Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our three part series about the disappearance of Stephen Kosher. Robin,
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up on what we
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode?
Speaker 2: Well, Stephen Kosher was a young thirty year old man
Speaker 2: who came from a very devout Mormon family in Salt
Speaker 2: Lake City, Utah. He was very close to his family,
Speaker 2: but had decided to relocate to the town of Saint George,
Speaker 2: which was a couple hundred miles away. Unlike many of
Speaker 2: his siblings, Stephen was still unmarried and had not had children,
Speaker 2: and seemed to be going through a difficult time because
Speaker 2: the Great economic Recession of two thousand and eight. It
Speaker 2: just happened. He was having trouble securing full time employment
Speaker 2: and paying his bills, and by December of two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, he started going on some inexplicable road trips
Speaker 2: where he would drive through various places in Utah and
Speaker 2: Nevada and nobody really knew where he was going. There
Speaker 2: was one point where he stopped to visit the parents
Speaker 2: of a woman he used to date, but she wasn't
Speaker 2: around at that time, so he just had lunch with them,
Speaker 2: and they pretty much could just track what Stephen was
Speaker 2: doing through his cell phone and his bank card and
Speaker 2: credit card records, but nobody knows why he decided to
Speaker 2: make these lengthly trips. One of them was nearly eleven
Speaker 2: hundred miles long. So finally, on December the thirteenth, two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, Steven decided to make an unexplained trip
Speaker 2: to Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, about one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty five miles away from Saint George, and he
Speaker 2: would go into an affluent community for retired people over
Speaker 2: the age of fifty five that he didn't seem to
Speaker 2: any connection too, and one of the residents's cameras would
Speaker 2: show him parking his car and just walking away, and
Speaker 2: then he just vanished without a trace. Nobody knows what
Speaker 2: Stephen was doing there. They would get some pings off
Speaker 2: his cell phone over the course of the next few days,
Speaker 2: and even evidence that his cell phone has been used,
Speaker 2: but no trace of Stephen has ever been found, and
Speaker 2: over the years have been a number of speculation about
Speaker 2: why he made that trip there, wondering maybe he was
Speaker 2: offered a job, maybe he got roped into something illegal,
Speaker 2: and We went through the known facts of the case
Speaker 2: on part one, and here on Part two, we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about some theories about that, and then in
Speaker 2: our next episode, Part three, we're going to share some
Speaker 2: new information about this case that has come out in
Speaker 2: recent years and may shed some more light on what
Speaker 2: happened to Stephen. So, if you've listened to the Trail
Speaker 2: Went Cold and the Path Went Chili long enough, I'm
Speaker 2: sure you're well aware that I've always had a particular
Speaker 2: fascination with unsolved mysteries where a victim goes missing or
Speaker 2: winds up dead after traveling to a location they had
Speaker 2: no reason to be at. This certainly applies here because
Speaker 2: we have Stephen Kosher making unexplained one hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: mile trip from Saint George, Utah, to Henderson, Nevada. Before
Speaker 2: he exited his vehicle and vanished without a trace. That
Speaker 2: would be unusual enough on its own, but what makes
Speaker 2: this case extra bazaar is that Stephen made multiple unexplained
Speaker 2: road trips in the days prior to his disappearance, including
Speaker 2: a nearly eleven hundred mile round trip through Utah and Nevada,
Speaker 2: which he drove over the course of less than twenty
Speaker 2: four hours. So why did Stephen decide to make these
Speaker 2: trips and did they have any connection to his disappearance.
Speaker 2: Could these trips be an indication that Stephen might not
Speaker 2: have been in his right state of mind at the time,
Speaker 2: or did he get himself involved with something that his
Speaker 2: friends and family did not know about. There have been
Speaker 2: so many theories pushed forward about Stephen's disappearance, such as
Speaker 2: him being the victim of foul play, or disappearing to
Speaker 2: start a new life, or walking off into the Nevada
Speaker 2: desert to take his own life. But the one theory
Speaker 2: we haven't mentioned yet, which I'm one hundred percent convinced
Speaker 2: is not true, is that Stephen ran away with another
Speaker 2: missing persons from Utah who vanished during that same time period.
Speaker 3: Susan Powell, Okay, you have to tell me more about
Speaker 3: that case in a minute. But to talk about Stephen
Speaker 3: when we look at his life, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: But I remember I was talking about the fact that
Speaker 3: he was a man of deep Mormon faith.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yep?
Speaker 3: Definitely, Okay, So he was a man of deep Mormon faith.
Speaker 3: He was in fact going to wards and visiting with
Speaker 3: important people at his church and friends from church shortly
Speaker 3: before he disappeared. And yes, he was not married, which
Speaker 3: would have caused a lot of stress on a young
Speaker 3: Mormon man because marriage and family is one of their
Speaker 3: key belief systems and importance in their life. But I
Speaker 3: also think that his faith would make it less likely
Speaker 3: that he simply wandered off and completed suicide if he had.
Speaker 3: I truly feel like because he was so active in
Speaker 3: his faith, he would have left some message for his
Speaker 3: family or some message for the elder in the church
Speaker 3: discussing why and where his heart was because of a
Speaker 3: desire to be in heaven right, because I think his
Speaker 3: faith truly was his driving force. And if you have
Speaker 3: been around people of the Mormon faith, there is just
Speaker 3: such a beautiful component of the importance of family and
Speaker 3: the future and what family means for your admittance into heaven.
Speaker 3: And so I would have thought to you'd see some
Speaker 3: kind of communication to his family or to the elders
Speaker 3: of the church. Also, remember Stephen had lost his job,
Speaker 3: it was the recession had hit. It was a horrible
Speaker 3: time in America, and so his finances were struggling. And
Speaker 3: yet you see him out shopping. You see him making
Speaker 3: plans to visit family for Christmas, and you see him
Speaker 3: making these trips while denying financial assistance from anybody who's offering.
Speaker 3: And so I think that you have to step back
Speaker 3: and say where were his finances coming from.
Speaker 2: Did he have a.
Speaker 3: Large credit card where he had a high high balance
Speaker 3: that he could you and he was simply charging up
Speaker 3: a credit card, or was he doing something maybe nefarious,
Speaker 3: maybe just behind closed doors where he is getting some
Speaker 3: kind of financial support. And part of that includes the driving.
Speaker 3: We talked about the fact that, oh man, one of
Speaker 3: the most expensive parts of our trip when we go
Speaker 3: somewhere is stopping, getting drinks, getting snacks, getting food, spending
Speaker 3: the night in hotels to get to our destination. And
Speaker 3: so if he's struggling at that point and yet he's
Speaker 3: making all these trips, it has to be for something
Speaker 3: or someone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what a lot of people have been thinking,
Speaker 2: is that he's struggling so much financially. The one thing
Speaker 2: you don't want to do is go on these lengthy
Speaker 2: road trips and have to stop and pay for gas
Speaker 2: on so many occasions. Because even if he just kind
Speaker 2: of was disillusioned, he needed to drive around for a
Speaker 2: while to clear his head or something like that. That
Speaker 2: still costs money. So that's why there has always been
Speaker 2: speculation that he might have gotten himself involved in something
Speaker 2: and that all of these road trips were somehow connected
Speaker 2: to and that it was allowing him to make some
Speaker 2: extra money on the side, but they've just never been
Speaker 2: able to conclusively prove this.
Speaker 1: So on December seventh, two thousand and nine, lesson one
Speaker 1: week before Stephen vanished, twenty eight year old Susan Powell,
Speaker 1: her husband Josh Powell, and their two sons, four year
Speaker 1: old Charlie and two year old Braden, were discovered to
Speaker 1: be missing from their residence in West Valley City, which
Speaker 1: is three hundred miles northwest of Saint George. Josh and
Speaker 1: the two boys returned later that day, and he claimed
Speaker 1: that he had taken Charlie and Braden camping. According to Josh,
Speaker 1: Susan did not come with them and was still sleeping
Speaker 1: when they left the house. Josh maintained that he had
Speaker 1: no idea where Susan was, but given that the temperatures
Speaker 1: were below freezing at that time and the weather was miserable,
Speaker 1: nobody believed his camping story, and since the couple had
Speaker 1: been experiencing marital difficulties, Josh quickly became the prime suspect
Speaker 1: in his wife's disappearance. Well the following year, Josh and
Speaker 1: his family and started to publicly express their belief that
Speaker 1: Susan disappeared voluntarily and ran off with Stephen Kosher. In fact,
Speaker 1: Josh's father, Steve Powell, sent law enforcement a nine page
Speaker 1: letter outlining the similarities between the two cases, and the
Speaker 1: letter contained a lot of points which he believed supported
Speaker 1: the theory that Susan and Stephen had been conducting a
Speaker 1: secret affair and orchestrated their disappearance in order to frame
Speaker 1: Josh for murder. Like Stephen, Susan was a devout Mormon
Speaker 1: and had briefly lived in West Valley City for a
Speaker 1: few months in two thousand and seven, and the Powell
Speaker 1: suspected that they'd taken off to Brazil since Stephen had
Speaker 1: previously done missionary work there. While investigators never found any
Speaker 1: evidence that the two cases were connected, and since Stephen's
Speaker 1: movements and communications during the last week of his life
Speaker 1: are pretty well documented, there did not even seem to
Speaker 1: be any opportunity for him to orchestrate a disappearance with Susan.
Speaker 3: That is incredibly I remember the Susan Powell case. The
Speaker 3: little boys were young and the husband says he took
Speaker 3: them camping, which ended up being a very odd story.
Speaker 3: Like I think he left in the middle of the
Speaker 3: night to go camping with them, not you know, early
Speaker 3: in the evening or anything. I feel like, if I
Speaker 3: recall correctly, he left it like midnight or one in
Speaker 3: the morning to go camping with these little idybe boys,
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, his wife's just missing.
Speaker 3: Highly suspicious, and it's really interesting that even the family
Speaker 3: jumps on board with no evidence to say, hey, it's
Speaker 3: not Josh. It's got to be the fact that she
Speaker 3: ran off and is having some affair. I'll tell you,
Speaker 3: a deeply devouted Mormon mom with two little boys probably
Speaker 3: has goals to have more babies, and those boys were
Speaker 3: her world, Like I said, they're her worth here on earth.
Speaker 3: I doubt if she's truly devout in her faith, she's
Speaker 3: walking away from those children. And as a mom myself
Speaker 3: who's not Mormon, but a woman of faith and just
Speaker 3: a mom my children in my world. Even if my
Speaker 3: husband Nirad odds, those babies are not going to leave me,
Speaker 3: so I'd fight tooth and now to make sure I
Speaker 3: had access to my children. And so Susan's death seems
Speaker 3: quite suspicious and geared towards Josh, and this just looks
Speaker 3: like a pretty desperate move.
Speaker 1: Is this the case where Josh Powell's dad is really creepy?
Speaker 2: He is, Yes, well we're gonna mention it in a moment.
Speaker 2: But they did an entire podcast about this called Cold,
Speaker 2: which was like several episodes long, and Steve Powell came
Speaker 2: off as really really creepy. I think there were like
Speaker 2: stories about how he put hidden cameras in Susan's house
Speaker 2: to spy on her while he was changing and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I believe that he even made songs for these,
Speaker 2: like really creepy love songs. So I know Josh was
Speaker 2: a bad person, but when you see how creepy his
Speaker 2: father is, you're somehow not surprised, so as I'm sure
Speaker 2: many of you probably know. Due to Josh being a
Speaker 2: suspect in his wife's disappearance, Susan's parents eventually got custody
Speaker 2: of Brayden and Charlie, and Josh was only allowed supervised visitations.
Speaker 2: On February the fifth, twenty twelve, when the two boys
Speaker 2: showed up for a scheduled visitation at Josh's house, he
Speaker 2: locked their social work outside and proceeded to attack Brayden
Speaker 2: and Charlie with a hatchet before setting off an explosion,
Speaker 2: which killed both himself and his children in a murder suicide.
Speaker 2: It goes without saying that virtually everyone believes that Josh
Speaker 2: Powell murdered Susan and disposed of her body in a
Speaker 2: desert area during the time period he said he was
Speaker 2: quote unquote camping, but she has still not been found
Speaker 2: to this day. Steve Powell died of a heart attack
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, and since he was always suspected of
Speaker 2: being complicit in Susan's disappearance, it's believed that when he
Speaker 2: heard another Utah resident, Stephen Kosher, went missing just one
Speaker 2: week later, he attempted to exploit the situation in order
Speaker 2: to deflect suspicion away from himself and his son. But
Speaker 2: West Valley City and Saint George are located three hundred
Speaker 2: miles apart, and there's nothing to suggest that Stephen and
Speaker 2: Susan ever met each other, so I think the timing
Speaker 2: of their disappearances is nothing more than a coincidence. If
Speaker 2: you want to learn more about Susan Powell's story, I'd
Speaker 2: recommend checking out Suason, one of the long form podcast Cold.
Speaker 2: But I think we can safely move away from the
Speaker 2: theory about these cases being connected.
Speaker 3: Okay, I almost started crying when you mentioned what Josh
Speaker 3: did to his kids. I remember this. The social workers
Speaker 3: there to check on the kids. I had totally forgotten.
Speaker 3: I just thought Josh got away with it. But I
Speaker 3: remember the parents go to pick up the babies from
Speaker 3: a custody visit and he kills them, absolutely heartbreaking. And
Speaker 3: then for the father to still kind of double down
Speaker 3: and continue to say that Josh had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with it and that Susan chose to leave. That continued
Speaker 3: after Josh did that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much like they have never admitted any culpability.
Speaker 2: And I know Josh had a brother who also died
Speaker 2: by suicide after jumping off a high place, So there's
Speaker 2: been speculation that Josh, his brother, and his father knew
Speaker 2: exactly what happened to Susan and we're all complicit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to go with that theory. Instead, what
Speaker 3: a horrific, horrific tragedy. It reminds me of the documentary
Speaker 3: Dear Zachary, where I won't tell you what happens there,
Speaker 3: but if you haven't seen it, watch that. It's one
Speaker 3: of the most devastating crime cases I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: It's an incredibly well done documentary.
Speaker 3: Oh so sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dear Zachary pretty much broke me worse than any
Speaker 2: other true crime documentary I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Anyway, if you go to newspapers dot com and check
Speaker 1: the religion section of the February nineteenth, nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: edition of the Davis County Clipper, which is where Rolf
Speaker 1: Kosher worked as an editor, you'll find a full page
Speaker 1: outlining recent news about LDS Church missionaries, and it announces
Speaker 1: that Stephen, listed here as Elder Kosher, has been called
Speaker 1: upon to serve in the Brazil South Paulo East Mission.
Speaker 1: I always find it haunting when I see the names
Speaker 1: of missing and murdered people listed in older news articles
Speaker 1: which were published long with before before they became a victim.
Speaker 1: At that particular point in his life, Stephen had recently
Speaker 1: graduated high school and seemed to have a bright future
Speaker 1: ahead of him, and he probably never would have guessed
Speaker 1: that just over ten years later he would be single, childless, broke, underemployed,
Speaker 1: and wind up going missing. Mormonism is a religion which
Speaker 1: puts a lot of focus on getting married and starting
Speaker 1: a family, and unlike his siblings, Stephen had not done
Speaker 1: that yet even though he just turned thirty. For this reason,
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of speculation in online discussions about
Speaker 1: this case about how Stephen may have been a closeted
Speaker 1: gay man and made up a trip to Henderson for
Speaker 1: some sort of secret gay hookup, but there's no evidence
Speaker 1: to support this theory at all. We do know that
Speaker 1: Stephen once had a fairly serious relationship with a woman
Speaker 1: which wound up ending before they became engaged, but I'd
Speaker 1: be curious to know more about his relationship with Anna
Speaker 1: Marie Ness, as Stephen took a lengthy trip to her
Speaker 1: family's ran three days before he vanished. All we know
Speaker 1: is that Stephen first met her as part of an
Speaker 1: activity for his LDS Singles Ward, But even though they
Speaker 1: dated and Stephen seemed to enjoy Anne Marie's company, their
Speaker 1: relationship never developed into anything serious, so it really makes
Speaker 1: me wonder why he felt inclined to drive three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty miles to Ruby Valley, Nevada in order to
Speaker 1: show up at her family's ranch unannounced. We'll talk more
Speaker 1: about this whole road trip momentarily, but I've always wondered
Speaker 1: was Stephen hoping to rekindle his romance with Anne Marie
Speaker 1: and drove up there for the express purpose of seeing her,
Speaker 1: Or did Stephen make this lengthy trip for completely different
Speaker 1: reasons and only decided to pay the Neft family a
Speaker 1: visit because he just happened to be in the area.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot in this section when you look
Speaker 3: at the idea of could he have been a caloset
Speaker 3: gay man, I think it's possible. I mean, if you
Speaker 3: think about any kind of deeply religious and faithful person,
Speaker 3: Catholic Church, just the Christian faith, even Jewish families and
Speaker 3: Mormon families, you know, yeah, being gay is not one
Speaker 3: of the top morals that they're holding out for somebody
Speaker 3: to celebrate. So I could see that being the cause.
