WEBVTT 1 00:00:29.160 --> 00:00:33.000 Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the 2 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.679 disappearance of Curtis Pashan. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on 3 00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:41.200 what we talked about in our previous episode. Curtis Pachan was forty years old 4 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:44.399 and lived in New Hampshire. He had always dreamed about wanting to be a 5 00:00:44.439 --> 00:00:48.560 police officer, but during the early to mid nineteen nineties, he started to 6 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:53.320 suffer from multiple sclerosis and then was forced to resign, and he became very 7 00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:56.640 depressed. For a while, he developed a drinking problem, but he eventually 8 00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:00.759 did get a job as a security guard in the town of Sebra at a 9 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:06.000 plant called the Venture Corporation, which manufactured automobile parts. He was working the 10 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:10.359 graveyard shift on July the fourth, two thousand, but sometime in the middle 11 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:14.560 of the shift, his car mysteriously caught on fire. The fire department arrived, 12 00:01:14.599 --> 00:01:17.599 dowsed the flames, and everything seemed to be fine, but no one 13 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:21.680 knows how it happened, and Curtis decided to continue, remaining to work the 14 00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:25.680 rest of his shift, but some time later he would just vanish without a 15 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:30.319 trace. At first, police looked into the possibility that Curtis took his own 16 00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:34.359 life, that he could have gone somewhere and decided to kill himself because he 17 00:01:34.400 --> 00:01:38.799 was feeling depressed, but of course that seemed very unlikely because of his ms 18 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:42.439 making it very difficult for him to walk it anywhere, and it would not 19 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:47.519 be till a few years later when the investigator started looking into a suspect named 20 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:52.400 Robert April Third, who had actually been working at the plant that night and 21 00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:57.480 was on duty when Curtis was working, and had allegedly bragged about causing his 22 00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:02.719 disappearance. The rumors have circulated that April and an unnamed accomplice who also worked 23 00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:07.959 at the plant had been breaking into a bunch of vending machines and a change 24 00:02:07.959 --> 00:02:12.120 machine in order to conduct some sort of theft, and that Curtis caught them 25 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:15.400 in the act and wound up being beaten to death, and they proceeded to 26 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:19.759 smuggle his body out of the plant and dispose of them somewhere. It seems 27 00:02:19.759 --> 00:02:22.439 like a lot of people in the community think that April did it, but 28 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:25.240 there's never been any hard evidence of foul play. So as it is right 29 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:30.840 now, the case is still in a holding pattern and Curtis is still missing 30 00:02:30.919 --> 00:02:35.520 and no one has been arrested anyway. When I first became familiar with this 31 00:02:35.599 --> 00:02:38.759 case after seeing on Unsolved Mysteries many years ago, I thought it was a 32 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:44.879 truly perplexing mystery. As you probably know, one of the more memorable cases 33 00:02:44.919 --> 00:02:49.879 the show ever featured was the nineteen eighty seven disappearance of Dale Curstetter, another 34 00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:53.080 case involving a security guard who went missing while working a graveyard shift at a 35 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:58.719 factory. Like Curtis Bashan, Dale, Cursetetter may have been murdered because he 36 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:01.719 interrupted the theft, but while it was fairly easy to formulate a number of 37 00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:07.400 theories about what happened in that case, Curtis's disappearance did not seem to make 38 00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:12.919 any sense. The most bizarre detail was undoubtedly Curtis's car catching on fire in 39 00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:15.439 the middle of his shift, only about two hours before he went missing, 40 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:21.000 and while the two events were most likely connected, it was just very difficult 41 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:25.319 to figure out how. The Unsolved Mystery segment has a lot more ambiguity about 42 00:03:25.319 --> 00:03:30.080 whether Curtis was the victim of foul play or if he might have wandered away 43 00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:34.719 from the scene voluntarily and ended his own life somewhere. However, as the 44 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:38.039 years have gone by, the ambiguity has faded away, and it now seems 45 00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:42.680 like this is one of those cases where law enforcement has a pretty good idea 46 00:03:42.680 --> 00:03:46.560 about what happened and who was responsible, but they just lacked the evidence to 47 00:03:46.599 --> 00:03:50.960 make an arrest. Even so, there are still a lot of unanswered questions 48 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:53.960 about how these events might have played out. Before he even went missing. 49 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:59.599 It sounds like Curtis's life story was already a pretty tragic one, as working 50 00:03:59.639 --> 00:04:02.199 as a police officer was pretty much the only thing he ever wanted to do, 51 00:04:02.639 --> 00:04:06.199 but due to circumstances beyond his control, he was forced to end his 52 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:12.360 career early. Multipler sclerosis is already such a horrible disease to live with, 53 00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:15.360 but it's got to be extra devastating when it prevents you from doing the one 54 00:04:15.399 --> 00:04:19.879 thing you love. And this is the main reason that people cannot initially dismiss 55 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:26.360 the possibility of Curtis's disappearance being a suicide. It sounds like working as a 56 00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:30.879 security guard did give Curtis some purpose, but I'm sure he was still suffering. 57 00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:34.399 Apparently, after his shift ended every morning, it was pretty much his 58 00:04:34.519 --> 00:04:39.480 daily routine to go across the street to the Extra Mark to purchase a twelve 59 00:04:39.519 --> 00:04:43.519 pack of beer before he headed back to his hotel room to watch pornography, 60 00:04:43.800 --> 00:04:47.480 get drunk and pass out. So he obviously kept experiencing a lot of regret 61 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:51.480 about how his life turned out. I think, of course, anybody can 62 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:57.000 sit there and empathize with someone who's struggling with a diagnosis so difficult is MS. 63 00:04:57.639 --> 00:05:02.560 It's this very bizarre disease that is so unpredictable. You wake up one 64 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.720 day and you're feeling okay. You wake up the next day and you're possibly 65 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:11.560 almost experiencing paralysis across your body. You're in pain. For him, he 66 00:05:11.560 --> 00:05:15.959 couldn't even grip a gun. He couldn't do his job as a police officer, 67 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.639 and that was his passion. And so to judge or to say, 68 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:21.519 like, look at this guy. He's miserable and he doesn't even love his 69 00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:25.360 life. Look what he's doing, you also have to look at the fact 70 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:30.800 that he is a functioning employee, that he is trying to get his life 71 00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:34.839 together, he has plans, and the fact that you talk about suicide, 72 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:40.040 would it be possible, absolutely absolutely? You never know what someone's going through, 73 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:45.240 but with someone in his condition, someone who is struggling physically, I 74 00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:49.680 just don't see how a man could get far enough away to complete suicide and 75 00:05:49.720 --> 00:05:54.800 not have his body located. Given where he was. He wasn't mobile. 76 00:05:55.360 --> 00:06:00.639 His car was burned, so he didn't have his own transportation, no record 77 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:03.120 of him catching a cab or something like that halfway through his shift. So 78 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:09.160 I'm more inclined to think that the burned car is a distraction, and that 79 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:13.160 we know there were issues happening inside the factory and he was a hard rear 80 00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:15.879 end about rules, and so I think he walked in he said, not 81 00:06:15.959 --> 00:06:19.079 going to happen. You're all going to lose your job, and they said, 82 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:21.879 we're actually not. You're going to lose your life over what we're doing 83 00:06:21.959 --> 00:06:28.040 right now, and that's more likely what happened. I've never heard a hard 84 00:06:28.120 --> 00:06:32.519 rear end. My daughter was standing next to me trying to give me a 85 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:34.439 kiss, so you know, I didn't want to say hard ass. It's 86 00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:39.759 okay, that's a good one. But yeah. We talked about in our 87 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:43.360 last episode how Curtis did have a drinking problem in the past while he was 88 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:46.879 a police officer and did a stint and rehab, and he had also been 89 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:50.519 fired from a previous security job for showing up drunk. And obviously, as 90 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:54.800 we talked about, Curtis was still drinking heavily at this point. But it 91 00:06:54.839 --> 00:06:58.240 sounds like he took his job seriously enough that he never showed up to work 92 00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:01.639 intoxicated and seemed to take it seriously. So I do think that if he 93 00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:05.480 caught someone doing something illegal, such as an attempt at theft or something in 94 00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:09.800 the middle of a shift, he would go all out to stop it in 95 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:15.279 spite of his limitations. I truly empathize with Curtis as somebody who has dealt 96 00:07:15.319 --> 00:07:18.040 with addiction in the past, and you know, every day, of course 97 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:23.240 you have to, you know, be very cognizant of what your triggers are 98 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:27.079 and be sure that you don't get triggered and do the work, because it 99 00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:30.800 doesn't just turn off. If you are somebody that is prone to that, 100 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:34.519 you will always be. And I can only speak to my own experience at 101 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:40.279 that time, but I know that when you are trying to escape something and 102 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:44.920 it can be trauma, and for him it was likely his MS diagnosis. 103 00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:51.360 If you are using alcohol and pornography, to escape that you're escaping being depressed 104 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:57.879 and you're escaping being anxious, but yet the substance, being alcohol, makes 105 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:03.680 it worse, and continue using pornography to that ends also can make you feel 106 00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:07.720 worse, so you're ending up feeling more depressed. And it's this loop that 107 00:08:07.879 --> 00:08:13.759 just goes round and round and round, this vicious cycle where you're taking your 108 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:18.519 drinking alcohol and you're watching pornography because you're depressed, but you're depressed because you're 109 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:22.439 drinking alcohol and watching pornography. So it's just a really awful cycle that you 110 00:08:22.439 --> 00:08:26.720 can feel really trapped in without some kind of intervention. But I agree with 111 00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:31.560 everything that you said, Ash. I don't think that somebody who had his 112 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:37.399 mobility issues without being able to have access to a vehicle or a cab, 113 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:41.240 which we pretty much can say for certain he did not, And I just 114 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:45.799 don't think that he would have been able to have reached a destination where he 115 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:48.720 would have been able to end his own life and his body would have never 116 00:08:48.759 --> 00:08:54.799 been discovered. Given the many of Curtis's personal possessions were destroyed when his car 117 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:58.320 caught fire, there was speculation that this was the breaking point which caused him 118 00:08:58.360 --> 00:09:03.720 to either become suicidal or suffer some sort of mental breakdown before he wandered off. 119 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:07.919 If he jumped into a body of water or found an isolated spot to 120 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:13.159 end his life, that could explain why his body was never found. Well, 121 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:16.320 even though that theory might be plausible in some cases, like we just 122 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:20.519 mentioned, it's hard to imagine a person with MS being able to make it 123 00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:24.600 that far, as the disease really makes it difficult to walk long distances. 124 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:31.200 The only conceivable way for him to have left the area undetected is if he 125 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:35.840 hitchhiked, but the distance from the guard shack to the main road still would 126 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:39.600 have made it a challenge for someone with Curtis's condition. The fact that Curtis 127 00:09:39.639 --> 00:09:43.039 bought back a gun from his father only a day and a half before he 128 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:48.240 went missing could be seen as a major red flag that he was contemplating suicide, 129 00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:52.919 But since the gun was ultimately found in Curtis's hotel room, I'm sure 130 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:58.240 it doesn't have any relevance to his disappearance. So I definitely think that the 131 00:09:58.279 --> 00:10:03.759 only way Curtis left the Venture Corporation premises is if someone abducted him or he 132 00:10:03.879 --> 00:10:09.080 was killed on the premises. When the Unsolved Mystery segment originally aired in two 133 00:10:09.120 --> 00:10:13.200 thousand and one, there was a lot more uncertainty about what actually happened to 134 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:20.360 Curtis, but it sounds like things change when Seabrook Police Lieutenant Mike Gallagher took 135 00:10:20.399 --> 00:10:24.879 over the investigation a few years later. During Curtis's tenure at the Venture Corporation, 136 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:30.840 Gallagher was working as a patrolman and said that he sometimes stopped by the 137 00:10:30.840 --> 00:10:35.399 factory during his patrols to chat with Curtis in the guard shack and thought that 138 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:39.720 he was a very nice guy. When Gallagher started handling the investigation, he 139 00:10:39.799 --> 00:10:45.600 received an anonymous tip advising him to look closer at the skeleton crew who was 140 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:50.440 working at the factory during Curtis's final shift. Under normal circumstances, there would 141 00:10:50.440 --> 00:10:54.840 have been at least one hundred people working that shift, and it would have 142 00:10:54.840 --> 00:10:58.919 been very difficult for an employee to abduct or murder Curtis without anyone noticing. 143 00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:05.440 However, because this was the fourth of July holiday and there were only twelve 144 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:09.879 other employees working there that night, it's not implausible that one or more of 145 00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:13.200 them could have gotten away with something like that. And it's not abnormal for 146 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:16.480 them to know how many people are going to be on that shift. It's 147 00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:22.720 a holiday weekend. They know that nobody is in the building. There's twelve 148 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:28.120 people versus the normal one hundred. That's an amazing time to plan a more 149 00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:33.679 advanced crime. You have people in that building that we know were causing issues. 150 00:11:33.960 --> 00:11:37.200 And if there's ever a time to pull off something bigger, it's the 151 00:11:37.240 --> 00:11:41.679 time that you know one tenth of the employees are present. I think when 152 00:11:41.720 --> 00:11:45.840 you go back to the gun issue, I believe Curtis had even told people 153 00:11:45.879 --> 00:11:48.240 he felt like there were problems at work. He was stressed out about people 154 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:52.480 at work. And so to me, I interpret the fact that a former 155 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:56.639 police officer is trying to, you know, be in recovering things like that 156 00:11:56.679 --> 00:12:01.360 he doesn't have a weapon, But when he starts to get concerned, he 157 00:12:01.519 --> 00:12:05.159 knows that, given his physical state with MS, he needs to have a 158 00:12:05.519 --> 00:12:09.919 physical weapon that allows him to defend himself in the event of being attacked at 159 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:13.840 work or on his way home from work or something like that. So I 160 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:18.679 think that lack of physical strength and not really knowing if on a given day 161 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:22.480 he's going to be able to take care of his own body. A gun 162 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:26.440 becomes a protective mechanism, and it was found in his hotel room. There's 163 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:31.399 just no way that's a relevant fact that points to what his mental health was 164 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:35.519 at the time. Of course, Curtis's family have claimed that prior to his 165 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:39.960 disappearance, he told them he felt unsafe because there was a legal activity taking 166 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:43.480 place at the factory and one of his coworkers had supposedly threatened him for giving 167 00:12:43.519 --> 00:12:48.720 him a parking ticket. Now we know that the primary person of interest, 168 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:52.600 Robert April, third, worked there and that he was one of the twelve 169 00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:56.120 employees who was present on the night Curtis went missing. However, I'm not 170 00:12:56.159 --> 00:13:01.000 sure if April was the same coworker whom Curtis came us of threatening him, 171 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:05.519 because it's been reported that this employee had an alibi, which might imply that 172 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:09.559 he was not working at the factory that night. But interestingly enough, before 173 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:13.840 Lieutenant Gallagher took over the investigation, he says that one of the people who 174 00:13:13.879 --> 00:13:18.399 had been most adamant about pushing forward the theory that Curtis went off somewhere and 175 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:22.879 took his own life is the same person he now suspects of committing the crime. 176 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:28.960 If true, it definitely sounds like this was an act of intentional misdirection 177 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:33.799 given what we now know. There's some leads in this case which ultimately turned 178 00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:37.159 out to me nothing like the allegations of drug dealing in the factory parking lot, 179 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:43.120 the sighting of the Hispanic individuals acting rowdy at the extramart across the street, 180 00:13:43.559 --> 00:13:46.879 and the allegations that Curtis had affairs with some police officers wives during his 181 00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:52.600 time on the force. The most significant clue seems to be the vandalism of 182 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:56.200 the vending machines at the factory, and I always thought that detail was downplayed 183 00:13:56.200 --> 00:14:01.000 a bit during the original Unsolved Mystery segment. The car fire and this vandalism 184 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:05.360 taking place on the same shift when Curtis went missing is just a few too 185 00:14:05.399 --> 00:14:11.519 many coincidences. While the primary theory seems to be that Curtis was killed while 186 00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:16.000 interrupting the theft of some vending machines, it's not entirely clear to me if 187 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:20.960 anything was actually stolen that night. It's possible that if the actual theft was 188 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:26.759 halted because they needed to dispose of Curtis's body, the perpetrator or perpetrators never 189 00:14:26.840 --> 00:14:31.679 actually got the chance to steal from the machines. Curtis had previously expressed his 190 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:35.480 concern that because his skeleton crew was working that night, he would have no 191 00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:39.360 backup if any problems arose, with the only security being in a mobile man 192 00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:45.240 with multiple sclerosis. I wouldn't be surprised if the responsible party thought this would 193 00:14:45.279 --> 00:14:48.360 be the perfect opportunity for a theft, but things still went horribly wrong. 194 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:54.360 That's exactly what I was thinking. I believe that there was somebody who said, 195 00:14:54.360 --> 00:14:56.240 this is the night if we're ever going to pull this off. No 196 00:14:56.279 --> 00:15:00.559 one's here to watch us. Do We have one security guard on staff, 197 00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:03.200 and we know that he has his own limitations, and so we're going to 198 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:09.559 go for this goal of committing a crime. And if caught, they hurt 199 00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:15.679 him and had time to hide the body, to move the body. And 200 00:15:15.879 --> 00:15:20.759 when you look at the police investigation, they didn't inspect that factory as if 201 00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:24.559 there had been a murder that took place or that could have happened. They 202 00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.360 were wondering did he go off and kill himself? And so for me, 203 00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:33.159 you look back and you cringe at this fact that they had all the time 204 00:15:33.159 --> 00:15:37.919 in the world to get rid of evidence that something had happened there, and 205 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:41.440 by the time the police circled back around to say there was probably foul play, 206 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:45.879 it was just too late. Yeah, it is pretty frustrating to me 207 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:50.360 that they found these broken vending machines and also the door to the union room 208 00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:52.399 that had the union meeting room that had been kicked in, and it didn't 209 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:56.480 raise more red flags. I think I remember reading that at the time they 210 00:15:56.480 --> 00:16:00.600 weren't even sure if this damage took place on that particular night, or if 211 00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:04.720 the machines might have been kicked in on a previous occasion. But it's just 212 00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:07.879 so strange to me that they would find the signs of vandalism and still go 213 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:11.879 with the idea that Curtis walked off and decided to end his own life. 214 00:16:11.879 --> 00:16:17.360 But then we hear that the prime suspect was in the police's ear pushing forward 215 00:16:17.399 --> 00:16:21.320 this theory. And unfortunately it sounds like if this was an act of misdirection, 216 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:26.159 then the police fell for it. It's really too bad because it might 217 00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:32.120 have turned out completely differently if they would have if they would have actually investigated 218 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:36.679 right from the jump, Because these guys if they were committing some kind of 219 00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:40.960 theft and they were interrupted by Curtis, then it would have just been a 220 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:45.559 crime of opportunity. They would have grabbed something close by and beat him or 221 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:48.639 whatever they chose to do if that was how it played out, And there 222 00:16:48.679 --> 00:16:52.759 may or may not have been a lot of evidence left behind. If it 223 00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:55.440 was a blunt force injury, there might not have been a lot of blood. 224 00:16:55.639 --> 00:16:59.360 If it was a sharp force injury or he hit his head or something 225 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:03.480 like that, there could been a great deal of blood. So either way, 226 00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:07.920 they would have had ample time to clean this up because the police weren't 227 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:11.160 approaching this like there could have been a murder. I feel like this was 228 00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:15.680 a real missed opportunity. They could have at least done had a couple patrol 229 00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:19.559 people walk through and see if there's any evidence of anything strange, because we 230 00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:22.920 knew about the theft, and because of the car fire, there's just way 231 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:26.599 too many strange things going on here for them to just be like, oh, 232 00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:30.839 yeah, he probably walked off the man who's suffering with MS, who 233 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:34.680 has limited mobility, who has no access to a car, who didn't call 234 00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.759 a cab for all we know, and like, what is the probability that 235 00:17:37.799 --> 00:17:42.119 he hitchhiked and was picked up by somebody, then taken somewhere and ended his 236 00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:47.240 life. It just doesn't really track, and it just feels like it was 237 00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:51.960 a little bit of lazy police work initially. Now, before we talk any 238 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.759 more about this theory, I should mention that the Venture Corporation factory would close 239 00:17:56.839 --> 00:18:00.240 down less than four years after Curtis went missing, and it sounds like there 240 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:04.839 was a lot of shadiness going on in this company. The main reason the 241 00:18:04.920 --> 00:18:11.160 factory wound up closing is because the Venture Corporation's owner, Larry Wingett, was 242 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:15.960 involved in a scandal for he and his family siphoned more than three hundred and 243 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:21.920 fourteen million from the company before it went into bankruptcy, and in two thousand 244 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:26.680 and three, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration find the company fifty five 245 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:33.480 thousand dollars for serious safety violations after a worker at the Seabrook factory was killed 246 00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:37.240 when a large mold slipped from a horizontal mold injection machine and crushed him. 247 00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:42.119 Long story short, this did sound like a bit of a dysfunctional workplace, 248 00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:47.640 so employees breaking into vending machines in the middle of a shift. Doesn't sound 249 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:51.519 like a stretch. No, I agree. I think when you look at 250 00:18:51.519 --> 00:18:56.799 this dysfunction that we know was happening, and you have issues with safety protocols, 251 00:18:56.839 --> 00:19:00.880 you have violations and safety areas. We already know there were mainstream issues 252 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:06.720 really with the system. But then you look at the behavior and this idea 253 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:11.519 that employees were known to be doing damage to the property, It was known 254 00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:18.880 that internal criminal behavior was going on, and you have a disabled man on 255 00:19:19.039 --> 00:19:25.039 a shift responsible for taking care of I mean, I think the system failed 256 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:29.039 him. The company had its own shortcomings, it was easy for the employees 257 00:19:29.079 --> 00:19:33.960 to exploit that. And it's kind of mind blowing that this company are sipeing 258 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:37.839 off three hundred and fourteen million dollars like that involves a lot of work for 259 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:41.960 a prolonged period of time without anyone noticing anything. So it's probably a good 260 00:19:41.960 --> 00:19:45.559 thing that this company is no longer around. And like, how much would 261 00:19:45.559 --> 00:19:48.359 that be in today's money? Would that be like double do you think? 262 00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:51.640 I don't know if it'd be that much because this is two thousand, but 263 00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:55.759 yeah, maybe round five hundred million or so. Like I didn't even know 264 00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:59.440 the company was worth that much. But here they are like sipeening off hundreds 265 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:03.839 of millions of day. But how do we explain the strange fire which engulfed 266 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:07.400 Curtis's car? I have to admit that part of the story still baffles me. 267 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:11.920 The theory presented by Lieutenant Gallagher is that the fire was started by the 268 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:18.440 perpetrators as a diversion while they orchestrated their theft. After all, it's believed 269 00:20:18.440 --> 00:20:21.880 that they used a forkliff to break into the vending machines, which would have 270 00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:25.680 created a lot of noise, so perhaps they felt the fire would keep Curtis 271 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:30.359 occupied. However, the problem is that Curtis's car was parked only about eight 272 00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:33.519 feet away from the guard shack he occupied, So how did he not notice 273 00:20:33.559 --> 00:20:37.480 this? I mean, I guess he could have been somewhere else at the 274 00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:41.319 time, But like we mentioned numerous times, Curtis's MS made it very difficult 275 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:45.480 for him to walk. In fact, while it was standard practice for the 276 00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:48.240 security guards to do the rounds and walk the perimeter at the start of their 277 00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:52.319 shifts, the guard whom Curtis relieved on this particular night, offered to do 278 00:20:52.440 --> 00:20:56.480 it because he knew that sort of thing was difficult for him. Did someone 279 00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:00.440 manage to set fire to Curtis's car while he was eight feet away without him 280 00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:06.519 noticing? I guess as possible. But even though the insurance investigators believed that 281 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:10.359 arson had taken place, I'm not sure if they were able to determine how 282 00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:14.480 exactly the fire was started. A lot has been made of the fact that 283 00:21:14.519 --> 00:21:18.960 Curtis seemed unusually calm when the fire department was putting out the flames, but 284 00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:22.720 this could be explained away by the fact that he was looking into purchasing a 285 00:21:22.759 --> 00:21:26.039 new vehicle sometime in the near future. In fact, once we learned that 286 00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:30.400 piece of information, we wondered if perhaps Curtis might have started the fire himself 287 00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:34.000 for insurance reasons, since he would not need that car for much longer. 288 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:40.200 But since many of Curtis's favorite possessions were inside the vehicle and wound up being 289 00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:44.680 destroyed, that makes it less likely he was responsible, and it's just too 290 00:21:44.759 --> 00:21:48.200 much of a coincidence that he would go missing shortly thereafter. All that being 291 00:21:48.279 --> 00:21:52.480 said, setting fire to a car as a diversion in order to orchestrate a 292 00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:57.279 theft seems like an incredibly stupid plan, since Curtis wound up calling the fire 293 00:21:57.319 --> 00:22:02.160 department, and I don't think he'd to be breaking into vending machines with all 294 00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:07.160 those extra people on site. No, I think that's very true. It's 295 00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:11.000 very bizarre that it's only eight feet from the guard shack. But think about 296 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:15.720 his condition, right MS has that kind of paralysis, feeling, the stinging 297 00:22:15.759 --> 00:22:18.079 in your legs, all of that pain that goes through your body. Is 298 00:22:18.119 --> 00:22:22.559 it possible that Curtis also didn't just sit in the guard shack. It's a 299 00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:26.720 slow night, there's a lot of quiet time there because there's only twelve people 300 00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:32.559 working. Is it possible that he was up and about that he went to 301 00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:34.240 go to the restroom, that he went to go on a stroll to try 302 00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:38.079 to stretch his legs and get his muscles warmed up. I feel like it's 303 00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:42.799 very possible he just wasn't sitting right there when it got set and maybe that 304 00:22:42.799 --> 00:22:48.319 would lure him back out to be attentive to his car. He does call 305 00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:52.839 all of the people to the scene, so the focus is out in the 306 00:22:52.839 --> 00:22:56.880 parking lot, and then even though there's a lot of people on site, 307 00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:00.720 I think it still gives people a cloak to be able to perform things inside 308 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:04.559 that building and not have individuals coming towards the building. They're all going out 309 00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:10.400 towards the parking lot, Robin. Do we know if Curtis liked to read 310 00:23:10.519 --> 00:23:15.480 books or magazines or like girly megs while he was in the guard shack, 311 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:19.200 Because if that were true, then I could see a scenario where somebody would 312 00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:26.400 be able to creep up behind his vehicle, ducking down and maybe put some 313 00:23:26.480 --> 00:23:30.160 accelerant or light a match, something like that, and then he might not 314 00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:33.359 even see even though it could be directly behind him. If he was known 315 00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:37.400 to do that, then somebody could plan like, hey, this is the 316 00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:41.759 time where Curtis is typically reading a magazine to pass the time. Yeah, 317 00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:45.240 we don't really have that information about what he would do to pass the time. 318 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:48.599 They did mention a couple of items that were left behind in the guard 319 00:23:48.599 --> 00:23:51.680 shack. They said there were cigarettes and a lunch pale, but they never 320 00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:56.400 said anything about any books or magazines. But we also don't know the line 321 00:23:56.440 --> 00:23:59.200 of sight that Curtis had, Like, even though they said the car was 322 00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:02.000 only eight feet from the guard shack, we don't know if he would have 323 00:24:02.039 --> 00:24:04.240 been able to see it from his position. For all we know, it 324 00:24:04.279 --> 00:24:07.519 could have been behind something, so it would have been easier for someone to 325 00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:12.559 set fire to the vehicle without him noticing. But if it was eight feet 326 00:24:12.680 --> 00:24:17.720 south, you really can't see. It's completely not in your field of vision, 327 00:24:17.839 --> 00:24:22.799 not even in your peripheral So I think where it would be located as 328 00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:26.599 far as direction, is extremely important. It's just too bad we don't have 329 00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:32.720 that information. The timeline prior to Curtis's actual disappearance is a bit jumbled, 330 00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:37.599 as we have some workers who claimed they saw Curtis walking around the facility at 331 00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:41.640 three point fifteen am, which could imply that he was able to walk in 332 00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:45.160 on the people at the vending machines. Well, the security supervisor said he 333 00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:49.720 checked in on Curtis in the booth at around three twenty, so I wonder 334 00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:55.440 if someone is mistaken about the exact time. Curtis was first noticed to be 335 00:24:55.519 --> 00:24:59.720 missing from the guard shack at three forty five, and shortly before that is 336 00:24:59.720 --> 00:25:03.279 when the foreman thought he saw two vehicles speeding out of the factory's parking lot. 337 00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:07.720 So if the police's theory about Curtis being killed while interrupting a theft is 338 00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:12.039 correct, then you could infer that the drivers of those vehicles were transporting his 339 00:25:12.119 --> 00:25:17.519 body off the premises. But if this scenario is correct, then the big 340 00:25:17.640 --> 00:25:22.759 question is can Robert April's whereabouts be accounted for during this time period? If 341 00:25:22.799 --> 00:25:27.039 April or anyone else suddenly disappeared from the factory during the middle of the shift, 342 00:25:27.480 --> 00:25:33.279 you'd think that his coworkers would have noticed. During numerous interviews about the 343 00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:37.640 case, Lieutenant Gallagher has made reference to a code of silence and once stated, 344 00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:41.319 quote, trust me, the mafia's code of silence has nothing on the 345 00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:47.920 one you'll find in Seabrook end quote. The implication seems to be that many 346 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:51.680 people from the area know exactly what happened to Curtis, but none of them 347 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:56.119 are willing to come forward and go on the record. Why would two vehicles 348 00:25:56.119 --> 00:26:00.319 be speeding out of the perku lot when you're leaving a parking lot, not 349 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:03.799 speeding anywhere. You're creeping along, getting to the front of the parking lot, 350 00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:06.880 putting your blinker on, figuring out which direction you're going. So the 351 00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:11.640 fact that they were speeding out does make them very suspicious vehicles. I'm assuming 352 00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:15.079 they could identify those those vehicles. I mean, these are people who should 353 00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:19.119 have been at the factory and we're leaving, right. That's the thing it's 354 00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:23.200 very weird is we have no specifics here about which vehicles they were. I 355 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:26.559 mean, there were only a dozen people working, so it's not like there 356 00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:32.039 have been a lot of vehicles parked there to begin with. And like I 357 00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:34.920 said, it's kind of odd. Did no one remember if Robert April or 358 00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:41.720 another coworker just suddenly disappeared from the plant's premises during this time period. So 359 00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:45.279 yeah, I do have to think it's connected that like one of these vehicles 360 00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:49.200 could have been contained Curtis's body, and that maybe the second vehicle was driving 361 00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:53.920 with an accomplice who had to go with his partner to help dispose of Curtis's 362 00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:57.359 body. But it just seems weird that they could just like drive out and 363 00:26:57.400 --> 00:27:02.200 then come back and no one notices, which is why there has been speculation 364 00:27:02.359 --> 00:27:06.480 that maybe some other workers there know exactly what happened, but of just our 365 00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:11.079 maintaining the code of silence and will not say anything. We already talked about 366 00:27:11.160 --> 00:27:15.359 Robert April allegedly bragging about Curtis's death while threatening David Horwitz, who would later 367 00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:19.759 recant his story on the witness stand. Well, guess what. This is 368 00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:25.720 not the only criminal trial against April which fell apart after a crucial witness backed 369 00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:30.200 out. In July twenty eleven, April was arrested and charged with one count 370 00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:36.079 of burglary and two counts of criminal threatening after he allegedly broke into a home 371 00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:40.400 and threatened to people with a knife, but the charges against him would eventually 372 00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:44.880 be dismissed when the homeowner ignored a subpoena and failed to show up in court 373 00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:48.799 to testify against April as the key witness for the prosecution. And in August 374 00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:52.799 of twenty thirteen, April wound up having a run in with the law for 375 00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:59.599 entirely different reasons after his nineteen year old son, Robert April fourth, was 376 00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:03.319 arrested for stabbing his father in the temple. The injuries turned out to be 377 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:07.359 non life threatening, and I've been unable to find out how this particular case 378 00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:11.960 ultimately turned out, But it seems like trouble just happens to follow around Robert 379 00:28:11.960 --> 00:28:17.799 April the third everywhere he goes. Over the years. It sounds like both 380 00:28:17.880 --> 00:28:22.720 law enforcement and the Pieshan family have repeatedly heard stories from many different sources about 381 00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:27.599 what April allegedly did to Curtis, but these sources are either anonymous or are 382 00:28:27.640 --> 00:28:33.480 just passing along third hand information. No one has been able to provide hard 383 00:28:33.640 --> 00:28:37.400 solid evidence to implicate anyone, and unfortunately, you cannot get a search warrant 384 00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:42.759 or make an arrest based on unsubstantiated hearsay, no matter how many times the 385 00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:48.400 exact same story is spread around. But when you consider the fact that no 386 00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:53.839 less than two unrelated criminal cases against Robert April have fallen apart because key witnesses 387 00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:57.839 have flaked out, this gives off the impression that he knows how to frighten 388 00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:02.880 or intimidate people, and this might explain why no one has been willing to 389 00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:07.079 come forward and go on the record about Curtis's disappearance. Now, even if 390 00:29:07.119 --> 00:29:11.640 April is the guilty party, it sounds like he did not act alone. 391 00:29:11.640 --> 00:29:17.400 While Lieutenant Gallagher considers April to be the primary person of interest, he thinks 392 00:29:17.400 --> 00:29:22.400 that at least one other factory worker was involved. This unnamed accomplice might not 393 00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:26.559 have been physically involved in Curtis's murder, but at the very least likely participated 394 00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:30.880 in the theft and the cover up. Well, we know that April's able 395 00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:37.000 to intimidate because he threatens all the time with physical violence. And when the 396 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:41.920 officer actually says, if you only knew how tight lipped this community was, 397 00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:45.079 all the code of silence it exists here. It beats out the mafia. 398 00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:52.240 Clearly, there's a verbal, physical kind of threat that exists. And I 399 00:29:52.400 --> 00:29:56.119 wonder if the dynamic with law enforcement is such that people aren't willing to get 400 00:29:56.160 --> 00:30:00.720 involved in any crime, whether there's threats or not. There are certain communities 401 00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:07.079 that when you have law enforcement asking questions, everyone's tight lipped because they don't 402 00:30:07.079 --> 00:30:11.000 have a trust for them, and so there's that factor that could go into 403 00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:15.880 it. You also know that April has a history of being physically intimidating, 404 00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:19.200 of threatening, of attacking. This is a very known pattern. And so 405 00:30:19.240 --> 00:30:22.680 if you threaten my family, there's an easy way to get me to stop 406 00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:27.440 talking. You're dangerous. You came in with a knife, and now you've 407 00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:30.839 threatened me. Yeah, I'm going to keep my mouth quiet. So I 408 00:30:30.839 --> 00:30:36.599 could see that being a very real possibility. And the fact that he came 409 00:30:36.599 --> 00:30:40.160 onto the radar in the first place, because he bragged to David Horowitz saying 410 00:30:40.200 --> 00:30:44.279 that if you say anything, then the same thing that happened to Curtis Bashan 411 00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:48.160 is going to happen to you. And he essentially bragged that he buried Curtis's 412 00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:51.599 body in his own backyard, though they never found any evidence that to be 413 00:30:51.640 --> 00:30:53.680 for that to be true. But it just shows how brazen it is that 414 00:30:53.720 --> 00:30:56.960 he probably knows that I've gotten away with this for so many years, and 415 00:30:57.039 --> 00:31:00.359 even if I openly brag about it, going to continue to get away with 416 00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:03.880 it. And he also definitely sounds like a guy a great character that his 417 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:10.240 own son is attempting to stab him. If April is responsible, he didn't 418 00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:14.960 get away with this because he's a super criminal who's highly intelligent, because he 419 00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:18.920 clearly goes around blabbing about it. He got away with it because he's imposing 420 00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:23.519 and intimidating, and even the whole vending Machine theft plan, like theoretically, 421 00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:27.440 if nothing had happened to Curtis and they got away with the theft, how 422 00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:30.079 long did they expect to get away with it? Because if you do a 423 00:31:30.119 --> 00:31:33.880 theft like that on a shift when there are only twelve people present. There 424 00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:37.839 are only a certain amount of suspects that you can interrogate and figure out who 425 00:31:37.839 --> 00:31:41.000 did it. So I've been curious to see if he managed to get away 426 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:45.200 with it, if the theft had gone off without a hitch. You're right, 427 00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.160 it's like a real who done it? When there was like a total 428 00:31:48.200 --> 00:31:52.200 of thirteen people there, one of them you end up eliminating. So it's 429 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:55.400 like, Okay, well they're going to question all of you and someone might 430 00:31:55.519 --> 00:31:59.160 crack. I mean maybe not if they're going to cover up a murder. 431 00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:02.119 Maybe there was this real Seabrook code of silence. But it seems like a 432 00:32:02.119 --> 00:32:06.799 pretty stupid crime. It feels like the game of Clue, Like you're watching 433 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:10.880 the movie Clue, which one of you was? It way too small of 434 00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:15.599 a group, right, one's gone and all of you are a suspects. 435 00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:22.039 It's funny talking about it now, but it's maddening when you go back and 436 00:32:22.079 --> 00:32:23.680 you're like, oh my gosh, we just had a different lens on when 437 00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:29.240 we looked at this case. Would it have turned out differently? Very very 438 00:32:29.279 --> 00:32:32.559 little of me believes that Curtis took his own life, So it leaves people 439 00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:36.799 that had a reason to be angry with him, and that's the people that 440 00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:40.160 were working there and were being held accountable for misdeeds. And on a side 441 00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:44.279 note, how much money would a vending machine and a change machine have. 442 00:32:44.440 --> 00:32:46.480 It sounds like it's hardly worth your while to try to steal from there, 443 00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:52.119 like cost benefit analysis, What is the type of trouble that you could get 444 00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:55.440 into for breaking into a vending machine? You could lose your job, you 445 00:32:55.480 --> 00:33:00.000 could have criminal charges. And what are you splitting the what you get from 446 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:05.519 this between twelve people or at least between a few people. It seems like 447 00:33:05.559 --> 00:33:08.000 it's a conspiracy of at least a few and maybe you'd have to pay hush 448 00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:12.160 twenty So what do you making a couple hundred bucks each? If that, 449 00:33:12.559 --> 00:33:15.559 I'd say it's McDonald's And that's about it, which is about what forty bucks 450 00:33:15.559 --> 00:33:22.359 know. During the earliest media coverage of this case, it was reported that 451 00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:25.799 all the factory workers who were working the graveyard shift that night were accounted for, 452 00:33:27.480 --> 00:33:30.359 but the statement is a bit vague. One of the anonymous tipsters who 453 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:36.279 called the Pishon Family's tip line said that the perpetrators hid his body inside a 454 00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:40.400 union office ordinarily used for storage, which might explain why its door was found 455 00:33:40.519 --> 00:33:45.440 kicked in. But when exactly did they remove his body? Once the morning 456 00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:49.680 shift arrived, I'm sure there would have been a lot more people at the 457 00:33:49.720 --> 00:33:54.440 factory, making it difficult to smuggle Curtis off the premises undetected. Well, 458 00:33:54.519 --> 00:33:59.079 Curtis was discovered to be missing from the guard shack at three forty five, 459 00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:02.480 it sounds like the police were not actually notified until his relief showed up at 460 00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:07.680 five point thirty. Theoretically, if the two cars seen speeding out of the 461 00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:12.159 parking lot belonged to April and his accomplice, then they may have used this 462 00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:16.159 opportunity to dispose of Curtis's body and then made it back to the factory before 463 00:34:16.199 --> 00:34:20.920 the police arrived, and they could have claimed that they were working the entire 464 00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:24.920 time. If this is what happened, then you have to wonder how many 465 00:34:24.920 --> 00:34:30.079 of their coworkers noticed their absence. Did any of them have an inkling that 466 00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:35.440 they might have killed someone even if they had no direct involvement. It's possible 467 00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:38.000 that at least some of the coworkers who were there that night might know more 468 00:34:38.039 --> 00:34:43.239 than they're letting on, But they're either too afraid to say anything or following 469 00:34:43.280 --> 00:34:47.320 the aforementioned code of silence. As of right now, it seems like this 470 00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:52.880 has become one of those missing person's cases which has pretty much been solved in 471 00:34:52.920 --> 00:34:57.079 the minds of law enforcement and the victim's family, but they just lacked the 472 00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:01.880 body or enough definitive evidence to arrest anyone and for the crime. The disappearance 473 00:35:01.880 --> 00:35:07.800 seemed truly baffling and perplexing at the time but originally happened. But the more 474 00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:10.760 you put the pieces of the puzzle together, the more likely it seems that 475 00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:16.199 this case has a pretty simple solution involving foul play. Even though the phrase 476 00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:22.480 quote they stumbled upon something they weren't supposed to has always become a cliched in 477 00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:27.079 true crime circles during the analysis of cold cases, I do think that it 478 00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:30.119 applies to this case. I do too. I think that he was in 479 00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:34.880 a position of vulnerability and a company that had its own issues going on, 480 00:35:35.480 --> 00:35:38.440 and that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, even though 481 00:35:38.480 --> 00:35:44.039 he was just doing his job. This is one of those cases where the 482 00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:47.960 only benefit is the passage of time. How scary is April the older, 483 00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:52.239 the older and older he gets right once he becomes an elderly man, if 484 00:35:52.280 --> 00:35:57.639 he were to pass away like he's no longer a threat. I wonder if 485 00:35:57.679 --> 00:36:01.800 the passage of time at this point point becomes a pro in this case and 486 00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:07.960 allows law enforcement to go back and re examine relationships and ask questions and pray 487 00:36:07.199 --> 00:36:13.280 that somebody has a conscience that wants to get things off their chest. Yeah, 488 00:36:13.320 --> 00:36:15.079 I think there is a chance that something like this could happen, because 489 00:36:15.320 --> 00:36:21.480 I remember Lieutenant Gallagher even made a statement that his prime suspect pretty much never 490 00:36:21.559 --> 00:36:25.320 leaves his trailer and that it almost has his own self imposed prison sentence because 491 00:36:25.320 --> 00:36:30.119 he can't go out anywhere and he kind of has to hide because of all 492 00:36:30.159 --> 00:36:32.920 the suspicion underneath them. But there will become a point maybe where he might 493 00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:37.159 die of old age or something like that, or even get arrested for another 494 00:36:37.239 --> 00:36:40.320 crime. And who knows, maybe someone with inside knowledge about what happened will 495 00:36:40.360 --> 00:36:46.079 finally feel comfortable coming forward and providing the necessary information, which, even if 496 00:36:46.119 --> 00:36:50.320 it does not lead to an arrest, could possibly lead to the recovery of 497 00:36:50.360 --> 00:36:54.920 Curtis's remains. So prior to his disappearance, Curtis expressed his fear that he 498 00:36:54.960 --> 00:36:59.719 did not have any backup on this particular shift in case something went wrong, 499 00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:05.000 and sadly, it sounds like his fears were not unfounded. Even though investigators 500 00:37:05.079 --> 00:37:08.239 do not believe the perpetrators intended to kill Curtis, it sounds like they still 501 00:37:08.280 --> 00:37:14.079 made the conscious choice to violently attack a person who was suffering from multiple sclerosis 502 00:37:14.360 --> 00:37:19.000 and could not defend himself, and this is truly despicable. If the theory 503 00:37:19.039 --> 00:37:22.840 presented by the police is true, and they are correct about the identity of 504 00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:25.719 the primary person of interest, then this definitely seems like one of the more 505 00:37:25.800 --> 00:37:31.400 solvable cases we've ever covered. Twenty four years is way too long for Curtis's 506 00:37:31.400 --> 00:37:36.400 family to have gone without recovering his remains, so all they might need is 507 00:37:36.440 --> 00:37:38.960 for the right person to come forward. So if you happen to have any 508 00:37:39.039 --> 00:37:45.559 information about the unsolved disappearance of Curtis Pashan, please contact the New Hampshire Cold 509 00:37:45.599 --> 00:37:50.840 Case Unit at six to zero three two seven one two six sixty three at 510 00:37:50.920 --> 00:37:55.760 six h three two seven to one two six sixty three Jules Ashley any final 511 00:37:55.760 --> 00:38:00.960 thoughts on this case. One of the really tragic things about this case, 512 00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:06.639 in particular is Curtis's life and the way that it got examined when he passed 513 00:38:06.679 --> 00:38:09.639 away. By going into this scene and assuming that it must have been a 514 00:38:09.719 --> 00:38:15.000 suicide and that because of his struggles, that that was the most logical answer, 515 00:38:15.639 --> 00:38:22.079 is really heavy on the family and the people that loved Curtis. Curtis 516 00:38:22.119 --> 00:38:25.840 was also a man who gave most of his life to serving his community. 517 00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:31.480 It's someone who loved his job so much as a police officer. He voluntarily 518 00:38:31.519 --> 00:38:36.039 said, I have a problem with alcohol. I need your help to get 519 00:38:36.039 --> 00:38:40.079 healthy so I can keep this job. And the job likely contributed to that 520 00:38:40.159 --> 00:38:45.079 addiction with alcohol, right the stress and trauma there. But he loved it 521 00:38:45.639 --> 00:38:49.800 and it got taken away when he got diagnosed with MS and his body started 522 00:38:49.840 --> 00:38:53.920 to fail him. But his family was faced with this idea that everyone assumed 523 00:38:53.960 --> 00:38:59.639 their son took his own life, and that's very difficult to wrap your head 524 00:38:59.679 --> 00:39:02.480 around. There's questions for them, well did he take his own life? 525 00:39:02.519 --> 00:39:07.519 It doesn't make any sense. There's judgment from the community. There's judgment from 526 00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:10.920 people when they balance how much you should be grieving when someone quote chose to 527 00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:17.440 take their life. It's so devastating when a family experiences a suicide or there's 528 00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:23.000 a suspected suicide, because they're not given the same compassion and they're not given 529 00:39:23.039 --> 00:39:28.920 the same permission to grieve the loss itself. Add a cold case onto it 530 00:39:29.360 --> 00:39:36.239 where there's pretty much a definite that Curtis eventually is declared to have been murdered. 531 00:39:36.920 --> 00:39:39.480 But what we've heard so far is reasons why he would have taken his 532 00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:45.639 own life. Pornography, alcohol, addiction, right, all of these habits 533 00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:52.960 that paint Curtis in this light of kind of less sympathetic right to mourn is 534 00:39:52.519 --> 00:40:01.039 tragic. This is someone who was really fighting a demon a diagnosis, and 535 00:40:01.119 --> 00:40:06.079 yet was still showing up. He was still in connection with his family. 536 00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:09.800 He was telling them he felt fearful and that he needed help. I just 537 00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:15.000 see so much bravery and strength than Curtis, and so many beautiful qualities that 538 00:40:15.159 --> 00:40:19.400 don't seem to be discussed. It was an assumption that he hurt himself, 539 00:40:19.440 --> 00:40:22.000 and there was a push to understand why, and I think that was such 540 00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:27.800 a disservice, even just emotionally for the family, much less what I created 541 00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:32.440 in this case. So my prayer is that Curtis's family continues to tell who 542 00:40:32.480 --> 00:40:38.599 he truly was, how much they truly lost that day that he went quote 543 00:40:38.719 --> 00:40:45.039 missing, and obviously we now suspect that he was murdered and that hopefully there's 544 00:40:45.039 --> 00:40:49.159 some resolution here so that Curtis's stories were rewritten to be a murder victim and 545 00:40:49.239 --> 00:40:53.119 nothing more than that. I truly feel for his family. You summed it 546 00:40:53.199 --> 00:40:58.000 up perfectly, ash The theory was put forward in the beginning. I mean, 547 00:40:58.079 --> 00:41:00.559 it took many, many years to get to where they are are now, 548 00:41:00.639 --> 00:41:05.320 where it's widely believed that foul play was involved. But to have that 549 00:41:05.480 --> 00:41:08.800 guilt and that shame piled on, especially in two thousand, our understanding of 550 00:41:08.840 --> 00:41:14.920 mental health and suicide is not what it is today, and I think that 551 00:41:15.079 --> 00:41:20.599 a family would still feel the weighty implications that their loved one decided to walk 552 00:41:20.599 --> 00:41:23.360 away from their life, decided to end their own life, even though he 553 00:41:23.400 --> 00:41:30.800 was grappling with MS and Ashley mentioned those extra things that are added along the 554 00:41:30.880 --> 00:41:35.599 alcohol abuse and the compulse of watching a pornography. I'm not going to say 555 00:41:35.639 --> 00:41:40.280 addiction because I don't truly know. Those to me make him almost more sympathetic. 556 00:41:40.400 --> 00:41:44.400 It just says to me that he's looking for some kind of connection, 557 00:41:44.920 --> 00:41:49.280 but he's not able to really reach out for that, and so instead reaching 558 00:41:49.320 --> 00:41:54.320 for alcohol and reaching for pornography becomes easier, and it just becomes really isolating. 559 00:41:54.639 --> 00:41:59.360 Even though you're interacting with all of these different people, it can be 560 00:41:59.400 --> 00:42:01.280 easy for a lot of enforcement to go okay. Well, because of these 561 00:42:01.320 --> 00:42:06.400 reasons, it looks like it's suicide, even though when you look a little 562 00:42:06.440 --> 00:42:10.239 bit closer, how would he have left the facility? There's really no other 563 00:42:10.280 --> 00:42:15.360 way besides hitchhiking, and nobody has come forward. The body has never been 564 00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:20.559 discovered. I just don't think that there is any real possibility. The probability 565 00:42:20.599 --> 00:42:25.119 is extremely low that Curtis ended his own life. I think foul play and 566 00:42:25.239 --> 00:42:32.679 April and whomever else was on shift are allegedly the most likely suspects in my 567 00:42:32.840 --> 00:42:37.599 opinion, because who else would it be. It's just like when we're looking 568 00:42:37.679 --> 00:42:40.480 at the vending machine theft, who else would it be? And I just 569 00:42:40.599 --> 00:42:45.079 wonder what the real question is is how many people were really and truly involved 570 00:42:45.360 --> 00:42:51.119 and how many others are just staying silent out of fear of retribution from April 571 00:42:51.320 --> 00:42:55.119 or one or any number of the other people who could have been involved. 572 00:42:55.679 --> 00:43:00.559 It's just really too bad that after all of these years then nobody has come 573 00:43:00.639 --> 00:43:05.480 forward, because it seems very clear, and I think most people listening will 574 00:43:05.519 --> 00:43:09.239 likely agree, as does the family in law enforcement, that we kind of 575 00:43:09.239 --> 00:43:14.159 know what happened here. You know, it's been twenty four years. Does 576 00:43:14.159 --> 00:43:19.159 nobody feel guilt, does nobody feel like their opinion has changed, or maybe 577 00:43:19.159 --> 00:43:22.280 their sense of fear isn't there anymore. I'm just baffled by the fact that 578 00:43:22.320 --> 00:43:28.320 this hasn't been solved. Later, Oh yeah, Like I mentioned earlier that 579 00:43:28.400 --> 00:43:31.199 this is probably one of the more solvable cases that we've ever covered on this 580 00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:37.239 podcast. I do acknowledge that when I first became familiar with it on Unsolved 581 00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:42.280 Mysteries in the early two thousands, I was more baffled by it because they 582 00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:45.079 didn't present any suspects. They just said that Kurtis disappeared in a shift his 583 00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:50.800 car caught on fire. They presented the theory of him walking somewhere and dying 584 00:43:50.800 --> 00:43:54.440 by suicide, but it didn't seem believable. But Robert April's name just did 585 00:43:54.440 --> 00:43:58.679 not come up in this investigation at all. Till around I think like two 586 00:43:58.760 --> 00:44:01.559 thousand and eight. And then when you look up the circumstances and you find 587 00:44:01.559 --> 00:44:05.400 out that he was working there that night, and he had a history of 588 00:44:05.440 --> 00:44:09.039 bragging about killing Curtis, and that he has a history of criminal activity, 589 00:44:09.119 --> 00:44:14.360 the solution does seem obvious here, but because so much time has passed, 590 00:44:14.519 --> 00:44:16.599 we just don't have any evidence to make an arrest, and that's why this 591 00:44:16.719 --> 00:44:22.079 has been unsolved for twenty four years. And it's definitely one of the more 592 00:44:22.119 --> 00:44:27.079 heartbreaking cases we've ever covered, because Curtis already had a tragic backstory before this 593 00:44:27.159 --> 00:44:30.880 even happened because of his multiple sclerosis, but he was still trying to live 594 00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:36.320 his life as best as he could, and it was probably it's likely he 595 00:44:36.480 --> 00:44:38.920 was killed because he was doing his due diligence. That he took his job 596 00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:44.960 as a security guard seriously enough that he tried to intervene and stop a theft 597 00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:47.239 and then wound up being murdered. And it just makes the act all the 598 00:44:47.280 --> 00:44:52.239 more despicable because he was such a vulnerable victim and probably could not put up 599 00:44:52.280 --> 00:44:57.239 much of a fight to defend himself. I just wanted to give a shout 600 00:44:57.239 --> 00:45:00.800 out that this case has also been featured on our friend and Kristen Sevie's podcast 601 00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:06.519 Murder She Told, which covers a lot of unsolved cold cases from the Northeast 602 00:45:06.679 --> 00:45:10.239 United States, and she interviewed a number of members of Curtis's family, including 603 00:45:10.280 --> 00:45:15.760 his brothers and his father, and says they are the nicest people and that 604 00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:20.559 they deserve justice, they deserve answers, and that even if nobody ever goes 605 00:45:20.599 --> 00:45:22.840 to prison for this crime, that at the very least they deserve to recover 606 00:45:23.159 --> 00:45:28.440 Curtis's remains and give them a proper burial. And like we mentioned, this 607 00:45:28.519 --> 00:45:31.480 case has been hampered by the code of silence. That there are probably other 608 00:45:31.519 --> 00:45:35.760 people out there who know the whole truth but have kept their mouth shut after 609 00:45:35.840 --> 00:45:38.559 all this time, and hopefully, just maybe one of these days, someone 610 00:45:38.559 --> 00:45:43.880 will finally come forward that key piece of information and this case will get a 611 00:45:43.960 --> 00:45:47.559 long overdue resolution. Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit 612 00:45:47.599 --> 00:45:52.519 about the Trail like Cold Patreon. Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been 613 00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:57.480 around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early 614 00:45:57.519 --> 00:46:01.239 ad free episodes, and I also send out us and sign thank you cards 615 00:46:01.239 --> 00:46:05.559 to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you join our five 616 00:46:05.599 --> 00:46:10.280 dollars tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk 617 00:46:10.320 --> 00:46:15.239 about cases which are not featured on The Trail Went Cold's original feed, so 618 00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:19.400 they're exclusive to Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three, the 619 00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:23.159 ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track 620 00:46:23.239 --> 00:46:29.079 over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and 621 00:46:29.119 --> 00:46:34.800 then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play 622 00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:37.679 it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia 623 00:46:37.719 --> 00:46:43.280 and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very 624 00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:46.840 first episode that I did a commentary track over was the episode featuring this case. 625 00:46:46.920 --> 00:46:51.360 So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more 626 00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:54.519 smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three. 627 00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:58.360 So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jeweles and Nashty 628 00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:01.880 Patreon, so there's early add free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've 629 00:47:01.880 --> 00:47:06.519 got our Pathwent Chili mini's which are always over an hour, so they're not 630 00:47:06.719 --> 00:47:08.719 very mini, but they're just too short to turn into a series, and 631 00:47:08.760 --> 00:47:13.480 we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll check out those patreons. 632 00:47:13.519 --> 00:47:15.679 We'll link them in the show notes. So I want to thank you all 633 00:47:15.719 --> 00:47:20.000 for listening, and any chance you have to share us on social media with 634 00:47:20.119 --> 00:47:22.639 a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciate it. You can email 635 00:47:22.719 --> 00:47:27.559 us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter 636 00:47:27.639 --> 00:47:30.400 at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle up because 637 00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:35.800 cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from 638 00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:37.599 the podcast Cold Callers Comedy