Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.
Speaker 2: I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley.
Speaker 3: Let's dive right into this week's case.
Speaker 2: November seventh, nineteen ninety seven, New York City, New York,
Speaker 2: fifty four year old Michael Sullivan and his thirty six
Speaker 2: year old girlfriend, Camden Sylvia vanished without explanation from their
Speaker 2: loft in Manhattan and are reported missing six days later.
Speaker 2: Suspicion falls upon the couple's landlord, Robert Rodriguez, who was
Speaker 2: involved in a dispute with them prior to their disappearances
Speaker 2: and refuses to co operate with the investigation. It turns
Speaker 2: out that Rodriguez is connected to the unsolved disappearance of
Speaker 2: another man, which took place six years earlier, and even
Speaker 2: though he eventually serves time in prison on fraud charges,
Speaker 2: there are no answers about what happened to Michael and
Speaker 2: Camden after that.
Speaker 1: The path went Chiley. So this week we're going to
Speaker 1: be exploring a bizarre missing person's case about a couple
Speaker 1: from New York City. The nineteen ninety seven disappearances of
Speaker 1: Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia. Michael and Camden were living
Speaker 1: together in a loft in Manhattan until they seemingly vanished
Speaker 1: in the thin air. But on the same day they
Speaker 1: went missing, they presented a letter to their landlord, Robert Rodriguez,
Speaker 1: where they announced their intention to go on a rent
Speaker 1: strike unless he provided adequate heating in their building. Well,
Speaker 1: when police started investigating Rodriguez, he would suddenly disappear himself,
Speaker 1: but by the time he resurfaced ten days later, he
Speaker 1: had hired an attorney and would no longer cooperate with
Speaker 1: the investigation. Rodriguez would eventually go to prison on unrelated charges,
Speaker 1: and it turned out that a former business associate of
Speaker 1: his named David King, vanished with that explanation years earlier,
Speaker 1: and he has also never been found. Now, while it's
Speaker 1: easy to assume the worst about Rodriguez, there is zero
Speaker 1: evidence that foul play took place where that he could
Speaker 1: have been responsible for the disappearances of Michael and Camden.
Speaker 1: There are just so many unanswered questions about the last
Speaker 1: time the couple was confirmed to be alive, potential motives
Speaker 1: for their disappearance, and what the logistics would have been
Speaker 1: for getting rid of their bodies. It's a very puzzling case,
Speaker 1: but we're going to explore all the different angles on
Speaker 1: this series of episodes.
Speaker 3: So things don't look very good for Rodriguez. Like you said,
Speaker 3: while there's zero evidence that foul play took place, when
Speaker 3: you actually look back, Rodriguez is tied to issues surrounding
Speaker 3: finances and or the risk of losing finances. So this
Speaker 3: person who went missing was his business partner. And then
Speaker 3: the couple who went missing is also through to, let's say,
Speaker 3: withhold rent and or force him to expend money to
Speaker 3: make their loft better to fix the air there. And
Speaker 3: then now he's serving time in prison for fraud. So
Speaker 3: every time you look at Rodriguez, if there's a risk
Speaker 3: to his finances or he has the ability to save
Speaker 3: or make money, even if it's in an illegal way,
Speaker 3: he takes it. And so it's very easy to see
Speaker 3: why when they disappear and they've just served their landlord
Speaker 3: this letter threatening a financial loss to him, that he's
Speaker 3: tied to this crime.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear more about it, but there's no
Speaker 3: doubt why this looks very suspicious. There's an mo here
Speaker 3: where if money's at play, Rodriguez is definitely going to
Speaker 3: try anything he can do to make more and spend.
Speaker 2: Less, especially if he got away with murder one time before.
Speaker 1: Yes, like, it's very easy to be suspicious of Rodriguez
Speaker 1: because he's had so many people associated with him go missing,
Speaker 1: and that just seems like too much of a coincidence.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, when you heard the details
Speaker 1: about what happened, you're thinking, well, if he murdered Michael
Speaker 1: and Camden, how exactly did he do it? And there's
Speaker 1: also the possibility that the reason he didn't want to
Speaker 1: cooperate with the investigation is because he was doing a
Speaker 1: lot of other illegal thing involving fraud. So even if
Speaker 1: he had nothing to do with the couple's disappearances, I
Speaker 1: can understand his strange behavior.
