Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the disappearance of Michael Sullivan and
Speaker 1: Camden Sylvia. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
Speaker 1: when we talked about in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia were a couple who
Speaker 2: had been living together for several years out of loft
Speaker 2: in Manhattan. Because Michael had moved in there during the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. It was much cheaper than usual because I
Speaker 2: think he was only being charged like three hundred dollars
Speaker 2: per month, and since there was rent control, he was
Speaker 2: paying far less than the other tenants in the building.
Speaker 2: This was nineteen ninety seven November, and Michael and Camden
Speaker 2: at some point went missing. No one can really pinpoint
Speaker 2: the exact moment they went missing. We know that they
Speaker 2: rented a movie at a video store brought it back
Speaker 2: to their apartment, but at some point they left their
Speaker 2: apartment again and just vanished without a trace. So at
Speaker 2: first no one really knew what to make of this,
Speaker 2: But it turned out that on the same day they
Speaker 2: went missing, they had been confronting their building's landlord, Robert Rodriguez,
Speaker 2: because he had been very neglectful. He had not been
Speaker 2: implementing heat in the apartment and it was a very
Speaker 2: cold winter, so they presented a letter informing him that
Speaker 2: they were not going to pay any more rent until
Speaker 2: he fixed the problem. But it was right after that
Speaker 2: when Michael and Camden vanished without a trace, and when
Speaker 2: police wanted to bring Rodriguez to the station to question him,
Speaker 2: he just decided to disappear for several days without even
Speaker 2: telling his own family where he was going before he resurfaced.
Speaker 2: But by that point he had hired an attorney and
Speaker 2: would not cooperate with the investigation, so they began to
Speaker 2: suspect that he might have been involved in that Perhaps
Speaker 2: he wanted Michael and Camden out of the loft so
Speaker 2: he could rent it out again at it much higher prices,
Speaker 2: And when they looked into Rodriguez's background, they found out
Speaker 2: that another man named David King, who was one of
Speaker 2: his former co workers in business Associates, had also went
Speaker 2: missing back in nineteen ninety. At first, they just kind
Speaker 2: of thought that King disappeared on his own, but since
Speaker 2: so many people connected to Rodriguez seemed to be going
Speaker 2: missing under his watch, they began to wonder if he
Speaker 2: might have had something to do with King's disappearance as well.
Speaker 2: Puerto Riguz eventually got indicted on several charges of fraud
Speaker 2: because he was suffering from financial problems and doing chicane
Speaker 2: rey to try to cover it up, so he served
Speaker 2: some time in prison before he was released. But at
Speaker 2: one point he could have attained early parole if he
Speaker 2: had readed to a request to turn over some guns
Speaker 2: he owned, but he said he no longer had them,
Speaker 2: and as retribution, he was forced to finish serving his
Speaker 2: full sentence, which has created speculation that these guns may
Speaker 2: have played a role in Michael and Camden's disappearance. Rob
Speaker 2: Rodriguez was eventually released, and they have never found any
Speaker 2: the victim's bodies or any evidence of foul play, so
Speaker 2: it remains up in the air what actually happened to
Speaker 2: Michael and Camden. So this is an unsolved mystery which
Speaker 2: seems to be based around a very identifiable situation, as
Speaker 2: I'm sure that many of us have been through a
Speaker 2: situation where we've had a dispute with a landlord, but
Speaker 2: it's not often that these situations escalate to the point
Speaker 2: where they potentially lead to murder, even though this case
Speaker 2: does have a very promising potential suspect in Robert Rodriguez,
Speaker 2: law enforcement is never officially named of as a suspect
Speaker 2: and the disappearances of Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia, and
Speaker 2: there's a very good reason for that. Well, Rodriguez definitely
Speaker 2: displayed some suspicious behavior. There is no evidence here that
Speaker 2: a crime has even been committed, let alone that Rodriguez
Speaker 2: harmed these two missing individuals. If he was responsible for this,
Speaker 2: he did a very thorough job at covering his tracks.
Speaker 2: We do know that on the day that Michael and
Speaker 2: Camdo went missing, Rodriguez have been presented with a signed
Speaker 2: letter in which the couple and a number of the
Speaker 2: other tenants announced their intention to go on a red
Speaker 2: strike unless he provided them with adequate heating for their apartments.
Speaker 2: But I'd hardly call that a strong motive to commit murder,
Speaker 2: as it sounds like this issue popped up every single
Speaker 2: year since Rodriguez was known for taking his sweet time
Speaker 2: to heat up the building at the start of the
Speaker 2: winter season. Even if you're a major penny pincher trying
Speaker 2: to save money by any means possible, it seems like
Speaker 2: quite an overreaction to decide you're going to kill two
Speaker 2: people rather than simply turn on the furnace. But if
Speaker 2: you put aside the why for Rodriguez committing this crime,
Speaker 2: the how, when, and where are still complete head scratchers. Theoretically,
Speaker 2: let's just say that there was some sort of confrontation
Speaker 2: which escalated into murder. If this took place inside the
Speaker 2: apartment building, not only would Rodriguez have to kill two people,
Speaker 2: but he would have to do so in a fashion
Speaker 2: which he didn't attract the attention of any of the
Speaker 2: other tenants, as I don't believe they ever reported seeing
Speaker 2: or hearing anything unusual all that day. He would then
Speaker 2: somehow have to get their bodies out of the building
Speaker 2: and dispose of them. But it's very difficult to be
Speaker 2: inconspicuous about doing something like that in downtown Manhattan.
Speaker 3: Right, and it's such a populated area. There's you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's not much sound proofing and things like
Speaker 3: that in these older apartment buildings, and so it would
Speaker 3: be very difficult to murder two people. You have a
Speaker 3: man and a woman. You have to think about the
Speaker 3: way that he would have to approach and defend himself
Speaker 3: against two people who would react to him coming into
Speaker 3: their space or confronting them. When you do back up though,
Speaker 3: and you think about the idea that he was charging
Speaker 3: these people three hundred and some odd dollars for rent
Speaker 3: because of rent control, but in you know, then now
Speaker 3: he would have been able to collect three thousand and
Speaker 3: some odd dollars a month if a new tenant were
Speaker 3: to move in in that rent control was no longer honored,
Speaker 3: and so there is a significant financial reason for him
Speaker 3: to need these two people gone, in addition to the
Speaker 3: fact that they were causing social issues and possibly legal
Speaker 3: issues for him as well. But like you said, if
Speaker 3: we can understand, okay, he has the motive to do it,
Speaker 3: how when and where did he do it? I'm just
Speaker 3: as clueless as you.
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to the why. If we
Speaker 1: are to believe that he's killed before, it just seems
Speaker 1: like whenever he has a problem, his go to solution
Speaker 1: is I'm going to eliminate that problem. But then there
Speaker 1: is a problem with the how, because if it was
Speaker 1: in the apartment, how do you subdue to people. Perhaps
Speaker 1: he had a firearm or something like that, and he
Speaker 1: was able to keep them quiet, But then if you
Speaker 1: murdered them in the apartment, what do you do, like
Speaker 1: in the movies, roll them into a rug and put
Speaker 1: them in a truck. Do you have a vehicle for transport?
Speaker 1: Or did you hold a gun to their head and
Speaker 1: take them into a van or something and then take them,
Speaker 1: you know, to New Jersey or something like that where
Speaker 1: there might be somewhere you could easily dispose of the bodies.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of questions surrounding how you could do
Speaker 1: that with two individuals. Like with one individual, I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be a lot easier, especially if it was
Speaker 1: a woman who was just Camden. But when you've got
Speaker 1: two people, it's just the degree of difficulty goes up exponentially.
Speaker 3: Is there any way that he could have asked them
Speaker 3: to meet with him, saying, Hey, I'm going to talk
Speaker 3: to you about this issue. I don't want this to
Speaker 3: have to go to a legal place. I don't want
Speaker 3: you guys to have to go on a rent strike.
