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foreign [Music] thank you [Applause] foreign [Applause] foreign garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a guy that
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grew up wanting to be a jukebox Hero but instead he's stuck here in the garage with me he is the captain and now I'm
00:11:25
just a douche Box Hero it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
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[Music] today we are drinking Mo guava By the Fantastic people at parodice Brewing
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Company in Clearwater Florida garage grade very happy to report four and a half bottle caps out of five you know
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summer is the perfect season for beer and we really are just working our way through some beers that are perfect for
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summer and this my friends is most certainly one of them mo guava IPA by Paradise brewing and this week's beer
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was brought to us by some of our favorite True Crime garage Army and listies first up a big big thank you to
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Michelle down in Florida and I'm going to grab my MOG guavas and jump over the pond to thank Louise from London next we
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send a high five to Lindsay AKA Lulu and where else Captain but Parts Unknown and
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also in Parts Unknown we have Chelsea who says cheers to mina Chelsea obviously referencing the boys on the
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tracks episode and probably being quite sarcastic there Captain I prefer a hand hugs these days over high fives next up
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today's case takes place in Chicago so we have Silas from Chicago who bought us around for this week's show and last but
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not least a big thank you to Judith and Deshler Nebraska so thanks to everybody for filling up the fridge for this week
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announcements from Parts Unknown the mowing schedule has changed this week so instead on Wednesday it will be Thursday
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and also we had some some things with the drinking fountains I think little Timmy peed on one of the drinking
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fountains so we're cleaning that and they'll be up and running by next week well there's always something exciting
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going on at parts unknown there's always something exciting going on at truecrime
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garage.com so check out the website all right let's grab a chair and grab a beer
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let's talk some true crime this is true crime garage and this is the case of Jesse Ross
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[Music] [Music] each year hundreds of thousands of people are reported missing in the
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United States many of them are adults almost all of the cases are quickly cleared
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the person is located everything is fine they are safe and all of the prayers have been answered
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sometimes this is not the case and sometimes we are left looking the family members and the loved ones
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don't stop looking they don't stop asking where why and how this is one of those stories
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November 2006 19 year old University of Missouri Kansas City student Jesse Ross is participating in a university field
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trip along with 13 other University students and a faculty sponsor drove over 500
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miles to Chicago Illinois for a Model United Nations conference this event Drew more than one thousand
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college students from all over the country on Monday November 20th Jesse phoned his
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mother just to let her know that he was having a blast and really enjoying his time at the model un conference
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he promised to call again the next day when he and the other students and their sponsor loaded up the Vans for their
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return drive home November 20th was to be the final day of the conference and it was going to be a
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busy one Four Points Sheraton Hotel located in downtown Chicago hosted the event
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to celebrate the final day there were parties throughout the hotel and a dance for the students after the dance there
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was a mock emergency meeting called about 1am by now it's very early Tuesday morning
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November 21st around 2 30 a.m this is about 12 hours after Jesse last called his mother he
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got up from his chair and walked out of the meeting room for a 30-minute break a surveillance camera in the hotel lobby
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caught the image of the red-haired Jesse clad in a white T-shirt jeans and a green warm-up jacket walking toward the
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hotel's main doors this was the last Trace ever of 19 year old Jesse Ross the 10-minute walk back to the Sheraton
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Chicago hotel and Towers where Jesse and the group was staying was well lit heavily traveled and covered by outdoor
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security cameras none of them recorded Jesse Chicago Police have found no evidence
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that he was a victim of Foul Play there has been no activity on Jesse's credit cards or his cell phone since he
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disappeared into the Chicago night with no explanations with no evidence is it possible 19 year old Jesse Ross
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banished Into Thin Air Jesse Ross is a Caucasian man he would have turned 30 years old
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earlier this year he is 5 foot 10 inches tall and weighs approximately 140 pounds
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he has red or auburn hair color which he kept cut short Jesse has blue eyes and wore glasses he
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has freckles Jesse was last seen wearing a white T-shirt green warm-up jacket blue jeans and black tennis shoes if you