Speaker 2: Our story begins in New York City in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2: Our central figures are fifty four year old Michael Sullivan
Speaker 2: and his thirty six year old girlfriend, Camden Sylvia, who
Speaker 2: both share a fourteen hundred square foot loft on the
Speaker 2: top floor of a five story apartment building located at
Speaker 2: seventy six Pearl Street in Manhattan Well. Michael is a
Speaker 2: native New Yorker who's lived in this apartment since nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six. Camden originally hails from the village of Hyannas
Speaker 2: in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts. After making the
Speaker 2: move to New York, Camden got a job at a
Speaker 2: Manhattan real estate office, which has been a place of
Speaker 2: employment for the past fourteen years. She also works as
Speaker 2: a pain on the side. Michael's primary occupation is an
Speaker 2: admissions clerk at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, though
Speaker 2: he also works as an actor, dancer, and choreographer. After
Speaker 2: Camden became involved in a relationship with Michael, she decided
Speaker 2: to move in with him, and they've lived together in
Speaker 2: his lof for five years. The official date of the
Speaker 2: couple's disappearance was Friday, November seventh, and while there were
Speaker 2: contradictory details about when they were last seen, it sounds
Speaker 2: like the final confirmed sighting of them took place at
Speaker 2: four twenty pm, when they stopped by a video store
Speaker 2: near City Hall to rent a VHS tape of the
Speaker 2: romantic comedy Addicted to Love. Over the course of the weekend,
Speaker 2: some of Michael's friends and relatives attempted to phone Michael
Speaker 2: and Camden at their apartment, but could not reach them
Speaker 2: and did not hear anything back. Camden never returned to
Speaker 2: work at a real estate office, and by Tuesday, November eleventh,
Speaker 2: one of her co workers had become concerned that Camden
Speaker 2: had not at least attempted to call to her messages.
Speaker 2: The coworkers started contacting Camden's family in Cape Cod to
Speaker 2: see if they had heard from her, and word eventually
Speaker 2: reached Camden's mother, Laurie Sylvia, who was in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: On a business trip. Once Laurie heard about what was
Speaker 2: going on, she decided to travel to Manhattan and stopped
Speaker 2: by her daughter's apartment building on Thursday, November thirteen. Camden
Speaker 2: and Michael were not there, but most of their clothing
Speaker 2: and personal belongings had been left behind in the loft,
Speaker 2: including both of their passports and Michael's wallet. The VHS
Speaker 2: tape for the movie Addicted to Love was found inside
Speaker 2: the apartment, along with a time stamped receipt, which indicated
Speaker 2: that the couple had returned home after renting it. While
Speaker 2: one set of the couple's apartment keys was missing, the
Speaker 2: other set was still there, so it seemed likely that
Speaker 2: Camden and Michael had left together at some point. The
Speaker 2: only other items that appeared to be missing were a
Speaker 2: bag that Camden normally carried which took work home from
Speaker 2: the office, as well the two pairs of running shoes,
Speaker 2: which led to speculation that they might have gone out jogging.
Speaker 2: This compelled Laurie to contact the New York Police Department
Speaker 2: to officially report Camden and Michael missing. A search of
Speaker 2: the couple's financial records showed that their credit cards had
Speaker 2: not been used since November seventh, and there was no
Speaker 2: pay per trayl for them since that date.
Speaker 3: Okay, so a couple things that are interesting here is
Speaker 3: that Camden and Michael are stable, but it doesn't seem
Speaker 3: like they have these insanely profitable jobs. I wonder if
Speaker 3: Michael came from money or if Camden came from money.
Speaker 3: But Michael had been living in this fourteen hundred square
Speaker 3: foot loft on a top floor in Manhattan, and even
Speaker 3: in the seventies, rent was incredibly high in Manhattan.
Speaker 2: What about rent control?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, that's true too, because he had been there
Speaker 3: for several years. I know that early seventies to late
Speaker 3: seventies the finances went through the roof. So you're right,
Speaker 3: if f rent control was in place, maybe that's a benefit,
Speaker 3: But that's one thing that stood out to me. Is
Speaker 3: anything else going on where they could be getting money?
Speaker 3: And when you look at this idea that they had
Speaker 3: maybe gone on a jog. Remember New York City, while
Speaker 3: of course it's a big city, so it still has crime.
Speaker 3: The seventies were rampant for murder, assault, drugs, lawlessness, those
Speaker 3: kinds of things. And so is it completely out of
Speaker 3: the realm that they got attacked or that something happened
Speaker 3: to them when they, like you said, maybe did go
Speaker 3: on a jog. So those are the two things that
Speaker 3: stood out to me here. They just seemed to disappear
Speaker 3: out of thin air. Nobody hears from them. And was
Speaker 3: anything going on or was he from a family of
Speaker 3: prestige And if that's true or they had some kind
Speaker 3: of money, does that cause any kind of complication in
Speaker 3: his relationships with people?
Speaker 1: Well, you just mentioned rent control, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about that in depth later on, because Michael
Speaker 1: had got the apartment at a good price during the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, so he was living there for much cheaper
Speaker 1: rent than any of the other tenants because of rent control.
Speaker 1: And as we're going to talk about Robert Rodriguez was
Speaker 1: not too happy about that because he wanted to have
Speaker 1: other tenants in there who could pay a lot more
Speaker 1: in rent, So that's why he was able to get
Speaker 1: such a good price on such a large apartment. And
Speaker 1: you mentioned that could something have happened to them while
Speaker 1: they went out for a jog, And that's kind of
Speaker 1: the main issue with this case is that, as we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about, there are a lot of reasons
Speaker 1: to be suspicious of Robert Rodriguez. We technically can't prove
Speaker 1: that something didn't happen to them by crossing paths with
Speaker 1: a complete stranger or something. And that is the main
Speaker 1: issue is that we really don't know the last time
Speaker 1: they were confirmed to be alive. We just know that
Speaker 1: they rented a videotape, got back to the loft at
Speaker 1: some point, and maybe went for a jog, But it
Speaker 1: does not sound like any witnesses could confirm having seen
Speaker 1: them gone anywhere. So that's the main issue is that
Speaker 1: they just seemingly vanished into thin air.
