Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the
murder of Patrese Andres. And again I apologize for my raspy voice. I
am sick. We just recorded this right after our first episode, so please
bear with me. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on what
we talked about in our previous episode. Well, this is a case that
was featured on the Unsolved Mysteries reboot, which came out three and a half
years ago, about the murder of a thirty eight year old woman named Patrice
Andres. She ran her own hair salon in Foresight, County, Georgia.
She was married to her fifty eight year old husband, Rob Dress, and
they were living with her teenage son Pistol. That's his nickname from a previous
marriage. And in April of two thousand and four, Patrese was working her
shift at the salon. They called the Unsolved Mysteries episode thirteen minutes because she
seemed to go missing during a thirteen minute window because she received a call at
eleven thirty seven am from a customer, but when a customer showed up at
her salon at eleven fifty Patrise was missing. Her car was still parked there,
her purse had been rummaged through, and there would be two witnesses who
drove by the salon during that thirteen minute window who provided different descriptions of Patrise
with an unidentified individual outside in the parking lot. One witness thought was a
long haired man, well, the other thought that the other the individual was
a woman. But it appeared that Patrise might be struggling with this person and
that they may have abducted and murdered her. And sure enough, it would
be in November of two thousand and five, eighteen months after she originally went
missing, when her remains were discovered in he wooded area behind a church about
six miles away from her hair salon. They looked at a number of suspects.
There was a serial killer named Jeremy Jones who confessed to her crime,
but a lot of the details he provided did not match the condition her remains
were found, and he was known for making false confessions. They have also
looked into another serial killer named Gary Michael Hilton, and they have also looked
at her husband, Rob as according to their son Pistol, Patrese and Rob
had been fighting a lot as she was threatening him with divorce, and the
day after Patrese went missing, Rob went to the trouble of locking Pistol out
of their residence and would not let him go in to reclaim his possessions.
And of course, after it was featured on Unsolved Mysteries, Rob came across
very weirdly in his interview and a lot of people thought he was responsible for
killing Patrese, but he did seem to have a solid alibi placing him several
miles away and at his workplace during the approximate time period she went missing,
and Rob passed away just a month before we recorded this episode in late October
of twenty twenty three. So if he was the killer, then he never
will receive justice for it. But they've also looked into the possibility that it
was a murder for hire, so possibly Rob hired someone who did it and
that person has yet to face justice. But it's also possible that Rob is
innocent and the real killer is still out there. So, as you well
know, the title of the Unsolved Mysteries episode about this case was thirteen minutes
because that is believed to be the approximate window of time in which Patrese's abduction
could have taken place. The last person who confirmed speaking to Patrise said that
she phoned the salon to reschedule an appointment before the call ended at eleven thirty
seven am, and it's interesting how the caller said that Patrise was unusually short
with her during the conversation. Patrice was described as ordinarily being a very chatty
person, and another customer who frequented the lawn at around nine am also said
that Patrise seemed distracted and not very attentive to her. So I wonder if
this is an indication that Patrice had something on her mind that morning, which
might support the idea that she was experiencing issues in her marriage with Rob.
I also think it's possible that the person responsible for Patrice's disappearance was already inside
the salon during that final phone call, which is why Patrice gave off the
impression that she wanted to get the call over with as quickly as possible.
Since the next call to the salon in eleven fifty went unanswered, this strongly
implies that Patrice had already been abducted by that point, especially when you factor
in the eyewitness accounts of Patrice's standing outside in the parking lot at around eleven
forty five. Now, we mentioned in our last episode that the early media
coverage of this case put a heavy emphasis on an eyewitness sighting of an unidentified
man and a white cargo band parked outside the slawn. This detail took me
by surprise during my original research, since it was never mentioned on Unsolved Mysteries.
But it was very disheartening to find out this witness completely fabricated her story,
and I have no idea why she would do this, unless she was
hoping to collect some reward money. I'm not exactly sure how police learned her
story was false, but it likely had something to do with the fact that
two completely independent eyewitnesses reported seeing a blue car parked outside the salon, which
contradicted her story. And that's quite unfortunate because I couldn't find any mention of
the blue car in the older newspaper articles, likely because investigators wasted so much
time chasing down the false lead with the van. If the public had been
made aware of the blue car much earlier, who knows if things might have
turned out differently. That's what's so scary about these cases is that whatever the
media decides to focus on. You almost see the detectives the community. Everyone
gets this tunnel vision looking for leads and ideas that sometimes aren't even in existence.
So it definitely distracted from the eyewitness accounts. We do know that those
eyewitnesses also kind of struggled to identify exactly what kind of car, to identify
who was with that car. Wasn't an old woman, Was it a man
with shoulder linked hair? Who was it that was talking to Patrese? Was
their physical violence between the two, what was going on? We haven't really
nailed down a consistent story from any eyewitnesses, so it makes all of that
information very troubling. That phone call that Patrese gets at the salon from someone
wanting to change their appointment. When they say you can, you can hear
in her voice that she's not herself. She's almost frustrated and very short tempered.
I feel in my gut that someone had walked into the salon to make
her very uncomfortable, or that she had already asked to leave, and she's
trying to navigate somebody in person that's frustrating her and this client on the phone.
