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S1E1: An Opening Day Disappearance · Blood Trails

0:00
Speaker 1: Brought to you by Velvet Buck Wine, where the hunt
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Speaker 1: meets the harvest. A portion of each bottle goes to
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Speaker 1: Buck Vineyards dot com. Enjoy Responsibly. This episode contains discussion
0:15
Speaker 1: of crimes involving sexual violence and murder. Listener discretion is advised.
0:21
Speaker 2: In a mystery that's haunted Wisconsin for nearly fifty years,
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Speaker 2: a young hunter left home for an opening day archery
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Speaker 2: hunt and was never seen again. His car was found
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Speaker 2: abandoned in the woods, stripped of its wheels and tires.
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Speaker 2: But that wasn't even the strangest part of this baffling
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Speaker 2: and disturbing investigation that's next on Blood Trails. The year
0:54
Speaker 2: was nineteen seventy seven. Opening day of Wisconsin's archery deer
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Speaker 2: season was set for septem number seventeenth, and Robert Christian
1:02
Speaker 2: was ready. The eighteen year old Badger State native had
1:05
Speaker 2: hunted most falls since he was a kid, but this
1:08
Speaker 2: year was going to be different. He and his childhood
1:11
Speaker 2: friend Randy Griffith had both grown up hunting, but they'd
1:14
Speaker 2: never gone out together, so that year they planned to
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Speaker 2: team up and hunt some family property north of Baraboo, Wisconsin,
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Speaker 2: which is just outside of Madison. Randy was expecting his
1:24
Speaker 2: friend to arrive at his house at six pm on Friday,
1:27
Speaker 2: September sixteenth, the night before opening day. Robert, who went
1:32
Speaker 2: by Bob, would sleep over at the Griffith house and
1:34
Speaker 2: then the two would head out with their bows early
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Speaker 2: the next morning. Across Wisconsin, hundreds, probably thousands of friends
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Speaker 2: made the same simple plan. Most woke up to crisp
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Speaker 2: air and hopefully the rustle of a deer walking through
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Speaker 2: the forest. But Bob and Randy never got that chance.
1:55
Speaker 2: What started out as a plan for a hunting trip
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Speaker 2: became one of the most dis concerning cold cases in
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Speaker 2: Wisconsin history.
2:03
Speaker 3: Bob is always on time or a little early, and
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Speaker 3: so it was like six thirty, and you know, we're
2:12
Speaker 3: there to have supper at six, and mom and I
2:15
Speaker 3: were talking and my sister and I said, you know,
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Speaker 3: I this ain't like him to be late. So my
2:20
Speaker 3: mom called his mom said, you know, Bob was going
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Speaker 3: to be up here at six, and he's not here.
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Speaker 2: Randy waited, the hours ticked by the sun dipped lower
2:34
Speaker 2: and still no Bob.
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Speaker 3: You know, he's still doesn't show up and we called
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Speaker 3: back down around nine o'clock his mom's and and said
2:43
Speaker 3: he's still not here. And then at that time she
2:48
Speaker 3: contacted Dame County to report him as you know, not
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Speaker 3: a wife.
2:55
Speaker 2: Amy, Bob's younger sister, was only eleven years old at
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Speaker 2: the time, but she still remembers is getting that call.
3:01
Speaker 4: Valeria, Randy's mom called again and said, Carolyn, you know,
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Speaker 4: Bob isn't here yet, and we all knew them and
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Speaker 4: there something was.
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Speaker 2: Wrong, something was wrong, very wrong. But to this day,
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Speaker 2: no one knows exactly what that's because nearly five decades later,
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Speaker 2: Bob is still missing. His body has never been found,
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Speaker 2: his bow and hunting clothes have never been recovered, and
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Speaker 2: his whereabouts remain at least publicly unknown. All Bob's family
3:34
Speaker 2: and friends have is a baffling set of coincidences, contradictions,
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Speaker 2: and strange interactions. Bob's case intersects with a nun, the
3:44
Speaker 2: Ringling Brothers, circus clowns, the American Motors Corporation, and one
3:49
Speaker 2: of the world's most famous serial killers. But the thing
3:54
Speaker 2: that makes the most sense of at least part of
3:58
Speaker 2: Bob's story can really only be understood my hunters, and
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Speaker 2: that is the desire to give himself the best shot
4:05
Speaker 2: at success on Opening Day, andred and stillers, and this
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Speaker 2: is Blood Trails an Opening Day Disappearance, Part one. The drive.
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Speaker 2: The Christian family lived in a small, two story home
4:30
Speaker 2: on the east side of Madison. Randy lived with his
4:33
Speaker 2: family in the town of Barriboo, which is about an
4:35
Speaker 2: hour's drive northwest from Bob's house. The property they planned
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Speaker 2: to hunt was located about ten minutes north of Barriboo,
4:42
Speaker 2: so it made sense for Bob to spend the night
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Speaker 2: at the Griffiths. It would have saved him about an
4:46
Speaker 2: hour of sleep and allowed the pair to set up
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Speaker 2: well before shooting light. Bob could have taken a few
4:54
Speaker 2: different routes, but there are two main ones. The primary one,
4:58
Speaker 2: according to Amy, that the family took and that she
5:00
Speaker 2: believe Bob probably took, was to go up Highway twelve
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Speaker 2: straight up to Barriboo, around the west side of Lake Wisconsin.
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Speaker 2: But Bob also could have hopped on Interstate ninety going north,
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Speaker 2: which goes around the east side of the lake, and
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Speaker 2: then exited onto Highway thirty three going west. We don't
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Speaker 2: know which way Bob took, but we do know that
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Speaker 2: he made two stops along the way, both of which
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Speaker 2: were in Madison. The first is he stopped at a bank,
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Speaker 2: and we know this because he bumped into his mother
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Speaker 2: on the way. The circumstances of this meeting are a
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Speaker 2: little unclear. The reports say she saw him as she
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Speaker 2: was taking Amy and Bob's brother to a local football game,
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Speaker 2: but Amy thinks otherwise.
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Speaker 4: My mom was on a walk or probably coming home
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Speaker 4: from work, and they probably crossed each other. It was
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Speaker 4: an Anchor bank out on you Off where we lived.
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Speaker 2: Detectives at the time confirmed that Bob withdrew twenty five
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Speaker 2: dollars from the bank around five fifteen pm, and then
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Speaker 2: he made another stop to pick up a few things
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Speaker 2: at a convenience store just down the street.
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Speaker 4: Some Swiss or sweets I think it was, or something
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Speaker 4: like that. He used to smoke cigars with his friends
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Speaker 4: and have beer and play cards, so that was their
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Speaker 4: big thing.
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Speaker 5: You know.
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Speaker 2: Whether he planned to smoke those cigars that night with
6:19
Speaker 2: Randy or were saving them as a celebration after a
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Speaker 2: successful hunt, we'll never know. What we do know is
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Speaker 2: this somewhere between the convenience store and Madison and Randy's
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Speaker 2: home in bear Aboo, Bob vanished, and it's haunted Bob's
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Speaker 2: family and friends ever since.
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Speaker 3: You know, it's you just got a nippy feeling. What
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Speaker 3: do you say, He's not had here with us.
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Speaker 6: And all that and all it was pop.
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Speaker 2: Part two the search. If Bob had gone missing in
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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five instead of nineteen seventy seven, his case
6:59
Speaker 2: may have ended much differently. It's hard to fault detectives
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Speaker 2: back then for doing what they did, but in retrospect,
7:05
Speaker 2: they made several pretty serious errors. Because Bob was technically
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Speaker 2: an adult eighteen years old, law enforcement didn't consider him
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Speaker 2: a missing person for the first twenty four hours. This
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Speaker 2: is why, according to Detective Tyler Poynton of the Satut
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Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Office, the search took several days to begin
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Speaker 2: in earnest.
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Speaker 7: Back then, it was more like while he's an adult.
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Speaker 7: You hear it kind of cliche all the time, But
7:32
Speaker 7: there's the twenty four hour rule. You hear all the
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Speaker 7: time about people being missing and waiting a certain amount
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Speaker 7: of time. I eat twenty four hours before you know,
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Speaker 7: you really start looking into things.
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Speaker 6: I'm just speculating, but I.
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Speaker 7: Can only assume that was kind of the operating procedure
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Speaker 7: back then.
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Speaker 2: Detective point and assured me that that policy is long gone.
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Speaker 2: But without much help from law enforcement, the Christians were
7:53
Speaker 2: kind of on their own. They started by calling everyone
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Speaker 2: they knew who may have seen their son and brother.
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Speaker 4: Called all the hospitals that night, and called everywhere that
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Speaker 4: she could think of to see if there was any accidents,
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Speaker 4: if there was any reports of anything that went on
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Speaker 4: between Madison and bear Boo, and nothing was showing up.
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Speaker 2: Randy knew something was wrong right away. It was unlike
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Speaker 2: his friend to disappear without telling anyone, even in an
8:20
Speaker 2: era before cell phones and Google maps. Do you remember
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Speaker 2: sort of what your thoughts and feelings were that night
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Speaker 2: and into the next day. Were you extremely worried or
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Speaker 2: were you kind of like, well, you know, I'm sure
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Speaker 2: he's okay, we'll find him.
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Speaker 3: No, it's not, he's okay. I've been own him, you know,
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Speaker 3: since we were a little kid. So he's straight. You know,
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Speaker 3: he's never in trouble tea. You know, if he says
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Speaker 3: he's going to do something, he's going to do it.
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Speaker 2: Now you might assume that the Christians and the Griffiths
8:52
Speaker 2: hopped in the car that Friday night and drove the
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Speaker 2: various routes Bob may have taken, but according to Amy,
8:58
Speaker 2: they didn't do that until Sunday. I asked Randy about this,
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Speaker 2: and he explained that both routes Bob may have taken
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Speaker 2: were along major highways, and so they figured somebody would
9:08
Speaker 2: have surely seen him if he'd been in an accident.
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Speaker 3: There's Tory County she went through, and he went by
9:14
Speaker 3: maybe like five or six towns on them off ramps,
9:19
Speaker 3: you know, but he went through like dang Columbia and
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Speaker 3: Saw County and basically if you total that up, that's
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Speaker 3: like twenty seven and fifty square miles. So I was like, okay,
9:33
Speaker 3: you know whoa you started looking.
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Speaker 2: But when Bob still hadn't turned up by Sunday, the
9:39
Speaker 2: family started the search. They were looking for a nineteen
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Speaker 2: seventy seven AMC hornet. Bob had a motorcycle, which he
9:46
Speaker 2: usually drove, but it had broken down, so Bob's mom
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Speaker 2: let him use her brand new car to drive up
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Speaker 2: to Randy's. It didn't take the family long to find something.
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Speaker 2: Here's Amy, my.
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Speaker 4: Brother was with my dad the van, and my cousin
10:01
Speaker 4: Jim and my brother had they would gone up Tower
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Speaker 4: Road and at that time it was a dirt road then,
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Speaker 4: and he looked over to the right where there was
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Speaker 4: a radio police radio tower, and he saw my mom's
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Speaker 4: car and he's like, Dad, that's mom's car.
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Speaker 2: Tower Road is between Madison and Barriboo, as the crow flies,
10:22
Speaker 2: but it's not along either of the main roads. That's
10:25
Speaker 2: because Lake Wisconsin is also in between Madison and Bearriboo,
10:29
Speaker 2: and you have to go around the lake on either
10:31
Speaker 2: side to get to either town. In other words, there's
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Speaker 2: almost no reason Bob would have driven down Tower Road
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Speaker 2: under normal circumstances. But what they found wasn't just strange,
10:44
Speaker 2: it quite literally defied explanation.
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Speaker 4: My dad and the boys went to go walk up
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Speaker 4: to the car and they saw that it was on
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Speaker 4: the ground, no tires, no nothing, and my dad said stop,
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Speaker 4: you know, he said stop, We got to turn around.
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Speaker 4: He had the boys go back into the van and
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Speaker 4: he walked down to the closest farm to try to call,
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Speaker 4: you know, the police, and by that time we had
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Speaker 4: pulled up behind him, and you know, my uncle Glenn
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Speaker 4: was like, oh man, there's you know, it was like,
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Speaker 4: what is going on here?
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Speaker 2: Missus Christian's brand new AMC Hornet wasn't parked. It was
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Speaker 2: discarded flat on the dirt, no wheels, no tires, and
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Speaker 2: it wasn't on blocks, It was just lying on the ground.
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Speaker 2: Detective point and told me that the car's battery was
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Speaker 2: also missing, and the front license plate but not the
11:38
Speaker 2: back had been taken off and thrown into the grass.
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Speaker 3: Here's Randy, And when we were there that day, they said, well,
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Speaker 3: they didn't use a jack because there was no jack,
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Speaker 3: and Prussians in the sand in the dirt. So flabbergasting.
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Speaker 3: How you get wheel and a tire, four of them
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Speaker 3: off that vehicle and don't have any marks.
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Speaker 2: Bron I'm sure Bob's father looked through those car windows
12:04
Speaker 2: with some trepidation, but Bob was nowhere to be seen.
