# 2 Chilling Unsolved Mysteries You Need To Know

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 27 Sep 2025, 25 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO5416873839.mp3

In this episode we discuss the murders of Michael Johnston and Rochelle Robsinon, and the dubious connections to the occult and Satanism, as well as the mysterious disappearance of Granger Taylor. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ 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

## Transcript

[0:00] In the early morning hours of June 27th, 1994, a horrific
[0:05] scene was discovered on a quiet wooded road near Tacoma, WA.
[0:10] A passerby stumbled upon the lifeless body of 25 year old
[0:13] Michael Johnston sprawled beside a parked car.
[0:17] Later that same day, about 5 miles away, a second body turned
[0:22] up alongside an overgrown private road.
[0:25] It was 19 year old Rochelle Robinson and this act of
[0:29] violence against these two individuals would unveil A
[0:32] tangled web of disturbing events, infidelities and
[0:36] potential occult connections. It soon emerged that Michael and
[0:42] Rochelle shared a secret. They had been lovers, despite
[0:46] Michael apparently being happily married.
[0:49] On the evening of June 26th, 1994, the pair met up with
[0:54] friends in Tacoma for a session of a little fantasy card game
[0:57] called Magic the Gathering. Sometime around 11:30, Michael
[1:03] and Rochelle left this Magic Gathering in separate cars.
[1:07] This was likely to avoid drawing attention to the fact that these
[1:09] two weren't just tapping land and magic, they were also
[1:13] tapping each other. Investigators believe they
[1:18] rendezvoused moments later at a parking lot in Spanaway, near
[1:21] Rochelle's home, where Michael parked his own vehicle.
[1:25] From there, he joined Rochelle in her Gray 1988 Mazda.
[1:30] The secret couple then drove off together into the night, heading
[1:34] to a secluded lover's lane. This was a remote tree lined
[1:38] area by the Tacoma Sportsman's Club shooting range, and couples
[1:42] often use this spot to seek some very private time away from
[1:46] prying eyes. But it turns out that they
[1:49] didn't have to fear prying eyes, but lurking predatory eyes in
[1:53] the woods, staring at them intently while they embraced.
[2:00] Sometime after 1:00 that morning, that quiet rendezvous
[2:04] was savagely interrupted. Evidence suggests an assailant
[2:09] approach the Mazda undercover of darkness.
[2:12] The attacker likely flung open the car door to find Michael and
[2:15] Rochelle in an intimate moment, catching the couple off guard in
[2:20] the chaos. The evidence suggests that they
[2:23] were forced to hastily dress themselves.
[2:26] Rochelle was later discovered wearing Michael's T-shirt inside
[2:29] out, a sign of the frantic split second nature of the attack.
[2:35] Under threat, the couple was dragged out of the vehicle.
[2:39] Michael appears to have been restrained, possibly with
[2:42] handcuffs, and made to kneel near the front of the car.
[2:46] The evidence suggested he was then eliminated execution style
[2:50] right in front of Rochelle. With Michael neutralized, the
[2:56] predator turned his focus to Rochelle.
[2:59] Small puncture wounds on Rochelle's neck indicated a
[3:02] blade was pressed heavily to her throat, forcing her compliance
[3:07] in his clutches. Rochelle was driven away from
[3:10] the first scene, presumably in the perpetrator's vehicle, to a
[3:14] second isolated location about 5 miles down the road.
[3:18] There she met a violent end, being stabbed repeatedly in what
[3:22] appears to have been a fit of completely unbridled rage.
[3:28] Pierce County Sheriff's investigators pieced together
[3:31] the events from 2 separate crime scenes.
[3:34] Rochelle's Mazda was found parked where Michael was shot,
[3:37] confirming that the attack began at that Lover's Lane site.
[3:41] Michael's abandoned car was later discovered back at the
[3:44] Spanaway parking lot exactly where the couple had met up,
[3:48] which validated their late night rendezvous plan.
[3:52] The weapons used by the perpetrator weren't discovered,
[3:55] however there was something out of place.
[3:58] This was a very peculiar cardboard box used to conceal
[4:01] Rochelle's body at the second sight.
[4:04] Investigators identified it as a specific type of white cardboard
[4:08] carton used to hold high grade printing paper, generally used
[4:12] in professional print shops. Forensic tests suggested the box
[4:18] hadn't simply blown in from the roadside since it hadn't been
[4:21] left out or received any weather damage.
[4:25] That meant that it was likely brought by the perp and may have
[4:28] been stored in his home or vehicle for some time before the
[4:31] attack. And keep this in mind, there was
[4:35] absolutely no occult or ritual symbolism found at either scene
[4:39] since this will be important very soon.
[4:43] From the start, authorities felt the double slaying was intensely
[4:47] personal. The viciousness directed at
[4:49] Rochelle, far more wounds than inflicted on Michael, suggested
[4:54] that the attacker's anger was focused on her.
[4:58] Detectives theorized that Michael was a passive victim
[5:02] tragically caught in the crossfire of someone's obsession
[5:05] with Rochelle. This meant the most likely
[5:08] suspect pool were people in Rochelle's life, an
[5:11] ex-boyfriend, a jealous admirer or a stalker driven by
[5:16] unrequited passion. Before long a very credible lead
[5:22] emerged about a deranged stalker who had entered Rochelle's life.
[5:25] Recently Rochelle had told friends and Co workers about a
[5:29] young man who had been following her in the spring of 1994.
[5:33] This man would lurk at her workplace, a fast food
[5:36] restaurant, for hours and even trailed her home on multiple
[5:40] occasions. She was very scared of him and
[5:44] he simply wouldn't stop following her, so she tried an
[5:47] alternative plan. Rochelle mentioned to her
[5:50] friends that she had once gone to lunch with him, hoping to
[5:54] defuse the situation. The stalker, however, took this
[5:58] as validation that he was being noticed and doubled down on his
[6:02] efforts to quote UN quote win her over.
[6:06] Naturally, Rochelle was terrified of this individual and
[6:09] it appears that he had continued to actively stalk her up until
[6:13] her untimely passing. After the attacks, an
[6:18] acquaintance came forward with a detailed description of this
[6:21] individual. He was described as a white male
[6:25] in his mid 20s, standing around 5 foot 10 and being of average
[6:29] height. Naturally, this incredibly
[6:32] generic description alone wasn't going to do much good, so a
[6:36] forensic sketch was drawn up, but ultimately it led to nothing
[6:40] whatsoever. Police considered this
[6:43] unidentified man a key person of interest, suspecting that his
[6:47] obsession with Rochelle could have escalated into violence.
[6:51] However, some speculated that if this was the case that a more
[6:56] extreme form of rage might have been dedicated towards Michael
[6:59] as well. Personally though, I don't
[7:01] necessarily see it this way since if this is correct, we're
[7:05] dealing with a delusional stalker working within this
[7:09] disturbed framework. He may have seen himself as
[7:12] rescuing Rochelle and freeing her up to be with him.
[7:16] He may have wanted to take out Michael in a cold, clinical way
[7:20] that, in this delusional framework, he believed would
[7:23] scare his unrequited love as little as possible.
[7:29] Naturally, investigators also scrutinized other people close
[7:33] to Michael and Rochelle. Standard procedure in cases like
[7:37] this is to look at the victim's romantic partners.
[7:40] Michael's wife, Janet Johnston, was briefly under the microscope
[7:44] due to her husband's infidelity and the fact that Michael had a
[7:47] large life insurance policy. However, Janet cooperated fully,
[7:53] passed a polygraph test and had a solid alibi, and the
[7:57] authorities eliminated her as a suspect.
[8:01] Also, I know some of you are saying to yourselves right now
[8:04] that perhaps she was working with someone else, but as you'll
[8:08] see very shortly, she definitely wasn't.
[8:11] Likewise, Rochelle's former boyfriend was also examined, and
[8:16] despite any hurt feelings he might have harbored, there was
[8:19] no evidence tying the X to the crime.
[8:22] In short, the obvious suspects aside from the stalker, didn't
[8:26] pan out. With the case growing colder by
[8:30] the month, Michael's widowed Janet took an extra step to keep
[8:34] it alive, and she hired private investigator Jim Wright to
[8:37] conduct an independent inquiry. Wright's fresh eyes combed
[8:41] through the evidence and interviews, but unfortunately,
[8:45] these initial investigations came to nothing.
[8:48] In the absence of clear suspects, Jim Wright began
[8:52] exploring more unconventional theories.
[8:55] And here's where we take a hard turn into the occult theories of
[8:58] the case. While delving into Michael's
[9:02] personal life, Wright discovered that Michael had a deep interest
[9:05] in role-playing games and occult subjects.
[9:09] Michael's hobby wasn't just casual, and he owned a large
[9:12] collection of books on what has been described as black magic.
[9:17] Now, I have to be frank here and tell you I don't know if he had
[9:21] the lesser Key of Solomon on hand or if we're talking about
[9:25] some Dungeons and Dragons rule books here.
[9:28] That said, given the echoes of the Satanic Panic still
[9:32] reverberating across the nation at the time, I think it's a fair
[9:36] assumption that we might be talking about the latter.
[9:42] This revelation prompted Wright to wonder if the double slaying
[9:45] could have been connected to some kind of a cult angle.
[9:48] Perhaps Michael and Rochelle had crossed paths with a dangerous
[9:51] fringe group or individual through their gaming and alleged
[9:55] occult circles. And then things went further off
[10:00] the rails, and Wright decided to consult a psychic named Nancy
[10:04] Meyer for any insights that might crack the case.
[10:08] In a dramatic twist fit for a 90s daytime talk show, Meyer
[10:12] claimed to have a vision of what happened that night, and it was
[10:15] radically different from the police theory.
[10:20] According to Meyer, Michael was not an incidental victim at all,
[10:24] but the primary target due to some ritualistic dispute.
[10:28] She claimed to see an older man in his late 30s, along with two
[10:32] younger accomplices who supposedly crept up on the
[10:35] couple in the woods. In her story, these assailants
[10:40] were part of an occult group with Michael, and they accused
[10:43] Michael of violating some kind of cult rules.
[10:47] Meyer said the confrontation was planned and the cult leader
[10:50] first eliminated Rochelle and then brought Michael to another
[10:54] location to do the same to him. She even described the cult
[10:58] leader as looking suspiciously like Anton Lavey, which I
[11:02] suspect wasn't a coincidence. Law enforcement officials
[11:05] politely thanked Meyer for her quote, UN quote, valuable input
[11:09] and advised they were definitely totally going to look into the
[11:12] theory. That is right after they got
[11:15] through their review of some hot tips about an interdimensional
[11:18] Bigfoot or perhaps big feet phasing in and out of the area.
[11:25] OK, so it's probably not going to surprise anyone from the way
[11:29] I presented this case that I don't believe the occult angle
[11:32] here in the slightest. That's not to say that there's
[11:35] never a cult angles to true crime cases, but this ain't it
[11:39] and it isn't even close. This looks like a pretty
[11:42] disturbing situation of a grieving widow who got a large
[11:45] life insurance payout being targeted by at least one
[11:48] grifter. I don't necessarily think the
[11:51] Private Eye was wrong to look into the occult element.
[11:54] After all, the case had gone cold and he was paid to examine
[11:58] every possibility, but what the psychic did was clearly a work
[12:02] of pure fiction, which doesn't align with the evidence even in
[12:06] the slightest. I think it's fairly obvious that
[12:11] the stalker is the culprit here, and there's one circumstantial
[12:15] reason why I believe this is the case.
[12:17] He was actively stalking Rochelle at work, and if he was
[12:21] innocent he would have figured out what happened to her really
[12:24] quickly. If he was simply a stalker that
[12:28] didn't develop into a violent predator, I believe he would
[12:31] have come forward to the cops as soon as possible.
[12:34] After all, he was working within a delusional framework where he
[12:39] thought there was at least some sort of friendship between the
[12:41] two of them. He never came forward and the
[12:45] evidence suggests he stopped stalking her at the time she was
[12:48] slain. This suggests to me that he knew
[12:51] she wasn't going to be at her fast food job anymore because he
[12:55] was the one who ended her life. As for how this case can be
[13:00] solved now after so many years, that's the real tough part here,
[13:05] since it doesn't look like any genetic evidence was left behind
[13:08] by the perpetrator. As winds howled and rain lashed
[13:16] down on the night of November 29th, 1980, thirty two year old
[13:21] Granger Taylor walked out of his parents farmhouse in Duncan, BC
[13:25] in Canada. He climbed into his pickup truck
[13:29] and disappeared into the darkness.
[13:31] He left behind a bizarre handwritten letter for his
[13:34] family claiming he was embarking on an interstellar journey
[13:38] aboard A spaceship and would return in 42 months.
[13:42] By the next morning, when Granger failed to show up, his
[13:46] parents discovered the note, complete with a hand drawn map
[13:49] on the back pointing to a nearby mountain and realized he was
[13:54] gone. Granger Taylor was a bit of an
[13:58] unusual guy to say the least, and everyone who knew him
[14:01] agreed. He was equal parts brilliant and
[14:03] eccentric. He was a self-taught mechanic
[14:06] who could build or fix almost anything.
[14:09] He dropped out of school in 8th grade and focused entirely on
[14:12] restoring vehicles, heavy equipment, and even a fighter
[14:16] plane. Granger often came up with
[14:19] bizarre inventions and was a beloved member of the local
[14:23] community. By his late 20s, Granger's
[14:29] interest turned skyward. Inspired by science fiction, he
[14:33] built a life-size spaceship out of old satellite dishes on his
[14:37] family's farm. It wasn't flight worthy, but
[14:41] this backyard UFO, complete with a wood stove and a bed, became
[14:46] his personal hideaway where he would spend hours gazing at the
[14:49] stars. He even rigged up a radio device
[14:53] in his makeshift spaceship that he believed could potentially
[14:56] receive extraterrestrial messages.
[14:59] At first, Granger's project was treated as an eccentric but
[15:02] harmless hobby. But as his talk of actual alien
[15:06] contact grew more earnest, friends began to worry about his
[15:09] mental well-being. As 1980 went on, Granger's
[15:16] behavior grew erratic. Family noted his mental health
[15:19] declining, and he began using acid heavily.
[15:23] This experimentation with substances may have fueled his
[15:26] otherworldly visions and made him increasingly detached from
[15:30] the world around him. Disturbingly, he told friends
[15:34] that aliens were in contact with him and would arrive during a
[15:38] storm to take him on an interstellar journey.
[15:41] Sure enough, on the night of November 29th, 1980, a powerful
[15:47] storm struck with howling winds and heavy rain battering
[15:51] Vancouver Island. That evening, Granger left a
[15:54] diner around 6:30 and drove off in his truck, never to return.
[16:02] Before he departed, Granger had taped a note to his parents
[16:05] bedroom door. This now infamous letter
[16:08] explained that he was leaving to board an alien spacecraft for 42
[16:12] months and that he would return afterward.
[16:16] He left all his possessions to his family, noting he wouldn't
[16:20] need them where he was going. On the back of the message, he
[16:24] had sketched A rudimentary map of a nearby location, Waterloo
[16:28] Mountain, with an X marking a spot.
[16:32] He had even updated his will beforehand, replacing the word
[16:35] death with departure, which seems odd to me if he really
[16:39] believed that he would be returning.
[16:43] When his parents discovered the note the next day, the family
[16:46] was baffled and alarmed. Police were notified, and search
[16:50] parties combed the woods around the area marked on Granger's
[16:53] map. Despite the storm's wreckage
[16:56] blocking many roads. They scoured logging paths and
[17:00] trails but found nothing unusual.
[17:03] No sign of Granger or his truck ever turned up.
[17:06] His worried parents even kept the back door of their home
[17:09] unlocked for years afterward, just in case their son might
[17:12] come back one day. Some relatives and friends held
[17:16] out hope that 42 months later, as he had indicated, he might
[17:20] miraculously return. But June 1984 came and went with
[17:25] no sign of him. In March 1986, nearly six years
[17:31] after Granger disappeared, a grim discovery provided a clue
[17:35] to his fate. Forestry workers on Mount
[17:38] Provost, near the spot marked on Granger's map, found the site of
[17:43] an explosion in the woods. A large blast crater was
[17:47] littered with fragmented vehicle parts.
[17:50] The investigation determined that the debris came from a
[17:52] pickup truck. The vehicle identification
[17:56] number on one recovered piece matched Granger's missing truck
[18:00] among the wreckage. They also found small bone
[18:03] fragments and shreds of clothing.
[18:05] Forensic pathologists examined the bone and determined that it
[18:09] was consistent with human bone, dispelling any hope that it was
[18:13] from the local fauna. Granger's mother identified one
[18:17] scrap of fabric as part of a shirt she had sewn up for him
[18:20] not long before he left, strongly suggesting the remains
[18:23] were his. Since this was the mid 80s, DNA
[18:27] analysis wasn't available to confirm the bone fragments were
[18:31] his at the time. Also, I'm going to mention right
[18:34] now that the Royal Canadian Mediocrity Police investigated
[18:37] the case. So yeah, there's basically no
[18:39] chance these were actually preserved.
[18:44] The blast site was very close to the location indicated on
[18:47] Granger's hand drawn map. It was evident that a massive
[18:50] explosion had occurred, and the coroner's report noted a blast
[18:55] radius of roughly 600 feet. Granger was proficient in
[18:59] explosives and was known to handle dynamite for blowing up
[19:03] tree stumps on the farm, which aligned with the scene.
[19:07] The coroner concluded that Granger had been carrying a
[19:10] massive amount of dynamite in his truck and that it detonated,
[19:14] reducing both him and the truck to nothing.
[19:18] In 1986, the coroner officially declared Granger Taylor dead,
[19:23] listing his cause of death as an explosion and dating it to the
[19:27] night of November 29th, 1980. Notably, some locals had
[19:32] reported hearing a mysterious loud boom on that stormy night
[19:36] back in 1980, around the time Granger would have been near
[19:40] Mount Prevost. It was dismissed as Thunder at
[19:43] the time, but in hindsight, it seems likely that sound was the
[19:48] blast echoing across the hills. To many, these findings seem to
[19:54] close the book on the mystery. Granger's fantastical space
[19:58] voyage had ended in a tragic earthly explosion.
[20:01] His family, however, never held a formal funeral for him, as
[20:05] they couldn't fully say goodbye without definitive answers.
[20:11] Even with this conclusion, not everyone was satisfied.
[20:16] And in the years since Granger's passing, his legend has grown
[20:19] and attracted numerous theories. And at this point, I should
[20:23] probably mention that I must have gotten 10 comments over the
[20:27] last year or two asking me to cover this case.
[20:32] One theory is that Granger intentionally set off the blast,
[20:36] weaving the Celestial Voyage story as a compassionate cover
[20:40] for his family. Some of his relatives did come
[20:44] to believe that his mental breakdown and substance use
[20:47] culminated in such an act. However, some of Granger's close
[20:52] friends and family members dispute this and note that
[20:55] Granger legitimately believed he was going on an interstellar
[20:58] journey with his extraterrestrial pals.
[21:02] Some have even gone so far as to question whether Granger even
[21:05] perished in the explosion at all.
[21:08] They cite that the bone fragments found were never DNA
[21:11] tested as potential proof that he arrived.
[21:15] People who subscribe to this theory generally believe that he
[21:17] simply moved along and started a new life elsewhere.
[21:21] There have been alleged sightings of him in South
[21:23] America and in the American South, but none of these were
[21:27] ever confirmed. Over the years, a range of even
[21:32] more far fetched theories has emerged, turning his
[21:35] conventional mysterious story into the stuff of legends.
[21:39] Some people truly believe Granger was taken by
[21:42] extraterrestrials that night, exactly as he wrote.
[21:46] In fact, his mother Grace reportedly maintained until her
[21:49] death that her son had left Earth with aliens and was out
[21:53] there exploring the cosmos. Some UFO enthusiasts have
[21:58] speculated the aliens could have caused the truck's explosion to
[22:01] provide cover. Others imagine that Granger
[22:05] might yet return someday, unchanged due to the very real
[22:09] phenomenon of time dilation. Without getting into the weeds
[22:13] too deeply, Granger's 42 months on a spaceship traveling near
[22:17] lightspeed could be anywhere from hundreds to billions of
[22:21] years on Earth. Another, more far-flung theory
[22:25] suggests that Granger's brilliance with machinery drew
[22:28] the interest of a government agency, and that perhaps agents
[22:32] took him for a covert project. Under this theory, the note and
[22:36] the explosion were acts of intentional misdirection so they
[22:40] could spirit him away. My own completely speculative
[22:46] theory is that the entire thing was an unfortunate accident, and
[22:50] I do need to clarify that this is just my own opinion based on
[22:53] the evidence. Granger Taylor did perish on
[22:56] that stormy night, but he did legitimately believe that he was
[23:00] going there to rendezvous with other worldly beings.
[23:04] I believe he may have thought that he needed a signal to set
[23:07] off to have them pick him up, sort of like a beacon.
[23:12] Under this theory, he would have set up the explosion to call the
[23:15] spaceship, but he would have done so from a safe distance so
[23:19] he could have returned and be taken up.
[23:22] Everyone agrees that Granger was a really good hearted guy who
[23:26] was loved by everyone, so we know that he wouldn't have
[23:30] sought to endanger anyone, hence the desolate area.
[23:35] Despite being familiar with dynamite, I speculate that he
[23:39] got in over his head with the amount of explosives he was
[23:42] using and that something went wrong during the setup.
[23:46] I'm no expert on anything beyond a Roman candle, but I doubt that
[23:50] a massive thunderstorm is the ideal time to rig up something
[23:53] like this. In the end, I think it was all a
[23:57] tragic accident and that Granger Taylor did possess the
[24:01] subjective belief that he was going to be going on that 42
[24:05] month journey. Despite more than 40 years
[24:10] having passed, Grainger Taylor's disappearance remains a haunting
[24:14] unsolved mystery. Hey everyone, Jimmy, reminding
[24:21] you to like and subscribe and to tap the notification bell.
[24:24] Also, don't forget that you can support my channel through
[24:27] YouTube or through Patreon for as little as a dollar a day.

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