Speaker 3: Can you meet me? But if he did that, it's
Speaker 3: not just Camden and Michael who are involved in this issue.
Speaker 3: There's multiple tenants who are supporting them and behind them.
Speaker 3: It's almost like something that the community bonds over so
Speaker 3: if they were going to go try to argue on
Speaker 3: behalf of the other tenants or their building or something
Speaker 3: like that, in a meeting with him, I feel like
Speaker 3: they would have disclosed that to somebody.
Speaker 1: I think there's a dam in being like, let's set
Speaker 1: a meeting. I think if he did do it, it
Speaker 1: had to have been spontaneous, like he showed up at
Speaker 1: their door. Maybe he convinced them to go somewhere with him,
Speaker 1: and then he was able to get the jump on them.
Speaker 1: But it almost seems like there would have to be
Speaker 1: somebody else involved because if it was like, Hey, we're
Speaker 1: going to go somewhere and he's driving, how do you
Speaker 1: get the jump on them? Do you have a firearm somewhere?
Speaker 1: And then you pull into like this undisclosed location. But
Speaker 1: I feel like there'd be a lot of questions that
Speaker 1: would be being asked, and because there's two of them,
Speaker 1: I think that they would have been able to overpower
Speaker 1: the drivers. So I don't know, Robin, what's your take.
Speaker 2: Well, he did have a locksmith shop that he ran
Speaker 2: on the ground floor of his apartment, which I think
Speaker 2: function is his office, and I know that on the
Speaker 2: day that Camden and Michael went missing. That's where they
Speaker 2: met him to present him with the letter about the
Speaker 2: rent strike. So it's reasonable to assume that if he
Speaker 2: asked the two of them to meet him somewhere, that
Speaker 2: they would do so at the locksmith shop, which is
Speaker 2: still in the building and is still going to attract
Speaker 2: a lot of time if you shoot them there or something,
Speaker 2: and it would be difficult to smuggle their bodies out
Speaker 2: because it's in the middle of a crowded neighborhood. And
Speaker 2: I'd like to think that if he told them, oh,
Speaker 2: why don't you meet us off site somewhere, like at
Speaker 2: a different place, They're probably going to get really suspicious
Speaker 2: and wonder why is our landlord asking us to meet
Speaker 2: him elsewhere instead of at his locksmith shop. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really hard to figure out. It just seems that
Speaker 2: if he killed them in the apartment building, it would
Speaker 2: have been very difficult to do it without attracting attention
Speaker 2: from someone.
Speaker 1: Here's a question for you. Did he have a van
Speaker 1: because oftentimes if there's a locksmith shop, you're going to
Speaker 1: get calls to apartments where people have locked themselves out,
Speaker 1: So you would have to have some kind of transportation,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes you would see a locksmith getting around in
Speaker 1: a van or a car of some sort with maybe
Speaker 1: like the logo for their locksmith shop emblazoned on the side.
Speaker 2: I don't have that information if he had a van,
Speaker 2: but it would make sense to me. I know that
Speaker 2: he had a car that he used when he disappeared
Speaker 2: for a few days when he did want to talk
Speaker 2: to the police, But maybe he had a separate van
Speaker 2: for business purposes that he would use on the job.
Speaker 2: And like you said, that would be much easier to
Speaker 2: use to dispose of two bodies.
Speaker 1: So I think another issue with figuring out what happened
Speaker 1: here is that it's really hard to pin down the
Speaker 1: last time that Michael and Camden were confirmed to be alive.
Speaker 1: Some sources, like the victim's profile pages at the Charlie Project,
Speaker 1: make it sound like they left their apartment to go jogging,
Speaker 1: which is something they frequently did. If they managed to
Speaker 1: exit the building and jog somewhere, then they could have
Speaker 1: crossed paths with an unknown third party besides Rodriguez, who
Speaker 1: proceeded to abduct and murder them. But from what we've
Speaker 1: read in most of the news articles about this case,
Speaker 1: it was only theorized that they went jogging because their
Speaker 1: running shoes were missing from the apartment. As far as
Speaker 1: I can tell, I don't believe there were any eyewitnesses
Speaker 1: that could actually confirm having seen them out jogging that day,
Speaker 1: which would mean that the last verified sighting of the
Speaker 1: couple was when they rented the movie Addicted to Love
Speaker 1: from the video store. Since the video was found inside
Speaker 1: the apartment, they obviously returned there at some point, and
Speaker 1: given that one set of keys and Michael's wallet were
Speaker 1: also left behind, it seems likely that the couple left
Speaker 1: together but weren't planning to be out all that long.
Speaker 1: So the big question is did they cross paths with
Speaker 1: Rodriguez and have some sort of confrontation with him before
Speaker 1: they exited the building. Well, searches of the building failed
Speaker 1: to turn up any evidence of foul play, but the
Speaker 1: problem is that it was six days before the couple
Speaker 1: were actually reported missing, so Rodriguez would have had ample
Speaker 1: time to cover his tracks. Now, according to Camden's mother,
Speaker 1: Laurie Sylvia, when she first met Rodriguez, he couldn't have
Speaker 1: been any nicer, as he gave Laurie a new set
Speaker 1: of keys for the apartment and said, quote, let me
Speaker 1: know if there's anything else I can do to help. So,
Speaker 1: at the very least, this suggests Rodriguez was not too
Speaker 1: concerned about Laurie finding anything incriminating inside the laft. It
Speaker 1: sounds like Rodriguez was very cooperative during the early stages
Speaker 1: of the investigation until police ask him to come in
Speaker 1: for a formal interview, which led to him suddenly taking
Speaker 1: off and disappearing for ten days. However, did Rodriguez do
Speaker 1: this because he was involved in Michael Incambenen's disappearances or
Speaker 1: was he paranoid that the police might find some other
Speaker 1: skeletons in his closet?
Speaker 3: Okay, exactly when you look at this, there's a couple
Speaker 3: of things that I want to ask you about. One,
Speaker 3: I don't have a pair of quote running shoes. Judge
Speaker 3: me if you will. Shoes are not my thing. I
Speaker 3: have a pair of sneakers, and I have dress shoes,
Speaker 3: and I have boots. So if I am not going
Speaker 3: to want to wear dress shoes or my boots, I'm
Speaker 3: wearing my quote sneakers and that's if I'm running or working.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. So is it possible that these two
Speaker 3: simply wore their quote jogging shoes as every day wear.
Speaker 1: I'm a fashion girl, Like I love fashion, and you
Speaker 1: go and look at street style, and like the streets
Speaker 1: of Paris or New York. Today, everybody's wearing runners with everything.
Speaker 1: But at that time, I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: as much the fashion. But I think it is possible
Speaker 1: that somebody might have just one pair of runners, and
Speaker 1: like you call them runners, but like really they're just
Speaker 1: sneakers and you could wear them for a multitude of
Speaker 1: different occasions. It doesn't have to be just for the
Speaker 1: express purpose of exercise.
Speaker 3: Right, So when people are like, Okay, well they're jogging
Speaker 3: shoes are missing, I'm like, God bless them. I don't exercise.
Speaker 3: So if my running shoes are missing, don't think I
Speaker 3: went running because I did not. Okay, so note that down.
Speaker 3: But so that was one of the things, you know,
Speaker 3: this is a idea of should we be looking for
Speaker 3: a jogging route or something. I think I wouldn't put
Speaker 3: my sneakers on to go rent the movie, and maybe
Speaker 3: when I came home I didn't take them off yet,
Speaker 3: And so I'm not sure that that's even a lead.
Speaker 3: But when we go down to the other idea, Rodriguez,
Speaker 3: and the idea that initially he's very cooperative and then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden he becomes very elusive and goes
Speaker 3: on the run and becomes really shut off to police.
Speaker 3: When Robin and Jules describe his background to me, I'm
Speaker 3: sitting there thinking, wait a minute, is he so friendly
Speaker 3: and nice at first because he has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with it? And then when he realizes this is not
Speaker 3: just going to be these two people that wandered off
Speaker 3: and aren't home yet, this is going to be a
Speaker 3: criminal investigation. They want to keep talking to me. If
Speaker 3: they start to run my name, they're going to find
Speaker 3: all of these things I'm wanted for issues I'm having,
Speaker 3: or you know, these scams I'm running. And could he
Speaker 3: have simply panicked and shut down and said I cannot
Speaker 3: cooperate or else so much of my life is at stake.
Speaker 2: Well, not only was he committing fraud at that point,
Speaker 2: but we also have the disappearance of David King, which
Speaker 2: took place years earlier, and that would be the wildest twist.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's what happened. If he was
Speaker 2: completely innocent and Michael and Cambden's just disappearance, but was
Speaker 2: guilty of the disappearance of David King. So he doesn't
Speaker 2: cooperate in this case because he figures, well, if they
Speaker 2: delve into my background, this whole thing with David King
Speaker 2: is going to pop up again and they might find
Speaker 2: some incriminating against evidence against me in that case. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't think that's a likely scenario, but it could
Speaker 2: be an alternate explanation for why he was acting so dodgy.
Speaker 1: Here refreshed my memory, Robin. We spoke about this in
Speaker 1: our last episode. But wasn't there a bag of Camden's
Speaker 1: that was missing as well? And wasn't it like a
Speaker 1: large bag that could have been like a briefcase size,
Speaker 1: or like a very large purse that would have been
Speaker 1: able to carry documents or something of the sort.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the only details about it were that was a
Speaker 2: bag that Camden normally carried when she took work home
Speaker 2: from the office and it happened to be missing, And
Speaker 2: obviously that's not something she would ordinarily take out if
Speaker 2: she was simply going for a jog.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not going to go jogging, I think I
Speaker 1: said in the first episode with a giant purse. For one,
Speaker 1: if you're a jogger, even if you bring any kind
Speaker 1: of purse that isn't strapped to you, it will bang
Speaker 1: up against your butt, so and if you're you're not
Speaker 1: gonna hold it in your hand. So like if you've
Speaker 1: got a cross body purse or whatever, it's going to
Speaker 1: hit your body with every stride that you take is
Speaker 1: going to be so uncomfortable. So it's inexplicable that they
Speaker 1: could have just gone out for a jog and then
Speaker 1: taken that bag with them. I mean, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say that they went out for a jog, something
Speaker 1: happened and then the bag got stolen, But like that
Speaker 1: seems entirely improbable.
Speaker 3: So she would take that big bag, but he wouldn't
Speaker 3: take his wallet.
Speaker 2: I mean, if it's a thing where they had documentation,
Speaker 2: like theoretically they're going downstairs to present Rodriguez with some
Speaker 2: paperwork while he's in his locksmith shop, that would make
Speaker 2: sense why they would take the bag but not Michael's wallet.
Speaker 1: And maybe just because they were going downstairs, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know how you guys are when you get home,
Speaker 1: Like as soon as I get home in like a
Speaker 1: comfy space, I put on like my sweats and I
Speaker 1: get into my comfy clothes. So maybe because it was
Speaker 1: sort of informal with Rodriguez, they if they were going
Speaker 1: downstairs to the locksmith's shop, maybe they were just in
Speaker 1: their sweats at home and they were like, well, obviously
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna put on dress shoes. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: put on whatever sneakers i've got kicking around. Doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they're going for a jog. But maybe they're just going
Speaker 1: downstairs to talk to Rodriguez and they bring the bag
Speaker 1: and they're also wearing their sneakers. That would be the
Speaker 1: only scenario that would make sense to me.
Speaker 2: I think so because I think one of the sticking
Speaker 2: points with the sneakers it was early November, a lot
Speaker 2: colder than usual, So I think that's why people thought, well,
Speaker 2: if they were going outside to do something besides jogging,
Speaker 2: there shouldn't be any logical reason for them to wear
Speaker 2: their sneakers. It would make more sense for them to
Speaker 2: wear heavier footwear. But if they were just going downstairs
Speaker 2: in the apartment and not going outside, then yes, it
Speaker 2: makes sense they would put their sneakers on.
Speaker 1: Was there any snow or rain or anything.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. No, but they just described that
Speaker 2: it was a colder than usual November and that's why
Speaker 2: they were so anxious to get the heating turned on.
Speaker 2: So one ironic detail about Rodriguez is that he kept
Speaker 2: a newspaper article about himself on the wall of his
Speaker 2: office because in nineteen eighty four there was an incident
Speaker 2: where he returned a loss nine hundred thousand dollars checked
Speaker 2: to its rightful owner and was hailed as a hero
Speaker 2: by the press. But it seems like Rodriguez might have
Speaker 2: been over compensating a little bit, considering the numerous acts
Speaker 2: of fraud he committed over the years. I think it
Speaker 2: says something that Rodriguez originally bought the building with insurance
Speaker 2: money he received from his house burning down. Yes, I
Speaker 2: guess they technically never proved that he committed our sin.
Speaker 2: But when you're the type of person who uses the
Speaker 2: identity of a dead guy to obtain credit cards, I
Speaker 2: think it's safe to say that there's no limit to
Speaker 2: the type of scamshi'll pull. And of course there's the
Speaker 2: fact that another person connected to him, David King, happened
Speaker 2: to go missing while they were both embroiled in a
Speaker 2: civil lawsuit. We'll talk more about David King in a
Speaker 2: little while, But regardless of whether or not Rodriguez was
Speaker 2: involved in his disappearance, the fact that he was allegedly
Speaker 2: using King to provide him with confidential information from a
Speaker 2: rio I have a fire alarm company really says a
Speaker 2: lot about his character.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's back up a little bit. He has this
Speaker 3: newspaper article that he returns a lost nine hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars check to its rightful owner. What are you going
Speaker 3: to do with a nine hundred thousand dollars check written
Speaker 3: out to somebody else, Because it's not like it's a
Speaker 3: forty dollars check, and you might be able to run
Speaker 3: to the bank and try to cash it. And if
Speaker 3: they said, hey, I need your idea to make sure
Speaker 3: this is you, you'd be like, oh, I forgot my idea.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. I'll be back, and you don't get
Speaker 3: your forty dollars. Or because it's a small check, they
Speaker 3: just cash it. Because you know, I'll pull into a
Speaker 3: bank here and I don't think they know me. And
Speaker 3: if I try to cash a small amount, they cash it.
Speaker 3: If it's a larger amount, they need proof of identification.
Speaker 3: He was never going to be able to do anything
Speaker 3: with that nine hundred thousand dollars check. So the idea
Speaker 3: that I just said, hey, I found this check written too,
Speaker 3: you know, Robin, And I'm like, hey, Robin, I found
Speaker 3: this check of yours? Is that really heroic?
Speaker 2: Probably not? No, Like he if he had been able
Speaker 2: to figure out a way to use the money for himself,
Speaker 2: I'm sure he probably could have. But like you said,
Speaker 2: you're not going to cash a nine hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: check under someone else's name unless you have a fake
Speaker 2: ID or something like that, or concoct an elaborate scheme.
Speaker 3: Right. I guess it was nice he returned it, but
Speaker 3: I mean, it just it doesn't seem like a heroic
Speaker 3: thing that a newspaper would write something up about. But
Speaker 3: I guess it is. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that we can bet that he went through
Speaker 1: every possible scenario to see if he could get away
Speaker 1: with keeping that money. It's not like his first impulse
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I better return the money. I think
Speaker 1: that was just the last resort when he realized, shoot,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get caught here if I try to
Speaker 1: deposit this into my account, or if I try to
Speaker 1: like fake this in some way, So why don't I
Speaker 1: come out looking like, you know, smelling like roses and
Speaker 1: look like the hero. But I agree, it's not really heroic.
Speaker 1: It's like the only option.
