Latest / Gone Cold - Texas True Crime / The Disappearance of Elisa Roberson Part 3: Fallibilities

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The Disappearance of Elisa Roberson Part 3: Fallibilities · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

0:01
Hey, y'all, just wanted to pop in before we get started to give
0:05
you a nudge. Ruby recently started a Facebook group for Elisa called Missing Elisa
0:11
Roberson. As the case progresses, something that will hopefully happen and soon the
0:18
group will be the best place to keep up. Again, It's called Missing
0:22
Elisa Roberson, so search that on Facebook or click the link in this episode's
0:29
show notes, Thanks Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
0:36
Listener discretion is advised. You don't just go and stand outside when there's
1:00
a missing person. They go inside, They do a search, They look
1:03
at things. They asked us if we give them some clothes of releases so
1:06
that when they did the search with the dogs they can have her spent.
1:08
They asked for her diary. They went to our house, they went through
1:12
everything. I'm sure they would have seen something if there would have been anything
1:17
suspicious in the home. But I think it was Debbie at some point made
1:21
up or said this, and that's where things kind of turned on my mom.
1:38
Weeks after the disappearance of thirteen year old Elisa Roberson, students at AC
1:42
Blonde To Middle School in Aransas Pass, Texas, where she should have entered
1:48
the seventh grade were forced to come to terms with what had happened. No
1:53
one knew what that was, of course, or even had a clue really,
1:57
but they did know it wasn't good. Elisa's friend Holly remembered the somber
2:02
feeling of the first day of class. Well, it was very somber.
2:09
Of course, she wasn't here to compare schedules before school started, and so
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I didn't know what classes we were supposed to have together. When we were
2:19
doing the First World Call as a science class, and the teacher called her
2:24
name, and everybody was really quiet. No one would say anything. And
2:29
he called her name again, and somebody, I don't remember who, somebody
2:32
just piped up she's missing. By November nineteen eighty nine, according to the
2:38
Corpus Christi Caller Times, private investigators had joined in on the search for the
2:44
missing girl and whoever was responsible for whatever happened to her. Marina Roberson spent
2:52
her days overcome by both the anguish and uncertainty that accompanied the disappearance of her
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oldest daughter on a August sixth, nineteen eighty nine, and the near paralyzing
3:04
fear brought on by the belief that her abusive ex boyfriend, Ralph Gonzales,
3:09
was responsible and would return to harm another one of her children. This debilitating
3:16
fear seeped into the psychees of Ruby, Tony, and Alex, who were
3:22
also horribly abused by Gonzales, exacerbating their feelings of uncertainty and sadness. Ransas
3:30
Pass Police Chief Melvin shed and Detective Sergeant Richard Rodriguez, who knew Gonzales well,
3:38
located and visited the man in a Monterey, Mexico prison and discovered he'd
3:43
been there since May. But even that could not quell Marina's fear of him,
3:49
nor could the fact that the cops were busy following a lead that seemed
3:53
far more plausible, one that Marina thought at the time was absurd. To
3:59
provide the clearest picture of that particular lead, however, it seems necessary to
4:04
leave it behind and first discussed the many others that came to the Aransas Pass
4:10
Police Department in the preceding years and then decades. There weren't many good ones,
4:16
but detectives followed up on even the least promising of them. None of
4:21
the trails led anywhere because Elisa's photograph was featured in a Montgomery Wards Department store
4:30
catalog in nineteen ninety four, courtesy of the National Center for Missing and Exploited
4:35
Children. It was an especially busy year for the case. Aransas Pass Police
4:42
Captain of Detectives Mike Thompson told a reporter for The Caller Times that an ex
4:47
deputy sheriff out of Georgia called the department in March with the possible sighting of
4:54
Alisa Roberson. The photo on the back of the Montgomery Wards catalog looked just
5:00
like a young girl who'd just cleaned his swimming pool, the former lawman said.
5:05
Working with police in Georgia, however, Captain Thompson quickly discovered that it
5:12
wasn't her. The next month, April of nineteen ninety four, a nationally
5:17
distributed flier featuring a Jane Doe and Cheula Vista, California, came into the
5:24
Aransas Pass Police Department. The facial features and the composite sketch of the unidentified
5:30
female just jumped out, Thompson said, meaning they were very similar to Elisa's.