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have any information or if you have seen Jessie Ross please call the Chicago Police Department
00:17:37
this is true crime garage and this is the case of Jesse Ross [Music] Jesse Warren Ross nicknamed Opie because
00:18:00
of his as his mother says fire engine red hair like the Ron Howard character Opie from the TV show the uh Andy
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Griffin show famous Andy Griffin show yes uh Jesse was born on February 18 1987. he grew up in your typical
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household you know Mom Dad and a brother as a young dude Jesse loved to play all
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kinds of sports he was a big big Kansas City Chiefs fan a big k.u basketball fan
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in high school Jesse worked at a movie theater and I thought this was pretty cool I always wanted to work at a movie
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theater but Jesse worked with his uh Brother Andy at the movie theater as well Jesse became involved with a local band
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called Dead Giveaway he would help the band with many different things some of these things were organizing concerts
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and booking gigs for them so more of a manager type thing not a street team member yeah so you and I are used to
00:18:59
this and and you more than than I am but uh you know back in the day you'd have people that would help out your band
00:19:04
they were friends of the band you know they might they might offer to be like a crew member and help carry things and
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load Vans or pass out flyers and go to area places and pass out flyers to advertise your concerts but he was
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actually involved to the point where he was booking concerts arranging events which you and I know is not an easy
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thing to do it can be very time consuming it can be quite chaotic uh to say the least anyway he graduated high
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school in 2005 and received an academic scholarship based off of his ACT score After High School Jesse attended UMKC
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the University of Missouri Kansas City majoring in Communications with a minor in politics
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he skipped that computer course that's so famous here on our show uh you got to make sure you sign up early
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couldn't get he probably couldn't get signed up early enough to get a seat in the computer class in 2005 he went to
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Chicago uh to the mock U.N convention afterward Jesse became an intern at 95.7 The Vibe a popular Kansas City
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radio station they I love the names of these radio stations yeah the vibe does that sound
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to you like a top 40 station yeah sounds a little top 40. yeah or maybe uh it's it's geared to the urban community Vibe
00:20:31
the uh they created an on-air personality for Jesse as part of the morning show uh they called him Opie
00:20:39
Cunningham and oddly enough this is going to seem very strange because we all know about The Disappearance but
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oddly enough they did a segment called where's Opie and they would send him to different locations to do like a remote
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broadcast right and then listeners people would call in and try to guess where he was uh this was a bit of a
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regular segment on the show very strange just a short time before his disappearance he did receive a promotion
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at the radio station and he was going to become a paid employee or a paid on-air
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personality right and we're not very clear on this and I don't know if it matters much but you know there's kind
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of a different thing as far as like radio shows go I mean you can get paid hourly or you could get paid per show so
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but either way it's a really big deal for them to want you to sit in a room and pay you pretty good money to sit in
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a room and have fun and most of us not having worked in that area wouldn't know that but what what they call what the
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captain's referring to is you could get paid for like let's say we're gonna pay you 50 bucks if you're on today's show
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and then tomorrow you're not on the show so you don't get paid anything and what
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they call that is you know show money for the most part and and that can be you know they his parents and his his
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loved ones and I can't I'm not going to go against the grain here and say that they're wrong but there's they state
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that this is a dream job for for Opie or for Jesse and I and I believe that it was
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um but I mean that's what he's majoring in college but when when when we read about this case and look into this case
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I don't want anybody to get confused when they hear the loved ones stating dream job and think that that Jesse's
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making a hundred thousand dollars a year right and he has no plans of doing anything else this this is certainly a
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step in the right direction as far as where he wants his career to go and I tell you what Captain you gotta take
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your hat off to Jesse here because that's a pretty young age to achieve that accomplishment well yeah and a lot
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of people said a lot of people that work with them said he's very uh quick-witted
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and um you know that's something that that's something that you can't just train you know it seemed like he just
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had it I mean he was pretty young when he gets his position and I don't want to you know after I
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pumped everything up I don't want to piss in anybody's Cheerios here but unfortunately you know he received this
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this promotion and unfortunately the promotion was pegged to start in January of 2007.