Speaker 3: Yes, and if it was nine hundred thousand dollars cash
Speaker 3: and you returned it hero here, Yes, Okay, this is
Speaker 3: a check written as somebody else, Like you don't just
Speaker 3: walk up to the bank and like cash this baby
Speaker 3: for me, you know, No, No, we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 3: and need some some proof of identification. So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it kind of shows this narcissism that he
Speaker 3: has this newspaper article framed about himself while he's actively
Speaker 3: committed fraud. Is it something that almost provides him this
Speaker 3: illogical comfort of I'm a good person, I do good things,
Speaker 3: and he has a frame to look at because honestly,
Speaker 3: in his everyday life, he's not able to do that consistently.
Speaker 2: Baby, it's an entitlement thing saying I heroically returned nine
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars, so therefore I deserve to make nine
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars through other means. So what I'm doing
Speaker 2: is not illegal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So by the time Rodriguez resurface after disappearing for
Speaker 1: ten days, he hired himself the services of an attorney
Speaker 1: named Michael Rosen, and this was a very prominent, high
Speaker 1: priced guy, as Rosen once represented Thomas Gambino of the
Speaker 1: infamous Gambino crime family. Since Rodriguez lied to his family
Speaker 1: about going in for a police interview before he took off,
Speaker 1: this suggests that he was incredibly paranoid about something. But
Speaker 1: was it because he had knowledge or involvement in the
Speaker 1: disappearances of Michael and Camden Well. It's easy to take
Speaker 1: his actions as a sign of guilt, but Rodriguez had
Speaker 1: spent the past several years committing numerous acts of fraud,
Speaker 1: so even if he was completely innocent of any role
Speaker 1: in the disappearances, he might have feared that if the
Speaker 1: police started interviewing him and investigating him, they were going
Speaker 1: to turn up his other financial indiscretions, which is why
Speaker 1: he panicked and got himself a lawyer. If this was
Speaker 1: Rodriguez's intention all along, then it didn't really do him
Speaker 1: any good, since it only provided further motivation for authorities
Speaker 1: to look into his background and that's when they uncovered
Speaker 1: enough evidence to arrest him on all those other charges
Speaker 1: and send him to prison. Well, it's undeniable that Rodriguez
Speaker 1: is a criminal. Does this necessarily mean that he's a murderer?
Speaker 1: If Michael and Camden had somehow uncovered evidence of Rodriguez's
Speaker 1: history of fraud, that might have given him a motive
Speaker 1: to kill them, But there's nothing to indicate that they
Speaker 1: knew about it.
Speaker 3: Also, when you think about the idea that these two
Speaker 3: people were murdered, and you know, we had this knowledge
Speaker 3: that they went to the video store and run in
Speaker 3: a video, we have knowledge that he left his wallet there.
Speaker 3: If they voluntarily left their apartment and were victims of
Speaker 3: some kind of random act, do most random double murders
Speaker 3: result in someone hiding two bodies so well? Or would
Speaker 3: it be more like, Hey, if I was robbing these two,
Speaker 3: or I was trying to confront these two, wouldn't you
Speaker 3: have just found their body in the park or wherever
Speaker 3: they had just been attacked? So I don't know. I
Speaker 3: just keep thinking like, was this a targeted killing? But
Speaker 3: how did they get them out of their apartment for
Speaker 3: a temporary moment when everything inside their apartment shows that
Speaker 3: they were going to be coming back and spending the
Speaker 3: evening there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Like if they went out and were
Speaker 2: the victims of random mugging, I think whoever killed them
Speaker 2: would just leave them there rather than going to the
Speaker 2: trouble of transferring their bodies and getting rid of them,
Speaker 2: which is why it seems likely that they were murdered
Speaker 2: by someone they knew who had a lot to hide,
Speaker 2: And of course Rodriguez seems like the most logical suspect
Speaker 2: to do that. But once again, the logistics of him
Speaker 2: pulling off are the part that we just can't figure out.
Speaker 1: What do we know about his associates? Did he have
Speaker 1: any other criminal friends that he hung out with, because
Speaker 1: if this happened, it seems likely to me that there
Speaker 1: could have, or maybe potentially was a second person who
Speaker 1: was assisting Rodriguez.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I'm thinking. I haven't heard about
Speaker 2: him having any associates who helped him with his criminal activities.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, he worked alone, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if he had anyone else closer to him
Speaker 2: who would have helped him dispose of two bodies. I
Speaker 2: guess is that another possibility as he could have gotten
Speaker 2: members of his family to help out, because they were
Speaker 2: described as not being very cooperative with the police whence
Speaker 2: Rodriguez went missing. But that depends like, do you want
Speaker 2: to protect a family member that you think who has
Speaker 2: committed fraud. I'm sure they would be willing to do that,
Speaker 2: But would they go to that length to help protect
Speaker 2: him if they knew that he had committed two murders.
Speaker 2: So another potential motive which has been pushed forward, is
Speaker 2: that Rodriguez wanted the couple out of the way so
Speaker 2: we could finally rent out their loft to someone for
Speaker 2: a much larger sum of money. I mean, even in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, paying a monthly rent of only three
Speaker 2: hundred and four dollars for a fourteen hundred square foot
Speaker 2: loft in Manhattan is a pretty mind blowing deal. Even
Speaker 2: if there were issues with the heating or Rodriguez in general.
Speaker 2: I can definitely understand why Michael and Candon would have
Speaker 2: wanted to hold onto this place. At the time, New
Speaker 2: York City had very strict rent control and stabilization, and
Speaker 2: since Michael had originally rented the place over twenty years earlier,
Speaker 2: he did not have to worry too much about him.
Speaker 2: We know that Rodriguez was suffering from financial problems and
Speaker 2: over thousands of dollars in back taxes on the building,
Speaker 2: so yes, it would have been in his best interest
Speaker 2: to have Michael and Camden out of the loft so
Speaker 2: that he could rent it to a new tenant at
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars per month. That might seem like a
Speaker 2: compelling motive, but the problem is that Rodriguez really didn't
Speaker 2: gain anything from the couple's absence in the long run.
Speaker 2: I know that until Rodriguez's arrest, there was a dispute
Speaker 2: between him and Camden's mother, Laurie Sylvia, because she wanted
Speaker 2: to pay the three hundred and four dollars monthly rent
Speaker 2: to hold on to the loft, but he refused to
Speaker 2: accept the money. Rodriguez's attorney did make a public statement
Speaker 2: that he had no intention of renting out the loft
Speaker 2: while Michael and Camden were missing, but it's possible that
Speaker 2: Rodriguez was advised to do this for pr purposes in
Speaker 2: order to make himself look less suspicious. But the ironic
Speaker 2: thing is that the publicity surrounding the disappearances actually drew
Speaker 2: interest in the loft from a number of curiosity seekers
Speaker 2: who wanted to rent it. Rodriguez could have made himself
Speaker 2: a good chunk of money if he let this happen,
Speaker 2: but he never did, and the loft did not go
Speaker 2: on the market again until after Rodriguez was arrested and
Speaker 2: sold the building to new owners. So yes, Campden and
Speaker 2: Michael's disappearances did not financially benefit Rodriguez in any way
Speaker 2: until Rodriguez's arrest. I cannot imagine how awkward it must
Speaker 2: have been for the other residents of that building to
Speaker 2: be living with a landlord who was under suspicion for
Speaker 2: potentially causing the disappearances of two tenants, even if they
Speaker 2: didn't believe he was guilty. How weird would it have
Speaker 2: felt to bring an issue to this guy's attention. I
Speaker 2: wonder if anyone ever complained about the heat again?
