SmartLess: Wondery Presents - Over My Dead Body: Gone Hunting

Wondery's shocking true crime podcast over my dead body

is back for its fourth season,

gone hunting with a twisted story

about a relationship built on a dark secret

and what happens when that secret begins

to destroy everything.

It was Mike Williams' sixth wedding anniversary

when he set off on a hunting trip

into the gator infested swamps of North Florida.

He figured he'd be back in time

to take his wife Denise out to celebrate,

but he never came back.

Friends and loved ones feared

he'd met his fate through bad luck

and a group of hungry alligators,

leaving his wife Denise and their young daughter behind,

except that's not what happened at all.

And only one person, his mother,

wanted to keep the case alive.

She knew the real answer to Mike's disappearance

had to be much closer to home.

After 17 years, a kidnapping, a betrayal,

and finally the discovery of her son's body,

she would be right.

Now I'm about to play a clip

from over my dead body, gone hunting.

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It was a freezing December morning in North Florida.

Heak duck hunting season,

but no one was hunting that day

on the west corner of Lake Seminole.

The mist that shrouded

the normally serene shoreline was lifting.

As a crowd of game wardens,

sheriff's deputies and locals gathered near a boat ramp.

A sense of urgency hung heavy in the air.

More boats were showing up,

more officers were showing up.

Scott Dungey stood at the lake's edge

looking out into the murky waters.

When he spotted a helicopter, clear the tree line.

So it landed a hundred yards away

from where everybody was gathered on the side of the lake.

The rotor blades slowed to a standstill.

The door swung open

and a man in a green flight suit stepped out.

The pilot came over and introduced himself.

I just told the pilot,

I'm going in the helicopter with you.

Scott wasn't a policeman or an emergency worker.

He was out there looking for his friend.

Mike hadn't come home yet from duck hunting.

It had been over 24 hours

since anyone had heard from Mike.

Something was definitely wrong.

And in these freezing temperatures,

Scott knew they had to act fast.

I was kind of excited how they were in the helicopter.

We're going to find them and everything's going to be fine.

I'm going to be the one to find my buddy.

I'm going to be a hero.

The chopper lifted up into the pale blue sky

and Lake Seminole stretched out below.

Search boats zigzagged between patches of thick weeds

covering the surface.

Scott had spent his life in North Florida swamps just like this,

hunting ducks and pulling fish out of the water.

But this corner of the lake was different.

It was an old flooded pecan orchard

that was probably 600 yards long

and maybe 200 yards wide.

Stumps of sunken trees rose up from the water like tombstones.

And just as many trees that were standing above the water,

there was just that many stomps underneath the water,

hundreds of tree stomps that you can't see from the boat.

And they were slowing down the search.

We had people falling out of the boats

just because they'd hit a stomp and you didn't know it was there.

And that gave Scott a hunch about what

had happened to his friend Mike.

I said, OK, if he's gone out and he fell overboard,

you know, the water's super cold now.

The weather's cold.

It didn't look good.

Looking out over the lake, Scott spotted an island.

It was nothing more than a patch of mud covered in gray, dead grass.

Maybe that's where Mike was.

You know, hopefully he got his waders off

and he was able to swim to the other side

and maybe had a concussion and was knocked out

somewhere on their island.

Scott told the pilot to hover above it.

It was overgrown, so it was hard to see.

You couldn't see much.

Then Scott spotted something.

Not far from the island, there was something moving

just beneath the surface of the water.

The water was very clear because it was in the winter.

So you'd see the full body.

A dark shadow.

And there were six or eight of them.

You know, just swimming all around the boats.

8, 10, 12 foot alligators.

The people in the boat had no idea

that there was a gator eating remotely close to them.

That's when he realized.

I thought, OK, if he did fall out somewhere.

Time was running out.

We got to get him before the alligators get him.

As the helicopter turned back, Scott

looked at the dark waters below him.

He knew it was going to take more than a helicopter ride

to find his buddy.

But what Scott didn't know as the chopper

landed that freezing floor today,

there were other unseen forces at hand,

other figures in the shadows lurking close by

who did know where Mike was.

And they were more vicious than any alligator.

You can binge all episodes of Over My Dead Body

gone hunting early and ad-free on Wondry Plus.

Get started with your free trial at wondry.com slash plus.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.