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podcast free all lowercase shopify.com podcast free shopify.com podcast [Music] [Music]
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free [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:01:47
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is my friend and yours and together we say to you if you change
00:01:54
well we will love you anyway here is the captain if I can change you can change everyone can change it's good to be seen
00:02:04
and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week we are sipping on some
00:02:15
red bird ale from the good Folks at Portsmith Brewing Company in Portsmith Ohio red bird is a classic steam ale
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brewed with roasted caramel mols that are perfectly paired with three different domestic hops red bird ale is
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full flavored and has a beautiful color so show it off and pour it into your favorite glass garage grade three and A4
00:02:39
bottle caps out of five and let's give some thanks and praise to our friends for helping us fill up the fridge this
00:02:45
week first up a shout out to Carolyn our friend and the midday show host on 92.5
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The River Boston's independent radio cheers to you Carolyn and a big we like your jib go goes out to Tim Stratton and
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Timothy Stratton Jr and last but certainly not least Captain we have Heather from Draper Utah everyone we
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just mentioned they went to our website truecrime garage.com clicked on the Pint
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class and that helped us out with this week's beer fund and filled up our old garage fridge and for that we thank you
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yeah BW R and beerun follow us on Facebook Instagram or Twitter especially at Twitter @ True Crime
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garage.com and Colonel that is enough of the business all right everybody gather
00:03:35
around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] this week we have a strange missing
00:04:10
person's case on tap for you in the garage strange may not be the best description as I think most would agree
00:04:19
that most if not all missing persons cases would fall into the strange category but this one is a layered with
00:04:29
plausible theories some have told me that this is the story of the ghost by the water but how did that ghost come to
00:04:40
be some say the ghost is the ghost of a man who went missing years ago on a hot July night back in
00:04:51
1996 Rob Mooney left his home and jumped into his cherry red Firebird he pulled out out of his
00:04:59
driveway and drove down the road nothing was particularly out of the ordinary about that at
00:05:07
all except he did not come home later friends and family decided the best thing to do was to notify the
00:05:18
police and then it became official Rob was missing and police and others were looking what they would find is his
00:05:29
cherry red Firebird parked all alone at a nearby body of water Hoover also known as
00:05:38
Hoover Reservoir his car was parked near the dam there were no obvious signs of a
00:05:45
struggle and at his house police found the same but Rob was gone the funloving 29-year-old seemingly
00:05:55
had vanished Into Thin Air in some cases some might say vanished Without a Trace but remember the
00:06:05
layers when one starts to peel back the layers one will quickly find traces of Rob some have even said that the ghost
00:06:15
by the water is a trace of Rob Rob went missing in the summer of 96 in June of 1997 several teenagers all recent high
00:06:27
school graduates were over by Hoover Reservoir late at night drinking beers and passing a joint celebrating their
00:06:36
graduation and the start of what would possibly be the best summer of their lives yet it was past midnight and it
00:06:44
was starting to get chilly when one of the 18-year-old boys spotted what he thought was a spirit walking or floating
00:06:52
just near the shoreline yards off in the distance some of the boys agreed that they had seen something that they
00:07:01
could not explain at least one of the boys thought that maybe it was just the joint and the
00:07:07
beers and their minds were playing tricks on them in the end not all could agree if they had seen something or not
00:07:16
and the ones that believed that they had in fact seen something were not quite sure what they had seen but a few of the
00:07:24
boys who would later swear that they did in fact see something out of the ordinary remembered the man who went
00:07:31
missing the year before they remembered that the missing man's vehicle was found
00:07:36
not terribly far from their party spot on that late summer night and so it was like that Rob Mooney the funloving
00:07:45
29-year-old with a flashy fast car became something of folklore an urban legend about a ghost and a man who went
00:07:55
missing from a safe middle class suburb late once summer night this is the case of Rob Mooney and
00:08:04
this is true crime [Music] garage Robert Steven Mooney was born April 5th 1967 in Nelsonville Ohio that's in
00:08:37
Southeast Ohio the Mooney family was a family of five Mom Dad Rob's older brother and his sister at some point
00:08:47
during Rob's childhood the Mooney family moved from Nelsonville Ohio up north to
00:08:53
Westerville Ohio Westerville was and remains a nice and safe suburb of the capital city of Columbus Ohio Rob his
00:09:03
brother and several of Rob's buddies growing up were way into Motocross not just as Weekend Warriors but Rob his
00:09:13
brother and some of their friends raced dirt bikes in competitions and possess the ability to work on the bikes
00:09:20
themselves in fact Rob would go on to take several more technical classes in high school all related to the
00:09:28
automotive field Rob fell for a girl at a young age her name was Angela the two were close
00:09:37
their families in fact were close Rob's mother and Angela's mother go way back and After High School the two got
00:09:45
married Rob and Angela got married Rob went to work for a construction company he was a big machine heavy equipment
00:09:54
operator for a successful Local Company at some point the two moved into a nice house that they rented the house was
00:10:02
over 12200 Square ft and was not just in the quiet part of Westerville but it was
00:10:09
over by the water so a very desirable location the address was 1279 Central College Road now as we said
00:10:20
Captain Rob was an equipment operator this is for the Smith excavating company operating off of scota Darby Road Rob
00:10:29
had worked for them for nine years and he was known to be a hard worker he was extremely reliable and rarely missed
00:10:38
work that fact Captain will be one of several reasons that the alarm will be raised quickly later when he goes
00:10:46
missing so Rob to me seems like a pretty simple guy but interesting guy he has has he does have hobbies he has a Need
00:10:54
for Speed uh but he just seems to be a guy that you know get got married and he's a hard worker and he's building a
00:11:02
life for himself yeah and that's one thing that jumped off the page to me here too Captain I made a note that Rob
00:11:07
was 29 when he goes missing but he was working for the same company for nine years so that's a very good work history
00:11:16
for his age kind of old school now a few things of importance take place the year
00:11:22
before Rob disappears so he goes missing in 1996 so let's go back to 1995 real quick
00:11:30
so one of those things that I believe to be important is Rob buys a brand new cherry red
00:11:36
Firebird Two at some point in 1995 that Year Rob and his wife Angela split up now there are a couple of different
00:11:47
reasons or stories that that maybe why or the way that the two split up I asked a few people why the two decided to call
00:11:58
it quits and the thing is people closest to him and her did not seem to have any
00:12:05
real hardcore proof or understanding as of why the two split up growing in different directions right so usually
00:12:13
what we see is when when you have a messy split people were pretty well aware or there's all kinds of reasons
00:12:21
why a couple broke up but the way that I think that this thing worked out is that
00:12:29
I was told that the two of them that that for reasons just pretty much between the two of them that it just
00:12:36
didn't work out the best I could sort out Captain is that it was pretty a pretty clean mutual and amicable
00:12:43
separation right one of Rob's closest friends believes that the two split because Rob even at the age of 29 was
00:12:51
still very much living like a 21 or 22y old guy a responsible 21 22y old guy but not like a dude that is going to be
00:13:02
turning 30 right right so maybe maybe a certain clock is ticking for Angela that
00:13:08
wasn't ticking for Rob and the two decided to not continue to spend their lives together everything I could find
00:13:18
everybody I spoke to all had the same account of Rob the same report of Rob he is a guy that works hard he's living for
00:13:27
the weekend and and his weekends are full of hanging out with his buddies who are a little rough around the edges by
00:13:34
most reports Captain Rob is a happy go-lucky hardworking work hard Party hard kind of
00:13:41
guy but if you're into the hobby of cars whether it's race cars or just just regular cars that is a hobby that you
00:13:49
could spend a lot of time on the weekends so that could be something where it's like if you're working really
00:13:55
hard on the weekdays and spending your whole time on your hobby that might get in the way of having a healthy
00:14:01
relationship now another thing of importance in regards to 1995 is Angela Rob's wife not only do they split up but
00:14:10
she moves out of the house that they were renting together Rob decides to stay at the house and as we said it was
00:14:19
a nice house in a good location so affordable rent no reason to move out he decides to stay and a friend of his who
00:14:28
I believe is 2 years older maybe a couple years older than robs moves in with Rob so Rob's roommate his name is
00:14:39
Ron we do need to point out though that when Rob goes missing it is my understanding that no one has officially
00:14:48
filed for divorce yet so a divorce was going to happen but Rob was busy and Angela was busy and by all accounts they
00:14:56
got along so it sounds like there was no hurry on anyone's behalf all right so do we think we're
00:15:04
all squared away on the life and events leading up to our time in question for Rob Mo Captain yeah I think I got a
00:15:11
pretty good grasp of who rob is and who his friends are and so let's get to the events of July
00:15:20
1996 this is the month that Rob goes missing so let's go through the newspaper articles because this will set
00:15:27
it up nicely for us to dive into most of these articles will be from the big local paper here that is the Columbus
00:15:36
Dispatch this first one is from Sunday July 21st so this is to be clear 5 days after Rob was last seen and 3 days after
00:15:48
he is reported missing to police the headline is police have car few other Clues missing Westerville man and the
00:15:58
article arle reads Westerville police have few clues in The Disappearance of a 29-year-old man who was last seen
00:16:05
Tuesday at his home Rob Mooney of 1279 Central College Road was reported missing Thursday after his roommate and
00:16:14
friends said they hadn't seen him and did not know where he was this is according to Lieutenant Don
00:16:21
Richardson the night the report was filed police found Mo's car less than a mile from from his home near a
00:16:29
concession stand at Hoover Dam just off Sunberry Road this is according to police a park ranger at the dam listed
00:16:39
in a log book that the car had been parked there since Tuesday police said quote it's a situation where there's not
00:16:48
a lot to go on but it's out of the ordinary because no one seems to be able to give us any information about where
00:16:56
he could have gone end quote so you're saying this is a park and there was a concession stand at
00:17:03
the park and his car has been parked there for now several days that's correct and that's according to police
00:17:12
now Mo's wife Angela reported him missing the car was found at the dam this is again is a 1995 Firebird it was
00:17:20
registered in her name so that's how they know to contact her when the vehicle is found and they're asking
00:17:26
anyone with information to call all Westerville police detectives so let's go exploring through the information
00:17:34
here the first things that I was interested in in this case was who and when was Rob reported missing by and I
00:17:45
wanted to know about the car situation right so who and when was Rob reported missing well we know that from the
00:17:53
article Rob was reported missing on Thursday this article says Thursday night but I have other reports captain
00:18:01
that say that it that it was Thursday daytime and it's not super important but I'm going to go with the daytime reports
00:18:08
as that is what is most stated the most in this case in fact this is the only report that says the missing report came
00:18:17
in at night now more so Captain I was interested in who reported Rob missing because we have a smattering of persons
00:18:27
who one would expect could report him missing we've got Rob's wife while separated that seems still seems
00:18:36
appropriate we have Rob's parents they live in town and by all reports Rob was close with his parents especially close
00:18:43
with his mother in fact many of Rob's friends knew Rob's family quite well and probably the person that makes the most
00:18:50
sense to report him missing other than his work would be Rob has a roommate correct so I was a little confused by
00:18:58
this because other reports state that Rob's mother was the one to file the missing person's report and as you said
00:19:06
we got the roommate that would make the most sense but remember his friends are close with his family his parents right
00:19:15
and so I was able to confirm with the detective that Rob's wife his mother and roommate pretty much worked in concert
00:19:24
to report him missing so they are all check with each other have you seen Rob where
00:19:30
is Rob and then based off of the fact that none of the three had seen nor heard from Rob that it's time to call
00:19:38
the police so Rob is reported missing and his car the red 1995 Pontiac Firebird is reported missing as well now
00:19:48
that's a good segue here Captain because I was fascinated by this car situation as I think anyone should be whether
00:19:56
we're talking about a missing person's case or a homicide case we want to know how the car got to where it was found
00:20:05
and by who who got it to where the car was found this is all going to be incredibly important to our case so what
00:20:14
do we learn here captain from the article the car was found by police this is a great start to our investigation
00:20:22
and the topper is the park ranger in their log and notes they recorded that the vehicle had been
00:20:31
there since at least just after midnight or so on the 17th this is key too we have the car being found by police
00:20:41
relatively quickly we know that they speak to the park ranger and they can confirm that
00:20:47
this vehicle appears they first see it in the lot shortly after Rob is last scene and what I like about this
00:20:57
information here Captain is that it's not some random person that found the vehicle and maybe moved it or said what
00:21:06
state that they found the vehicle in this is law enforcement to be very clear here the thing that makes it even better
00:21:12
is the law enforcement agency that's investigating him being missing is the same agency that finds the car this
00:21:21
makes it very clean so just to put this picture in more of a clear light right so I'm trying to follow what you're
00:21:28
stating so Rob is seen at work comes home leaves home seen by neighbors leaving home later his car is going to
00:21:39
be seen at this park and noted by Park Rangers we have this car it's it's parked here and this is just hours after
00:21:50
Rob was seen by his neighbors leaving his house that's correct so I'm kind of working backwards here from the time
00:21:57
that he's reported missing but and based off of the the article itself now I spoke
00:22:05
to a handful of people that are very close to this case and I was hoping to talk to a few more but have not heard
00:22:11
back from them yet but from what I could find all the people I did talk to captain in my batch of
00:22:18
questions I started off by saying I would like to know more about Rob's Car how was it found and by who so we
00:22:26
already know and we've already answered that question the other questions I had were was the car locked were the keys in
00:22:33
it was the car neatly parked neatly in a parking spot was there any damage or concerns like a dead battery or flat
00:22:41
tire or flat tires right what we learn here and reminder one of the very cool things I can't emphasize this enough
00:22:49
that we have here in this case that we rarely have in other cases is that police found the vehicle so it's not
00:22:56
altered or moved or anything anything by someone else who we just have to take their word for it it's Westerville
00:23:03
police to the investigating agency that finds the vehicle and here's the information about the the vehicle so the
00:23:10
vehicle was found parked neatly in a parking spot there was no damage or concerns to the vehicle there was the
00:23:18
the battery was fine the tires were fine the vehicle was operable right and it was not locked and the key were found in
00:23:29
the vehicle do we have any sign of struggle though no no signs of struggle at the vehicle and no signs of struggle
00:23:36
at Rob's home either and the thing that that makes this even more interesting to me Captain
00:23:45
is that you know these Parks typically close it at dusk you know the they may have a time but most of them close at
00:23:55
dusk yeah and it's it's actually illegal to be there and you can be arrested for
00:23:59
that and I don't have an exact time but I think later we'll be able to narrow it
00:24:04
down even more we cannot all of these years later say what time that vehicle arrived to that
00:24:13
parking lot what we can say is when the park ranger first noted it in their log which would be sometime after midnight
00:24:22
on Wednesday so Tuesday he's last seen Wednesday park range note that his vehicle is
00:24:30
found sitting parked in their in their parking lot Thursday he's reported missing and around that same time in a
00:24:39
very short period of time police find his vehicle now is it happen stance that they find his vehicle very quickly it
00:24:48
could be but the other thing we need to point out is we talked about this in the
00:24:53
trailer a little bit this is a cherry red 1995 Pontiac Firebird yeah it will stick out like a sore thumb yeah and and
00:25:01
Rob goes missing in 1996 this is a new car yeah this is a a a a very new car this is a a head turner and the parking
00:25:12
lot for if anybody's ever been to Hoover Reservoir there's multiple parking lots
00:25:17
because there are several boat launches there's also the dam there there's Trails there it's five square miles of
00:25:26
water there's multiple parking lots most of them off of Sunberry Road which is the
00:25:34
road that anyone would take west of Rob's house to get to his house that's the only road that leads to
00:25:43
the road that he lives on if you are west of his home now I'm a pretty good athlete I'm not a
00:25:52
super athlete Captain as you know but I could stand on Sunberry Road and punt a football and it land on the property
00:25:59
where Rob's house once stood two out of three times or one out of 10 nine out of
00:26:06
10 baby nine out of 10 so his home was not terribly far from Sunberry and Central College
00:26:14
Road now this parking lot where his car was found is ex like I say extremely visible
00:26:24
from Sunberry Road it's you can't miss it you I mean you turn off of Sunberry Road and within 8 yards you are in the
00:26:33
parking lot and it's not a huge parking lot so what I'm getting at Captain is it
00:26:39
could be happen stance that they found his car that same day in a relatively short period of time it could also be
00:26:45
they were either traveling to or from Rob's house after the missing person's report was placed and because that
00:26:52
parking lot is so close to his house on the way there from Westerville police department they likely spotted his car
00:27:02
just because they know to be looking for his car and it's right there I mean it's
00:27:07
the reports will say the newspaper reports will say that the vehicle was less than a mile from his home I drove
00:27:13
from his lot to where the car was found it's at most3 miles from his home probably under3 miles I mean so
00:27:25
many things that are strange again this is a a couple minute walk from its house
00:27:29
this park is but you leave your new car there no damage no sign of a struggle and the keys are in the
00:27:38
car just doesn't make a lot of [Music] [Music] sense this show is sponsored by better
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all lowercase shopify.com podcast free shopify.com podcast free [Music] all right we are
00:29:40
back cheers Captain cheers here's the next article that we have this one's titled year later family lives for
00:29:49
missing man's return this is by Adrien McGee dispatch reporter from July 16th 1997 this article reads although it's
00:29:59
been a year since her son disappeared Jackie zepper of Westerville hasn't given up hope that he'll someday walk
00:30:07
through her door quote it's a terrible thing to not even know if somebody is dead or alive she said Westerville
00:30:16
police have investigated every possible lead into The Disappearance of Rob Mooney and have nothing new to go on
00:30:22
said Detective Mike Shaheen Mooney of 1279 Central College Road was in the process of divorcing his wife Angie when
00:30:31
he disappeared that's what the article said again everybody I spoke to is yes they were in the process of this
00:30:39
but nobody was really submitting paperwork or really doing anything it was something that they were all going
00:30:46
to get to eventually right this article reminds us that his car was found at Hoover Dam well and also there could
00:30:53
have been some money involved because if I don't know if they own this house together but a lot of times the judges
00:30:59
they were renting okay so maybe they didn't have a lot to split up but if they were going to get lawyers or if
00:31:06
there's paperwork there still might have been some fees and they might have just
00:31:09
been like hey we we don't hate each other no rush neither one of us are in r in a rush to get remarried so we'll take
00:31:18
our time on this yeah and I can't emphasize enough that everybody I spoke to basically had the same suspicions as
00:31:24
to why they split up that Rob again he he partied pretty hard on the weekends and that maybe he wasn't maturing or
00:31:32
growing up at the same Pace that Angela was and at some point when you're approaching 30 both of them are 29 years
00:31:39
old at some point if somebody wants to have a family you got to start doing that and it sounds like Rob was happy to
00:31:46
be married happy to be in a relationship but he he wanted to be not tied down or held down on the
00:31:55
weekends and that she was moving on and he was moving on and and nobody neither of them had any problem with that and in
00:32:04
fact this is a weird situation too Captain because these aren't two people that fell in love in their 20s and got
00:32:10
married they knew each other since they were kids so there there is a strong friendship there as well yeah and I
00:32:15
won't go through the rest of this article because it does not add a whole lot of evidence or or even anything that
00:32:23
we can chew on as far as speculation goes as to what happened to Rob but the rest of this article is rather sad
00:32:30
because what it's talking about is that they are still optimistic Rob's family that he's that that maybe he's suffering
00:32:38
from Amnesia or something weird happened and that he's just going to walk through
00:32:42
the door again one day uh and that's what they're all hoping and praying for so just kind of a an article that that
00:32:51
really circles around the family's heartbreak and sadness the following article is from the year the next year
00:33:00
1998 so now we got two years he's missing and one thing we learned in this article which is extremely tragic you
00:33:11
know we always talk about this Captain how there's these tiny little bits and Nuggets of information in these cases
00:33:18
that make them all the more sad and so Rob's mother's birthday is is approximately the same date that he went
00:33:29
missing so either the date that he was last seen or the date that he was officially reported as missing right and
00:33:36
so she's saying in this article two years later we we do not celebrate my birthday anymore there's nothing to be
00:33:43
happy about this time of year or on this day my my birthday get together birthday dinner
00:33:50
with my family forever cancelled because it's it's just nothing but heartache for
00:33:57
them well that's a good question though because again the day he goes missing Rob goes to work he comes home the
00:34:03
neighbors see him leave where is he heading to is he going to uh a family dinner for his mom's birthday that
00:34:11
that's interesting that you say that so I can fill in the blanks a little bit as
00:34:15
to what his day was as you said Captain he went to work on that Tuesday it's a normal Tuesday
00:34:21
right he is spotted after work so he's on his way home and he stopped off at a Kroger store which is for those that
00:34:30
don't live in the area Kroger is a long-standing franchise grocery store usually they're bigger
00:34:38
stores he's seen by a friend that he went to high school with she sees him actually sees him in line and we've all
00:34:46
kind of experienced this right she sees him and goes hey Rob how you doing haven't seen you in a while and it's the
00:34:52
old chit chatty stuff he goes I'm just trying to stay out of trouble how you doing
00:34:57
and she said I like to go mind your own business I don't know you lady um but she says that he he seemed typical Rob
00:35:07
very normal looked like he had just had a a a long day at work right he's standing in line and he's got just a
00:35:15
small amount of groceries with him she actually notices that he has some Stakes well this this was one of the
00:35:24
things of the story that I found to be rather strange the reports with Rob the police have kept a
00:35:33
lot of stuff close to the vest now the thing here is some of this information will trickle out over the years and some
00:35:41
of it is being chosen by police to be released to the public as the years go on and one of the things that we learn
00:35:49
after he's been missing for a couple years is Not only was he seen leaving his home but we get a little more
00:35:57
information about that so he's seen leaving his home by his next door neighbors and they tell police like he
00:36:06
rob would come and go that we didn't think anything was out of the ordinary he didn't leave in a hurry he we didn't
00:36:13
see anybody with him there was nothing strange about him walking out hopping in his car and backing out of the driveway
00:36:20
and and and driving off now what is strange to police and later to Rob's roommate so Rob's
00:36:29
roommate Ron was at work that night old Ron and Rob Ron and Rob it gets difficult to tell the story those are
00:36:37
the people that that that happens to me like you know if I have a boss it's it's
00:36:43
a Dawn and Rod but because they're so close you're like is it Ron or rod and so for years you work with these people
00:36:51
and go is it Ron or Rod which one is it so Ron is at work work that night and this is confirmed by his employer by
00:37:00
time cards and confirmed to me by the current detective on the case his roommate Ron is not somebody
00:37:10
that the detectives are concerned with now what is curious here though Captain is we would later learn that not
00:37:20
only did Rob our missing person leave his home that night he left a half eaten steak
00:37:28
dinner on the kitchen table that night and we I thought the steak dinner thing was a little strange because I cannot
00:37:40
for the life of me think of one time that I and I look everybody's different not everything has
00:37:48
to be relative to my world but I cannot think of one time that I ever cooked a steak by
00:37:55
myself and so when I first heard that oh there's a half eaten steak dinner on the
00:37:59
table I I kept thinking there had to have been somebody else at that house with him that
00:38:05
night but well no cuz I I've cooked steak by myself a lot exactly not everything has to be relative to my
00:38:12
world I did ask a few people the same thing and they agreed with me they couldn't think of a time that they ate a
00:38:18
steak dinner by themselves well that's cuz they're not living life right but a couple questions here though
00:38:24
one is the is the new car that the car the car that found is that the only car that he has no so he also has a like a
00:38:33
small older work truck right and I can't say what he was driving that day all I can say is that
00:38:41
the neighbors saw him getting the way that it's described to me is the two neighbor ladies who live on the same
00:38:49
side of the street as Rob saw him get into his vehicle his his Pontiac Firebird back out of the drive
00:38:57
driveway and he heads East on Central College Road and I think this is of significant importance because to get to
00:39:07
the parking lot we said how close it was to his home3 miles or less from Rob's home to the parking lot where his car
00:39:15
was found you would go West on Central College to get to that parking lot mhm so he appears to be heading not appears
00:39:25
to be he is heading in in the opposite direction of where his vehicle would later be
00:39:31
found another very tricky thing here Captain is the steak dinner business half eaten
00:39:40
steak dinner so that like would suggest to me that he left abruptly he left unexpectedly right and so what would
00:39:52
cause him to leave unexpectedly well you could think think maybe he maybe somebody had it out for him and showed
00:39:59
up to the house and forced him to leave but again we have the neighbors saying they see him by
00:40:05
himself so we know the roommate is at work this is either old time got away from me and I had somewhere that I had a
00:40:14
a prior engagement or meeting that I arranged and oh I got to leave all of a sudden or he got a phone
00:40:22
call a phone call that inspired him to get up and leave his meal and leave the house now let's take this a few steps
00:40:32
further let's do that what we would later learn and this is something that that I don't believe
00:40:41
has been publicly stated but I've had many people tell me this is that they found a glass of Kool-Aid in the
00:40:52
freezer so picture this it's a hot July day he's sitting at the kitchen table he's got his drink he's got his
00:41:02
meal he's having dinner after working all day something causes him to get up mid
00:41:10
meal and leave but before leaving he gets up and he puts the Kool-Aid in the freezer to me that tells me that he
00:41:25
thought that wherever he was going he would not be there very long that he would be returning to
00:41:31
finish his meal get his drink out of the freezer and go about his night and I know we can speculate on every little
00:41:40
tiny thing but you could also go with the idea that obviously we both agree that this
00:41:47
unfinished stake is more of a sign of some kind of interruption into the dinner and is it possible that somebody
00:41:55
calls him he answers the phone and then as he's putting stuff away he's putting it back away in the wrong spot because
00:42:02
he's just trying to get out of there no I I think that he he is setting things up so he can return to his meal minutes
00:42:11
later right right it's a hot summer day I don't know if if they got air conditioning I don't know if the windows
00:42:17
are open or what's going on at the house right hot summer day you leave the hot meal on the table you put your cold
00:42:23
drink in the freezer so it's cold when you get back and he leaves the house takes obviously
00:42:30
takes his car keys because we know he drove the car his wallet is found at the home another thing that would suggest
00:42:38
that he he does not intend to be gone long does not need his wallet wherever he's going and believes that he would be
00:42:45
returning soon enough to sit back down and relax and finish his dinner and and go about his
00:42:52
night and we're assuming that law enforcement has his call log to his house that
00:42:59
night yes 100% I would I would make that assumption um I don't know the details of that call log I don't know if if a
00:43:09
call was received that night that caused him to leave I don't know that they know the
00:43:14
number I mean we've talked about this in in in the past that many times calls were not being logged or information
00:43:23
being kept unless there was reason to bill for that call um that they just simply did not keep that
00:43:31
information and so what we have here Captain is trying to zero in on why this 29y old man left his
00:43:44
home that evening and the thing here that we need to point out is that police would later say it's on the 2-year
00:43:55
annivers AR of when Rob goes missing that we learn some more information so police Westerville police are basically
00:44:03
saying in a news article that they've dismissed suicide and running away and that they have a large number
00:44:12
of leads that simply came to a dead end they police are saying in this article we have reason to believe Foul
00:44:25
Play is why this man is missing and in fact in this article they go on to say that nobody just drops off
00:44:35
the face of the Earth Westerville police say they have a suspect but quote we have absolutely
00:44:43
zero evidence of any criminal acts at this point they go on to reiterate some of
00:44:50
the things we've already covered in this article here Captain Mooney had worked for 9 years operating heavy equipment at
00:44:56
Smith and Associates Excavating he he had a 5-year marriage to his childhood friend from Nelsonville Ohio which led
00:45:06
to a separation several months before his disappearance his 1995 Pontiac Firebird
00:45:13
was last seen by a neighbor leaving Mo's home in Westerville at 9:30 p.m. July 16th
00:45:21
1996 2 Days Later the vehicle was found unoccupied in the lot near Hoover Dam and he's reported
00:45:29
missing they also State here Hoover Reservoir was dragged and searched by Columbus Police divers and nothing was
00:45:38
found his mother in this article says there is only one person that I know of that would have any animosity toward Rob
00:45:48
but without any proof I can't actually point a finger police agree with Rob's mom
00:45:56
saying quote I think very likely he knows that he's the suspect detective Richardson said what police need he
00:46:06
added is someone to come forward with more information read the listeners that quote you were shown me from Rob's
00:46:12
mother yeah this one is a is a a heartbreaker here quote the thing that's so hard is not to know what's happened
00:46:21
to our son this is my son and I love him and want him back end quote and the detective in the article goes on to say
00:46:31
that had police learned sooner of the victim's disappearance the outcome might be different in this case quote we
00:46:38
immediately started out in a hole okay so some good stuff to explore here in this article right police say quote I
00:46:47
think very likely he knows that he's the suspect well this is very telling not only do we have a suspect but two key
00:46:55
words used in the statement he and the so we know that the the police's suspect is a
00:47:05
male and the word the' implies that he is the only suspect that he is the prime suspect and why would they have a
00:47:17
suspect when you also have police at this juncture and again they're they're keeping a lot of stuff close to the vest
00:47:24
the the stake dinner doesn't come out for a couple years the Kool-Aid in the freezer placed there by Rob before he
00:47:31
leaves the house doesn't ever come out as far as I've been told that's all information that that was gathered from
00:47:38
people that were looking for Rob that were close to Rob stuff that was discussed by police with
00:47:46
them and so we we know that when people go missing or let's say somebody's murder
00:47:54
you have that question question that's everybody goes well such a Cheesy question they but they have to ask it
00:48:00
it's the the age-old question of police and detectives asking everybody in Rob's
00:48:06
Social Circle and his family and friends and people that he works with do you know anyone who would want to hurt
00:48:14
Rob of course they ask that question they have to and guess what in this situation the same name kept coming up
00:48:23
over and over again again and again the same name do you know anybody that want to hurt
00:48:29
Rob and police are constantly told by many people the same name again and again and again we've been looking into
00:48:38
cases for a long time now and there's normally some similarities but that there's some different stuff here that
00:48:48
what makes this one so fasinating one his car is found relatively close to his house ke are in the car very strange but
00:48:58
normally when you have a missing person you get you get a lot of is there anybody that would want to hurt this guy
00:49:04
and you get a lot of nose this one opposite uh but then police have a pretty interesting statement in this
00:49:12
where they say they're starting the investigation in a hole Yeah I think that too is a very telling statement by
00:49:20
police right detective Richardson said had police learned sooner of the victim's disappearance the outcome could
00:49:28
have been different we immediately started out in a hole this has to mean a couple of
00:49:35
things most people don't go around killing people and I have had several detectives and you have too Captain over
00:49:44
the years have told us in several cases that that end up going cold you know what we ended up with a really good
00:49:51
suspect however we didn't know that the person had been killed for for a month or so after the murder because the body
00:49:58
was concealed or we didn't know that the person went missing because they weren't
00:50:03
reported for a couple of days those detectives have constantly told us the same things over the years had we known
00:50:11
right away that we had a suspect if we could have talked to our suspect that night or the next morning we probably
00:50:19
would have got a confession or at least got them to fumble and deliver some statements that
00:50:29
could have leads or information or evidence in those statements to us however the suspect in those cases was
00:50:39
able to collect themselves was able to put together a story more importantly was able to hide evidence and in this
00:50:49
case the biggest piece of evidence is Rob Mo's body whoever's responsible for Rob disappearing had an opportunity to
00:50:59
get rid of Rob's [Music] body join us back here in the garage same bat Time same bat Channel and until
00:51:17
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