 Unfortunately, every day, all across the globe, people go missing. Some people go missing as an act of choice to restart a new life, but most of the time, when people go missing, it's because of an apharious action, a murder, or a trauma where the body is gone. The bank accounts are not touched. The credit cards are not used. And most of the time, when a body is recovered and can be examined and identified, all the puzzle pieces to the mystery of the person's disappearance are answered. But today on Mystery Monday, the case that we're going to look at, the discovery of the body in some ways caused more questions. And even though there is an official report on how the victim died, most people who look at this case question that report. But before we go any further, please remember to hit that subscribe button and give us a like. If you would like to support the channel, we do have a link to our Patreon page down below. Welcome to SOTaric Atlanta. My name is Bryce, and today we're going to be talking about the case of Joshua Maddox. It's a sleepy bedroom town about 17 miles outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. With the population at only around 7,500 Woodland Park, seems like the perfect place to raise a family. With its motto being the city above the clouds, Woodland Park, Colorado is also a great getaway for people who work in the hustle and bustle of Colorado Springs. In 2008, Joshua Maddox was an 18-year-old kid living in Woodland Park, Colorado. Although his parents were divorced, Joshua lived with his father, Mike, and his two sisters. Back in 2006, the family received quite a big blow when Joshua's older brother Zachary committed suicide. According to Joshua's father, Joshua took the death of his older brother very, very hard, as any sibling would, and they say that time does heal all wounds. But with something like that, I don't know if time can ever totally heal the wounds. However, by 2008, by all accounts, Joshua was back to his old self. Joshua was a free spirit. He seemed to be very, very creative. He was a lover of music. Joshua was also a lover of nature, and he was known to take long nature walks by himself. Now being in Colorado, I don't blame him. Colorado is one of the most beautiful states in our nation. And even though the age of 18 is technically the legal age of adulthood, many people might scratch their heads as to why Joshua's father allowed him to go off on these long walks by himself at such a young age. Well, growing up in a small town for me, that would have been normal. You see in small towns, people often live under the safety of knowing their neighbors. And on May 8th, Joshua went on one of his nature walks. Now he was gone for a long time, and it crept up into hours. But the family at first was not concerned because, again, this was typical of Josh. But by May 13th, Joshua's family knew something had to be wrong when he still had not come back home. And that is when his father filed his official missing persons report with the local police. Now because Josh was 18 years old, he was legally able to disappear by his own free will if he wanted to. And I'm sure that was something of great frustration when the family was trying to work with the police over their missing son. Things get tricky when people pass a legal age, where they can leave if they want to leave, and they don't have to legally tell anybody where they're going. And in fact, one of Joshua's sisters stated that she always hoped in this mysterious time where he was not to be seen anywhere that he had just gone off somewhere to start a new life. And pretty soon days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. And for seven years, nobody knew where Joshua Maddox was. He had not been seen by anyone anywhere. In fact, Joshua's father and sisters were so hopeful that he was still alive somewhere, perhaps off playing in some band or writing poetry by the sea, married that he maybe had children and would show up one day with grandchildren. And they held onto this hope so tightly that when Joshua's father decided to move, he kept ownership of the old house just in case Joshua decided to come home one day. Chuck Murphy was a builder from Colorado Springs. Now, as I said before, Woodland Park is 17 miles outside of Colorado Springs, and Chuck Murphy had a cabin in Woodland Park. The cabin had once been used as a getaway location for Chuck Murphy. And then when his brother fell in hard times, Chuck Murphy allowed his brother to live in the cabin. His brother then moved out of the cabin in 2005. And after his brother moved out in 2005, Chuck Murphy used the cabin mostly as a place to store stuff. He wasn't going there on the weekends anymore to get away. For all intent and purposes, the cabin sat empty. So by 2015, Chuck Murphy decided that it was time to sell the cabin, to sell the land, to clear it out and let it be used for development. However, when Chuck Murphy started the demolition of his own cabin, he discovered something very gruesome in the chimney. In the chimney, there was a body of a young man in a fetal position. Its legs was over its head, almost as if the body dove into the chimney from the roof. Chuck Murphy immediately called the police department where they were able to pull the body out of