# 7 Cold Case Mysteries That Baffle Detectives | 226

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 8 May 2026, 1 h 15 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO8755888570.mp3

Join me for 7 cold case mysteries that baffle detectives. Episode 226 of the true crime podcast btw. Also don't forget to request cases in the comments and drop a rating. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 unsolved mysteries, true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, disturbing cases, true crime analysis, hidden clues, infamous crimes, real crime stories, forensic evidence, serial killers, unsolved cases, too dark for netflix, historical true crime, billy the kid, genetic genealogy, forensics, cold case mysteries

## Transcript

[0:00] On a warm Thursday in February 2021, Naomi Blvd. told her
[0:05] parents she was going to walk at the Ann Kolb Nature Center in
[0:08] Hollywood, FL. It was a place she loved for its
[0:11] serene trails and bird watching spots.
[0:15] She left home around 4:00 PM to catch a bus and even sent a
[0:19] cheerful selfie to a friend from an observation tower in the park
[0:22] around 6:00 PM. But minutes later, Naomi stopped
[0:26] responding to messages, and by 6:15 that evening, her phone had
[0:31] gone dark, flickering on mysteriously only hours after
[0:35] she went missing. She never made it to her planned
[0:39] 7:00 PM Zoom meeting that night, and her family's concern quickly
[0:42] escalated from there. Outwardly, Naomi was a devout
[0:48] member of her church and an avid, self-described nature girl
[0:51] who spent countless hours watching birds and exploring the
[0:54] outdoors. In late 2020, she graduated from
[0:58] Brigham Young University, Idaho with a degree in Wildlife
[1:02] ecology, hoping to work for the National Park Service one day.
[1:07] Naomi also coped with high functioning autism, and while
[1:11] she was very bright, her family noted that she tended to be
[1:14] naive socially. By early 2021, she was living at
[1:18] home searching for jobs. She was disappointed about
[1:22] missing out on an internship at Everglades National Park, but
[1:26] she was already applying to other opportunities and stayed
[1:29] optimistic. February 11th, 2021 started like
[1:34] any other day for Naomi. That afternoon, she told her
[1:38] mother she needed some fresh air and planned to visit the nearby
[1:41] nature preserve to clear her head.
[1:44] Surveillance footage later confirmed Naomi boarded A
[1:47] Broward County bus alone around 4:30 that afternoon.
[1:51] She was seen disembarking near the Ancold Nature Center along
[1:55] the Intracoastal Waterway. For the next hour or so, Naomi
[1:59] wandered the trails and took in the scenery.
[2:02] At about 6:00 PM, she was at the park's observation tower,
[2:06] enjoying the view. She took a selfie from that
[2:09] vantage point and sent it via Snapchat to a close college
[2:13] friend in another state, texting casually about her day.
[2:18] Nothing seemed to miss in their conversation.
[2:21] It was just a normal casual exchange, according to the
[2:24] friend. However, shortly after that 6:00
[2:27] PM check in, all communication from Naomi ceased.
[2:32] By 6:15 PM, she was no longer replying to her friend's
[2:36] messages, and attempts to call her phone went straight to
[2:39] voicemail. The sudden silence was alarming,
[2:42] given how responsive Naomi typically was.
[2:46] She had planned to attend a young adult's Bible study on
[2:49] Zoom at 7:00. When her brother texted to ask
[2:53] where she was, there was no reply.
[2:56] Around 7:30, just 30 minutes after that Zoom meeting was
[3:00] supposed to begin, they contacted the Hollywood Police
[3:03] Department and reported their daughter missing.
[3:08] Now I'm all for early reporting of missing people, but this does
[3:11] seem quite unusual to me, at least from what's publicly
[3:15] known. She hadn't responded to some
[3:17] text messages and she was 30 minutes late for a non essential
[3:20] zoom meeting. Personally, I would still be
[3:24] thinking along the lines of maybe her phone ran out of
[3:27] battery as she lost track of time by 7:30.
[3:31] That said, given her diagnosis of autism, this may explain why
[3:36] her family was so eager to report her missing immediately.
[3:41] Police sprang into action surprisingly quickly given the
[3:44] timeline, and again, I have to assume that this may have been
[3:47] due to the fact that Naomi is autistic.
[3:50] Officers hurriedly scoured the darkening park and surrounding
[3:54] areas that first night, but a 2 hour search under floodlights
[3:58] yielded nothing. By the next morning, dozens of
[4:02] volunteers, many from Naomi's Mormon church, were out
[4:06] canvassing the area and handing out Flyers.
[4:09] They plastered missing person posters on street corners and
[4:13] trekked through the trails, desperate to find any clue of
[4:16] Naomi's whereabouts. Her father, Jose, scoured the
[4:20] area day and night on his own, methodically logging each place
[4:24] he searched as he refused to give up.
[4:27] Eventually, law enforcement also deployed canine units, drones,
[4:31] and helicopters to scour the 1500 acre nature preserve.
[4:37] Despite these massive efforts, nothing turned up.
[4:41] No discarded belongings, no signs of a struggle, and no
[4:45] witnesses who saw her leave the park.
[4:48] Naomi had vanished into thin air among the mangroves and marshes
[4:52] she loved. Investigators did turn up a
[4:56] couple of puzzling clues, though none led to a resolution.
[5:00] Hollywood police discovered that on the night of February 11th,
[5:04] Naomi's cell phone pinged a tower near the Hollywood Beach
[5:07] boardwalk around 11. This was roughly 3 miles South
[5:11] of the Nature Center. Officers rushed to that area,
[5:15] but they found no sign of Naomi, and shortly afterward, her phone
[5:19] either died or was switched off. In the weeks that followed,
[5:24] there was no activity on her bank account or social media,
[5:27] suggesting she never accessed money or contacted anyone online
[5:31] after she vanished. In a strange twist, about a
[5:35] month later, someone briefly powered on Naomi's phone and
[5:39] even initiated a group text chat with a few of her friends.
[5:43] However, the person who did this sent no messages and then shut
[5:47] the phone off again, never to turn it back on again.
[5:51] This bizarre event raised hopes that Naomi might still be alive,
[5:55] or at least that someone had her phone, but ultimately it
[5:59] revealed nothing. Some have suggested, including a
[6:04] private investigator hired by her family, that Naomi left on
[6:08] her own accord to start a new life.
[6:10] This idea gained significant traction because weeks passed
[6:14] with no evidence of kidnapping or any crime whatsoever.
[6:19] Notably, the National Missing Persons Database entry says that
[6:23] the authorities don't believe that foul play was involved in
[6:26] this case, but I'll be coming back to that shortly.
[6:30] The private investigator noted that Naomi had been grappling
[6:34] with serious inner conflicts regarding her faith.
[6:38] He speculated that these struggles might have driven her
[6:41] to escape the strict expectations of her church and
[6:44] family life. Indeed, the fact that police
[6:47] found no signs of foul play, no struggle, no suspect, no crime
[6:52] scene give some weight to the runaway theory.
[6:56] However, those who know Naomi strongly dispute this theory.
[7:00] She left home that day with no money, no credit cards, and not
[7:05] even an ID on her. Nothing one would take if
[7:08] planning to be gone long. Close friends insist she wasn't
[7:13] the type to suddenly run off without a word, and she never
[7:16] expressed any desire to leave home or cut ties.
[7:21] That said, if she had been doubting her Mormon faith and
[7:24] her involvement in that community, it seems unlikely to
[7:28] me that she would be expressing those ideas to true believers.
[7:33] There are a number of credible theories about what happened to
[7:35] Naomi. Naomi's loved ones have feared
[7:38] from the start that a predator might have crossed her path that
[7:41] day. The nature park and the nearby
[7:44] boardwalk were open to the public, so a stranger could have
[7:48] approached her even in daylight. Given Naomi's trusting nature,
[7:53] her social maturity was akin to that of a young teenager.
[7:56] According to her family, she might have been especially
[7:59] vulnerable to manipulation or deceit.
[8:03] Her family worries that she could have been taken against
[8:05] her will, perhaps even targeted by traffickers.
[8:10] However, investigators haven't uncovered any solid evidence to
[8:14] confirm an abduction and clearly doubt this theory, putting them
[8:18] at odds with the family. There were no eyewitnesses or
[8:22] reports of a disturbance at the park, and no clear clues on
[8:27] surveillance cameras aside from the bus video.
[8:30] Of course, it's possible an abductor lured Naomi away
[8:33] without anyone noticing. The late night ping of her phone
[8:37] by the beach is intriguing. Maybe someone drove her or at
[8:41] least moved her phone to that spot, but it ultimately revealed
[8:45] nothing concrete. Another theory is that Naomi's
[8:50] disappearance resulted from a tragic accident in the wild.
[8:54] The Ancold Nature Center is full of mangrove thickets and
[8:57] waterways, and it's possible she wandered off the trail and got
[9:01] into trouble out of sight. She might have slipped, fallen
[9:05] into water, or even encountered a dangerous animal, but this
[9:10] scenario seems less likely given what followed.
[9:14] The intensive searches with dogs, drones, and volunteers
[9:17] found no trace of Naomi within the park.
[9:20] Moreover, her phone's later location near the boardwalk
[9:24] suggests she did make it out of the preserve that evening, or at
[9:27] the very least, her phone did. Unless something or someone
[9:32] carried her phone there without her, it implies Naomi left the
[9:36] park area one way or another. While an accident can't be
[9:40] completely ruled out, most view it as unlikely due to the lack
[9:44] of evidence in the phone data pointing away from the
[9:47] wilderness. While it's completely
[9:50] speculative at this time, others suggest that she was a voluntary
[9:54] runaway according to this theory.
[9:58] She may have been questioning who she was attracted to, and
[10:01] this could have caused problems with her deeply religious
[10:04] family. According to this theory, Naomi
[10:08] didn't wipe her search history before her disappearance, and
[10:12] there were a whole bunch of questions about the status of
[10:14] gay people and Mormonism. There are numerous claims online
[10:18] that she was taken into an unofficial program designed for
[10:22] people who want to part ways with the Mormon church.
[10:25] That said, these claims are unsubstantiated and may not have
[10:29] any basis in reality. However, I find this highly
[10:33] unlikely given that there's an active name US database entry
[10:37] for her case. This database is run by the
[10:41] Department of Justice and is designed to be used by law
[10:43] enforcement to share information on missing people.
[10:47] Naomi was an adult when she went missing, and there's nothing
[10:51] stopping an adult from simply leaving.
[10:54] If she left voluntarily through such a group as has been
[10:57] speculated, I don't see why they wouldn't have simply reached out
[11:01] to the authorities to call off the search.
[11:05] Nearly five years later, Naomi Bolivar's fate is still unknown
[11:09] and her case remains an unsolved mystery.
[11:12] Hollywood police say they have never closed the investigation
[11:16] and still welcome any new tips as to her whereabouts.
[11:22] On a warm summer night in 2012 in the quiet town of Palmyra,
[11:27] PA, 21 year old Courtney Stouffer vanished from her
[11:32] apartment without a trace. Her green car was still parked
[11:35] outside with the windows down and inside her home were eerie
[11:39] signs of sudden absence. Her purse full with her cash and
[11:43] phone lay by the bed, her shoes and keys sat by the stairs, and
[11:48] even her dog was left behind. Everything of hers remained
[11:53] except Courtney herself. The night leading up to
[11:57] Courtney's disappearance was chaotic to say the least.
[12:01] It began around 9 on July 28th, 2012, when police arrived at the
[12:06] Palmyra apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Brad Herr,
[12:10] to break up a loud party. Officers found underage drinking
[12:15] and arrested Brad, who was under 21 and on house arrest,
[12:19] infuriating Courtney and causing tensions with her neighbors.
[12:24] She believed her neighbors, particularly 45 year old Todd
[12:28] Saxek, had tipped off authorities.
[12:31] Later that night, hoping to cool off, Courtney went out with
[12:35] friends. She met up with 29 year old Cody
[12:39] Pruitt and others at a bar in Hummelstown, then continued on
[12:42] to downtown Harrisburg. Around closing time, Courtney
[12:46] got into a heated argument with another patron's girlfriend at a
[12:49] club and was kicked out by security.
[12:53] After regrouping, this group of rowdy friends headed back to
[12:56] Palmyra. Cody, the designated driver,
[12:59] dropped everyone else off and then followed Courtney to her
[13:02] apartment around 3 to make sure she got home safely.
[13:07] Almost immediately upon returning home, Courtney became
[13:11] embroiled in another confrontation with her
[13:13] neighbors. Still angry about her
[13:15] boyfriend's arrest, she accused the downstairs couple and Todd
[13:19] of calling the cops on her. The shouting escalated enough
[13:23] that a neighbor called 911 at about 312, even claiming
[13:27] Courtney had kicked Todd during the fray.
[13:30] Police arrived by 3:15 and broke up the drunken shouting match,
[13:35] ordering everyone back inside. Courtney and Cody retreated to
[13:39] her apartment, but the piece was short lived.
[13:43] At 4:12 AM, Todd phoned police yet again to complain that
[13:47] Courtney was stomping and screaming in her apartment to
[13:50] antagonize him. Officers returned around 4:30 AM
[13:54] to find an oddly quiet scene. Todd met them outside, but when
[14:00] police knocked on Courtney's door, no one answered.
[14:04] The lights were off and nothing seemed to miss.
[14:06] They only heard her dog woofing it up briefly when they knocked.
[14:11] And yeah, you heard me. I said woofing it up.
[14:15] With no sign of trouble, the officers left at 4:36 that
[14:18] morning, unknowingly becoming the last people to potentially
[14:22] document any trace of this aggressive woman.
[14:26] That Sunday, July 29th, alarm bells rang when Courtney missed
[14:31] a planned meet up with her family and failed to answer her
[14:34] phone. By evening, her mother went to
[14:37] check on her. Courtney's car was out front and
[14:41] the apartment door was unlocked. Inside, all of Courtney's
[14:45] personal belongings, her cell phone, purse, money, keys, even
[14:51] the cigarettes she couldn't live without, were still.
[14:54] There were still Her dog was alone in the apartment,
[14:58] apparently abandoned there. There were no signs of any
[15:02] struggle or forced entry. Courtney herself was simply
[15:06] gone. Her family reported her missing
[15:10] to Palmyra police on July 30th. When she still hadn't turned up,
[15:15] law enforcement sprang into action.
[15:18] In the following days, search teams with canines combed
[15:21] through fields, backyards and woods around Palmyra.
[15:26] Despite exhaustive efforts, nothing concrete was found.
[15:30] Not a drop of blood or a single clue turned up.
[15:34] Meanwhile, Courtney's family and friends plastered the area with
[15:38] missing person Flyers and pleaded for any information, but
[15:42] no promising leads emerged. Notably, the FBI also got
[15:46] involved in the investigation early on, suspecting foul play
[15:50] was involved with scant evidence.
[15:55] Several theories have emerged about what might have happened
[15:58] in those murky pre dawn hours. One person in focus was Cody
[16:02] Pruitt, the friend who stayed over and was last to see her.
[16:07] Cody told police that when he woke around 7:00 AM and couldn't
[16:11] find Courtney, he assumed she had stepped out.
[16:14] He left, even texting her later that morning when she didn't
[16:17] reappear. Security camera footage
[16:20] confirmed Cody stopping at a convenience store around 7:30
[16:24] AM, Consistent with his account. Police questioned Cody and a
[16:29] friend named Milton Rodriguez, who had been with them earlier
[16:33] and searched their vehicles for any evidence.
[16:36] Cody cooperated fully, and he passed a polygraph and
[16:39] volunteered ADNA sample to investigators, Though there was
[16:43] nothing to test it against. Authorities eventually stated
[16:47] that neither he nor Milton were considered suspects in the case.
[16:52] Another theory centers on the neighbor feud.
[16:55] Many wonder if the bad blood between Courtney and her
[16:58] neighbors, especially Todd, could have turned lethal.
[17:01] After the police left, Courtney had complained to friends and
[17:05] family that Todd made her uncomfortable.
[17:08] About a week before she vanished, she told her mom that
[17:11] this neighbor had been videotaping her and acting
[17:13] creepy, making her genuinely scared.
[17:17] However, there's no proof that these allegations are true, and
[17:21] Courtney is documented as acting highly belligerently towards
[17:25] Todd as well as numerous other people.
[17:28] Further yet, some have speculated that even if Todd was
[17:31] videotaping her, he was documenting her conduct in hopes
[17:35] of getting her evicted. After Courtney disappeared, it
[17:39] emerged that Todd had left an angry voicemail for their
[17:42] landlord, threatening to take matters into his own hands if
[17:46] Courtney wasn't evicted. Police did search Todd's
[17:51] apartment and car about a week later, but found no physical
[17:54] evidence linking him to the disappearance.
[17:57] Todd cooperated and completely denied involvement and has never
[18:01] been named as a suspect in this case.
[18:06] Finally, some have proposed the possibility of a random foul
[18:10] play scenario, or that she may have made other enemies who have
[18:14] stayed off the radar. This theory is difficult to
[18:17] prove, and there's essentially no evidence to indicate that
[18:21] this was the case. More than a decade later,
[18:26] Courtney Stauffer's fate is still unknown, and her case
[18:29] remains a mystery. On December 13th, 1982, nineteen
[18:36] year old David These and his family were gathered in their
[18:39] Manhattan apartment to honor his father's birthday.
[18:43] David had been acting strangely all afternoon, nervously
[18:46] flipping through TV news channels as if he were searching
[18:49] for or frightened by something he saw.
[18:53] His mother, Karen, later recalled her son seemed
[18:56] petrified with an inexplicable fear.
[18:58] During this period, the festive mood in the apartment quickly
[19:02] turned uneasy, but no one imagined it would be the last
[19:06] time they'd see David. Around 4:00 that afternoon,
[19:11] David stepped out into the hallway for a quick smoke break,
[19:14] telling his family he'd be right back.
[19:17] He never returned. In a matter of minutes, an
[19:21] ordinary afternoon transformed into every parent's nightmare as
[19:25] David thieves vanished without a trace.
[19:29] When David failed to come back inside after puffing on his
[19:32] cancer kazoo, his mother knew immediately that something was
[19:35] wrong. It was completely unlike him to
[19:38] wander off, especially in the middle of preparing a birthday
[19:42] dinner for his father. In fact, earlier that day, David
[19:47] had gone out to buy a gift for his dad and had even planned to
[19:50] help make a salad for the celebratory meal.
[19:54] For him to simply disappear during what should have been a
[19:56] happy family occasion was baffling and alarming.
[20:02] Karen stepped into the hallway expecting to find David
[20:04] lingering, but he was gone. As minutes ticked by with no
[20:09] sign of her son, panic set in. The family searched their
[20:14] apartment building and then the surrounding block, calling
[20:17] David's name and asking neighbors if they'd seen the
[20:19] tall, lanky teenager. But no one had.
[20:24] Desperate, his parents contacted the police and a full scale
[20:27] search was launched. Officers and volunteers scoured
[20:31] Manhattan for any clue of David's whereabouts, checking
[20:34] hospitals, shelters, and even morgues.
[20:39] Despite these efforts, the initial search turned up
[20:42] nothing. No witnesses, no accident
[20:45] reports, and no hints of where David might have gone.
[20:49] The lack of any evidence or sightings in those crucial first
[20:53] hours was bewildering to authorities.
[20:58] Friends and family were at a loss to explain the sudden
[21:01] disappearance. David was legally an adult at
[21:04] 19, but he still lived at home and hadn't mentioned any plans
[21:08] to leave or travel. He had left behind everything in
[21:11] his room undisturbed. There was no farewell note and
[21:15] no indication that he intended to be away for long.
[21:18] In fact, because he had stepped out so casually, he hadn't even
[21:23] taken any belongings with him besides the clothes on his back.
[21:26] Manhattan in the early 1980s was quite dangerous, but the idea
[21:31] that a young man could go missing in broad daylight
[21:33] outside his own home was still terrifying.
[21:38] In the wake of David's disappearance, Karen reflected
[21:42] on her son's behavior leading up to that fateful evening.
[21:45] By all accounts, David had been going through a rough patch.
[21:48] In the weeks prior, he had battled episodes of depression
[21:52] and anxiety enough that psychiatric social workers who
[21:56] knew his case warned that David exhibited tendencies against
[22:01] himself. His mother acknowledged that 19
[22:04] year old David had been struggling with mental health
[22:07] issues and often seemed emotionally fragile.
[22:11] On the very day he vanished, his behavior had been particularly
[22:15] unusual. As mentioned, he was obsessively
[22:18] watching and switching between news channels on TV, appearing
[22:22] agitated and fearful of something he thought he saw or
[22:26] expected to see. While this does seem to point to
[22:29] a mental health trigger to his disappearance, investigators
[22:33] noted that there was no evidence that David took any actions
[22:36] against himself. Even more chilling was a
[22:41] revelation that came out a few months after the disappearance.
[22:45] In May 1983, Karen shared with a reporter that David had
[22:49] allegedly received threats in the period leading up to his
[22:52] disappearance. David didn't specify who made
[22:56] these threats or why, but this detail cast a new and
[22:59] frightening light on David's mindset.
[23:02] Karen, unfortunately, doesn't appear to have dug deep, or
[23:05] David wasn't willing to explain. But at any rate, the nature of
[23:10] these forces is unknown. If David truly believed someone
[23:15] wanted to harm him, it might explain his palpable fear that
[23:18] day. Karen even expressed A belief
[23:22] that her son may have been abducted by a religious cult
[23:24] against his will. While this belief may seem like
[23:28] a mother attempting to cope with the harsh reality of what
[23:31] actually happened to her son, there was evidence to suggest
[23:35] this was the case. Tips began flooding in, not from
[23:39] New York, but from California. In the months following David's
[23:44] disappearance, more than 40 people contacted New York Police
[23:48] claiming they had seen someone matching David's description out
[23:51] in California. The tips indicated that he was
[23:55] selling trinkets on street corners and that he was spotted
[23:59] in the company of a group that was described as cult like.
[24:03] Investigators followed up on these California sightings as
[24:06] best they could. They coordinated with California
[24:09] authorities, checked shelters and St.
[24:12] Hangouts, and tried to track down the mysterious cult rumors.
[24:17] Unfortunately, none of these leads were ever substantiated,
[24:21] and the case once again went cold and years passed with no
[24:25] solid information. Then around 1985, roughly 3
[24:32] years after David's disappearance, a new glimmer of
[24:35] hope emerged. Several tips came in claiming
[24:38] that David, or someone who resembled him was back in New
[24:42] York City, possibly staying in a Manhattan homeless shelter.
[24:47] The cops canvassed the shelters, but ultimately were unable to
[24:51] find this man who allegedly matched David's description.
[24:57] The question of what happened to David has led to substantial
[25:00] speculation over the years, and several theories have been
[25:03] debated by investigators and armchair sleuths alike. 1 theory
[25:08] is that David ran away intentionally.
[25:10] This idea is bolstered by his known emotional troubles.
[25:14] It's conceivable that David chose to flee to escape his
[25:17] problems, whether those were internal or external.
[25:23] Some have speculated that his belief that there were threats
[25:25] against him may have simply been a manifestation of his worsening
[25:30] mental state. If he fled of his own accord,
[25:34] the sightings in California and later in New York might actually
[25:38] have been him living off the grid.
[25:41] People who subscribe to this theory think David could have
[25:44] assumed A transient lifestyle to hide from whatever demons were
[25:48] chasing him, whether they were real or imagined.
[25:52] Perhaps he hitchhiked across the country, dropped his former
[25:55] identity, and survived by panhandling or doing odd jobs.
[26:01] The fact that none of the sightings were confirmed means
[26:04] we can't know for sure if they were real or mistaken.
[26:07] That said, they leave the door open that David might have left
[26:10] to start a new life or simply to get away.
[26:14] If he believed that there were people threatening him, he may
[26:18] have believed he was actually saving his family by dropping
[26:21] off the radar like he did. If this scenario is accurate,
[26:25] David might still be out there today.
[26:29] Another prominent theory centers on the idea of cult involvement
[26:32] or abduction. The notion that David fell prey
[26:36] to a cult has been fueled by multiple pieces of
[26:39] circumstantial evidence. First, the numerous tips about
[26:42] seeing him with a cult group in California suggests that at
[26:46] least some people thought he was in the orbit of a religious or
[26:49] fringe group. Second, David's own mother
[26:52] voiced her belief that a cult could have been responsible,
[26:56] going so far as to suspect he was abducted into such a group
[27:00] against his will. If David had encountered a cult
[27:03] in New York, it's possible he got entangled and was either
[27:07] brainwashed or coerced to leave his old life.
[27:12] Cults have targeted vulnerable young people since the dawn of
[27:15] time, and David being depressed and anxious definitely fit the
[27:18] bill. 1/3 possibility that must be considered.
[27:23] Is foul play unrelated to a cult?
[27:26] Essentially, the David met with some kind of crime or accident
[27:29] after stepping out. New York City in 1982 had its
[27:33] share of crime, to say the least, and it's conceivable that
[27:37] David could have stepped outside at the wrong moment.
[27:41] Perhaps he witnessed something he shouldn't have, or crossed
[27:44] paths with a dangerous person on the street.
[27:48] The fact that he was never heard from again could imply that
[27:50] someone harmed him that very day and concealed his body.
[27:55] However, as of now, no forensic evidence has tied any John Doe
[27:59] to David, and there's no evidence that he met with foul
[28:03] play regardless. Finally, some have wondered if
[28:08] David experienced some form of psychological break or amnesia
[28:12] that caused him to lose touch with who he was.
[28:16] In this scenario, David might not have intended to disappear
[28:20] but became disoriented due to a mental health crisis.
[28:25] He could have wandered away in a dissociative state and not known
[28:28] how to get home or who to call. If his memory or sense of self
[28:32] was impaired, he may have ended up living homeless under a
[28:36] different name, not realizing a whole city and family were
[28:39] searching for him. This is speculative, but cases
[28:44] of dissociative fugue have been documented and some people
[28:48] actually find that they enjoy their new fugue life more.
[28:52] Given that David was suffering from depression in his regular
[28:55] life, it could be that he decided to just continue on with
[28:59] living his new life. Over 40 years later, the
[29:05] disappearance of David Thies remains an open and agonizing
[29:09] mystery. As of today, David Thies would
[29:13] be in his early 60s, a far cry from the teenager who
[29:16] disappeared in 1982. It was a late October night in
[29:23] 2021 when 37 year old Melissa Trumpy walked out of her
[29:28] workplace in Monroe, WI and into the chilly darkness, never to
[29:33] return. Her disappearance quickly became
[29:36] a haunting mystery involving 2 states, a troubled romance, and
[29:40] a community desperately seeking answers.
[29:45] Melissa's life in the months before she went missing was
[29:47] tumultuous. She had started dating 35 year
[29:51] old Derek Hammer in 2019, and friends say the relationship was
[29:55] toxic from the start. Hammer had a history of violence
[29:58] and crime, and he'd even served prison time in Nevada for the
[30:02] assault of a former girlfriend. Once he came into Melissa's
[30:07] life, family noticed negative changes.
[30:11] Melissa, who had no criminal record before, became entangled
[30:15] in Hammer's alleged substance activities.
[30:18] Hammer's influence was so consuming that Melissa's eldest
[30:22] daughter ended up taking on the role of caregiver for her
[30:25] younger siblings. In a frightening September 2021
[30:29] incident, Melissa's kids witnessed Hammer pointing a
[30:32] weapon at her during an argument.
[30:35] Police were alerted and Hammer was arrested and charged, while
[30:39] Melissa herself was briefly arrested for minor substance
[30:43] related charges. A court then ordered Hammer to
[30:46] have no contact with Melissa as the legal case against him moved
[30:50] forward. Melissa was reportedly
[30:53] cooperating with police as a witness against her boyfriend in
[30:56] his pending cases, and everything seemed to be coming
[30:59] to a head as October 2021 arrived.
[31:05] On October 26th, 2021, Melissa worked her evening shift and
[31:10] left around 10:30 PM with plans to see Derek Hammer.
[31:14] Despite the no contact order, she headed towards Shannon,
[31:18] Illinois, a tiny town across the state line where Hammer was
[31:22] staying at his mother's home. Multiple witnesses later
[31:26] confirmed that Melissa did make it to Shannon and was with
[31:29] Hammer at a residence there that night.
[31:33] That evening was the last time anyone saw her.
[31:36] When she failed to show up for work the next morning and
[31:39] couldn't be reached, her family knew something was wrong.
[31:43] The following day, October 27th, a disturbing discovery confirmed
[31:48] their worst fears. Melissa's vehicle was found
[31:51] abandoned on a remote rural Rd. near Freeport, IL.
[31:56] Her cell phone and purse were still inside the car, but there
[31:59] was no sign of Melissa herself. This evidence suggested that
[32:04] Melissa hadn't simply wandered off on her own.
[32:06] It looked more like she had been forcibly taken.
[32:10] Authorities from Illinois and Wisconsin immediately began
[32:13] searching the area with dogs and volunteers, scouring ditches,
[32:18] fields, and wooded patches for any trace of the missing mother.
[32:22] Despite the extensive searches, no sign of Melissa Trumpy was
[32:26] found. With Melissa Trumpy's
[32:31] disappearance looking increasingly suspicious, law
[32:34] enforcement agencies treated the case with urgency.
[32:38] The Carroll County Sheriff's Office in Illinois and Greene
[32:41] County Sheriff's Office in Wisconsin joined forces since
[32:46] Melissa's last known movement straddled the state border.
[32:50] Very quickly, Derek Hammer became the focus of the
[32:53] investigation. Even though police initially
[32:56] stopped short of naming him a suspect publicly, he was the
[33:00] last person known to have seen Melissa alive and had a clear
[33:04] motive to harm her since she was poised to testify against him.
[33:09] Sensing the danger, authorities took Hammer into custody almost
[33:13] immediately after Melissa went missing.
[33:16] Apparently, he had warrants outstanding on unrelated
[33:19] charges. Despite the fact that he was set
[33:21] to go to trial in October, this move ensured Hammer remained
[33:25] behind bars while investigators work the missing person case.
[33:31] To this day, Hammer has not been charged in connection with
[33:34] Melissa's case, but investigators in Illinois
[33:38] confirm they're treating her disappearance as a slaying.
[33:43] Despite extensive questioning, Hammer refused to cooperate or
[33:47] provide any helpful information about Melissa's whereabouts.
[33:51] Meanwhile, investigators executed more than 40 search
[33:54] warrants and subpoenas, analyzed cell phone data, and followed up
[33:58] on leads in both states. Over time, the evidence, or lack
[34:03] thereof, pointed toward a grim conclusion, and investigators
[34:08] concluded that Melissa was almost certainly not alive.
[34:14] The primary theory in Melissa Trumpy's disappearance is that
[34:17] she was slain by Derek Hammer on the night of October 26th, 2021.
[34:23] It's been theorized that this was possibly to prevent her from
[34:27] testifying against him or leaving him.
[34:31] This theory is supported by his known history of violence and
[34:35] the fact that there was nothing to indicate that Melissa was
[34:37] intending to leave on her own. As of now, however,
[34:42] investigators have not recovered a body or enough hard evidence
[34:45] to charge anyone, which leaves the case unsolved.
[34:51] Another idea is that someone else entirely was involved,
[34:55] perhaps connected to the couple's illicit activities, but
[34:58] no evidence has emerged to support that.
[35:03] Nearly four years have passed since Melissa Trumpy
[35:06] disappeared, and her family is still waiting foreclosure.
[35:10] In 2023, Derek Hammer was convicted on a number of
[35:14] unrelated charges and sentenced to five years in prison.
[35:19] During his sentencing hearing, the missing persons case loomed
[35:22] large. A prosecutor acknowledged in
[35:25] court that there is strong evidence Melissa is no longer
[35:28] alive, and Melissa's family gave emotional statements emphasizing
[35:33] the pain Hammer had caused. Yet even as Hammer serves time
[35:38] for his other crimes, no one has been held accountable for
[35:42] Melissa's disappearance. Tokyo's Kabukicho district never
[35:50] truly sleeps, but in the neon lit early hours of September
[35:55] 1st, 2001, a sudden explosion jolted this area into chaos.
[36:01] Within minutes, a narrow multi story building was transformed
[36:05] into an inferno, trapping dozens of late night workers and
[36:08] patrons inside. By the time firefighters
[36:12] extinguished the blaze five hours later, 44 people were
[36:16] dead. One of the worst fire disasters
[36:19] in Japan's modern history. Yet this horrific incident, now
[36:24] known as the Miojo 56 building fire, is barely remembered
[36:28] globally given the events that would over shadow it just ten
[36:32] days later. Till this day, the authorities
[36:36] believe that this event was an act of arson by a single man who
[36:41] has never been brought to justice.
[36:45] In the heart of Kabukicho, Tokyo's notorious entertainment
[36:48] and red light district, stood the Miyojo 56 Building, a narrow
[36:52] 4 story structure packed with late night businesses.
[36:56] Around 1:00 AM on September 1st, 2001, an explosion rocked the
[37:01] building and ignited A fierce fire that tore through its upper
[37:04] floors. The third floor housed the Iqiu
[37:08] Mahjong Parlor, an illegal high stakes gambling den often
[37:13] frequented by off duty workers and gangsters.
[37:17] The 4th floor was home to a provocatively named club called
[37:20] the Super Loose Hostess Bar. Both floors were crowded with
[37:24] patrons and staff at that late hour.
[37:27] According to witnesses, a fireball ripped through the
[37:30] mahjong parlor when a staff member opened the door,
[37:34] suggesting a sudden backdraft or blast of flames.
[37:39] The explosion even punched a small hole in the building's
[37:41] front facade, and within moments, thick smoke and fire
[37:45] engulfed the top levels of the cramped building.
[37:49] Panic ensued inside as people realized they were trapped.
[37:53] The building had only 1 narrow staircase and no alternate
[37:56] emergency exit, a disastrous scenario.
[37:59] Once fire broke out, some desperate victims fled upward to
[38:03] the roof, hoping for rescue. Others made the split second
[38:10] decision to jump from the third floor windows to escape the
[38:13] searing heat and smoke. Three employees actually leapt
[38:17] out and miraculously survived, though they suffered serious
[38:20] injuries. On the streets below, shattered
[38:24] glass rained down on fire engines and ambulances as first
[38:28] responders arrived to a scene of mayhem.
[38:31] Bystanders watched in horror and confusion, and some even tried
[38:36] to run back inside to save friends, shouting that people
[38:40] were still trapped upstairs amid the flames.
[38:43] Firefighters battled the blaze into the early morning hours,
[38:47] and it took five hours to fully extinguish the fire.
[38:51] When the smoke finally cleared in the early morning, the toll
[38:54] was devastating. A total of 44 people lost their
[38:58] lives inside the Myojo 56 building.
[39:02] Many of the victims were found on the 3rd and 4th floors,
[39:05] overcome by fumes before they could escape.
[39:11] In the immediate aftermath, Tokyo's emergency teams and
[39:14] police swarmed the site to recover bodies and aid any
[39:17] survivors. Most of the 44 victims had
[39:20] succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning from the thick smoke
[39:24] rather than burns. Investigators quickly saw that
[39:28] the building itself played a massive role, with numerous fire
[39:32] code violations coming to light. The stairwell, the only path of
[39:37] escape, was cluttered with storage items and blocked off,
[39:42] hindering evacuation. Automatic fire doors that should
[39:46] have contained smoke and flames were propped open or disabled,
[39:50] allowing poisonous gases to rapidly fill the upper floors.
[39:55] An official investigation later concluded that if those fire
[39:58] doors had closed properly, it would have delayed the spread of
[40:02] deadly smoke by at least 20 minutes.
[40:06] As the city reeled from the disaster, attention turned to
[40:10] accountability. In the weeks following the fire,
[40:13] Japanese media scrutinized the building's owners and
[40:16] management. It soon emerged that the
[40:19] property owner, the Miojo Kosan Group, and the tenant businesses
[40:24] had repeatedly violated fire safety laws.
[40:27] Over the next year, police gathered evidence to charge
[40:31] those responsible for the hazardous conditions.
[40:35] Finally, in February 2003, Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested six
[40:41] individuals connected to the building on charges of
[40:44] negligence resulting in death. Those arrested included two
[40:48] Miojo Kosan executives, essentially the landlords, as
[40:53] well as the operators of the mahjong parlor and the Hostess
[40:57] bar. Prosecutors argued that their
[41:00] failure to maintain proper fire exits and safety equipment
[41:03] directly contributed to the 44 deaths.
[41:09] Legal proceedings dragged on for years, but by July 2008, a
[41:13] verdict was reached. Five of the six defendants were
[41:17] convicted of negligence for the Kibukicho fire, receiving
[41:21] suspended prison sentences, meaning they avoided actual jail
[41:25] time. The 6th person was completely
[41:28] acquitted, which is much more rare under the Japanese system
[41:32] than it is under our common law system.
[41:36] While the courts address the safety lapses, the question of
[41:40] what actually caused the fire continued to hang in the air.
[41:44] Notably, the trial for the fire was simply for the negligent
[41:47] conditions in which the building and premises were kept.
[41:52] Initial reports on what actually caused the fire were
[41:55] inconclusive, and in the immediate aftermath,
[41:59] investigators refused to speculate publicly.
[42:03] Interestingly, early evidence pointed in different directions.
[42:07] For example, a broken gas pipe was reportedly found at the
[42:11] scene, raising the possibility of a gas leak explosion.
[42:15] Indeed, in the first days, some investigators thought a gas
[42:18] explosion might have been to blame, though further analysis
[42:22] ruled that out as the sole cause.
[42:25] By late 2001 and into 2002, authorities were hesitant to
[42:31] declare the blaze an intentional crime without solid proof.
[42:35] Instead, the public narrative focused on the egregious
[42:39] negligence of the building's owners.
[42:42] For a time, officials even suggested that arson was likely
[42:46] not the cause, implying the disaster could have been a
[42:49] tragic accident compounded by unsafe conditions.
[42:53] However, as the investigation progressed, suspicions of arson
[42:58] grew stronger. Rumors swirled almost
[43:01] immediately in Kabukicho's bar rooms and back alleys that the
[43:04] fire had a sinister origin. It didn't escape notice that the
[43:08] blaze started in an illegal gambling parlor, and that
[43:12] organized crime groups were deeply entwined in the local
[43:15] nightlife scene. Police eventually came around to
[43:18] this view as well. In 2008, nearly seven years
[43:23] after the fire, Tokyo Metropolitan Police made a
[43:26] striking announcement. They had concluded the fire was
[43:30] most likely an act of arson after all, despite their earlier
[43:34] statements to the contrary. This reversal of the official
[43:37] stance came literally a day after the negligence trial
[43:41] ended. This suggests that once the
[43:44] criminal responsibility of the owners had been legally settled,
[43:48] investigators felt freer to acknowledge the possibility of
[43:51] foul play. The case of the Miojo 56 fire
[43:56] thus shifted from a mere safety tragedy to a full blown unsolved
[44:00] arson case. Yet identifying A culprit proved
[44:05] elusive. No arsonist has ever been
[44:08] arrested or charged, and the case remains unsolved to this
[44:11] day. Police did have at least one
[44:14] interesting lead. Eyewitnesses reported a
[44:17] suspicious man fleeing the scene around the time the fire
[44:20] started. This man was seen emerging from
[44:23] the building's front door amid the chaos, and he appeared to be
[44:27] injured as he vanished into the night.
[44:30] Investigators believe this unidentified injured individual
[44:34] might have been the one who set the blaze, perhaps getting hurt
[44:38] in the process. In fact, he was treated as the
[44:42] prime suspect once arson was suspected, but authorities were
[44:46] never able to track him down. That said, personally I have to
[44:52] question whether he was someone who simply didn't want it known
[44:55] that he was hanging out in the area.
[44:58] After all, this was a high stakes gambling parlor with a
[45:02] House of ill repute located right above it that was known to
[45:05] be frequented by wealthy businessmen.
[45:10] Given the context, many in Japan suspect that the fire wasn't a
[45:14] random act, but rather tied to the underworld conflicts of
[45:17] Kabukicho. The illegal mahjong parlor where
[45:21] the fire ignited was reportedly earning the equivalent to 10s of
[45:24] thousands of dollars a day in illicit profit.
[45:28] Such operations typically require paying protection money
[45:31] to local yakuza groups in order to operate in peace.
[45:36] If payments aren't made, retaliation can follow.
[45:40] It's known that at least one business in the Miojo 56
[45:43] building had refused to pay extortion fees to certain crime
[45:46] syndicates, causing trouble with gangsters in the months before
[45:50] the fire. This has led to a theory that
[45:53] the blaze may have been a brutal message, an act of arson as
[45:57] retribution or intimidation by an angry gang.
[46:03] Some have pointed fingers specifically at rival factions
[46:06] jockeying for control in Kibuki Cho.
[46:09] Around that time, Chinese gangs were also muscling into the
[46:12] district, sometimes clashing with the established Japanese
[46:16] yakuza groups. It's possible the gambling den
[46:19] got caught in a squeeze between competing criminal interests.
[46:24] In one interview, an alleged Chinese gang leader acknowledged
[46:28] knowing the building and admitted there were disputes
[46:31] over it between the Chinese and Japanese organized crime
[46:35] figures. However, he was clear that while
[46:38] it wouldn't have been unusual to torch the building, neither his
[46:41] group or his Japanese rivals would have committed such an
[46:45] act. His reasoning was simple.
[46:48] They're in the game to make money, not to burn down
[46:51] buildings full of people who are ultimately paying money to the
[46:54] criminals. And this makes sense.
[46:57] After all, a large fire would also bring intense police heat
[47:01] on the whole district, which is bad for business.
[47:05] Given the connection to gang activity, it's been speculated
[47:09] that the individual seen fleeing the scene may have been a rogue
[47:12] enforcer. When it was found out what he
[47:15] had done, it speculated that he may have been handled by his own
[47:19] people to prevent the whole organization from being torn
[47:23] apart. Over 2 decades later, the Miyojo
[47:28] 56 fire stands as a haunting mystery in Japan that isn't well
[47:32] known in the outside world. My own personal hypothesis is
[47:38] that the man seen fleeing the scene was indeed affiliated with
[47:41] one of the criminal groups fighting for control of the
[47:43] building. I suspect he may have went there
[47:46] to try to intimidate the business owners into complying
[47:49] with higher protection fees. To do so, he may have lit a
[47:54] small fire, not realizing that there was a broken gas pipe in
[47:58] the poorly maintained building. From there, I suspect he may
[48:02] have been silenced by his own people or that he simply
[48:06] disappeared, pretending to be a victim of the blaze.
[48:13] Judge John Fairbanks was a pillar of the small town of
[48:15] Newport, NH. A lifelong resident of the area,
[48:20] Fairbanks had served on the Newport District Court bench for
[48:23] over 30 years. He also ran a successful private
[48:27] law practice specializing in handling wills, estates and
[48:31] trust funds for local families. To neighbors and colleagues, he
[48:35] was known as honest and helpful, often assisting widows and
[48:40] overseeing the finances of those who trusted him implicitly.
[48:44] Beneath that respected image, however, Fairbanks was hiding a
[48:48] devastating secret. For years, he had been siphoning
[48:52] money from the very clients who relied on his integrity.
[48:56] So gather around while I tell you the twisted tale of Justice
[48:59] Fairbanks, a local judge who broke bad and left behind more
[49:03] questions than answers. In August 1987, one of
[49:10] Fairbanks's longtime clients, Patricia Sawyer, entrusted him
[49:14] with her stock certificates as part of updating her will.
[49:18] She'd been relying on Fairbanks for financial advice since her
[49:21] husband's death decades earlier. But after the stock market crash
[49:25] on October 19th, 1987, the infamous Black Monday Patricia
[49:32] noticed something alarming her regular dividend checks stopped
[49:36] arriving. When she pressed Fairbanks for
[49:39] answers, he brushed her off with a convoluted explanation.
[49:44] He claimed the crash had hurt the value of her stocks and said
[49:47] he was withholding her dividend checks to prevent further
[49:50] losses, an excuse that did little for her growing concern.
[49:55] Around the same time, another client began to question
[49:58] Fairbanks's handling of funds. John Tweedy, who had made Judge
[50:03] Fairbanks the legal guardian of his Mentally Incapable Brothers
[50:07] Trust, met with the judge in late 1988 and felt something was
[50:12] deeply wrong. Fairbanks evaded Tweedy's
[50:15] questions about the status of the trust accounts, raising red
[50:19] flags. Determined to get answers,
[50:22] Tweedy launched his own inquiry into the records.
[50:25] What he found was disturbing stock sales that didn't add up
[50:30] and dividend payments that were far lower than they should have
[50:32] been. In total, at least $20,000 was
[50:37] unaccounted for in his brother's fund.
[50:40] Armed with evidence of apparent theft, Tweedy went to the police
[50:44] and reported Judge Fairbanks in early 1989.
[50:48] Law enforcement investigators soon discovered that these were
[50:51] not isolated incidents. As they dug into Fairbanks's
[50:55] finances, they were astonished at what they found.
[50:59] Despite the judge earning A substantial sum of money, they
[51:03] found that he was living far beyond his means in a way that
[51:06] was completely incomprehensible. To give just one example, it
[51:11] turned out Fairbanks owned numerous lavish houses.
[51:15] This lifestyle only made sense if he had an income well above
[51:18] his judicial appointment and the income he derived from his small
[51:22] part time law practice. However, even then he had his
[51:26] defenders, with many believing he was simply a brilliant
[51:29] investor or that perhaps he had more family money than he had
[51:33] let on. But then things started to get
[51:36] even more suspicious, and he began to take actions which
[51:40] would alarm even his supporters. In June 1989, under growing
[51:47] scrutiny, the 66 year old Fairbanks abruptly resigned his
[51:51] judgeship after more than three decades on the bench.
[51:55] He retreated to his summer house in Maine while authorities
[51:58] expanded their investigation into his client accounts.
[52:02] Once John Tweedy's accusations became public, the floodgates
[52:06] opened. Other clients of Fairbanks came
[52:09] forward with their own tales of missing money.
[52:12] Patricia Sawyer herself discovered that Fairbanks had
[52:15] been moving her assets without permission.
[52:18] By the time she confronted the truth, Patricia had lost an
[52:22] estimated $500,000 of her investments to Fairbanks's
[52:26] dealings. Case by case, the pattern became
[52:30] clear. Judge Fairbanks had been
[52:32] systematically draining the accounts of the people who
[52:35] trusted him. The judge had specialized in
[52:38] quote UN quote helping widows and disabled people, a fact
[52:42] which he was lauded for. However, in retrospect, this
[52:46] almost certainly meant that this financial predator likely saw
[52:50] these people as vulnerable prey to take advantage of.
[52:54] By late 1989, investigators concluded that Fairbanks is
[52:59] embezzlement was staggering in scope.
[53:02] For perhaps 20 years, he had been stealing his client's funds
[53:06] to enrich himself. Early estimates put the theft at
[53:09] about $1.8 million over a six year period, but as more victims
[53:15] emerged, authorities feared the true total was far higher.
[53:19] Some investigators believed he had stolen upwards of $10
[53:22] million through dozens of fraudulent transactions over 2
[53:26] decades. Since the thefts occurred over
[53:29] the course of 20 years, it's impossible to say what the
[53:33] inflation adjusted value of this was.
[53:36] However, even if we assume every cent was stolen in 1989, which
[53:41] it wasn't, this amount is still $25 million adjusted for
[53:46] inflation. The respected local judge had,
[53:49] in essence, robbed his community on a massive scale.
[53:55] In the fall of 1989, the New Hampshire Attorney General's
[53:59] office prepared to bring Fairbanks to justice.
[54:02] Investigators even spoke with the former judge at his main
[54:05] retreat as they built the case, and Fairbanks tentatively agreed
[54:09] to come in for a formal meeting with prosecutors.
[54:12] But when the day came, he never showed up.
[54:16] Sensing that Fairbanks might try to run, authorities moved
[54:20] quickly to finalize charges. On December 28th, 1989, a
[54:26] Sullivan County grand jury indicted John C Fairbanks on 4
[54:29] counts of theft. The indictments detailed more
[54:33] than 100 instances in which Fairbanks had written checks
[54:36] transferring money from his client's accounts into his own.
[54:40] A warrant was immediately issued for the ex judge's arrest.
[54:44] By the time police arrived to serve the warrant, John
[54:47] Fairbanks had already vanished. Within 24 hours of the
[54:51] indictment, he staged his disappearance.
[54:55] On December 29th, 1989, Fairbanks's pickup truck was
[54:59] found abandoned near his main home with no sign of him at the
[55:03] scene. The 66 year old judge had
[55:06] seemingly disappeared into thin air overnight alongside all of
[55:11] his ill gotten gains. The sudden disappearance stunned
[55:15] both law enforcement and the community.
[55:18] Newport residents, already reeling from the revelations of
[55:22] Fairbanks's crimes, now had to absorb the shock that their
[55:25] former judge was officially a fugitive from justice.
[55:32] Fairbanks's flight from justice set off a massive investigation
[55:36] spanning multiple States and eventually multiple countries.
[55:41] New Hampshire authorities enlisted the help of federal
[55:43] agents as they chased leads on the missing judge.
[55:47] Early on, there were few solid clues.
[55:50] The case went cold for a time, a major set back for investigators
[55:55] who had worked for two years to build the fraud case, only to
[55:59] have the suspect slip through their fingers to generate new
[56:03] leads. Law enforcement turned to the
[56:05] public and leverage the audience of some of the most popular TV
[56:09] shows of the time. In 1991, Unsolved Mysteries
[56:14] featured the case re enacting the judge's disappearance and
[56:18] asking viewers for tips. The following year, America's
[56:22] Most Wanted also spotlighted Fairbanks.
[56:26] These broadcasts yielded a flurry of calls and sightings,
[56:29] but none led to Fairbanks's capture.
[56:33] Privately, investigators suspected that Fairbanks had
[56:37] fled far beyond New England. With his knowledge of the legal
[56:40] system and access to untold amounts of wealth, he could have
[56:44] established a new identity with relative ease.
[56:48] One theory was that he might have crossed the nearby Canadian
[56:51] border soon after ditching his truck in Maine.
[56:54] However, if that was true, he managed to cover his tracks
[56:57] effectively for years. Every promising lead turned into
[57:02] another dead end. The search for the once
[57:05] respected judge became one of New Hampshire's most frustrating
[57:08] fugitive cases, and locals began to question if he would ever be
[57:12] brought to justice. But the disgraced judge couldn't
[57:16] run forever, and this question was finally answered in the
[57:19] spring of 1994. In late March of that year, Las
[57:26] Vegas police received a call from the sprawling MGM Grand
[57:29] Hotel regarding a guest who hadn't checked out.
[57:33] The guest had checked in under an assumed name a few days
[57:36] earlier and paid for two nights, but hadn't vacated the room or
[57:41] responded to staff. On the evening of March 27th,
[57:45] 1994, hotel security entered the locked room and made a grim
[57:51] discovery. The man inside was dead and a
[57:55] note was taped to the bathroom mirror.
[57:58] It didn't take long for authorities to confirm the man's
[58:01] identity. It was John Fairbanks ending his
[58:05] four year run as a fugitive in a hotel room on the other side of
[58:08] the country. He was 70 years old.
[58:12] Fairbanks had checked into The MGM Grand on March 24th under
[58:16] the alias Richard Mansfield, a false identity he'd been using
[58:21] while on the run. The coroner ruled that he did it
[58:24] by himself, using asphyxiation, bringing the international
[58:28] manhunt to an abrupt end. With Fairbanks's death,
[58:33] investigators began to piece together how he had evaded
[58:36] capture for so long. It turned out Fairbanks had fled
[58:40] to Canada as suspected, and the details of his time on the Lam
[58:44] were intriguing. For much of his time on the run,
[58:50] he had been living in Quebec City in French speaking Canada
[58:54] under the Mansfield alias. Posing as a retired history
[58:58] professor from Ottawa, he rented luxury condominium apartments
[59:02] and blended into the community. There, he paid cash for
[59:06] everything and lived quietly, avoiding any behavior that might
[59:10] attract attention. What finally drove Fairbanks to
[59:13] surface in Las Vegas remains a matter of speculation.
[59:18] In the days after his death, the New Hampshire attorney general's
[59:22] office revealed A crucial detail.
[59:25] Fairbanks may have panicked after spotting someone familiar
[59:28] in the casino. Las Vegas was hosting a law
[59:31] enforcement conference that weekend, and among the attendees
[59:35] was one of the very investigators who had pursued
[59:37] Fairbanks's case back in New Hampshire.
[59:41] Authorities believe that Fairbanks, while walking through
[59:44] the bustling MGM Grand casino, saw the investigator a face he
[59:49] recognized and thought the net was closing in.
[59:53] And it's important to remember here that the judge knew many of
[59:56] these investigators on a personal, even friendly level
[1:00:01] prior to becoming a fugitive. Rather than risk arrest and
[1:00:05] public humiliation, the judge retreated to his room and made
[1:00:09] his final decision. Interestingly, of course, the
[1:00:13] investigator wasn't there on account of the judge at all.
[1:00:17] It had all been a coincidence. Why the judge was visiting Vegas
[1:00:21] in the 1st place also remains an unsolved mystery.
[1:00:25] Many have questioned why a well known fugitive who was living
[1:00:28] and hiding in Canada would have risked crossing the border at
[1:00:32] all. Even after Fairbanks himself was
[1:00:37] found, one enormous mystery remained unsolved.
[1:00:41] Where did all the money go? Investigators had traced roughly
[1:00:45] $1.8 million in thefts to the former judge and suspected the
[1:00:50] true total could be several times that.
[1:00:53] Despite this, virtually none of the missing money was ever
[1:00:55] recovered. For Fairbanks as many victims,
[1:00:59] this was a cruel final twist. Elderly clients who had expected
[1:01:04] a secure retirement had little hope of regaining their lost
[1:01:08] savings. But what was perhaps even more
[1:01:11] sick is that many of his clients were disabled people who had
[1:01:15] that money held in trust for their care and well-being.
[1:01:19] In essence, this trusted judge stole what comfort these
[1:01:22] severely disabled individuals could have expected in their
[1:01:25] lives. In what I can only describe as a
[1:01:28] disturbed act of a twisted mind. Many have speculated he may have
[1:01:33] taken out margin loans against the stolen money to invest
[1:01:36] further in the stock market. When the market crashed in 1987,
[1:01:41] any of his clients funds that he had gambled on the market would
[1:01:45] have lost significant value and he may have been subject to a
[1:01:49] margin call. This is when borrowed
[1:01:53] investments lose value and the broker requires extra cash to
[1:01:57] meet their requirements. Otherwise, the stocks will be
[1:02:00] sold at a massive loss. To cover those losses, he may
[1:02:05] have stolen even more in a spiral that eventually collapsed
[1:02:08] under its own weight. In the end, investigators leaned
[1:02:12] toward a simple, if frustrating, theory.
[1:02:15] Fairbanks spent most of the money, and what he didn't spend
[1:02:19] he lost using the stock market as a personal casino.
[1:02:25] Others speculate that Fairbanks's knowledge of estate
[1:02:28] planning and trusts could have enabled him to siphon client
[1:02:31] funds into a labyrinth of offshore entities.
[1:02:35] By establishing shell companies and jurisdictions with strict
[1:02:38] banking secrecy laws, say the Cayman Islands or Panama, he
[1:02:44] could have hidden assets beyond the reach of US investigators.
[1:02:48] Setting up multi layered corporate structures would have
[1:02:51] disguised the true owner of the accounts, making it exceedingly
[1:02:55] difficult for authorities to trace or repatriate any money.
[1:02:59] Given the era's limited cross-border cooperation,
[1:03:02] substantial sums might still lie undiscovered in such accounts.
[1:03:08] Still others believe that he had a significant gambling problem,
[1:03:12] which may explain why he risked the trip to Vegas despite being
[1:03:15] a wanted fugitive over many years.
[1:03:18] He may have been withdrawing from his clients accounts to
[1:03:21] fund his gambling addiction and then continued to withdraw more,
[1:03:25] believing he could cover these losses.
[1:03:28] When new money stopped flowing in due to the 1987 market crash,
[1:03:33] his entire scheme may have collapsed.
[1:03:36] Whatever the truth is, the whereabouts of the money stolen
[1:03:39] by Judge John Fairbanks will likely remain an unsolved
[1:03:44] mystery. The air inside Pete Maxwell's
[1:03:47] ranch house was thick and still. Just after midnight on July
[1:03:51] 14th, 1881, Outside in the oppressive New Mexico heat,
[1:03:57] Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett and his two deputies,
[1:04:01] John Poe and Thomas McKinney, waited in the shadows.
[1:04:05] Garrett slipped inside, leaving his men on the porch and moved
[1:04:10] through the darkness to Maxwell's bedroom.
[1:04:13] As he began to question Maxwell about the whereabouts of a
[1:04:16] certain high profile fugitive, a figure appeared in the doorway,
[1:04:22] barefoot and carrying a butcher knife.
[1:04:24] The man hadn't come to attack, he just wanted a slice of that
[1:04:28] sweet late night beef. He spotted the deputies outside,
[1:04:33] pulled out his revolver and recoiled into the dark room,
[1:04:36] calling out for the men to identify themselves.
[1:04:40] Then things went eerily quiet for a moment before 2 blasts
[1:04:44] rang out in the dark. There was a brief strangling
[1:04:48] gasp, and then nothing. This was the moment the Law and
[1:04:52] History recorded the death of one of the Old West's most
[1:04:55] famous outlaws, a man known as Billy the Kid.
[1:05:01] Yet for a story that appeared to have been ended with such
[1:05:04] finality it refused to stay buried, The very circumstances
[1:05:09] that Garrett would describe as a stroke of luck were the same
[1:05:13] ones that made his story vulnerable to doubt.
[1:05:16] His deputies waiting outside were documented to have been
[1:05:20] initially skeptical that the dead man was the famous outlaw.
[1:05:25] This ambiguity, born in the same instant as the kids official
[1:05:29] death, provided the fertile ground for one of the Old West's
[1:05:34] most persistent legends. To this day, many question
[1:05:38] whether Billy the Kid escaped and survived, living on into old
[1:05:42] age despite all the odds. Before he was a legend, Billy
[1:05:48] the Kid was Henry McCarty, born in a New York slum to Irish
[1:05:52] immigrants around 1859. And if you're wondering how he
[1:05:56] came to be known as Billy, well, by the 1870s he was going by the
[1:06:03] alias William Bonnie. His early life was a westward
[1:06:07] drift with his mother, Catherine, that ended in Silver
[1:06:11] City, NM, when she died of tuberculosis.
[1:06:15] As was the style at the time, the orphan teenager was cast
[1:06:19] adrift, working odd jobs before his first arrest for stealing
[1:06:23] cheese. Physically, he wasn't much to
[1:06:27] look at, but he possessed A disarming charisma.
[1:06:30] He loved to sing, dance, drink and gamble to excess and was
[1:06:35] described as being the life of the party.
[1:06:38] He was also fluent in Spanish, which made him fit in much
[1:06:42] easier with the population of New Mexico.
[1:06:45] And keep this in mind because his ability to rizz up local
[1:06:49] Latinas in Espanol will be a factor when we discuss the
[1:06:53] claimants to his identity. This charm, however, was paired
[1:06:59] with a quick and lethal temper. His transformation into a wanted
[1:07:03] outlaw was forged in the Crucible of the Lincoln County
[1:07:06] feud. This brutal conflict began as a
[1:07:10] more traditional fight between an established merchant faction,
[1:07:14] the Murphy Dolan Company, and a newcomer, John Tunstall.
[1:07:19] The KID worked for Tunstall, and when his employer was slain by a
[1:07:23] posse allied with the Murphy Dolan faction, he didn't pack it
[1:07:27] up and go home. He joined a deputized posse
[1:07:30] called the Regulators to hunt down those who had slain
[1:07:34] Tunstall, believing he was an agent of justice in a territory
[1:07:38] where the law was corrupt. The whole thing degenerated into
[1:07:43] a tit for tat slaughter, and eventually the Kid cut down a
[1:07:46] lawman, making him a wanted man. Later, Old West legends would
[1:07:51] claim he was one of the deadliest outlaws, having taken
[1:07:55] 21 lives in his 21 years on earth, though this is now
[1:07:59] believed to be an exercise in myth building.
[1:08:02] That said, don't get mistaken and think Billy the Kid wasn't a
[1:08:06] dangerous man. Despite only making it to our
[1:08:09] modern drinking age, he was directly involved in the
[1:08:13] elimination of at least nine men, and that's just what's been
[1:08:16] documented and confirmed. After being captured by Pat
[1:08:22] Garrett and sentenced to hang, the Kid cemented his legendary
[1:08:26] status with a daring escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse.
[1:08:30] In the process of the escape, he eliminated 2 lawmen, including
[1:08:35] shooting one of them in the back as he tried to escape.
[1:08:38] This jailbreak made him a folk hero to some, while others
[1:08:42] viewed him as a cold blooded monster who had to be eliminated
[1:08:45] immediately. Decades after the shots in
[1:08:50] Maxwell's bedroom, men emerged claiming the story was a lie.
[1:08:54] The two most famous claimants offered compelling, if deeply
[1:08:58] flawed, narratives that have captivated believers ever since.
[1:09:05] In 1948, an elderly man in Hico, Texas, named Brushy Bill Roberts
[1:09:11] confessed to a paralegal named William Morrison that he was the
[1:09:14] real Billy the Kid. Roberts, then allegedly around
[1:09:19] 90 years old, claimed he was tired of hiding and wanted
[1:09:23] Morrison's help to secure a pardon for his actions.
[1:09:27] His evidence was based on personal testimony.
[1:09:30] He allegedly showed Morrison, 26 scars from bullet and knife
[1:09:34] wounds that matched injuries the kid had supposedly sustained.
[1:09:39] He also possessed an intimate knowledge of the Lincoln County
[1:09:41] conflict, and Morrison managed to secure sworn affidavits from
[1:09:46] a few surviving acquaintances of the Kid.
[1:09:49] According to Roberts, Garrett's posse had mistakenly ended the
[1:09:53] life of an innocent man named Billy Barlow on the night in
[1:09:57] question. In this version of events, Billy
[1:10:00] the Kid took this opportunity to escape and assume a new
[1:10:03] identity, eventually transforming into Brushy Bill
[1:10:07] the prospector. However, the case for Brushy
[1:10:12] Bill quickly falls apart under scrutiny.
[1:10:15] Most historians dismiss the claim, pointing to a family
[1:10:18] Bible that records his birth year as 1879, which would have
[1:10:23] made him a toddler when the kid died.
[1:10:26] Further, despite Brushy Bill claiming to have 26 battle
[1:10:30] scars, Billy the Kid was only shot once and was never recorded
[1:10:36] to have been stabbed. Billy was definitely more of a
[1:10:39] giver than a taker when it came to combat wounds, but Brushy
[1:10:43] Bill didn't seem to get the memo on that part Notably, Billy the
[1:10:50] Kid was literate, while Brushy Bill was not.
[1:10:53] Further, Billy the Kid spoke Spanish at a native level
[1:10:56] fluency, and he is well documented as having used this
[1:10:59] linguistic proficiency to win over the local ladies and chill
[1:11:04] with bad hombres. Further, Roberts had previously
[1:11:08] claimed to be a member of the Jesse James Gang, suggesting a
[1:11:11] pattern of adopting notorious identities.
[1:11:14] Some modern analysis even propose his case was an extreme
[1:11:18] form of celebrity worship, where his own identity had merged with
[1:11:22] that of the famous outlaw he admired.
[1:11:25] In essence, he was so obsessed with these Wild West figures
[1:11:29] that he may have developed a real, though completely
[1:11:32] delusional, belief that he was one of them.
[1:11:37] Notably, the corpses of the man who Pat Garrett said was Billy
[1:11:41] the Kid and Brushy Bill are still available for testing,
[1:11:45] though the authorities have blocked exhumation efforts.
[1:11:50] The claim of John Miller is more mysterious and is built on a
[1:11:54] foundation of circumstantial evidence and second hand
[1:11:57] stories. Miller, a farmer who died in
[1:12:01] Arizona in 1937, never made a public claim, but friends and
[1:12:06] family insisted he was the kid. According to them, he wouldn't
[1:12:11] admit it when sober, but when he got absolutely blotto, he would
[1:12:16] sing like a Canary. Crucially, there are almost no
[1:12:22] official records of a John Miller existing before August
[1:12:25] 1881, less than a month after the kids supposed death.
[1:12:31] Unlike Brushy Bill, John Miller was actually fluent in Spanish
[1:12:35] and was also literate. After his passing, his Mexican
[1:12:39] American wife confirmed his ability to speak Spanish at a
[1:12:43] native level and also attested to his ability to slip out of
[1:12:47] handcuffs. Billy the Kid had famously
[1:12:50] slipped out of cuffs on a couple of occasions.
[1:12:53] And yeah, I'm just going to leave that last bit right there
[1:12:57] and not make the obvious joke about what this couple might
[1:13:00] have been getting up to in their private lives.
[1:13:05] While the stories of Robertson Miller are interesting and have
[1:13:08] a lot of popular support, the historical consensus supports
[1:13:12] the official account of the kids death.
[1:13:15] This conclusion rests not on folklore, but on the weight of
[1:13:19] contemporary evidence. The single most powerful
[1:13:22] document is the coroner's jury report, filed the day after the
[1:13:27] shooting. A jury of local men, many of
[1:13:30] whom knew the KID personally, examine the body and identified
[1:13:35] it as William Bonnie. This legal document, created at
[1:13:39] the time of the event, is the bedrock of the historical
[1:13:42] record. While this would be definitive
[1:13:46] if we were talking about a document issued today, it's a
[1:13:49] bit less definitive than you might think.
[1:13:52] This was after all, the Wild West and Pat Garrett and his
[1:13:56] posse had 500 bucks riding on this jury determining the body
[1:14:00] was that of Billy. In a time and place where the
[1:14:03] line between lawman and outlaw could change back and forth with
[1:14:07] stunning rapidity, the jury may have been pressured to just go
[1:14:10] along with the identification. Beyond the inquest, an official
[1:14:17] paper trail confirms the government acted on the
[1:14:20] certainty of the kids death. Records show the New Mexico
[1:14:23] Attorney General and the governor approved the $500
[1:14:26] reward payment to Pat Garrett on the basis of the coroner's jury
[1:14:30] report. According to those who believe
[1:14:33] the official narrative, these bureaucratic actions would not
[1:14:37] have occurred if there were any credible doubt about the
[1:14:39] identity of the deceased. Garrett also made a crucial
[1:14:44] strategic move by putting the body on public display in Fort
[1:14:47] Sumner. In an era without modern
[1:14:50] forensics, visual identification by the community was the highest
[1:14:55] standard of proof. That said, decomposition in the
[1:14:59] heat is a very real problem, and to what extent the body actually
[1:15:04] resembled Billy the Kid at the time of this event is unknown.
[1:15:10] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here just thanking you for watching
[1:15:13] or listening. If you're enjoying my content,
[1:15:16] don't forget to follow the show and leave a rating since it
[1:15:18] really helps the podcast out.

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