Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path went Chilling for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the disappearance of Bob Herod. Robin,
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up from what we
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, this is an unsolved disappearance involving an elderly man,
Speaker 2: eighty one year old Bob Herod, who lived in the
Speaker 2: town of Placentia, California. Bob had been married to his wife,
Speaker 2: Georgia for fifty seven years, but she had recently passed
Speaker 2: away and Bob went into a depression. But then he
Speaker 2: was contacted by an old flame of his named Bontel Heater,
Speaker 2: whom he had engaged to be married in nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 2: but for various reasons, they were forced to separate and
Speaker 2: went off and lived their separate lives. So Bob had
Speaker 2: not heard from Fontel in nearly fifty years, but she
Speaker 2: had become a widow herself her own husband had passed away,
Speaker 2: so she decided to track Bob down and get in
Speaker 2: touch with them, and they wound up pre killing the romance.
Speaker 2: It started out as a very sweet story where they
Speaker 2: wound up getting married quickly and Fontel was going to
Speaker 2: move from her hometown of Missouri to Placentia so that
Speaker 2: she and Bob could live together, but shortly before this
Speaker 2: could take place, Bob would vanish without a trace. The
Speaker 2: story goes is that he was fixing up the house
Speaker 2: with his son in law, Jeff Michaels, but then when
Speaker 2: Jeff went to home depot to get some things and
Speaker 2: returned around a half hour later, Bob's housekeeper, Agnes, was
Speaker 2: sitting on the front porch and said the front door
Speaker 2: was locked and Bob was nowhere to be found. They
Speaker 2: initially figured that Bob may have gone for a walk,
Speaker 2: but he never returned and the only things that were
Speaker 2: missing were his keys and his wallet, and when he
Speaker 2: failed to resurface, his family officially reported him missing. But
Speaker 2: Fontel moved to California and moved into Bob's house, but
Speaker 2: there began some tension between her and Bob's three daughters, Paula, Roberta,
Speaker 2: and Julie, who were not happy about the fact that
Speaker 2: Bob had been planning to revise his estate and leave
Speaker 2: part of his house and his money to Fontel, and
Speaker 2: they reportedly had a heated meeting about it the very
Speaker 2: day before Bob went missing, leading to speculation that there
Speaker 2: might have been a connection between these two events. There
Speaker 2: was a lengthy court battle and Fontel was eventually evicted
Speaker 2: from Bob's home after he was legally declared dead before
Speaker 2: she passed away herself. And it was also reported that
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, two persons of interest who were described
Speaker 2: as being associates of Bob were arrested and detained, but
Speaker 2: were released without charge. And to this day, law enforcement
Speaker 2: has not released the identities of these two people or
Speaker 2: why they were detained, and the investigation is pretty much
Speaker 2: now in a holding pattern, and no trace of Bob
Speaker 2: has been seen in nearly seventeen years. So I can
Speaker 2: honestly say that I've never really seen a missing person's
Speaker 2: case quite like this one, where it transitions from a
Speaker 2: heartwarming love story to a tragic mystery within the span
Speaker 2: of only one month. Here were two elderly individuals who
Speaker 2: had both gone into a depression after losing their respective spouses,
Speaker 2: but wound up reconnecting with the long lost love and
Speaker 2: finally went through with a wedding which was supposed to
Speaker 2: have taken place nearly sixty years earlier. What's unique is
Speaker 2: that Bob Herod and Fontale Heaters. Romance was such a
Speaker 2: feel good human interest story that I wound up getting
Speaker 2: media attention before Bob went missing. The local newspaper, the
Speaker 2: Orange County Register, published an article about their recent marriage
Speaker 2: on July seventh, two thousand and nine, and Bob was
Speaker 2: even interviewed by a TV news crew. In many missing
Speaker 2: persons cases, you only get to see the victims from
Speaker 2: their photographs, and it's very rare that you're able to
Speaker 2: see video footage of those speaking, which only makes them
Speaker 2: more human. Watch meeting Bob's TV interview is both poignant
Speaker 2: and eerie, because you can tell that he's the happiest
Speaker 2: he has been in quite some time, but you also
Speaker 2: know that he's going to vanish it out of the
Speaker 2: trace three weeks later. And of course, what makes the
Speaker 2: whole thing even sadder is the possibility that Bob could
Speaker 2: have gone missing because of his marriage, as it's a
Speaker 2: parent that allowing his new bride to have a piece
Speaker 2: of his five million dollar fortune was causing some friction
Speaker 2: within his family.
Speaker 3: I can only imagine, right when you have that kind
Speaker 3: of assets and you have these fluctuating relationships. Bob and
Speaker 3: his daughters had consistent relationships, they knew their mom's plan.
Speaker 3: And then he has this younger female acquaintance, possibly girlfriend,
Speaker 3: who he loans a lot of money to, and now
Speaker 3: he's very quickly getting remarried to a childhood love interest.
Speaker 3: And so I could see where the girls are very overwhelmed.
Speaker 3: In episode one, I said, you know, unless all of
Speaker 3: them were involved, I don't think you could successfully pull
Speaker 3: that off, because it's some point one of the sisters
Speaker 3: would likely crack. But like you said, this is such
Speaker 3: a bizarre case because it was just this eighty one
Speaker 3: year old man who had this magical love story emerging
Speaker 3: in his life at the age of eighty one, and
Speaker 3: two days before she's supposed to start this chapter with him,
Speaker 3: he disappears. And there's been very little progress made in
Speaker 3: the case other than two individuals that we have no
Speaker 3: information about being apprehended to later be released.
Speaker 1: I would love to know if those two individuals had
Speaker 1: any link at all to Josie. Do you know that information, Robin?
Speaker 2: Unfortunately no, I haven't heard anything about Josie since the
Speaker 2: disappeared episode when they said that they did not consider
Speaker 2: her to be a suspect. But there's so many different
Speaker 2: possibilities about who these two people could be, like, could
Speaker 2: they be Josie and her husband, Could they be Josie
Speaker 2: and someone that is suspected of being solicited to harm
Speaker 2: Bob or something. We just don't have that information.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, now you'll find no shortage of line discussion about
Speaker 1: this case, as there are no less than twenty separate
Speaker 1: threads devoted to Bob's disappearance on the web sluthe forum,
Speaker 1: and quite frankly, a lot of the discussion about Bob's
Speaker 1: three daughters, Julie, Paula and Roberta is not too flattering,
Speaker 1: as there are definitely a number of people who suspect
Speaker 1: that one or more, if not all, of them, might
Speaker 1: have played some sort of role in Bob's disappearance. What
Speaker 1: further complicates this whole situation is that Bob's son in
Speaker 1: law was the last known person to see him alive,
Speaker 1: and Bob had also developed a close relationship with a
Speaker 1: much younger woman whom he'd lent large sums of money
Speaker 1: to hell, you'll even see suspicion directed towards Fontel herself
Speaker 1: and the possibility that she married Bob simply to get
Speaker 1: her hands on his fortune. Back in twenty nineteen, two
Speaker 1: persons of interest who were described as being associates of
Speaker 1: Bob were briefly arrested and attained in relation to the
Speaker 1: case before they were released without charge, and just as
Speaker 1: Robin mentioned, their identities have never been released publicly. But
Speaker 1: since there are so many different people associated with this story,
Speaker 1: we can only guess who these two particular individuals might be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. It seems like it's unlimited of who this
Speaker 3: could be because we don't know who Bob's done business with.
Speaker 3: He owns multiple properties, clearly he's had successful investments, and
Speaker 3: you know, it could be a banker, it could be
Speaker 3: a real estate agent, it could be someone he hired
Speaker 3: to fix his homes up. It could be, you know,
Speaker 3: someone he is related to. So it's very frustrating when
Speaker 3: you look at this from an investigative standpoint, because Bob
Speaker 3: has had such an extensive life, because Bob does have
Speaker 3: assets that are of value to people who know him,
Speaker 3: and because you know, the older you get, it's possible
Speaker 3: he shared information he shouldn't have shared with somebody, right,
Speaker 3: being vulnerable, being a little bit more gullible to just
Speaker 3: you know, communication methods and things like that there's a
Speaker 3: host of different things that could have happened to Bob
Speaker 3: the Unfortunately, because of the doctor's report, it seems like
Speaker 3: the most unlikely would be that he naturally and somehow,
Speaker 3: in a state of confusion, wandered away. And it does
Speaker 3: point more towards something's wrong what bothers me as you
Speaker 3: still know, Bob's bed was unmade when he left, which
Speaker 3: was atypical. He did have his wallet and keys, but
Speaker 3: did not have his glasses and did not take his car,
Speaker 3: so hypothetically, he should not have been able to voluntarily
Speaker 3: go very far or for very long without needing to
Speaker 3: come home.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the possibility of Bob possibly angering someone
Speaker 2: who he had done business with in the past. And
Speaker 2: what's interesting was, we really don't know all that much
Speaker 2: about Bob's personal life. We just know that he had
Speaker 2: once worked in contract administration, he made a fortune, and
Speaker 2: he successfully made some investments in some real estate properties.
Speaker 2: But we don't know too much about his personal life
Speaker 2: other than Josie and von Teal and his daughters. We
Speaker 2: don't know what kind of friends and associates he had,
Speaker 2: So I mean, I don't know how long he had
Speaker 2: been retired, if he might have angered someone during his
Speaker 2: deep business dealings that would cause them to murder him
Speaker 2: like years after the fact. But it is possible, though,
Speaker 2: that these two associates who arrested may just be people
Speaker 2: that have never been mentioned before and any versions of
Speaker 2: this story and were completely off the radar as suspects.
Speaker 2: So obviously Bob's fortune seems to be the most logical
Speaker 2: motive for his disappearance, but you have to remember that
Speaker 2: he's technically still only a missing person, not a homicide victim.
Speaker 2: California law requires that a person be missing for at
Speaker 2: least five years before they can be legally declared dead,
Speaker 2: so theoretically, if someone killed Bob for his inheritance, it
Speaker 2: would have been in their best interest to ensure his
Speaker 2: body was found, since otherwise they cannot benefit financially until
Speaker 2: at least twenty fourteen. If you search on YouTube, you'll
Speaker 2: be able to find clips of some local news segments
Speaker 2: which were filmed in the days following Bob's disappearance, and
Speaker 2: one of them features footage of Fontelle arriving in California
Speaker 2: and being co sold by Julie Paula and Roberta. It's
Speaker 2: quite surreal to watch this footage knowing that the two
Speaker 2: sides would soon wind up on very bad terms with
Speaker 2: each other and become embroiled in a heated feud over
Speaker 2: Bob's estate. And what adds an extra element of frustration
Speaker 2: of the situation is that we have conflicting stories from
Speaker 2: both Fontel and the three daughters about some key events
Speaker 2: which took place around the time period Bob vanished. I
Speaker 2: suppose we should begin our analysis by talking about Fontel,
Speaker 2: who passed away in twenty twenty two. In many cases,
Speaker 2: you might feel suspicious about a woman suddenly re entering
Speaker 2: a wealthy man's life after not seeing him for decades
Speaker 2: and marrying him a short time later before he went missing.
Speaker 2: Bob's daughters have even given off the impression that they
Speaker 2: believe that Fontel was a gold digger who was only
Speaker 2: after him for his money. However, when you look at
Speaker 2: the big picture, Fontel definitely seems to be the least
Speaker 2: likely suspect. I mean, Fontel was in a completely different
Speaker 2: state at the time Bob went missing, so she couldn't
Speaker 2: have had any direct involvement. And while you could explore
Speaker 2: the possibility of a murder for hire, that scenario really
Speaker 2: doesn't make any sense for starters. It sounds like the
Speaker 2: quick marriage was Bob's idea as he was an eighty
Speaker 2: one year old widower who had to adjust to the
Speaker 2: pain of being alone for the first time in six decades.
Speaker 2: So when a former flame re entered his life and
Speaker 2: he fell head over heels in love again, Bob did
Speaker 2: not see the purpose of taking things slowly because who
Speaker 2: knows how much time he had left. Bontel always maintained
Speaker 2: that she had no idea Bob was wealthy until after
Speaker 2: he went missing, and I can't believe that as he
Speaker 2: lived a modest, middle class lifestyle. You certainly don't expect
Speaker 2: an individual who's driving in nineteen ninety seven Toyota Camry
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine to have a net worth
Speaker 2: of five million dollars. Hell, Bob's daughters even admitted that
Speaker 2: they had no idea what he was really worth until
Speaker 2: after their mother passed away the previous year.
Speaker 1: Just in case anybody is curious about what Bob's money
Speaker 1: would be worth today, the five million would be roughly
Speaker 1: seven point six million in today's currency or spending powers.
Speaker 1: So that gives you kind of an idea of what
Speaker 1: all these people could be potentially battling over.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I've got to defend Fontel here and Bob
Speaker 3: as well, because if you've ever experienced loss of a spouse,
Speaker 3: it's something that your whole world is kind of turned
Speaker 3: upside down and you don't know how to function without
Speaker 3: your partner. It's a very different relationship than any other
Speaker 3: kind of loss, because even brushing your teeth and doing
Speaker 3: the dishes, this is the person who's with you twenty
Speaker 3: four to seven, carrying the same role, the same weight,
Speaker 3: and you're like better half if you have a good marriage, right,
Speaker 3: that's my other half, and so to lose half of
Speaker 3: you feels helpless. This man was with her for decades
Speaker 3: upon decades, six decades, so that was the way he functioned.
Speaker 3: It was like he lost his right arm and leg
Speaker 3: when she passed away. So when he all of a
Speaker 3: sudden has someone reach out who's genuine and is a
Speaker 3: true love that he had in his life, it was
Speaker 3: never a pain for him other than losing her. He
Speaker 3: went away for the military and didn't want to hold
Speaker 3: her to that commitment because he knew he was in danger,
Speaker 3: and because of the times then they didn't have email
Speaker 3: and Facebook and FaceTime and all of the things that
Speaker 3: we have now. They lost touch with each other, and
Speaker 3: it was something that would have to be a love
Speaker 3: that stayed in your heart and said, Hey, I wonder
Speaker 3: whatever happened to her? Right, I'm so happy in my life,
Speaker 3: but I think about her every once in a while.
Speaker 3: That was my first love.
Speaker 4: She comes back in his life. He gets a lease
Speaker 4: on losing his world.
Speaker 3: And now wait a minute, this chapter that never got
Speaker 3: to start is going to could start out of It's
Speaker 3: like a grace of God. And so I just feel
Speaker 3: like Bob and Fontelle, would money be nice to know
Speaker 3: as a widow you're going to marry into somebody who
Speaker 3: has money, Yes, but you're both like counting down how
Speaker 3: long do we have left? So do I think Fontelle
Speaker 3: was chasing him for his money?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I think she didn't want to pass away alone. And
Speaker 3: I think she wanted to end her her life here
Speaker 3: on earth with her best friend, with somebody that she
Speaker 3: had missed that she thought about her whole life and
Speaker 3: that she wanted to reconnect with.
Speaker 4: So I think that part's incredibly precious.
Speaker 3: You know, when you talk about who drives that nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety seven Toyota Camry a twelve year old car when
Speaker 3: they have millions upon millions of dollars.
Speaker 4: I kind of find it very charming.
Speaker 3: Because I've met a few people who are very wealthy
Speaker 3: and you would never know it unless you knew their
Speaker 3: pedigree and where they came from. I think that humility
Speaker 3: of saying there's things that are worth investing in and
Speaker 3: putting your money towards, and there's things that don't matter
Speaker 3: to me, shows a humbleness to him and really shows
Speaker 3: you the kind of man he likely was. That wasn't
Speaker 3: someone who lets you know how much money he had.
Speaker 3: He didn't wear that on his sleeve. And if that's
Speaker 3: the kind of and he was, I have to go
Speaker 3: back to what you said that if you were going
Speaker 3: to kill him for his money, you'd want his body
Speaker 3: found because they had to wait for five years to
Speaker 3: get his assets released. I almost think that this man
Speaker 3: went out to do something even maybe go get something
Speaker 3: quickly from, you know, around the corner to bring back
Speaker 3: for Fontelle when she arrived, and then maybe got hurt
Speaker 3: on his way out. That someone saw him and there
Speaker 3: was a crime of opportunity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree that. I don't think there is
Speaker 2: anything unusual about Bob and Fontell wanting to get remarried
Speaker 2: so quickly after losing the respective spouses, just because it
Speaker 2: would be a difficult adjustment going back to being alone
Speaker 2: again for the first time in decades. But I have
Speaker 2: seen situations like this where a quick remarry for an
Speaker 2: elderly person who was married to their spouse for decades
Speaker 2: can cause a lot of friction with their adult children
Speaker 2: because it's just so shocking to them that their mother,
Speaker 2: who has been a big part of their life for
Speaker 2: so long, is now gone, and now you're seeing their
Speaker 2: father just get married quickly to some woman you don't
Speaker 2: even know. So on one sense, you can understand why
Speaker 2: they might have an unflattering portrayal of Fontel and think
Speaker 2: that she's a gold digger and was only after her
Speaker 2: father with his money. But on the other hand, they
Speaker 2: may have their own selfish, ulterior reasons for thinking this
Speaker 2: and don't like the idea Fontel getting your hands on
Speaker 2: their money, which they felt that they would be entitled to.
Speaker 1: And like, I just don't understand how Fontale has a
Speaker 1: finger pointed at her when there wasn't even Instagram back then.
Speaker 1: Like Instagram started in twenty ten. Okay, so there was
Speaker 1: a scenario where Bob would have been on some kind
Speaker 1: of social media platform with like stacks of cash and
Speaker 1: posting videos like that wouldn't have been a thing, and
Speaker 1: we know that he wasn't doing that. So I just
Speaker 1: don't know where Fonteal would have been able to come
Speaker 1: up with the information that Bob was wealth, especially when
Speaker 1: we factor in that his daughters didn't even know how
Speaker 1: considerable his wealth was until Georgia passed away.
Speaker 2: I think the idea of Bob being on Instagram is
Speaker 2: pretty adorable for this eighty one year old name some
Speaker 2: of them and him holding up stacks of cash to
Speaker 2: show how wealthy is quite a littilarious visual.
Speaker 1: During her interview on the Disappeared episode about this case,
Speaker 1: Fontel brought up a point which should dispel any notion
Speaker 1: of her being involved in Bob's disappearance. If all she
Speaker 1: cared about was his money, she would have ensured that
Speaker 1: all the necessary paperwork making her a beneficiary to his
Speaker 1: estate was signed before she left California to return home
Speaker 1: to Missouri. Some people might find it odd that Bontel
Speaker 1: decided to move into Bob's house after he vanished and
Speaker 1: remained there for the next several years. But she really
Speaker 1: didn't have much of a choice. Remember, she'd spend the
Speaker 1: previous month moving out of her residence in Missouri in
Speaker 1: order to live with Bob, So where was she going
Speaker 1: to go? I can't imagine that she wanted to go
Speaker 1: through the ordeal of finding another place to live while
Speaker 1: she was dealing with the trauma of her husband going missing,
Speaker 1: and putting aside the potential motive of Fontel orchestrating a
Speaker 1: murder for hire. The logistics just seem impossible if you
Speaker 1: look at the timeline. Bob seemingly went missing during a
Speaker 1: narrow period of around twenty to thirty minutes between when
Speaker 1: his son in law left the house to go to
Speaker 1: home depot and his housekeeper arrived at the residence. What
Speaker 1: amazing luck that this mythical hit man managed to remove
Speaker 1: Bob from his home within this very very brief window
Speaker 1: of time when no one else was there. Even though
Speaker 1: it appears that Bob's daughters have attempted to paint an
Speaker 1: unslattering picture of Fontelle, she does come across as a
Speaker 1: genuinely nice woman during her interviews. Just imagine how difficult.
Speaker 1: It must have been for her to lose her husband,
Speaker 1: rekindle her romance with Bob, get remarried, and then lose
Speaker 1: him as well, and then lose him as well within
Speaker 1: one three year time period.
Speaker 3: That's so sad when you look at this idea that
Speaker 3: she had already lost so much, He had already lost
Speaker 3: so much, and this was such a kind of just
Speaker 3: diamond in the rough storybook reconnection. I can't imagine that
Speaker 3: it just didn't work out right, like is it perfect? No,
Speaker 3: are their complications, of course, but it's these two elderly
Speaker 3: people who get a second lease on life. And like
Speaker 3: you said, he had already lost so much, She had
Speaker 3: already lost so much, and two days before they're about
Speaker 3: to start their world together, he's gone. It breaks my heart.
Speaker 4: It's so sad.
Speaker 2: We mentioned earlier that when Fontelle first arrived in Placentia
Speaker 2: following Bob's disappearance, the news cameras caught footage of his
Speaker 2: daughter's hugging and consoling her. But things obviously changed in
Speaker 2: a big hurry, since Julie, Roperta and Paula met with
Speaker 2: Fontelle a few days later to let her know that
Speaker 2: she was not entitled to their father's assets, and we
Speaker 2: have differing accounts about whether or not they told Fonteale
Speaker 2: that a family attorney had advised them to kick her
Speaker 2: out of the house. Well, at this point, Bob had
Speaker 2: only been missing for a short amount time, so it
Speaker 2: does seem a bit callous to be focusing so much
Speaker 2: on the handling of his estate when it has even
Speaker 2: been confirmed yet if he's dead or alive. I can
Speaker 2: also see why it might look incredibly suspicious that Bob
Speaker 2: just happened to go missing the very day after he
Speaker 2: had a meeting with his three daughters to discuss his
Speaker 2: family's finances. We have two differing versions of what happened,
Speaker 2: as Julie, Paula and Roberta maintain that even though they
Speaker 2: did have a heated argument with their father, they were
Speaker 2: able to peacefully resolve the situation and left his house
Speaker 2: on good terms, but Fontell claims that when she spoke
Speaker 2: to Bob on the phone later that evening, he still
Speaker 2: seemed pretty upset. Fontell's version of the story is that
Speaker 2: Bob's daughters were unhappy that he was planning to add
Speaker 2: her name to his house and checking accounts, and they
Speaker 2: even wanted the marriage to be an Ault. Julie, Paula
Speaker 2: and Roberta have always downplayed this, as they claimed that
Speaker 2: the source of the friction was their father's lack of
Speaker 2: transparency about their late mother's bypass trust and issue, which
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with Fontel and had been a
Speaker 2: recurring problem before they even got married. Since Bob himself
Speaker 2: is no longer around to clarify this situation, well, probably
Speaker 2: never know the real truth, but his daughters did file
Speaker 2: a petition of conservatorship only a week and a half
Speaker 2: after he went missing, and later went to probate court
Speaker 2: to try and get Fontell removed from the residents, so
Speaker 2: they were obviously quite concerned about making sure to keep
Speaker 2: control of his finances.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that all of that is just simply
Speaker 3: like the reality of growing up and having an aging parent.
Speaker 3: I could see where everyone was incredibly frustrated. It's a
Speaker 3: very difficult conversation to have, and they had already had
Speaker 3: complications with it that Dad wasn't providing the correct documentation.
Speaker 3: Moms deceased, so that adds energy to it. This was
Speaker 3: Mom's wishes. They're very probably emotionally tied to Mom wanted this.
Speaker 3: We were told this, you need to provide this, And
Speaker 3: so imagine three heated girls dealing with the grief of
Speaker 3: their mother's loss, the reality that this conversation means one
Speaker 3: day Dad's going to be gone too, and trying to
Speaker 3: manage money. It complicates everything.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just I'm The more we talk about it, the
Speaker 3: more empathy I feel for the daughters who, because of
Speaker 3: the odd timing of this conversation and because of the
Speaker 3: kind of complex nature that happens with Fontel afterwards, for them,
Speaker 3: they almost feel like she's a squatter living in their
Speaker 3: dad's house. She just you know, she's been in the
Speaker 3: picture what two seconds, and now she lays claim to
Speaker 3: his assets in his home.
Speaker 4: We should have never let him in.
Speaker 3: There's just a lot of legal and financial complications that
Speaker 3: I think would erode any people's relationship. I don't necessarily
Speaker 3: think it projects any of their character. I think many
Speaker 3: families see this where good people end up having bad
Speaker 3: behaviors displayed and bad emotions between them, because money changes
Speaker 3: people and grief changes people. So I think it's just hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do know that places like web sluse like
Speaker 2: paint a very unflattering portrayal of the daughters and don't
Speaker 2: really like them too much. But if you do put
Speaker 2: yourself in their shoes and they are completely innocent, you
Speaker 2: can kind of understand a lot of their behavior, and like,
Speaker 2: I understand what a weird adjustment it must have been
Speaker 2: for them to like suddenly lose their mother and have
Speaker 2: their father remarry like a complete stranger, very very quickly.
Speaker 2: So it might seem callous from a distance, but when
Speaker 2: you take it from their point of view, he can
Speaker 2: kind of understand some of their actions. And if they
Speaker 2: truly are innocent, they probably never never knew that their
Speaker 2: father was just going to go missing and that everyone
Speaker 2: was going to like scrutinize their actions.
Speaker 1: And if they were aware of Josie potentially borrowing money
Speaker 1: or siphoning money from their father, it could be that
Speaker 1: this marriage to Fontelle became a pattern of recklessness that
Speaker 1: the three daughters saw, and we're like, our father is
Speaker 1: doing reckless things. Isn't disclosing the things to do with
Speaker 1: the trust that he's legally obligated to do, and so
Speaker 1: they are legally entitled to that money, and he's being
Speaker 1: evasive about it. And now he's given eighty six thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to Josie and he's married Fontel, and so it
Speaker 1: likely has zero to do with Fontel and everything to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that he's been evasive. They don't
Speaker 1: feel like they're going to get what has been entitled
Speaker 1: to them through their mother George's bypass trust because their
Speaker 1: father isn't complying with what he is legally supposed to do.
Speaker 1: So I can completely empathize with what they're going through.
Speaker 1: They're concerned about the decisions that he's making, and it's
Speaker 1: I'm more in line with what Ashley said that this
Speaker 1: is an aging parent and they're concerned for his well being,
Speaker 1: also for their own wellbeing and for their financial future.
Speaker 1: But I think both things can be true. You can
Speaker 1: be concerned for your aging parent and their choice, and
Speaker 1: you can also be concerned for yourself and the money
Speaker 1: that you're legally entitled to. So one aspect of this
Speaker 1: case which does seem concerning is that Bob's daughters shared
Speaker 1: details about him with the media that were contradicted by
Speaker 1: other sources. For instance, they said that Bob had been
Speaker 1: experiencing memory issues and potential signs of dementia, but Bob's
Speaker 1: doctor told police that he was quite healthy for his age.
Speaker 1: They also claimed that his father had bad knees and
Speaker 1: couldn't walk more than two blocks, but Bob's neighbors said
Speaker 1: that he often liked to take mile long walks up
Speaker 1: the street and back virtually every day. Bob's daughters also
Speaker 1: described him as being a homebody who did not like
Speaker 1: to go out much and did everything he could to
Speaker 1: avoid driving on freeways. However, investigators learned that about a
Speaker 1: month or so prior to his disappearance, Bob took Fontelle
Speaker 1: to visit friends of his who lived on Balboa Island,
Speaker 1: a harborside community in Newport Beach, and it would have
Speaker 1: been impossible for him to drive there without using the freeway.
Speaker 1: So why are we getting all these contradictory stories about
Speaker 1: Bob's physical and mental health. Where his daughter's trying to
Speaker 1: plant some seeds to give off the impression that he
Speaker 1: became disoriented and wandered off. I mean, given Bob's advanced age,
Speaker 1: I suppose we can't completely discount that possibility. But there
Speaker 1: have been no reported sightings of him since he went missing.
Speaker 1: Bob's disappearance immediately received a lot of attention from the
Speaker 1: local media, and he was a very distinct looking guy.
Speaker 1: So unless he wandered off into a remote area and
Speaker 1: died of exposure or something, I think there's a good
Speaker 1: chance that he would have been found relatively quickly. It's
Speaker 1: also worth reiterating the police claimed someone initially told them
Speaker 1: that Bob might have run away on his own because
Speaker 1: he regretted his marriage to Fontelle, But they've never publicly
Speaker 1: revealed the identity of the person who shared this theory,
Speaker 1: so you have to wonder if it might have been
Speaker 1: someone who had their own ulterior motives for attempting to
Speaker 1: push forward a false narrative.
Speaker 3: There is no way he wanted to run away from
Speaker 3: that mayor and at eighty one, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: just think, with his relationship with his daughters, if he
Speaker 3: felt like he had just gotten trapped, she wasn't even
Speaker 3: living there yet, I think he could easily come up
Speaker 3: with a thing that says, you just can't, you can't come.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get it annulled. I can't do this. He
Speaker 3: was happy, he was so excited. Oh my god, read
Speaker 3: the letter that he wrote her. This is like this
Speaker 3: struck of strike of genius that somehow you found me,
Speaker 3: and God's answered my prayers and the call changed my life.
Speaker 3: He loves her, he cares about her, and he does
Speaker 3: not want to be alone. I completely understand that. And
Speaker 3: so no part of me thinks that disoriented and wandered off,
Speaker 3: not if you're going to say it's based on dementia,
Speaker 3: but I do wonder could there have been an injury
Speaker 3: where he fell and then was disoriented. I could see
Speaker 3: him having the wherewithal to grab his keys and his wallet,
Speaker 3: but maybe not making his bed like he normally does.
Speaker 3: That could be possible, But then, like you said, how
Speaker 3: far is he actually going to get on foot unless
Speaker 3: he was grabbed by somebody. I feel like it would
Speaker 3: be pretty easy to find him, even if he had
Speaker 3: lost his life due to being exposed to the elements
Speaker 3: or something, or you know, wandered off and gotten hurt.
Speaker 3: I don't think he could have gotten that far by himself.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you a question, Ash? Yeah, So what
Speaker 1: do you think is the likelihood that we see? Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've got all the daughters giving this information and
Speaker 1: it looks like it's contradicted by other people who seem
Speaker 1: to know Bob his neighbors. How much of that do
Speaker 1: you think is just a perception versus reality?
Speaker 4: I think huge, how.
Speaker 1: Much do we actually know about our parents? And like
Speaker 1: what do their friends know of them? That is completely
Speaker 1: different than like us as children.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and like even between children, like my brother and
Speaker 3: I have very different perceptions of our parents. And it's
Speaker 3: because of the relationships we have and as adults you
Speaker 3: become more friends and then caregivers and all of these
Speaker 3: different things. And so like you said, you know my
Speaker 3: aunt or my cousin who acts like my mom's sister,
Speaker 3: I guarantee or she knows a different version of my
Speaker 3: mom than I do because she's been with her since
Speaker 3: she was a little girl, and she's my mom's confidant
Speaker 3: of things that she does not need to share with me.
Speaker 3: And then I know things my brother doesn't know about
Speaker 3: my mom or you know, and my brother knows.
Speaker 4: Things about my dad that I don't know.
Speaker 3: So I think that it is a generational difference and
Speaker 3: the way we perceive behaviors and events, you know, like
Speaker 3: you think of everyone getting offended today about things that
Speaker 3: you know, our parents don't mean harm.
Speaker 4: They're just not of this time, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think we view people older and younger than us,
Speaker 3: through the lens that is right for our life and
Speaker 3: what we're used to and what makes sense to us,
Speaker 3: and that's not always the reality of what that person's living.
Speaker 3: So I definitely think it's through the lens of whoever's
Speaker 3: telling the story, and I don't think it's malicious or
Speaker 3: trying to throw the police off. I think that's the
Speaker 3: person they knew. But Bob's not going to be the
Speaker 3: same Bob with his seventy nine year old whiskey drink
Speaker 3: and poke buddies as he is with his little girls.
Speaker 4: He's just not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree with that, though I would love
Speaker 2: to learn the identity of the quote unquote someone who
Speaker 2: told the police that Bob probably ran off because he
Speaker 2: regretted his marriage to fond Tale and just wanted to
Speaker 2: get away with it, because that is just beyond the
Speaker 2: realm of all logic that I have to think that
Speaker 2: whoever shared that was not being serious and was trying
Speaker 2: to plant a false narrative.
Speaker 1: Especially when we factor in that all three of his
Speaker 1: daughters wanted him to annul his marriage. So at that point,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you just acquiesce to what your daughters wanted get
Speaker 1: the marriage adulled. They would say that like he wasn't
Speaker 1: competent or wasn't able to consent legally, whatever they would
Speaker 1: end up saying, then you would just go about your life.
Speaker 1: Why would you need to run away from everything? It
Speaker 1: doesn't even make sense.
Speaker 2: But before we talk any more about Bob's family, we
Speaker 2: should discuss the other person who's been pushed forward as
Speaker 2: a potential suspect, and that's Bob's barber, Josie. On the surface,
Speaker 2: there would definitely appear to be a good reason to
Speaker 2: be suspicious of her, as she really does come across
Speaker 2: as the type of gold digger which Bob's daughters accused
Speaker 2: Vaon Tell of being. It is quite troubling that a
Speaker 2: woman who was nearly half Bob's age would try putting
Speaker 2: her hooks into him almost immediately after his wife's death.
Speaker 2: Since Georgia went through a prolonged illness before she passed away,
Speaker 2: you almost get the impression that Josie may have planned
Speaker 2: this all along. It was going to do everything in
Speaker 2: her power to exploit a lonely grieving widower. Now, since
Speaker 2: Josie had a husband of her own, it's never been
Speaker 2: conclusively established if she took things any further and had
Speaker 2: an affair with Bob, but she did convince him to
Speaker 2: loaner a lot of money. According to Bob's daughters, it
Speaker 2: was very out of character for him to be that
Speaker 2: frivolous about giving money to other people outside the family,
Speaker 2: and when he did loan money to his family members,
Speaker 2: he would always make sure the transaction was documented on
Speaker 2: paper and charge an interest rate to ensure the loan
Speaker 2: would be paid back. But it sounds like Bob gave
Speaker 2: Josie a lot of money and gifts without going through
Speaker 2: this process. Investigators have stated that they do not believe
Speaker 2: Josie had much of a motive to harm Bob, since
Speaker 2: she essentially would have been getting rid of her meal ticket.
Speaker 2: But let's not forget that since Bob got remarried, it
Speaker 2: seems like he was expecting Josie to pay back the
Speaker 2: money he loaned her. Now that he had Fontelle, Bob
Speaker 2: no longer needed Josie's attention as much as he did before,
Speaker 2: so this could have given Josie a motive to harm
Speaker 2: Bob in order to avoid repaying the loan. All that
Speaker 2: being said, it sounds like Josie had an alibi for
Speaker 2: the day Bob went missing, and while no specific details
Speaker 2: about this have been released, it appears that investigators have
Speaker 2: pretty much ruled out Josie and her husband as suspects. However,
Speaker 2: it is interesting that one of the reasons Josie popped
Speaker 2: up on the radar as a potential suspect is because
Speaker 2: Bob's son in law, Jeff Michaels, reported seeing what he
Speaker 2: believed was a suspicious looking SUV driving past Bob's house
Speaker 2: multiple times on the day he went missing. Josie did
Speaker 2: drive a vehicle just like that, always maintained that she
Speaker 2: was nowhere near the residence on that particular date. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's possible that Jeff is telling the truth and saw
Speaker 2: a completely different suv which has no relevance to this case.
Speaker 2: But if you believe Jeff is complicit in what happened,
Speaker 2: perhaps he fabricated this story in order to non too
Speaker 2: subdly direct suspicion towards Josie.
Speaker 3: I do think that the many things would be happening
Speaker 3: here if you think about the quintessential barber shop or
Speaker 3: beauty shop talk and the kind of the dynamic you
Speaker 3: have with a person doing your hair.
Speaker 4: Remember Bob's eighty one.
Speaker 3: We don't know how much socialization he had outside of
Speaker 3: the house, So things like going to the doctor getting
Speaker 3: your hair cut, that's like social hour, you know, our
Speaker 3: equivalent of going to the movies or going out to
Speaker 3: get a drink or dinner or something like that. So
Speaker 3: I think that there could have been a true bond
Speaker 3: where that's somebody he looked forward to seeing. Maybe she
Speaker 3: had a pretty compelling story and he felt empathy for
Speaker 3: her and wanted to help her. But like you said,
Speaker 3: he seemed to be a pretty business savvy man, so
Speaker 3: kept notes of what was happening and did actually ask
Speaker 3: for that to be paid back. Did that ask make
Speaker 3: her mad? Is she not upset with him whatsoever? And
Speaker 3: that was the plan they had, was that, you know,
Speaker 3: when I get it, I'm going to pay you back, Bob,
Speaker 3: I promise. I just don't know who else to turn to.
Speaker 3: So we don't know the dynamic that was happening. It
Speaker 3: could have easily just been friends and someone. He said,
Speaker 3: I have the resources. She's a hard working woman. She
Speaker 3: and her husband have potential to get this money and
Speaker 3: will be able to pay me back. I'm going to
Speaker 3: go ahead and quote invest in her and help her
Speaker 3: out and expect her to pay me back. That could
Speaker 3: have easily been the arrangement from the start.
Speaker 1: One thing about this, like, let's just examine this from
Speaker 1: the perspective that Josie had absolutely nothing to do with this,
Speaker 1: and so many people are pointing at her and saying
Speaker 1: that she is a gold digger. I just want to
Speaker 1: point out that there is a lot of mon misogyny
Speaker 1: attached to the idea that a much older man who
Speaker 1: has money and a woman who comes along that he
Speaker 1: is being victimized by her. It is a mutually beneficial
Speaker 1: relationship if it was indeed sexual, and his doctor said
Speaker 1: that he was of sound mind. He didn't seem to
Speaker 1: be experiencing cognitive decline. He seemed to have been very
Speaker 1: aware of what was happening. And there could have been
Speaker 1: some reason that Bob decided not to write this on
Speaker 1: a ledger. I'm not sure the very nature of their relationship,
Speaker 1: but just in the off chance that Josie really had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this, I don't love the whole
Speaker 1: dialogue around her just kind of getting in there and
Speaker 1: having her eye on his money, and then Bob was just,
Speaker 1: you know, completely innocent and didn't have any designs on
Speaker 1: Josie in any sort of a way. We just don't
Speaker 1: know the information about the exact dynamics of their relationship.
Speaker 1: It is possible it could have just been a friendship.
Speaker 1: It possible that it could have been more than that.
Speaker 1: But either way, we do know that he wanted that
Speaker 1: money back, so with Bontella in the picture, either he
Speaker 1: didn't think that he needed that like quote unquote friend
Speaker 1: or maybe he didn't feel like he needed that physical relationship.
Speaker 1: We can't really be sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Josie has never given any interviews to share her
Speaker 2: side of the story, so all we really heard about
Speaker 2: her is from the point of view of Bob's daughters,
Speaker 2: and of course they're probably not going to like her
Speaker 2: and have their own acts to grind with her, even
Speaker 2: if her intentions were noble and that she wasn't taking
Speaker 2: advantage of Bob at all.
Speaker 1: Now, one thing I'd be curious to know is what
Speaker 1: kind of relationship Bob had with his daughters prior to
Speaker 1: the death of his wife. They've always claimed that the
Speaker 1: loss devastated him so much that he went into a
Speaker 1: deep depression and lost a lot of weight because he
Speaker 1: didn't even feel like eating anymore. Things eventually reached a
Speaker 1: point where Bob told his daughters that he wanted to
Speaker 1: be alone and have no contact with them for six
Speaker 1: months because he needed time for himself. But you have
Speaker 1: to wonder if there might have more of that story,
Speaker 1: given how quickly Bob's daughters worked to gain control of
Speaker 1: his finances after he went missing. Perhaps a similar situation
Speaker 1: happened following the loss of their mother, as they immediately
Speaker 1: wanted to sort out the issue with the family trust,
Speaker 1: and even once so far as to draft a formal
Speaker 1: letter to Bob about it. But he may have just
Speaker 1: been too bereaved to deal with it. Let's also not
Speaker 1: forget that they'd call the Department of Elder Social Services
Speaker 1: to interview Bob over their concern that he was being
Speaker 1: exploited by Josie. I can't imagine that Bob was too
Speaker 1: happy about the situation, so it would not surprise me
Speaker 1: if this played a role in his decision to cut
Speaker 1: himself off from his daughters for six months. I mean,
Speaker 1: if the relationship between Bob and his children was good
Speaker 1: throughout the majority of his life, then I cannot imagine
Speaker 1: things escalating to the point where they would do something
Speaker 1: as cruel and sadistic as murder their father for money. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of other documented cases of people murdering
Speaker 1: their own parents for financial gain. But here we have
Speaker 1: three daughters who would have stood to benefit financially if
Speaker 1: Bob was out of the picture, and I'd hate to
Speaker 1: think that all three of them were capable of something
Speaker 1: like this. So could this just be a case where
Speaker 1: just one or perhaps two of Bob's daughters were complicit
Speaker 1: in what happened, but the others are completely innocent. And
Speaker 1: we also have to take into account the Jeck Michaels,
Speaker 1: the husband of one of these daughters, Julie, was the
Speaker 1: last person to see Bob alive. Even though Paula and
Speaker 1: Roberta have agreed to be interviewed during the Disappeared episode,
Speaker 1: Julie was not, though you can find clips on YouTube
Speaker 1: of her speaking to the media in the days after
Speaker 1: her father went missing, and as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: Jeff has never done any interviews or spoken to the
Speaker 1: media at all.
Speaker 3: So at this I remember, Bob's girls held him pretty
Speaker 3: strictly to the letters his mom heard their mom had written. Right,
Speaker 3: they said, together we want to do this for our children.
Speaker 3: That's all fine and good until one of you passes away,
Speaker 3: and then you have to pick up the pieces and
Speaker 3: you have a whole new life in front of you
Speaker 3: that you are quite sure what to do with, or
Speaker 3: you kind of can do anything you want. So his
Speaker 3: girls were very quick to say, you got to stick
Speaker 3: to this, show us the paperwork, meet with us, do this,
Speaker 3: and confront him. So when Bob says he needs a
Speaker 3: break from them, it could just be tension and frustration
Speaker 3: of I resent I've lost I lost your mother. You
Speaker 3: have your partners, you have your life. I lost your mother.
Speaker 3: It's my assets. I earned it, and he's just frustrated
Speaker 3: and pushes them away. Does that mean they wanted to
Speaker 3: kill him? Does that mean he didn't want a relationship
Speaker 3: with his kids. No. I think he was grieving. They
Speaker 3: were grieving, and again I think that changes people and
Speaker 3: their perception of how the other person's treating them, and
Speaker 3: so I just think he needed a break for a minute.
Speaker 3: I think he was struggling and suffering, and men can't
Speaker 3: talk about their feelings, and you know, he needed to
Speaker 3: carry on and be tough. And he's this known businessman
Speaker 3: and things like that. So I'm more prone to think
Speaker 3: that all of these complications between Bob and his girls
Speaker 3: is simply a reality of difficult times. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't see any of the sisters being able to pull
Speaker 3: this off without the other sisters becoming suspicious and calling
Speaker 3: it out, because whether you're my sister or not, if
Speaker 3: you ended up killing our father and then you're the
Speaker 3: reason we're in this horrible feud with Vontel and the
Speaker 3: police are investigating and we don't know where he is
Speaker 3: and we can't lay him to rest, and our kids
Speaker 3: don't know where their grandfather is and all of the
Speaker 3: trauma that comes with that. I'm going to go ahead
Speaker 3: and tell the police I have suspicion about you, because
Speaker 3: this is unfair to all of us. I just don't
Speaker 3: think it's possible that one of them could be behind it.
Speaker 2: But let's examine the series of events which took place
Speaker 2: on the day Bob disappeared. The story goes up. Bob
Speaker 2: invited Jeff over to his residence on July to twenty
Speaker 2: seventh in order to help him with prepares and preparing
Speaker 2: the house for Fontel's arrival two days later. According to Jeff,
Speaker 2: he left to pick up some supplies from Home Depot,
Speaker 2: but by the time he returned, the house's front door
Speaker 2: was locked, Bob was gone, and Bob's housekeeper, Agnes, was
Speaker 2: sitting on the front porch. I should mention that there
Speaker 2: is conflicting information from different sources about what time of
Speaker 2: the day these events took place. The Disappeared episode says
Speaker 2: that Agnes arrived at the residence at noon, but most
Speaker 2: of the sources state that Jeff left the residence sometime
Speaker 2: between two thirty and two forty pm at Agnes arrived
Speaker 2: at three PM, so I am inclined to believe this
Speaker 2: timeline is the correct one. Investigators were able to verify
Speaker 2: Jeff's story and confirm that he did visit Home Depot
Speaker 2: during that time period, but of course this doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: exclude him from being involved in Bob's disappearance, since we
Speaker 2: have a large window of time from earlier that day
Speaker 2: in which we technically have no independent eye witnesses besides
Speaker 2: Jeff who can confirm Bob's whereabouts. Agnes agreed to be
Speaker 2: interviewed on the Disappeared episode, and she said that Jeff
Speaker 2: seemed genuinely surprised to find her on the front porch,
Speaker 2: and she found it unusual that Bob did not tell
Speaker 2: Jeff was coming. Agnes usually cleaned the house on Tuesdays,
Speaker 2: but Bob had arranged for her to stop by and
Speaker 2: clean the place that afternoon, which was a Monday. So
Speaker 2: I can understand why Jeff would be thrown off by
Speaker 2: Agnes's presence, and this would be especially troubling for him
Speaker 2: if he had played some sort of role in Bob's disappearance.
Speaker 2: Agnes also recounts that after they entered the residence, Jeff
Speaker 2: told her that he was going to check upstairs to
Speaker 2: see if Bob was napping, and even though this only
Speaker 2: should have taken a few seconds, Agnes said that Jeff
Speaker 2: was upstairs for a few minutes before he came back
Speaker 2: down and confirmed that Bob wasn't there. So, hypothetically, if
Speaker 2: there was some evidence that a crime had been committed upstairs,
Speaker 2: Jeff could have been using this opportunity to cover it
Speaker 2: up before Agnes sow it. Bondel would later say that
Speaker 2: when she moved into the house, she saw evidence to
Speaker 2: suggest that the bathroom had been damaged and repaired. Bondell
Speaker 2: had stayed at the house when she visited Bob one
Speaker 2: month earlier, and I'm guessing she didn't see any signs
Speaker 2: of this damage the first time around. So while Jeff
Speaker 2: may have technically been telling the truth about visiting the
Speaker 2: home depot to pick up supplies for repairs, he may
Speaker 2: have been doing so for more nefarious reasons. But in
Speaker 2: Jeff's defense, even though he remained at the house for
Speaker 2: another three hours after he returned, he did leave before
Speaker 2: Agnes did. If he was in the midst of covering
Speaker 2: up a crime, you would think that Jeff might be
Speaker 2: inclined to hang around a bit longer and not leave
Speaker 2: Agnes alone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly would he really sit there and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go ahead and plan this. I'm going to
Speaker 3: go actually patch this damage that I caused when I
Speaker 3: killed Bob, and then I'm just gonna saunter away and
Speaker 3: hope no one ever knows.
Speaker 4: I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Feel like she's eluding that maybe he was actually fixing
Speaker 3: the house while she was standing there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, Like she said when he went
Speaker 2: upstairs for a few minutes, I don't know if like
Speaker 2: she was kind of employing that he just took those
Speaker 2: few minutes to patch up a hole in the wall
Speaker 2: or something that was signed a foul play. But this
Speaker 2: seems weird that he would be so brazen to do
Speaker 2: this just hang around the house for three hours while
Speaker 2: Agnes is there, because you would think that maybe he
Speaker 2: would try to tell her, Oh, Bob wanted me to
Speaker 2: tell you that he doesn't want you cleaning the house today.
Speaker 2: After all, you should probably leave, and that he wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to remain so cool and calmed if he
Speaker 2: had just committed a crime and there was another person
Speaker 2: in the house while he was trying to clean up.
Speaker 3: That's what I think as well. And again, like you said,
Speaker 3: if they thought this through and they can't find his body,
Speaker 3: then what are you going to do. It's worth killing
Speaker 3: him and waiting five years or several years for this
Speaker 3: to get resolved. It's more likely Bob would pass away
Speaker 3: within five years than to wait for his money. And
Speaker 3: also I think they would have been more likely to
Speaker 3: strong arm Fontelle and no, don't let her in this house.
Speaker 3: Call and tell her she is not welcome here. He's missing.
Speaker 3: You cannot come and keep her at an arm's length
Speaker 3: if you had something to do with his death as well.
Speaker 1: Agnes also made sure to point out how unusual she
Speaker 1: found it when she noticed that Bob's bed was unmade,
Speaker 1: as she'd been cleaning his house for over ten years
Speaker 1: at that point, and it was apparently very out of
Speaker 1: character for him not to make his bed before the
Speaker 1: middle of the afternoon. So, even though Jeff maintained that
Speaker 1: everything was fine when he left the house at two forty,
Speaker 1: could this unmade bed indicate that something happened to Bob
Speaker 1: the previous evening or early that morning. While a number
Speaker 1: of phone calls were made from Bob's residence that day,
Speaker 1: and investigators seized the records, but they have not released
Speaker 1: any specific information about them. Details are a bit fuzzy,
Speaker 1: but multiple sources have stated that Bob's call to Agnes,
Speaker 1: in which he asked her to come by his house
Speaker 1: to clean it, took place earlier that same morning. If true,
Speaker 1: then this would help establish a window of how much
Speaker 1: time there was between when Bob was last confirmed to
Speaker 1: be alive and when he was discovered to be missing
Speaker 1: just after three pm. Another point in Jeff's favor is
Speaker 1: that a search of his vehicle turned up no forensic
Speaker 1: evidence to suggest a body had ever been in there
Speaker 1: before all we know, someone else could have used their
Speaker 1: own vehicle to move Bob's body. Well, Jeff remained at
Speaker 1: the house, cleaning up or making repairs. Investiators did confirm
Speaker 1: that they performed a search of the house following Bob's disappearance,
Speaker 1: but have never released any details about what they may
Speaker 1: or may not have found. Look, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: Jeff is guilty or anything, as he may very well
Speaker 1: be telling the complete truth. But if Jeff is being truthful,
Speaker 1: then it's hard to imagine what could have happened to
Speaker 1: make Bob disappear within that half hour window between when
Speaker 1: Jeff went to home depot and Agnes showed up, particularly
Speaker 1: since this was broad daylight and none of the neighbors
Speaker 1: reported seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary.
Speaker 3: Okay, that timeline actually does make things a little bit
Speaker 3: more confusing, because Bob always made his bed when he
Speaker 3: got up, Well, why didn't he make it that day?
Speaker 3: By two point forty he was still there supposedly, So
Speaker 3: it's not what I was thinking that maybe he jumped
Speaker 3: up in a rush that morning called Agnes said get
Speaker 3: over here. I got a couple of things I gotta do,
Speaker 3: and he's running around town or going to neighbors houses
Speaker 3: or things like that to get things right. It's that
Speaker 3: he was there all day, why didn't he make his
Speaker 3: bed like usual? And why if he wasn't in a hurry,
Speaker 3: why didn't he grab his glasses and those kinds of things.
Speaker 3: So it does kind of make some of the behaviors
Speaker 3: that Agnes, who knew him quite well and knew his
Speaker 3: intimate home, picked up on. It makes that seem a
Speaker 3: little bit more odd. If supposedly this disappearance happened later
Speaker 3: in the afternoon, the fact that the.
Speaker 2: Front door was locked when Agnes arrived does seem to
Speaker 2: point away from the idea of a forcible abduction. If
Speaker 2: something did take place, it may have involved Bob leaving
Speaker 2: the residence in a vehicle with someone he knew and trusted,
Speaker 2: which did not attract any attention. Regardless of whether Bob
Speaker 2: was abducted or someone killed him at the house and
Speaker 2: staged his disappearance, it's very odd that his wallet and
Speaker 2: keys would be missing, but his eyeglasses were left behind.
Speaker 2: Every single photo we've see Bob shows him wearing his glasses,
Speaker 2: so I have to assume that he really needed them.
Speaker 2: The problem is that there's virtually no physical evidence to
Speaker 2: work with, and while I get the impression that investigators
Speaker 2: might have their own ideas about what happened to Bob,
Speaker 2: they likely don't have any proof to back it up. Now,
Speaker 2: the one point which we previously brought up to dispute
Speaker 2: the idea that Bob was murdered for his inheritance is
Speaker 2: that without a body, he was technically just a missing person,
Speaker 2: so the responsible parties would have had to have waited
Speaker 2: at least five years until they received any money. However,
Speaker 2: it's possible that this wasn't a premeditated murder, but rather
Speaker 2: a situation where Bob got into a heated dispute with
Speaker 2: someone which turned violent and led to him accidentally being killed. Remember,
Speaker 2: even though Bob's daughters have always maintained that they reconciled
Speaker 2: their differences during their final meeting with them the day
Speaker 2: before he went missing, Vontelle claimed that Bob still seemed
Speaker 2: to be perturbed about the situation when she spoke to
Speaker 2: him on the phone that night. So if these issues
Speaker 2: were not resolved and someone paid made Bob a visit
Speaker 2: the following day, I could see things escalating out of
Speaker 2: control and the responsible party disposing of Bob's body in
Speaker 2: a panic. After all, since Fontel was scheduled to arrive
Speaker 2: in two days, this would have been one of the
Speaker 2: last opportunities the family had to resolve the situation while
Speaker 2: Bob was alone in his house.
Speaker 4: That's very true.
Speaker 3: I wasn't thinking about that because the girls were together
Speaker 3: during the argument where they all left fine. But then
Speaker 3: the next day, Jeff is there doing something for Bob.
Speaker 3: And is it possible that there was a follow up
Speaker 3: to that argument with one of the sisters with Jeff
Speaker 3: and one of the sisters, is it possible there was
Speaker 3: another incident that only one of them was involved in, and
Speaker 3: therefore the other girls would not know that that meeting
Speaker 3: had taken place.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's cercially possible. If there was, I'd be
Speaker 2: more inclined to think that the perpetrator was Julie because
Speaker 2: then her own husband would help her cover it up.
Speaker 2: And I mentioned earlier that when they did the disappeared
Speaker 2: at so A couple of years later, Roberta and Paula
Speaker 2: were interviewed on the episode, but Julie and Jeff were not,
Speaker 2: And that doesn't really being their guilty of anything, But
Speaker 2: I can also understand why they would be less inclined
Speaker 2: to want to talk to a camera in front of
Speaker 2: a camera if they covered something up.
Speaker 1: However, we must reiterate that investigators have never openly indicated
Speaker 1: that they consider anyone from Bob's family to be a suspect,
Speaker 1: as it seems like most of the suspicion directed against
Speaker 1: them has come from online sleuths who are not privy
Speaker 1: to the full facts. At one point, Roberta stated that
Speaker 1: she was reluctant to talk to the media because she
Speaker 1: felt that she'd been unfairly represented in the past. So
Speaker 1: perhaps some unjust suspicion has been placed on Bob's family.