the chimney. It didn't take long for them to identify the body as the missing 18-year-old Joshua Maddox, who again had been missing for seven years. Al Born, who was the coroner at that time, was quite baffled by the body before him. You see, the body showed no signs of any drug use. There was no signs of actual trauma. In fact, he said, and I quote, The hard tissue shows no signs of trauma. There were no broken bones, no knife marks. There were no bullet holes. There are so far no answers to several things. It is all very confusing. The coroner did say that Joshua Maddox had died a very slow death. Unfortunately, the cabin was placed back away from the road. So even if Joshua had cried out for help, nobody would have heard him. This also explains why nobody smelled the smell of death. He was too far back for anybody to really notice. Now, the cabin itself was only less than a mile from Joshua Maddox's home. So whatever happened to Joshua Maddox probably happened very early on in his walk. Now, when the coroner tried to get to know Joshua Maddox to try to figure out what was happening, it was very clear to him that Joshua had no signs of any mental disabilities that would have led him to put himself in a chimney. Again, there was no sign of drug use and no sign of actual clinical depression. Of course, Joshua had been very distraught over the suicide of his older brother two years prior, but to put himself in a chimney, there were no other indications that this would be something Joshua would do to himself. Another oddity to the case for the coroner was that Joshua had taken his clothes off. He only was found in a thermal undershirt. Now, here in Georgia, we were in the sunbelt so we don't really wear thermal undershirts, but I do know from times that I have been in Colorado either visiting or snow skiing or something that that is common that even in May, it might still be chilly enough outside where he would have to wear something under his clothes just to keep him warm. So that was peculiar that he had taken off his jeans and his top and his shoes and his socks and folded them nicely in the cabin and then somehow went to the roof and went down into the chimney head first and put himself into a fetal position where he eventually died of suffocation and hypothermia. This death was a slow death. It didn't happen instantly. He was stuffed like that for a while. Another oddity to the case that Chuck Murphy pointed out to the police was that the breakfast bar, which had been attached to the wall, had been pulled off of the wall and placed in front of the fireplace as if it was placed there as a barrier so that Joshua, who was in the fireplace, could not get out. Nonetheless, with all this weird evidence, on September 28th, 2015, the case was ruled an accidental death. I guess they believed that boys will be boys and that maybe this free spirit of this 18-year-old kid accidentally got himself killed by trying to explore this cabin. Well, one person in particular was not happy with this finding, and that again was Chuck Murphy, the owner of the cabin. He was dead set that something nefarious had happened to Joshua Maddox that this was a murder. This was a homicide. This was not an accidental death. He pointed out to the police in the corner again that there was something else in the chimney that would have stopped Joshua Maddox from getting into the chimney from the roof. You see, he had wrought irons and mesh put up in order to keep wild animals out. Well, with these iron bars and the chimney and this mesh, there's no way that Joshua, even though going headfirst without his feet would have been able to get past the iron bars to end up where he eventually ended up in the fireplace. Now, the way that these iron poles were set up in the chimney and the mesh, that's common. We even have that down here in Georgia. In fact, my father had a cabin up in the Alabama Mountains on a lake and we had stuff like that to protect the house from wild animals getting in through the chimney. So I don't know why the police didn't even think about this. The only thing the police said back to Chuck Murphy is that when they looked into the fireplace, they didn't see the iron poles or the mesh. And Chuck Murphy quickly responded that because they were doing demolition, the iron poles and the mesh had already been taken out before the body was discovered. However, when the murder happened or when the accidental death happened seven years ago, the iron rods and mesh were very much in place in the chimney. So having the iron rods and the mesh up in the chimney to keep animals out means that in order for this to be an accidental death, Joshua Maddox would have had to enter the cabin through a door or a window. He then would have had to break the breakfast bar off the wall, pull it over to the fireplace, take his clothes off, fold them nicely beside the fireplace with his shoes and his socks, and then proceed to put himself up the chimney feet first. Then once he was up the chimney feet first with his head down, he would have had to then pull the breakfast bar in front of the fireplace. This is not possible. This is absolutely insanity that they still are ruling this an accidental death. This is just not possible. In fact, we know that the positioning of the body in the chimney coming from the house, not the roof into the chimney, probably would not have been possible for Joshua to do to himself. In fact, it might not have even been possible for one person who was maybe fighting Josh to get him up the chimney to do by him or herself. It most likely would have taken two people to get Joshua into the chimney like that and then pushing the breakfast bar up to keep him inside the chimney. So in my opinion, this is definitely a homicide. This is not an accidental death. This isn't a case of boys being boys and getting caught in a situation that ended their life. No, it's just not. Well, I'm not the only one that feels this way. Obviously, Chuck Murphy feels this way as well. And there are people on Reddit who also think they know who the murderer is or at least suspected to be. Andrew Newman was also a young man living in Woodland Park, Colorado. Andrew Newman had a lot of the same interests as Joshua Maddox. They were both heavily into music. They were both very artistic and creative. However, where Joshua Maddox seemed to be a bit of a free spirit, a loving kid, a good kid, Andrew seemed to be the opposite. He had a dark side to him. Unfortunately, when we're 18 years old, sometimes we don't see that in people, though. We just see people that have the same interest as us. And so we develop a bit of a friendship. And that is what happened with Joshua Maddox and Andrew. They had, again, a lot of the same interests. They knew each other. They were doing the same things in this small town. Andrew Newman was also one of the last people to see Joshua alive. Now, people got really suspicious because, well, Andy Newman has been arrested before. He was arrested for stabbing a man to death, and he's also linked to a couple of other murders as well down in New Mexico. It has also been reported that people have said that Andy Newman, he bragged about putting Joshua Maddox in a hole. So if I had to guess what happened to Joshua Maddox, this is all speculation. And please remember that in the United States, all people are innocent until proven guilty. So, allegedly, what I think happened is that Joshua ran into Andy. And they started talking and they saw this cabin and they went up to explore this cabin. Now, I don't think that Joshua was murdered by Andy. For any reasons like jealousy or anything like that, I just think Andy has a lot of mental problems. I think that he probably is a allegedly a serial killer. Was Joshua his first victim? I don't know. Again, they also say that it looks like they're probably would have taken two people to get the body into the chimney. So was Andy alone in this? I have no idea. However, from what people say, it does sound to me that Andy probably should be questioned regarding this case. And even if Andy is totally innocent in this case, because he was the last to see Joshua alive and because they ran in the same circles, I would hope or I would think that the police would want to interview him. However, here's the thing. The police have never interviewed Andy. The police have received countless phone calls from countless eyewitnesses and people who saw them together, people who knew of Andy's behaviors. And in fact, people have claimed that by making phone calls to the police department to tell them what they know, the police won't call them back. This is suspicious, especially since Woodland Park is a small town. It's a small town. So why aren't the police calling these people back, especially when there is enough evidence to at least question Andy Newman? But alas, with all the evidence pointing to Joshua Maddox's death being a murder, the case is still labeled as an accidental death. So what do you think? Do you think this was just an accidental death? Or do you believe that this was a homicide? I have listed my sources down below if you would like to dig into this case a little further. If this was a homicide, then I really do hope that the Woodland Park Police will reopen up the case because Joshua deserves that. His family deserves that. And whoever did this to Joshua needs to have justice served to them as well. Please don't forget that tomorrow night I will be back on David Zublik's channel. You can again link to his channel down below. We are going to be going over Annie Laurie's story. If you have not seen Annie Laurie's story, I do have part one and part two up on the playlist. You can check that out. We have more parts left to go. This is definitely a story with hardcore evidence of the existence of ghosts. So I hope that you will tune in tomorrow night with David Zublik for that episode. All right, I hope you guys have a wonderful day. Once again, thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music. And thank you to Todd Roderick for helping me produce this video and also helping me edit this video. And thank you to you guys as well for being such a positive and awesome community. I have absolutely loved getting to know every single one of you. I am slowly getting through my email, so if you have not heard back from me, don't worry. I haven't forgotten you. I just want to be able to give your message enough time and respect to respond back to you properly. I hope you guys have a wonderful day and I will talk to you soon. Bye.