Speaker 2: Just to counter that jog theory, so it said that
Speaker 2: Camden was missing a bag that she usually took work
Speaker 2: home from the office with which would indicate that it
Speaker 2: was like a larger purse or a briefcase type of bag.
Speaker 3: So if you're going for a.
Speaker 2: Jog, I mean, I know I wouldn't like I might
Speaker 2: just carry a key and an armband. If I'm going
Speaker 2: to go for a jog, I wouldn't have a bag
Speaker 2: with me, but definitely not a huge bag that you
Speaker 2: would store I mean, they didn't have laptops then, but
Speaker 2: you would store files in perhaps, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree with that, And it makes me wonder maybe
Speaker 1: they weren't going for a job, Like maybe she had
Speaker 1: something in that bag that she wanted to present to
Speaker 1: Robert Rodriguez or something, or maybe like some papers she
Speaker 1: wanted to present to a lawyer or something like that,
Speaker 1: and that's why she left the lot with them, and
Speaker 1: then something happened to her, which is why the bag
Speaker 1: has never been found.
Speaker 2: And just a quick question before we move on to
Speaker 2: the next part. So about them having two pairs of
Speaker 2: sneakers missing, was it atypical for them to be casual
Speaker 2: enough to just like on their off hours, be wearing
Speaker 2: sneakers just to go run errands or you know, go
Speaker 2: meet up with a friend or anything to that effect.
Speaker 2: Would it have to mean that they're going for a jog.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I don't have that information. I don't really know
Speaker 1: if it was typical for them to wear sneakers just
Speaker 1: while doing casual activities, but it was November. I don't
Speaker 1: know if because it was cold or weather, they might
Speaker 1: decide to wear like boots or something when they went out,
Speaker 1: if they were running errands, and only wear the sneakers
Speaker 1: to go for a jog. But it is just kind
Speaker 1: of speculation, and the fact that this is specifically mentioned
Speaker 1: by the sources that they may have gone for a
Speaker 1: jog because the sneakers were missing, makes me think that
Speaker 1: these were a specific brand of footwear that they only
Speaker 1: wore for the purposes of jogging. So on Saturday, November fifteenth,
Speaker 1: investigators phoned the building's landlord, a fifty six year old
Speaker 1: Cuban immigrant named Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez was married with three
Speaker 1: children and three grandchildren, and after purchasing the building in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, he opened up his own locksmith shop
Speaker 1: on the ground floor. At this point, he lived outside
Speaker 1: New York City on a seven acre estate located in
Speaker 1: Orange County in the hamlet of Slate Hill. Rodriguez was
Speaker 1: initially very cooperative with investigators and said he had arrange
Speaker 1: for someone to provide them with keys to the building
Speaker 1: so they could perform a search. The following afternoon, investigators
Speaker 1: phone Rodriguez's residence to ask if he would come down
Speaker 1: to the precinct for a formal interview. To their surprise,
Speaker 1: Rodriguez's family informed them that around midnight the previous evening,
Speaker 1: shortly after the original phone call with him, Rodriguez left
Speaker 1: the residence and his Honda passport after saying that he
Speaker 1: needed to go meet the police for an interview. By
Speaker 1: the time investigators called to arrange the actual interview, Rodriguez
Speaker 1: had still not returned home, so his family filed a
Speaker 1: missing person's report with the New York State Police. One
Speaker 1: week later. Rodriguez Has abandoned Honda passport would be discovered
Speaker 1: inside a parking garage in Chelsea, and the time stamp
Speaker 1: ticket showed that it originally pulled in there at two
Speaker 1: thirty seven am on November sixteenth, only a few hours
Speaker 1: after he left his residence. During Rodriguez's absence, police wanted
Speaker 1: to perform a search of his house and property, but
Speaker 1: his family refused to give them permission to do so.
Speaker 1: Police countered by flying a helicopter over the property and
Speaker 1: using infrared devices to search for any bodies that might
Speaker 1: have been married on Freshly doug Land, but they found
Speaker 1: no evidence that could be used as probable cause to
Speaker 1: obtain a search warrant. After being missing for ten days,
Speaker 1: Rodriguez finally resurfaced when he suddenly showed up at his
Speaker 1: locksmith shop at his apartment building. However, by this point
Speaker 1: Rodriguez had hired an attorney and was no longer cooperating
Speaker 1: with the investigation.
Speaker 3: So why there doesn't seem to be any explanation for
Speaker 3: why you would initially be caught and talked to law
Speaker 3: enforcement and pretend like nothing's happened, agree to be hospitable
Speaker 3: to them. Hey, I'll open up the law for you.