Speaker 3: But I could also see that he's truly just one
Speaker 3: of these people that is devoted to faith, devoted to work,
Speaker 3: lost his job continues to be active in church, but
Speaker 3: just hasn't been aligned with the right person. I mean,
Speaker 3: thirty is young, not in the Mormon faith and looking
Speaker 3: at not being married, but it is still young. So
Speaker 3: I could see something like Anna Marie and saying, hey,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm thirty, I'm getting older. I don't
Speaker 3: like this singles word mess because I'm not being matched
Speaker 3: with anybody. I don't feel it connections with anyone. But
Speaker 3: I do care about Anne Marie. But my question becomes,
Speaker 3: wouldn't he have made sure she was home because it
Speaker 3: was just her parents right when he got there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much like he just stopped by unannounced, without
Speaker 2: being invited, and say hey, can I see Anne Marie
Speaker 2: and was told, oh, she's out today. So I'm thinking
Speaker 2: that if it was really really important, that if he
Speaker 2: was serious about rekindling a relationship with her, he should
Speaker 2: have called first before making this lengthy trip. So that's
Speaker 2: why I've always suspected that he was there for other reasons,
Speaker 2: and it's just by pure chance he decided to stop
Speaker 2: by and see the nefts because he happened to be
Speaker 2: in the area.
Speaker 3: Yeah, either that or he had this idea that there
Speaker 3: was going to be some kind of grand gesture. But
Speaker 3: if there was, I feel like there would have been
Speaker 3: a bigger emphasis of that. The family would have said
Speaker 3: he was desperate to see our daughter. He kept asking
Speaker 3: when she'd be home. He asked if he could stay
Speaker 3: for the evening until she got home, and that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And you think if it was a grand gester, that
Speaker 1: he might have called the parents beforehand and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I want to surprise Anne Marie. Is she going to
Speaker 1: be home? Rather than calling her directly. You'd think that
Speaker 1: he would do something in order to make sure that
Speaker 1: she would be around, because it's a lot of output
Speaker 1: of effort and financially as well, because he's got to
Speaker 1: drive a great distance to not see Anne Marie. If
Speaker 1: that was his express purpose.
Speaker 2: And I'm wondering if maybe he felt more motivated, like
Speaker 2: if there were theories going around that maybe he suddenly
Speaker 2: came into some money because he was offered work. So
Speaker 2: he's thinking to himself, Hey, I'm now guiding some income,
Speaker 2: I'm digging myself out of a hole. Maybe I'm feeling
Speaker 2: more worthy now that Anne Marie would want something to
Speaker 2: do with me. So when I go to the area,
Speaker 2: I'm going to see her, and if she happens to
Speaker 2: be around, maybe we'll explore the possibility of starting to
Speaker 2: starting to date again. So in addition to the social
Speaker 2: pressures of starting a family, it definitely sounds like Stephen
Speaker 2: was facing huge pressure to find steady employment and a
Speaker 2: steady income. Obviously, since this was one year removed from
Speaker 2: the Great Recession, Stephen was far from the only person
Speaker 2: in America who was facing these struggles. But given how
Speaker 2: unwilling he was to accept financial assistance from his family,
Speaker 2: you get the sense that he may have felt like
Speaker 2: a failure. And while he supposedly did not show any
Speaker 2: outward signs of being suicidal, stephens struggles could have given
Speaker 2: him a potential motivation to end his own life. Yes,
Speaker 2: it doesn't make much sense for him to drive one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty miles to another state in order to
Speaker 2: kill himself, but we've seen examples like the Gael Delano
Speaker 2: case from unsolved Mysteries where suicidal people have done that
Speaker 2: very thing. So if Stephen decided to wander out into
Speaker 2: the Nevada desert, perhaps his body has just never been found.
Speaker 2: In spite of his precarious position. Stephen was also described
Speaker 2: as having no obvious signs of depression. But I find
Speaker 2: it interesting how eight months before he vanished, he made
Speaker 2: the decision to relocate from Salt Lake City to Saint George,
Speaker 2: apparently because he couldnot stand the cold Salt Lake City winters.
Speaker 2: This took him three hundred miles away from his family,
Speaker 2: so I have to wonder if there might be more
Speaker 2: reasons for this decision. Perhaps he was suffering from an
Speaker 2: undiagnosed case of seasonal effective disorder, which causes depression to
Speaker 2: hit during the fall and winter months before its subsides
Speaker 2: in the spring and summer months. If Stephen found himself
Speaker 2: feeling very down during the cold Salt Lake City winters,
Speaker 2: that would shed some light on his decision to move
Speaker 2: south to a city located near the Nevada and Arizona borders,
Speaker 2: which had a much warmer climate. But I think it
Speaker 2: was just Stephen's bad luck that he was laid off
Speaker 2: only one month after his relocation, and he was now
Speaker 2: residing in a city where the job market was poor,
Speaker 2: and he likely had too much pride to move back home.
Speaker 2: You could assume that Stephen may have decided to move
Speaker 2: so far away from his family because he felt trapped
Speaker 2: in an oppressive religion. But it sounds like Stephen took
Speaker 2: his faith very seriously, which is why he've remained heavily
Speaker 2: involved in LDS activities in Saint George. I really do
Speaker 2: get the impression that Stephen was close with his family,
Speaker 2: and during their interviews on the Disappeared episode, Rolf and
Speaker 2: Dann Kosher come across as loving parents and genuinely nice people,
Speaker 2: which is why I've always found it hard to believe
Speaker 2: that Stephen disappeared voluntarily. It's really heartbreaking today see Rolf
Speaker 2: get emotional and cry a few times during his Disappeared interview,
Speaker 2: knowing that he would pass away only a few weeks
Speaker 2: after his interview was filmed, and he was already deceased
Speaker 2: by the time the episode aired. I think the fact
Speaker 2: that Stephen did not even resurf as following the death
Speaker 2: of his father is a pretty strong indicator that he's
Speaker 2: no longer with us unfortunately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and what's interesting too, is is that in the
Speaker 3: LDS church, I think when you move and you're trying
Speaker 3: to find a new place to go, one of the
Speaker 3: important factors is where is the next ward of our church?
Speaker 3: And oftentimes those people are responsible for and welcoming to
Speaker 3: help you get settled in your new place. They're there
Speaker 3: to help you meet people, they're there to help you
Speaker 3: look for jobs. So it really is an instant community
Speaker 3: that he would have been moving to. Like you said, yes,
Speaker 3: if he was struggling and he needed to go back home,
Speaker 3: I think he would have known he could. I would
Speaker 3: also imagine a thirty year old man saying like, oh,
Speaker 3: come on, I'm going to try to make it, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to try to push through this. But he
Speaker 3: would not have been a lot. Remember, he was involved
Speaker 3: in multiple things in his church, and so I think
Speaker 3: he would have had his own little community there as well.
Speaker 3: And he had plans and he was even making actions
Speaker 3: towards those plans to go home for Christmas. There were,
Speaker 3: if I recall correctly, Christmas presents in the back of
Speaker 3: his seat for his nieces and nephews, and so he
Speaker 3: had intent to go home. He had intent to follow
Speaker 3: through with his word to reconnect with family for the holidays,
Speaker 3: and he never made it. And so again I think
Speaker 3: had he wanted to complete suicide, someone in that church
Speaker 3: or his family would have gotten some kind of communication
Speaker 3: about I'm sorry. I had to do this. But here's why,
Speaker 3: because I think his faith truly drove him. Whether he
Speaker 3: was at conflict because of sexuality, whether he was in
Speaker 3: depression because of money, whatever it was, I still think
Speaker 3: he would have wanted an earthly representation of what his
Speaker 3: desire was for his heavenly body. And so I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just I'm really stuck on that idea that he
Speaker 3: just walked away. I don't think he was a kind
Speaker 3: of person to do that.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, I don't think that he was.
Speaker 1: But I do think that there is possibly another side
Speaker 1: to that, given that the Mormon faith puts so much
Speaker 1: emphasis on family. Getting married and Stephen was neither married
Speaker 1: nor employed, and earning a good income so that you
Speaker 1: can support your family is an important part of Mormonism
Speaker 1: as well. And we do know something about Stephen. We
Speaker 1: do know that there is an element of pride there
Speaker 1: because he was offered money by his family, he didn't
Speaker 1: take it. His grandmother had written him a check and
Speaker 1: he refused to cash it. So part of him doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be seen as not being able to support himself.
Speaker 1: So if it was the case and there was pride involved,
Speaker 1: like in the situation, with not taking the help from
Speaker 1: your family. I could see a scenario where there is
Speaker 1: a potential that he might not have wanted to say
Speaker 1: or give answers as to why, and he may have
Speaker 1: had his own relationship with God and may have reconciled
Speaker 1: how he chose to leave the earthly plane, and explaining
Speaker 1: to other people might not have been part of that plan.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I believe that's what happened. I could
Speaker 1: just see a scenario where that is possible.
Speaker 3: I could see that, or it even left a door
Speaker 3: open for him to say, like maybe I wandered off
Speaker 3: you Like, I don't want them to know the sin
Speaker 3: of what I just did abo sin quote unquote. I
Speaker 3: want them to think maybe I was hurt, or maybe
Speaker 3: I disappeared, or you know, I want to leave a
Speaker 3: question mark so that they don't know that I completed
Speaker 3: the ultimate you know, wrong, and then it's not one
Speaker 3: more shame upon my family. Maybe I could see that,
Speaker 3: but I'm leaning more towards the other. But that's a
Speaker 3: really good point.
Speaker 1: Due to Steven's financial issues, the most logical theory for
Speaker 1: his trip to Henderson is that he was seeking some
Speaker 1: sort of employment opportunity. Or at the very least something
Speaker 1: that could earn him some money. But even if that
Speaker 1: was the case, that still doesn't explain why Stephen made
Speaker 1: those two other unexplained road trips through Nevada on December
Speaker 1: tenth and twelfth. So, according to Diane, this sort of
Speaker 1: thing wasn't all that unusual for Stephen, as one of
Speaker 1: the reasons he moved to Saint George was to research
Speaker 1: his family history in the area, and he often went
Speaker 1: on tours of cemeteries looking for ancestors graves. Stephen was
Speaker 1: known for being a spontaneous person, so Dian theorized that
Speaker 1: her son could have made these trips in order to
Speaker 1: keep himself busy while he was underemployed.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I can understand the logic in that, but the problem
Speaker 1: is that these road trips can be expensive, as Stephen
Speaker 1: has had to stop and pay for gas multiple times,
Speaker 1: even though he was pretty much broke and three months
Speaker 1: behind on his rent. I guess one possible explanation is
Speaker 1: that if Stephen was feeling suicidal and had already made
Speaker 1: plans to end his own life, he could have decided
Speaker 1: to spend his last days driving around in order to
Speaker 1: see some sites with little consideration to how it would
Speaker 1: affect his finances. But the main hole in that theory
Speaker 1: is that Stephen purchased Christmas gifts for his brother and
Speaker 1: newborn child, which suggests that at the very least, he
Speaker 1: was planning to visit his family for the holidays, like
Speaker 1: you promised.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. The way we talked about this earlier is
Speaker 3: that we know that finances were not something that were
Speaker 3: going well for him, and so maybe it is something
Speaker 3: where he was being spontaneous and he thought, you know what,
Speaker 3: this is all very temporary. I'm going to travel, I'm
Speaker 3: going to enjoy myself. Life is short, and the money's
Speaker 3: going to come. Maybe he had a credit card he
Speaker 3: was putting it on. Maybe he had a savings account
Speaker 3: we didn't know about. Who knows, Or he was doing
Speaker 3: something more nefarious or something that was behind closed doors
Speaker 3: where he was getting money. But in the idea, we
Speaker 3: do see that Stephen is spending money. He has money
Speaker 3: from somewhere, and that idea, like you said, the Christmas
Speaker 3: gifts for those for the baby, that's a so special
Speaker 3: I remember remember you my brother for Teddy's first birthday
Speaker 3: and Teddy's first Christmas. He doesn't have children, and so
Speaker 3: to give my baby presents, it was really important that
Speaker 3: he got to be a part of that holiday celebration.
Speaker 3: And so I really see Stevens purchasing those Christmas gifts
Speaker 3: as one of the biggest signs that he had an
Speaker 3: intent to go home.
Speaker 2: That is true. I mean, they weren't exactly expensive gifts,
Speaker 2: but even if he got paid something to do some
Speaker 2: extra work that we don't know about, he might have
Speaker 2: felt motivated saying, hey, I can actually afford Christmas gifts
Speaker 2: for my brother and my newborn nephew this year, and
Speaker 2: that's why he decided to purchase them. And I still
Speaker 2: take that as a sign that he wasn't planning to
Speaker 2: end his own life, that he had every intention of
Speaker 2: showing up to Salt Lake City to spend Christmas with
Speaker 2: his family. However, let's look at the timeline for Steven's
Speaker 2: road trip on December of the tenth, which was very odd.
Speaker 2: His first confirmed transaction was purchasing gas in Salt Lake
Speaker 2: City at six forty five am Mountain time, which is
Speaker 2: nearly a four and a half hour drive from Saint George.
Speaker 2: This means the latest that Stephen could have left his
Speaker 2: home was shortly after two am, meaning that he completed
Speaker 2: an eleven hundred mile drive on little, possibly no sleep,
Speaker 2: and the timeline throughout the day doesn't leave much opportunity
Speaker 2: for him to pull over and take a nap. So
Speaker 2: could this mean that Stephen was not in his right
Speaker 2: state of mind at the time. You also have to
Speaker 2: wonder if there's a specific reason why he traveled to
Speaker 2: Salt Lake City, because he then drove west from there
Speaker 2: to the Neft's ranch in Ruby Valley. If visiting the
Speaker 2: Nests was the primary purpose of his trip, he could
Speaker 2: have just driven straight from Saint George to Ruby Valley,
Speaker 2: as making that detour to Salt Lake City added an
Speaker 2: extra few hours to his journey. And we mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: that if Stephen really wanted to see am Ree, why
Speaker 2: not call ahead to make sure she would be there
Speaker 2: that day before making the drive. So it makes you
Speaker 2: wonder if Stephen had another reason for traveling to the
Speaker 2: Ruby Valley area and made a spontaneous decision to visit
Speaker 2: the ranch because he just happened to be there. Another
Speaker 2: odd detail is that Steve he even told the Nefts
Speaker 2: he was planning to travel to Sacramento to visit family
Speaker 2: and friends, even though it does not sound like he
Speaker 2: knew anyone there. Since it takes around seven and a
Speaker 2: half hours to drive from Ruby Valley to Sacramento, there's
Speaker 2: no way Stephen could have gone there that day, So
Speaker 2: why did he bring it up? And once again after
Speaker 2: leaving Ruby Valley? I'm not sure why Stephen took a
Speaker 2: winding route and drove back to Salt Lake City because
Speaker 2: if he had just traveled southeast directly to Saint George,
Speaker 2: he would have arrived home a lot quicker.
Speaker 3: Do we know at the time, I mean this is
Speaker 3: two thousands, so did he have a he had a
Speaker 3: cell phone? Do we know who he was in contact with?
Speaker 3: And were their credit card receipts showing where? You know,
Speaker 3: tracking where he had been, who he could have been with,
Speaker 3: restaurants he might have eaten at. Do we have all
Speaker 3: that information leading up to his disappearance? I know we
Speaker 3: see him parkis car and wander off, But other than that,
Speaker 3: do we have many details of putting him in certain
Speaker 3: specific locations.
Speaker 2: Well, that's pretty much how we can follow his movements
Speaker 2: is because he used his credit card in his bank
Speaker 2: card to purchase gasoline and purchase food at various locations.
Speaker 2: We just don't know why he drove to these locations.
Speaker 2: And they did check his cell records and there was
Speaker 2: like nothing out of the ordinary. Like as you recall
Speaker 2: in our last episode, he received phone calls from both
Speaker 2: his sister and his mother while he was driving and
Speaker 2: did not tell them he was driving at the time.
Speaker 2: They had no idea that he was in Nevada when
Speaker 2: he was receiving their calls. But they didn't show any
Speaker 2: outgoing calls from his cell phone. The shit any light
Speaker 2: on why he was making this trip. And as we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about, there has been speculation that if
Speaker 2: he was doing something nefarious, maybe he could have had
Speaker 2: a burner phone or something like that.
Speaker 3: I was just about to ask that I was going
Speaker 3: to say, when they searched the car, I don't recall
Speaker 3: them finding one, But that doesn't mean when he walked
Speaker 3: away with that quote briefcase or file folder that maybe
Speaker 3: he didn't have a burner phone on him.
Speaker 2: That is correct. Yeah, they didn't find one in his car,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't carrying one.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like December eleventh was a routine day
Speaker 1: for Stephen but his road trip through Nevada on the
Speaker 1: twelfth had a lot more gaps than the timeline, and
Speaker 1: since there are no eye witnesses who reported interacting with
Speaker 1: Stephen that day, we have no idea what he was doing.
Speaker 1: We only know that his cell phone pinged off a
Speaker 1: tower near Overton at eight nineteen am Pacific time, and
Speaker 1: he purchased gas in Mesquite at four or four pm
Speaker 1: Pacific time. But those places are only about forty miles apart.
Speaker 1: So where was Stephen during that nearly eight hour gap.
Speaker 1: He probably wasn't driving the entire time, because otherwise he
Speaker 1: would have needed to stop for fuel. Again, he made
Speaker 1: his purchase at the kmart near Saint George at seven
Speaker 1: fifty eight pm Mountain time, even though driving there from
Speaker 1: Mesquite would only take about forty five minutes. So there's
Speaker 1: another gap of time in which Stephen's whereabouts are unaccounted for,
Speaker 1: and you have to wonder if this influenced his decision
Speaker 1: to travel to Henderson. I have to say these trips
Speaker 1: are giving me flashbacks to the unsolved nineteen ninety four
Speaker 1: disappearance of twenty three year old Karen Denise Wells, which
Speaker 1: was covered on both the trail went cold and the
Speaker 1: path went chili. As a quick recap, Denise left her
Speaker 1: hometown in Oklahoma on a cross country road trip to
Speaker 1: visit a friend in New Jersey, but she wound up
Speaker 1: going missing, and her abandoned rental car was discovered in
Speaker 1: rural Pennsylvania. A check of Denise's movements, as well as
Speaker 1: the odometer of the vehicle showed that she inexplicably drove
Speaker 1: an additional seven hundred miles on her trip, which were
Speaker 1: never accounted for. So it's been speculated that she may
Speaker 1: have become involved in drug trafficking and this caused her disappearance.
Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, it's been theorized that Stephen's lengthy road trips
Speaker 1: may have been connected to drug trafficking as well. Even
Speaker 1: though he was known for being a morally upstanding individual
Speaker 1: and unlikely candidate to participate in anything illegal, he was
Speaker 1: also in a desperate financial situation. So could he have
Speaker 1: been roped into doing something he ordinarily wouldn't have?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think, of course. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people could, especially when you feel desperate or hopeless,
Speaker 3: or you're trying to say, hey, if I could just
Speaker 3: get ahead, then these other things would be easier in
Speaker 3: my life. Right, I don't have to do this long term,
Speaker 3: but if I can get financially stable, getting a wife,
Speaker 3: having a family, you know, making my family really proud
Speaker 3: of me, those things are going to come more naturally
Speaker 3: and easier. It doesn't have to necessarily just be drugs either.
Speaker 3: It could have been something like sex work. It could
Speaker 3: have been something like a financial pyramid scheme or some
Speaker 3: kind of you know, quote business that he had been
Speaker 3: talked into by somebody, and he's going to try to
Speaker 3: meet with people or plan some kind of of I
Speaker 3: don't know, crooked kind of scheme with people. That's probably
Speaker 3: less likely because of the financial crash, no one had
Speaker 3: money to be sparing. But I mean, it could have
Speaker 3: been something that we're not even thinking of, like a
Speaker 3: odd business his action where he's trying to go recruit
Speaker 3: people or get customers in on something that's not necessarily
Speaker 3: on the up and up.
Speaker 2: And it could be something where he wasn't even aware
Speaker 2: he was doing anything illegal. He's just told I need
Speaker 2: you to deliver this package to such and such a place,
Speaker 2: but he's not told what's actually in the package.
Speaker 1: And I think that our morals and values guide us
Speaker 1: for the most part under ideal circumstances, but when people
Speaker 1: become desperate and they're in a situation where it feels
Speaker 1: like there's no way out, I think that we are
Speaker 1: all capable of doing things that are outside of scope
Speaker 1: of our normal behavior.
Speaker 2: And what makes Stephen's trip to Henderson even murkier is
Speaker 2: that we have the account from his neighbor that he
Speaker 2: saw Steven's car parked outside his residence to Saint George
Speaker 2: at around ten pm on December the twelfth, but it
Speaker 2: was gone a half hour later. The next confirmed sighting
Speaker 2: of Stephen is when he spoke to Greg Webb on
Speaker 2: the phone the following morning at seven fifty two am
Speaker 2: Pacific time and said he was in the Las Vegas area.
Speaker 2: So after his neighbor noticed the missing car at ten
Speaker 2: thirty pm the previous evening, did Stephen return to his
Speaker 2: residence at any point before he drove to Vegas or
Speaker 2: did Stephen spend the night at an altogether different location.
Speaker 2: The fact that a blanket and pillow were found inside
Speaker 2: the abandoned cavalier suggests that he may have slept there
Speaker 2: when Stephen arrived in the Sun City, Anthem neighborhood in Henderson.
Speaker 2: He was last seen passing by the security camera exactly
Speaker 2: at noon, which means that he may have had an
Speaker 2: appointment at one of the houses at a specific time.
Speaker 2: But here's the big issue with that theory. When Greg
Speaker 2: Webb called Stephen, he said that he might not make
Speaker 2: it back in time for the Singles Wards morning service
Speaker 2: and asked Stephen to fill in for him, even though
Speaker 2: Stephen said he was in Vegas. He told Webb that
Speaker 2: he would be willing to return to Saint George to
Speaker 2: do the service until Webb told him not to bother. So,
Speaker 2: if Stephen had a scheduled appointment in Henderson that day,
Speaker 2: why would he offer to go back home. Even though
Speaker 2: there's no indication that Stephen was a gambler, I guess
Speaker 2: he could have become desperate enough to travel to Vegas
Speaker 2: to attend have to win some money. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if law enforcement attempted to check the security footage at
Speaker 2: any of the casinos to see if Steven ever showed
Speaker 2: up to one, But even if he went there to gamble,
Speaker 2: that still doesn't explain why he went to Henderson, and
Speaker 2: we don't know anything about Stephen's possible movements in the
Speaker 2: Vegas area that morning.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting. So we know for a fact he
Speaker 3: was not tied there, or he knew that he was
Speaker 3: going to be easily mobile and could have gone back
Speaker 3: for the wards morning service. And then he says, you know,
Speaker 3: he's told, hey, don't bother, don't worry about you, don't
Speaker 3: have to come. But he was very willing and quickly
Speaker 3: wanted to go serve his church. And so whatever he
Speaker 3: was doing and whatever the plan was, isn't something where
Speaker 3: he thought like, well, my life is on the line
Speaker 3: if I don't stay put where I am, or this
Speaker 3: is going to put me in significant risk. He knew that, hey,
Speaker 3: if I need to, I can drop what I'm doing
Speaker 3: right the second and go home. So that makes me
Speaker 3: kind of question a drug involvement unless he knew it
Speaker 3: was a very quick drop off, because because you have
Speaker 3: this plan on this route, you need to go make
Speaker 3: all these drops that you couldn't guarantee someone not involved
Speaker 3: in that operation you can easily just pivot and come home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just a very strange situation. And I have
Speaker 2: a hard time wrapping my head about Steven's agreement to
Speaker 2: do that because it could be a thing where he
Speaker 2: was scheduled to make a delivery to Las Vegas or Henderson,
Speaker 2: but he didn't have to show up at a specific time,
Speaker 2: but still having to turn round and go back to
Speaker 2: Saint George to do the morning service. That's going to
Speaker 2: cause a significant delay. And it makes me wonder if
Speaker 2: he had done that, would he have gone back to
Speaker 2: Henderson later that same day.
Speaker 1: Now, even though it's generally accepted that Stephen was the
Speaker 1: man captured walking down the sidewalk in sun City Anthem,
Speaker 1: I have to acknowledge that the footage is blurry and
Speaker 1: shot from such a long distance away that you really
Speaker 1: can't tell with one hundred percent certainty that it's him.
Speaker 1: I know that Stephen's family have studied the footage and
Speaker 1: are pretty sure it's him due to the way he walks,
Speaker 1: in his body language, but fear about it. Could something
Speaker 1: have happened to Stephen beforehand, and another man decided to
Speaker 1: abandon his car in the neighborhood and walk away from
Speaker 1: the scene. Alkham's razor tells me that it is Stephen,
Speaker 1: as the consensus from the private investigators working on this
Speaker 1: case is something bad happened to him. Only minutes after
Speaker 1: he walked past that camera, and he never left the
Speaker 1: neighborhood alive. Of course, even though there are no more
Speaker 1: confirmed sightings of Stephen, his cell phone pinged off various
Speaker 1: towers located outside the neighborhood in the days following his disappearance,
Speaker 1: and someone checked the phone's voicemail two days after the fact,
Speaker 1: even though there's nothing to indicate that Stephen was still
Speaker 1: alive at that point. So if Stephen was dead, either
Speaker 1: the perpetrator kept his phone in their possession or the
Speaker 1: phone was kept alongside Stephen's body, and these pings might
Speaker 1: provide a clue about the area where he's buried. While
Speaker 1: we're on the subject of Stephen's cell phone, all the
Speaker 1: calls on his phone records had been accounted for and
Speaker 1: offer no insight into why he would have traveled the Henderson.
Speaker 1: Steven's laptop and email account also turned up no leads,
Speaker 1: but it's worth reiterating that all of his Internet activity
Speaker 1: took place on computers at the library. So if Stephen
Speaker 1: had a meetup or an appointment for an employment opportunity
Speaker 1: scheduled in Henderson, perhaps all of his communication was done
Speaker 1: on the library computers. Through websites like Craigslist. But perhaps
Speaker 1: there is no digital or paper trail to explain Stephen's
Speaker 1: trip because any arrangements he made were done verbally.
Speaker 3: Interesting. Yeah, it absolutely could be. You know, you look
Speaker 3: at the idea of public communication like you said that library,
Speaker 3: computers or verbal communication. But I'm really worried and the
Speaker 3: hair stands up on my arms when you talk about
Speaker 3: the fact that his cell phone had been checked two
Speaker 3: days after the fact that he disappeared. Stephen was in
Speaker 3: communication with his family if he was alive. I feel
Speaker 3: like he would have reached out if he could, and
Speaker 3: he was in trouble by the time it got to
Speaker 3: a point where he felt scared and he was in trouble,
Speaker 3: I think he would have called his family. And I
Speaker 3: definitely think, like you said, you have incidences where like
Speaker 3: the holidays came and he didn't show up. You have
Speaker 3: the death of his father and he didn't show up.
Speaker 3: There's things in life where if he could have I
Speaker 3: feel like there would have been some kind of communication
Speaker 3: and there wasn't. And so that idea that his cell
Speaker 3: phone was pinging and someone was checking the voicemails on
Speaker 3: his phone makes me think that he had already been
Speaker 3: deceased or was gravely injured, and that phone just happened
Speaker 3: to be near his body, And then it makes you
Speaker 3: think where was he, what happened, and who had him?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that detail is one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: I never really believed that Steven's death was a suicide
Speaker 2: or that he simply wandered out into the desert or died,
Speaker 2: because it doesn't really make much sense for his phone
Speaker 2: to still be pinging two days after the fact, so
Speaker 2: I am inclined to think that someone else had possession
Speaker 2: of that phone during that time period. So I think
Speaker 2: that about brings an end to Part two, But during
Speaker 2: our next episode will finally present a bunch of recently
Speaker 2: unearthed information to shed more light on this case. Join
Speaker 2: us next week for the conclusion of our three part
Speaker 2: series about the disappearance of Steven Kosher Robin.
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