Sitdown Sunday: A Route 66 town, a missing man and a detective who thinks he's cracked the case

The Journal

08-06-2025

IT'S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We've hand-picked some of the week's best reads for you to savour.
1. What happened to Keith King?
The road leading to Seligman, Arizona at twilight.
Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
He left his girlfriend's house in the small town of Seligman on the historic Route 66 and was never seen again. 19 years later, a private detective believes he knows what happened to him, and where to find his body.
(
Phoenix New Times
, approx 20 mins reading time)
Not long after Keith went missing, there were hints of a more nefarious fate. The next day, Wells filed a missing person report with the county sheriff's office. She told deputies that she'd last seen Keith the previous morning in his RV in flip-flops, a T-shirt and gray pants. He was about 170 pounds and 5-foot-10 and wore a mustache. Keith was 'psychotic' and had refused to take his meds, she told them. He also 'believed he was an alien'. Keith had been reportedly spotted two other times before he vanished, according to the sheriff's office report. At about 5:10 p.m. the day before Keith disappeared, an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer spotted him in a parking lot near his truck, which had been towed after conking out on a railroad track west of town. A Seligman man named Bill Wilkins told deputies that he'd seen Keith roughly 11 hours later, walking near a Chevron station. Wilkins had given him a ride home. Then the investigation got weird.
2. Trump v Musk
Behind the scenes, here's what led to the spectacular public bust-up between the world's richest man and the President of the United States.
(
The Washington Post
, approx 10 mins reading time)
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In the aftermath of his Thursday faceoff with Musk, he urged those around him not to pour gasoline on the fire, according to two people with knowledge of his behavior. He told Vice President JD Vance to be cautious with how he spoke publicly about the Musk situation. But although the break between Musk and Trump only exploded into public view on Thursday, cracks in the alliance began to appear much earlier. As Musk's 'move fast and break things' bravado complicated the White House's ambitions to remake American society, the billionaire alienated key members of the White House staff, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and quarreled with Cabinet members, physically coming to blows with one. This account of the unraveling of the alliance between Trump and Musk is based on interviews with 17 people with knowledge of the events, including many who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about sensitive conversations.
3. 'She was his meal ticket'
Amelia Earhart.
Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
An excerpt from a new book on the tragedy of American aviator Amelia Earhart, and the role her husband played in the lead-up to her final flights.
(
The New Yorker
, approx 32 mins reading time)
Earhart knew that Putnam would be frustrated by the wasted expenditures and the repair bills caused by her crashing the Electra. She told a friend, 'I've just got to get away for a couple of days by myself, before it drives me crazy.' Upon returning to California, she fled to a tranquil desert ranch near Palm Springs owned by close friends: Jacqueline Cochran, a fiery aviator, and her husband, Floyd Odlum, a financial titan known as the Wizard of Wall Street. Cochran had bluntly warned Earhart against attempting a round-the-world voyage that included Howland Island. 'You just don't have sufficient navigation communication,' she said. 'I don't think you'll ever hit it.' But Earhart wouldn't abandon the idea. Cochran and Odlum adored her, and they had financially supported her flying career. Their feelings toward Putnam, however, were less charitable. 'We didn't like or dislike him at the start,' Odlum later said. 'But we came to dislike him because . . . we thought he was taking advantage of Amelia.' He added, 'She was his meal ticket.'
4. The man Putin couldn't kill
A profile of Christo Grozev, the investigative journalist who has exposed numerous Russian spies and assassins, making him a target for the man in the Kremlin.
(
The New York Times
, approx 23 mins reading time)
The trial and its outcome, then, are victories. They are small ones, however, relative to the scope of the threat. The Bulgarians seem to be only one part of a multiyear, multicountry operation to kill Grozev. That in turn is only a small part of what appears to be an ever-broadening campaign by the Kremlin, including kidnappings, poisonings, arson and terrorist attacks, to silence its opponents and sow fear abroad. The story of the resources that were marshaled to silence a single inconvenient voice is a terrifying reminder of what Putin, and beyond him the rising generation of autocratic rulers, is capable of. The story of how that single voice refused to be silenced — in fact redoubled his determination to tell the truth, regardless of the very real consequences — serves as a reminder that it's possible to continue to speak and act in the face of mortal danger. But the damage that was done to Grozev's own life and the lives of the people around him is a warning of how vulnerable we are in the face of unchecked, murderous power.
5. Talking Heads
Saoirse Ronan stars in a brand new video for the band's hit Psycho Killer, released to mark the 50th anniversary of their first gig in New York. Director Mike Mills talks about making the video here.
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(
Variety
, approx 9 mins reading time)
'It was a two-day shoot, and it was very minimal financing,' Mills says. 'It's 13 days and each day gets a very strong emotional prompt that she followed through all those different iterations… Half the time was spent like, 'OK, go change your clothes, come back, be incredibly angry and throw the chair. OK, go change your clothes, come back, cry.' It really did feel athletic. She had guidelines, but it was a great ride because you just never knew what the fuck she was gonna do next. You're only seeing a second or two seconds of each little scene, but there's three minutes in there that we shot (of each bit). It was bonkers — so fun and so inventive, and she's so generative of ideas and ways to be in an emotional state that felt really authentic and grounded. All the improvising that's going on, things she's saying that you don't hear, the tip of the iceberg of what she did is what you see. It was so much fun to shoot.'
6. Seabed trawling
Jon Ungoed-Thomas and James Tapper report on how a ghost fleet of ships from China are ravaging Africa's waters and damaging marine environments through bottom trawling the ocean floor.
(
The Observer
, approx 6 mins reading time)
More than 80% of the Adriatic Sea has been scarred by bottom trawling, and areas of the North Sea and Irish Sea are also badly affected, with stocks of some fish plummeting. There is a global network of more than 18,000 Marine Protected Areas – designated parts of the ocean where habitats and wildlife are supposed to be prioritised – but bottom trawling is allowed in the majority of the UK's 377. 'Bottom trawling is one of the most destructive fishing methods globally,' said Miren Gutierrez, research associate at ODI Global, the global affairs thinktank. 'It not only indiscriminately removes target and non-target species but also destroys vital seafloor habitats, undermining the regenerative capacity of marine ecosystems.'
…AND A CASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
After having a bit of a moment during lockdown, miniatures grew a new following after trending on TikTok. This longread from 2023 takes you inside the weird and wonderful – and tiny – world of these little roomboxes and their creators.
(
Esquire
, approx 26 mins reading time)
This is what distinguishes miniatures: this sense that just offstage, there's more going on if you could just get small enough to walk through that little doorway. That's what I was looking to understand. Then Off told me something. 'I put things in drawers,' he said. 'In my rooms.' Those roomboxes are behind glass. But if Off includes a table in a roombox, and that table has a drawer, well: something will be in that drawer. Pencils, a sewing kit, tools, cutlery. Nobody will ever see it. Nobody will ever know it's there, yet putting it in there is an essential part of what Off is doing. It's about a story. 'My whole life,' he said, whether creating roomboxes or connecting with clients to sell real estate, 'has been about the story.'
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