Speaker 3: We'll get you keys, I'll come down for an interview,
Speaker 3: and then you flee. You disappear to the point where
Speaker 3: even your family is worried about where you are, and
Speaker 3: file a missing US report and then you show back
Speaker 3: up with an attorney and don't cooperate. I would understand
Speaker 3: if these people are missing and you were very respectfully
Speaker 3: said hey, listen, I'm gonna get my attorney. This man
Speaker 3: clearly has some money, right so he may have an
Speaker 3: attorney friend that he knows or have one on retainer,
Speaker 3: and he could say, Hey, I'm going to go ahead
Speaker 3: and get my attorney. I have no problem trying to help.
Speaker 3: Those are my residents, but I'm going to get my
Speaker 3: attorney and we can go from there. That would not
Speaker 3: have raised as many flags. This talking to them, fleeing,
Speaker 3: disappearing to where your parents think you're actually just a
Speaker 3: missing person, and then showing back up and refusing to
Speaker 3: cooperate really does paint you in a totally different light
Speaker 3: than just saying I'd like an attorney present when I
Speaker 3: talk to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that definitely looks like pure panic, Like the fact
Speaker 1: that he would lie to his own family and say
Speaker 1: that he's going to see the police for an interview
Speaker 1: even though an interview had not even been scheduled that
Speaker 1: at that point, and then just disappear and not tell
Speaker 1: anyone where you are. And I don't think if they've
Speaker 1: ever found out where exactly Rodriguez was during those ten
Speaker 1: days he was missing because he hired an attorney and
Speaker 1: wouldn't speak to the police. So makes you wonder what
Speaker 1: was he doing. What was his original plan? Was he
Speaker 1: just planning to hide out forever before he decided to
Speaker 1: come back and return to his normal life. But it
Speaker 1: just seems very bizarre that someone who wasn't even being
Speaker 1: fingered as a suspect or person of interest at that
Speaker 1: point just suddenly decides to take off.
Speaker 3: Right, you made yourself a person of interest at that point.
Speaker 2: It's giving guilty conscience. It turned out that on the
Speaker 2: morning of November seventh, hours before she disappeared, Counton had
Speaker 2: been seen heading towards Rodriguez's locksmith shop with the intent
Speaker 2: of presenting him with a signed letter. One of the
Speaker 2: couple's neighbors was a photographer named Chuck Delaney, who was
Speaker 2: the building's tenant representative on the New York City Laft Board.
Speaker 2: According to Delaney, ever since Rodriguez purchased the building, there
Speaker 2: were always issues with him not turning up the heat
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the winter season. Can Did and
Speaker 2: Michael lived in a drafty, uninsulated loft on the top floor,
Speaker 2: so the issue affected them more than any of the
Speaker 2: other tenants, and since this particular year had a much
Speaker 2: colder November than usual, they decided to take action. The
Speaker 2: couple put together a letter for Rodriguez, signed by themselves
Speaker 2: and some of the other tenants, in which they announced
Speaker 2: their intention to go on a rent strike and seek
Speaker 2: enforcement from the New York City Heat Complaint Bureau and
Speaker 2: New York City Lapboard unless Rodriguez ensured that the building
Speaker 2: was properly heated. Canden also had a second letter containing
Speaker 2: a demand for Rodriguez to install a thermostat in her apartment.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are reasonable requests when you look at this.
Speaker 3: I just want to be healthy and safe and warm
Speaker 3: in a place that I pay for. So to me,
Speaker 3: anytime you're talking about water, heating and air, those kinds
Speaker 3: of things that are heat specifically when you're looking at
Speaker 3: that can be a health issue. You can't have your
Speaker 3: tenants literally freezing. And so I completely agree and understand
Speaker 3: where the tenants are coming from. And it wasn't just
Speaker 3: this couple. Yes, they had it worse, but they got
Speaker 3: other people to sign and there was a history that
Speaker 3: this was already a problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can definitely tell that Rodriguez is a shady
Speaker 1: character who's not providing adequate conditions for his tenants. And
Speaker 1: it does seem like quite a coincidence that Camden Michael
Speaker 1: would just happen to go missing on the very same
Speaker 1: day that they were intending to present Rodriguez with his letter.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it doesn't really sound like
Speaker 1: extreme demands, So you're thinking to yourself, if Rodriguez is guilty,
Speaker 1: how would something like this escalate into murder and lead
Speaker 1: to him killing two people. So there was additional tension
Speaker 1: over the fact that the building was rent controlled and
Speaker 1: Michael had lived in the law for twenty one years.
Speaker 1: As a result, the couple's rent was only three hundred
Speaker 1: and four dollars per month, but if they were to
Speaker 1: leave and a new tenant moved into the building, Rodriguez
Speaker 1: would be able to charge them ten times that amount,
Speaker 1: as the market rate for renting a fourteen hundred square
Speaker 1: foot loft in Manhattan during that time period was around
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars per month. While Camden and Michael were missing,
Speaker 1: Laurie Sylvia held frequent candlelight vigils for the missing couple
Speaker 1: at the building alongside their friends and fellow tenants, to
Speaker 1: prevent Rodriguez from renting out the loft in their absence.
Speaker 1: Laurie sent him a money order for three hundred and
Speaker 1: four dollars to pay the rent on their behalf. In response,
Speaker 1: Rodriguez's attorney stated that he would not be accepting payments
Speaker 1: from anyone besides the original tenants, though he offered his
Speaker 1: assurances that he would not rent out the loft until
Speaker 1: there were conclusive answers about what happened to them. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the next few years, police would perform
Speaker 1: numerous searches of bodies of water in the area, including
Speaker 1: the Hudson River, but never found any trace of the couple.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a body or a severed body part such as
Speaker 1: the foot, would surface in these waters, but DNA testing
Speaker 1: would always rule out the possibility that they belonged to
Speaker 1: Michael or Camden.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm really frustrated because poor Laurie Sylvia. She is
Speaker 3: sending money to the landlord and he says, nope, sorry,
Speaker 3: won't accept it. But we don't worry. We'll hold the
Speaker 3: apartment until we figure out what happened. Here's what's stupid.
Speaker 3: There were many things he could have done with his
Speaker 3: attorney's help, such as I will accept your payment to
Speaker 3: hold the loft. However, no one but the original tenants
Speaker 3: are able to occupy the space while they are not here.
Speaker 3: I reserve the right as usual to enter the dwelling
Speaker 3: when I want, right that I have free ability to
Speaker 3: come and go, because usually that's a landlord's right anyway,
Speaker 3: and to monitor to make sure no one else is
Speaker 3: residing in this apartment. So while I will accept payment
Speaker 3: to hold their spot, no one else can actually occupy
Speaker 3: the loft. I could understand that for a million reasons,
Speaker 3: insurance reasons, things like that your tenants need to be
Speaker 3: the ones living there. But this is so ridiculous. It's
Speaker 3: like a slap in his face where he's like, I
Speaker 3: don't want your money, but we'll hold it. Why not
Speaker 3: just take the lady's money. You're clearly greedy and won't
Speaker 3: do things that cost money. Use the three hundred and
Speaker 3: four dollars to put a thermostad in there, right, Like,
Speaker 3: I understand that the rent could have been ten times
Speaker 3: as much. That's what I was thinking when I was looking.
Speaker 3: I know, a high rent back in the seventies would
Speaker 3: have been like seven hundred dollars, and they're paying three fifty,
Speaker 3: So that was even a low rent in the seventies.
Speaker 2: So I think it's kind of weird that he's not
Speaker 2: going to take the money. But I wonder if by
Speaker 2: not taking the money, it's almost like subterfuge, like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not greedy and I don't need the money. Therefore
Speaker 2: I would never kill them to get them out of
Speaker 2: this apartment, because if I were to take that money,
Speaker 2: it would say like, I need the money, but I'm
Speaker 2: not doing that, so I must be innocent of whatever
Speaker 2: happened to them.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's an incredibly good point, Jewels. See, this is
Speaker 3: why we have multiple people on this podcast. That's a
Speaker 3: good point, because if I'm desperate for this three hundred
Speaker 3: and four dollars from this poor couple that's missing, it
Speaker 3: does look a little shady because again, that's not very
Speaker 3: significant when it's going towards what rent could be. So
Speaker 3: I could see that aspect as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he learned about his personality, that would make
Speaker 1: sense that he's just trying to look like the concerned
Speaker 1: landlord and trying to say, oh, I'm not only in
Speaker 1: this for the money. I really do care what happens
Speaker 1: to these tenants, so I'm going to do what I
Speaker 1: can to support their families, even though I can tell
Speaker 1: it's probably driving him crazy that he has this large
Speaker 1: loft that he could potentially get three thousand dollars per
Speaker 1: month for and he still isn't able to rent it
Speaker 1: out well.
Speaker 2: Believe it or not, this was not the only unsolved
Speaker 2: missing person's case from New York City which Rodriguez was
Speaker 2: connected to. On January twenty second, nineteen ninety one, David King,
Speaker 2: a thirty one year old African American man who lived
Speaker 2: with his wife and two children in the Flatbush neighborhood
Speaker 2: of Brooklyn, was last seen leaving his residence to head
Speaker 2: to his job at the fire Safe Alarm Systems in
Speaker 2: Lower Manhattan, but he never returned home and was subsequently
Speaker 2: reported missing months later. While the owner of the fire
Speaker 2: Safe Alarm Systems was none other than Robert Rodriguez, and
Speaker 2: it had originally been a lock and security business before
Speaker 2: Rodriguez decided to expand his operations by servicing fire alarms,
Speaker 2: one of Rodriguez's employees was David King, who had previously
Speaker 2: worked as a fire alarm technician for a competing company
Speaker 2: called Multiplex Electrical Services AKAMES. While at the time King
Speaker 2: went missing, he Rodriguez and another FORMERMES employee named Derek
Speaker 2: Brickhouse were listed as co defendants in a thirteen million
Speaker 2: dollar civil lawsuit Frommes, who alleged that the defendants had
Speaker 2: conspired to loot computer software, business records, and customer information
Speaker 2: from their company. With Brickhouse's assistants, King had supposedly spent
Speaker 2: the better part of six months supplying Rodriguez with confidential
Speaker 2: materials from MAS while he was employed there. When the
Speaker 2: company fired King in January of nineteen ninety, Rodriguez hired
Speaker 2: him to work at fire Safe Alarm Systems and was
Speaker 2: apparently planning to make him his business partner. However, it
Speaker 2: does not sound like this arrangement ever came to fruition,
Speaker 2: and shortly before he vanished, King had reportedly been seen
Speaker 2: having an argument with Rodriguez about the situation. At this point,
Speaker 2: Mis's lawsuit was cutting towards litigation, but King's disappearance delayed
Speaker 2: the proceedings until a judgment was eventually issued against King
Speaker 2: and he was ordered to pay over ninety one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in damages to MIS. The company agreed to drop
Speaker 2: the lawsuit against Rodriguez and Derek Brickhouse in exchange. Who
Speaker 2: a guarantee that Rodriguez would return all the software and
Speaker 2: confidential information King had provided to him and not perform
Speaker 2: work in any buildings which use mis fire alarm systems.