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um well in November of 2006 is when he would take that trip once again to Chicago for this un conference while
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backing up just a little bit just so we get a good background before we go into the actual events of that evening he was
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pledging a fraternity right yeah just kind of pointing out that he did have a play side to him yeah he's not all
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working no play and just a little background as far as his personality goes according to his parents and
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brother uh Jesse was was very close with his father and his mother and brother very close with his family uh and they
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all describe him to be somebody that was a bit Fearless uh the kind of kid that would try anything that could walk into
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any room and wasn't afraid of anything or to talk talk to anybody they also pegged them as a bit of a practical
00:24:01
joker you know he liked to play little pranks on on his uh friends and and loved ones uh these were harmless pranks
00:24:08
of course but uh you know just just fun in nature and they think that that's why
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he excelled so well at his job with uh shorty and the boys you said that was the name of the radio show this morning
00:24:20
shorty and the boys Morning Show I'm guessing it comes to shorty and the boys I'm guessing that shorty is the host and
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he's surrounded by this cast of characters boys uh and you know they said that's why
00:24:33
with a z why Jesse or as his on-air personality Opie Cunningham excelled at that gig because that's kind of a bit of
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a prank in itself or a little bit of hijinks you know you're you're out hiding somewhere or you're broadcasting
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from some location other than the radio station and people have to call in and guess where you are yeah the boys so
00:24:53
easy we want to go through The Disappearance um a little more in in depth than before
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but before we start to consider the possibilities let's make sure we go through that as best we can so we can
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figure out what happened to Jesse here right so what you're saying is we're going to go through the actual events
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we're not really going to you know bring up the theories as we're bringing up these events correct but we're all we're
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going to point out some things that we find odd with the different events so this is day four of his trip and
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remember they had gone he had gone the previous year so he's not strange to the city of Chicago this trip is not strange
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to him but at this time Jesse wasn't in Chicago the year before yes it was uh Jesse at this time is a sophomore at the
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University he is among 1200 college students from around the country who attended this conference at the Sheraton
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Hotel on North Water Street in downtown Chicago he disappeared on the final day of the conference and and by the time
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the police were alerted most of the students were on their way back home now Donald Ross this is Jesse's father he
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recalls dropping off his son at school before Dawn the day before the day that he left for the conference he recalls
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Jesse talking with friends in the parking lot as he drove away and of course now he wishes he would have
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stopped for one last goodbye with his son so four days later the day their son was to return home Don Ross got a call
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from his son's Professor saying that he couldn't find Jesse now Derek Moorhead was the professor who had called Jesse's
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father he was in his first year as a political science professor at UMKC and it was his first time chaperoning the
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conference Jesse Ross was one of 14 UMKC students on the trip and Morehead recalls that
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during the drive they listened to Jesse's CDs on the way there Jesse had told his Professor that he wanted to
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deliver some of these CDs to Chicago radio stations hoping it might lead to some kind of career breakthrough
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on their last night in Chicago Moorhead said that Jesse and a friend from school
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Ralph Parker attended a dance hosted by the conference organizers and a party in
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a hotel room where alcohol was served they got called to a late night meeting at the model un's Security Council
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Parker later told Moorhead and police according to reports that Jesse had left the meeting room after 2 A.M probably
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closer to 2 30 A.M Parker confirmed that Ross had been drinking but said that he
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did not appear to be intoxicated now no hotel security footage showed Ross leaving the hotel though a security
00:27:46
camera had caught him entering the building earlier that evening other students told Moorhead that Jesse could
00:27:52
have left through a staff door that the conference goers had used but out of range of these security cameras while
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they had the surveillance of him coming into the conference or to this emergency
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meeting but they also have footage of him leaving as well there's a footage of him in that Corridor yeah not actually
00:28:12
leaving the hotel building itself but standing or moving in the direction of the exits right Moorhead said that
00:28:21
Parker told him that he had assumed that Ross had returned to the hotel remember
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we said that Ross left this meeting now Parker's a part of this meeting as well he says that Jesse gets up at around 2
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30 and leaves the meeting Assuming he's going back to their hotel room Parker shares the room with him Parker didn't
00:28:39
realize that Ross wasn't in bed until the following morning yeah I believe his claim was that there was some stuff on
00:28:47
the bed so he kind of assumed that that was Jesse and he just went to bed now at
00:28:53
First Sight Captain this seems a little strange right um because you're like how does how does
00:29:00
this guy go to Chicago with this other guy share a room hotel room with him and not notice that the guy's not in his bed
00:29:07
when he gets back at the place well I mean again it depends on if he turns on the light or not I think you're
00:29:14
exactly right because the thing here is you you got a couple different kinds of people in this world there's the there's
00:29:19
one kind of person that will share a room with somebody and no matter how late it is how dark it is outside even
00:29:27
if the person is in a dead sleep the person will open up the hotel room door turn on all the lights turn on the TV
00:29:33
use the restroom and then go to bed 10 minutes later disturbing the other person then you have other other people
00:29:40
that are very you know cat-like there and considerate of the person that they're sharing the room with and
00:29:46
they'll come in cats are not considerate of anybody well I meant cat like it as being quiet right you know we're going
00:29:51
to tiptoe around and we're going to go in and we're gonna make sure we don't wake up our friend because he's sleeping
00:29:55
he's perp you know he came back here for a reason and that was to sleep we have to get up and leave in the morning
00:30:00
tomorrow I want to make sure that you know I don't disturb him you know treat him the way I would want to be treated
00:30:06
so I don't find this to be you know crazy uh that he didn't notice that his friend was not in the bed or in the
00:30:15
hotel room that night one I wonder what his level of toxication was intoxication
00:30:20
was so or how dogged tired was he by this point by the time he came back from from this emergency meeting well a
00:30:28
couple things one um so I'm guessing that the dance was a sponsored event yes then my other question would be the were
00:30:36
the hotel parties a sponsored event as well or were they just student based parties I can't say for 100 percent
00:30:44
either way but here's my gut feeling everything that I read sounds like the dance was a planned sponsored event as
00:30:53
far as the hotel room parties that sounds to me like something that the the kids and the college kids created and
00:30:59
came up with on their own it only seems natural you get 1200 college kids from all over the country going to Chicago a
00:31:08
big big city there's going to be Hotel parties whether there's a sponsored dancer or anything at all there's 1200
00:31:14
kids but how many of these kids are 18 and 19 years old and I'm not saying that underage drinking doesn't happen but you
00:31:21
have to have somebody that you know supplies uh the booze or the liquor the thing here is Captain let's talk do
00:31:28
you want to talk about this meeting a little a little bit because at first glance when you scratch the surface here
00:31:34
you're like what are these I understand he's an adult he's 19 years old but what
00:31:41
are these kids doing having a meeting uh who who who organizes this thing where they decided that we're going to have
00:31:47
some kind of meeting at two in the morning yeah well back in the 40s and 50s and 60s maybe you'd say a night 18
00:31:53
19 year old was adult but let's not say that now I mean it's just a different time I mean this is these are still kids
00:32:01
um and they're putting them at a in a meeting so late at night and again where the conferences are where the meetings
00:32:08
are are not actually connected to their hotel room right so we gotta walk about 10 minutes and then this is Chicago
00:32:16
murder capital of the world right yeah I don't know if the world but uh certainly
00:32:22
in the it's in the conversation um so the meeting itself was as it has as it was described to me was
00:32:31
technically they say it's an immediate emergency meeting that was called this was actually a planned event this
00:32:37
was something that the the students that were asked to go this to this thing were
00:32:42
aware of it in advance um most reports will tell you that the meeting started at 2 A.M and then they
00:32:49
took a 30-minute break around 2 30 a.m I don't find that to be accurate um according to Jesse's mother the
00:32:57
meeting started around 1am which would make a little more sense you you shouldn't have a half hour into a
00:33:04
meeting need a half hour break so around 1am this this meeting that's how I run things this meeting that was 30 minutes
00:33:11
work 30 minute coffee break 30 minute work 30 minute coffee break this meeting that was planned uh they're gonna
00:33:18
they're gonna work on whatever project this immediate emergency meeting emergency meeting for a fake U.N meeting
00:33:24
for an hour and a half and then they're gonna have a half hour break and one conversation
00:33:29
yeah but it's weird here too because they keep on talking about this 30 minute break but it seems like everybody
00:33:33
left once they had the break anyways hmm uh there's 30 people 30 students in this
00:33:40
meeting now you know you and I wondered well what time was this meeting going to
00:33:45
be over with what time are you going to send these kids home and back to their hotel rooms
00:33:50
um it could have been we really have no idea but the the only thing I could come
00:33:55
up with because it seems like if you're going to take a 30-minute break that you
00:33:59
have an additional hour and a half of stuff to do once you get back from this break right and so this is on the Monday
00:34:05
and there's a bunch of questions here and there's going to be a bunch of blurry stuff here and one of the reasons
00:34:11
for that is this meeting was to this emergency meeting was taking place basically on that Tuesday right the day
00:34:18
that they're going to leave well they didn't really notice that Opie was missing until
00:34:26
um like 3 P.M 5 p.m something like that and and so by then we got 1200 students most of them
00:34:34
have already left and on their way uh back home back to the year their University so the amount of people that
00:34:42
the Chicago PD could actually question wasn't all that great well let's go through that real fast okay so what the
00:34:50
way that this goes down here is that Parker returns to the hotel room we don't have a time for that but whatever
00:34:56
time he returns to the hotel room he doesn't he assumes that Jesse Ross is in the bed it next to his bed in the hotel
00:35:04
room uh he realizes in the morning that Jesse was not in that bed it was a pile of clothes that must have confused him
00:35:12
um he does report this to Moorhead who is the sponsor he's The Chaperone and at first Moorhead tells Parker you know
00:35:21
maybe Jesse had slept in another student's room hey hey hey hey so the students sharing a room with Jesse
00:35:28
didn't notice he was missing until the following day the roommate had come back to the hotel there was a pile of clothes