I almost feel like somebody's in the store and they're threatening her, and
they tell her to answer the phone because they don't want to arouse suspicion or
have anybody go, oh, well, why isn't she answering the phone.
Let's go check on her. They want to be uninterrupted during the commission of
this crime. And so they go answer the phone and behave like nothing's wrong.
Because if somebody was just looking around, you might mention something like,
hey, there's a weird guy in here or whatever. But it seemed like
she didn't share any details. She just came off as really short. Yeah,
it could be that she was under dress or something that she's thinking that,
well, if I tell the caller about this guy, he may do
something to me. So that's why I think that she was worried that her
life was an ager and that perhaps, for all we know, this person
told her get this customer off the phone as quickly as possible. Now,
we frequently talked about the fallibility of eyewitness testimony on numerous episodes of this podcast,
and this case is a perfect reminder of it. Technically, the two
separate witnesses who drove by the salon and saw patries outside next to a blue
car. Were likely correct about the basics, but they contradicted each other on
certain details. One witness said the car was a Chevy Lumina, well the
other thought it might be a Floord, Taurus or Malibu. I can understand
the contradiction because it's not like those vehicles looked drastically different from one another.
But what's really strange is that one of the witnesses thought she saw Patrese next
to an older woman, and the other mentioned a long haired man. I
guess it's possible that because of the long hair, the first witness could have
mistaken a man for a woman, though if Patrese's killer was female, then
that throws the case in an entirely different direction, especially since the witness thought
she saw two women placing their hands on each other. Given the narrow time
frame, it seems unlikely that these two witnesses could have passed by the salon
on different occasions and seen Patrice next to two different people with two different cars.
I guess it's possible that the individual of the blue car had nothing to
do with Patrees's murder and just stopped by to ask for directions or something,
and subsequently left before the real perpetrator arrived. However, both witnesses placed their
sightings at around eleven forty five, and given that the unanswered phone call came
in at eleven fifty and a customer who arrived at non nun noticed that Patrese
was missing, the timeframe just seems way too narrow. So Patrice was probably
abducted only minutes, if not seconds after the witnesses drove away. But regardless
of whether the unidentified individual was a man or a woman, they definitely did
not match the description of Rob Andres, who was bald, unless he'd happened
to be wearing a wig to disguise himself. And while I have no idea
what type of vehicle Rob drove at the time, if he was linked to
a blue Luminat Taurus or Malibu, I'm pretty sure the authorities would have said
so. They said they could not rule him out as a suspect, but
they also didn't have anything to actually rule him in as a suspect, right
to make him zeroed in on as a main suspect. And so if the
car actually matched the identity of Rob, or if the even physical descriptions had
matched Rob, I don't think they would have been making those claims. There
are definitely some unanswered questions about the circumstances of how Patrice was subducted. There
was cash missing from the register inside the salon, and it appears that someone
took her wallet out of her purse and went through it, though it seems
like they missed the two hundred and seventy dollars she had inside a secret compartment.
But there's been a lot of skepticism over the idea thought robbery was the
primary motive for this crime, as a responsible party may have stolen the money
just to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. The investigators have even
said that salons are ordinarily not ideal targets for robberies since they aren't known for
keeping a lot of cash on the premises. And of course, a lot
has been made about the fact that Patrice's suv was found park near the front
door instead of its usual spot next to the side of the building, and
the two witnesses both claimed that the suv was already positioned there next to a
blue car when they drove past. So this is why it's been theorized that
someone could have lured Patrice outside by telling her that their car needed a jump,
but shortly after she moved the suv from its usual spot, this person
took advance of the situation and abducted her. Hell this was the exact scenario
Jeremy Jones described during his confession, which is one of the reasons the authorities
initially thought it sounded believable. I do think this is a plausible theory,
but the one thing I'm not sure about is why someone would have gone through
the cash register and Patrice's purse if she is abducted outside the building. There
has been speculation that more than one person was involved in this crime, which
might provide an explanation for why we have conflicting eyewitness accounts about seeing a woman
and a long haired man with Patrice. What if they were actually two separate
people who conspired to abduct Patrise together. I was wondering the same thing,
you know, when there's a description that there was a older woman, and
then you have a description that there's a long haired man. Unless the oun
witness is really just didn't get a good look. I was thinking, is
it possible it's one of those couple kind of abductions where a wife is the
one who maybe gets out of the car, or an older lady gets out
of the car to say, hey, I need your help, Patria.
She's innocent, she doesn't seem threatening, and by the time the woman lures
her outside, then you have a man waiting to actually abduct her or hurt
her. I think it doesn't require much to think that once they had her
subdued, that they would run in and try to look for any quick money.
Just running to the cash register and grabbing the wallet out of her purse
or the cash out of her purse that was visible, doesn't seem too wild.
I mean, while we're here, we may as well see if we
can get a little bit of money to make our way a little further down
the road. But it's crazy when you think about them. Jeremy Jones,
he does describe that exact scenario that he needed to stop and hit up this
salon and was able to lure Patrice out. Oh, it's devastating to think
there was such a short window of time between her last client and the next
person to come in that didn't find her. To think she just literally vanished
and we have no answers. Yeah, it could be a scenario where maybe
the first and second witness are correct, that the one who saw or with
the woman. Maybe this person pulled over to ask Patrice for a jump,
and she had a male companion who was still inside the blue car at that
point, and then by the time the second witness passed by, the man
had come out of the car and was struggling with Patrese while the woman ran
inside to go to the cash register or check her purse or something. So
that's why I don't think it's completely implausible that it could have been a man
and a woman working together. And we're never truly going to know because of
the state of her body when it was found, being that it was skeletal
remains, if this was a sexually motivated crime, right, like we said,
it could have been just staged to look like a robbery gone wrong.
But then they abducked her, so it's like, what are you planning to
do with her? And was that the primary objective? Was it sexually based?
But we're just we don't have those answers now. Before we discussed the
likelihood of rob or anyone else committing this crime, we have to talk about
the two convicted murderers who looked at as potential suspects, and appropriately enough,
both of these men have been considered potential suspects in other cases which were featured
on Unsolved Mysteries throughout two thousand and five. Jeremy Jones dominated all the news
coverage of this case since he made a confession to Patrese's murder. At the
time, she was still a missing person, so it seemed like a very
promising lead. But since Jones said he dumb Patrise's body in a creek,
which turned out to be over sixty miles away from the wooded area where her
remains were ultimately found, his confession lost a lot of credibility. Many people
no longer believed Jones had any involvement in Patrise's death, and even though Jones
himself has recounted the confession, at least one investigator who was interviewed during the
Unsolved Mystery segment was not ready to completely rule him out, since Joanes supposedly
provided very accurate details about the crime scene. While his claims about luring Patrese
outside by asking her to jumpstart his vehicle do seem plausible on the surface,
it also doesn't sound like he provided eddy specific details which were not already public
knowledge at this point. Most of the newspaper articles from that time period mentioned
Patrice's suv being parked near the front door, so Jones easily could have taken
that detail and used it to formulate a false confession. Jones is currently still
on death row for the murder of Lisa Nichols, and while he's undoubtedly responsible
for the murders of Amanda Greenwell and a New Orleans woman named Catherine Collins.
He once claimed to have killed at at least twenty one people over one twelve
year period, but at least one of his confessions has been proven to be
an outright lie, as he also claimed to have been responsible for the nineteen
ninety nine disappearances of Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman, a pair of sixteen year
old girls from Welch, Oklahoma, who vanished after Ashley's mobile home was burned
down and both her parents were shot to death. Jones claimed that he murdered
the adults over a drug before he shot the two girls and disposed of their
bodies in a mind shaft, but after a search failed to turn up their
remains or any evidence to support his story. Well you might already know that
a suspect named Ronnie Busick was arrested for the crime in twenty eighteen and pled
guilty to accessory to second degree murder, even though the girl's remains have still
not been found. It turns out the music and to deceased accomplices Warren Philip
Welch and David Pennington were the perpetrators and Jones had nothing to do with it.
Once they have nothing left to lose. It's fairly common for convicted murderers
to confess to crimes that they did not commit for attention, So this maybe
would happen here. And Jones did not kill Patrice Andres. I'm leaning towards
he did not. Once you start lying about taking claim for other people's killings,
it just shows that you need that attention, that you are seeking some
kind of preferential treatment, that you want time out of your cell, that
you want to go with police on a wild goose chase. And he seems
to have caught the attention to people, and multiple investigations where he's clearly gotten
that attention that he was looking for. It's crazy because if you were genuinely
trying to help, you would never want to provide false information and lead investigators
down the wrong road. You would want to sit back and say, listen,
I'm one death row. I have some other families that I know are
looking for their loved ones. Here's where they are, and you would help
their body be located. In all of these that he claims that he participated
in, he was never able to help provide information for a body location,
which really does show that he's out for himself and he's out for a number
that's going to impress somebody. I don't know who, but that seems to
be his motivation. And he always confesses to victims who are missing at that
time, so he can say that he did whatever with the remains and they
can't really disprove it. But as we've seen with the cases of Laura Bible
and Ashley Freeman, and also with Patrese, he wound up giving these stories
about disposing of the remains means that were proven to be false. So that
has to cause all of his confessions to be put into question. So now
let's talk about Gary Michael Hilton. Even though he was originally arrested for the
murder of Meredith Emerson and agreed to plead guilty in order to avoid the death
penalty. Hilton has since been charged and convicted of three additional murders, which
took place in late two thousand and seven an elderly couple named John and Irene
Bryant and a nurse named Cheryl Dunlap. The Dunlap murder earned Hilton a trip
to death Row, which is where he still resides today, and he's been
looked at as a potential suspect in some other cold cases, including the bizarre
death of Judy Smith, which has been featured on Unsolved Mysteries The Trail and
Cold and The Path Went Chile. As you might recall, Judy Smith vanished
during a business trip to Philadelphia in April of nineteen ninety seven, before her
skeletal remains were discovered on a mountain in Piscaon National Forest in North Carolina five
months later. Obviously, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about how
Judy made that six hundred mile trip down there in the first place. But
since the murders of John and Irene Bryant also took place in Pisgaw National Forest,
there has been speculation that Hilton may have been responsible for Judy's death,
though no evidence was found to support this. There are some tentative connections which
link Hilton to Patrice Andrs's case, such as the fact that the remains were
found in Dawson County, which is where he murdered Meredith Emerson and disposed of
her remains. Even though Hilton once made a remark about visiting hair salons to
con people out of money, the problem I have with the idea of him
abducting Patrise from there is that it's totally different from his mo Hilton's known crimes
involve him targeting hikers, which is why he's sometimes been referred to as the
quote unquote National Forest serial killer. Furthermore, one thing the murders of Meredith
Emerson, Cheryl Dunlap, and the Bryants all had in common is that Hilton
installed their ATM cards and attempted to use them to withdraw money. Pateresa's wallet
and purse were left behind at the salon, and while it's never been specifically
confirmed if she had an ATM card in there, there's no indication that anyone
stole her card or attempted to use it once again. In spite of the
missing money from the cash register. It's been suspected that Patrese's murder was not
financially motivated, and that someone staged to Robberate to cover up a more personal
motive for the crime. I wonder if there's anyone who was angry with her
about being a competitor in business. Was there anyone who had been trying to
let's say, maybe they had misconstrued her friendly, outgoing personality for flirtatious behavior,
and they had tried to form a relationship with her that she denied them
of because she was a married woman. Was there anyone who wanted to be
with Rob, or who was with Rob who then wanted Patrese out of this
scenario? Do we know any of those kind of bizarre dynamics that could have
been happening. Not really, No, Like, I've never seen any mention
of any other potential side who had a personal grudge against her, like anyone
who may have wanted to start a relationship with her or acted inappropriate ly in
or salon. I haven't heard anything about Rob having another woman on the side
who wanted to get Patrise out of the way in order to be with him.
So I'm sure that if investigators had found anybody like that in Patrese's personal
life, they would have said so publicly. But otherwise it just seems to
be nothing. But because she worked on a salon next to a highway,
it's possible her killer was just a complete stranger who just happened to stop by
there. And with Hilton. Hilton's the one that Rob actually went to this
trial, right, that was Jones. The picture, Oh that was in
Jones. Okay, that was the one that Jones was convicted of. Okay.
It's it's intense when you look at these details of a serial killer who
does have this kind of even though his imo of killing people is more with
the hikers. When he does mention the hair salons, it makes the hair
on your next stand up. But that is just one detail of the crimes
he committed. And like you said, he had such specific things he would
do with the credit cards, and her credit cards were intact, the cash
was missing, so it doesn't really fit the full picture. Similarities but not
an exact immou which does call into question is Hilton connected to this? Whatsoever?
To this leads us back to Rob Andres, And now we're going to
talk about the things which do make him look suspicious. During his Unsolved Mysteries
interview, Rob claimed there was no real motive for him to harm Patrese,
and since she did not have a life insurance policy, he did not profit
financially from her death. But of course, if the rumors are true that
the marriage was falling apart and Patrise was planning to divorce Rob, then there's
your motive, given his supposedly controlling personality. There's a symbolic creepiness to the
fact that Rob was holding onto Patrise's ashes and did not let anyone see them,
as if it was his way of saying, if I can't have you,
no one else will. Unsolved Mystery did not mention that Patrise left a
note on Rob's car before she went to work that morning, and we've only
seen that piece of information mentioned in one article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
As you might recall, the note read the best is yet to come,
and I'd be really curious to know what Patrise meant by that. The note
could very well have no relevance to this case at all. But if this
was a message in which Patrice was conveying her intention to leave Rob, then
this could have been the breaking point which set Rob off and prompted him to
abduct her from the salon. While the Unsolved Mysteries episode shared the detail about
Patrice's wedding ring never being found, it did not mention that the words Patrice
and Rob Forever were inscribed on there. If you believe Rob is guilty in
him holding on to the ring after all these years, would totally fit his
personality. However, like we mentioned earlier, Rob did recently pass away and
we haven't heard anything yet about the ring being found in his possessions. Well,
here's my problem with the ring, right, It's very possible that when
she was getting robbed and they're taking money from her cash retor or any things
like that, they say, take your ring off, I want your ring.
It's also possible she was found as a set of skeletal remains. The
bones were scattered everywhere. It's possible that that ring was part of her but
during the decomposition process, that it fell into the dirt, sand, mud,
whatever, and that it simply just wasn't found around her skeletal remains after
they were scattered and you know, thrown about. So I don't know that
you can read so much into the wedding band. Would it have been powerful
if it had been found in his possessions? Yeah, oh my gosh.
He would have been most likely guilty because she was wearing it and then it's
in his box with her ashes, right. But other than that, I
don't know that you can say ring was definitely part of the crime or stolen
off her body or something, because her body wasn't intact when I was discovered.
Yeah, that is true. I've never thought about it the possibility,
but I know that animals can scatter human remains around. I don't know if
one of them would take a wedding band and walk off with it, but
I guess it is certainly a possibility, and for all we know, it
could still be out there somewhere in the woods. But I can't imagine someone
trying to steal it if robbery was the motive, because if you try to
punt off a wedding ring and it has someone's name inscribed on it, then
it's easily going to be traced to you, and a lot of people are
going to be reluctant to pay for a ring that has someone else's names on
them. I mean We've seen cases where it looks like the most likely outcomes
either murder, suicide, or somebody's ended their own life and the gun isn't
found at the scene when the remains are found, and it's like, okay,
well, animals will scatter remains and that's the whole gun. That's a
big thing. A wedding band will be really difficult to find unless you had
them like scouring the area with a metal detector on their hands and knees looking
for this ring. We just don't really know how in depth the more this
ring was. Maybe it was there and they just didn't find it, yeah
for sure, Like what if an animal had grabbed her hand, you know,
and taken it or her arm or something, and that gets moved and
in the process the ring slips off somewhere, or like you said, Jules,
they just simply weren't really looking for it. I mean, it's possible
they're interviewing the sun three days later and he's like, did you find her
wedding ban? She has a wedding band, you know. Or it's possible
that they discovered the body and then it's not until an interview two weeks later
that someone's like what about her wedding band? It says, you know,
Patrese and Rob forever did you find that? And they're going, oh,
yeah, we didn't really specifically look for that. The biggest red flag with
Rob was his decision to change all the locks on his house and his refusal
to allow Pistol inside the very day after Patrese went missing. Rob's rationalization during
his Unsolved Mysteries interview about be concerned for both his and pistol safety does not
hold water. Even if he had personal issues with pis still and did not
want to live with them, at the very least, Rob could have still
allowed him to come inside and collect his personal possessions. I mean, Pistol
was still a miner at the time, but Rob wouldn't even speak to him
or ensure he had another place to stay. It's terrible behavior from a moral
standpoint, and it also makes no sense from a logical standpoint. Patrese had
only been missing for around twenty four hours before Rob changed the locks, and
no one could even be one hundred percent certain she was dead. Why if
Patris turned out to be alive and returned home to find out that Rob had
kicked out her son and returned home to find out that Rob had kicked her
son out of the house. If there weren't already serious issues with their marriage
before, that probably would have put the final nail in the coffin, because
if there's one thing which Patrice seemed to have zero tolerance for, it was
mistreating her son. So you could see Rob's actions as an indication that he
knew Patrice was dead and would not be coming back. How much darker interpretation
is that Rob did not want anyone else to enter the house because he had
incriminating evidence in there, possibly even Patrese's body. Remember, even though Patrese's
remains were found in a wooded area, that doesn't necessarily mean they were placed
there on the day she disappeared. That is so true. It doesn't mean
that that she was placed there immediately. We have cases. I actually just
watched a documentary about missing and murdered Indigenous women where for eighteen days a young
lady's body wasn't discovered through areas where people were searching in gridlock patterns for her,
and then on day eighteen, she's out in the open in you know,
a desert like area where you would have seen her body had you walked
by Patrese, wasn't you said? She was in a wooded area about six
miles away. But still there's no guarantee that she went from that salon to
that final resting place. Her body could have easily been put there at any
time later within those eighteen months. I mean, in most cases, I
wouldn't think that a spouse would keep like the victim's body just hanging around their
house. But we talked about on the last episode that Rob shared a store
about having to assemble Patrese's remains and kiss her skull and cuddling up with her
ashes. So he does seem like a creepy enough guy that after murdering his
wife he would keep her body around the house for a couple of weeks before
deciding to dispose of it in a wooded area. And I just don't think
he realized how tone death that sounds. Given that he's pulling her out of
a cardboard box. I do not believe for a second you're cuddling her ashes
like a teddy bear, like he'd said, if you're keeping her in a
cardboard box, the two things are not in alignment. But if we look
back and you look at any of his actions, are any of his actions
something that you think anyone with like emotional sound faculties to themselves would do,
Because let's say you're guilty as heck, let's say you're glad Patrese is gone,
you still have to pretend like you're not. And there aren't many actions
by Rob that actually protect his facade when you look at the callous notions towards
the towards the sun, when you look at changing the locks, when you
look at this idea of you know, she's in the cardboard box and he
had to go assemble her body and hold the skull and kiss it, and
something seems off incredibly bizarre. Yeah, I feel like he's definitely dealing with
a mental health condition or a personality disorder, because it's it's just not connecting,
it's not computing. He doesn't seem to be able to anticipate how others
will react to his actions, and we see that as a pervasive pattern throughout
and that doesn't seem indicative of somebody who seems to be incredibly self aware of
how his actions affect other people. And so the question is is this guy
just an asshole? Or is he an asshole who murdered his wife or is
he just a really sick person somebody who's struggling with some undiagnosed thing. Because
then, remember, guys, he also goes and he does, he searches,
he offers a reward, He goes and stands at a trial saying justice
for his wife. Like there's also these other things where he's doing what you
would expect, but he's also doing nothing to protect his own character. He's
doing some things for Patrise, but never once do you see him really even
trying to fake out police or the community. That he's this upstanding man and
you would think he'd do something like you think there'd be some notions of,
well we saw this, but not this, and you know, he did
these things that were loving and not these things. It's just a very confusing
look at human behavior when you study Rob specifically and Robin. Wasn't it true
that the Unsolved Mysteries producer I think her name is Mirror, that she believed
wholeheartedly that he was innocent and she was really upset about the way social media
reacted to Rob after the episode aired. She didn't say that she thought he
was innocent, but she thought he came across well when they showed up to
interview him, like they said that even though he acted oddly, she thought
he was sincere when he was speaking, and she thought that he genuinely loved
Patrise, and he sounded like he was remarried and had moved on with his
life. And I think she was just shocked that people watched his interview and
just thought he was a real creep, because, I mean, you go
to online discussions, I'd say that like ninety five percent of the people out
there automatically assume that he's guilty based on the interview. They don't really look
at the evidence. And it's quite a contrast because I know that her husband,
the co creative of Unsaw Mysteries, John Cosgrove. He says that this
is a sharp contrast to Jewel Kaylor's infamous interview where he's saying that, oh,
it's just thought he disappeared and things are really pretty good, and Jewel
has an attorney in his room yelling cut cut, don't say that, why
are you saying that? And it doesn't sound like it's anything like that with
Rob. I don't think he had an attorney in his room. He just
gave this sincere interview where he sounded like he was really sincere about missing his
wife and just did not give off the vibe that he killed her. And
we have to remember that Rob had an alibi, So I'm sure that they
looked at his financials. If we're to believe that this was a murder for
hire, wouldn't there be some kind of finalinantial trail left behind? Yeah,
exactly like the I know we're going to talk about this in a moment,
but there's an investigator on Unsolved Mysteries who kind of gave a quote about that
and implied that they just found no evidence to indicate that he had paid someone
to kill his wife. However, let's look at the logistics of Rob being
able to commit this crime. Here's an actual quote from one of the investigators
interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries when discussing Rob's viability as a suspect. Quote, Rob
Andres was thoroughly investigated, and we created a timeline for him that doesn't eliminate
him from being able to do this, but greatly reduces the chances that he
could have done this. He doesn't eliminate a murder for hire, but it
just doesn't seem probable. We've uncovered nothing that suggests that at this point end
quote. The only specific information we know about Rob's alibi was provided by Rob
himself during his own interview, where he mentions having a time stamped receipt which
shows him getting gas in the town of Woodstock, and that a turnstile recorded
the exact time he arrived at work. Rob states that this would have made
it physically impossible for him to commit this crime, but since he hasn't been
completely eliminated as a suspect, I'm guessing it's more improbable that he did it
rather than outright impossible. Newspaper articles have stated that Rob worked a second shift
as a maintenance supervisor in Conyers, though they did not name the actual workplace.
It's also never been mentioned what exact time Rob logged in. But Conyers
is located nearly seventy miles southeast of Patresea's salon. But I'm very curious about
Rob's claim that he got gas in Woodstock. Woodstock is a forty five minute
drive away from the salon, but it's also about an hour's drive northwest from
Conyers. In other words, Woodstock is definitely not on the same route from
Rob's home to his workplace and would have required him to drive several miles out
of his way to get gas. I mean, I guess Rob may have
had a reasons for traveling to Woodstock that day before he went to work as
shift in Conyers, and I'm sure investigators probably looked into this. Whatever the
case, it's hard to imagine Rob abducting and murdering Patrice, dumping her body
in Dawson County, and then driving seventy miles to work a shift as normal
without raising any red flags that something was wrong. Remember, the police have
all this information too, so like you said, some of these things aren't
lining up. They've said they can't rule him out, but it makes it
more complex to have him be their main suspect. It also isn't possible for
them to rule out a murder for hire. But one of the things I'm
dying to know and we never will maybe is what was the condition of her
skeletal remains, What were the injuries to her body? They have to know
something because they are not releasing a cause of death. They're not releasing details
from her body to the public, which means either in my mind, there
was a injury to the bones that could have possibly been self inflicted or could
have been inflicted by someone else. If it was a clear suicide, I
think they would have said if it was a clear murder, I think they
would have said if it was clear that she had died from the elements,
maybe stumbled around and got hypothermia, or you know, was out there and
just couldn't find her way back as of some mental issue, then I think
they would have said that. I believe there is a questionable finding when her
body's discovered that they're leaning towards a murder. Their questioning is this possibly a
self inflicted wound, and that's why they're not ruling murder, suicide, accident
undetermined. Something with her skeletal remains tells them some information that they aren't quite
able to interpret one hundred percent. Yeah, Like it've never flat out said
that they consider it to be a suicide or some unexplained death. I mean,
they pretty much seem to be leaning towards it being a murder, but
it isn't a case though, like where they say that we found the remains,
but we couldn't determine how the victim died. They definitely did find something
to make them think that they know how she died, but they're just withholding
that from the public and likely to read out false confessions from people like Jeremy
Jones. The biggest piece of evidence which leans away from Rob being the perpetrator
are the two eye witnesses who saw Patre standing next to a completely different individual
and a blue car outside the salon. If Rob did it himself, then
this means he would have had to show up almost immediately after this other person
left, and he managed to abduct Patrice before her next customer arrived at the
salon and noticed she was missing. That doesn't seem probable, So if Rob
is guilty, then the only scenario which makes sense is if he hired the
individual with the blue car to kill Patrice. Rob's detourt a Woodstock could be
interpreted as him taking additional steps to place himself at a faraway location and fabricate
an alibi. During his Unsolved Mysteries interview, Rob even made a remark about
how he studied criminology, which some people have taken as a sign that he
was using this knowledge to play out the perfect murder. However, if this
was a murder for higher plot. Investigators have stated that they've been unable to
find anything pointing in that direction, such as a large sum of money being
withdrawn from Rob's bank account during this time period, which he could have used
to pay the killer. Indeed, it seems very brazen that Rob would arrange
for someone to abduct Patrese from the salon during the middle of the day,
unless the perpetrator was watching the place for a couple hours that morning. It
seems like they got incredibly lucky to be able to pick out a window of
time when Patrise did not have any customers and was alone. I guess it's
possible that Rob could have seen Patrice's appointment book and known she did not have
any appointment schedule between eleven thirty and twelve o'clock. But that sort of thing
can change at any time, and given that this was a public place next
to a highway, there's always the risk of someone stopping by. I think
it has to be more random than that. I don't think it could be
planned to that extent, because how do you know that that customer at eleven
thirty is leaving at eleven thirty, the customer coming at twelve isn't coming at
eleven thirty and waiting for their appointment. So it's very difficult to think that
Rob sat there and said, she's got this thirty minute gap, this is
the time that I want you to pull the trigger and get her. I
do think it's possible someone random watched and watched as only one car was left
in the parking lot. I also think it's possible that someone just pulled up
at the exact right time and there wasn't anybody at the Salam, which is
why they then acted by robbing her, getting her in the car, fussing
with her out in the parking lot. All of that is a very strong
possibility for a random nature of this crime. But it is during the middle
of the day in a busy place, so brazen. That might make more
sense of why it could have been two people. It would be easier to
subdue and control her and manipulate her if you have a trusting looking woman start
the whole act, and then you have the man follow through and get her
into the vehicle. I agree, I think there's a very strong likelihood that
this could have been random. I just don't feel like there's enough year to
support that Rob is involved, aside from Rob behaving in a way that seems
to lack compassion and empathy and is just outright odd, but that doesn't necessarily
make him a killer. And we've got no evidence to support anything that was
related to murder for hire, and I think just the chaotic nature of the
scene seems like it was random. But yes, there was likely two perpetrators,
so I'm in agreement with you there. Ash. Look, I know
that Rob Andres became one of the most hated people on the Internet in twenty
twenty, and there are some good reasons for that, but given the circumstances,
it's hard to say with one hundred percent certainty that he was involved in
this crime. If Rob was involved, he seemed to do a very effective
job at covering his tracks, and since he just passed away, a murder
for higher scenario might be the only way to figure out what exactly happened.
The advances in DNA testing and genetic genealogy have made it possible to solve cold
cases and conclusively link them to suspects even after they're already deceased. But the
problem is there is no DNA evidence to work with in this case, if
Rob did this alone, then he took all his secrets to the grave.
But if he hired someone to kill Patrese, then that person may still be
out there and can face justice. But on the other hand, this begs
the question, if Rob didn't do it, then who actually did. I
feel like it's a stranger who had either scoped out her salon before or who
was watching her from afar and looking at her habit. It seems too odd
for Rob to have been able to pull this off. He doesn't seem highly
intelligent or very aware. He doesn't seem to try to pull any stunt to
actually make himself look good or have a story that convinces him something else could
have happened to her. I mean, he just seems to be aloof and
float along and makes real poor personal decisions along the way. But I don't
know that he's well versed enough to actually nail down this thirteen minute murder for
higher window and or do it himself. It just doesn't seem probable. I
also think the serial killer links. By the time someone's on death row,
if they really had could contributed to these murders, would they be talking and
telling the truth if they're willing to talk about all these other cases. I'm
thinking more random. I'm thinking someone got away with it and we just don't
know who they were to hold them accountable. Well, I've always wondered if
we should place some significance on the location where Patrice's remains were found. That
wooded area was very rough to rain, and it would have been difficult to
transport a body through there, which is why investigators push forward the possibility that
the perpetrator forced Patrise to walk into the woods before they killed her. Rob
even made an odd remark during his interview about someone using a wheelbarrow to transport
her body, which struck many people as strangely specific, though it could just
be him proposing a hypothetical scenario. Since the perpetrator selected a location behind the
Lebanon Baptist Church, you also have to wonder if they were a local who
was familiar with the area. I personally lean away from the idea of Patrice
being abducted by an opportunistic serial killer who has just passing through the area,
like Jeremy Jones or Gary Michael Hilton, but I have to wonder if it
was an individual who had been inside the salon before and was familiar with the
layout and may have even known Patrice personally. A theory I've always found intriguing
is that it could have been a spouse or someone associated with Patrice's regular customers
who developed a fixation on her. They may not have been planning to kill
Patrice that day and only showed up at the salon with the intention of making
advances towards her, but when she rejected them, things escalated into violence.
But let's not forget that one of the witnesses was certain that she saw Patrice
and an older woman putting their hands on each other, So if the perpetrator
was female, then that points to this crime being motivated by some sort of
personal grudge. However, if any women ever popped up on the radar as
potential suspects, investigators have not said so. Until the person or the blue
vehicle seen outside the salon that day can be identified, the actual truth about
what happened to Patrice will be based on nothing more than speculation anyway. Ever,
since this case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries, it sounds like new tips
have poured in, so hopefully maybe this will lead to a resolution. Someday,
if you happen to have any information on the murder of Patrise Andris Lee's,
contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation tip line at one eight hundred five nine
seven eight four seven seven. That's one eight hundred five nine seven eight four
seven seven, Jules Ashley. Any final thoughts on this case. This one
is scary to think about. You have a woman who was a mother and
a wife and a business owner, and she's in a very populated busy area
doing her daily routine, showing up to work, helping her clients, putting
her lunch by the microwave, She's made a rock and roll, and all
of a sudden, you have a thirteen minute window between one customer and the
next coming in and she's vanished. There are some very bizarre behavior by her
husband. There is some very traumatic and pitiful behavior towards her son who has
is grieving his missing and then murdered mother. And then we find her body
as skeletal remains eighteen months later, and we don't know much information beyond that.
People have come forward with false leads, they've come forward with false confessions.
You even have people who like you, guys told me are targeting Rob
being the main suspect, while other people say, I mean, how it's
very rare. I don't see it. I think he's genuine. So this
case is riddled with distractions. It's riddled with confusion and a lack of information.
Even the eyewitnesses contradict one another, or at least aren't provided the full
picture if they are both accurate. So it's a sad case. It's one
that I think if this really was at random killing, there is still potential
for justice. It takes one relationship to change, one breakup, one wrong
business transaction for someone to say, ha, my friend told me that he
killed her. I know what happened. This is who it was. So
I'm praying for Pistol's sake, I'm praying for her family's sake that all this
attention does bring resolution. But at the end of the day, I'm praying
that Pistol's doing phenomenal and that he knows how loved he was by his mother,
who would put him before her marriage. It sounds like fight for what
was best for him and would have been appalled by the way he was treated.
Even if Rob's not held responsible. Yeah, my heart really breaks for
pistol. I feel like he's such a victim in this, and we've got
to remember that he was a miner when his mother disappeared. Patrice went missing,
and he gets locked out of the place that he calls home. He
doesn't have access to his possessions, and Rob, who would have been his
guardian, did not make arrangements for him. That is like piling trauma on
top of trauma. And I can understand why. Like Robin had mentioned earlier,
ninety five percent of the Internet thinks that Rob did this. I personally
don't agree. I do agree with Ash and that I think it's more of
a red herring. I think that his behavior is very atypical and it seems
completely out of touch, and he does these bizarre things. But I think
it's more indicative of somebody who's suffering from a mental health condition or a personality
disorder, rather than somebody who killed his wife. Because when it comes down
to it, we just don't have the evidence to support that he did this.
The only way that he would have likely that would have been probable,
would be a murder for hire. It seemed like his alibi made it very
unlikely that he could have done this, and then when we look at the
eyewitness testimony, both eyewitnesses described somebody that looks nothing like rob who was bald.
It was somebody with long hair, whether a woman or a man.
I agree with Ashley that I think it's most likely a random person. This
was a major highway, so wasn't it Root six Robin. It was Georgia
State Route three sixty nine, Georgia Route three sixty nine, so this is
a major highway and there could have been any number of people who were opportunistic.
We don't know if robbery would have been the motive or it could have
just been a stage robbery in order to cover up another motive. And if
you're going to steal a woman in the middle of the day and you don't
know her, then the most likely other motive is a sexually based one.
But like I mentioned earlier, we just we are never going to have the
answers there because we don't have any DNA and we didn't have a full physical
body. We only had the skeletal remains. It's just my heart breaks for
Pateresa's family. I'm just so happy that they got her remains back and that
her ashes can be where they belong in outside of Rob's possession. Yeah.
I still remember when the Unsolved Mysteries episode about this dropt three and a half
years ago, and the Internet just exploded with the reaction to Rob Andris Unsolved
Mysteries. Fans were saying that, oh my god, he's the creepiest,
guiltiest husband since Julie Kaylor. But then you look at the evidence and you're
like, yeah, he acted terrible in his interview, But the investigators who
were interviewed, who were interviewed on the segment flat out said that they don't
seem to lean towards him doing it this, like they haven't eliminated him as
a suspect, but it just kind of seems physically improbable that he could have
done it, and there's no evidence of a murder for hire. And I
think that if he wanted to kill Patrise, if he had a motive,
if she was planning to divorce him, he would get rid of her in
a much less risky fashion rather than having her abducted from her salon in broad
daylight when any witnesses could have come in and seen it. So I definitely
know overall leaned towards her being the victim of a random attack. I don't
know if it was a stranger. It could have been someone who had a
personal grudge with Patrese or someone who had a fixation on her. Perhaps there
was a creepy man who liked to come in there and hit on her,
and she just never told anyone about it, so that when she when this
person killed her, no one looked at this individual as a potential suspect.
But like I said, I do think that the hatred towards Rob has money
the case a bit. I know he did some despicable things by holding on
to Patresea's ashes, and if there's a bright spot to him passing away,
at least Patrese's family, particularly Pistol, has got her ashes back, so
there's some sort of closure for them, even if they don't actually find out
who killed her. I know that law enforcement probably has a lot more information
about this case, and they've released publicly such as the cause of death,
so I would be interested to know if they have any other suspects in mind
besides Rob. But if she was the victim of a random perpetrator just passing
through the area, then it will make it more difficult to solve, and
it might just be a matter of the right person coming forward with information.
Maybe someone has openly bragged about this to someone, and if this information has
passed on the law enforcement, maybe this will finally put this individual on the
radar and finally get them charged with the murder. Well, then I'm hoping
that we finally get a resolution in this case. Robin, do you want
to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes,
The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer
these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out
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If you join our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly
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on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the
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over was the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a
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