On March 27, 1993, the morning began like countless others for nine-year-old Jonathan Sellers and thirteen-year-old Charlie Keever.  The two boys set off on their bicycles, planning nothing more extraordinary than a day of roaming, pedaling through familiar places, killing time, enjoying the small freedoms of childhood. 

Throughout the morning and early afternoon, the boys were seen moving easily through the neighborhood. Witnesses recalled spotting them at a local arcade and a pet adoption center, lingering the way kids do when the day feels wide open. Later, they stopped at a Rally’s hamburger stand, where they bought lunch before heading off again on their bikes.

Their last confirmed sightings placed them in the Otay River Valley, an area the boys were known to frequent. Two witnesses briefly spoke with Jonathan and Charlie as they rode along the riverbed near a washed-out bridge. One of those witnesses would later recall a detail that stood out at the time and lingered afterward: a man driving a car across the open field, deliberately blocking the bike path. It struck her as strange, out of place in the quiet riverbed. Years later, she would identify a photograph of a blue sedan, similar in color and shape to the vehicle she had seen that day.

As evening approached and the boys failed to return home, worry turned quickly into alarm. Family members began searching nearby streets and paths. Jonathan’s brother mentioned the riverbed trail where the boys often rode, prompting their mother to head there in a growing panic. What he didn’t think to mention, what no one realized in time, was a hidden “fort” tucked away in the brush, a place the boys liked to crawl into “like a little cave.” 

Join Cam and Jen on this episode of Our True Crime Podcast named “Hidden Fort: Jonathan Sellers and Charlie Keever.”

Listener discretion by @octoberpodVHS

Editing and music by @theinkypawprint

Sources: 

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040829/news_1m29erskine.html

https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/people-v-erskine-34617

https://www.reddit.com/r/serialkillers/comments/1hbddzh/scott_erskine_a_repeat_offender_responsible_for/

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/scott-erskine-charlie-keever-jonathan-sellers-death-row-appeal-south-bay-murders/159324/

https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/scott-erskine-dies-while-on-death-row-due-to-covid-19/509-3e957e89-6775-45a2-9f5f-d08c02e0844c

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2004-08-28-0408280095-story.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20130409222853/http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/cgi/prosoma.dll?searchby=offender&id=18601082E9187

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2004-08-28-0408280095-story.html

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/29/coronavirus-these-killers-died-on-san-quentins-death-row

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/2-condemned-san-quentin-inmates-die-of-apparent-covid-19-complications/

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