00:35:34
on the bed Jesse was sleeping and the roommate simply mistook the pile of clothes to be Jesse in the room as it
00:35:40
was dark when the roommate woke up in the morning in the light of day he you know he knows well here's another thing
00:35:48
too about college campuses and like most of a lot of college students have spent
00:35:53
time in dorms and you and it's a whole different environment the way you have to deal with your roommate you're so
00:35:59
close and and you kind of have to like not really pay attention to what they're doing all the time I mean like they
00:36:06
could have a girlfriend over and you just kind of have to act like you don't notice anything well you got to give
00:36:12
each other a little space you know everybody's trying to live I'm just saying as far as the college mindset if
00:36:17
if these guys have shared dorm rooms before this wouldn't be out of the spectrum that this guy didn't really
00:36:24
notice that he wasn't there the night before so we so we have Morehead thinking that
00:36:29
Jesse may have crashed at another student's room uh we have his roommate Parker he actually believes that there's
00:36:36
a possibility that Jesse got up early that morning and left and went somewhere else
00:36:41
um he has no evidence of this other than again he thinks he saw Jesse sleeping in
00:36:46
the bed the night before one thing that is widely reported is that when Jesse failed to return to the
00:36:52
room that day mind you this is the day that they're leaving to go home that his roommate this guy Parker he packs up
00:37:00
Jesse's suitcase so in most cases according to the roommate it's reported that that he Jesse doesn't
00:37:08
come home the night before he doesn't mention that Jesse's missing and then all of a sudden when it comes time to
00:37:14
leave with the rest of the group he decides that it's in everybody's best interest to just willy-nilly pack up
00:37:19
Jesse Ross's luggage and bring it down to the van and then he informs The Chaperone that Jesse's missing but
00:37:26
Captain we know that that's not the case right I mean yeah the case is that The Chaperone helped him pack it up yeah and
00:37:34
it was the chaperone's decision to pack up Jesse's items uh when it was when it came time to leave I think it's just a
00:37:41
little irresponsible on the reporting angle on it because to me that makes Parker seem like a shady character it
00:37:48
seems it it would make him Prime Suspect for me yeah well I think I think a lot of times when somebody goes missing they
00:37:56
don't a lot of people don't want it to just to be an accident they actually want some kind of weird
00:38:02
you know nefarious thing to be happening so what actually happened was at the request of The Chaperone with the
00:38:10
assistance of The Chaperone the two guys together packed up Jesse's belongings it
00:38:16
was then that Moorhead The Chaperone he alerted the conference organizers that the student was missing uh and he asked
00:38:25
them to ask around to see if any of the students had seen Jessie when they still couldn't find him they
00:38:32
called the hotel security and that's when that's when he knew that things weren't going well The Chaperone said at
00:38:40
4 pm he walked to the nearest police station and he filed a report then he called Donald Ross and he said to him
00:38:49
sir I cannot find your son Let's get right back into this after this quick beer break
00:38:56
foreign [Music] we're back cheers mates cheers Captain so we have The Chaperone who has
00:39:19
reported Jesse Ross as missing to the police by that time Moorhead has sent the rest of the students home but he
00:39:28
decided to stay behind to assist the police he's getting increasingly worried by this time and he remembers walking
00:39:35
the streets around the hotel checking the dumpsters and the alleys looking for Jesse
00:39:42
now he's already notified the parents uh but bad weather they receive some bad weather it was cold I mean it's November
00:39:50
it's Chicago um they received some bad weather that delayed the Ross's arrival into Chicago
00:39:55
but eventually they came to meet with the police and they spent the first of several visits hanging posters and
00:40:02
circulating Flyers looking for their son I want to get to a couple of of things a
00:40:09
little bit down the road to give you a bigger picture of everything before we get into some of the possibilities of
00:40:16
what could have happened to Jesse or where Jesse could be um sadly enough the roommate the the the
00:40:23
man the college student that shared a room with Jesse Ross on that trip in 2006 uh Ralph Parker he died a few years
00:40:32
afterwards uh this would be in a car accident several years after Jesse's disappearance uh The Chaperone
00:40:41
um the the sponsor Moorhead he took a job teaching at another Missouri University
00:40:47
he reluctantly agreed to help with the school's model U.N Club he did not want to attend any of the conferences it was
00:40:57
my understanding that his agreement that he had made uh with with this other university was that he would participate
00:41:04
in this un Club but he would not not go or attend or chaperone the conferences there was a situation that at a last
00:41:14
minute situation where chaperone had a family emergency and Morehead had to step in against his best wishes
00:41:23
on the second day on the second day of this trip where Moorhead had to step in he got a phone call that one of his
00:41:31
students was missing and he states that all he could do once he received this phone call all he could
00:41:37
do was go to the bathroom and and throw up I mean he was he was that distraught over what had happened with the Jesse
00:41:43
situation I mean this guy he's being put through the ringer here the student was
00:41:49
later found that morning the rest of the conference went on without an incident but Moore had decided that he could
00:41:56
never ever do that again and he would eventually leave college level teaching altogether Moorhead also said that he is
00:42:05
extremely uneasy uh with his own children and any time that his children are somewhere without him and he
00:42:13
struggles to let his daughter go away on trips and she is scheduled to be going away uh I'm sorry when she was getting
00:42:23
ready to go to college herself this was something that he had a lot of issues and a lot of things to work through
00:42:29
right it was a traumatic experience for him at first Captain the police speculated
00:42:34
that Jesse who had been reportedly drinking um might had fallen into the Chicago
00:42:40
River near the hotel now at the Rosses aren't convinced of this their theory is that Jesse left the
00:42:49
meeting and he might have wanted to walk back to the other hotel where he was staying this would have taken him in the
00:42:56
opposite direction of the river they believed that on his way back to his hotel that he could have met with foul
00:43:03
play on the way now the timing and the circumstances of this of Jessie Ross's disappearance proved to be challenging
00:43:13
from the start for the for sergeant Rizzo who was the person responding to the call and the detectives who worked
00:43:21
for him r-i-z-z-o that's right the report came in two days before Thanksgiving and
00:43:29
potential Witnesses at the hotel had already gone home there was no crime scene to work with is what Rizzo States
00:43:36
so let's touch on that for a little bit here Captain you would touch on this earlier where you stated you know the
00:43:42
the police show up on this situation you have a thousand to twelve hundred kids coming in from all over the country
00:43:49
and now you have you have police showing up to take statements to take reports to
00:43:55
look over the scene and all these people have gone home by this time right and very far parts of the country yeah it's
00:44:03
not like they're just they're down the street or in a neighboring suburb these are people that I mean Jesse and his
00:44:10
group traveled over 500 miles to get there we have students coming in from all over the country
00:44:16
how is he supposed to to meet with these people how are they supposed to interview these people well
00:44:22
there's this thing called a phone and start with well obviously he would get a manifest from both from all the hotels
00:44:30
in the area and start to talk to these people but the thing that I've often wondered about Jesse's case when you
00:44:37
have people coming in from all over the country is there's probably a decent possibility that there were people on
00:44:45
that trip and it was a significant amount of time that would pass before they would even know that somebody that
00:44:52
had attended the same conference as they had had disappeared right because they a
00:44:57
lot of them left before it was even announced so I mean the fact that they're not even you know calling the
00:45:04
police till you know the PM most of these students are leaving in the AM yeah well and the other thing too like
00:45:10
Rizzo says there's no crime scene really to work with you know they don't know yeah it's not like they found the giant
00:45:17
puddle of blood on the way back to the hotel and as far as tracking down surveillance footage of this guy he's
00:45:25
last seen in the hotel as we said moving in the direction of the hotel exits yet
00:45:30
they don't even know they can't confirm that that's the last sighting of him you
00:45:35
know they can't confirm where he went from from that time well and the statements made is that if
00:45:41
he was returning from the conference or this emergency meeting to his hotel room
00:45:45
that it was well lit it would have been about a 10 minute walk and that there was surveillance cameras all along this
00:45:52
path now there would also be surveillance cameras in his hotel room and I don't see any evidence that they
00:45:58
collected either one of those yeah they state that there was no trace of him along the way back to his hotel or
00:46:04
arriving at his hotel right but that's that's something that you can also make a claim that uh yeah we didn't see him
00:46:11
on any of this stuff that we didn't collect to my recollection there is no surveillance footage out there of of
00:46:17
this night after 2 30. so you know collect collect it and have it be played so people can see it but I don't think
00:46:25
they collected it that's a good question there Captain the other thing here the other hurdle that
00:46:30
you have to work with is Jessie's technically an adult you know and we all know that this can be a problem for the
00:46:38
investigation because an adult can willingly want to go missing can want to pick up roots and not move elsewhere and
00:46:46
start elsewhere um Rizzo did State Sergeant Rizzo did state that even though Jesse was
00:46:52
technically an adult uh the case was being treated as a high priority case because the young man was from out of
00:47:00
town and possibly because he's from a university and it's this big conference the UN conference which you claimed that
00:47:07
they had it the year before in Chicago but you also claim that Jesse would have been familiar with Chicago just because
00:47:14
he was at the UN conference before I'd claim that he was only familiar with you know whatever conference room he was
00:47:23
in well it wasn't like he was you know hey let's go to Chicago and and we're here for the UN meeting this fake U.N
00:47:30
meeting and then you know that they do a ton of shopping or whatever I'm sure they allow him a little bit of time to
00:47:37
experience Chicago but uh you know not when you're having emergency meetings at you know 1am I didn't mean to imply that
00:47:45
he was a man of the town you know that he knew the ins and outs of Chicago he knew the good areas and the bad areas I
00:47:52
just wanted to point out that it was not a strange trip to him he had attended the same event the year before it's a
00:47:58
four day trip four night trip what can you learn about a city in four nights and as you stated very busy it's they
00:48:05
probably keep them pretty occupied while they're there I actually questioned their judgment on having an emergency
00:48:10
meeting so late especially when the conference rooms aren't connected to the hotel rooms one thing that I questioned
00:48:16
here Captain was was Sergeant Rizzo's statements now I do want to point out that Rizzo has been he's since retired
00:48:23
and he's he stated that this is one of the cases that he can't let go of this one bothers him this really bothers him
00:48:29
that a college student came to his City and was unable to return home to his family yeah but does that bother him or
00:48:37
is that just what he's telling the public um this one's this one bothers me guys
00:48:42
well I can't I can't polygraph the guy all I can do is go off of what he is telling the public but one thing that
00:48:48
that you know I I'm I'm a blue blood guy and I back up his statement about it's very difficult to walk into a situation
00:48:55
where you have no witnesses that you can you can speak with immediately you can't
00:49:01
even speak to Parker who shared a room with him when you arrive at the scene all you have is this chaperone and
00:49:07
whoever happens to be still hanging around after this U.N cons conference breaks up
00:49:14
um so I have his back on that statement I find it a little strange though that he says that you know the report came
00:49:19
into two days before Thanksgiving well deal with it you know like I'm sorry the you know these crimes and people bad
00:49:29
things happen to good people regardless of what's on the calendar um I don't I would like to know what he
00:49:35
meant by that does that mean that there's a lot of people coming into the city or a lot of people leaving the city
00:49:41
maybe it had nothing to do with the holiday maybe it was more about the travel that that circulates around the
00:49:47
holiday um maybe I would have liked him to elaborate on that because it sounds like
00:49:52
a bit of a a lazy answer um the police did receive hundreds of tips but everything turned up empty
00:50:00
according to Sergeant Rizzo the Kansas City Police they did help track down and interview some of Ross's fellow students
00:50:10