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Speaker 2: His bare compound bow and hunting gear were missing and
12:12
Speaker 2: have never been recovered. His letterman jacket was still in
12:15
Speaker 2: the front seat, along with his mom's nursing kit, but
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Speaker 2: not much else. Now the Wisconsin State Crime Lab found
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Speaker 2: Bob's mom's fingerprints, along with the print from someone they
12:26
Speaker 2: couldn't identify, But Bob had never had his fingerprints taken,
12:31
Speaker 2: and the print they found wasn't matched to anyone else
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Speaker 2: in any law enforcement databases, so we don't know whether
12:38
Speaker 2: that print belonged to Bob, which would make sense, or
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Speaker 2: to someone else. This was the first real indication that
12:47
Speaker 2: Bob was actually missing and probably in trouble. Law enforcement
12:51
Speaker 2: got involved and they did an extensive search of the
12:53
Speaker 2: area around where the car was found. Bob's family and friends,
12:58
Speaker 2: another local volunteers scoured surrounding woods. They brought in bloodhounds,
13:02
Speaker 2: and the National Guard conducted an aerial search with a helicopter.
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Speaker 2: But that area is what detective Point called bluff country,
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Speaker 2: cut through with gullies and covered with trees and brushed.
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Speaker 2: It's the kind of place you might say is good
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Speaker 2: for keeping secrets. Still, the detective is confident that Bob
13:22
Speaker 2: wasn't in those woods.
13:23
Speaker 7: Confident they did a thorough search. Again, they did just
13:28
Speaker 7: about everything they could I think at the time. You
13:31
Speaker 7: know nowadays we have drones, but they brought an actual helicopter.
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Speaker 7: They put bloodhounds, so they did try to do some
13:39
Speaker 7: tracking that way. People who were firefighters at the time
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Speaker 7: on a local volnteer fire department who were out and
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Speaker 7: they did they did a pretty extensive search of the area.
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Speaker 7: I know the family did that, plus a lot more.
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Speaker 2: The search may well have been thorough, but it didn't
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Speaker 2: start until Monday, full two days after Bob had gone missing.
14:02
Speaker 2: By the time they figured out Bob wasn't in those woods,
14:05
Speaker 2: you could have been halfway across the globe. Part three,
14:11
Speaker 2: Sister Genevieve. What investigators didn't know until later is that
14:17
Speaker 2: just down the road from where Bob's car was found,
14:19
Speaker 2: another crime had been committed. If you keep driving east
14:24
Speaker 2: down Tower Road about a mile and a half, you'll
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Speaker 2: find what today is called Durward's Glen Retreat Center, But
14:31
Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy seven, it was a convent for
14:33
Speaker 2: Roman Catholic nuns, and in a cabin on that property
14:37
Speaker 2: lived none named Sister Genevieve. Sister Genevieve had been away
14:41
Speaker 2: for about a week, but when she returned home that Friday,
14:44
Speaker 2: which remember, is the same day Bob disappeared, she found
14:48
Speaker 2: that someone had been living in her cabin. It hadn't
14:51
Speaker 2: been ransacked, but someone had slept in her bed, prepared
14:55
Speaker 2: food in her kitchen, and left cigarette ashes in the ashtray.
15:00
Speaker 2: Sister Genevieve was pretty understandably upset. She was afraid the
15:04
Speaker 2: person would return, and so she called her friend, a
15:07
Speaker 2: woman named Mary. Mary drove over to the sister's cabin,
15:12
Speaker 2: but when she arrived around eight thirty that evening, she
15:16
Speaker 2: saw something no one in that situation would ever want
15:19
Speaker 2: to see.
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Speaker 7: She pulls in in about halfway up the driveway, there's
15:22
Speaker 7: a car parked in the driveway, running with the headlights
15:27
Speaker 7: pointed up the driveway towards the house. She has the
15:32
Speaker 7: wherewithal to jot down the license plate number, and then
15:36
Speaker 7: approaches the car and there's a mail driver in the
15:39
Speaker 7: driver's seat. She describes him as a white male, brown hair,
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Speaker 7: light facial hair, thicker, rim glasses and asks him what
15:51
Speaker 7: he's doing.
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Speaker 6: He says something to the effect.
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Speaker 7: Of I'm looking for my friend Bob or I'm just
15:56
Speaker 7: looking for my friend. It's quoted a couple different ways
15:59
Speaker 7: in the reports back then.
16:01
Speaker 2: He's looking for his friend Bob. This has baffled investigators
16:07
Speaker 2: both then and now. If it was Bob driving the car,
16:11
Speaker 2: why would Bob be asking about himself? And if it
16:14
Speaker 2: wasn't Bob in the car, how does that person know
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Speaker 2: Bob's name? And why would he pretend to be looking
16:20
Speaker 2: for him. Mary's description of the driver matches Bob to
16:23
Speaker 2: a tee, but when she was shown a picture of him,
16:26
Speaker 2: she said she couldn't be sure it was him. Mary
16:30
Speaker 2: has unfortunately passed away, and so Detective Point is unable
16:35
Speaker 2: to ask her anything further about what she saw. All
16:38
Speaker 2: we have are the notes in the report. But we
16:41
Speaker 2: do know that the car parked in the driveway belonged
16:44
Speaker 2: to Bob's mother. That's because Mary recorded the license plate number,
16:49
Speaker 2: and so we can place the Christian car in the
16:52
Speaker 2: area around eight thirty pm Friday evening, two and a
16:55
Speaker 2: half hours after he was supposed to have been at Randy's.
17:00
Speaker 2: But whoever was driving that car, whether it was Bob
17:03
Speaker 2: or someone else, didn't immediately go back to where it
17:06
Speaker 2: was eventually found. According to Mary's account, the car took
17:10
Speaker 2: a left and headed even further east. This, Randy told
17:15
Speaker 2: me makes zero sense.
17:17
Speaker 3: And then they said when he pulled a lot of there,
17:22
Speaker 3: he went towards ther Word's line. So he keeps driving
17:26
Speaker 3: further and further away from my house, you know, to
17:29
Speaker 3: where I love right right?
17:33
Speaker 6: Does that make sense?
17:36
Speaker 2: As far as Randy knows, Bob would have no reason
17:38
Speaker 2: to go up the Nuns driveway and definitely no reason
17:41
Speaker 2: to drive towards the convent. While he admits it may
17:44
Speaker 2: have been Bob in the driver's seat, he doesn't think
17:47
Speaker 2: his friend was alone. I'm thinking somebody was in That
17:50
Speaker 2: kind of worked them at that point.
17:53
Speaker 3: There's no sense for him to be there.
17:55
Speaker 2: Mary said it was too dark to see whether anyone
17:57
Speaker 2: else was in the car, so Randy might be right.
18:01
Speaker 2: Amy also agrees that Bob's strange comment about looking for
18:05
Speaker 2: himself may have been his attempt to signal for help
18:08
Speaker 2: or let investigators know that it was him.
18:11
Speaker 5: If he was being apprehended. That would be a smart
18:14
Speaker 5: thing to do. Send a clue to.
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Speaker 4: Somebody, Hey, I'm Bob, you know, or something you know.
18:19
Speaker 4: That's the only thing I can think of.
18:21
Speaker 2: When Amy and her family heard about this, they went
18:23
Speaker 2: to sister Genevieve's cabin themselves to take a look around.
18:27
Speaker 2: If Bob was signaling for help, maybe he left a
18:30
Speaker 2: clue as to his whereabouts. They didn't find anything like that,
18:33
Speaker 2: but they did find something that today may have blown
18:37
Speaker 2: this case wide open.
18:39
Speaker 5: And I remember my uncle Jack finding.
18:42
Speaker 4: A grocery bag, the old grocery bags, the paper bags,
18:48
Speaker 4: stuffed into a log.
18:50
Speaker 5: And they have had a receipt.
18:52
Speaker 4: It had cigarettes, it had raw bacon, it had different
18:57
Speaker 4: things and evidence that we thought pertained to that for
19:01
Speaker 4: sure for the robbery, because who is going to be
19:03
Speaker 4: sticking that into a log there.
19:06
Speaker 2: Amy says they gave this evidence to law enforcement. A
19:09
Speaker 2: detective point in confirmed to me that it was in
19:12
Speaker 2: the case file. He also confirmed that the receipt was
19:15
Speaker 2: for a local butcher shop in town, but investigators at
19:19
Speaker 2: the time were unable to confirm who the bag belonged to,
19:22
Speaker 2: and while there's a record of these items in the
19:25
Speaker 2: case file, none of the actual items were retained as evidence.
19:30
Speaker 2: We also don't have any evidence from inside sister Genevieve's cabin.
19:34
Speaker 2: This is due in part to the fact that forensic
19:36
Speaker 2: DNA testing hadn't really been invented yet. Back then, a
19:40
Speaker 2: cigarette butt couldn't tell you much besides the fact that
19:43
Speaker 2: the person smoked. But it's also due to yet another unfortunate,
19:48
Speaker 2: infuriating coincidence about this case. Bob's car was found in
19:53
Speaker 2: Sauk County, but Sister Genevieve's cabin, only a mile and
19:58
Speaker 2: a half down the road, was in co Columbia County
20:01
Speaker 2: and Columbia County Deputies investigated the break in as unrelated
20:05
Speaker 2: to Bob's disappearance.
20:07
Speaker 4: At that time, they said, this has nothing to do
20:10
Speaker 4: with your brother's case. So the two police departments didn't
20:14
Speaker 4: work well together there, so all of that evidence is gone.
20:18
Speaker 4: We have no idea where it went to, and at
20:22
Speaker 4: the time, it could have been really relevant for that
20:25
Speaker 4: case to find out and connect them. I don't know
20:28
Speaker 4: why they couldn't see the connection. To me, it's as
20:32
Speaker 4: obvious as a sore of thomb you know, how can
20:35
Speaker 4: you not see the connection?
20:36
Speaker 3: There?
20:39
Speaker 6: Part four car parts.
20:44
Speaker 2: There is a quarry south of Baarboo that Bob would
20:47
Speaker 2: have passed on one of the routes up to Randy's.
20:50
Speaker 2: This quarry became a popular target shooting spot, so there
20:54
Speaker 2: were people in and out, and about a week after
20:57
Speaker 2: Bob went missing, someone reported that they'd found a set
21:00
Speaker 2: of old wheels and tires along with hubcaps. These hubcaps
21:04
Speaker 2: came from an AMC Hornet, which is the same kind
21:07
Speaker 2: of car that Bob was driving.
21:09
Speaker 7: So the presumption was that whether it was the person
21:12
Speaker 7: involved with Robert's disappearance or an opportunist took the new
21:18
Speaker 7: wheels off the hornet and then swapped them with their
21:21
Speaker 7: old wheels, and then left the old wheels with the
21:24
Speaker 7: hub caps at the quarry.
21:26
Speaker 2: Much like finding the bag of groceries in the tree stump.
21:29
Speaker 2: This could have been a big break in the case.
21:32
Speaker 2: If detectives could have matched those old wheels and tires
21:35
Speaker 2: with a specific vehicle, they could have at least had
21:38
Speaker 2: a make and model to look for. The problem was
21:41
Speaker 2: those wheels and tires were incredibly common. Detective Point told
21:45
Speaker 2: me that the list of potential vehicles was so long
21:48
Speaker 2: that it would have been useless to go down that road.
21:51
Speaker 2: But tires weren't the only car parts detectives looked into
21:54
Speaker 2: as part of their investigation. While canvassing the area around
21:58
Speaker 2: where Bob's car was found, investigators spoke to a local
22:01
Speaker 2: farmer who had driven down Tower Road Saturday morning, right
22:04
Speaker 2: after Bob disappeared. He reported looking up the side road
22:08
Speaker 2: and seeing Bob's car parked in the same location where
22:11
Speaker 2: it was found the next day. But Bob's car wasn't alone.
22:15
Speaker 2: A second vehicle, light colored with stacked headlights, sat beside
22:20
Speaker 2: it in the shadowy morning light.
22:23
Speaker 7: He estimated it was around like six six thirty in
22:25
Speaker 7: the morning. It was still kind of dawn, darker out,
22:30
Speaker 7: but just beginning light. This car is backed up next
22:33
Speaker 7: to the Christian car and the dome light is on,
22:36
Speaker 7: and he specifically remembers it having stacked headlights, so one
22:41
Speaker 7: headlight on top of the other headlight, and he thought
22:44
Speaker 7: it was kind of like a lighter cream colored, But
22:48
Speaker 7: he didn't think a lot too much of it because
22:51
Speaker 7: it wasn't all that uncommon for people to park up
22:54
Speaker 7: in there, whether it be people servicing the tower or
23:00
Speaker 7: hunters or kids parking, you know, doing kid things.
23:05
Speaker 2: The farmer didn't recall seeing anyone in either car, but
23:09
Speaker 2: it was dark, just beginning to be light, so that's
23:12
Speaker 2: not unusual. Those stacked headlights are more unique than the
23:16
Speaker 2: tires and could have belonged to a number of Plymouth models,
23:20
Speaker 2: but they weren't unique enough for investigators to find the
23:24
Speaker 2: owner of that mysterious vehicle. Was it the abductor a
23:28
Speaker 2: curious resident, the tire thief, or just someone drawn to
23:33
Speaker 2: a still warm crime scene. No one knows.
23:37
Speaker 7: We don't know if that's somebody who was involved in
23:40
Speaker 7: the disappearance, or if that was somebody who was just
23:44
Speaker 7: capitalizing on the fact that there was this random car
23:47
Speaker 7: parked in kind of a obscured area somewhat and you know,
23:51
Speaker 7: I could really use those tires type thing.
23:57
Speaker 2: After the break, we investigate the ways some have tried
24:00
Speaker 2: to explain Bob Christian's disappearance. Did he run away? Was
24:05
Speaker 2: he the victim of a drug deal gone wrong? Or
24:08
Speaker 2: was it something much much worse. That's next.
24:19
Speaker 6: Part five, Bob.
24:25
Speaker 2: Whenever someone disappears without a trace, there are a few
24:28
Speaker 2: theories that investigators almost always consider. The first is that
24:32
Speaker 2: the person simply ran away. Maybe Bob had a tough
24:35
Speaker 2: home life. Maybe he was an unhappy kid who wanted
24:38
Speaker 2: his freedom or decided to pursue a career his parents
24:41
Speaker 2: wouldn't approve of. But that didn't really jive with Bob's character.
24:46
Speaker 2: Everyone I spoke with about the eighteen year old described
24:48
Speaker 2: him as a straight laced kid who was excited to
24:51
Speaker 2: start his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin Madison
24:54
Speaker 2: as a computer science major.
24:56
Speaker 7: He was never as a youth, never talked about running away,
25:02
Speaker 7: had a bright future, just enrolled as a college student
25:06
Speaker 7: at a pretty good college. And you know, at that
25:09
Speaker 7: time would have been, you know, a pretty fast growing career.
25:13
Speaker 2: Amy agrees that her brother would never have run away.
25:15
Speaker 2: She admits that her father was strict as the oldest
25:18
Speaker 2: of fourteen children, but she doesn't think her brother was
25:22
Speaker 2: unhappy living in the Christian household.
25:24
Speaker 4: I thought we had a great family. I felt blessed
25:26
Speaker 4: to have my parents. So I can't imagine Bob would
25:31
Speaker 4: have wanted to you know, why would he want to
25:33
Speaker 4: take off after he just started, you know, at the university.
25:37
Speaker 2: After Bob disappeared, investigators learned that he'd talked about going
25:40
Speaker 2: fishing in Canada. Maybe they guessed he decided to do
25:44
Speaker 2: just that on the spur of the moment. But when
25:47
Speaker 2: Randy heard about this theory, he went to one of
25:49
Speaker 2: the detectives to set him straight.
25:51
Speaker 3: A month or two later, you know, and there was
25:55
Speaker 3: rumors going around that Bob took off for Canada. And
25:59
Speaker 3: when I came home, you know, that was getting to
26:02
Speaker 3: people that went to school from Barber Reedsbury, that was
26:05
Speaker 3: going to school in Old Claire, and they'd say, oh, yeah,
26:07
Speaker 3: they're Shane. He ran off to Canada, and you know
26:10
Speaker 3: about it. And so I came one of the one
26:14
Speaker 3: of the next weekends. When I was coming home, I
26:16
Speaker 3: called the tective Borski and I said, I'd like to
26:19
Speaker 3: talk to you about it. I said, there's no way
26:24
Speaker 3: he would have rang off to Canada. She got along
26:29
Speaker 3: great with his parents, siblings, She just started school.
26:33
Speaker 2: He was excited about that.
26:37
Speaker 3: And you know, he went to the bank and he
26:40
Speaker 3: only took out twenty five dollars out of his account.
26:44
Speaker 2: And you know, he wasn't just going to.
26:46
Speaker 3: Run away and not tell Anyboddy. You know, he went
26:51
Speaker 3: to ran a white period.
26:54
Speaker 2: Detective point and told me that. Years later, someone claimed
26:57
Speaker 2: to have spotted Bob in Canada, but investigator ran that
27:00
Speaker 2: down and it turned out not to be him. If
27:03
Speaker 2: Bob didn't run away, maybe he had a secret life
27:07
Speaker 2: that got him killed. Maybe investigators thought he went up
27:10
Speaker 2: to Tower Road because he was a drug user and
27:13
Speaker 2: had planned to meet someone to purchase drugs. That also
27:16
Speaker 2: may have explained his strange behavior when talking with Mary,
27:20
Speaker 2: sister Genevieve's friend, but according to Detective Pointon, this was
27:24
Speaker 2: also quickly ruled out. Bob was both literally and figuratively
27:29
Speaker 2: a boy scout. Amy says he enjoyed a cigar and
27:32
Speaker 2: a beer with his friends who doesn't. But he never
27:35
Speaker 2: tried anything more adventurous.
27:38
Speaker 5: I know, people said, oh, was he You think he
27:40
Speaker 5: was going up there to get drugs?
27:41
Speaker 4: No, I mean, even back then, twenty five bucks isn't
27:44
Speaker 4: gonna Why would you.
27:45
Speaker 5: He wouldn't have done that. It just wasn't him. If
27:48
Speaker 5: he was going to get.
27:49
Speaker 4: Drugs, why wouldn't you got him in the city and
27:52
Speaker 4: taken him to the small you know what I mean?
27:54
Speaker 4: I don't Who would he know in the rural area
27:56
Speaker 4: to get drugs. He didn't know anybody up there, Bob.
28:00
Speaker 2: He also didn't have any enemies or vengeful girlfriends, and
28:03
Speaker 2: he wasn't the kind.
28:04
Speaker 7: Of guy to pick a fight, you know, no issues,
28:07
Speaker 7: relationship issues.
28:09
Speaker 6: He didn't have any beasts with anyone. He was a
28:11
Speaker 6: real likable guy.
28:13
Speaker 4: He played a couple of years of football growing up.
28:15
Speaker 4: But he just didn't have the tenacity. My dad was
28:18
Speaker 4: kind of disappointed, But he just didn't have the tenacity.
28:22
Speaker 4: He didn't want to hurt somebody else, and that's how
28:24
Speaker 4: he always was.
28:25
Speaker 2: Detective Point is convinced that he would not have disappeared
28:29
Speaker 2: of his own volition, But much like the rest of
28:32
Speaker 2: this case, there's a wrinkle in that theory too.
28:35
Speaker 4: My dad hunted with the boys from the day they
28:38
Speaker 4: were able to go hunting. He took them deer hunting,
28:43
Speaker 4: and they did some squirrel hunting and small game and
28:47
Speaker 4: a lot of fishing. We all went fishing, and the
28:50
Speaker 4: Griffith farm was right there by that hunting land that
28:54
Speaker 4: was pretty much open to anybody. So my dad and
28:59
Speaker 4: his brother and their kids all hunted up there.
29:03
Speaker 2: The Griffiths, remember, are Randy's family, and the up there,
29:06
Speaker 2: Amy mentions, is the same area where Bob's car was found.
29:10
Speaker 2: She says the car was parked just around the corner
29:12
Speaker 2: from where they usually parked to go hunting, and Bob
29:15
Speaker 2: had been up there many times. That's part of the
29:18
Speaker 2: reason they were driving those roads in the first place
29:20
Speaker 2: on their search, even though it wasn't on the way
29:22
Speaker 2: to Randy's house. That's too much of a coincidence for
29:26
Speaker 2: detective point.
29:28
Speaker 7: I mean, it would be a low probability that he
29:31
Speaker 7: would have ended up in that area just randomly without
29:34
Speaker 7: knowing it. But it's very off the beaten path, very
29:37
Speaker 7: rule how he ended up in the same you know,
29:41
Speaker 7: within a half mile or so of his child at
29:44
Speaker 7: hunting grounds just by coincidence I did. I don't. I
29:48
Speaker 7: don't think there's that's a coincidence. I think that that
29:52
Speaker 7: happened for a reason.
29:53
Speaker 2: In other words, while Bob didn't disappear by choice, he
29:57
Speaker 2: almost certainly drove up to that area of his own volition.
30:01
Speaker 2: The question is why. Part six, John Wayne Gacy. You
30:12
Speaker 2: may have your own theories about what Bob was doing
30:14
Speaker 2: near the convent that evening. I know I do. But
30:18
Speaker 2: before we get to that, we have one more piece
30:20
Speaker 2: to add to this puzzle. Bob disappeared in nineteen seventy seven.
30:25
Speaker 2: One year later, in nineteen seventy eight, Chicagoland police arrested
30:29
Speaker 2: one of the most vicious and notorious serial killers in
30:33
Speaker 2: American history, John Wayne Gasey. Gasey raped, tortured, and murdered
30:40
Speaker 2: at least thirty three young men and boys between nineteen
30:44
Speaker 2: seventy two and nineteen seventy eight. He would often lure
30:48
Speaker 2: young men back to his Chicago home, where he would
30:52
Speaker 2: violate them, kill them, and bury them in the crawl
30:55
Speaker 2: space of his house, or dump them in the Deplains River.
31:00
Speaker 2: Fest of these murders, and after a lengthy trial and
31:02
Speaker 2: appeal process, was executed in May of nineteen ninety four.
31:08
Speaker 2: Barriboo and Madison are only about two and a half
31:11
Speaker 2: hours from Chicago, which was close enough to stir dread
31:15
Speaker 2: in Bob's mother, close enough to warrant sending his dental
31:19
Speaker 2: records to Chicago.
31:22
Speaker 5: I know when that whole case broke.
31:24
Speaker 4: I know, my mom asked for my brother's dental records
31:27
Speaker 4: to be sent down there. So I mean, as far
31:31
Speaker 4: as I know, they did send his dental records, but
31:34
Speaker 4: they didn't have DNA back then, you know, And so
31:37
Speaker 4: I don't know if there was any more they could
31:40
Speaker 4: have done as far as that. But that's how we
31:43
Speaker 4: found out about all this is they reopened the case again.
31:47
Speaker 2: Detective Points told me that Gaysey's name does appear in
31:51
Speaker 2: the case file, but it doesn't sound like he was
31:54
Speaker 2: ever considered very seriously. That's because most of Gaysey's known
31:59
Speaker 2: victims were from the Windy City, and law enforcement had
32:03
Speaker 2: no real reason to think that Gaysey had traveled up
32:05
Speaker 2: to Baraboo. But then, not too long ago, Detective Pointing
32:09
Speaker 2: got a tip. Turns out Gaysey was in the Barriboo
32:12
Speaker 2: area and at nearly the exact same time that Bob disappeared.
32:17
Speaker 7: John Wayne Gacy at the time in nineteen seventy seven
32:21
Speaker 7: was a contractor for a company that kind of specialized
32:25
Speaker 7: in updating or upgrading older pharmacies to more modern look
32:30
Speaker 7: or design, and he had been in Readsburg in July
32:34
Speaker 7: seventy seven for a pharmacy job, and I was able
32:38
Speaker 7: to confirm that with one of the owners of the
32:41
Speaker 7: pharmacy at the time.
32:43
Speaker 2: Reidsburg is a thirty minute drive from where Bob's car
32:46
Speaker 2: was found, about twenty miles as the crow flies, and
32:49
Speaker 2: that wasn't Gaysey's only trip to the area. Detective Point
32:53
Speaker 2: received another tip that Gacy had also done some work
32:56
Speaker 2: in the town of Maston, which is about half an
32:59
Speaker 2: hour northwest to Reidsburg, and work wasn't the only reason
33:03
Speaker 2: Gaysey may have been attracted to the Reedsburg Baraboo area.
33:07
Speaker 2: Gaysey was famously a clown, not like a class clown,
33:11
Speaker 2: but an actual clown. One of his nicknames was the
33:15
Speaker 2: Killer Clown because he joined a clown club in nineteen
33:18
Speaker 2: seventy five and performed as Pogo the Clown and Patches.
33:21
Speaker 6: The clown.
33:22
Speaker 2: Gaysey for you younger listeners, is likely the inspiration for
33:26
Speaker 2: subsequent depictions of clowns as villains, especially Stephen King's horror
33:30
Speaker 2: novel and the film it. Another weird coincidence is that
33:35
Speaker 2: in that novel, the clown claims that his name is Bob.
33:40
Speaker 2: Gaysey's interest in clowns may have drawn him to Baraboo,
33:44
Speaker 2: because it turns out that Baraboo is a clown nuts
33:47
Speaker 2: dream vacation. It's the site of the Ringling Brothers first
33:51
Speaker 2: circus and home to the Owl Ringling Mansion. Today, Baraboo
33:55
Speaker 2: has a Ringling brewing company, a Ringling theater, and a
33:59
Speaker 2: Ringling bed and breakfast. It's so well known for circuses
34:03
Speaker 2: and clowns that the International Clown Hall of Fame chose
34:06
Speaker 2: Baraboo as its headquarters in nineteen eighty six. All of
34:10
Speaker 2: that was enough to convince Detective Pointing to take a
34:13
Speaker 2: closer look at Gaysey as a potential suspect. Now, being
34:17
Speaker 2: in another town in July isn't the same thing as
34:20
Speaker 2: abducting Bob in September. It's also worth pointing out that
34:24
Speaker 2: even though Gaysey targeted young men much like Bob, many
34:28
Speaker 2: of them were homeless. He would often pretend to befriend
34:31
Speaker 2: his victims and then lure them into his home, not
34:35
Speaker 2: violently kidnap them on the street. Still, if Bob and
34:39
Speaker 2: Gacy had somehow met, it's possible the eighteen year old
34:44
Speaker 2: was another of Gaysey's victims. To this day, investigators aren't
34:49
Speaker 2: sure whether they've accounted for everyone Gaysey killed. While he
34:52
Speaker 2: admitted to some of the killings, he was vague and
34:55
Speaker 2: evasive about everything he did. He was convicted of killing
34:59
Speaker 2: thirty three pe Twenty nine bodies were found in the
35:02
Speaker 2: crawl space of his home, and another four were pulled
35:05
Speaker 2: from the Deplain's River, but five of those bodies still
35:09
Speaker 2: haven't been identified, and Detective point In wonders whether one
35:13
Speaker 2: of them might be Bob. We don't have any samples
35:16
Speaker 2: of Bob's DNA, much like we don't have any of
35:19
Speaker 2: his fingerprints. But back in twenty thirteen, Amy and her
35:22
Speaker 2: father submitted DNA samples to Cotis, which is a DNA
35:26
Speaker 2: database used by law enforcement. They did this so that
35:30
Speaker 2: if an unidentified body was found anywhere in the country,
35:33
Speaker 2: investigators might be able to match that body to Amy
35:37
Speaker 2: or her father. So far, they haven't had any hits,
35:40
Speaker 2: but Detective Pointing isn't taking any chances. He requested the
35:44
Speaker 2: Cook County Sheriff's Office, which includes Chicago, to run a
35:48
Speaker 2: direct comparison between the unidentified gaycy victims and Amy and
35:52
Speaker 2: her father.
35:53
Speaker 7: My understanding is that a blood sibling and father should
35:59
Speaker 7: have a close enough profile to you know, if one
36:03
Speaker 7: of these victims is Robert, that it would match close
36:06
Speaker 7: enough that they'd.
36:07
Speaker 6: Be able to say that.
36:08
Speaker 2: Cook County officials agreed to conduct the testing. A detective
36:12
Speaker 2: point is waiting for results. There is no timeline for
36:16
Speaker 2: when those might be available, but he submitted their request
36:19
Speaker 2: months ago, so it could be any day. I asked
36:22
Speaker 2: Amy how she would feel if the DNARE results came
36:25
Speaker 2: back positive.
36:27
Speaker 4: It's not always great to know what happened. If it
36:30
Speaker 4: ends up being this John Wayne Gacy, he probably didn't
36:33
Speaker 4: have a very good ending, but at least it would
36:36
Speaker 4: be some resolution, you know, there would be some finality
36:40
Speaker 4: to it. If the DNA came back positive, then we
36:44
Speaker 4: would know for sure what happened to him.
36:48
Speaker 2: Part seven. Questions and Coincidences. The questions that surround Bob
36:56
Speaker 2: Christian's disappearance are hard to wrap your head around. Was
37:01
Speaker 2: the person squatting at sister Genevieve's house responsible for Bob's disappearance,
37:06
Speaker 2: or was that a coincidence? If a county line didn't
37:09
Speaker 2: separate the sister's house from where Bob's car was found,
37:12
Speaker 2: would investigators have more quickly put two and two together.
37:16
Speaker 2: Did a murderer steal the tires from Bob's car or
37:20
Speaker 2: was it just an opportunistic tire thief? Why did the
37:24
Speaker 2: tire thief take the tires with him and not swap
37:27
Speaker 2: them out right there? Did the car the farmer saw,
37:30
Speaker 2: the one with the stacked headlights belong to a kidnapper
37:34
Speaker 2: or just a curious local. Was Bob's car found near
37:37
Speaker 2: his childhood hunting ground because he drove it there? Or
37:41
Speaker 2: did the perpetrator just happen to park in that exact area.
37:46
Speaker 2: There are no clear answers to any of these questions,
37:49
Speaker 2: but if you're a hunter, you may have already had
37:51
Speaker 2: some insight into that last one. Remember, Bob and Randy
37:55
Speaker 2: had planned to hunt some family property north of Barriboo.
37:59
Speaker 2: But what if Bob was worried about their prospects. What
38:03
Speaker 2: if as he was driving to Randy's he figured he'd
38:05
Speaker 2: swing by his old hunting spots and just see what
38:08
Speaker 2: there was to see The area was heavily wooded, so
38:11
Speaker 2: a scouting trip wasn't the most practical, but the sun
38:14
Speaker 2: didn't set until around seven pm that night, and he
38:17
Speaker 2: would have had plenty of time to take a quick
38:19
Speaker 2: look around. Here's detective point.
38:22
Speaker 7: I'm a hunter as well, and that thought crossed my mind, like, well,
38:27
Speaker 7: if this place we don't go to doesn't pan out,
38:29
Speaker 7: you know, maybe in the afternoon, we'll go try this
38:31
Speaker 7: other spot that I've been to before, and maybe I'll
38:34
Speaker 7: just go check it out and see where we could
38:37
Speaker 7: park and go in or whatever. Maybe see if I
38:40
Speaker 7: can see something a scouting mission basically.
38:44
Speaker 2: Amy also thinks this could explain why Bob ended up
38:46
Speaker 2: so far off the route to Randy's.
38:49
Speaker 5: He might have been just checking it out for gun season.
38:52
Speaker 4: You know, they hunted up there so long that it
38:55
Speaker 4: wouldn't surprise me that he was just going to drive
38:57
Speaker 4: by and he would have just parked where they knowally parked.
39:01
Speaker 4: I just wouldn't be surprised at all if Bob just
39:04
Speaker 4: went up there to see his spots.
39:07
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, as with most things in this case, there's a
39:11
Speaker 2: convincing counter argument.
39:13
Speaker 6: Here's Randy.
39:15
Speaker 3: It's possible he went up there to the scalp, but
39:18
Speaker 3: he still sit there and going like, well, then why
39:21
Speaker 3: didn't he called me and say that before he left
39:24
Speaker 3: Madison on nerves.
39:26
Speaker 2: Because then he would have been late. You know, he's
39:28
Speaker 2: going to be late. He's going to be later. You know,
39:30
Speaker 2: he keeps going in all that the direction Bob was
39:34
Speaker 2: a responsible kit Dinner started at six pm sharp, and
39:38
Speaker 2: he wasn't raised to keep Missus Griffith or his friend waiting.
39:41
Speaker 2: If he left Madison at five point fifteen, he would
39:44
Speaker 2: have been to Randy's house at least eighteen minutes late
39:46
Speaker 2: if he'd taken a detour to the bluffs, and that's
39:49
Speaker 2: not even factoring in any time to do actual scouting.
39:53
Speaker 2: Of course, Bob could have misunderstood the time and assumed
39:56
Speaker 2: he had more of a window than he did. But
39:58
Speaker 2: the fact is that wasn't much like Bob either. Whatever happened,
40:03
Speaker 2: whether Bob met the wrong person on the road or
40:06
Speaker 2: was kidnapped, or whether he was targeted by John Wayne Gacy,
40:10
Speaker 2: or he had some kind of accident that left his
40:12
Speaker 2: body hidden in the woods, Amy, their family and Bob's
40:16
Speaker 2: friends are still struggling. This isn't the only tragedy to
40:24
Speaker 2: have struck the Christian family. In the spring of nineteen
40:27
Speaker 2: eighty three, one of Bob's other sisters, Kathy, was found
40:31
Speaker 2: dead inside a burned out Wisconsin barr Further investigation revealed
40:36
Speaker 2: that Kathy had been murdered by three members of a
40:39
Speaker 2: biker gang, who then set the bar on fire to
40:42
Speaker 2: try to cover up their crimes. Detective Point is convinced
40:45
Speaker 2: that Kathy's death has nothing to do with Bob's disappearance.
40:49
Speaker 2: She was only fifteen years old when Bob died and
40:51
Speaker 2: didn't start hanging around bikers until later, but to lose
40:55
Speaker 2: two children in six years was devastating to the Christian family.
41:01
Speaker 2: Amy remembers being there when they visited her father at
41:04
Speaker 2: his work to break the news about Kathy.
41:07
Speaker 4: I mean there was a few years I told my husband,
41:10
Speaker 4: I thought my parents were going to end up splitting up.
41:12
Speaker 5: I mean, that was pretty rough to have. My one
41:15
Speaker 5: memory of.
41:18
Speaker 4: When the police came to our house with my sister
41:21
Speaker 4: is going with my mom to oskar Myers and my
41:24
Speaker 4: dad coming down to the security shack and he was
41:27
Speaker 4: so happy he thought they finally found something out about
41:31
Speaker 4: my brother, only to find that his oldest.
41:35
Speaker 5: Daughter was killed. And I'll never forget that.
41:38
Speaker 4: You know, look on his face and it's like I
41:41
Speaker 4: remember myself thinking why what did we do?
41:46
Speaker 2: As Amy has looked back on these experiences, she's realized
41:49
Speaker 2: that it's helped her to be more understanding and compassionate
41:53
Speaker 2: towards others. Her faith has kept her tragedies in perspective,
41:57
Speaker 2: and she believes now that her parents have pasted, they
42:00
Speaker 2: know what happened to Bob and that God has taken
42:04
Speaker 2: care of them. Still, she would like to be able
42:08
Speaker 2: to put her brother's remains to rest beside her sister.
42:12
Speaker 4: It would be awesome if we could find any remains
42:16
Speaker 4: and put him to rest. That I know would mean
42:18
Speaker 4: a lot to my parents. I know God took care
42:22
Speaker 4: of them.
42:22
Speaker 2: She might get a chance. Detective Pointin told me that
42:25
Speaker 2: the Gacy lead isn't the only one he's been tracking down.
42:29
Speaker 2: Thanks to a few recent media articles, there's been a
42:32
Speaker 2: renewed interest in Bob's case.
42:35
Speaker 7: I've gotten a lot of good tips that have kept
42:38
Speaker 7: me moving forward. There's a lot of people out there
42:41
Speaker 7: I'm finding that, for one reason or another, didn't say
42:45
Speaker 7: anything back then. But given the passage of time and
42:49
Speaker 7: stewing on it for a while, they've changed her mind.
42:52
Speaker 6: You know.
42:52
Speaker 7: The hope is that there's somebody out there who maybe
42:56
Speaker 7: wasn't in a position to say something back then, or
42:59
Speaker 7: to a family member they suspected were involved or told
43:01
Speaker 7: them they were involved, and now that person's gone, or
43:04
Speaker 7: they're in a different position now where they feel comfortable
43:08
Speaker 7: talking to law enforcement.
43:10
Speaker 2: If that's you, Detective Point and wants to speak with you,
43:13
Speaker 2: give the Sack County Sheriff's Office a call at six
43:16
Speaker 2: oh eight three five five three two zero five. You
43:19
Speaker 2: can also reach out anonymously to the Stck County Crime
43:22
Speaker 2: Stoppers at one eight eight eight eight four seven seven
43:25
Speaker 2: two eighty five to those who might know something and
43:29
Speaker 2: are wondering whether they should pick up the phone and
43:31
Speaker 2: dial one of those numbers. Amy has this to say.
43:36
Speaker 4: It's been very difficult all these years not knowing what
43:39
Speaker 4: happened to our brother, and you know, my parents never
43:43
Speaker 4: did have any resolution for that for themselves, and it
43:46
Speaker 4: would be an awesome thing for them to come forward
43:50
Speaker 4: if they know, you know, even if there's that kind
43:53
Speaker 4: of resolution, at least to know something about what happened
43:57
Speaker 4: to him, I mean, just to have him go on
43:59
Speaker 4: a Friday night to meet somebody and then never show up.
44:02
Speaker 4: And it's just it's sad. It's sad not to know,
44:07
Speaker 4: and I know there's a lot of our family members
44:09
Speaker 4: that would like some kind of closure with it.
44:13
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode of Blood Trails. If
44:16
Speaker 2: you'd like to see images related to this case, including
44:18
Speaker 2: images of Bob and crime scene photos of his abandoned car,
44:22
Speaker 2: head over to the meeteater dot com slash blood Trails
44:25
Speaker 2: and click on the case file for this episode and
44:27
Speaker 2: be on the lookout for a special bonus drop when
44:30
Speaker 2: the DNA results come back from the unidentified gasey victims.
44:33
Speaker 2: We'll be sure to keep you in the loop as
44:35
Speaker 2: soon as we know more. If you have a tip
44:38
Speaker 2: about this case or another case you think we should cover,
44:41
Speaker 2: send us an email at blood Trails at the meat
44:43
Speaker 2: eater dot com. That's b l O O D T
44:46
Speaker 2: R A I L S at the meaeater dot com.
44:50
Speaker 2: See you next time.