Dave Bocks

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by freakbook

Couldn't they just drop him near the opening and then use a long tool to finish shoving him in? Also if they were wearing a klin suit I'm sure they had enough time to put him in before they got injured

It would have been impossible to drop him and have him land near the opening or even on the lip of the furnace because of the distance away from the furnace to where you had to stand to not feel the effects of the heat. That was the cops point: you could not conceivably position someone or push them into the opening because to do so you would have had to have gotten close to the furnace which would have caused you to burn to death.

Originally Posted by freakbook

It seems really far-fetched that Dave would walk/run through an extremely hot furnace just to possibly get his body down a tiny opening. I can imagine someone going through all of this trouble to hide something. Not just take take their own life which could've been done with less effort

Suicide does seem farfetched because it is such a brutal way for someone to kill themselves. But as farfetched as it sounds, it is more plauisble than a homicide. Dave still being alive is more plausible than a homicide.

[freakbook]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

It would have been impossible to drop him and have him land near the opening or even on the lip of the furnace because of the distance away from the furnace to where you had to stand to not feel the effects of the heat. That was the cops point: you could not conceivably position someone or push them into the opening because to do so you would have had to have gotten close to the furnace which would have caused you to burn to death.

[TheCars1986]

They don’t have heat-resistant suits at Fernald to get close enough to that

The detective would have no reason to make this up. This wasn't a rushed or shoddy investigation. Dave reported a coworker for sleeping on the job and that worker was suspended at the time of Dave's death. The cops interviewed him. A security guard said they saw this person's motorcycle at the plant on the night/morning of Dave's death. The cops went and checked this coworker's motorcycle out and saw that it was missing a carburetor and was inoperable. When they went back to interview the security guard again, a different coworker (who was described as someone who could have been a twin to the coworker that Dave got suspended) pulled up on a motorcycle who worked the 2nd shift on the night that Dave died. All of this is to show that the cops didn't just look at this and say, "meh he killed himself". And there is no reason why this cop would insist repeatedly that no one could have gotten close enough to the furnace to dump his body in.

[freakbook]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

The detective would have no reason to make this up. This wasn't a rushed or shoddy investigation. Dave reported a coworker for sleeping on the job and that worker was suspended at the time of Dave's death. The cops interviewed him. A security guard said they saw this person's motorcycle at the plant on the night/morning of Dave's death. The cops went and checked this coworker's motorcycle out and saw that it was missing a carburetor and was inoperable. When they went back to interview the security guard again, a different coworker (who was described as someone who could have been a twin to the coworker that Dave got suspended) pulled up on a motorcycle who worked the 2nd shift on the night that Dave died. All of this is to show that the cops didn't just look at this and say, "meh he killed himself". And there is no reason why this cop would insist repeatedly that no one could have gotten close enough to the furnace to dump his body in.

I'm not saying that the detective is lying, but I don't believe they didn't have heat-resistant suits that couldn't have gotten close enough to the furnace to put Dave in. A nuclear power plant with a furnace that didn't have any heat-resistant suits that couldn't get close enough while it was on in case of an emergecny doesn't make any sense.

I'm sure the detective was thorough in his investigation, but was he given bum information? If the higher-ups wanted his death ruled as an accident or suicide to avoid bad publicity about a murder, then I'm sure they fed the police a bunch of BS to keep them on the "accident" trail

Again, someone wearing a kiln suit dumping his body near the furnace then using a long instrument to push him in from a distance is impossible, but Dave walking and jumping in isn't? Wouldn't the heat be too much for Dave to get close?

Is there any evidence of the detective or any of his men wearing one of the suits and attempting to get close to the furnace while it's on, or did he just take someones word for it?

[MegtheEgg86]

FWIW, the segment itself shows some news footage from the plant during the mid-80s that featured an employee working in a denim shirt with the sleeves cut off working around heavy equipment and what looks like uranium ore. Not even a pair of gloves on that dude.

Just seeing that, I can accept that Fernald didn't provide proper heat PPE.

[freakbook]

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

FWIW, the segment itself shows some news footage from the plant during the mid-80s that featured an employee working in a denim shirt with the sleeves cut off working around heavy equipment and what looks like uranium ore. Not even a pair of gloves on that dude.

Just seeing that, I can accept that Fernald didn't provide proper heat PPE.

So please explain how Dave was able to jump and go near the furnace with its high temperature without a kiln suit, but someone wasn't able to put him in there?

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by freakbook

So please explain how Dave was able to jump and go near the furnace with its high temperature without a kiln suit, but someone wasn't able to put him in there?

I don't think anyone put him in there. I'm not really convinced he put himself there, either. I lean accident.

[TheCars1986]

When Dave never showed up to ride back with Harry Easterling, his coworkers assumed that he had went off somewhere to take a nap in an abandoned plant and was still sleeping so he left a note and left. If there was a spot above the furnace that he could have been sleeping at, I could see an accidental death. But Dave's daughter was adamant that he was a stickler for the rules and wouldn't have been sleeping on the job.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

But Dave's daughter was adamant that he was a stickler for the rules and wouldn't have been sleeping on the job.

Yeah, that seems to be pretty consistent too from people who knew him on the job as well.

I struggle with this one a lot.

I have to concede a suicide scenario is somewhat plausible simply because Dave firstly had a prior attempt (which statistically makes one likely to have another), and secondly had a serious mental illness (schizophrenia). He was taking perphenazine (Trilafon) for it, which is prescribed primarily to treat what are known as the positive symptoms of schizophrenia like hallucinations and delusions. These drugs need to be tapered if they need to be discontinued, since there's a pretty big risk of withdrawal. Those symptoms include sweating and insomnia. It can also, of course, result in return of symptoms.

I think I do remember that the Accused podcast mentioned a coworker who stated Dave was complaining about not having slept well the day before because of the heat. A lot of people who have worked third shift for any period of time have a lot of difficulty getting quality sleep during the day. I don't know if that was true in Dave's case, but I do know that length and quality of sleep can greatly impact schizophrenic patients, making it more difficult to manage symptoms.

It's very, very hard to wrap one's head around jumping into a vat of literal molten rock. I just don't think it's as likely as other, more common methods. But if he suddenly stopped taking his meds? It might happen. I don't think it's the most likely scenario, but it could happen.

All that being said, Dave was by all accounts a rule follower and we don't have any accounts of him being non-compliant with his mental health treatment during this time period. He had also stopped drinking alcohol years before this, IIRC. Given that he seemed appropriate during all the time that Harry Easterling was with him that evening and it seems no one else at the plant reported any strange behavior from him, again, I don't think this is the likeliest scenario. But it does seem at least marginally possible--more so than a murder plot, in my estimation.

[IBMcginty]

Don't know if I have even seen this UM episode but I ran across this today, just food for thought in regard to the possibility of it being a suicide:

https://nypost.com/2026/02/05/us-new...-kitchen-cops/

An Olive Garden cook has died after he dunked his own head into a searing hot deep fryer — as his co-workers frantically tried to thwart his gruesome suicide, authorities said.
The employee, who hasn’t been identified, stripped his clothes off and thrust his face into the fryer at the chain’s restaurant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, last Friday afternoon, the Smoking Gun reported.
“A male victim went head first into the fryers,” dispatchers could be heard saying in grim 911 audio.
“I don’t have a lot of details, lot of people screaming, some kind of a burn victim,” another operator could be heard saying.
The cook was rushed a nearby hospital to be treated for his severe burns, but he later died from his injuries, authorities said.
A female employee suffered minor burns after she and several other workers tried to stop the cook from injuring himself even further.
At least one customer also tried to intervene.
Both Olive Garden and authorities refused to release any details about the ordeal, only describing it as a “suicide attempt.”
The restaurant shut down for several days in the wake of the incident but has since reopened.

[TheCars1986]

It's too bad DC Cole isn't around anymore to investigate the possible involvement of Olive Garden's ties to the federal government.

[freakbook]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

The podcast also says that there were two temperature drops within 30 minutes of each other.

Could the first drop have been Dave's body, and the second drop his keys?

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by freakbook

Could the first drop have been Dave's body, and the second drop his keys?

The furnace tank was 4' deep, and Dave was 6' tall, so I think it's possible that the first drop in the temperature was the front part of his body going into the furnace and the seccond was the rest of his body going in.

[freakbook]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

The furnace tank was 4' deep, and Dave was 6' tall, so I think it's possible that the first drop in the temperature was the front part of his body going into the furnace and the seccond was the rest of his body going in.

But what if Dave was laying in the vat horizontally? Wouldn't he mostly burn all at once?

[Allierain]

Originally Posted by freakbook

But what if Dave was laying in the vat horizontally? Wouldn't he mostly burn all at once?

Hmm. Looking at it from this angle, maybe he could have fallen in accidentally. I just don’t know.

Something about this case I don’t like are the reports from many employees about the apple cores. If they left a small crust on the salt and made such a kaboom when thrown into the vat, how on earth wasn’t there an explosion and huge chunks of black stuff thrown everywhere from a body being dropped in? Humans are a little over 50% water. In the podcast mentioned earlier it was reported the bones found in the vat did not look like chicken bones but how could they be sure they were even bones to begin with? I’m no scientist but I would expect everything organic to be totally destroyed in the high heat of the vat. That leaves keys and wire. Did they honestly prove in one way or another that Dave was even dropped in there?