Rizzo says investigators gave it their all and there is just nothing there there's nothing to go on not a
00:50:18
surveillance camera image nor Witnesses who might have seen Ross so with no surveillance camera image of him or no
00:50:25
eyewitnesses seeing him I guess it's up to us Captain to prove you know is this something that's useful to the case to
00:50:33
determine what happened to Jesse Ross or is it something that is you know just leading to more questions the case
00:50:40
itself it has received some national attention over the years it was featured on both the Nancy Grace show and
00:50:46
America's Most Wanted um both shop mom yeah both shortly after Jesse Ross had disappeared well there's
00:50:55
not a lot of information about this case so you have to kind of dig deep and then
00:50:59
the rest become speculation so again if you don't like speculation probably at this point you might want to turn off
00:51:05
the show you know run from the garage run for your lives I'm I'm I got a whole can of gasoline and speculation I'm
00:51:14
lighting this [ __ ] on fire all right all right so um as we said the case has received some
00:51:20
national attention and that has brought a along with it a lot of people looking into this case and a lot of people
00:51:26
coming up with their own theories about what has happened to Jesse Ross and why we can't find him Captain should we list
00:51:34
out those theories before we dive into each one of them sure so the theories are this
00:51:41
um these are the possibilities are suicide or that Jesse simply walked away to start a new life somewhere
00:51:49
the police theory that we had talked about was that Jesse had fallen into the river
00:51:54
the parents theory was that possibly he had attempted to return to his hotel and
00:52:01
was met with Foul Play there's also some talk that he may have that wanted to go
00:52:06
elsewhere that maybe he wanted to go downtown Chicago for some reason but this would have resulted in Foul Play as
00:52:13
well um there's the possibility that there was a hotel room incident or accident and this
00:52:20
would be at the hotel room that the hotel that was hosting the conference itself not where he was staying and then
00:52:27
there's always the question and always the thought of possible Foul Play from someone in the group that he was
00:52:35
traveling with or someone in this model U.N group conference uh someone attending from another city or state all
00:52:43
right so the first theory that you brought up was suicide so maybe we should start there well
00:52:49
with this Theory so that he would have gone on this trip with with a group of friends or college you know uh people
00:52:57
that appears and decided to commit suicide while on the trip just feels wrong right Captain it feels
00:53:06
wrong we have the parents stating that a lot of suicides are not planned so we have it's not like you have to plan it
00:53:12
out three days in advance so it's still a possibility of course it's a possibility everything's a possibility
00:53:19
at this point we have no idea what happened to the poor young man uh his parents stating that you know he had
00:53:24
just received a promotion something that they believed he was eager about something that he was working hard
00:53:30
toward um this seems to be a a good thing right Captain it also seems to be a good thing that he was on
00:53:38
this trip he's attending for the second time um probably something that he enjoyed
00:53:43
doing he's a young man in college he's got his whole life ahead of him and I know in the grand scheme of things that
00:53:49
doesn't mean anything right I mean because I mean that this is a tough situation anyways because I mean look at
00:53:56
like the singer of Linkin Park I mean one of the things that they keep bringing up is the fact that he bought
00:54:00
the house that he you know he he hung himself in his house and he bought his house that he hung himself in two months
00:54:08
earlier and it's supposed to be this family home and it's away from everything and so this is some kind of
00:54:13
evidence of somebody making plans for his life and making plans for the future um but this is not how normal suicides
00:54:21
work anyways I mean again like I said there's not a lot of planning so I think you have to look at what was happening
00:54:29
uh before with Jesse if there was any signs I mean one of the things that I thought was really interesting when I
00:54:36
was actually talking to a cop about this he said that you know one of the weirdest things he finds is a lot of the
00:54:42
suicides that like they you know have to investigate they find out that the the male victims
00:54:50
um will have their hair cut that day so you know kind of showing a sign that some of this is just a split second
00:54:56
decision um so but in this case I don't think Jesse whether or not he's getting a
00:55:03
promotion whether or not he's doing good in school I don't think he had much of a
00:55:07
sign of of any depression or at least talking about this with his family or friends and I know a lot of people with
00:55:14
depression that never bring this up to their family members at all but again there's no evidence of this beforehand
00:55:20
well on the flip side of that coin uh you know it's it's often been stated with people that commit suicide that
00:55:27
it's not uncommon to see women do their hair in a special way put on a nice outfit do their makeup
00:55:38
um and maybe with the men thing getting their hair cut that day that it is on the flip side could be a sign of some
00:55:44
form of planning because you know they say that that ladies tend to want to make sure that they are looked that they
00:55:52
look a certain way after they pass that that when they're discovered that they're remembered uh with a certain
00:55:59
image right um the thing with the the suicide though Captain here is where is he you would you would think
00:56:07
the the and you know you would think that you would find him you would find his body right you know with no worries
00:56:14
hat right I mean these two episodes but no it's it's the weirdest thing as far as like missing person reports you know
00:56:21
anytime people want to speculate you have to bring up the possibility of suicide but
00:56:27
um it never makes any sense to me because you like you said you'd find the body yeah I mean somebody doesn't die
00:56:34
and then go bury themselves you know you unless you jumped off a bridge into the
00:56:39
river right right which and that's and that is a real possibility it's a possibility it's uh because I mean
00:56:46
because we're talking about this this river which goes uh through the city and then shoots back out into Lake Michigan
00:56:52
I mean this would have been cold I mean the temperature that night was anywhere from like 29 degrees to 44 degrees
00:56:59
roughly 7 to 13 Mile uh miles an hour um wind so this guy jumping into water and that's
00:57:09
but again his family look a lot of times too I mean you know family and friends will
00:57:15
say well I didn't see this coming but uh again I don't know if something snapped I
00:57:22
wonder how much he was drinking but again there it doesn't seem like there's a bunch of evidence the point that he
