Mike Bauer

There's people cooking meth.

It was a little bit like the Old West in a way.

I mean, this is a very unusual, strange place.

And remember that abandoned mine searchers scoped out?

Well, it turns out they're everywhere.

And they're a prime location for body dumping.

One of the things ESD did was recover dead bodies from mines.

And it wasn't just the mines.

Corpses turn up all over these parts.

You know, if all the dead bodies that were up there from being deliberately disposed of stood up at once, they'd be shoulder to shoulder.

It's a chilling image of the area's darker side.

Ajay would jog from the Devil's Bunch Bowl into the Angeles National Forest, which has been called the most dangerous national forest in America.

Around the time of Ajay's disappearance, it's estimated that two to three dozen corpses turned up in the forest every year.

And those were just the ones that were found.

So Rathbun understands the danger he faces, but pushes on in search of footprints.

You have to look at the ground and look at bushes that have been pushed.

And we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked.

If it was me that needed cover, he'd be there.

I didn't even think about it.

Someone you could definitely depend on.