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, I mean for me when you look
Speaker 3: at this idea, would it have benefited him to get
Speaker 3: rid of them? I think in the long run, yes,
Speaker 3: short term no, because again he denies that he's willing
Speaker 3: to take payment for the rent. But remember he's only
Speaker 3: getting three hundred dollars a month. When is three thousand
Speaker 3: a month. So is he really going to be made
Speaker 3: or broken because of the three hundred dollars a month
Speaker 3: he's missing? Probably not. It almost makes me wonder does
Speaker 3: he not fix things in the building hoping that these
Speaker 3: people who have been there for a long time get
Speaker 3: fed up and they want to leave. But I think
Speaker 3: when you're being held at a three hundred and four
Speaker 3: dollars a month rent, I would put up with a
Speaker 3: heck of a lot, and I would fuss and fight,
Speaker 3: but I would have zero intention of leaving. But I
Speaker 3: wonder if he thinks in his head, if I can
Speaker 3: just hold out long enough, they'll get so miserable that
Speaker 3: they'll want out, and then he could start running those
Speaker 3: other loss out for the three thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 3: Does he think he's gonna go by and kill every
Speaker 3: single one of the residents that's paying three hundred and
Speaker 3: seven dollars a month? No? Probably not. But like we
Speaker 3: talked about earlier, is it possible that a confrontation went
Speaker 3: sour even when it wasn't intended to result in their
Speaker 3: deaths and that's what happened? Or is this just simultaneously
Speaker 3: existing with a really bad guy being their landlord and
Speaker 3: they also go missing because of nothing he did. I
Speaker 3: don't like Rodriguez. He has so many arrows and neon
Speaker 3: signs pointing to him. But again, I'm trying to figure
Speaker 3: out how and how did he hide it so good,
Speaker 3: And the police did really explore and examine his life
Speaker 3: and they didn't find any evidence or anything to link
Speaker 3: him to Michael and Camden. So I'm just torn.
Speaker 2: And it's like, if a crime had taken place in
Speaker 2: the apartment building, and if any of the other tenants
Speaker 2: like heard or saw anything unusual, I don't think they
Speaker 2: keep their mouth shuts about it because they disliked Rodriguez too.
Speaker 2: It would have been more than happy to see him
Speaker 2: removed his landlord if he was a suspect and a murder.
Speaker 2: But the fact that they didn't report anything suspicious just
Speaker 2: seems so odd to me and makes me wonder if
Speaker 2: murders took place they took if they occurred at another location.
Speaker 1: Now we mentioned earlier that we cannot possible the pinpoint
Speaker 1: the last time Michael and Camden were confirmed to be alive,
Speaker 1: and we can't even be one hundred percent certain that
Speaker 1: they interacted with Rodriguez. According to their neighbor Check Delaney,
Speaker 1: He did see Camden in the building that morning and
Speaker 1: she told him she was heading to Rodriguez's locksmith shop
Speaker 1: to present him with a signed letter about the rent strip.
Speaker 1: We know this letter did wind up in the office,
Speaker 1: but it's unclear if Camden just dropped it off there
Speaker 1: or if she interacted with Rodriguez. Since Rodriguez declined to
Speaker 1: discuss the case publicly, he never did confirm or deny
Speaker 1: if he spoke with her. The transaction at the video
Speaker 1: store confirmed that Camden did visit other locations that day,
Speaker 1: and the primary theory, which has been presented by her mother, Laurie,
Speaker 1: is that after renting the video, Camden returned to the
Speaker 1: apartment and both she and Michael decided to go out
Speaker 1: and confront Rodriguez together. This is when things could have
Speaker 1: gone horribly wrong and they both wound up dead. But again,
Speaker 1: if Rodriguez committed murder inside the building, how did he
Speaker 1: manage to do so without attracting attention and how did
Speaker 1: he dispose of the two bodies?
Speaker 3: And remember, police do start to explore and examine Rodriguez
Speaker 3: as someone who's a person of interest, So do we
Speaker 3: know if they ever investigated or went in and explored
Speaker 3: the locksmith shop. Did they go in and look at
Speaker 3: vehicles of his and do any kind of luminol testing
Speaker 3: or look for evidence or find anything of theirs. I
Speaker 3: don't think they did. But remember it's weeks later that
Speaker 3: we're starting to get all this information about Rodriguez, So
Speaker 3: I I don't know. I sit there and I think, well,
Speaker 3: if police had immediately known, could he have maybe not
Speaker 3: been able to dispose of something that would have linked him.
Speaker 3: But once they identified him, did they go and start
Speaker 3: to investigate and explore spaces that he could have possibly
Speaker 3: done something to them?
Speaker 2: I think they did. They did use cadab or sniffing
Speaker 2: dogs and tore up the flooring in Rodriguez's locksmith shop,
Speaker 2: but this didn't take place until I think over a
Speaker 2: year after the fact, when Rodriguez was arrested on the
Speaker 2: fraud charges. So they didn't get to do it immediately.
Speaker 2: So if there was any evidence there a foul play,
Speaker 2: he would have had ample time to dispose of it
Speaker 2: and cover it up.
Speaker 3: Oh the two people being killed and the blood that
Speaker 3: could have resulted from that, there's a lot of cases
Speaker 3: that years later they go and they pull flooring up,
Speaker 3: and while the surface might be clean and you might
Speaker 3: not be able to get information, there is DNA and
Speaker 3: there is biological evidence that's on the undersides or through
Speaker 3: the cracks of the floor. So it's kind of fascinating
Speaker 3: to me that there was nothing if they went to
Speaker 3: that extent to tear the floors up, I would assume
Speaker 3: it did not take place in the locksmith shop.
Speaker 1: But that's the assumption that the way that they were
Speaker 1: killed was a way that drew blood. True could have
Speaker 1: been blunt force trauma, could have been strangulation. There could
Speaker 1: have been different ways in which they were killed, especially
Speaker 1: if there was two people in They wouldn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to be a gun because you're right in the middle
Speaker 1: of the city center, and if it's right by all
Speaker 1: of these units, then you run the risk of somebody
Speaker 1: hearing that gunfire unless you have a silencer or you
Speaker 1: you make like a homemade silencer. Seems like it's very
Speaker 1: risky to use a gun, and even if it is
Speaker 1: a head injury, like you can't guarantee there won't be
Speaker 1: blood because often there is. But I think there are
Speaker 1: different scenarios where he could have carried this out at
Speaker 1: the locksmith's shop, and there might not have been very
Speaker 1: much biological evidence that at the time they would have
Speaker 1: been able to maybe gather, whereas today if they would
Speaker 1: have gone in and assessed it, it might have been
Speaker 1: a different story.
Speaker 3: Very true. And if there was blood, who's to say
Speaker 3: they weren't on some area rug or something like that.
Speaker 3: That or but if he grabbed him and broke one
Speaker 3: of their necks, and you know who knows. You're right,
Speaker 3: there's many many causes of death that would not have
Speaker 3: resulted in a substantial amount of blood. You're right. I
Speaker 3: was thinking stabbing or shooting. But there's a million options
Speaker 3: that could have happened. And like you said, especially two people,
Speaker 3: there wouldn't have had to be such a violent struggle
Speaker 3: or movement of the bodies to incapacitate them or to
Speaker 3: kill them.
Speaker 2: So now we have to go back and explore the
Speaker 2: second unsolved missing person's case in this story, and that's
Speaker 2: the disappearance of David King. This case has gotten nowhere
Speaker 2: near as much publicity as the disappearances of Michael and Camden,
Speaker 2: and there's even less evidence to suggest what happened. All
Speaker 2: we know is that King left his house in January
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety one to go to work and subsequently disappeared,
Speaker 2: but no one even attempted to file a missing person's
Speaker 2: report until July the seventeenth of that year, when King's mother,
Speaker 2: Emma Toppin, learned from his wife and children that they
Speaker 2: had not seen him in nearly six months. Back in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, the New York Police Department had a
Speaker 2: policy that unless there was strong evidence that foul play
Speaker 2: had taken place where the victim had a serious medical
Speaker 2: or mental condition, they cannot accept missing persons reports for
Speaker 2: anyone between the ages of seventeen and sixty five. This
Speaker 2: policy has since changed, but I think it was likely
Speaker 2: in place because New York City had an insanely high
Speaker 2: crime rate in nineteen ninety one, so the police just
Speaker 2: did not have the resources to search for every missing person.
Speaker 2: And besides, since King was a co defendant and a
Speaker 2: thirteen million dollars civil lawsuit, it wasn't hard to imagine
Speaker 2: him running off on his own to escape his legal troubles,
Speaker 2: so his disappearance got zero media coverage at that time.
Speaker 2: Of course, once Robert Rodriguez got linked to another missing
Speaker 2: person's case, six years later, King's case finally got a
Speaker 2: proper investigation, but Emma Toppin did not hesitate to publicly
Speaker 2: express or frustration that it took the disappearance of two
Speaker 2: white people for the disappearance of her African American son
Speaker 2: to finally receive any attention.
Speaker 3: What is so sad is we've talked about this before.
Speaker 3: She is not alone in her frustration that we know
Speaker 3: families of color that missing people of color that you
Speaker 3: often do not have a media attention sometimes, you know,
Speaker 3: depending on where you are, the police attention is also
Speaker 3: very limited. And so you look at poor Emma and
Speaker 3: she's saying, okay, now you're paying attention now that these
Speaker 3: two white kids are this white couple got has also disappeared.
Speaker 3: Now my son matters. It's very, very heartbreaking because a
Speaker 3: human being is a human being. And I do believe
Speaker 3: when you start looking at homicide investigations, homicide coverage that
Speaker 3: things like wealth, race, gender, those things significantly matter in
Speaker 3: the energy that is sometimes put forth. And it's horrific.
Speaker 3: But for Emma, she's saying, you know, at least someone's looking,
Speaker 3: but why did it take so long? Incredibly complex grief there.
Speaker 3: It makes me very very sad.
Speaker 2: And it's also sad to think that if Rodriguez did
Speaker 2: have something to do with King's disappearance they had investigated
Speaker 2: from the start, would things have turned out differently from
Speaker 2: Michael and Canden, Like, would Rodriguez possibly have been arrested,
Speaker 2: have gone to prison before they went missing, and the
Speaker 2: course of their lives would have been completely different exactly.
Speaker 3: And when you look at the way the media and
Speaker 3: law enforcement and the community also puts value or a
Speaker 3: lack of value on the victim, they aren't thinking that
Speaker 3: a victim also means there's an offender. And so whether
Speaker 3: you value that victim or not, when you start to
Speaker 3: look at the bigger picture of what it means to
Speaker 3: not put the energy towards, not put media coverage towards
Speaker 3: every homicide, then you also say, oh, well, this offender
Speaker 3: maybe isn't as important. There's someone who's capable of killing. So,
Speaker 3: like you said, Robin, if there is someone who is
Speaker 3: killed and their case is not viewed as a place
Speaker 3: to place resources, then there's also a community at risk
Speaker 3: because an offender's living amongst them. So it's a very
Speaker 3: small mind reality that we live with in the criminal
Speaker 3: justice field.
Speaker 1: The information about King's disappearance is fairly limited, but it
Speaker 1: sounds like Rodriguez had promised him a partnership in his
Speaker 1: business after luring him away from his previous employer, and
Speaker 1: this failed to materialize. The two men were reportedly seen
Speaker 1: having an argument a short time before King went missing,
Speaker 1: so it's easy to assume that Rodriguez might have been
Speaker 1: involved in what happened. In the long run. I guess
Speaker 1: King's disappearance did benefit Rodriguez and his potential culpability in
Speaker 1: the civil lawsuit, because even though King wound up being
Speaker 1: ordered to pay ninety thousand dollars in damages, Rodriguez pretty
Speaker 1: much got off scot free by pinky swearing that he
Speaker 1: would not use any of the confidential information that King
Speaker 1: gave him for his own personal gain. I guess technically
Speaker 1: they could not prove that Rodriguez new King was providing
Speaker 1: him with material that was stolen, But if King had
Speaker 1: been around to provide testimony, things might have turned out differently.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Rodriguez would have had more liability. So this gave
Speaker 1: Rodriguez a potential motive to make King disappear. But since
Speaker 1: no investigation was performed until after Rodriguez hired an attorney,
Speaker 1: he was never formally interviewed about his potential role in
Speaker 1: this case. Now, there have been some confusion about an
Speaker 1: unidentified John Doe who was found in the East River
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one. He supposedly bore a striking resemblance
Speaker 1: to King, but it's unclear if DNA testing was ever performed.
Speaker 1: It's been reported that King's family refused to provide blood
Speaker 1: samples for DNA testing, but since his mother has always
Speaker 1: been an outspoken advocate for him, I find it hard
Speaker 1: to imagine her not cooperating with this. The last media
Speaker 1: coverage I've seen about King is in an article from
Speaker 1: Newsday in August of two thousand and four, and since
Speaker 1: it makes no mention of the John Doe, I can
Speaker 1: only assume that he was.
Speaker 3: Not a match.
Speaker 1: It sounds like they were unable to determine the exact
Speaker 1: cause of death for the decedent. So even so, even
Speaker 1: if it was so, even if it was King, that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean he was murdered. For all we know,
Speaker 1: King may have been overcome by the stress of the
Speaker 1: civil lawsuit and decided to take his own life by
Speaker 1: jumping off the bridge. Into the East River. With so
Speaker 1: little information, it's tough to make a conclusive determination about
Speaker 1: what happened to King.
Speaker 3: So this is the DNA testing that we were talking
Speaker 3: about last time, that they were hoping it would match King,
Speaker 3: but it resulted in an inconclusive result. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like, there are differing sources, one that says that
Speaker 2: the results were inconclusive, and other sources say that his
Speaker 2: family refused to provide their own blood for a comparison.
Speaker 2: But like I said, I find that hard to believe.
Speaker 2: Given how outspoken his mother was for him, I think
Speaker 2: she would have been more than happy to provide her DNA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no way. If she's if she's strong enough to
Speaker 3: stand there and say, hey, you didn't investigate my son's
Speaker 3: investigation or my son's disappearance until these two other people
Speaker 3: went missing, and she's willing to be vocal, she's desperate
Speaker 3: to know what happened to her son. I will move mountains,
Speaker 3: and I guarantee you everyone else in that family looked
Speaker 3: at her and said she deserved to know what happened
Speaker 3: to him, And so I cannot imagine that everyone in
Speaker 3: his lineage would have said no way. And so it
Speaker 3: is very interesting when you look at the idea that
Speaker 3: there was a deceased individual that they thought possibly could
Speaker 3: be King, there's inconclusive evidence of who this person is,
Speaker 3: so there if that's true, and that is the ultimate outcome,
Speaker 3: there is a small percentage that he could be King,
Speaker 3: but we just don't know that. It's also possible it's
Speaker 3: not King, and that his body it has never been discovered,
Speaker 3: And so is it possibly he took his own life? Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Is it possible he was murdyreed? Absolutely? Is it possible
Speaker 3: something else happened. Anything's possible when you don't have an answer.
Speaker 3: So while it looks like King needed to disappear, either
Speaker 3: for Rodriguez or to avoid his own criminal charges in
Speaker 3: those kinds of things, I think this is a very
Speaker 3: very difficult case to look at because we simply have
Speaker 3: zero information. There's a motive for him to disappear on
Speaker 3: his own and there's a motive to get rid of him,
Speaker 3: but we have no evidence of which way that went.
Speaker 3: So again, for Rodriguez, looks like neon signs pointing to him,
Speaker 3: But is her responsible? Is it possible for someone to
Speaker 3: have that bad of luck that you are a criminal,
Speaker 3: but you're not a murderer. You seem to be associated
Speaker 3: with these people that go missing. It's so illogical to
Speaker 3: think that someone could have that bad of luck, But
Speaker 3: that is a possible outcome.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thing. I mean, he looks awfully suspicious,
Speaker 2: but they just don't have any hard evidence of foul play.
Speaker 2: And well, it seems unlikely that three separate people at
Speaker 2: different time periods could go missing under his wall. They've
Speaker 2: just never been able to prove that he actually was
Speaker 2: personally involved. All that being said, it still seems like
Speaker 2: quite a coincidence that Rodriguez would be linked to otherwise
Speaker 2: completely unrelated missing persons cases. I think the key difference
Speaker 2: between them is that we know for a fact that
Speaker 2: Rodriguez and King colluded together to do unethical things, so
Speaker 2: King might have known some incriminating information which put his
Speaker 2: life in danger. And what we also know for a
Speaker 2: fact that Rodriguez was doing a ton of illegal things
Speaker 2: at the time Michael and Camden went missing. We don't
Speaker 2: know if they knew anything about that. But if the
Speaker 2: couple did learn something incriminating and Rodriguez decided to get
Speaker 2: rid of them, how would these events have unfolded? Well,
Speaker 2: One detail about this case which I've always found interesting
Speaker 2: is this cash of licensed guns, which Rodriguez supposedly owned
Speaker 2: and could not be accounted for. As you recall, Rodriguez
Speaker 2: was originally going to be paroled two years before his
Speaker 2: scheduled release date, but the parole Board changed their minds
Speaker 2: when the question Rodriguez about these guns, and he was
Speaker 2: unable to provide conclusive answers about what happened to them.
Speaker 2: In fact, it's been reported that Rodriguez could have received
Speaker 2: a lighter sense than two to six years if he
Speaker 2: had turned in these guns at the time he pled guilty,
Speaker 2: but he never did. Now, I think the only reason
Speaker 2: this questioning even took place was because the Board's decision
Speaker 2: to parole Rodriguez was met with considerable backlash, and they
Speaker 2: probably were looking for any loophole they could find to
Speaker 2: reverse their decision without admitting me had screwed up. Given
Speaker 2: that a number of years had passed, I guess it's
Speaker 2: possible that Rodriguez legitimately had no idea where the guns were,
Speaker 2: but he was apparently quite a vasive with his answers,
Speaker 2: and to me, the biggest red flag is that he
Speaker 2: invoked his fifth Amendment privilege to avoid self incrimination. I mean,
Speaker 2: pleading the fifth can be a necessary tactic when you're
Speaker 2: questioned under oath in a courtroom. But this is honestly
Speaker 2: the first time I've ever heard of anyone pleading the
Speaker 2: fifth at a parole hearing. Parole boards expect inmates to
Speaker 2: be on honest and take accountability for their actions. But
Speaker 2: if you decline to answer questions on the grounds of
Speaker 2: self incrimination, that comes across like you have something to
Speaker 2: add and pretty much guarantees you're not getting out of prison.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. This is why when we talk about cases of
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions and there's people who are in prison who
Speaker 3: are here, I didn't do it, I didn't do it,
Speaker 3: and they are up for parole and they say, guys,
Speaker 3: I didn't do this, like I need my name cleared
Speaker 3: because I didn't do it. A parole board says, if
Speaker 3: you can't take accountability for why you're here, then clearly
Speaker 3: you're not remorseful, and clearly you can't be released. So
Speaker 3: then not only do you have an offender sitting there
Speaker 3: saying you know, I didn't do this, or well that's
Speaker 3: not how it happened. No, this man is saying I
Speaker 3: will not answer your questions because I might incriminate myself.
Speaker 3: If you're worried about incriminating yourself, you clearly have other
Speaker 3: issues going on and you need to stay behind bars.
Speaker 3: Very very fascinating that this person would have a collection
Speaker 3: of guns, cannot account for them, cannot provide information about them,
Speaker 3: and there's a possibility that three people are missing as
Speaker 3: a result of your actions. Very very interesting. I've never heard,
Speaker 3: like you said, I've never heard of a parole board
Speaker 3: interviewing someone that they're planning to release back into the
Speaker 3: community who says, ah, I can't answer your questions, I
Speaker 3: plead the fifth. Normally, you're begging for them to see
Speaker 3: you as a human, to see you as someone who's thoughtful,
Speaker 3: who's going to be an excellent, contributing member of society,
Speaker 3: who is no longer a risk. He again is making
Speaker 3: horrific decisions as far as drawing attention to the type
Speaker 3: of man that he is.
Speaker 1: So this makes me wonder why did Rodriguez want to
Speaker 1: avoid talking about this cash of guns. So in spite
Speaker 1: of his financial crimes, it doesn't sound like he had
Speaker 1: any known history of violence in his background, So could
Speaker 1: one of these guns have been used as a murder weapon.
Speaker 1: If he shot someone and disposed of the gun, then
Speaker 1: it would be very difficult for him to explain what
Speaker 1: happened to it and could account for why he elected
Speaker 1: to plead the fifth Even if this ruined his chance
Speaker 1: as a parole and meant that he would have to
Speaker 1: serve two more years in prison for fraud, that's still
Speaker 1: preferable to spending the rest of your life in prison
Speaker 1: for murder. But I must provide a disclaimer about this
Speaker 1: detail about the guns, that it is nothing more than
Speaker 1: speculation on Robin's part when he initially did his trail
Speaker 1: and Cold episode. And we both still have issues with
Speaker 1: the idea that Rodriguez could have shot Michael and Camden
Speaker 1: inside the apartment building without anybody hearing anything. So we
Speaker 1: know that all of Rodriguez's financial crimes were eventually uncovered
Speaker 1: because he got himself in way over his head. So
Speaker 1: that's why you have to wonder if he was capable
Speaker 1: of getting away with the perfect murder without leaving any
Speaker 1: incriminating evidence behind. Anyway, as far as we can tell,
Speaker 1: Robert Rodriguez is still alive today at the age of
Speaker 1: eighty four, so if he really was responsible for these crimes,
Speaker 1: then the clock is ticking to uncover evidence against him.
Speaker 1: There's my chance. Rodriguez's main motivation for not cooperating with
Speaker 1: the investigation into Michael and Camden's disappearances was because he
Speaker 1: was afraid of his financial crimes being uncovered. Well, that
Speaker 1: wound up happening anyway, and he served his time in prison.
Speaker 1: If he truly has nothing left to hide, then I
Speaker 1: wish that he would finally cooperate and speak to the
Speaker 1: police about what he knows. But then again, even if
Speaker 1: he's innocent in this case, there may still be things
Speaker 1: about the disappearance of David King which he does not
Speaker 1: want to discuss absolutely.
Speaker 3: And what's really interesting is how would they prove otherwise
Speaker 3: if you said, you know, I honestly wasn't the most
Speaker 3: responsible gun owner. Yes, I have a collection of guns.
Speaker 3: Because I have a collection of guns, I don't really
Speaker 3: keep track of where they are and what I'm doing
Speaker 3: with them. So I remember that I have a couple
Speaker 3: that are in a safe, I have a couple that
Speaker 3: are under the bed. But for some reason I remember
Speaker 3: that there's several that I just can't account for. And
Speaker 3: I was your responsible. I mean, like, they already know
Speaker 3: you have them and where are they? So what if
Speaker 3: you were just you know, oh, I recognized a couple
Speaker 3: of them were missing. I used to loan him out
Speaker 3: to friends, and I have zero idea who borrowed that
Speaker 3: weapon from me? I lost them. I don't know, Like,
Speaker 3: why would you plead the fifth? Why not just make
Speaker 3: up a story? How could they disprove that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is just what's so weird to me that
Speaker 2: he didn't even attempt to make up a lie or
Speaker 2: just say that he lost him or he had no idea.
Speaker 2: He flat up pleads the fifth, which is the most
Speaker 2: suspicious looking thing you could do, which kind of indicates
Speaker 2: to me that there's some sort of desperation at play
Speaker 2: there and he really really doesn't want anyone finding out
Speaker 2: where those guns could be. So. As for Laurie Sylvia,
Speaker 2: at the time her daughter went missing, she was an
Speaker 2: advocate for the disabled and would pretty much become the
Speaker 2: official advocate for Camden and Michael. This is not the
Speaker 2: only family tragedy that Laurie has experienced, as two of
Speaker 2: her uncles vanished and were lost at sea during the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties and in January of twenty fourteen, she lost
Speaker 2: her forty eight year old son, Matthew, when he passed
Speaker 2: away after a long battle with pancreatis. While Laurie is
Speaker 2: still with us today, she is also in her mid eighties,
Speaker 2: so it would be nice if she finally received some
Speaker 2: answers about what happened to her daughter. So, if you
Speaker 2: happen to have any information on the disappearances of Michael
Speaker 2: Sullivan and Camden Sylvia, as well as the unsolved disappearance
Speaker 2: of David King, please call the New York Police Department
Speaker 2: at six four six six one zero six nine one four.
Speaker 2: That's six four six six one zero six nine one four,
Speaker 2: Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in this case.
Speaker 3: Disappearances and missing people are some of the most interesting
Speaker 3: and heartbreaking cases to me because it's as if someone
Speaker 3: just disappeared into thin air and no one knows what
Speaker 3: happened to them. And yet you can't just have a
Speaker 3: body evaporate that those three people, at some point their
Speaker 3: body should surface, should be found, they somebody should know
Speaker 3: what happened to them. Right. It just doesn't really cognitively
Speaker 3: make sense to me that David King up had disappeared
Speaker 3: never to be seen again. Camden and Michael up A disappeared,
Speaker 3: never to be seen again. So in these cases, it's
Speaker 3: this constant prayer of mine that like, Okay, one day,
Speaker 3: remains are going to be discovered. These families are going
Speaker 3: to get answers, and while they might not ever know
Speaker 3: who the perpetrator was, they would at least have their
Speaker 3: loved one's remains back to kind of close the idea
Speaker 3: that my loved one matters and I want to know
Speaker 3: that they are now safely in a single location and
Speaker 3: I know where they are, like that just peace of mind.
Speaker 3: Are these likely to be solved and prosecuted. Probably not.
Speaker 3: But again, if there was just this ability to have
Speaker 3: the remains back where people like Glory and these families
Speaker 3: would say, my baby is is, I know where she
Speaker 3: is now. I have control over the location of her
Speaker 3: body and I don't have to wonder what else is happening.
Speaker 3: I have her back to me as a mother. That's
Speaker 3: something that would be incredibly important. That the idea of
Speaker 3: her just disappearing into thin air is one of the
Speaker 3: most harmful possibilities. I just need her back, no matter
Speaker 3: what form that's in. And so again, how does a
Speaker 3: body just disappear. It can happen. I mean, there are
Speaker 3: methods to make a body disintegrate and disappear, but is
Speaker 3: that likely, Like we said, to what extent in the
Speaker 3: middle of Manhattan can you just get rid of things?
Speaker 3: How easy is it to eliminate one, two, or maybe
Speaker 3: even three people and no one knows, there's no evidence,
Speaker 3: there's no trail left behind. So missing persons just so tragic,
Speaker 3: and I'm my prayer would be at the minimum that
Speaker 3: these families would be able to one day have their
Speaker 3: loved ones and have the control over their remains.
Speaker 1: I totally agree, and I personally think that Rodriguez holds
Speaker 1: the key to where where the bodies are. And I
Speaker 1: think that this is like the case of a hidden
Speaker 1: variable homicide, and that there's so many variables that we
Speaker 1: just aren't aware of, Like was there another person? It
Speaker 1: could have been a family member, because like Robin said,
Speaker 1: the family members weren't cooperative, and so you've got to
Speaker 1: wonder why when you've got two missing people and they're
Speaker 1: not trying to help. It's like either they know that
Speaker 1: he's doing all the fraud stuff and they're just trying
Speaker 1: not to get involved, or they are scared of him
Speaker 1: in some capacity, or they're complicit in some way. And
Speaker 1: I think that because Manhattan is this, you know, small island,
Speaker 1: and it's so populated, everybody's basically on top of each other,
Speaker 1: that it's so hard to envision how somebody could carry
Speaker 1: this out. But if there was a second person, and
Speaker 1: if he did have a van from his locksmith's shop,
Speaker 1: there would And Ashley had mentioned like what if there
Speaker 1: was an area rug on the ground, what if he
Speaker 1: put their bodies in this van, had the help of somebody,
Speaker 1: and he drove them to New Jersey. I just think
Speaker 1: of Rex Hureman, the Long Island serial killer, and how
Speaker 1: long the bodies of those women are. All those individuals
Speaker 1: were there. They were only discovered because of Shannon Gilbert's
Speaker 1: disappearance and her call to nine one one, which was
Speaker 1: very troubling, and so that kicked off a search which
Speaker 1: then those bodies were discovered. So it is my hope
Speaker 1: that Michael and Camden will be discovered at some point
Speaker 1: and King as well, and that perhaps there is a
Speaker 1: dumping ground or an area where Rodriguez is disposed of
Speaker 1: these bodies, because in my gut, I truly believe that
Speaker 1: he's the one that holds the key to the answers
Speaker 1: that the families deserve at this point. And the fact
Speaker 1: that he's like eighty five, now that is so wild
Speaker 1: to me, because he's gone his whole life with as
Speaker 1: far as we know, not confessing to anybody, or at
Speaker 1: least nobody that would come forward, and so we're running
Speaker 1: out a time. I'm here, this is like a Tommy
Speaker 1: Zeger thing, not in that he's innocent, just in that
Speaker 1: he's at an advanced age, and so if we want
Speaker 1: a resolution, it's going to need to be soon.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I actually talked about these missing persons cases in
Speaker 2: which it seems like the victim has just vanished into
Speaker 2: thin air, and this is definitely an example of one
Speaker 2: of them. And it's particularly frustrating in the cases where
Speaker 2: you have a very compelling suspect, but you just don't
Speaker 2: have any evidence of foul play or any indication what
Speaker 2: happened to the victims at all. I mean, it would
Speaker 2: be one thing if Michael and Cannon were last seen
Speaker 2: going to a meeting with Robert Rodriguez and then they
Speaker 2: just disappeared, But we don't even have a real pinpoint
Speaker 2: moment of the last time they were seen to be alive.
Speaker 2: We know they return to their apartment left at some point,
Speaker 2: but they don't know where they were going or what
Speaker 2: happened to them. And no one reported seeing or hearing
Speaker 2: anything unusual, no gunshots, no suspicious actions of like Rodriguez
Speaker 2: carrying something into a vehicle. So even though it is
Speaker 2: compelling to think that Rodriguez killed them because of this dispute,
Speaker 2: there's just no hard evidence that, and under normal circumstances,
Speaker 2: I might have been willing to give Rodriguez a break
Speaker 2: and think that, well, maybe he's acting this way because
Speaker 2: he was committing fraud on the side, that he had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with what happened to Michael and Camden.
Speaker 2: But then you learn the background with David King and
Speaker 2: how he conveniently went missing in the middle of a dispute,
Speaker 2: and you're thinking, Wow, I don't think anyone is that unlucky, Like,
Speaker 2: it's be quite a coincidence if three people connected to
Speaker 2: this guy all happened to go missing under unrelated circumstances.
Speaker 2: So he asked to be involved somehow. But if he was,
Speaker 2: he covered his tracks very well. And like we talked
Speaker 2: about how does he get rid of two people in
Speaker 2: downtown Manhattan from an apartment building in the middle of
Speaker 2: the day without attracting any attention. And this is why
Speaker 2: it's easy to believe that he might have had accomplices,
Speaker 2: maybe business associates or family members who helped him dispose
Speaker 2: of the crime. And like you mentioned, he's now in
Speaker 2: his eighties, he doesn't have much time left. So I
Speaker 2: really hope that if he did do something, they can
Speaker 2: finally uncover some evidence and maybe finally find the victims'
Speaker 2: bodies and finally get a conclusive resolution, because, like we
Speaker 2: talked about, Lori, Sylvia has gone without answers for far
Speaker 2: too long.
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 2: The Trail Went Cold's original feed. So they're exclusive to
Speaker 2: Patreon and if you join our highest tier, Tier three,
Speaker 2: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
Speaker 2: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
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Speaker 4: So we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 1: We'll link them in the show notes.
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy