Someone Knows Something, Season 1 - Mr. Ring

7/25/2020 TRANSCRIPT: Someone Knows Something - Season 1, EP 2 | CBC Radio
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Someone Knows Something, Season 1 -- Mr. Ring
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
VOICE 1:There’s evil living here.
ANNOUNCER: From executive producer Jordan Peele.
VOICE 2: I think there's Nazis living in America, and someone out there is taking them out.
[Music]
ANNOUNCER: Now.
VOICE 3: You put together a group of Nazi hunters?
ANNOUNCER: Revenge is righteous.
[Music]
ANNOUNCER: Al Pacino in his first television series.
VOICE 4: Have you had enough?
Because there’s more.
[Music]
ANNOUNCER: Watch the Amazon original series, “Hunters”.
New series, watch now.
Only on Amazon Prime Video.
[Music]
ANNOUNCER: This is a CBC Podcast.
VOICE 1:You're listening to someone knows something from CBC Radio.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sks/sks-transcripts/transcript-someone-knows-something-season-1-ep-2-1.5546151 1/13
In 1972, five-year-old Adrien McNaughton vanished while on a fishing trip in Eastern Ontario.
Documentarian David Ridgen goes back to the small town he grew up in searching for answers.
[Music]
DAVID RIDGEN: I have a recurring dream about bears.
It's not the only recurring dream I have but it's the one I remember with unoccluded clarity.
It always starts and I'm wandering in the woods in rough country on a beautiful sunny day.
But I know it's soon to be interrupted.
And even so, when I see the first bear, it's always a shock. It's always just a few steps away. I could
touch it if I wanted. Huge brown bears. Even though I grew up in an area with black ones. And for
some reason, they sometimes have six legs. But I’ll always get away from this first one, without
being seen.
And I'll get that false sense of security that maybe this time it will be different.
I sneak past the first one and maybe the second. But by the third my luck will run out. There's
always one that sees from far away and comes for me without hesitation. Like those infected in 28
Days Later, moving so fast. I run and run, to finally find a clapboard cabin hidden amongst the
spruce and pine. But the doors don't shut right, and the bear will find its way in anyway.
I get into the last room in the cabin. It's always a bedroom that looks like the one that one of my
best friends who died of cancer used to have. And I find a gun that's not mine, and I'm rifling
through a white paint flecked wooden drawer filled with cartridges or bullets that don't quite fit
the gun. The bear gets in and I fumble with the bullets and I cock the gun, empty.
Just to feel reassured, I guess. And then I wake up like...
The animal that I am.
I've had this dream 20, 30 times and it's terrifying. But I do admit I'd miss it, strangely, if it
suddenly disappeared forever. If it disappeared, I would never be able to wake up with that
euphoric relief again.
And I discover in talking to the McNaughton’s that their missing son Adrien became a dream of a
different sort. For Adrien's father, Murray, a dream that he wanted gone.
BARBARA: This is something I remember, and it just came back to me, of Murray sleeping on the
chesterfield after it happened. We'd been home maybe a week, 10 days. And he was laying on the
chesterfield and he got up and said I'm going to Holmes Lake. I just had a dream, and he said. I
just had a dream, and he said, Daddy, come and get me, I'm still here.
[Music]
RIDGEN: It's through mining these memories and looking back at cases that new information can
come up and I soon realize as the conversations proceed out of the dream into the facts and back
again that there was another adult male on the scene the day Adrien disappeared back on June
12, 1972.
RIDGEN: So, tell me about who else was there with you.
MURRAY: Well, I don't know whether he wants me to mention his name or not, Danny Ring. My
fishing buddy.
And he was with us too.
He was probably-- he was quite a fisherman and he was all around to all the lakes. So, I suspect he
was likely there before.
RIDGEN: I-- I've read a lot of news articles about the story of Adrien and I've never heard anything
about another guy being there.
MURRAY: Yeah.
Well, it was not important.
[Music]
RIDGEN: Who wouldn't be intrigued by Danny Ring? Or Donnie, as he's also called? The only other
adult reported to have been at Holmes Lake on the day of Adrien McNaughton’s disappearance.
And I could be wrong, but I don't think anybody back then or now has ever interviewed him, if
that's possible.
But why?
Why would the only other adult at the lake that day never have publicly spoken?
RIDGEN: And Mister— Mister Ring, do you think that he would talk to me about that day?
MURRAY: I don't know if he was or not.
That's up to him whether he wants to talk about it or not.
I haven't been talking to him for quite a few months.
RIDGEN: Adrien's brother Lee McNaughton tells me what he can remember of Donnie Ring.
LEE: Donnie Ring, I remember him telling the story that it's quite tragic how much garbage gets
left behind. And, you know, he would bring sometimes a garbage bag and pick some of it up
himself or something.
RIDGEN: Donnie had been Murray's fishing buddy, several years.
He was there that day.
He's still alive. So, I have to talk to him. And I need to start building some theories of my own.
Some avenues, some percentages. And my thinking about what this podcast can do here.
[Dogs barking]