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He wasted no time sending her dental records to the Cheula Vista Police Department,
5:44
but they didn't match. Then. In June nineteen ninety four, an
5:47
official at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted the Aransas Pass Police
5:55
with a tip they'd received a girl fitting Alisa Roberson's description seen at a church
6:00
in Pima County, Arizona. After faxing a photograph of Elisa to authorities there,
6:08
who subsequently showed it to members of the church in question, not a
6:12
single congregant recognized her. The original investigator in charge of the case, Lieutenant
6:19
Linda Thompson, had since left the department to work as a private investigator for
6:25
a law firm. Though she remained the Ransas Pass Police training officer, she
6:30
still thought about Elisa's case every day. In December of nineteen ninety four,
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the male advertising company a dvo Or ADVO, added Alisa Roberson to their program
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called America's Looking for Its Missing Children. The program, which began in nineteen
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eighty three, had a good record. About one in seven of the children
6:56
featured in their many mailing campaigns were recovered safe and sound across the United States.
7:03
ADVO mailed out about seventy three million cards featuring both a photo of Elisa
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taken when she was thirteen years old, an age progressed picture of what she
7:15
might look like at age eighteen, and the phone number for the programme's national
7:19
hotline. Thirty seven million were distributed in the state of Texas alone. The
7:27
campaign resulted in dozens of tips and approximately sixty alleged sightings of Elisa, all
7:34
of which were forwarded to the Aransis Pass Police Department. All but thirteen,
7:41
however, were unable to be followed up on, since most Captain Mike Thompson
7:46
said, as an example, consisted of callers saying they'd seen Elisa six months
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before shopping at a Kmart store, calls obviously, that were simply impossible to
7:58
confirm or eliminate. One of the leads able to be investigated was from Tulsa,
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from where someone called the hotline after seeing a new story on television about
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an unidentified dead body found that resembled the Aransas Pass missing girl. By the
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time Captain Thompson called police there, the body had already been identified as someone
8:22
else. Then, an apartment manager in New Jersey reported to have shown a
8:28
unit to a person who looked like Alisa, but after police there went door
8:33
to door at the complex showing a picture of her, no one could say
8:37
they'd seen her. Perhaps the most promising lead came out of Bail, North
8:43
Carolina. There a tipster said they'd possibly seen Alisa at an area high school.
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Thompson made contact with a detective who went to the school with a photo
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of the missing girl in tow I think I got her, the detective ported
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back to Captain Thompson, this girl's a dead ringer. But after background checks,
9:05
it turned out the look alike had been in the North Carolina city her
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entire life. The thirteen verifiable leads were all checked out and eliminated by February
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of nineteen ninety five. Although the article reporting these turns of events quoted Captain
9:24
Mike Thompson as saying there was no suspect in the case, that isn't exactly
9:28
true, but the department continued to keep their prime suspect close to the chest,
9:33
as will we for now. It was more than six long years until
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anything other than an anniversary piece was reported in the press. On Friday,
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June ninth, two thousand and one, KRISTV. Corpus Christie received an envelope.
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It was anonymous and though what was actually written within was never divulged publicly.
10:00
It was described as a note, and it contained a map. The
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map, which claimed to lead to the body of Alisa Roberson, could not
10:09
be followed. Captain Thompson told reporters he was well familiar with the area the
10:13
map purported to represent, but the note lacked specificity, and the map itself
10:20
lacked sufficient landmarks to warrant any digging at all. In other words, it
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was another dead end. About a mile north of the San Patricio County line.
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On March seventeen, two thousand and five, a work crew cut through
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heavy brush as they created a back entrance on the property of their employer along
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the fence line just a few yards from Johnson Road. They found bones.
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It was something that was not necessarily unusual, since wildlife is sometimes hit by
10:54
passing cars. But then on the other side of the barbed wire, they
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found something incredibly unusual, a human skull. Investigators from both the San Patricio
11:07
County and Aransas Pass County Sheriff's offices combed the area near the discovery and collected
11:15
all the bones they could find. After they were sent to the University of
11:18
North Texas at Denton doctor Harold gill King separated the bones, some of which
11:26
were animal and some human. The Nuaces County Medical Examiner commented that no pelvis
11:33
bone had been found, but roughly estimated that the skull belonged to a male.
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Still, Captain Mike Thompson kept a close eye out with Elisa Roberson in
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mind, though at the time the plan was to extract material from the skull
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for mitochondrial DNA testing. According to NamUs dot gov, whether the bones were
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male or female is still unknown to this day, and there's no year of
12:01
death estimated, so Captain Thompson never got an answer to this lead, and
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Elisa's case continued to get colder and colder. A little more than ten years
12:15
later, both in direct view of public site and well outside it's peripheral.
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The case of the disappearance of Alisa Roberson heated back up. In twenty sixteen,
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Ramsis Passed Police Captain Kyle Rhodes headed up several new avenues of investigation.
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It isn't clear what prompted his reopening Alisa Roberson's case, and the department didn't
12:52
respond to our request for comment. Former Ransis Pass Captain Mike Tompson and former
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Lieutenant Linda Thompson came down from their home in Goliad and met with Texas Exusearch
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officials in June twenty sixteen, including the organization's founder, Tim Miller. I
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was made aware of the ex research by this Christina marial Benya I think is
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her name. She had worked with them. So I called the guy and
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he was just, oh, well, let's we'll be down there tomorrow.
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I said, well, I hadn't even talked to the chief down there.
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We've been gone for fifteen years. But they wanted to come right away,
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and we met them in town, drove down tor Inn's pass, went in
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to talk to the police, and the police were just not interested in communicating
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with Mike or I for one thing, which I've found very strange considering we
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both. Mike worked there twenty six years. I worked there seventeen as a
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police officer and another four terms is a city council member and mayor protend so
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we were very well thought of in the community. They wouldn't let us ask
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the lobby. It was an interesting strategy alienating the case's original detectives, but
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it appears a conspiracy had materialized and both Ramsis passed Police's Kyle Rhodes and Texas
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ranger Antonio de Luna appear to have been fully invested. Linda Thompson fell ill
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shortly thereafter, within days in fact, and spent months in the hospital,
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so she and Mike would have been unable to help much even if the department
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wanted it. The ground penetrating radar searches quickly moved to another site below the
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above garage home where Marina Roberson and her children Ruby, Tony and Alex lived
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when Elisa disappeared, and for a couple years after. Anyway, efforts to
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locate Elisa's body on or near the properties of the case's prime suspect, even
15:03
after clearing one field using a back hoe, Rhodes said, turned up nothing,
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but still, he added, the case had moved forward thanks to efforts
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elsewhere, suggesting they discovered something either in the garage itself or under the carport
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that didn't even exist when the thirteen year old went missing. A few years
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after Elisa disappeared, Marino moved herself and her children out of Ransa's pass.
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Okay, I was there a fight at that time. I still said that
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Ralph did it. And he come and killosal in sex. I could not
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sleep for in it. And when my kids slept, I was awig in
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my mind guarding them because Ralph was gonna break in and killosal. So so
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I that to some to the bishop of a Chorte, to his wife,
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and I told her what was going on under the man A left's dad and
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I'm so terrified in one of quill laws. And she said, well,
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why don't you live? I have no place to go. I have nobody,
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no relative, no money, no come, no nothing. And she
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said, if you will have the opportunity to live, when could you do
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it? And I said tomorrow, I said today, And they went and
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she did. Arrangements were made through the church with help from the police,
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to get Marina and the kids out of Aransas Past and in fact out of
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Texas all together somewhere along the way, since rumors got started that she never
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left her home and then you know, something happened in her home. Perhaps
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this was the seed that allowed the Aransas Past police in twenty sixteen to entertain
17:02
a new theory, but it wasn't the only factor, it seems. We
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spoke with Debbie Green, the friend Elisa was to meet at Key Burger Elementary
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School the day she vanished. What she told us seems to be the direction
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police were taking the investigation in twenty sixteen, which we'll get back to soon
17:23
enough. Debbie refers to Elisa as Lisa, it should be noted, which
17:30
she said was what she called her. Her take is an unpopular one,
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at least in the eyes of the folks who would speak with us, But
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Debbie's stake in the case is high, and anyway, it's only fair her
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version of events is told, even if it's also necessary to point out when
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and where they don't match known facts and other credible accounts. Debbie's first statement
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is one we won't spend time analyzing, since at its core detail will neither
18:00
make nor break the case. When Ruby said that I called Lisa, that's
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not accurate. Lisa called me. I didn't call her. What follows,
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however, will be discussed at point for point. She wanted to come to
18:15
my house because she was fighting with her mom and her mom was threatening to
18:19
hit her. Anyways, Lisa cud wanted to come over, and this was
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around three o'clock three three point thirty ish, somewhere in that time frame.
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According to police records, in my memory and the news reports and things like
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that. According to newspaper reports near the time of her disappearance, Elisa left
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her house between four point thirty and five PM, just like we reported in
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episode one. It's the narrative most folks have gone by for years. However,
18:51
it seems it was much later than that, about an hour later and
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about two hours later than the timeline Debbie remembers or has been told before we
19:02
proceed. It cannot be stressed enough that these times are estimates and that I'm
19:07
giving the earliest possible for each individual event. According to Ransas Past Police Lieutenant
19:15
Linda Thompson, the church bus arrived at the home of the girl Elisa spent
19:19
the afternoon with at approximately five twenty pm. That's the girl we called Sharon
19:26
in episode one. Both Sharon's mother and the bus driver reported this during Linda's
19:33
investigation. Information collected the following day, Alisa had declined to go to church
19:40
with her, and Sharon told me that Alisa had left just minutes before she
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drove away in the bus heading to Sunday evening services, which began at six
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o'clock. According to several folks. That all makes perfect sense, and perhaps
19:55
Marina was mistaken when she reported four thirty to five pm, which is understandable.
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She did say that she never remembered looking at the clock when the Corpus
20:07
Christie call her Times requested the police report there. It was the wrong window
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of time and it's been used ever since. Back to Debbie Green, she
20:18
wanted to come to my house and I told her, well, I need
20:21
to run over and ask my mom. My mom was at the AA building.
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The A building was right behind my house, across the alleyway, so
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I ran over there with the little girl that was with me, and I
20:32
asked, Mom, is okay if I walked to Keith Burger to go meet
20:34
Lisa and because she come over? And she said sure. Because we had
20:37
a pretty much open door policy with the rovers and kids, so we were
20:41
always in and out of everybody's house, you know, small town in the
20:45
eighties. That's how you we didn't have Facebook, you know, you went
20:48
to somebody's house, you rode bikes or walked or whatever. Debbie told us
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she did not remember if she called Alisa back and gave her the thumbs up,
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or if Alisa had already left, so Sarah had a tire, shoes
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and go pee, so we stopped back in my house. I helped retire
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shoes and we went to the bathroom, and then we headed to Keyburger.
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When the bloodhound Clementine trailed Elisa's sent the morning after she went missing, she
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lost it near the corner of South Ninth Street and Goodnight Avenue, which meant
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the thirteen year old walked a little past Key Burger. Now after she decided
21:26
not to go to church with Sharon, it took Elisa six minutes to walk
21:30
home. She probably arrived no earlier than five twenty six pm. Then Debbie
21:37
called or Elisa called Debbie, whichever, and that, along with convincing Marina
21:42
to let her go, had to have added at least a few minutes.
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Let's say it's now five point thirty. It also takes six minutes to get
21:52
from Elisa's house tonight then good Night on foot near Key Burger Elementary, and
21:56
for Debbie and her friend ten minutes to walk from Debbie's house to Key Burger.
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Alisa probably arrived at the meeting point at five point thirty six pm.
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And remember that's at the very earliest Debbie and her friend took several minutes to
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leave, probably two at the absolute minimum, which would put them at the
22:18
school at five point forty two in this very loose though educated estimation. And
22:25
we waited. I don't know how long we waited for it felt like forever,
22:29
but we were ten and eight, so you know, it could have
22:32
been five minutes or twenty minutes. I really don't know the exact amount of
22:37
time that we waited. If they waited their five minutes, It's now five
22:42
forty seven pm. Next, Debbie told us she and her friend walked back
22:48
to her house to try and call Lisa. It's now five point fifty seven
22:52
pm. And we got to my house and I called her house to see
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if she had left yet, and her mom said he had left, and
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I said, well, she's not a key burger. That added at least
23:03
a few minutes, bringing the time now to know earlier than a few Minutesapter
23:07
six. This account, besides both Ruby and Marina's recollection, that Debbie talked
23:14
to Ruby and not Marina, aligns with the investigative narrative. So then me
23:21
and Sarah hung up the phone, and we walked to where my dad was,
23:25
which was the opposite direction of Elisa, but well three blocks from my
23:30
house, the opposite direction Debbie's father, Bob was, according to him,
23:36
at a shed on a lot where he stored his construction slash handyman equipment on
23:41
thirteenth Street. That's another seven minute walk for Debbie and her friend, putting
23:48
the time at around six ten pm, again at the absolute minimum, according
23:53
to former Ransis Pass Lieutenant Linda Thompson. The girls went back out looking,
24:00
going all the way to the roverson home, a seventeen minute walk at least,
24:04
and then headed back. But before they turned on eleventh Street, Bob
24:10
came driving up. Linda told me and the girls hopped in his green dots
24:15
in hatchback if that's the case, and Linda would know if it was.
24:19
It had to have been close to six point thirty seven pm by this time,
24:25
but probably well after. Undoubtedly the girls told Bob what was happening,
24:30
that no one could find Alisa. Meanwhile, Ruby was calling everyone she could
24:36
think of. At some point, Marina said, Bob Green called and told
24:41
her to stay put, that he and the girls were going out looking and
24:47
not to call the police just yet. This trip back home to do whatever
24:52
it was they did maybe simply to call Marina added several more minutes, and
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at this point it becomes nearly impossible for me to accurately keep track of time.
25:04
And we drove all the way down to her house, all all around
25:08
over by our friend Charlotte Hostin. That's the girl we called Sharon in part
25:14
one. We drove by her house and I don't remember where all else we
25:18
went, but I know we went looking for her. We couldn't find her.
25:22
Getting to Sharon's house took no time in a car. She lived kind
25:26
of catty corner to Key Burger Elementary School parallel to good Night Avenue, but
25:32
on the other side West Wilson Avenue. It took them just a couple minutes
25:37
max. But if they drove around looking for Alisa some more, which I
25:41
can only assume is what most folks would have done, driving up and down
25:47
the dozens and dozens of blocks in the neighborhood, would have taken quite some
25:52
time. We couldn't find her, so we went to Gary Klean. We
25:56
got ice cream for me, Sarah, and for her. Because my dad
26:00
always included all the kids, you don't eat in front of somebody unless you
26:03
got some to share, just the way we grew up. The trip to
26:07
Dairy Queen alone would have added several more minutes, perhaps up to twenty five,
26:14
between driving there, the very short distance, placing and waiting for the
26:18
order, and then driving to Elisa's, also a short distance. Bob told
26:23
Marina they couldn't find Elisa. This is when Bob told Marina she'd better call
26:30
the cops. But according to Debbie, she brushed him off and did not.
26:36
Well, it's true she didn't. Somebody did, twelve year old Ruby.
26:41
The police were notified by telephone at nine forty nine pm. This is
26:45
supported by the police report, which also backs up the memory of everyone who
26:51
remembers the police coming to the Roberson home that night, But Debbie's recollection differs.
26:59
I would like thirty that night, my dad and myself took Marina to
27:04
the police department to file the missing person's report. Okay, this is factual,
27:10
This is not made up. That actually happened. Were the ones that
27:14
took her there. Her theory on what happened to Alisa is also much different.
27:21
In my opinion, she went to discipline her because she didn't want her
27:23
to leave again. Lisa got mouthy with her for whatever reason, being a
27:29
teenage girl, you know, and Marina got mad at her and somehow went
27:34
to hit her, like she said her mom was trying to do when she
27:37
was trying to leave, because that was the whole reason for leaving, was
27:41
she was fighting with her mom and she fell down them stairs and broke her
27:44
neck and died. That's what I think happened. And I think she's still
27:47
in that house. She hit her too hard, she fell down the stairs,
27:51
and she's buried underneath that segment in that garage. The aforementioned differing memories
28:11
Debbie Green had, as far as the timeline and exact version of events,
28:15
are far from the end of the story. According to Debbie, I know
28:21
had she had left that house that day, an adult that was credible would
28:25
have seen her, because there was people outside across from Key Burger School.
28:30
There was a house on the corner right there, and there was people outside
28:33
barbecue in having a like back to school party or some birthday party or some
28:38
bullshit. I don't remember exactly, but I know there was a crowd of
28:42
like ten or twenty people, a lot of people having a party. They
28:47
had music going, and the barbecue going and all of that, and not
28:52
one of those people saw her, and they were directly across the street.
28:56
The story that I have about what up in that day is going to be
29:00
that she never left that house. And I've always felt that and I will
29:04
always feel that until I'm showed otherwise, because has she had left that house,
29:10
won somebody credible with a seen her. The person that said that they've
29:14
seen her was not a credible person to have seen her, because it could
29:18
have been on another day, because we walked that route all the time.
29:22
It was a daily thing, it was a summer, It could have been
29:25
the day before, a week before. It could it might not have been
29:27
that day. I don't think that that person is accurate on their statement.
29:33
So nobody saw a thing that day. Nobody, But the assertion that no
29:41
one witnessed Alisa Robson leave her house that day simply isn't true. As she
29:47
left, missus Allie Lee Barker, a secretary at the local high school,
29:52
observed Alisa heading down her long driveway to the street that day, as did
29:56
her husband, Lawrence Red Barker, a decorated World War II veteran that was
30:03
on the corner of Whitney Street and good Night Avenue, not directly next door
30:08
to the Roberson home. Not directly next door to the Roberson home, as
30:14
I erroneously reported in part one of Elisa's story. Sorry about that. Media
30:21
outlets also erroneously report this address as the corner of South Whitney and Greenwood.
30:26
It should be noted also on South Whitney Street, a girl named Jennifer and
30:32
her brother Nathan both saw Elisa walking toward Goodnight Avenue. The specific memory included
30:38
Nathan kind of a crush of Elisa's cleaning out the family's RV and was reported
30:45
the very next day to police, as was the Barker sidings. These were
30:51
not sightings from another day, mistaken for the day Elisa disappeared across Goodnight Avenue
30:59
from Key Burger Elementary School. A boy also claims to have seen Elisa that
31:03
day, although his mother didn't believe him and it was not reported for months.
31:10
A middle aged man named Floyd Jones also saw Elisa somewhere around or between
31:17
South eighth and ninth Streets, Ninth Street being where the bloodhound Clementine lost her
31:22
scent. From the beginning of the investigation, it was plocked because, like
31:29
I said, they never searched the house. They never did shit. Okay,
31:33
they didn't search the house. Contrary to those memories. Clementine and her
31:38
handler were in Aransas Pass from Rockport by noon the day following the disappearance,
31:45
and they began their search at the Robson home. At some point. We
31:49
have a lot of police detectives at our house. They're combing her house.
31:55
They don't just go and stand outside when there's a missing person. They go
31:59
inside, They do a surge, They look at things. They asked us
32:01
if we could give them some clothes of releases or in a hairbrush. They
32:06
wanted like her hair samples. They wanted some clothes. Clementine, after all,
32:13
had to get a Lisa's sent before she could follow it. Like she
32:16
just vanished out of the blue and broad daylight, no screaming, no fighting.
32:22
There was no jewelry that she had on jewelry when she disappeared. There
32:27
was no jewelry found, nothing, just straight up vanished whatever. Okay.
32:35
Debbie has a good point here, a great one. Actually, if someone
32:40
was walking down the street and a vehicle screeched to a halt, the driver
32:45
bolted out and accosted the pedestrian, who screamed bloody murder as they were forced
32:51
into the car, and then that car sped off, all in broad daylight
32:55
on a Sunday when most folks are off work. Chances are at least one
33:00
person, probably more would take notice and perhaps call the police. But there
33:07
were no blood curdling screams reported the day. Alisa Roberson vanished nothing had fallen
33:14
off her person, something that would have suggested a struggle had occurred. However,
33:20
there's another side to that coin. Most folks going about their day would
33:24
easily fail to notice much at all about someone walking down the street, a
33:30
car stopping, the pedestrian getting in, and the car easing off down the
33:35
road. The driver of the vehicle was likely someone the person walking new and
33:40
trusted. Even if that driver was well known around town, it's plausible,
33:46
if not even more likely, that no one would notice anything. Debbie,
33:54
to be fair, was only ten years old when a Lisa went missing,
33:58
and because life experiences inarguably twist memories, it is not beyond the realm of
34:05
possibility that she simply isn't remembering the events of that day correctly. It's totally
34:10
understandable, all of us are susceptible to memory fallibilities. But Debbie Green's theory
34:17
is that Marina killed Elisa by accident while abusing her, buried her in the
34:22
garage below her home, and then had the grave covered with concrete weeks later,
34:29
on or around August fifteenth, nineteen eighty nine, she told me,
34:34
which would have been during the time the group Caesar had tracking and cadaver dogs
34:39
swarming all over Aransas Pass and the Roberson home, all documented occurrences. The
34:46
Texas Rangers also appeared to have been involved in the investigation at that point.
34:52
The official facts as far as the investigation is concerned, does not support Debbie's
34:58
theory, but there's a reason for that. The cops, particularly Linda Thompson,
35:06
were involved in a cover up. For this theory to be true,
35:10
the theory that Marina accidentally killed Elisa, the conspiracy would have to be massive.
35:16
First, Linda Thompson would have to be in on it. Of course,
35:21
the cop who once had to bring an ex police officer she knew to
35:25
justice for killing his wife. This man who they had to put behind bars,
35:31
in fact, was a very close friend of the Thompsons, so it
35:36
seems a stretch. She would cover up the murder or even second degree murder
35:40
of a child, but it wouldn't be just Linda. The entire department would
35:47
had to have been privy to the conspiracy. Both the bloodhound Clementines handler and
35:54
the several dogs the group Caesar brought in to search were either complicit or simply
36:00
couldn't do the job they'd successfully done so many times before. The Texas Rangers
36:07
would also have had a hand in it, or were just really bad at
36:12
law enforcing. Also in on the cover up was Elisa's adopted father, the
36:17
only father she ever knew, Eugene Roberson, a man who would drop an
36:22
asshole, who made a woman feel uncomfortable as soon as it happened. It
36:28
seems out of character for him to help hide the accidental killing of a girl
36:32
he loved immeasurably, and no one was pulling the wool over his eyes either.
36:38
Eugene was far from a dummy. Twelve year old Ruby two had to
36:44
have played her part keeping this family secret for thirty four years now. Ten
36:49
year old Tony and five year old Alex would also had to have played their
36:52
part in the conspiracy to hide the truth of the death of the big sister
36:58
that always stuck up for them and always attempted to protect them against Ralph Gonzalez's
37:04
abuse, or perhaps the answer is far simpler. False memories aren't only created
37:13
by our own experiences internalized, but also by long term loyalty we might feel
37:19
for others, whether or not they deserve it, and the influence of paternal
37:23
figures, whether that influence is innocent or whether it's part of a continual and
37:29
relentless manipulation. It might also be the fact Debbie's father, Robert Earl Green,
37:37
known to most as Bob, has been original investigators Mike and Linda Thompson's
37:43
suspect number one since early in the investigation, our main suspect, and my
37:51
husband and I'm well, everybody in the department that works on it felt the
37:55
same way that we could never prove anything. I can't sell you two hundred
38:01
percent certainty that he's the one that committed the crime that I would say to
38:07
ninety nine point five percent would be in favor of it, So we have
38:10
to be real careful there. If I just had to put it in a
38:15
nutshell, Robert Green is the key to all of it. I think we'll
38:22
pick things up from here on the next episode of Gone Cold. If you
38:27
have any information about the disappearance of Blanca Alisa Roberson, please contact Try County
38:34
Crime Stoppers at eight hundred two four five eight four seven seven, or submit
38:40
a tip online at Tri County crime Stoppers Online tip form, which we'll link
38:46
to in the episode's show notes. We'd like to give a warm and sincere
38:52
thanks to Holly Blanchard Hall, Linda and Mike Thompson, Ruby Roberson, Hall,
38:59
and Marine Quintana Tomchak for their contributions to this episode. If you like
39:06
Gone Cold's mission to raise awareness for unsolved homicides, missing persons cases, and
39:12
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