's about twenty nine thousand pages total, and then there's about ninety entries in the database. And I mean, the one thing that is kind of unhelpful about it is that more than half of the entries don't have photographs. I went through some of the latest entries in the database, and Gabby's right, there are quite a few without photos, but nearly every entry lists approximate age, sex, height, weight, complexion, face shape, what they're wearing, and any other identifiers in the body, like scars or tattoos. I'm looking at the latest entry in the database. It's listed just a few days ago. He's a fifty year old male. They give him an ID number and the district that he was found in, which was Delhi. The crime was on a railway in that district. The image below that profile is harder to look at. The sex is stated as male, but his face is mangled so it's hard to tell, and he's laying down in a pool of his own blood. Yeah, this is hard to look at. So if we go to the next page, there's a man laying in some dirt and fallen leaves. He looks almost malnourished. His collarbones and wristbones are sticking out, and his beard and eyes seemed to be half open. Profile says he's around thirty five, and they identify his religion as Hindu. And Keita looked at the entry with me. It also says reward amount of zero, which is a little bit sad when I think of the reward amount that families of missing people put when they want their family members back. It's almost just as if a person is just a serial number and date and so on, And I mean, I understand that it's really important, but the process can also really dehumanize someone. That could be really a shock for any family member or a loved one to look at this picture. Looking at bodies like this becomes desensitizing, which is disturbing. I mean, I understand the purpose of the site, but skimming through it feels just wrong. But we're not looking at this database for no reason. So Rosita has a theory that foreigners dead body, specifically white foreigners are not listed on this database. And the only reason Russell was was because he was a schu Lankan descent and so he had a darker complexion and was mistaken for a local. So I don't know. I mean, what are your guys thoughts on this? So, yeah, I've gone through I guess now at this point, I've gone through about two hundred pages of the database, and I think, you know, that assessment could be correct in that all of the entries that I've seen either they have a very apparent complexion or their complexion is listed. And I haven't really seen as many lighter complexioned people. I did see one person who did have a lighter complexion and they identified this person with they had some tattoos in English, which I mean that doesn't necessarily mean they are you know, they aren't from like a western country, you know, like Australia, US, England or whatever. And I mean that doesn't necessarily like I don't really know if there is a correlation between Rosida's theories and the fact that there aren't more white people showing up in the database. As Gaby said, a very small fraction of these entries is listed as having a light complexion, but it's hard to know for sure because of the status some of the bodies. And while just through observation we can't legitimately substantiate Rosida's theory that white foreigners aren't listed on this database, I think it's important to remember that the database features dead body entries from a country with a population of over one billion, so it makes sense that a majority of these entries are Indian. And Keita did some research about crimes against westerners in India and found that in twenty nineteen, only four hundred and nine crimes against foreigners were reported. That's a relatively small number. And Keita, what are your thoughts in Rosida's theory and this idea that there's some sort of cover up around dead foreigners in India. Yeah, I mean, I won't want to speculate without any kind of investigation into this, but because we live in India but have experienced corruption, and we have experienced things where facts are hidden or action is not taken on time, so it feels like one cannot entirely doole out the possibility. And also we keep hearing about either if people come out and critique of something that is happening in society or at the government level, then the fact that it is dismissed as being anti national. So these things to create suspicion in you and stop you from completely trusting the organizations that have been put in place to take care of these things. Gary, I know you've done more research around the Australian embassy and this idea of some sort of embassy cover up. Do you think there's truth in that? Unclear. I reached out to the Australian Embassy and never heard back from them, and of course that wouldn't mean that they would have talked to me and be like, yes, we're involved in lots of cover ups or anything. But there have been some other cases that are similar where there have been, you know, parents of foreigners who had died who were also frustrated with their embassies and with the police departments. If you are trying to like identify a cover up, you do google that. The thing that comes up first is if there was almost a proven, substantiated cover up that was going on in Goa. Goa is hundreds of miles away from Racia, Cash and the other areas we've covered so far. It's by the coast in the southwestern part of the country. It's a vacation destination for foreigners who want to lounge on the beach by day and hit up the clubs at night. But since two thousand and five, there have been two hundred and forty five foreigner deaths the local police determined as natural, but over the years, parents of some of these tourists managed to get second autopsies which reclassified the deaths as homicides. In two thousand and eight, fifteen year old British citizen Scarlet Keeling died in Goa. Her body was found in a pool of shallow water, bruised and semi naked. Authorities said it was an accidental death, but the second autopsy found that she was sexually assaulted and had suffered more than fifty injuries. There was another case of twenty two year old Felix Doll and again the police said it was an accidental death, but the second autopsy, done in Doll's home country of Finland, revealed that there were fatal injuries inflicted to his skull from a high impact weapon. Parents of ten of the foreigners who were killed wrote a letter to India's Prime Minister Modi in twenty seventeen to demand an unbiased and independent investigation into their children's deaths. The letter reads, the quality of the work of the police and GOA should be investigated. Instead of investigating the murders and killings, the local police want to cover up the truth. The investigation is needed to reveal the connections between the locals, the police and GOA, drug mafia and politicians and their involvement and the deaths of tourists and locals and GOA. In one interview, Felix Dahl's mother said that all the facts provided by the police were imaginary and followed that up by saying something similar to Rosita. She suspects these deaths were covered up so they don't affect tourism in the area. The cause of Russell's death is still unknown, but I'm grateful that Rosita shared his story because it's one that could potentially shed light on what happened to others who have gone missing in Raishikesh. Russell went to Rashikesh specifically seeking this next level of spirituality and maybe he found what he was looking for. As a believer in the Hindu faith, Russell revered the sacred Ganges were Hindu's embraced death as death defines life, her waters, offering them hope that one day they will be liberated from an endless cycle of birth and death and attain nirvana. He was on a spiritual journey, so we believe that he did die in the Ganges. So with the spiritual journey that he's when, it's a very auspicious way to die. So it's a very good blessing to die in that rivers. So I think we have to take comfort in that his beliefs and his journey. So yeah, I know that when it's my time, I will see him again. We've dug into many theories in this podcast, which happens when you investigate cases where people have gone missing. There are too many unknowns, which leads to even more speculations. But next week well unfold the story of Charlie Marinelli, whose experience in India is similar to the others we've shared, But unlike Ryan, Jonathan or Justin, Charlie's story is not swarming with theories. It provides answers. He pushed the edges in other ways in the past before and never went to this edge. I think he's in trouble because he was definitely looking at somebody in that dark room. Somebody was standing over him, watching him. Astray as a production of School of Humans and iHeartRadio. Today's episode of Astray Russell and Risha Cash was produced, written, and narrated by Me, Caroline Slaughter and Kita anand is my co producer and Gavie Watts as our supervising producer. Special thanks to Rosita for telling Russell's story. Astray was sound produced by Tune Welders, with score and sound design by Jason Shannon and mix by Harper Harris. Executive producers are Brandon Barr, Brian Lavin, and Elsie Crowley. Thanks for listening. School of Humans