RIDGEN: It's noon, and I'm pulling up at a house in the backwoods near Renfrew, Ontario. Not
that far from the Calabogie area and Holmes Lake, in fact.
RIDGEN: How are you?
DONNIE: I’m alright, yourself?
[Dogs barking]
RIDGEN: Donnie Ring’s in the driveway, near his ATV.
RIDGEN: It’s okay to park right here?
DONNIE: Yeah, yeah. You may as well come in this way.
RIDGEN: He doesn't care if I leave my shoes on. He's been out at his deer stand, just a short walk
away, and he's wearing full camouflage, hunting gear and big boots.
[Door slamming]
RIDGEN: How was the hunting today?
DONNIE: No good. I thought well, I guess I say some blue jays, but that was it.
RIDGEN: All right, well, I’m going to get another little microphone out...
RIDGEN: We sit on the back deck near a collection of bird feeders on what has become the
warmest and most pleasant November day I can ever remember. Donnie sits across from me at a
wooden deck table, and chickadees are shuttling gracefully back and forth from the surrounding
trees to the seeds and then back again. For some reason, I enjoy knowing that they are there as
Donnie talks.
[Birds chirping]
DONNIE: The day we went fishing, we had plans to go the following day, but Murray had an
appointment or something, so we changed and went up that evening. And...as I remember
everything was going good.
I went around the shoreline to a rock. And, I think Lisa and Adrien and one of the other kids came
with me.
RIDGEN: Lisa is Adrien's sister and would be closest to him in age.
DONNIE: And we fished there for a while, and there was nothing going on, so I came back. And
Murray set a line for Adrien, right down at the shore. There was an old dead tree in the water. And
the other kids, they went ahead. They set their own lines. They were old enough. And...I tried
fishing a little bit there, and then I thought well, I'll leave the space for the kids and I'll go out to
this other kind of a point. There was a cedar tree on it and then I climbed out there and I started
fishing there and Murray set the line for Adrien right at the end of that tree.
And Adrien decided he wanted to play with his line, so he kept pulling his line in a little bit and a
little bit. And finally, he got tangled up in the tree. So, Murray told them, “Just go and sit down”,
and he would get it untangled for him. So, I heard Murray telling the kid this and everything was
good. I looked over and I seen Adrien sitting up on the rock. It was kind of a flat rock and was like a
step. So, he sat on the rock, his legs down, comfortable.
And Murray fiddled around, got the line undone and then...I believe it was Lee went out to the car.
Not sure what he went for, but he went into the car.
RIDGEN: Lee is Adrien's eldest brother.
DONNIE: Murray told-- I guess he turned around to tell Adrien that his line was ready, that was set
again for him and that. And then he said, “Where's Adrien?” to nobody in particular. And nobody
knew.
And Murray shouted it out to Lee at the car. I'm pretty sure it was Lee that was in the car. He's the
oldest boy, I'm pretty sure.
And he asked Lee if Adrien was in the car or if he was sleeping or something like that. And Lee said
yes, because I was actually closer to Lee and the car, and I heard him saying yes. So, we thought
no more of it. We went ahead fishing and, oh, I don't think it’d be 10 minutes, maybe, at the very
most. Lee came back to the...where we were, fishing, and Murray asked Lee if Adrien was sleeping.
And Lee said “No, I didn't see him”, or something to that effect. And right away, Murray said, “Well,
is he not sleeping in the car?” or, did he get something to eat or, what did he do? Never seen him.
Well, right away we started looking.
[Music]
RIDGEN: As Donnie ring speaks, I find his Littleton cadence oddly comforting.
Even though he's obviously confronting his memories for the first time in a long while, and he's
possibly the furthest thing from comfortable himself.
VOICE 1:There’s evil living here.
ANNOUNCER: From executive producer Jordan Peele.
VOICE 3: I think there's Nazis living in America, and someone out there is taking them out.
[Music]
ANNOUNCER: Now.
VOICE 4: You put together a group of Nazi hunters?
ANNOUNCER: Revenge is righteous.
[Music]
ANNOUNCER: Al Pacino in his first television series.
VOICE 5: Have you had enough?
Because there’s more.
[Music]
ANNOUNCER: Watch the Amazon original series, “Hunters”.
New series, watch now.
Only on Amazon Prime Video.
[Music]
RIDGEN: Everyone present so far agrees that Adrien stopped fishing, then went up the little hill an
astonishingly short distance away, to sit on a flat rock. Donnie says Adrien stopped fishing
because his line was snarled. Murray and Lee McNaughton say that Adrien simply got tired of
fishing and then went up the hill to sit.
And Lee thinks he was the last person to see Adrien.
LEE: He must've got bored with the fishing and he got back just behind me on the rock and he was
playing there.
RIDGEN: Did you see him playing?
LEE: Yes.
RIDGEN: “Playing” and then according to all accounts, gone within minutes after that.
LEE: --throwing some things, you know, kicking the dirt. It was turned around. He was puttering
away sort of as a five-year-old would. And then I went back to fishing.
RIDGEN: The moment when Murray discovers Adrien is not on the rock, he asks Lee to go check
the car. And then both Donnie’s and Lee's account of that moment are effectively the same.
LEE: And this is where an odd thing happened.
My father, he wasn't that far away, shouted “Is he there?” and...
[Sighing]
LEE: Sometimes when you respond to someone, I—I said “Yes?”, meaning “Pardon me, what did
you say?”
RIDGEN: Lee says he misheard his dad, and the other accounts support this. And no one has ever
had any reason to doubt that or suspect him in any way. But the likely mishearing allowed
Adrien's disappearance to continue for another precious few minutes without the family actually
knowing he was gone.
What time of day would that have been, when you noticed he was gone and then you started
looking?
DONNIE: I believe that to be around, probably 5:30 in the evening.
We started it looking for Adrien, and we looked for a few minutes. We went around. I went back
over to where I had been at the rock, at first. Checked all the way back over there and I call here
and there on the way over. It was only a couple of hundred yards anyway. And Murray he put out
towards the car, and down the other road towards Center Lake, calling and waiting and listening
for an answer. And we never got any answer. So, I met up with Murray again a few minutes later,
and said, well, maybe we better get some help. I went down to [14:31] and I phoned the OPP from
there and
It took them a while to get there, but we got back in there and then we started searching again
and then it just escalated from there. The word got out and the next thing we know, there's
people everywhere and there's no sign of him, no sign of any of his clothing. There was absolutely
nothing found.
[Music]
RIDGEN: When Donnie returned from his trip to seek help, he had the police with him. He said
that he waited for them on the Calabogie road, and that they had to have their headlights on
when they pulled in at Holmes Lake. So, it was dark, and after 9:30 p.m. on that late spring
evening. The remainder of the McNaughton family, meanwhile, stayed behind.
MURRAY: Well, like I say, when we were out here and the kids-- we started calling him. I went up
around to— walked up around to the end of the lake when I came back, and said “Stop calling
him”, because their voices echo through the bush. I think he was up there and got lost in the echo
over there and he followed it all the way over there.
RIDGEN: So, the McNaughtons continued to look, without yelling for Adrien, into the night. And
very shortly, and on into the next day, the numbers of searchers increased.
DONNIE: I think there was quite OPP in there, too and the Ministry—the MNR was there.
RIDGEN: The “MNR” would be the Ministry of Natural Resources. They kept lakes on Crown land
like Holmes Lake and Center Lake stocked with fish.
DONNIE: There was lots of stuff found, none of it Adrien's. Like, there was hunting stuff dropped
in there, or fishermen’s, you know. Stuff Adrien wouldn't have, especially. And...I have never been
able to figure out what happened.
I have been back there quite a few times and...you always look.
Nothing.
RIDGEN: That’s pretty sad.
DONNIE: Oh, sorry.
Yeah, they were good friends of mine.
It bothers me.
But I just-- just don't know what could have possibly happened to him. It's-- he'd be what, about 46
now? It's weird how...how he could disappear, just-- you know?
RIDGEN: Each time Donnie's emotions rush to the surface, I feel like I'm looking at a man who
hasn't allowed himself to cry about anything for 43 years and the lump in my own throat keeps
getting larger.
DONNIE: For a long time, you know, I found myself going back up there and walking around
and...and, you know, looking in every little hole in the ground.
I couldn't—
[Coughs]
DONNIE: You couldn't get it out of your mind at the time. It's just... Especially having a little kid
myself, at the time. Yeah. And—and Murray like, they idolize those kids. They were just...
They were having a rough time of it too, I guess, and just trying to make ends meet.
The kids were well looked after and, you know, it's...
It’s hurting the nerves.
RIDGEN: And have you spoken about this to any reporters or anything since that time?
DONNIE: Actually, at the time, well I was talking to the OPP and a reporter was sitting in the cars. I
said something, he just took my words and switched them all around. And I thought, “That's not
what I said”, you know? You asked me a question, or the cop asked me a question. I gave him my
answer. Don't you try to tell the cop what I said! And I said, I told the cop, I said, “If he stays in the
car, I'm not saying another word.”
And that was it. I wouldn't talk, so.
I just don't like people trying to tell me what happened when they weren't there. You know? My
temper was really short. A lot of people, you know, as soon as I said, “Well, you know, I was there, I
know what happened. Where the hell did you get your information?”, they shut up. They knew that
they were talking, you know, nonsense, more or less. But there's still some that was just-- wouldn't
stop. Yeah. That’s when you walk away.
All you can do. I mean, Adrien was only five years old at the time if I remember rightly. And he was
a very tiny child, very tiny, very quiet little fella. If he answered, none of us heard him. There was
enough of us there. One of us should have heard him answering but nobody heard a peep out of
him, and we tried. We looked and looked and looked. We scoured that bush like, every inch of it,
there was nothing.
So, I have no idea what happened to him.
I know only speculation, but I think he might have went out onto the road, and somebody picked
him up.
That's the only way he could disappear.
Like everybody-- everybody's saying, oh, a bear got him, a cougar got him. This, that and the other
thing. We would have heard him screaming or something if a bear had of tackled him. Or we
would've heard a noise a bear would make, you know?
My hearing was real good then. It's not so good now but...
It’s just...
[Sighing]
DONNIE: I wish I knew. I'm sure Murray and Barbara’d like to know too.
RIDGEN: So why didn't Adrien call out? Or if he did, why didn't anyone hear him?
Was he somehow incapacitated very shortly after leaving the fishing area?
Had he gotten so far away under his own power, or someone else's, that he couldn't hear the
desperate calls for him?
RIDGEN: So, when you left, which way did you turn? Do you remember if you went toward
Calabogie, or if you went out toward Black Donald on that road that— you know, you can go both
ways on that.
DONNIE: When I left, I went out to Highway 508 and turned left and went down to Calabogie.
RIDGEN: Mr. McNaughton and Barb said that afterwards, there were a lot of suspicions cast on
the family. There were, like, people—
DONNIE: Oh, yeah.
RIDGEN: Were saying things people were-- could you talk a little bit about that? And I bet you
suspicions were cast on you as well because you were there.
DONNIE: Oh, yeah.
RIDGEN: So, can you talk a little bit about that?
DONNIE: Yeah. There was all kinds of accusations made.
There was really ridiculous things like, somebody found ‘em nailed to the bottom of a boat at
Jocko’s or one of the other marinas there in Calabogie.
There was crap like that. I shouldn't say this, but my sister gave one girl a pounding, because
some girl accused me directly. Said, oh she knew that I did it, and my sister knew I didn’t.
[Scratching]
DONNIE: Guess my sister’s got a bad temper too, but...
That's long gone now. There were so many stories that I can't-- it was speculation. Somebody got
these stupid ideas in their head. I don't know why people do that, but they do. I had to hold myself
back a few times too. I used to go to the old Newburn hotel in Arnprior. I'd be sitting there, and
you'd hear people talking and all the damn stories you could imagine. And you just wanted to get
up and, you know? Let them have it. But you had to keep it-- keep your mouth shut and try to just
ignore it because if I had stuck my nose in there, there would have been fists flying.
I know that. I won't be accused of doing something I didn't do. That's just the way I am.
RIDGEN: And so to the chances of Adrien still being alive and things like that, like the
McNaughton’s hold out the hope, of course, that he's still alive and that's been raised by
somebody else or is, unbeknownst to him, is their son in some other situation. What do you think
of that sort of scenario?
DONNIE: Well, I have often thought about that myself. And I thought, if he was picked up by
somebody and it was a family that couldn't have children of their own or something, and they
raised him, he may be doing well today.
I don't know. You know, that's looking at the good side of things, I guess. But if he was picked up,
let's hope it was somebody who treated him right.
Because he was-- he was a good kid.
[Music]
DONNIE: The only person that could know where he is, is if somebody picked him up. They would
know. And if that happened, they should come forward.
Yeah...it gets to you.
It just...it would be so nice to know.
Even-- one way or the other, you know that's-- like I said, if somebody took ‘em, it’s time they
admitted it.
I can't believe people would do that, though.
RIDGEN: I can.
I can believe people would do anything, but what's the probability?
What's the percentage chance of a bear being picked up, being lost, dead, or alive, some of the
above? At least one of the above?
Well, Donnie says he turned left out of Holmes Lake, and we'd assume he'd have seen Adrien on
the road in that direction if he had gotten there and also turned left. So that narrows that
possibility.
And there's still people to talk to and information to sift, but right now a picture's forming. A crazy
quilt of some possibilities, where Adrien could be or might be. And that and the sunny day and the
chickadees and the quiet lake that's still here despite it all, gives me heart.
[Music]
VOICE 1: Adrien?
Adrien?!
Adrien!
VOICE 2: On the next episode of “Someone Knows Something”...
VOICE 3: We were fishing off the rocks and we could hear people shouting on the far side of the
lake.
But we didn't know why the people were shouting at the time. We found out the next day that
there was something missing up there. So-- and that's when the whole thing started.
[Music]
VOICE 1: Visit CBC.CA/SKS to see a map of the locations connected to the case, or to catch up on
past episodes from the series. Subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you like the
show, tell your friends. “Someone Knows Something” is hosted, written, and produced by David
Ridgen. The show is also produced by Ashley Walters, Sandra Bartlett and Steph Kampf. The music
is by Bob Wiseman.
[Music]
MARY MARGARET O’HARA: will never stop my love.
I will never sleep.
Something here precious.
A memory we keep.
I will never stop my love.
I will never, never sleep.
All I want is an answer for this mystery we keep.
VOICE 5: For more CBC original podcasts, go to cbc.ca/originalpodcasts.
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CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

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7/25/2020 TRANSCRIPT: Someone Knows Something - Season 1, EP 2 | CBC Radio

Someone Knows Something, Season 1 -- Mr. Ring

VOICE 1:There’s evil living here.

ANNOUNCER: From executive producer Jordan Peele.

VOICE 3: You put together a group of Nazi hunters?

ANNOUNCER: Revenge is righteous.

ANNOUNCER: Al Pacino in his ﬁrst television series.

VOICE 4: Have you had enough?

Because there’s more.

ANNOUNCER: Watch the Amazon original series, “Hunters”.

New series, watch now.

Only on Amazon Prime Video.

ANNOUNCER: This is a CBC Podcast.

VOICE 1:You're listening to someone knows something from CBC Radio.

DAVID RIDGEN: I have a recurring dream about bears.

But I know it's soon to be interrupted.

Just to feel reassured, I guess. And then I wake up like...

The animal that I am.

And he was with us too.

Well, it was not important.

MURRAY: I don't know if he was or not.

That's up to him whether he wants to talk about it or not.

I haven't been talking to him for quite a few months.

RIDGEN: Donnie had been Murray's ﬁshing buddy, several years.

He was there that day.

RIDGEN: How are you?

DONNIE: I’m alright, yourself?

RIDGEN: Donnie Ring’s in the driveway, near his ATV.

RIDGEN: It’s okay to park right here?

DONNIE: Yeah, yeah. You may as well come in this way.

RIDGEN: How was the hunting today?

RIDGEN: Lisa is Adrien's sister and would be closest to him in age.

RIDGEN: Lee is Adrien's eldest brother.

VOICE 1:There’s evil living here.

ANNOUNCER: From executive producer Jordan Peele.

VOICE 4: You put together a group of Nazi hunters?

ANNOUNCER: Revenge is righteous.

ANNOUNCER: Al Pacino in his ﬁrst television series.

VOICE 5: Have you had enough?

Because there’s more.

ANNOUNCER: Watch the Amazon original series, “Hunters”.

New series, watch now.

Only on Amazon Prime Video.

And Lee thinks he was the last person to see Adrien.

RIDGEN: Did you see him playing?

LEE: And this is where an odd thing happened.

My father, he wasn't that far away, shouted “Is he there?” and...

DONNIE: I believe that to be around, probably 5:30 in the evening.

RIDGEN: That’s pretty sad.

DONNIE: Oh, sorry.

Yeah, they were good friends of mine.

It’s hurting the nerves.

And that was it. I wouldn't talk, so.

So, I have no idea what happened to him.

That's the only way he could disappear.

DONNIE: Oh, yeah.

DONNIE: Oh, yeah.

RIDGEN: So, can you talk a little bit about that?

DONNIE: Yeah. There was all kinds of accusations made.

DONNIE: Guess my sister’s got a bad temper too, but...

Because he was-- he was a good kid.

Yeah...it gets to you.

It just...it would be so nice to know.