Speaker 1: What we know Jeff's whereabouts on the afternoon Bob went missing,
Speaker 1: It's never been publicly released. What kind of alibis the
Speaker 1: three daughters might have had that day. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where Paula and Roberta were living at that time, but
Speaker 1: Julie and Jeff lived in Running Spring, which is located
Speaker 1: over sixty miles away from Placentia. And while we might
Speaker 1: be reading too much into this, the reporting about the
Speaker 1: two persons of interest who were detained in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: described them as quote unquote local residents, which implies that
Speaker 1: they lived in Placentia. Again, we don't know the identities
Speaker 1: of these two people, and if it might be some
Speaker 1: combination of Jeff, Julie, Paula or Roberta. Hell, even if
Speaker 1: they were seemingly cleared as suspects, there's been speculation that
Speaker 1: these two individuals might have been Josie and her husband.
Speaker 1: It's certainly possible that Bob was murdered over his inheritance,
Speaker 1: but for all we know, perhaps this ankle is completely
Speaker 1: unrelated to the situation, and there's just a piece of
Speaker 1: the puzzle that we're missing here very much.
Speaker 3: I mean, think about this. It could be Josie and
Speaker 3: her husband, because if he said you have to pay
Speaker 3: me back. What if that was not the agreement, like
Speaker 3: I said earlier, what if Josie was like.
Speaker 4: Are you kidding? That was a gift you gave to me.
Speaker 3: I'm not paying you back. But then there's a lot
Speaker 3: of pressure and worry that he's going to make me
Speaker 3: pay him back. Eighty six thousand dollars for someone who
Speaker 3: was struggling financially, could be a reason just to keep
Speaker 3: him quiet. Also, what about one of those people that
Speaker 3: he had a ledger of people he did help or
Speaker 3: loan out or do business deals with. What if one
Speaker 3: of them didn't want to or couldn't pay him back
Speaker 3: and felt like they were having their back pushed against
Speaker 3: the wall and had to keep him quiet or get
Speaker 3: rid of him so that they did not owe him.
Speaker 3: It's very possible that it's something like that, where I
Speaker 3: don't care about your money you have now I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get myself out of owing you anything back or
Speaker 3: having to repay you for something.
Speaker 2: That's true. We don't have any information about Bob having
Speaker 2: loaned money to anyone else, but he has been reported
Speaker 2: as a guy who stringely kept track of his finances
Speaker 2: and would require people to pay interest when they paid
Speaker 2: the loan back, even if it was members of their
Speaker 2: own family. So it is possible that it is financially related,
Speaker 2: but it involves a person who has not yet been
Speaker 2: mentioned yet in any of the versions of this story.
Speaker 2: So cases in which elderly people are victimized are always tragic,
Speaker 2: but it's incredibly heartbreaking when it involves someone like Bob,
Speaker 2: who suffered a terrible tragedy with the loss of his wife,
Speaker 2: spent a year mired in depression, but then an unexpected
Speaker 2: event allowed him to regain his happiness and he was
Speaker 2: prepared to spend the last chapter of his life with
Speaker 2: someone he loved before it was all taken away from him.
Speaker 2: It's possible that law enforcement has a pretty good idea
Speaker 2: and happened and just needs that one final piece of
Speaker 2: evidence to close this case. But Bob definitely deserves justice.
Speaker 2: So if you happen to have any information about the
Speaker 2: unsolved disappearance of Bob Herod, please contact the Placentia Police
Speaker 2: Department at seven one four nine nine three eight one
Speaker 2: sixty four at seven one four, nine nine three eight
Speaker 2: one sixty four Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in this case?
Speaker 4: Oh, this one's just sad.
Speaker 3: You have a family who's already grieved, their anticipating you know,
Speaker 3: they've already lost their mother. They're grieving this idea. Their
Speaker 3: dad's getting older, they're worried that he's getting taken advantage of.
Speaker 3: They're trying to protect him and their future. You have
Speaker 3: a woman who is reconnected with a literally just a
Speaker 3: young love and this kind of fantasy of what their
Speaker 3: life could have been like with a man who also
Speaker 3: was lonely and wanted a partner, and after sixty some
Speaker 3: odd years they reconnect with the help of their children
Speaker 3: and get married suddenly and quickly, because.
Speaker 4: We don't have time to waste.
Speaker 3: And in the end, two days before she's supposed to
Speaker 3: move out with him, he just disappears, and we have
Speaker 3: no answers, I think for everyone you know. Unfortunately, his
Speaker 3: new bride is also deceased, and so there isn't getting
Speaker 3: her any answers or any kind of justice for her.
Speaker 4: But the children are still alive.
Speaker 3: He has many generations who want answers in this case.
Speaker 3: And again, without knowing what happened to Bob, it's possible
Speaker 3: that someone caused him harm and therefore or at large
Speaker 3: in the community, which should worry everybody. So this is
Speaker 3: just one of those, like you said, you could start
Speaker 3: and spend three fourths of this case talking about romance
Speaker 3: and love and grief and his family trying to rebuild,
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden you find out Bob's
Speaker 3: gone and maybe was harmed by someone. It's a really bizarre,
Speaker 3: tragic turn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the lost love angle of Bob and Fontelle and
Speaker 1: how they really just missed each other and how they
Speaker 1: were kind of blocked from having that life together, and
Speaker 1: he had this beautiful life with Georgia and they had
Speaker 1: these three daughters. And then when we look at what
Speaker 1: happened to Bob, it seems that there's multiple people who
Speaker 1: could have had a motive to murder him. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, most of those people, except
Speaker 1: for Josie, would have wanted his body to be found
Speaker 1: so that then his will would pay out, right, his
Speaker 1: estate could pay out, they could settle all of that.
Speaker 1: So it makes me more inclined to believe that there's
Speaker 1: either some missing variable of these two people are just
Speaker 1: two people that we don't know, or that it could
Speaker 1: be Josie and her husband, but they seem to have
Speaker 1: been cleared. But I do think there's a possibility that
Speaker 1: could be Julie and her husband, or maybe her husband
Speaker 1: acted alone, maybe he confronted Bob and it was an
Speaker 1: accident and then they were playing They just had to
Speaker 1: play catch up and did this cleanup, and maybe somebody
Speaker 1: else helped them dispose of the body, and that's why
Speaker 1: there was no forensic evidence in his vehicle. But I
Speaker 1: don't believe strongly any one of those theories because I
Speaker 1: just don't think that we have enough information to truly
Speaker 1: have me lean one way or the other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely agree. Yeah, I remember hearing about this
Speaker 2: case even before it was featured on Disappeared, because I
Speaker 2: know there were lengthy discussions about it on the web
Speaker 2: slues forum, and the majority of the suspicion was directed
Speaker 2: at Bob's daughters. But even though it would makes sense
Speaker 2: that perhaps they killed him to inherit his estate, we've
Speaker 2: already expressed our skepticism that all three three of them
Speaker 2: would be willing to go through with it together and
Speaker 2: keep their mouths shut. So it makes you wonder could
Speaker 2: it just be one of them, Could it be two
Speaker 2: of them? Could it possibly be Jeff doing it alone
Speaker 2: and maybe his wife and the other daughters don't even
Speaker 2: know about it. There's just a number of different possibilities,
Speaker 2: But like you said, no hard evidence pointing towards any
Speaker 2: of them. But I still get the impression that police
Speaker 2: have their own ideas about what happened. They have two
Speaker 2: persons of interest in mind, but just don't have enough
Speaker 2: proof to file any charges. And there's just a lot
Speaker 2: that they're not releasing to the public in order to
Speaker 2: protect the integrity of the investigation. The one thing I
Speaker 2: do believe is that it wasn't Fontel. I don't think
Speaker 2: she had any knowledge or involvement in Bob's disappearance. We
Speaker 2: already talked about how that's the most heartbreaking part about
Speaker 2: this story is the whole heartwarming lost love angle where
Speaker 2: him and Fontel married after reconciling for the first time
Speaker 2: in over sixty years and seemed destined to live out
Speaker 2: a very happy rest of their days before a major
Speaker 2: tragedy took place, and we still don't have any answers
Speaker 2: all these years later, and who knows, maybe we just
Speaker 2: need someone to come forward and give that one piece
Speaker 2: of evidence, that one missing piece of the puzzle to
Speaker 2: resolve this case and finally make an arrest, because bob
Speaker 2: loved ones have just gone way too long without any
Speaker 2: conclusive answers and he definitely deserves justice.
Speaker 1: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy