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Hell and Gone Murder Line: John Forsyth · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans. On May twenty first, twenty twenty three,
0:15
Speaker 1: doctor John Forsyth, a forty nine year old er doctor,
0:19
Speaker 1: was due to work the evening shift at Mercy Hospital
0:22
Speaker 1: in Casville, Missouri. John had already worked the overnight shift
0:26
Speaker 1: the day before and finished up at seven am. After that,
0:30
Speaker 1: he went to crash for a few hours before starting
0:32
Speaker 1: his next shift that night twelve hours later. This was
0:36
Speaker 1: a normal day for John. He had a habit of
0:38
Speaker 1: pulling long shifts and working between eighty and one hundred
0:41
Speaker 1: hours per week. But John never showed up for work
0:45
Speaker 1: that night, and it wasn't long before his family and
0:48
Speaker 1: colleagues realized he had disappeared. Doctor John Forsyth was a
0:54
Speaker 1: hard working, well respected doctor and a father of eight children.
0:58
Speaker 1: But he also had a complicated personal life, one that
1:01
Speaker 1: he kept compartmentalized, one that involved an expensive a new fiancee,
1:07
Speaker 1: and a crypto company he had co founded with his
1:10
Speaker 1: brother Richard that had been involved in some questionable dealings.
1:14
Speaker 1: What happened to doctor John Forsyth? Was he kidnapped by
1:18
Speaker 1: someone with bad intentions? Did he walk away on his own?
1:22
Speaker 1: Could he have been living a double life and been
1:25
Speaker 1: lured out and murdered by one of his enemies. I'm
1:29
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my
1:32
Speaker 1: true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there's no
1:36
Speaker 1: such thing as a small town where murder never happens.
1:40
Speaker 1: I have received hundreds of messages from people all around
1:43
Speaker 1: the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's
1:46
Speaker 1: affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have
1:51
Speaker 1: a case you'd like me and my team to look into,
1:53
Speaker 1: you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
1:55
Speaker 1: Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six '
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Speaker 1: one four five that six seven eight seven four four
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Speaker 1: six ' one four or five.
2:04
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line now.
2:42
Speaker 1: Early media reports said the last time that John was
2:45
Speaker 1: heard from was on May twenty first, twenty twenty three.
2:49
Speaker 1: After his shift at the emergency room at Mercy Hospital
2:52
Speaker 1: in Cassville, Missouri, he went back to his luxury RV trailer.
2:57
Speaker 1: He kept the trailer parked outside the hospital when he
2:59
Speaker 1: was working back to back shifts and needed to sleep
3:01
Speaker 1: in between them. As we said before, he went to
3:04
Speaker 1: get some rest before his second shift that started that night.
3:08
Speaker 1: John was divorced and was in a serious relationship with
3:11
Speaker 1: his girlfriend. According to a family member, John sent some
3:15
Speaker 1: text messages to his girlfriend, who was a nurse, saying
3:18
Speaker 1: that he would see her later. Now it doesn't say
3:21
Speaker 1: in media reports whether his girlfriend worked at the same
3:25
Speaker 1: hospital as he did or not, but either way, he
3:27
Speaker 1: did appear to have plans to see her. When he
3:30
Speaker 1: didn't arrive for a shift and never called, his colleagues
3:34
Speaker 1: were immediately alarmed because John was very dependable. This was
3:38
Speaker 1: not the type of guy to not show up for
3:40
Speaker 1: a shift. In fact, it had never happened in his
3:43
Speaker 1: fifteen years on the job. He had never just not
3:46
Speaker 1: shown up and not called. He had never, even, according
3:49
Speaker 1: to his family, taken a sick day. His colleagues at
3:53
Speaker 1: the hospital reported him missing, and by the next day, Monday,
3:56
Speaker 1: his entire family, the community, the sheriff's department, and some
3:59
Speaker 1: other agencies, including the Highway Patrol, were looking for John.
4:04
Speaker 1: They searched an area that spanned several miles. They brought
4:07
Speaker 1: in drones, they brought in canine dogs, but they found
4:10
Speaker 1: no sign of John Forsyth. Now, because his personal life
4:14
Speaker 1: was complicated, which we'll get into in a minute, of course,
4:18
Speaker 1: law enforcement has to consider the possibility that John might
4:21
Speaker 1: have gone missing voluntarily, and at first it didn't seem
4:25
Speaker 1: like police thought that John had been taken against his
4:28
Speaker 1: will or been the victim of foul play. They didn't
4:31
Speaker 1: find any obvious signs of foul play. John's family seemed
4:35
Speaker 1: like they weren't sure what to think. On the one hand,
4:38
Speaker 1: they said there was no apparent reason for John to
4:41
Speaker 1: go missing. He'd had some stresses in his life, but
4:43
Speaker 1: he was dealing well with them. But on the other hand,
4:46
Speaker 1: John did have a reputation as kind of this eccentric genius.
4:50
Speaker 1: His brother now Forsyth, said that John had been and
4:54
Speaker 1: this was the way that now put it. Always looking
4:57
Speaker 1: for adventure, as I said. In addition to being a doctor,
5:01
Speaker 1: John ran a cryptocurrency business with his other brother, Richard.
5:06
Speaker 1: The business was called Onfoe. John had started mining bitcoin
5:10
Speaker 1: and light coin, another digital currency, back in the very
5:13
Speaker 1: early days around two thousand and nine twenty ten. He
5:17
Speaker 1: made a big profit off of this, and after a
5:19
Speaker 1: couple of years he funneled these earnings into building some
5:22
Speaker 1: new businesses. This business on Foe appeared to be successful.
5:27
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, Forbes called John a bitcoin millionaire. Back
5:33
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty three, police are searching for John, and
5:36
Speaker 1: things got even more bizarre once police found his car.
5:40
Speaker 1: This actually happened pretty quickly. There was an area that
5:43
Speaker 1: was fairly near the hospital called the Cassville Aquatic Center
5:46
Speaker 1: that had a public swimming pool. Now at that location,
5:50
Speaker 1: police were already looking for a missing child. The child,
5:54
Speaker 1: by the way, was eventually found and had nothing to
5:57
Speaker 1: do with John Forsyth, but by coincidence, this child had
6:02
Speaker 1: gone missing from the same general area. Police knew the
6:05
Speaker 1: aquatic center was the last place that this child had
6:08
Speaker 1: been seen, So by the time John went missing, they
6:12
Speaker 1: were already looking at that parking lot, going through all
6:15
Speaker 1: the security camera footage, trying to see license plates, and
6:18
Speaker 1: basically trying to id every single car in that parking
6:21
Speaker 1: lot any way that they could. They saw one vehicle
6:25
Speaker 1: that looked like it could be John's car, a black Infinity. Apparently,
6:30
Speaker 1: they looked at the video and saw that this black
6:32
Speaker 1: car came into the parking lot and then didn't ever leave.
6:36
Speaker 1: So police went to that location and they found the
6:39
Speaker 1: car parked in a back area behind a dumpster, and
6:42
Speaker 1: they did verify that this was John's car. John's car
6:46
Speaker 1: was unlocked. When police opened it, they found John's keys,
6:50
Speaker 1: his passport, his wallet, a cracked cell phone, and a laptop,
6:55
Speaker 1: all left pretty much untouched inside that car. Back at
6:59
Speaker 1: John's RV, police found two more phones. Apparently John had
7:03
Speaker 1: three phones in all. Some people online have made comments
7:07
Speaker 1: about this being a little odd, like several phones meant
7:11
Speaker 1: that he had some kind of a double life, but honestly,
7:14
Speaker 1: I don't find that strange. We know that one screen
7:18
Speaker 1: was cracked, which means that John might have only had
7:21
Speaker 1: two phones that were functional, and a lot of people,
7:24
Speaker 1: including doctors, often have more than one phone if they're
7:27
Speaker 1: on call. He also had that crypto side business. But
7:31
Speaker 1: the fact that his valuable stuff and his passport were
7:34
Speaker 1: left behind caused the local rumor bil to go into
7:37
Speaker 1: overdrive and again cause people to wonder if this was
7:41
Speaker 1: someone who voluntarily or not, had made a decision to
7:44
Speaker 1: walk away from his life. Police said publicly they did
7:49
Speaker 1: not immediately suspect foul play, and what they said was
7:53
Speaker 1: basically the reason they felt this way was because there
7:56
Speaker 1: were no signs of violence, no signs of a struggle
7:59
Speaker 1: either in the car or in the RV, no obvious blood,
8:03
Speaker 1: and again This was a grown man with a complish
8:05
Speaker 1: personal life. He had just gone through a divorce, and
8:09
Speaker 1: in the past he had been known to have some secrets.
8:12
Speaker 1: Donald Privett, the interim police chief at the Casville Police Department,
8:17
Speaker 1: told the media quote, there are numerous things to look for.
8:20
Speaker 1: Foul play, items discarded inappropriately, property damage to the vehicle,
8:25
Speaker 1: to the residents, different types of scuff marks on the ground,
8:28
Speaker 1: signs of bodily fluids, blood. There was none, none of
8:32
Speaker 1: that end quote. Apparently police canine dogs did alert in
8:37
Speaker 1: one spot close to John's car, but police found nothing there.
8:42
Speaker 1: And remember, the police did look at the surveillance cameras
8:45
Speaker 1: from that parking lot, but there has been conflicting information
8:50
Speaker 1: as to what exactly they saw in those tapes. John's brother,
8:54
Speaker 1: Richard Forsyth, started talking to the media fairly soon after
8:57
Speaker 1: his brother disappeared. At first, Richard told journalists that the
9:01
Speaker 1: security cameras did show John on that footage. Richard Yard
9:05
Speaker 1: said the camera had captured John walking away from his
9:09
Speaker 1: car and appearing to get into another car. Richard told
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Speaker 1: the Daily Beast quote, it leaves a few minutes later
9:17
Speaker 1: and John is seen walking around maybe ten to fifteen
9:20
Speaker 1: minutes after that, and then he walks away from his
9:23
Speaker 1: car end quote. Richard later seemed to be a little
9:28
Speaker 1: more specific with reporters. He said the camera footage had
9:31
Speaker 1: showed John parked his car there, and that a few
9:34
Speaker 1: minutes later a white SUV drove into that parking lot,
9:38
Speaker 1: and that the suv left shortly after that. But it
9:41
Speaker 1: turned out that John had never been seen getting into
9:45
Speaker 1: a car at all. Later, law enforcement said something different
9:49
Speaker 1: to Richard. They said the video had been very bad quality.
9:53
Speaker 1: It was super blurry, so the black car they saw
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Speaker 1: on video was basically a black blur. It could not
10:00
Speaker 1: even definitively be proven to be John's car. Police thought
10:03
Speaker 1: it was because of the timing and because the car
10:06
Speaker 1: was found there later, but this was not proof. Remember,
10:10
Speaker 1: Richard had said that John could be seen on video
10:13
Speaker 1: walking around, but later police said there was no definite
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Speaker 1: footage of John Forsyth in that parking lot, and there
10:20
Speaker 1: was absolutely no proof that John Forsyth left the scene
10:24
Speaker 1: in that white suv or in any other car. All
10:28
Speaker 1: the police had was this black blur. They said that
10:31
Speaker 1: they saw a car pull in at seven twelve, the
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Speaker 1: one that they thought might be John's car and they
10:36
Speaker 1: never saw it leave. They did not see that they
10:39
Speaker 1: had seen John get out of that car. Of course,
10:43
Speaker 1: anytime someone goes missing, there is a lot of public
10:45
Speaker 1: attention on their lives, and if they have any secrets,
10:48
Speaker 1: they often become public. Richard revealed something else he said.
10:54
Speaker 1: Shortly after John went missing, Richard was contacted by a
10:57
Speaker 1: mutual acquaintance of theirs who had a story about John
11:01
Speaker 1: going through a life threatening situation the year before.
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Speaker 2: Now.
11:05
Speaker 1: Apparently, according to Richard, John had told his friend he
11:08
Speaker 1: had been kidnapped in twenty twenty two. John apparently told
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Speaker 1: the friend he had been bound with zip ties, blackmailed,
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Speaker 1: taken to a bridge, and threatened. I guess he eventually
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Speaker 1: paid the money or came to some sort of resolution
11:20
Speaker 1: with these alleged kidnappers and was returned unharmed. But Richard
11:25
Speaker 1: said that John never reported anything to the police, so
11:28
Speaker 1: this fueled the theory that John could have been kidnapped
11:31
Speaker 1: by business associates, or maybe that his life had been
11:34
Speaker 1: threatened and he had to leave for some reason. Referring
11:37
Speaker 1: to the kidnapping, Richard also said, quote it should be
11:41
Speaker 1: said that he was kidnapped in twenty twenty two, and
11:44
Speaker 1: that was crypto related. A lot of people are connecting
11:47
Speaker 1: that dot with recent events. End quote. Richard had no
11:51
Speaker 1: real details about the alleged kidnappers, except to say that
11:54
Speaker 1: they had had Eastern European accents. He did say, however,
11:58
Speaker 1: he didn't necessarily believe that John's previous kidnappers were responsible
12:02
Speaker 1: for his disappearance. He didn't believe they would have been
12:05
Speaker 1: motivated to come all the way to Missouri to kidnap
12:07
Speaker 1: him again. I have a lot of questions about this story.
12:12
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm wondering who was this friend who
12:15
Speaker 1: talked about the kidnapping, Who was the source of this story,
12:19
Speaker 1: because the only person we're hearing this from was Richard.
12:23
Speaker 1: I have questions about the alleged kidnapping because, to be honest,
12:26
Speaker 1: it sounds like it could be a made up story.
12:30
Speaker 1: It did seem like some of John's friends and family
12:32
Speaker 1: considered the possibility that John could have come up with
12:35
Speaker 1: a way to disappear for a while. I can't blame
12:38
Speaker 1: them for hoping that that might happen, that John might resurface.
12:42
Speaker 1: John's sister, Tiffany wrote a post on the Facebook page
12:45
Speaker 1: in memory of doctor John Forsyth. It read quote, I
12:49
Speaker 1: think Johnny was a bit of an antihero, mischievous, flawed
12:52
Speaker 1: in many ways, but kinder and more generous than some
12:56
Speaker 1: might give him credit for. He was fond of hyperbole,
12:59
Speaker 1: effusive in his praise of other people, and a natural
13:02
Speaker 1: storyteller with a comedian sense of timing. He could bring
13:05
Speaker 1: a whole room to tears with laughter. His persona was
13:08
Speaker 1: a contradictory mix of easygoing charm and sharp, focused intensity,
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Speaker 1: unflinchingly outspoken but hard to really know.
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Speaker 2: End quote.
13:18
Speaker 1: So this picture was emerging of John as this person
13:21
Speaker 1: who was super smart but also somewhat mysterious. A lot
13:26
Speaker 1: of people, including former patients, posted nice things about John.
13:30
Speaker 1: They said how much John had help them and help
13:33
Speaker 1: their children, how caring he was with his patients, and
13:36
Speaker 1: how kind he was. His sister Gina thought maybe he
13:40
Speaker 1: had wanted to leave, maybe bail out for a few weeks,
13:44
Speaker 1: to hide from something. She said, quote, he is the
13:47
Speaker 1: smartest person I know. He planned something. It's going to
13:50
Speaker 1: be this mission impossible escape plan. He's going to come
13:53
Speaker 1: back and everything is going to be okay.
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Speaker 2: End quote.
13:57
Speaker 1: But if John did plan this, he seemed to take
14:01
Speaker 1: nothing with him. If he had left town, it seemed
14:04
Speaker 1: like he did it with no money and no activity
14:06
Speaker 1: on his credit cards. But we know that he had
14:09
Speaker 1: invested in cryptocurrency, so conceivably he could have had another
14:13
Speaker 1: source of funds out there that no one knew about,
14:16
Speaker 1: maybe in a digital wallet. This fueled the conspiracy theories
14:20
Speaker 1: and the idea, sometimes the hope that John might be
14:24
Speaker 1: alive somewhere else, living his best life. But that hope
14:27
Speaker 1: did not last long because on May thirtieth, twenty twenty three,
14:32
Speaker 1: two kayakers were paddling through Beaver Lake on the Arkansas
14:36
Speaker 1: side of the Ozarks when they saw something they thought
14:39
Speaker 1: looked like a dead animal. According to the news station
14:42
Speaker 1: KY three, they started paddling to take a closer look.
14:48
Speaker 1: That's when they realized this was a human body. They
14:51
Speaker 1: called nine one one. Soon word got around this was
14:55
Speaker 1: the body of doctor John Forsyth. Days after doctor John
15:06
Speaker 1: Forsyth went missing, his body was found across the Arkansas
15:11
Speaker 1: border in beaver Lake. This was about twenty five miles
15:14
Speaker 1: away from Cassville, where he disappeared. From Authorities said that
15:18
Speaker 1: the body had sustained a gunshot wound, but they gave
15:22
Speaker 1: no further information about where the bullet hit. They said
15:25
Speaker 1: they were waiting on autopsy results.
15:28
Speaker 2: Now.
15:28
Speaker 1: Of course, because there was a body found with a
15:30
Speaker 1: gunshot wound, and because of the way that John went missing,
15:34
Speaker 1: this had some people wondering whether there was a chance
15:37
Speaker 1: that John could have taken his own life, especially once
15:41
Speaker 1: Richard revealed that John had been killed by a single
15:44
Speaker 1: gunshot wound to the head. But Richard and the rest
15:48
Speaker 1: of John's family were adamant. They said they could not
15:50
Speaker 1: believe that this had been a suicide. They said, yes,
15:53
Speaker 1: John had been going through a divorce, but they said
15:56
Speaker 1: after a tumultuous time, he was in a good place financially.
16:00
Speaker 1: The divorce was settled. Now that investigators had a body,
16:04
Speaker 1: they started looking even further into John's personal life and
16:08
Speaker 1: his business dealings. John Forsyth was born in nineteen seventy four.
16:13
Speaker 1: He grew up in a Mormon family. He was one
16:16
Speaker 1: of six children and was close to all of his siblings.
16:19
Speaker 1: John was a good doctor. He went to medical school
16:21
Speaker 1: in Barbados and had been working at Mercy Hospital for
16:24
Speaker 1: fifteen years. And as we said, he was well liked
16:27
Speaker 1: by his patients and his colleagues. And the community. According
16:32
Speaker 1: to court records, John did have a wrongful death lawsuit
16:35
Speaker 1: filed against him in twenty twenty two. It was later settled.
16:38
Speaker 1: The settlement was confidential, so we don't know exactly how
16:41
Speaker 1: much it was settled for. But this isn't unusual for
16:45
Speaker 1: a doctor. One lawsuit in fifteen years is completely normal.
16:49
Speaker 1: First of all, we live in a very litigious country,
16:52
Speaker 1: so anyone can be sued at any time. Secondly, even
16:55
Speaker 1: if lawsuits do have merit, doctors are human just like
16:59
Speaker 1: anyone else. They do make mistakes. That's actually what malpractice
17:02
Speaker 1: insurance is for. So I don't see anything out of
17:05
Speaker 1: the ordinary in that lawsuit. John met his first wife
17:09
Speaker 1: in high school. They started dating when they were teenagers,
17:12
Speaker 1: and they got married in Nevada in the mid nineties.
17:15
Speaker 1: They had seven children together, and then they filed for
17:18
Speaker 1: divorce in April twenty nineteen. But John and his wife
17:22
Speaker 1: got back together and they remarried in twenty twenty. Then
17:26
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, they started divorce proceedings again in Missouri.
17:31
Speaker 1: In fact, their second divorce had been settled just ten
17:34
Speaker 1: days before John disappeared. Now John also has an eighth
17:39
Speaker 1: child with another woman who was not his wife or
17:41
Speaker 1: his girlfriend. It's not clear what the exact timeline was
17:45
Speaker 1: in that relationship, but we know that John and his
17:48
Speaker 1: wife split up for a period of time. Apparently, even
17:52
Speaker 1: with the romantic complications, John was a good father and
17:56
Speaker 1: active in all of his kids' lives. So let's take
18:00
Speaker 1: a closer look at those divorce filings. What was John's
18:04
Speaker 1: net worth? Divorce have played any role in his disappearance.
18:08
Speaker 1: In cases like this, we do have to follow the money.
18:13
Speaker 1: According to court documents, the judge valued John's bitcoin holdings
18:17
Speaker 1: at over eight hundred thousand dollars. The judge ordered him
18:20
Speaker 1: to pay a total of nineteen thousand dollars per month
18:23
Speaker 1: to his ex wife, four thousand dollars in child support
18:26
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand per month in alimony. It seemed like John
18:30
Speaker 1: and his ex wife's financial dealings were pretty amicable. Yes,
18:34
Speaker 1: this is a lot of money, but John disclosed his
18:37
Speaker 1: finances to the court and the judge set what they
18:40
Speaker 1: deemed to be an appropriate amount of child support. John's
18:44
Speaker 1: family said that for John, money was not an issue.
18:47
Speaker 1: They said he did not have money worries. And side
18:51
Speaker 1: note here, I come from a family of medical professionals.
18:56
Speaker 1: Almost everyone is a doctor or nurse, including a lot
18:59
Speaker 1: of er doctors, and some people were questioning John's salary.
19:03
Speaker 1: I will say EO, our doctors and these type of
19:06
Speaker 1: communities who work a lot can easily earn between three
19:11
Speaker 1: and four hundred thousand dollars a year, and that would
19:14
Speaker 1: have been in addition to any crypto holdings that he had.
19:18
Speaker 1: John's payments to his ex wife had just started on
19:21
Speaker 1: May fifteenth of twenty twenty three. They were set to
19:24
Speaker 1: continue until John's death or until his ex wife remarried. Tiffany,
19:29
Speaker 1: John's sister, said that John's main priority, above his work,
19:33
Speaker 1: above everything, was being a good father. She said, quote
19:38
Speaker 1: Johnny said, that is how I measure men. That is
19:41
Speaker 1: the most important quality that a man can have is
19:44
Speaker 1: to be a good dad.
19:45
Speaker 2: End quote.
19:47
Speaker 1: After John and his wife divorced for the second time,
19:50
Speaker 1: he started a relationship with someone new, a thirty nine
19:53
Speaker 1: year old nurse who referred to John as the love
19:56
Speaker 1: of her life. It turned out that they were actually engaged.
20:00
Speaker 1: John had proposed to his girlfriend just seventy two hours
20:03
Speaker 1: before he disappeared. And then there was another bombshell dropped,
20:08
Speaker 1: one that no one in John's family appeared to know
20:12
Speaker 1: at the time when John went missing his fiancee was pregnant.
20:19
Speaker 1: A few weeks after John's body was found, John's fiance
20:23
Speaker 1: gave birth to their child, and they are both reportedly
20:25
Speaker 1: doing well. John's family seemed to be a little bit
20:28
Speaker 1: shocked by the news that John and his girlfriend were
20:31
Speaker 1: engaged in having a baby, but his brother now said
20:35
Speaker 1: he believed that John was waiting until the divorce was final, which,
20:39
Speaker 1: as we said, had just happened, before introducing his family
20:41
Speaker 1: to his fiance. John's ex wife's attorney, Ryan Ricketts, talked
20:46
Speaker 1: to the media. He said John's ex wife was devastated
20:50
Speaker 1: by what happened to John. Apparently, she lives in Idaho
20:54
Speaker 1: and is keeping her grief private. Even with everything going
20:58
Speaker 1: on in his life, John's family remained convinced that he
21:01
Speaker 1: did not take his own life. Richard Forsyth said that
21:05
Speaker 1: before John went missing, they had dinner together. He said
21:08
Speaker 1: John showed no signs of distress. In fact, he said
21:11
Speaker 1: John was excited about his life. John had plans to
21:15
Speaker 1: go visit one of his older daughters in Utah the
21:17
Speaker 1: day after he went missing. He had already bought his
21:19
Speaker 1: plane tickets, and John was super excited about his new
21:23
Speaker 1: life with his girlfriend. Richard said that his brother had
21:26
Speaker 1: told him quote I can't wait to introduce her to you.
21:29
Speaker 1: We're going to have a wonderful life together. We're all
21:32
Speaker 1: going to spend a lot of time together.
21:33
Speaker 2: End quote.
21:35
Speaker 1: The news station Kyfe III and the program Ozark Unsolved
21:39
Speaker 1: has done a lot of investigative work on this case.
21:42
Speaker 1: They did an interview with John's sister, Tiffany, and she
21:45
Speaker 1: told Ozark's Unsolved that John kept parts of his life
21:49
Speaker 1: separate and that he'd always kind of been that way.
21:52
Speaker 1: She said something that I thought was very revealing. She said,
21:55
Speaker 1: quote I think that he had buckets that he put
21:57
Speaker 1: stuff in. You know, this is what you get to
21:59
Speaker 1: know about me. End quote. So this case is very
22:05
Speaker 1: strange because you have all these pieces of evidence that
22:08
Speaker 1: seem to conflict with each other. You have the car
22:11
Speaker 1: left in a remote location with John's belongings inside that
22:15
Speaker 1: makes it seem like someone who may have gone missing voluntarily,
22:19
Speaker 1: which we now know did not happen, or if he
22:21
Speaker 1: did go missing voluntarily, it appears that something went horribly
22:25
Speaker 1: wrong with his plan, which leaves a couple of possibilities.
22:29
Speaker 1: One that John left his stuff there, then went to
22:32
Speaker 1: Beaver Lake and took his own life.
22:35
Speaker 2: I think this.
22:35
Speaker 1: Seems extremely unlikely. First of all, if that was his plan,
22:40
Speaker 1: how did he get there? How did he get to
22:42
Speaker 1: Beaver Lake from that parking lot? Walking there would be
22:46
Speaker 1: next to impossible given that terrain. This is the Ozarks
22:50
Speaker 1: with a skinny highway that winds through mountains. While it's
22:54
Speaker 1: theoretically possible that he could have waded out into a
22:57
Speaker 1: body of water and shot himself in the head, I
23:00
Speaker 1: think the evidence does not seem to point in that direction. Again,
23:04
Speaker 1: Beaver Lake is several miles away from where John's car
23:07
Speaker 1: was parked. You have to go through single lane highways
23:10
Speaker 1: through the Ozark Mountains. This is not somewhere where John
23:14
Speaker 1: could have walked. He would have had to walk for
23:16
Speaker 1: hours through some very rough terrain. And also, if he
23:19
Speaker 1: had been walking along that narrow highway with no shoulder,
23:22
Speaker 1: someone would have seen him. Could someone have picked him
23:26
Speaker 1: up in that parking lot, maybe lured him there, set
23:29
Speaker 1: a meeting with him under false pretenses, then taken him
23:32
Speaker 1: to Beaver Lake and shot him. I think that is possible. Again,
23:37
Speaker 1: the cameras did not see John, but it is possible
23:40
Speaker 1: that he did get out of his car and walk
23:41
Speaker 1: away on his own. I do think that it's possible
23:45
Speaker 1: that John was meeting someone in that parking lot and
23:47
Speaker 1: then he was picked up there. But there's another possibility
23:50
Speaker 1: that I think is slightly more likely that it was
23:53
Speaker 1: not John who parked the car there at all, but
23:56
Speaker 1: someone else, someone who wanted to stage a scene and
24:00
Speaker 1: make it seem like the parking lot was the last
24:02
Speaker 1: place John had been spotted. So let's go back a
24:06
Speaker 1: minute and look at what John's friends and family have
24:08
Speaker 1: been telling the media. I'm especially interested again in this
24:12
Speaker 1: supposed kidnapping story. Richard told the local news station KY
24:16
Speaker 1: three that John had some shady business associates, and he
24:21
Speaker 1: gave more details on the alleged kidnapping. He said, quote,
24:25
Speaker 1: what we know is that there's an account of a kidnapping.
24:28
Speaker 1: According to this mutual acquaintance, John shows up on a
24:32
Speaker 1: February evening, extremely cold, zip tied at the wrist, put
24:35
Speaker 1: into a shower to warm up, and tells a tale
24:38
Speaker 1: of being put into a car, some sort of arrangement
24:41
Speaker 1: that he made, and he was released. Those are the
24:43
Speaker 1: essentials of the story that was being told to me
24:46
Speaker 1: end quote again, who is this mutual acquaintance? Was this
24:50
Speaker 1: someone Richard knew or just someone who happened to show
24:53
Speaker 1: up after John went missing? Have the police talk to
24:56
Speaker 1: this person? Because on the surface, these Eastern European zip
25:02
Speaker 1: tie kidnappers remind me of the made up assailants in
25:07
Speaker 1: some other cases, like the Diane Downs case where you
25:10
Speaker 1: had the bushy haired stranger who supposedly shot her children,
25:13
Speaker 1: or in the Sherry Peppini kidnapping case, the two Hispanic assailants.
25:19
Speaker 1: But before I could make a determination on that, we
25:22
Speaker 1: need to find out who this mutual acquaintance is and
25:25
Speaker 1: who they talked to and if the police have talked
25:27
Speaker 1: to them. As part of this interview with the news station,
25:31
Speaker 1: the reporter asked Richard about his theories. Because Richard has
25:36
Speaker 1: been in the crypto business with John, the reporter wanted
25:39
Speaker 1: to know if Richard ever felt that his life was
25:42
Speaker 1: in danger. Richard said that John never made him feel
25:46
Speaker 1: like they should be afraid, but he said, in hindsight,
25:50
Speaker 1: after all this came out about the alleged kidnapping, he
25:52
Speaker 1: thought maybe he should have been scared. Richard said, quote,
25:56
Speaker 1: he must have a lot of secrets, certainly more than
25:59
Speaker 1: I do. I don't know how he juggled these things.
26:02
Speaker 1: It must have created a lot of pressure for him.
26:04
Speaker 2: End quote.
26:05
Speaker 1: Now, when you say crypto, a lot of people automatically
26:08
Speaker 1: assume that this must be some type of dangerous conspiracy
26:12
Speaker 1: or part of the dark web. But was this crypto
26:15
Speaker 1: stuff really a danger to John's existence? Was it even
26:18
Speaker 1: a real business? Let's take a closer look. So we
26:22
Speaker 1: know John and Richard Forsyth have been partners in a
26:25
Speaker 1: couple of different ventures. They founded what was described as
26:29
Speaker 1: a crypto coin physical coin hybrid called Alaton. They also
26:33
Speaker 1: had another project at one point called Ambycard, plus a
26:36
Speaker 1: few other companies. There was a big story about Alaton
26:40
Speaker 1: a few years ago in Vice. The article was called
26:43
Speaker 1: the Great Physical Bitcoin Robbery. So what John and Richard
26:48
Speaker 1: created was like commemorative coins, but they were backed by bitcoin.
26:52
Speaker 1: So how it worked is that the customers would buy
26:55
Speaker 1: a certain amount of bitcoin and then Alaton would engrave
26:59
Speaker 1: the physical coin with the private key. The key is
27:03
Speaker 1: the code that you need to access the digital wallet
27:06
Speaker 1: to get to your money. So the brothers describe their
27:09
Speaker 1: company as kind of a private mint, so they combined
27:12
Speaker 1: a physical coin with digital currency. They claimed that they
27:17
Speaker 1: had a type of proprietary technology that would allow the
27:20
Speaker 1: private key to be printed on the coin, but apparently
27:24
Speaker 1: kept it hidden somehow. I'm not sure how it worked.
27:26
Speaker 1: I'm not a crypto expert, but I do know something
27:30
Speaker 1: went wrong because a bunch of the coins were stolen
27:34
Speaker 1: at the time. Richard told Weiss that he and John
27:37
Speaker 1: believed that it had to be someone close to them
27:40
Speaker 1: who had stolen the coins. He said they would reimburse
27:43
Speaker 1: the customers who had lost some of their bitcoin, but
27:46
Speaker 1: Richard admitted they were having a problem because between the
27:49
Speaker 1: time when they issued these coins and the time when
27:51
Speaker 1: they were stolen, bitcoin had gone up dramatically in value.
27:55
Speaker 1: So Richard told their customers that they would give them refunds,
27:59
Speaker 1: but apparently they only offered refunds for a period of
28:03
Speaker 1: a month. This must have made a lot of customers
28:06
Speaker 1: really angry, because I'm sure a lot of people lost
28:09
Speaker 1: money there, and afterwards people had questions like was their
28:14
Speaker 1: proof that the coins had ever been stolen at all?
28:17
Speaker 1: What exactly went down there? After that business folded in
28:21
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, John and Richard went into business together again.
28:25
Speaker 1: They created a crypto company that they named ONFO. They
28:28
Speaker 1: called this a network mining venture. So Richard said, the
28:33
Speaker 1: way that this worked was that users of ONFO, instead
28:37
Speaker 1: of actually spending money, could earn credits by referring other
28:42
Speaker 1: members to their company. They have a YouTube video posted
28:46
Speaker 1: that basically says, you can't trust the government. You can't
28:49
Speaker 1: trust government issued currency, trust our currency, trust our network.
28:54
Speaker 1: You're being manipulated and lied to and you're being robbed
29:00
Speaker 1: every day. But the Associated Press did a story on this.
29:05
Speaker 1: They inner if you'd an expert who investigates crypto schemes,
29:08
Speaker 1: and this expert said, in their opinion, John and Richard's
29:12
Speaker 1: business resembled a pyramid scheme from what the expert told
29:17
Speaker 1: the Associated Press, what I'm reading between the lines is
29:20
Speaker 1: that what John and Richard were doing sounds like a
29:23
Speaker 1: classic MLM or multi level marketing scheme. I'm not going
29:28
Speaker 1: to say it's definitely a scam, but as someone who
29:31
Speaker 1: does a lot of fraud investigation, in my opinion, it
29:34
Speaker 1: certainly raises a lot of red flags. Now, Richard has
29:38
Speaker 1: said that their intention was never really to make money
29:42
Speaker 1: on this. In fact, he said they lost millions of dollars.
29:45
Speaker 1: He said they were not motivated by money, that he
29:47
Speaker 1: and John had wanted to help people. From what he said,
29:50
Speaker 1: it seemed like he and John had been discussed by
29:52
Speaker 1: what the cryptoculture had become about people driving Lamborghinis and
29:57
Speaker 1: all this conspicuous consumption. He said they wanted to give
30:00
Speaker 1: people in developing nations the chance to acquire some crypto.
30:05
Speaker 1: Going in depth into that company would be way beyond
30:08
Speaker 1: the scope of this podcast. But it's unclear exactly how
30:13
Speaker 1: much money they walked away from in that deal, what
30:16
Speaker 1: was really going on with John's net worth. Again, in
30:20
Speaker 1: a case like this, it makes sense to follow the money.
30:23
Speaker 1: It's not clear how deeply the police have looked into
30:26
Speaker 1: John's finances or if, and I don't mean this as
30:28
Speaker 1: an insult at all, if they would even know how,
30:31
Speaker 1: if they would have the expertise to look into crypto accounts.
30:35
Speaker 1: This stuff is complicated and fraud is not something that
30:38
Speaker 1: the police have a good handle on in a lot
30:40
Speaker 1: of these cases. But from the way that this case
30:43
Speaker 1: has been unfolding, it does seem that the police were
30:46
Speaker 1: skeptical of Richard. Richard admitted this openly He said that
30:51
Speaker 1: the Benton County Sheriff's Office wasn't really sharing information with him.
30:55
Speaker 1: Benton County, Arkansas, was in charge of the investigation because
30:59
Speaker 1: John's body had been found there. According to public record,
31:04
Speaker 1: Richard has also been married and divorced. He divorced his
31:07
Speaker 1: first wife back in two thousand. He has since remarried
31:10
Speaker 1: to a woman named Valeria. She has one of her
31:13
Speaker 1: jobs listed as being involved with his crypto company on Fox.
31:17
Speaker 1: It's not clear what happened to any funds that were
31:20
Speaker 1: run through this business. Whatever is going on, there only
31:23
Speaker 1: one person, Richard would seem to have any of the answers.
31:27
Speaker 1: He also revealed he had been set up to be
31:29
Speaker 1: his brother's executor, and later, in an interview with this
31:33
Speaker 1: reporter Elizabeth Van Meter, who has done a lot of
31:37
Speaker 1: investigating in this case, Richard dropped a bombshell. He said
31:41
Speaker 1: police had showed up at his house with a search warrant.
31:52
Speaker 1: In summer of twenty twenty three, police served a warrant
31:56
Speaker 1: on Richard Forsyth. He told Elizabeth Van Meter that police
32:01
Speaker 1: had told him they believed he knew more than he
32:04
Speaker 1: said he did. Richard completely denied in this interview that
32:08
Speaker 1: he had anything to do with his brother's death or
32:10
Speaker 1: disappearance in any way. He said he doesn't know why
32:14
Speaker 1: police seem to be focusing in on him. He said
32:17
Speaker 1: that he thinks maybe it's because they don't have any
32:19
Speaker 1: other leads. He said he has confidence in law enforcement
32:23
Speaker 1: and he's trying to let them go through their process
32:25
Speaker 1: of elimination. He actually said John was killed from a
32:28
Speaker 1: forty millimeter bullet that was fired from a glock, and
32:32
Speaker 1: he said I own a glock that fires a forty
32:35
Speaker 1: millimeter gun. However, Richard claimed he was completely forthcoming with police.
32:40
Speaker 1: He said he told them about his gun early on
32:42
Speaker 1: in the investigation. He said he offered to let him
32:45
Speaker 1: search his property and that he had been completely cooperative.
32:49
Speaker 1: Richard told Elizabeth Van Meter quote, I was eager to
32:52
Speaker 1: let them cross that off their list end quote. He
32:55
Speaker 1: also told her he took a lot of detector test
32:58
Speaker 1: and he said police told him he did not pass
33:02
Speaker 1: that lie detector test. He said the police told him
33:06
Speaker 1: they believed that he had studied how to deceive the
33:10
Speaker 1: lie test and that he'd somehow cheated. Yet, Richard said
33:13
Speaker 1: that he still had confidence in law enforcement and he's
33:17
Speaker 1: talked about his theories. He told the news station KOLR quote,
33:21
Speaker 1: at this point, it looks like he was abducted and
33:23
Speaker 1: killed and thrown into a lake. Just looking at it
33:26
Speaker 1: from my point of view, that's what it seems like.
33:29
Speaker 2: End quote.
33:30
Speaker 1: It's not clear what the rest of John's family thinks.
33:34
Speaker 1: Most of them have been pretty silent for the last
33:36
Speaker 1: few months. Richard said in that interview with Ozark's Unsolved
33:41
Speaker 1: that he's not really in contact with his brother's children
33:44
Speaker 1: without part of the family. He said, there are no
33:46
Speaker 1: issues there. The truth is, we don't know what's going
33:50
Speaker 1: on in the background, either with the family or with
33:52
Speaker 1: the police investigation. I did check court records, and I
33:56
Speaker 1: saw there was an update in John's divorce case filings,
33:59
Speaker 1: the ones that were closed shortly before he disappeared. In
34:02
Speaker 1: September of twenty twenty three, John's ex wife's attorney filed
34:06
Speaker 1: emotion claiming that there were some potential assets that they
34:12
Speaker 1: believed had not been disclosed in the divorce, including an
34:15
Speaker 1: insurance policy and some of John's business interests. So, according
34:21
Speaker 1: to court documents, the attorney was claiming that John held
34:24
Speaker 1: interest in companies, including some of the ones we've mentioned before,
34:27
Speaker 1: amb Cash LLC, Ambycard LLC, something called Asset Management Group LLC, Allaton,
34:34
Speaker 1: and ONFO. So apparently the ex wife had been told
34:39
Speaker 1: that none of these companies had any assets in them,
34:42
Speaker 1: that they had no value, but she said she had
34:45
Speaker 1: learned that at least some of these entities did hold assets,
34:48
Speaker 1: So the judge ruled that they could have some time
34:51
Speaker 1: to present additional evidence. Then, in February twenty twenty four,
34:56
Speaker 1: the judge ruled the original judgment of divorce should be
34:58
Speaker 1: reinstated in full, so there was no change based on
35:02
Speaker 1: any of those alleged assets. The only change was that
35:06
Speaker 1: John's ex wife was awarded a twenty thirteen jeep Wrangler.
35:10
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Van Meterer, the reporter who's covered the case extensively,
35:13
Speaker 1: has apparently left her job for another news channel. One
35:17
Speaker 1: of the last things she reported was that the authorities
35:20
Speaker 1: in Benton County are not releasing the results of John's
35:23
Speaker 1: autopsy or toxicology until the investigation is complete. She posted
35:28
Speaker 1: on Facebook quote, I have learned that John was filling
35:31
Speaker 1: out paperwork to transfer to Mercy Springfield Er. I don't
35:35
Speaker 1: know the reason, but the location would certainly be closer
35:38
Speaker 1: to his fiancee end quote. So it does seem like
35:42
Speaker 1: John was potentially going through some life changes. As someone
35:48
Speaker 1: who has investigated fraud and red collar crimes in the past,
35:52
Speaker 1: I would actually love to know what the financial situation
35:56
Speaker 1: and pressures were on other people close to John who
35:59
Speaker 1: could have gained from his death. Could John have been
36:03
Speaker 1: trying to hide money in some way? Someone have helped
36:06
Speaker 1: him hide money and then perhaps not want to give
36:09
Speaker 1: it back. I believe that following that money and figuring
36:14
Speaker 1: out these circumstances could be the key to cracking this
36:18
Speaker 1: case wide open. In my opinion, if police really want
36:22
Speaker 1: to know what happened to John Forsyth, They're gonna need
36:25
Speaker 1: to follow the money. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen
36:30
Speaker 1: Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production
36:37
Speaker 1: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
36:40
Speaker 1: narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
36:44
Speaker 1: Music contributed by Ben Sale. This episode was scored and
36:48
Speaker 1: mixed by Jesse Niswanger. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
36:53
Speaker 1: and Elsie Crowley. If you have a case you'd like
36:56
Speaker 1: me and my team to look into. You can reach
36:58
Speaker 1: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at
37:00
Speaker 1: six seven eight seven four four six ' one four five.
37:04
Speaker 1: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
37:16
Speaker 1: School of Humans