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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Robert Wayne Cox · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:13
Speaker 2: In the winter of twenty eleven, something was very wrong
0:17
Speaker 2: with fifty seven year old Robert Wayne Cox. Robert had
0:21
Speaker 2: always been healthy and athletic. According to his sister Lydia,
0:26
Speaker 2: Robert was basically happiest when he was at home. He
0:29
Speaker 2: lived on a thirty five acre plot of land in Havan, Arkansas,
0:33
Speaker 2: a tiny town where the population hovers between three and
0:36
Speaker 2: four hundred people.
0:38
Speaker 1: Robert was a homebody.
0:40
Speaker 2: He loved hanging out with his family and also, according
0:44
Speaker 2: to his sister, he loved messing around with old cars,
0:47
Speaker 2: restoring them and doing construction projects. He actually helped build
0:52
Speaker 2: the log cabin that was on his property. He was
0:55
Speaker 2: very proud of that accomplishment. Robert was happily married. He
0:59
Speaker 2: had been with his wife, Vicki for over twenty years.
1:02
Speaker 2: She had two children. Robert also had a son named
1:06
Speaker 2: Brian from a previous marriage. Robert's father, Jean, lived in
1:10
Speaker 2: a home he had built on the property back in
1:12
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, and his sister Lydia lived just
1:16
Speaker 2: down the road. For a long time, Robert Cox had
1:21
Speaker 2: a very happy and settled life. But in twenty ten,
1:25
Speaker 2: something started happening to Robert Cox. There was a very
1:29
Speaker 2: rapid physical deterioration, and by the fall of twenty ten,
1:34
Speaker 2: Robert couldn't really walk. His chin dropped down to his chest.
1:38
Speaker 2: He became completely nonverbal. His sister, Lydia, was terrified by
1:44
Speaker 2: what was happening to her brother. She took him to
1:47
Speaker 2: doctor after doctor trying to find answers. Then, on February nineteenth,
1:52
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, Robert Wayne Cox disappeared without a trace. He
1:58
Speaker 2: has never been seen again. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is
2:03
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. If you have a case you'd
2:07
Speaker 2: like me and my team to look into, you can
2:09
Speaker 2: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line
2:11
Speaker 2: at six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
2:16
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four
2:20
Speaker 2: or five. When we asked for people to reach out
3:09
Speaker 2: and to leave voicemails about unsald murders, I knew that
3:13
Speaker 2: we would get a big response. I didn't quite understand
3:15
Speaker 2: how tremendous the response would be. I got seven voicemails
3:19
Speaker 2: about Robert Cox's case. Seven different people reached out to me,
3:24
Speaker 2: either on our murder line or on my personal number
3:27
Speaker 2: or via Facebook to tell me about this missing person's case.
3:31
Speaker 2: There are so many people in Arkansas and everywhere around
3:34
Speaker 2: the country who cared deeply about this case. One of
3:38
Speaker 2: those calls came from Robert Cox's sister, Lydia Cox Carter.
3:43
Speaker 3: Hello, my name is Lydia Cox Carter. My brother has
3:48
Speaker 3: been missing, possibly murdered for the last twelve and a
3:52
Speaker 3: half years. I have struggled with law enforcement like nobody's business. Uh,
3:59
Speaker 3: there has never been a proper investigation done. I believe
4:03
Speaker 3: there is family involvement, the wife, his own son, and
4:08
Speaker 3: step kids. He was on hospice at the time of
4:12
Speaker 3: his supposed disappearance. We are in Havana, Arkansas, which is
4:19
Speaker 3: Yale County, and the new sheriff that we have now
4:23
Speaker 3: that come into office this year, he has opened up
4:27
Speaker 3: my brother's case to outside agencies.
4:31
Speaker 2: Over the years, Lydia has been her brother's biggest champion,
4:35
Speaker 2: and she has fought ever since the day he disappeared
4:38
Speaker 2: to get answers and to figure out what happened to
4:41
Speaker 2: her brother. Robert Wayne Cox was born and raised in California.
4:46
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, he moved to Arkansas.
4:49
Speaker 2: He went to work for the county Road Department and
4:51
Speaker 2: became a road foreman, a job he would have for
4:54
Speaker 2: the next fifteen years. Robert married and he and his
4:57
Speaker 2: first wife had a son named Brian. Eventually, the couple divorced,
5:01
Speaker 2: and apparently it was acrimonious.
5:04
Speaker 1: In fact, according to Lydia, Robert's.
5:07
Speaker 2: Ex wife hated him after the divorce, but Lydia said
5:10
Speaker 2: that Robert always maintained a close relationship with his son Brian.
5:16
Speaker 2: After the road form and job, Robert started working for
5:19
Speaker 2: a close friend of his. This involved working with heavy equipment,
5:23
Speaker 2: helping with cattle, and doing rural projects clearing trees for logging,
5:28
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. This suited Robert because he loved
5:32
Speaker 2: working outdoors. In the early nineties, Robert married again to Vicki.
5:38
Speaker 2: Lydia moved back to the area in nineteen ninety five,
5:41
Speaker 2: and she and Vicki became close friends.
5:43
Speaker 4: Here's Lydia, Me and Herber liked best friends from the
5:47
Speaker 4: get go. Yeah she was funny, she had a great
5:51
Speaker 4: sense of humor. She fit in with our family. She
5:55
Speaker 4: thought the sun rose and said on Robert Cox. She
5:58
Speaker 4: was always with him every opportunity at that time. And yeah,
6:02
Speaker 4: we used to go grocery shopping together. Yard sailing. We
6:06
Speaker 4: drive to Kentucky to go see her daughter and her
6:08
Speaker 4: little granddaughter. I mean we did everything together.
6:13
Speaker 2: Vicki had two kids. Lydia said that they were all close.
6:17
Speaker 2: The two sons went to high school together. They were
6:20
Speaker 2: tight even after the boys grew up and moved out
6:23
Speaker 2: of the house. Vicky worked as a supervisor for Levi.
6:28
Speaker 2: Later she began working as a hairdresser. In two thousand
6:32
Speaker 2: and six, Robert helped his father, Jean, build a home
6:35
Speaker 2: on the property. For a long time, Robert's life was great.
6:40
Speaker 2: He had a happy marriage, a happy, blended family, and
6:43
Speaker 2: he was able to work outside doing what he loved.
6:46
Speaker 1: But things started to change.
6:48
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, there was a global recession,
6:52
Speaker 2: so Robert's friend had to let Robert go. By now
6:56
Speaker 2: Robert was in his mid fifties. He found himself out
6:59
Speaker 2: of work and at a loose end. This hit Robert
7:03
Speaker 2: hard Lydia said this was the beginning of his depression.
7:07
Speaker 2: His mental health started to deteriorate. Now around this time,
7:12
Speaker 2: Robert also started to fixate more on Vicki. He began
7:16
Speaker 2: to suspect that Vicky was being unfaithful. At first, Lydia
7:21
Speaker 2: said she thought Robert was being paranoid. She could not
7:24
Speaker 2: imagine Vicky betraying her brother.
7:27
Speaker 4: Toward the end of two thousand and nine, he started
7:30
Speaker 4: in saying, telling me, you know that he felt like
7:34
Speaker 4: Vicky was messing around Donnie. He'd been following her and stuff.
7:37
Speaker 4: And I said, you're crazy. She ain't miss her hound,
7:40
Speaker 4: don you And He's like, yes, she is, Yes she is.
7:45
Speaker 4: At that point in time, I just never believed that
7:47
Speaker 4: she was doing something like that. Now, whether she was
7:50
Speaker 4: or not, I don't know.
7:51
Speaker 2: When Vicky took a cruise with her family, Robert's extreme
7:55
Speaker 2: anxiety increased. Vicky would leave the house, Robert would wonder
7:59
Speaker 2: where she was and who she was with. Sometimes Robert
8:02
Speaker 2: would get into his truck and follow Vicky. Throughout twenty ten,
8:07
Speaker 2: things kept getting worse.
8:09
Speaker 4: He got very I guess you could say, kind of
8:12
Speaker 4: clingy with her. And then he started driving back and forth. See,
8:17
Speaker 4: we live almost thirty miles from here to Russellville where
8:21
Speaker 4: she was working, and he'd drive over there, sometimes two, three,
8:26
Speaker 4: four times a day just to make sure she was
8:28
Speaker 4: at work because he just knew that she was messing
8:30
Speaker 4: around on him. So there was also something, you know,
8:34
Speaker 4: I guess mental going on, I don't know.
8:38
Speaker 2: Later in twenty ten, as things were continuing to escalate,
8:42
Speaker 2: that's when the physical symptoms started. Lyddy and her dad
8:46
Speaker 2: drove Robert to different doctors. They put him on several
8:49
Speaker 2: different medications, Zoloft first and then some other drugs, but
8:54
Speaker 2: he was experiencing some negative side effects from the medication.
8:58
Speaker 4: I believe it was zoloft, and when he was on that,
9:03
Speaker 4: he started hallucinating. He'd look out into the field and
9:08
Speaker 4: he'd say, you see that bear or that lying down
9:10
Speaker 4: there or something like that. And then at one point
9:14
Speaker 4: he got to where they had him on a psychiatric drug,
9:19
Speaker 4: and he would think that he would see my mom
9:24
Speaker 4: or our mom's deceased and our oldest brother is deceased.
9:29
Speaker 4: He would think that he would see them down in
9:31
Speaker 4: my dad's vehicles, sitting in the vehicle. So he would
9:34
Speaker 4: take like a blanket or a jacket, or a bowl
9:37
Speaker 4: of soup or something down there because he thought he
9:39
Speaker 4: was seeing them sitting in there.
9:41
Speaker 2: The doctors took him off the drugs and his hallucinations
9:44
Speaker 2: went away, but his paranoia remained. Lydia was frustrated. She
9:50
Speaker 2: thought that Vicki didn't seem to be worried enough about
9:53
Speaker 2: Robert's rapid physical and mental deterioration. Lydia said she wanted
9:58
Speaker 2: her brother to go to the doctor to be tested
10:00
Speaker 2: for dementia. He did see a couple of different doctors.
10:06
Speaker 2: One doctor said it was possible that Robert could have
10:09
Speaker 2: frontal lobe damage, but the doctor said they needed to
10:12
Speaker 2: get a pet scan in order to get a more
10:14
Speaker 2: definite diagnosis.
10:16
Speaker 1: But there was a hitch.
10:18
Speaker 2: Robert didn't have health insurance because he had been out
10:20
Speaker 2: of work for so long, and that pet scan would
10:23
Speaker 2: cost four thousand dollars. Jean, Robert's father, said that he
10:28
Speaker 2: would pay for the treatment, but Vicky refused, even when
10:32
Speaker 2: Lydia claimed she told her sister in law that Vicky
10:35
Speaker 2: would not have to pay Gene back. She claims that
10:38
Speaker 2: Vicky just said no. Testing for dementia was scheduled, but
10:43
Speaker 2: Robert never made it to the appointment. At this point,
10:47
Speaker 2: Robert was also experiencing a lot of physical problems. I
10:51
Speaker 2: saw a home video that Lydia is shared with a
10:55
Speaker 2: local news station, and it really gives an idea of
10:58
Speaker 2: how difficult it was for Robert to move around. We're
11:02
Speaker 2: going to provide a link to that video in our
11:04
Speaker 2: episode notes, and I really recommend that you check it
11:07
Speaker 2: out because within a few months this man went from
11:11
Speaker 2: being a vital, fifty something active guy who was in
11:15
Speaker 2: shape to literally shuffling, barely moving forward. He looked like
11:21
Speaker 2: a ninety year old man walking around. The difference is
11:24
Speaker 2: extremely dramatic.
11:26
Speaker 4: The last time that he was actually verbal was on
11:30
Speaker 4: his birthday, which is September twenty eighth to twenty ten.
11:34
Speaker 4: After that it was just downhill. After that, he was
11:37
Speaker 4: having trouble swallowing, like eating whole foods and stuff like that.
11:43
Speaker 4: So I started making his food purade. My dad went
11:48
Speaker 4: and lotch you know, insurance stuff, and by Thanksgiving of
11:54
Speaker 4: twenty ten, the head was dropping and by Christmas of
11:58
Speaker 4: twenty ten, his chin was resting on his chest.
12:03
Speaker 2: By December of twenty ten, ten were continuing to mount
12:06
Speaker 2: between Vicky and Lydia. Then one day, Lydia got a
12:11
Speaker 2: Facebook message that she said stopped her cold.
12:15
Speaker 4: One night toward the end of December, Vicky sent me
12:19
Speaker 4: a Facebook message told me that you know that she
12:23
Speaker 4: had talked to the kids, and Brian's wife, Rebecca sent
12:29
Speaker 4: Vicky a Facebook message and then Vicky shared it with me,
12:33
Speaker 4: and Rebecca said, will go along with whatever y'all want
12:39
Speaker 4: to do. But Robert told Brian that if he ever
12:43
Speaker 4: got sick like his mom, he'd want Brian to kill him.
12:48
Speaker 4: So I immediately printed that off. I don't know why
12:54
Speaker 4: I did, but thank God that I did. And I'd
12:58
Speaker 4: come back at Vicky and I said, who would even
13:02
Speaker 4: talk or be thinking about that in a time like this,
13:07
Speaker 4: And She's like, I know, She said, I don't know
13:10
Speaker 4: what I would do without you if I didn't have
13:12
Speaker 4: you help in me, because you know, Brian, once his
13:15
Speaker 4: dad started getting sick, he just quit coming around as
13:17
Speaker 4: much and stuff, and him and his dad was pretty tired.
13:21
Speaker 4: And then after when all this took place, Brian come
13:27
Speaker 4: out and he seen him a couple of times out
13:30
Speaker 4: in a pasture across the road from his dad's house,
13:32
Speaker 4: and then after that him and his wife just kind
13:35
Speaker 4: of disappeared, and everybody was asking me, my husband and
13:38
Speaker 4: other neighbors, like, where's Brian, Where's Brian? Why ain't Brian
13:41
Speaker 4: out here? Because nobody's seen Brian.
13:43
Speaker 2: Again, we're coming up to the day when Robert Cox
13:48
Speaker 2: went missing in February of twenty eleven. But first I
13:53
Speaker 2: want to take a step back here and talk about
13:56
Speaker 2: this property that Robert and Vickie lived on, because understanding
13:59
Speaker 2: that terrain is crucial to figuring out what happened to
14:03
Speaker 2: Robert Cox. Robert and Bickie's home was on a thirty
14:07
Speaker 2: five acre piece of land. Robert's father, Jean, had a
14:11
Speaker 2: small house on that property on a three acre plot.
14:15
Speaker 2: Lydia lived just about a mile away. There were a
14:18
Speaker 2: couple of neighbors between them. The entire area around Robert
14:22
Speaker 2: Cox's house was bordered with something called clearcut.
14:28
Speaker 4: I don't know if you know what a clearcut is,
14:31
Speaker 4: but they'll plant like a pine thicket and they let
14:35
Speaker 4: them trees grow to about for about fifteen twenty years,
14:38
Speaker 4: and then they'll come in and they'll clear cut it
14:42
Speaker 4: and they take the biggest part of the tree and
14:44
Speaker 4: then they delimit. So when a clearcut is done being cut,
14:50
Speaker 4: it is very very rough ground and there is tree tops, branches,
14:57
Speaker 4: you know, big holes where they pull the trees out
15:00
Speaker 4: of the ground and all that stuff. I mean, it's
15:02
Speaker 4: just a big mess.
15:05
Speaker 2: In his week in state, Lydia explained there was no
15:09
Speaker 2: way that Robert could have navigated that property by himself
15:13
Speaker 2: because he would be in danger of falling. Also, Lydia said,
15:17
Speaker 2: by the time her brother disappeared, he was not going
15:21
Speaker 2: out by himself. Going out by himself would have been
15:23
Speaker 2: completely out of character.
15:25
Speaker 1: It would have been very dangerous for him.
15:27
Speaker 2: The last time that Lydia saw her brother was on
15:30
Speaker 2: Wednesday night, February sixteenth. On that evening, Vicky brought Robert
15:34
Speaker 2: by Lydia's house. Lydia said the next couple of days
15:38
Speaker 2: were pretty busy. Her dad Jean saw Robert, but she
15:42
Speaker 2: didn't see him on Thursday or Friday. She and her
15:45
Speaker 2: husband were getting ready to have company, and so she
15:48
Speaker 2: was getting the house ready and just taking care of
15:50
Speaker 2: a lot of things. So now we come to that
15:53
Speaker 2: fateful day, Saturday, February nineteenth, twenty eleven, the day that
15:58
Speaker 2: Robert went missing. Lydia took us through her memories of
16:02
Speaker 2: that day, a day she says she relives over and over.
16:07
Speaker 2: Her day started at around eight thirty. She called her dad,
16:10
Speaker 2: Jean to ask if he had breakfast yet. Jean told
16:13
Speaker 2: her that he was planning on driving to chalk taw At,
16:15
Speaker 2: nearby town. He was taking a drive to pick up
16:18
Speaker 2: some wagon wheels that he had left there to be repaired.
16:21
Speaker 2: This was Lydia's regular routine. By the way, she often
16:25
Speaker 2: went to her brother's house at least once a day,
16:27
Speaker 2: sometimes multiple times, in order to check on her elderly
16:30
Speaker 2: father and her brother. Lydia told Jean he needed to
16:34
Speaker 2: have something to eat, so at around eight thirty, her
16:37
Speaker 2: dad stopped at her house to have a quick breakfast.
16:39
Speaker 2: Then he left to run his errand Lydia spent the
16:43
Speaker 2: rest of the morning cleaning her house, taking care of chores.
16:47
Speaker 2: She was getting ready to have company. Then at twelve thirty,
16:51
Speaker 2: Lydia said she realized that she hadn't checked in on
16:54
Speaker 2: her brother yet, so she called her brother's house and
16:58
Speaker 2: Vickie answered the phone.
17:01
Speaker 4: So it was exactly twelve thirty two pm when I
17:04
Speaker 4: made the call up there. She answered the phone, and
17:09
Speaker 4: I said, what are y'all doing? She said, well, Angie's
17:13
Speaker 4: painting my toe nails and doing laundry. And she said Shelby,
17:18
Speaker 4: the granddaughter, was doing something. She may have been outside
17:21
Speaker 4: riding before will or something, I don't know, I don't remember.
17:24
Speaker 4: And then I said, well, what's brother doing? She said, well,
17:28
Speaker 4: I don't know. She said, he was in here pulling
17:31
Speaker 4: on my arm. But he's been gone for about ten minutes.
17:35
Speaker 4: And I said, well, don't you think you need to
17:37
Speaker 4: send somebody outside to make sure he's okay? Because I
17:40
Speaker 4: wasn't worried about him wandering off because he was very homebody.
17:44
Speaker 4: He was either in and out of his house or
17:47
Speaker 4: walking from his house to my dad's house. And so
17:53
Speaker 4: she told Shelby, the granddaughter, she said, go outside and
17:56
Speaker 4: see if you see or papaw. When I heard her
17:58
Speaker 4: go out the door, heard her stand on the porch,
18:02
Speaker 4: called Papa, pappaw a few times. Come back in. She said, no,
18:05
Speaker 4: I don't see him. Vicky said, well, when my toenails dry,
18:11
Speaker 4: she said, I'll slip my shoes on and I'll go
18:13
Speaker 4: outside and see where he's at. And I said, no,
18:16
Speaker 4: you get off your ass now and you go outside
18:19
Speaker 4: and see where he's at. She said, okay, okay, and
18:22
Speaker 4: I said, keep me on the phone. They supposedly went outside,
18:26
Speaker 4: looked around the yard. She's like, I don't see him anywhere.
18:30
Speaker 4: I'm telling her places to look, and I said, make
18:33
Speaker 4: sure he's not in the garage, make sure he's not
18:35
Speaker 4: in the storage shed, and then next to his garage
18:39
Speaker 4: there was a gap, and I said, well, go in
18:42
Speaker 4: that gap and make sure he's not behind one of
18:44
Speaker 4: those buildings. She supposedly did that, and she said, oh, yeah,
18:50
Speaker 4: I see him. He's almost to the road. I'm going
18:54
Speaker 4: to go get my keys and get my car out
18:57
Speaker 4: of the garage and go up on the road and
18:59
Speaker 4: pick him up. So we hung up. I went running
19:04
Speaker 4: out to the shop where my husband was working, told
19:08
Speaker 4: him what was going on. And I told him, I said,
19:10
Speaker 4: I swear to God, she's going to wind up killing
19:12
Speaker 4: my brother or losing him. And I said, I'm fixing
19:15
Speaker 4: to whip out that power of attorney and take him
19:17
Speaker 4: away from her and bring him down here. And he's like, well,
19:22
Speaker 4: whatever you want to do, we'll do it. So I
19:25
Speaker 4: come back in the house. I start doing my chores
19:28
Speaker 4: again because I'm thinking everything's okay. So about thirty minutes later,
19:36
Speaker 4: I hear my cell phone telling me I had a voicemail.
19:40
Speaker 4: So I pick up the voicemail. She says, well, we
19:44
Speaker 4: can't find Rob and hung up. That's all she said.
19:50
Speaker 4: So I go running out back out to the shop.
19:53
Speaker 4: I told my husband. I said apparently they've lost him.
19:57
Speaker 4: Get on your quad head that way. I'm going to
19:59
Speaker 4: get my horse. I'll be there as quick as I can.
20:03
Speaker 2: Lydia jumped on her horse and rode toward Robert's house
20:06
Speaker 2: as fast as she could. Her husband jumped on his
20:09
Speaker 2: squad bike. It had rained recently in the area, so
20:13
Speaker 2: that ground was saturated. Lydia said that her horse was
20:17
Speaker 2: getting bogged down in that mud, so the area, which
20:20
Speaker 2: was tough to navigate on the best of days, became
20:23
Speaker 2: almost impossible. Lydia saw a neighbor, Bob, approaching from the
20:27
Speaker 2: north side of the clearcut. Lydia talked to Bob and
20:30
Speaker 2: found out that Vicky had been to Bob's house. Now
20:34
Speaker 2: it's unclear whether she actually talked to Bob, Lydia says
20:37
Speaker 2: she believes that Vicky went to the house, didn't see him,
20:41
Speaker 2: and then called and left him a message. Anyway, somehow
20:44
Speaker 2: Bob got the message, so by the time Lydia got
20:47
Speaker 2: to Robert's house, several people were already there looking for him. Bob,
20:53
Speaker 2: another neighbor named Don Angela, her daughter, Shelby, and Vicky,
20:57
Speaker 2: plus the local mail carrier. By that night, there were
21:01
Speaker 2: over one hundred volunteers scouring the woods looking for Robert,
21:05
Speaker 2: literally more than a third of the town. A friend
21:08
Speaker 2: who had a private plane went up in the air
21:10
Speaker 2: and flew around all afternoon. He found no sign of Robert.
21:15
Speaker 2: Lydia said law enforcement showed up, and from the beginning
21:19
Speaker 2: her relationship with the Yale County Sheriff's Department was pretty strained.
21:24
Speaker 4: She said.
21:24
Speaker 2: The local sheriff's department was really unprepared for a missing
21:28
Speaker 2: person's case like this. Lydia admits she was frustrated by
21:31
Speaker 2: some of their decisions, like the fact that they set
21:34
Speaker 2: up their command post a quarter of a mile away.
21:37
Speaker 2: Lydia wanted to know why they weren't setting it up
21:39
Speaker 2: closer to home, and why they weren't questioning Robert's family
21:43
Speaker 2: members already. Lydia was questioning aspects of Vicky's story. First
21:49
Speaker 2: of all, she wondered, how could her brother, who had
21:51
Speaker 2: difficulty walking a few steps, somehow walk hundreds of yards
21:56
Speaker 2: to the edge of that clear cut and disappear within
21:58
Speaker 2: just a few minutes. Secondly, Lydia thought it was strange
22:02
Speaker 2: that Vicky went to see a neighbor, but that it
22:05
Speaker 2: was it's the neighbor's son who actually called the police.
22:08
Speaker 2: Her brother was vulnerable, why hadn't Vicky called nine to
22:12
Speaker 2: one one? Then Lydia noticed something else. When she was
22:18
Speaker 2: talking to their neighbor Don Don, was describing his attempt
22:22
Speaker 2: to recreate the scene with Vicky. Don asked Vicky exactly
22:26
Speaker 2: where she was standing when she was talking to Lyddy
22:29
Speaker 2: on the phone and where Robert was standing. Lydia said
22:32
Speaker 2: that from where Vicky said she was talking on the phone,
22:36
Speaker 2: she could not have seen Robert through the dense brush.
22:39
Speaker 4: So when my neighbor Don first got up there, he
22:42
Speaker 4: was the first one there and he asked her, He said,
22:46
Speaker 4: show me exactly where you last seen Rob. And she
22:50
Speaker 4: took him down there and showed him and said right here.
22:53
Speaker 4: And he said when he got down there, there were
22:56
Speaker 4: no footprints whatsoever. And then when my neighbor Bob come
23:01
Speaker 4: riding up on his horse, he come right along that
23:04
Speaker 4: edge there next to my brother's property where she claimed
23:08
Speaker 4: she had seen him. And Bob yelled from in the
23:11
Speaker 4: clearcut up to the road. Who's got stars on the
23:14
Speaker 4: bottom of their shoes? She says, I do. She had
23:19
Speaker 4: on a pair of shoes that apparently had stars on
23:21
Speaker 4: the bottom of them.
23:23
Speaker 2: Remember, it had rain recently, which means that anyone walking
23:26
Speaker 2: out there would presumably leave fairly deep footprints. Yet the
23:31
Speaker 2: only footprints the neighbor found in that area, according to Lydia,
23:34
Speaker 2: were Vickie's. I asked Lydia if law enforcement took pictures
23:38
Speaker 2: of those footprints. Her response was telling.
23:42
Speaker 4: Who law enforcements? Yeah, they done nothing. No, man, they
23:48
Speaker 4: did not.
23:50
Speaker 2: No.
23:51
Speaker 4: I don't even know if law enforcement was even in
23:54
Speaker 4: that clearcut.
23:56
Speaker 2: The Yale County Sheriff's Department kept searching. The state police
23:59
Speaker 2: came in at around ten pm that night. They brought
24:02
Speaker 2: bloodhounds and volunteers and they did search everywhere. They went
24:06
Speaker 2: through fields, barns, cars, abandoned wells, sinkholes, and anywhere else
24:11
Speaker 2: they could think of.
24:12
Speaker 1: But they found no trace of Robert. But the dogs
24:17
Speaker 1: did alert on the property.
24:19
Speaker 4: Dog handler come in and she said, well, my dog
24:23
Speaker 4: trackeding north along the edge of the clear cut and
24:27
Speaker 4: then out east part way across the clear cut. I
24:31
Speaker 4: told her, I said, there ain't no way. Then she
24:34
Speaker 4: said they tracked him, you know, out in the yard
24:38
Speaker 4: and then up the driveway to the end of the
24:41
Speaker 4: driveway and then the dog lost sin. So then that's
24:45
Speaker 4: when the theory come in. Well, somebody must have drove
24:48
Speaker 4: by and picked him up.
24:50
Speaker 2: This seemed far fetched to Lydia. Lydia said that a
24:55
Speaker 2: strange car going unnoticed would have been very strange in
24:59
Speaker 2: their neighborhood. This was a place where everyone knew everyone.
25:03
Speaker 2: They knew when the trash truck came in and when
25:05
Speaker 2: it left, So the idea that someone could have driven
25:08
Speaker 2: by and picked Robert up at that exact time of
25:11
Speaker 2: day during a five minute period is very implausible. Also,
25:16
Speaker 2: if they did, what would their motive have been? When
25:20
Speaker 2: he disappeared. Robert had nothing on him, no wallet, no medication.
25:25
Speaker 2: What would their motive be for picking up and kidnapping
25:28
Speaker 2: an elderly man in the middle of the afternoon. Lydia
25:32
Speaker 2: said that at some point someone told her that the
25:35
Speaker 2: first search dogs had been tired, so she called the
25:38
Speaker 2: sheriff at the time. Sheriff guilty. She said she would
25:42
Speaker 2: like to get fresher search dogs out there, and she
25:45
Speaker 2: said he cussed her out, but the sheriff did relent
25:49
Speaker 2: and agreed to send more dogs. When the second group
25:52
Speaker 2: of dogs came to the area, they alerted in only
25:55
Speaker 2: one place, the front door. Vicki told law enforcement that
26:00
Speaker 2: when Robert left the house that day, he was wearing
26:02
Speaker 2: gray tennis shoes, gray sweatpants, and a navy blue hoodie.
26:08
Speaker 2: To Lydia, the clothing description was also a bit strange.
26:13
Speaker 4: My brother dressed western boots, jeans, flannel shirts, T shirts,
26:19
Speaker 4: you know, very simple in plain.
26:22
Speaker 1: So a hoodie would have been a little out of character.
26:25
Speaker 4: Very much out of character. I mean I never seen
26:27
Speaker 4: him wear a hoodie, even when he was, you know, sick.
26:31
Speaker 4: I mean, she was still putting his T shirts on
26:34
Speaker 4: and then putting a flannel on, you know, over the
26:37
Speaker 4: T shirts, like he always did. I don't know where
26:39
Speaker 4: the blue hoodie come from.
26:41
Speaker 2: Could someone else have been walking around a hoodie, someone
26:44
Speaker 2: who wanted to create the description that way in case
26:46
Speaker 2: they were spotted from a distance. Lydia's mind came up
26:50
Speaker 2: with many possibilities, but all of them, in her imagination,
26:54
Speaker 2: ended with someone doing something unspeakable to her brother.
26:58
Speaker 4: I got to the point to where I was following vultures,
27:02
Speaker 4: you know, I'd see him circling out in the pasture,
27:04
Speaker 4: and I'd follow him, and I'd get out and I'd
27:07
Speaker 4: go look just to make sure, because you don't know.
27:09
Speaker 4: At that point, it was hard for me to wrap
27:12
Speaker 4: my mind around that somebody and my family could hurt
27:14
Speaker 4: my brother. But it was kind of looking pretty iffy
27:20
Speaker 4: that somebody very well could have done something to him.
27:24
Speaker 2: But her conversations with law enforcement continue to be frustrating, since,
27:27
Speaker 2: according to her, they did not seem to consider the
27:30
Speaker 2: possibility of Robert being the victim of foul play.
27:34
Speaker 4: Why ain't just setting up in his yard and questioning family, well,
27:38
Speaker 4: because that's the last ones that supposedly seen him, But
27:40
Speaker 4: they didn't. And they just kept coming up to me
27:45
Speaker 4: and asking me different questions and about my brother. And
27:49
Speaker 4: I'm like, you don't understand. I said, he ain't able
27:53
Speaker 4: to navigate this. The man's chin was resting on his chest.
27:58
Speaker 4: He was on hospice, and you know where's he gonna go.
28:02
Speaker 4: He walked with a shuffled gate to disappear in five minutes,
28:07
Speaker 4: and that's what she said. The timeline at was five minutes.
28:11
Speaker 2: Lyndia was also wondering where her brother's son Brian was,
28:14
Speaker 2: why he wasn't on social media posting why he wasn't
28:18
Speaker 2: in her opinion, helping more with the search. Eventually, she
28:21
Speaker 2: admits she suspected multiple people in the family may have
28:24
Speaker 2: been aware, at least of what was going on. She
28:27
Speaker 2: said that she really noticed that Vicky did not appear
28:31
Speaker 2: to be that concerned about Robert.
28:34
Speaker 4: She was out there talking and laughing with them and
28:37
Speaker 4: carrying on. I don't know who it was. Could have
28:39
Speaker 4: been somebody in her family, I don't know, because a
28:41
Speaker 4: bunch of her family come home started flowing in after that.
28:46
Speaker 4: Another person told me that she was outside in the
28:49
Speaker 4: yard and there was people up there, you know, looking
28:51
Speaker 4: all around the yard and around the house and everything,
28:54
Speaker 4: and she's like, there's plenty of food and drink in here.
28:57
Speaker 4: If you guys get hungry, thirsty, come on in, get
29:00
Speaker 4: you whatever you want and whatever and stuff like that,
29:03
Speaker 4: and just you know, nobody were seeing. The woman shed
29:06
Speaker 4: a tear. I never seen her shed it here.
29:11
Speaker 2: Also on Sunday, Lydia got another shock when she went
29:16
Speaker 2: to her brother's house. She found hospice nurses there taking
29:20
Speaker 2: her brother's things away. Robert had been missing less than
29:23
Speaker 2: twenty four hours.
29:25
Speaker 4: Sunday morning, she had Hospice out there and had them
29:29
Speaker 4: come and pick up everything, the hospital bed, the bedside,
29:34
Speaker 4: come ode, you know, just whatever they brought out, because
29:37
Speaker 4: she said he wasn't coming back.
29:42
Speaker 2: After Lydia saw the nurses taking Robert's things out of
29:45
Speaker 2: his home only twenty four hours after he had gone missing,
29:48
Speaker 2: she said the relationship between her and Vickie deteriorated fast.
29:53
Speaker 2: Lydia had thought of Vicky as a sister, but Lydia
29:57
Speaker 2: says they have not spoken since March of twenty eleven,
30:00
Speaker 2: just a few weeks after her brother went missing. Lydia
30:04
Speaker 2: also wondered about her suspicion started on Saturday night when
30:09
Speaker 2: she asked Vicki about why Brian and his wife were
30:13
Speaker 2: not out late searching for Robert.
30:16
Speaker 4: I've seen her about ten o'clock and she said, well,
30:19
Speaker 4: I finally heard from Brian. And I said, and she said, well,
30:24
Speaker 4: they got wet and tired, so they went home and
30:28
Speaker 4: took a shower and went to bed. And I said,
30:31
Speaker 4: so your dad is missing, and he's a sick human being,
30:36
Speaker 4: and you're wet and tired and you're going to go
30:38
Speaker 4: to bed.
30:40
Speaker 2: Lydia could not wrap her head around this. She had
30:42
Speaker 2: always known Brian and her brother Robert to have a
30:45
Speaker 2: very close relationship. She couldn't understand why, in her opinion,
30:49
Speaker 2: Brian didn't seem to be more proactive about searching for
30:53
Speaker 2: his father. However, as time went on, she kept thinking
30:58
Speaker 2: back to that weird Facebook message, the one about a
31:01
Speaker 2: mercy killing. She wondered, could Brian have known something about
31:05
Speaker 2: what happened? Lydia says that after that, her relationship with
31:10
Speaker 2: Brian also completely fell apart.
31:13
Speaker 4: That following Monday, Brian was off work that day, so
31:18
Speaker 4: I had gone that to Vicki's to my brother's house
31:24
Speaker 4: to take care of the dogs. She had some goats
31:27
Speaker 4: at that time and some chickens, so I went up
31:32
Speaker 4: there to take care of them chores for her. And
31:35
Speaker 4: when I come back around the front of the house,
31:37
Speaker 4: Brian and his wife was there, and Brian had my
31:40
Speaker 4: brother's quad in the yard and he was bent over
31:43
Speaker 4: working on it, and I was talking to Becca. I
31:48
Speaker 4: don't remember what we were saying, but anyways, I'm sure
31:51
Speaker 4: something about what was going on. Brian never turned around
31:54
Speaker 4: and looked at me, and I told him, I said, Brian,
31:58
Speaker 4: I said, you know there's something wrong with this story, right,
32:01
Speaker 4: I said, you know there is no way your dad
32:05
Speaker 4: could have walked out in that clear cut and disappeared.
32:09
Speaker 4: He said, well, we gotta go, he says, I got
32:11
Speaker 4: to go to my friends. I don't remember why, but
32:16
Speaker 4: they loaded up and left and night laid eyes on
32:18
Speaker 4: that kid.
32:19
Speaker 2: Since Later, her father Jean, went to Dan Bell where
32:23
Speaker 2: Brian was working as a mechanic, and tried to talk
32:25
Speaker 2: to him.
32:26
Speaker 1: He also got the silent treatment.
32:29
Speaker 4: After this all happened, my dad started going down there
32:32
Speaker 4: trying to talk to Brian because my dad had a
32:35
Speaker 4: good relationship with Brian too, and Brian wouldn't look at
32:40
Speaker 4: my dad. He wouldn't talk to my dad. He would
32:43
Speaker 4: just look through him, or look beside him, or drop
32:47
Speaker 4: his head and just turn and walk away. So one
32:51
Speaker 4: day he cornered him down there and he said, Brian,
32:53
Speaker 4: he said, I don't know who did it, he said,
32:56
Speaker 4: but somebody hurt my boy. And he says, and I'm
32:59
Speaker 4: going to find out who it is.
33:01
Speaker 2: Then, Lydia said, Vicky started replacing furniture in the back
33:05
Speaker 2: bedroom where her brother had been sleeping.
33:08
Speaker 4: That weekend after this whole mysterious disappearance thing. Vicky's replacing
33:16
Speaker 4: bedroom furniture in the back bedroom. She even called me
33:22
Speaker 4: down there and told me to come look at it.
33:23
Speaker 4: After they got done with it. She said, oh, come
33:26
Speaker 4: and look at the furniture I got from my brother.
33:29
Speaker 4: And I'm thinking to myself, I'm not saying anything, but
33:31
Speaker 4: I'm thinking to myself, why are you worried about changing
33:33
Speaker 4: out furniture when your husband's missing? And then there was
33:38
Speaker 4: some stuff back there. I don't know what they was burning.
33:40
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's furniture or what. So, I
33:45
Speaker 4: don't know. Just too many red flags for me. And
33:50
Speaker 4: you know, law enforcement didn't seem to think that some
33:53
Speaker 4: of that stuff wasn't pertinent. I don't know.
33:57
Speaker 2: Lydia began to believe that her brother never made it
34:00
Speaker 2: past the front door and that something had happened to
34:02
Speaker 2: him inside the house. After a few days, the searches stopped,
34:08
Speaker 2: the case went cold, and it became just part of
34:11
Speaker 2: local legend the guy who lived there but disappeared one day,
34:15
Speaker 2: but Lydia and her father could not forget a few
34:18
Speaker 2: months after Robert's disappearance, they hired a private investigator named Donnie.
34:24
Speaker 2: Donnie eventually built up a huge case file, and one
34:27
Speaker 2: of the first mysteries that Donnie helped solve was why
34:30
Speaker 2: he believes the search dogs alerted out near the clear cut.
34:34
Speaker 4: There's a lot of things I wouldn't know if it
34:36
Speaker 4: hadn't have been for the private investigator that come in
34:39
Speaker 4: in June of twenty eleven. What I found out about
34:42
Speaker 4: the dogs the state police dogs saying they tracked him,
34:48
Speaker 4: you know, along the edge of the clearcutting out east.
34:52
Speaker 4: And the reason they tracked him along the outside edge
34:56
Speaker 4: of the yard next to the county road and out
34:58
Speaker 4: to the driveway is because that night when this all
35:03
Speaker 4: took place, or that day when this all took place,
35:06
Speaker 4: Angela was wearing my brother's house shoes and the granddaughter
35:10
Speaker 4: had on my brother's muck boots. So that's why the
35:14
Speaker 4: dogs tracked where they tracked, because those kids had my
35:17
Speaker 4: brother's shoes.
35:18
Speaker 2: Un this would seem to be a major discovery because
35:22
Speaker 2: presumably the police based their theory that Robert could have
35:25
Speaker 2: been picked up at that road edge largely on where
35:28
Speaker 2: those first dogs alerted.
35:30
Speaker 1: Did he talk to them? Did he talk to Angela
35:32
Speaker 1: and the granddaughter?
35:34
Speaker 4: Yes? And there's conflicting statements with Angie and Vicky, because
35:40
Speaker 4: Angie's statement says there's no way Robert could have been
35:44
Speaker 4: in that clear cut, and there's no way he could
35:47
Speaker 4: have made it out of the clear cut up onto
35:49
Speaker 4: the county road. And she's correct because it was wet,
35:54
Speaker 4: muddy and slick, and it's a four foot incline from
35:58
Speaker 4: coming out of the clearcut up to the county road.
36:01
Speaker 4: But yet her mother says he was in the clearcut,
36:05
Speaker 4: appeared within five minutes, and there's nowhere to go.
36:11
Speaker 2: Donnie, the PI discovered something else, something else, he says,
36:15
Speaker 2: the police missed. He said the police never asked Vicky
36:20
Speaker 2: about insurance policies that she had on her husband. Lyddy
36:23
Speaker 2: explained that Vicky had a life insurance policy on Robert
36:27
Speaker 2: and that she found out later Vicky had made some
36:29
Speaker 2: changes as a little.
36:31
Speaker 4: Bit of time goes on. He asked her, he said,
36:35
Speaker 4: did the police, state police, or the sheriff ever ask
36:39
Speaker 4: you if you had any kind of life insurance policies,
36:42
Speaker 4: burial policies or anything like that. She said no. He said, well,
36:48
Speaker 4: he said, do you have any insurance policies and she said, yeah,
36:51
Speaker 4: I have a burial policy in an accident policy. And
36:54
Speaker 4: he said, well, I'll need copies of those. He said,
36:56
Speaker 4: that way, if something comes up, I'll be able to
36:59
Speaker 4: help you out with it. She said, well, I kind
37:04
Speaker 4: of might have messed up. He said, what do you mean.
37:08
Speaker 4: She said, well, that accident policy, she said, I increased
37:11
Speaker 4: it after Robert disappeared. So what it was is it
37:16
Speaker 4: was a accident policy like you get from banks if
37:20
Speaker 4: you lose a limb or eye or something, or you
37:24
Speaker 4: get accidentally killed. So what she did was is it
37:28
Speaker 4: was that fifty thousand, and she increased it to two
37:31
Speaker 4: hundred or two hundred and fifty thousand, and then she
37:35
Speaker 4: made her son Carl the beneficiary on that policy. Bran, yes,
37:42
Speaker 4: her son, not Brian, her son. So that's a big
37:47
Speaker 4: red flag. Why would you increase a policy after your
37:51
Speaker 4: husband disappears.
37:54
Speaker 2: In August of twenty eleven, Lydia said Vicky got rid
37:58
Speaker 2: of the rest of her brother's clothes. That was also
38:01
Speaker 2: around the time when Vicky took off her wedding ring.
38:04
Speaker 2: The following year, Vicky was moving on, Vicky met George Keith.
38:10
Speaker 2: Vicky and George started dating. They wanted to get married,
38:13
Speaker 2: but there was one problem. Robert had not been legally
38:17
Speaker 2: declared dead, and Lydia still had her brother's power of attorney,
38:21
Speaker 2: which he had given her in two thousand and nine.
38:24
Speaker 2: In July twenty twelve, Vicki petitioned the court to have
38:28
Speaker 2: Robert declared dead, which they did. After Robert was legally
38:33
Speaker 2: declared dead in twenty thirteen, Vicky and George were married.
38:38
Speaker 2: I want to point out, and this is really important.
38:40
Speaker 2: Over the years, Lydia and Vicki have obviously clashed. At
38:44
Speaker 2: one point, Lydia was talking to local reporters and went
38:48
Speaker 2: to the property.
38:49
Speaker 1: Vicki told the reporters to get off her property.
38:52
Speaker 2: Now, I'm sure that Vicky has a completely different story
38:56
Speaker 2: to tell. I'm sure there's a whole other side of
38:58
Speaker 2: that story. I have reached out to her for comment
39:01
Speaker 2: and she's not replied. I've also reached out to Ryan.
39:06
Speaker 2: I would love to talk to them because I really
39:09
Speaker 2: do believe that it's only by piecing everything together we're
39:11
Speaker 2: going to be able to find out what happened to
39:13
Speaker 2: Robert Cox. Vicky has never been named as a suspect.
39:17
Speaker 2: She did pass a lie detector test, She's never been
39:20
Speaker 2: charged with anything and never to my knowledge, been a
39:22
Speaker 2: suspect in her husband's appearance. Over the years, Lydia and
39:27
Speaker 2: Vicky went to court several times. The judge mainly sided
39:31
Speaker 2: with Vicky. Vicky ended up with Robert's property, but Robert's father, Gene,
39:37
Speaker 2: was allowed to live in his house for the rest
39:39
Speaker 2: of his life. Now, I can only imagine the tension
39:43
Speaker 2: that must have been present at that property, because can
39:46
Speaker 2: you imagine living on the property with your former father
39:51
Speaker 2: in law, the father in law who suspects that you
39:55
Speaker 2: have killed his son, and having to see him every day.
39:58
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine what that must have been like for
40:00
Speaker 2: any of those people. Over the years, Lydia reached out
40:03
Speaker 2: to everyone she could think of. She called the Attorney General,
40:06
Speaker 2: she posted on social media. She called the FBI and
40:10
Speaker 2: true crime shows, including Nancy Grace, anyone who could help
40:14
Speaker 2: her get answers.
40:15
Speaker 4: And I said, and believe me, I am not here
40:18
Speaker 4: to make enemies with you guys. But it's not your
40:22
Speaker 4: loved one. It's not in your backyard, I said, it's mine.
40:27
Speaker 4: I said. When you lay your head on your pillow
40:28
Speaker 4: at night, you know where your people are. You know
40:32
Speaker 4: where your family is. I said, I know where most
40:35
Speaker 4: of mine are, living or dead. I know where they are,
40:39
Speaker 4: I said, But Robert Cox, I have no clue, and
40:43
Speaker 4: I said in Robert Cox, you got five suspects that
40:48
Speaker 4: are just running them up, and not one person has
40:53
Speaker 4: ever ever brought them in and investigated, interrogated, I said nothing.
41:02
Speaker 2: In twenty fifteen, Lydia talked to a local Fox News.
41:06
Speaker 2: This time it was a two part special. The reporter
41:10
Speaker 2: went out to the property and climbed through the clear
41:12
Speaker 2: cut and you can really see what hard and rough
41:15
Speaker 2: terrain that is and how hard it would have been
41:18
Speaker 2: for an elderly man byll these physical challenges to navigate it.
41:22
Speaker 2: At the time, Robert's father, Jean, told the reporter he
41:25
Speaker 2: thought of his missing son every single day. He said, quote,
41:29
Speaker 2: I get up at night and I go out and
41:31
Speaker 2: look he comes to me in my dreams end quote. Eventually,
41:37
Speaker 2: Lydia got a meeting with the prosecutor. She said she
41:40
Speaker 2: was underwhelmed by his response. When I was talking to
41:43
Speaker 2: Lydia about her meeting with the prosecutor, I had to
41:46
Speaker 2: ask her about something I heard her say to another
41:48
Speaker 2: media outlet. She said the prosecutor told her that unless
41:52
Speaker 2: they had a body and a confession, that they couldn't prosecute.
41:57
Speaker 2: I thought, I misheard or maybe she misspoke, because to
42:01
Speaker 2: me that was unbelievable, but she said that's exactly what happened.
42:06
Speaker 4: So we just sat there and we started asking questions
42:08
Speaker 4: of the private detective was there, and I had my
42:12
Speaker 4: state rep and then an attorney from the Attorney General's
42:16
Speaker 4: office there, and then he's like, well, there's nothing I
42:19
Speaker 4: can do for you. He says, you'll have to go
42:21
Speaker 4: over to the sheriff's office and hash it out with them.
42:24
Speaker 2: At that point, law enforcement did take action. They took
42:28
Speaker 2: Lydia and her dad in and they separately questioned them.
42:31
Speaker 2: They gave Lydia a lit detector test, which she passed. Again,
42:36
Speaker 2: I should mention Vicky did eventually take a polygraph test.
42:39
Speaker 2: Lydia said that she talked to VICKI after Vicky took
42:42
Speaker 2: the test, and that Vicky was talking about taking xanax.
42:46
Speaker 2: So Lydia believes that the xanacts that Vicky took could
42:50
Speaker 2: have influenced the test, But it's important to mention that
42:52
Speaker 2: she did pass the polygraph. The police department considers this
42:56
Speaker 2: an open investigation, so they aren't revealing any details. In
43:01
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, a new sheriff took over, he said
43:04
Speaker 2: he was going to have an open door policy. Lydia
43:07
Speaker 2: said she has a good relationship with the new sheriff
43:10
Speaker 2: and that the new sheriff has said that he would
43:13
Speaker 2: open the case back up and be open to outside help.
43:16
Speaker 2: And I just want to say to the Yale County
43:18
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department and to the Arkansas State Police, if you
43:22
Speaker 2: do want my help in any way, I would be
43:26
Speaker 2: more than happy to put time and work into this
43:29
Speaker 2: case if you're willing to share any part of the
43:30
Speaker 2: case file. Eventually, Vicky sold the house where she had
43:34
Speaker 2: been living with Robert, the one that he built with
43:37
Speaker 2: his bare hands. She and her new husband moved to Russellville.
43:40
Speaker 2: For years, Robert's former house sat there empty. The house
43:45
Speaker 2: was sold to someone in another state, and now it's
43:47
Speaker 2: rented out as an airbnb. Jean passed away and tragically
43:53
Speaker 2: he died, never knowing what happened to his son. After
43:57
Speaker 2: he died, Vicky's daughter, Angela and her husband moved into
44:01
Speaker 2: Jean's former home, and meanwhile, Lydia still lives in the
44:04
Speaker 2: same house near her brother's property, so she has to
44:08
Speaker 2: drive by the place where her brother disappeared and look
44:11
Speaker 2: at some of the people who she believes may have
44:13
Speaker 2: had a pardon it, or at least know what happened
44:16
Speaker 2: every single day. According to the Yale County Sheriff's Department,
44:23
Speaker 2: the case is still active. They told Fox News back
44:27
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen. Quote we wish that we could share
44:30
Speaker 2: more information, but since this is a complex, active investigation
44:34
Speaker 2: into an incident which occurred under suspicious circumstances, we have
44:37
Speaker 2: to consider all possibilities and maintain the integrity of the
44:40
Speaker 2: investigation end quote.
44:43
Speaker 1: So what really happened to Robert Cox? I agree with Lydia.
44:47
Speaker 2: I think it's incredibly unlikely, if not impossible, that he
44:50
Speaker 2: was out walking randomly by himself and was kidnapped in
44:54
Speaker 2: broad daylight completely disappeared in a five minute space of time.
44:59
Speaker 2: Over the years, Lydia's mind has gone to dark places.
45:02
Speaker 2: She's had to consider every single possibility. She's wondered about
45:07
Speaker 2: Robert's physical deterioration, how fast it all happened. She wondered
45:11
Speaker 2: if that was a coincidence, or could her brother have
45:14
Speaker 2: been poisoned. Lydia told The Missing Podcast she did wonder
45:18
Speaker 2: at one point about Vicky's habit of giving her brother
45:21
Speaker 2: in sheer milkshakes, and when Vicky gave him the shakes,
45:25
Speaker 2: Lydia said she would put a lot of extra chocolate syrup.
45:27
Speaker 1: In the drinks.
45:28
Speaker 2: She said when she made Robert shakes, he never needed
45:31
Speaker 2: that extra chocolate, so she kind of wondered why Vicky
45:33
Speaker 2: did that. Then again, Lydia was the one making a
45:37
Speaker 2: lot of Robert's food, and even before the physical deterioration,
45:41
Speaker 2: he was clearly having issues physical and psychological. There's one
45:47
Speaker 2: more area that Lydia believes needs to be searched more thoroughly.
45:51
Speaker 2: When Vicky sold the property, she kept the three acre
45:56
Speaker 2: patch of land with Jean's house on it in the family.
46:01
Speaker 2: Lydia wonders if her brother is somewhere on that property,
46:05
Speaker 2: somewhere close to home. To this day, she believes he
46:10
Speaker 2: never made it off of that property alive.
46:13
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
46:15
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
46:28
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
46:31
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
46:34
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben sale And this
46:38
Speaker 2: episode was scored and mixed by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers
46:43
Speaker 2: are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C.
46:45
Speaker 1: Crowley. If you have a case you'd.
46:48
Speaker 2: Like me and my team to look into, you can
46:50
Speaker 2: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line
46:52
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46:56
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six ' one
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Speaker 2: four five. Please subscribe and leave us a review wherever
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Speaker 2: you listen to your podcast, School of Humans