The Bagpiper and His Son
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A Mystery Podcast

The Bagpiper
& His Son

A father dies mysteriously in Maui.

Six days later, his missing son’s skeleton is found in the family treehouse in Decatur, GA.

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The remains of Hank Frantz

Imagine climbing the steps into a backyard treehouse.

The kind of place where a child once played.

But inside, it isn't toys you find.

It’s a body.

A body stripped of flesh, hidden in plain sight above the family backyard — possibly for years.

That skeleton belonged to Hank Frantz — a funny band kid who was 28 years old when he vanished.

Six days before this gruesome discovery, his father died mysteriously on a scuba dive in Maui.

The treehouse where Hank Frantz's body was found

The Treehouse — Decatur, Georgia, 2025

Above the family backyard. In plain sight. Possibly for years.

The Case

“These two lives had long collided in love and in conflict,
in loyalty and in rage.”

The Father

Henry D. Frantz

74 years old. Attorney. Father of five. Known throughout Decatur as “the Bagpiper.”

On a routine dive, the guide told him to follow her fins. Ten minutes later, she looked back. He was gone.

Maui, 2025

The Son

Hank Frantz

28 years old. A funny band kid. Missing for four years — until his skeleton was found in the family backyard treehouse.

His body was discovered in the treehouse six days after his father’s death — though Hank may have been dead for years already.

Decatur, Georgia, 2025

In death, their stories became entwined in ways that left behind secrets, contradictions, conspiracies, and questions.

Was there something to hide?

Episodes

All Available Episodes

TrailerLive Now

The Bagpiper & His Son

The first look at the story of Henry and Hank Frantz — a father and son whose deaths left behind secrets no one has fully explained.

Listen to the Trailer — The Bagpiper & His Son on Substack
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Episode 01Available Now

The Bagpiper

Four older men wade into the surf. It’s a beginner scuba dive. Relatively simple. The kind of trip where nothing is supposed to go wrong. But one man falls behind. The guide notices and calls back to him: “Follow my fins!” Within 10 minutes, Henry D. Frantz Jr. is gone.

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Episode 02Available Now

Under the Water

The bright blue fins were the beacon, showing the way to Henry D. Frantz Jr.’s body, floating face-up in a cove off Wailea beach on Maui on March 10, 2025. Emergency personnel rode out on a jet ski and pulled him from the ocean. Early reports would say his scuba equipment malfunctioned. But they’d be wrong.

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Episode 03Available Now

Hank

Six days after his death, Henry Frantz’s daughters gathered at the house on Garden Lane in Decatur, Ga., to go through his belongings. It was Becca, Hank’s sister by blood, who went into the backyard. She climbed up into the treehouse. And she found a skeleton. With a red metal cross on a cord around the neck. Investigators couldn’t immediately say who it was. But Becca knew. Maybe it was the necklace that told her the body belonged to her brother, Hank. Or maybe she already knew whose place this was, and that the body could belong to no one else.

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Episode 04Available Now

The Bones

The skeleton was on its back in the family treehouse. Most of the bones lay in proper order. But some were gone—a shoulder blade, the kneecaps, and a small bone that might have been able to reveal how Hank Frantz died. He’d been missing for about four years. That’s what his father, Henry D. Frantz Jr., said. But a year in to Hank’s disappearance, a neighbor heard a sound coming from the treehouse late at night. A human sound. What Henry said about it, and about Hank, the neighbor has never forgotten.

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Episode 05Available Now

Father and Son

Just about everybody knew Henry D. Frantz Jr. as the Bagpiper of Decatur. He was, by most accounts, a joyful presence, the kind of man this town liked having around.

But that’s not the Henry Frantz his son knew.

Ever since Henry and his son, Hank, made headlines in 2025, the Internet has speculated about what went wrong between them.

It’s time to replace speculation with evidence: will and estate documents, affidavits, and the account of a family who took Hank in during 2019. It’s time to see who this father and son were before the headlines ever found them.
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Episode 06Available Now

BONUS: What the Psychic Saw

I’ve spent more than a year and a half poring through documents, footage, and photos while gathering the accounts of family and friends of Henry D. Frantz Jr. and his son, Hank.

For this bonus episode, I’m sharing with you a different kind of conversation. It’s with a contractor who was hired to renovate the Frantz home after the family sold it.

She was there to work, not to feel anything. But she felt something anyway.

Her name is Crystal Andrews, and she says she is psychic.
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Episode 07Available Now

Ordinary

Official causes of death don't tell the whole story. I will.

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About This Podcast

Piece by piece, I’ll tell you a story about a father and his son — and the mysteries that surround them both.

01

I'll trace Henry's final dive in Maui.

02

I'll take you inside the treehouse where Hank's body lay.

03

I'll pore over wills, police reports, and autopsies.

Was it coincidence, or was there a connection?

Know something? Tell Christine →

Your Host

Christine Van Dusen

Christine Van Dusen

Christine Van Dusen

An award-winning journalist who spent more than 20 years in the news business, most recently at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta Magazine.

I'm a mother, raising boys just minutes from where Hank was found. Maybe that's part of why I wanted to tell this story. Because what happened to him wasn't hidden away in some distant place — it unfolded here, on a street and in a yard that I passed by all the time.

Once I started looking closer, I couldn't look away.

Notable Work

“Foul Territory”— Atlanta Magazine

Led MLB to extend safety netting at stadiums nationwide

“Do you believe in second chances?”— Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Secured a pardon for a reformed felon seeking a second chance

Help Report This Story

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Share what you know. Solve the mysteries.
Private messages are welcome.

Or reach Christine directly:

thebagpiperandhisson@gmail.com