7. Gary’s Final Days

February 21, 2022·15 min·1 clip

After Gary Matthews died, his sister found his search history — he had been looking up COVID symptoms, proof that he stopped believing the hoax before the end.

The episode opens at Shrewsbury's quarry, where host Marianna Spring meets artist Adam Birch, who has just finished night shifts at a supermarket. Adam gestures at the affluent Shrewsbury School across the River Severn and notes the inequality in the town: some people enjoyed lockdown in spacious houses while others, including Gary, lived alone in small flats with no garden, isolated and depressed. Adam says Gary was on social media constantly during the lockdown months. He describes last seeing Gary about a week before his death — Gary seemed 'weird, off, not himself' — and wonders whether that was the onset of illness or the accumulated effect of months of lockdown isolation. The host explains she has a copy of Gary's death certificate listing COVID-19 as the sole cause of death, but data protection rules prevented the council and his doctor from confirming details. A breakthrough comes through footage shot by Gary's cousin Tristan — a filmmaker in Los Angeles — who interviewed Gary's sister Emma and mother Kate for a documentary. From January 7, Gary thought he had flu. Between the 7th and 10th, he grew increasingly ill. On the 10th, he decided to get tested and walked the roughly two-mile round trip to Shrewsbury's Shire Hall testing centre, even though he was struggling to breathe, because he was afraid of infecting anyone who gave him a lift. He refused to let his parents visit, saying he did not want to spread the virus. On January 12, Gary received a positive COVID test result. His family advised paracetamol and rest, expecting recovery. On the morning of January 13, Gary's father went to check on him. He could not get into the apartment; the building, owned by undertakers, was unlocked by them, and Gary's father found his body. Gary had apparently collapsed in his living room. A crucial revelation follows: Gary's sister Emma, checking his phone after his death, found he had been searching for COVID-19 symptoms. The host interprets this as evidence that Gary's beliefs in the hoax had crumbled — he knew COVID was real before he died — but the shift came too late for him to seek medical attention earlier. Adam reflects on how the internet functions as a mirror that shows you only what you've already engaged with, reinforcing beliefs rather than challenging them. He says Gary was not a stereotype — he was intelligent, gentle, and unusually free of malice, the kind of person social media platforms are particularly good at capturing.

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