Speaker 2: For years, police never performed any sort of investigation into
Speaker 2: King's disappearance, as they figured that he might have run
Speaker 2: away to avoid his legal troubles. But the disappearances of
Speaker 2: Michael in Camden prompted them to give King's case a
Speaker 2: second look.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And remember here King is originally someone who
Speaker 3: you'd think, well, that's an ally for Rodriguez, he's helping him.
Speaker 3: But then when they get caught, now King might be
Speaker 3: a liability as well, and who knows what deals could
Speaker 3: have been made, or if he could have turned on
Speaker 3: Rodriguez or whatnot. So I could see when you first
Speaker 3: started describing it, I thought, well, King's on his side,
Speaker 3: why would Rodriguez want him gone? But as it progresses
Speaker 3: into litigation and there's these issues where they're taking legal
Speaker 3: action and it's not as simple as it was in
Speaker 3: the onset, I could actually see where someone like Rodriguez says,
Speaker 3: I need to eliminate some of the risk. And again,
Speaker 3: like we said, it's not until Camden and Michael actually
Speaker 3: go missing that anyone even looked at him for that,
Speaker 3: And so again, why did Rodriguez run, Why did he
Speaker 3: draw attention to himself? Why did he go missing and
Speaker 3: then re emerge in the Camden and Michael case, Because
Speaker 3: then he gets himself where not only is he being
Speaker 3: a targeted investigation on him for their disappearance, but now
Speaker 3: King becomes another issue that's relevant again when he was
Speaker 3: never on the radar for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, back in nineteen ninety one, Rodriguez was never looked
Speaker 1: at as a suspect or person of interest because law
Speaker 1: enforcement just figured King ran away. And when you look
Speaker 1: at the situation, he pretty much became a convenience scapegoat
Speaker 1: for Rodriguez because since King disappeared, he was on the
Speaker 1: hook to pay all the damages from the lawsuit, while
Speaker 1: Rodriguez and his other partner, brick House, didn't have to
Speaker 1: pay anything. And at the time, nobody found that suspicious.
Speaker 1: But then people are seeing a pattern here saying that
Speaker 1: whenever someone causes an inconvenience in Rodriguez's life, it just
Speaker 1: seems they happened to go missing, And you couple with
Speaker 1: the fact that they had a dispute over King not
Speaker 1: being made a business partner like Rodriguez had promised him,
Speaker 1: and you can see why he might have had a
Speaker 1: motive to try to make him disappear as well. So
Speaker 1: in December of nineteen ninety seven, investigators announced that they
Speaker 1: were planning to exuom an unidentified by John Doe who
Speaker 1: had been buried in the city's Potter's Field on Hart Island.
Speaker 1: After searching through hundreds of missing persons cases and medical
Speaker 1: examiners files, they came across a report for an African
Speaker 1: American male who had washed ashore from the East River
Speaker 1: on March the eighth, nineteen ninety one, less than two
Speaker 1: months after David King originally went missing. His cause of
Speaker 1: death was determined to be drowning, and he apparently bore
Speaker 1: a striking resemblance to King in his Morge photographs, but
Speaker 1: no dental records or X rays could be found for
Speaker 1: King to compare them to the John Doe. I know
Speaker 1: that some sources state that investigators wanted to perform DNA testing,
Speaker 1: but members of King's family refused to provide a sample
Speaker 1: of their blood for the testing to take place. But
Speaker 1: I have also read another article from The New York
Speaker 1: Times in January of nineteen ninety nine, which states that
Speaker 1: the DNA testing did occur and the results were inconclusive
Speaker 1: either way. It does not look like it was ever
Speaker 1: conclusively proven that King was the John Doe, and he
Speaker 1: is still listed as missing to this day. Of course,
Speaker 1: Rodriguez was looked at as a potential suspect in King's disappearance,
Speaker 1: but no evidence was ever found implicate them.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's interesting that you have conflicting reports that
Speaker 3: there there was nothing to compare to, and then there
Speaker 3: was to me. Wouldn't you have first actually made sure
Speaker 3: you had something to compare to before you exhumed a
Speaker 3: body that seems really invasive and something that's incredibly personal,
Speaker 3: that this body's going to be dug up and investigated again,
Speaker 3: I would think that they would say, listen, we have
Speaker 3: DINAL records for this man. We have family members who
Speaker 3: have agreed to provide DNA. Let's go ahead and exhume
Speaker 3: the body and perform these tests. So, perhaps the New
Speaker 3: York Times article is accurate and the other one.
Speaker 1: Is not, possibly because it does seem weird to be
Speaker 1: that King's family would refuse to provide a sample and
Speaker 1: if they did it, it could be a thing where
Speaker 1: maybe they initially promised to you, but then after the
Speaker 1: body was exhumed, they changed their mind. But I am
Speaker 1: inclined to believe that the New York Times article is
Speaker 1: probably accurate, that maybe they did do the DNA and
Speaker 1: the results just didn't prove anything. So you can't really
Speaker 1: rule out the possibility that this Jen Doe could have
Speaker 1: been King. You just don't really have any way to
Speaker 1: prove it. But that's interesting though, because DNA testing has
Speaker 1: advanced so much since nineteen ninety nine. So I would
Speaker 1: like them to see him, maybe give it another shot,
Speaker 1: like maybe do genetic genealogy or something on the unidentified
Speaker 1: deceeeded and see if he matches anyone from King's family
Speaker 1: or anyone else from that matter, But I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's a top priority right now.
Speaker 2: However, Rodriguez's connection to the disappearance of Michael Sullivan in Counden, Sylvia,
Speaker 2: prompted investigators to perform a deep dive into his background
Speaker 2: in the Manhattan District Attorney's office, and a federal grand
Speaker 2: jury would eventually subpoena financial records from his locksmith shop.
Speaker 2: It turned out that Rodriguez had purchased the apartment building
Speaker 2: with insurance money he'd been awarded when the original house
Speaker 2: on his property in Orange County down. While investigators concluded
Speaker 2: that the fire was likely arson, they were never able
Speaker 2: to figure out who started it. At the time Michael
Speaker 2: and Camden went missing, Rodriguez was suffering from a number
Speaker 2: of financial problems, as he owed over thirty two thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in back taxes on the apartment building, and his
Speaker 2: locksmith's shop seemed to be the only thing which was
Speaker 2: keeping the building afloat. While the investigation into Rodriguez's financial
Speaker 2: history turned up a ton of a legal activity, because
Speaker 2: in January of nineteen ninety nine, he was arrested on
Speaker 2: state and federal charges for such crimes as larceny, tax fraud,
Speaker 2: and credit card fraud. One of his scams involved using
Speaker 2: the social security number and birth date of a deceased
Speaker 2: man named Alan Rodriguez, who was of no relation to him,
Speaker 2: in order to open up credit card accounts and purchased
Speaker 2: a number of items which he never paid for. Rodriguez
Speaker 2: had also spent years laundering around one point three million
Speaker 2: dollars in income from his locksmith's shop and side security
Speaker 2: business in in order to avoid paying taxes on them.
Speaker 3: He seems incredibly bold that he I mean, he owns
Speaker 3: acres of land where he lives, he has this apartment complex,
Speaker 3: he has the locksmith's shop that he's running, and then
Speaker 3: he's also doing all of these these financial fraud crimes.
Speaker 3: And so for me, when I start to think about
Speaker 3: the idea that Rodriguez is that bold and that aggressive
Speaker 3: in the way that he operates his businesses, his personal finances,
Speaker 3: and he doesn't think that he'll get caught, or that
Speaker 3: he operates like he's above any kind of punishment or
Speaker 3: even being found out. So then to say, does he
Speaker 3: carry that into violent crimes as well? It's very possible
Speaker 3: he operates like he's above the law, that he's almost
Speaker 3: a god complex where I can take this man's identity,
Speaker 3: I can charge things I know I can't pay for.
Speaker 3: I will have the best of what I want, and
Speaker 3: I will kind of live life the way I want,
Speaker 3: even if that's with the legal activity. And so how
Speaker 3: much of a jump is it to say, hey, there's
Speaker 3: a significant financial benefit while I'm already in financial trouble
Speaker 3: to making sure that I could get three thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a month instead of three hundred dollars a month. Is
Speaker 3: it crazy to think he could take those two out? No,
Speaker 3: so again, Rodriguez has gone himself into incredibly hot water
Speaker 3: by just being erratic and thinking that he can do
Speaker 3: whatever he wants and avoid any kind of consequence.
Speaker 1: It can be interpreted in a number of different ways,
Speaker 1: because obviously, when you see all the crimes he's committed,
Speaker 1: it's easy to believe he's capable of murder. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, if he had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: Michael and Camden's disappearance, this could also provide a potential
Speaker 1: alternate explanation for why he decided to run away when
Speaker 1: the police were starting to question him, because maybe he thought, Ooh,
Speaker 1: I've done all this other illegal stuff, and if I
Speaker 1: start being investigated, they're going to discover it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into a lot of trouble. And I guess
Speaker 1: that is technically true, because if he had not become
Speaker 1: a person of interest in this case, they probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: never have uncovered all this other illegal stuff he was doing,
Speaker 1: and he never would have been arrested. So I guess
Speaker 1: it depends on how you interpreted Was he running away
Speaker 1: because he had committed a double murder? Or was he
Speaker 1: running away because he was trying to hide all this
Speaker 1: other illegal stuff that he've been doing so. Following Rodriguez's arrest,
Speaker 1: the police finally decided to perform a search of his
Speaker 1: house and property in Orange County, but found nothing, and
Speaker 1: Rodriguez's wife would subsequently divorce him and sell their house.
Speaker 1: Rodriguez decided to sell his apartment building, and the new
Speaker 1: owners finally gave permission for police to search it. They
Speaker 1: used kida or sniffing dogs and tore up the flooring
Speaker 1: in Rodriguez's locksmithshop, or were unable to find any evidence
Speaker 1: which shed light on what happened to Michael and Camden.
Speaker 1: Following the building's acquisition, the new owner served Laurie Sylvia
Speaker 1: with an eviction notice for her daughter's loft. Even though
Speaker 1: Laurie attempted to fight this in court, the ruling was
Speaker 1: that since Camden and Michael were presumed dead, they were
Speaker 1: no longer protected by rent stabilization, so their lof could
Speaker 1: be rented out to a new tenant at the current
Speaker 1: market rate. In October of nineteen ninety nine, Rodriguez pled
Speaker 1: guilty to tax and credit card fraud, and as part
Speaker 1: of a plea agreement, he would receive a prison sentence
Speaker 1: of two to six years. Less than two years later,
Speaker 1: Rodriguez managed to attain parole and he was scheduled to
Speaker 1: be a release from prison on August the thirtieth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. But this decision was met with backlash
Speaker 1: from law enforcement officials and the families of Michael and Camden,
Speaker 1: as their disappearances were not mentioned at all during Rodriguez's
Speaker 1: parole hearing. In response, the New York State Parole Board
Speaker 1: decided to reinterview Rodriguez asked him about a cash of
Speaker 1: licensed guns he owned. One of the conditions of his
Speaker 1: early release would be for him to turn in these guns,
Speaker 1: but Rodriguez claimed he could not account for them, and
Speaker 1: the Parole Board described him as being quote unquote evasive
Speaker 1: and intentionally deceitful at his answers, as he even invoked
Speaker 1: his Fifth Amendment privilege at one point and declined to
Speaker 1: answer any questions to avoid self and crime. Nation This
Speaker 1: prompted the board to reverse their decision about Rodriguez's early parole,
Speaker 1: and he would be forced to serve out his full
Speaker 1: sentence before he was finally released in August of two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. Rodriguez subsequently moved to East Harlem, and
Speaker 1: as far as we can tell, he is still alive
Speaker 1: today at the age of eighty four. Rodriguez has continued
Speaker 1: to deny any involvement in the disappearances of Michael Sullivan
Speaker 1: and Canden Sylvia, but after twenty eight years, they both
Speaker 1: continue to remain missing persons. So I guess you could
Speaker 1: say the path went chili.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's fascinating. When the parole board's talking to him,
Speaker 3: it's again this man who's sitting there like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I don't have to tell these people what they're asking.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I'm going to get parole. He just
Speaker 3: kind of operates above what's normal. Right that I could
Speaker 3: be transparent. I could give these guns to them. You
Speaker 3: can't account for them. They're your licensed guns, so it's
Speaker 3: not even like their illegal guns. And he could say, oh,
Speaker 3: I never had that or right, they're license to him,
Speaker 3: and so why not just turn those over? And he
Speaker 3: probably would have walked home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the only case I've seen where someone
Speaker 1: is invoked their Fifth Amendment while speaking in front of
Speaker 1: a parole board. Like people you don't usually do that
Speaker 1: unless they're speaking with the police or they're on trial
Speaker 1: on the witness stand. And he's got an opportunity here
Speaker 1: to be released from prison, and he pretty much decides
Speaker 1: to blow that by pleading the fifth which gives me
Speaker 1: the impression that he really didn't want anyone looking into
Speaker 1: these guns, and that makes you start thinking, hmm, could
Speaker 1: these have been murder weapons? So I think that about
Speaker 1: brings an end to Part one. Join us next week
Speaker 1: as we present part two of our series about the
Speaker 1: disappearances of Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia Robin, do you.
Speaker 2: Want to tell us a little bit about the Trail
Speaker 2: Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
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Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jeweles and n Ashy patreons. So there's early
Speaker 4: ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got
Speaker 4: our Path Went Chili minis, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 4: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
Speaker 4: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 4: so we hope you'll check out those patreons will link
Speaker 4: them in the show notes.
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening and
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Speaker 1: You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So
Speaker 1: until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
Speaker 1: trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 2: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy