Aubrey Sacco Case | Chapter 1: Somewhere In the Clouds

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1:25Three decades later, we've unearthed new evidence. Le Monstre, Season 2, coming October 31st. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Payne. And I'm here with a quick announcement about our series, Status Untraced, presented by Up and Vanished. Our true crime podcast, Status Untraced, is back with a brand new mini-season. And this time, our host Liam looks into the disappearance of Aubrey Sacco, a young traveler who vanished in Nepal under very strange circumstances. This case is still unsolved. Check out episode one right now. And when you're done, go search Status Untraced in your podcast app to hear the rest.

2:17You're listening to Status Untraced, a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with Odyssey. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast. This podcast also contains subject matter, which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

3:052022, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thousands have gathered in the city of Rio de Janeiro in one of the biggest carnivals in the world.

3:16It was the first carnival after COVID. So I made a lot of friends. They told us, Lana, come to our apartment. We're going to have dinner there. And then afterwards, we're going to their party. So I went there. But then I was so very tired because I had to work the next day. So I told them around 11.30 p.m. I'm like, no, I'm just going to Uber myself to my hotel. But I broke my rule.

3:49There's a rule that I never ever walk towards my Uber. I always have to have my Uber drive towards me. But it was already so late and my Uber said, oh yeah, you pinned it here and I cannot park there. So I was like walking around the street, finding for my Uber. And then all of a sudden, I see two big headlights coming up towards me. and then there was this huge van pulled up and opened like sideways and this guy came out and they started talking to me like hola buena noite means good evening in portuguese and i said i don't speak portuguese and then all of a sudden i felt an arm behind me literally really grab me like that and try to pull me in the freaking bed.

4:43So I screamed, I yelled my lungs out and I started kicking like a maniac. I remember someone told me if something happens like that in Rio, what I should do is to throw myself on the ground and kick with my strongest muscle, which is my leg. So I was kicking like a maniac and screaming for my life. And before I knew they were gone.

5:09There's danger in life, in any and everything we do. Step outside, chase a dream, get on a bus to nowhere in particular, and you risk something. It's part of what makes life worth living. And travel especially is a negotiation with the unknown. But the truth is, not everyone gets to move through the world with the same ease. For women, traveling solo can mean being seen not as bold, but as vulnerable, a target.

5:45The next day, my friend called me and explained to me, it's common there in Brazil that they kidnap girls in the van and they rape them. And most of them get in the human traffic. I was so scared. I was like, what the fuck? It just happened to me. And mind you, I love Brazil. Brazil is like my favorite country. And I didn't want to spoil that because of that one evening. So that morning, I'm like, okay, what should I do? So I should probably conquer this fear with another fear of mine. So a few hours later, I booked paragliding because I fear fights. And literally, I was crying midair. releasing all the trauma that happened to me.

6:39My friend Lana still travels, still goes alone, 23 countries and counting. Her rules are tighter now, her instincts sharper. But for her, the danger is never enough to outweigh the wonder. Not everyone is lucky. Not every traveler has the chance to scream, to fight, to be found. Some disappear without a sound. No headline. No manhunt. No cliff to jump off the next day. Their stories don't end in survival. They end in silence. Fifteen years ago, a young woman vanished in the Himalayas. The search faded, but her family never stopped pushing for answers. What I didn't see at first, what I see clearly now, and what you'll soon come to understand is why they never gave up.

7:35Because even after all these years, there are still things no one said.

8:01Sometimes I get the feeling I'm lost Just hiding it is never enough Now I find that every mirror I ghost Only once I saw the killer Once I saw the killer up close I'm Liam Luxon, and this is Status Untraced. Our case, Aubrey Sacco. Chapter 1. Somewhere in the Clouds. July, 2025. Los Angeles, California. So I was not sure if you've heard of Aubrey Sacco. It's a case that was submitted to us a long time ago. It kind of just reminded me of Justin's case because she's on this spiritual journey, and she's super close to her family, and then they are expecting a call from her, and they don't hear from her.

9:07I thought, you know, you might be interested in digging into it a little bit more. It's been a little over a year since we released Status Untraced, and nearly four years since I was deep in the Himalayas, chasing any thread I could find about the disappearance of adventurer Justin Alexander. Yeah. That's the spot, you know? That ledge right there? That one right out there? You can assume so, yeah. Since then, I've had time to reflect, to integrate, to ask myself what came next, not just in my work, but in life. Getting to put together Justin's story was one of the most profound and intense chapters I've ever lived.

9:45And the response, from listeners, from his friends and family, was more than I ever expected. It was transformative. gratifying. But through that experience, I also came to understand the quiet burden that comes with diving into stories like Justin's, the kind rooted in loss, uncertainty, and ache of unanswered questions. It's a weight most people don't see, but it doesn't let up. It lingers long after the story's been told. So in a way, I started to pull back. In conversations with new people, I stopped bringing up my time in India. I avoided talking about the podcast over drinks and dinner parties.

10:29And I threw myself into other things, attempted working in sports media, hit the bars and late nights. Maybe a few too many of both. I felt like I was trying, trying to let it go, let Justin go. To quiet the questions that didn't have answers. Yet somewhere in the back of my mind, there was still an itch for adventure. For purpose. to do it again. I wasn't sure I was ready to take on another case. But I kept my ear to the ground, and I made myself a promise. If I ever did this again, it couldn't be just a retelling. It had to feel necessary. And that's when one of our producers, Jamie, called.

11:15Aubrey went missing from Nepal in 2010, and she was actually in the Lingtang National Park. And so it was just really interesting, the circumstances surrounding it, because her parents have done so much to try to find her. 2010, man, it's old now, it's like 15 years old, huh? Yeah, and it's crazy, because if you look at the Facebook page and the nonprofit that they've created, her family has spent so much of their own time and money just to ensure that she hasn't been forgotten. I pulled up the Facebook page and started scrolling. Jamie wasn't exaggerating. The effort to find Aubrey Sacco was massive.

11:55From CBS. The desperate search for a missing woman from Colorado is underway in Southeast Asia this morning. 23-year-old Aubrey Sacco has been hiking alone through the Himalayan mountains and was last heard from about six weeks ago. Her family is desperate to find her. To ABC News. On Facebook, close friends have dedicated a page to the missing hiker. Meanwhile, the search party continues to scan more than 600 miles of mountainous terrain looking for signs of life. People doing foot searches. They've deployed the district police. We're trying to get hundreds and hundreds of people out to a new area.

12:32And numerous local news stations in Denver. Starting Wednesday, mobile billboards with a 23-year-old's picture are also traveling around Washington. The FBI is now involved. Where do her parents live? They're in Colorado area. Close to home for me. I grew up there for a little bit. You know, we'll be in Colorado in September. Our team will be. I think you're going too, so it might be a fit to chat with them. Something about Aubrey's case struck me. The way it had lived online for years. Flickering in and out of forums, old blog posts, the Facebook page kept on life support. And then there were her parents.

13:14Still searching. Still showing up. Still carrying the weight like it was day one. It didn't feel like a cold case. It felt like a story stranded in the middle of a paragraph, unfinished, and worse, forgotten. I didn't know if this would be a full second season of the podcast. I wasn't chasing headlines or trying to build something big. But if her family was open to it, if they still wanted her story told, I'd do it. What I didn't expect was how much they'd never shared. How much they'd been holding in.

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15:55I mean she really really is a special person and I know that probably every father believes their daughter is special it's almost like she wasn't ours she was from another place I called Paul Sacco, Aubrey's father, now in his 60s, for an interview, and I was honored to have her mother Connie join as well. They sat on the other side of a computer screen in their home in Windsor, Colorado, not far from the house where Aubrey was raised. She was in college when she was supposed to go with a girlfriend to Japan, and the girlfriend got in trouble with her parents, and so they made her cancel her trip.

16:34and Aubrey didn't tell us that her friend wasn't going. So I would say that was her first travel alone. She was their only daughter. Bright, stubborn, full of wanderlust. And the way they talked about her, it was easy to imagine. She had that rare gift of turning something as simple as a grocery run into an adventure. She was a big thinker. We used to say that we could drop her out of an airplane in New York City and come back five years later and she would be the mayor. They smile as they reminisce. But like Justin's parents, I can sense the quiet, the stillness that settles in when someone never comes home, as if her room is still just down the hall, untouched, just in case.

17:22I was amazed that she could be so independent from such a young age. And in many ways, that may have precipitated problems we had with her later, and ultimately, you know, her going missing. For the last six months, Aubrey Sacco has been backpacking through Southeast Asia, documenting her incredible journey online. But now, no one's heard from her since April 20th, when she set off hiking alone. After setting out alone for a 10-day trek through Langtang National Park in Nepal, the 23-year-old went missing. Her parents haven't heard from her for more than two months. They say she would normally write them every four days to update her condition and whereabouts.

18:03We just feel the energy and, you know, we just feel like she needs our help to help her get home.

18:12Aubrey was just 23 when she set out on her Southeast Asia globetrotting adventure. But what brought her there wasn't vacation. It was an internship, a position at an Amun hotel on a remote island off the southern tip of India. December 18th, 2009, Sri Lanka. She had gotten a job for Sri Lanka, teaching yoga classes at a high-end resort that a lot of Europeans would go to. It was this really hoity-toity hotel. And so she was there, I want to say, three weeks. So the plan was to take some classes in India that she had heard some of her other friends had done. And she was going to continue learning yoga to become a master of teaching.

19:05Coming off the internship at the Amin, one of the most pristine, high-luxury hotel groups in the world, Aubrey was choosing a different path. One that leaned toward the rugged. Towards authenticity. towards people and kids who actually needed her help. Paul and Connie checked in with her often. And through grainy video calls and short messages, they caught glimpses of how she was getting by. January 13, 2010. Bangaluru, India. Phone coverage was very spotty in 2010. It was not real good. and she managed to connect with us on something similar to FaceTime. Oh, Skype. Skype. Okay. And she's on a rickshaw and we come on to the call and instead of, hello, mom and dad, I love you, she's yelling at the guy that's the rickshaw thing, arguing over the money.

20:06She felt that he might have been taking advantage of her and she wasn't going to stand it. And I mean it, that was half the phone call, is us waiting for the argument to end. And then we talked. God, I love that girl. It's intense. Late March 2010, Mysuru, India. She had just come upon this poor village school and said, hey, do you need any help? And they said yes. So she came in and would sing songs and do artwork and stuff. Do the hockey, hockey! Do the hockey, hockey! So she was just, you know, a loving person. And Aubrey had also said that some people that she had met said, why don't you go to, like, a nicer school?

20:55And she's like, why? They don't need me. The poorer schools need volunteers. April 4th, 2010. Darjeeling, India. The plan, at least on paper, was simple. Head back to Sri Lanka, meet up with friends, catch the return flight she had already booked. But Aubrey wasn't much for sticking to the script. Something else was calling. And people, you know, saying, go to Nepal, go to Nepal and do this hike. And she talked to us about it. We had watched the movie together seven years in Tibet with Brad Pitt. I never even knew where Tibet was. I didn't even know where Nepal was. But I remember saying to her, when you're there, don't you dare go up to Tibet because it was so dangerous.

21:50And she just was talking to us back and forth about how she wanted to do this trek. And she had a book by the Lonely Planet, Nepal it was called. and it had directions on how you could hike an easy trail in the Langtang National Park. Many of you probably know what the Lonely Planet is. Recognizable by its bright blue spine, it's a travel guide that first hit shelves in 1973. Since then, it's grown into a global empire. In the Best in Travel Awards, Nepal came out as number one for best value destination. With over 450 titles, it offers curated routes, must-see stops, and insider tips for just about every corner of the world.

22:37And it's all sorts of things, from Tibetan carpets to Buddhist statues, wonderful paintings. So you need to go to Nepal with at least some credit left on your credit card. I picked up the 2023 edition of their Nepal guide and found the same Langtang trek itinerary Aubrey took. It briefly warns about weather, advises you to register with the embassy, and notes a military checkpoint along the route. It's a destination with so much history, so much culture. It is a great value destination. Here's the problem, in my opinion. The Lonely Planet, for all its reach, all its influence, has a way of glossing over the realities.

23:16It oversimplifies. It romanticizes. There's no mention of crime, no discussion of how overexposure from tourism can shift local dynamics. I've reached out to their press team on this, and no word back. She was not real happy with how hot and how populated India was, so I think she just couldn't wait to get to the mountains. Yes, the mountains would look as promised, painted prayer flags strung from rooftops, and views so vast they almost felt unreal. But what the guidebook didn't mention, what no one warned her, was how quickly you become visible in a place like that. Even as men, it happened to my producer and I when we were in the small Indian mountain towns.

24:03Out there, memory works differently. People remember who you are, where you stayed, when you left. So I can only imagine, for a young white American woman traveling alone, she wouldn't be just noticed. Aubrey Sacco would be logged, watched, marked as a foreigner. That's all it takes. After she arrived in Kathmandu and boarded a bus headed towards a small mountain town, she made a call home. Her last.

24:38My very last words to her were, I love you. And I'm sure she said the same thing to me. and not a lot of parents ever get to say that, you know. They'll lose a child in an auto accident or after an argument and it was nothing like that. I got to say I love you.

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26:11April 2010. Supper bestie in Nepal. She was up in Sareba Bessie, which is the beginning of Lank Tank Park. And Paul is going to have a surgery. And she had said she wanted to do this track. I was pleading with her, well, can you wait till dad has his surgery, just so we can tell you if he made it out of surgery. And she goes, oh, he's going to be fine. She didn't want to wait. And she was saying that she was preparing to do this track. Paul wanted her to take a guide, and she said, oh, they're too expensive. Or the Lonely Planet said, you can do this by yourself. It's a national park. It's patrolled by the military.

26:56You know, it's safe. And we didn't know a thing about Nepal. I mean, nothing, other than that the Himalayas were there, you know. The Lonely Planet was just stupid. They were clearly naive about what really happens in Nepal. and what we later learned.