00:57:28
had much in the way of of any type of depression it seems like he had a more of a positive demeanor but he was also
00:57:36
funny and sometimes you find with comedians that they're masking that they're masking their depression hiding
00:57:42
that from people by using their you know comedy chops and as you've said and pointed out many many times depression
00:57:50
is not something that's easily spotted um my gut tells me no and and and you know you said you mentioned the river so
00:57:58
I will say outside of the possibility of of jumping in the river then I think with the suicide my biggest question
00:58:05
would be where is he we would have found him I Believe by this point if that is what in fact happened Yeah so basically
00:58:12
on that there I think both of our guts are saying hey this is uh probably most not most likely yeah if you were to
00:58:19
create a scale of of likely to most unlikely I would put that more towards the unlikely side probably on the very
00:58:27
far end of the unlikely side so Captain we also have the possibility that Jesse Ross walked away that he
00:58:34
maybe wanted to start a new life for himself this always comes up in these type of cases when when we have no
00:58:41
evidence of somebody or where they are or what happened to him where they went um you know do you see anything here
00:58:48
that that points toward he may have wanted to walk away or start a new life well no I mean because one he's involved
00:58:54
with the radio station he's gone to college the other thing he's on this trip um you know for this Mock You in thing
00:59:02
this is somebody that's making steps in their life to you know he's trying to create a good life and to just go I'm
00:59:09
just gonna walk away he does seem pretty career oriented with long-term goals and
00:59:16
setting things up in the right steps and putting everything into it place to get
00:59:21
him to to the point where he can reach some of those goals and as you said earlier there's a short-term goal he was
00:59:27
pledging for a fraternity you know this sounds like something giving his personality a very outgoing person a
00:59:33
person that was described as Fearless somebody a bit of a prankster um is social yeah it seems Seems like
00:59:41
something he would really be uh looking forward to um there was a couple of things that
00:59:47
that I did find a little strange that that I wanted to dive into regarding the possibility did he walk away well one
00:59:55
thing that his mother had talked about about his personality and about some of his hopes and wishes was he did mention
01:00:03
to his mother and to his father from time to time that he was hoping to uh that there would be something that would
01:00:12
take him out of Kansas City that something that would you know some big reason for him to move at some point
01:00:21
um right but you go to the U.N trip you fall in love with Chicago and you come back home and you go hey parents I'm
01:00:27
moving to Chicago well and the other thing here is we have the situation with the CDs you know we have The Chaperone
01:00:33
saying well he created these mixes and these CDs for us to listen to on our way to the trip and he was he said that he
01:00:40
was hoping if he had enough time during this trip that he would go to some Chicago radio stations and give them
01:00:46
some of uh his work that he had done maybe it could lead to some kind of breakthrough in his career but like you
01:00:53
said Captain that's your motive to go downtown but that's not your motive to walk away from your life right exactly
01:00:59
that you it would be strange for someone to go missing to want to start a career
01:01:06
in a new life in the city that they went missing from I understand that Chicago is a big city but however like you said
01:01:13
that's when you call Mom and Dad or you go back home and you tie up loose ends and you say Mom Dad I did it I I got
01:01:20
that I got this cool job in Chicago and I'm really looking forward to taking it um so I I think the thing here is you
01:01:28
know the the famous thing wanting something to take him from the city he's close to his parents he's obviously
01:01:34
close to his brother this doesn't seem to me like this seems like things that he would want to share with his family
01:01:41
he called his mother on his own yeah that's that's a sign of something I I couldn't tell you the last time I called
01:01:48
my mother well and I think I think he called her you know daily while the while he was there just checked that's
01:01:54
going a little too far no but just checking in saying hey Mom yeah yeah this trip is awesome
01:01:59
um and maybe he's checking in more for them than himself you know I mean one of those things where it's like ah she's
01:02:05
gonna be a little worried um so because it's not very clear if he lives on campus or not right and I'm
01:02:12
assuming that he didn't and the reason why I'm assuming that is because you would think that um with him going
01:02:19
missing that they would have looked into his dorm room and possibly you know look
01:02:23
for Clues there yeah and and I don't know his driving situation but his father dropped him off so that he could
01:02:30
go on this trip I don't know if he was still living at home yeah but that makes sense because you don't want your car to
01:02:35
sit in a parking lot exactly over the weekend but I'm I'm with you Captain I think walked away makes about as much
01:02:42
sense to me as the suicide thing right I think you could put those both at the highly unlikely end of the spectrum and
01:02:50
as far as every report that I've read there's no activity on his cell phone no activity on his credit cards or bank
01:02:58
cards since his disappearance you're exactly right now one thing I want to throw out there Captain there is an
01:03:04
interview with his father where his father's stating you know you know Jesse he's kind of speaking to his son and
01:03:10
saying Jesse if there was something out there that you wanted to try something you wanted to pursue that you wanted to
01:03:16
go off elsewhere and and live out some kind of different life um we're totally on board with that you
01:03:24
know we whatever you want to do do we just want to make sure that you're safe and you're happy and you're healthy and
01:03:30
we would accept you no matter what you wanted to try whatever you wanted to to do with your life just please let us
01:03:37
know that you're okay now I don't think that that should point to the high probability that he decided to walk away
01:03:43
I don't think that points to parents believing that he was of that type I think it's just desperation on the
01:03:51
behalf of the parents after years of having their son lost with no answers they're you start grasping at straws at
01:03:58
something yeah I mean basically if it gets brought up multiple times in conversation you go hey look let's put
01:04:04
this out to the universe and if we did do something wrong that we're not aware of uh let's bring it to you know his
01:04:10
attention you know maybe they that's when you start questioning yourself as a parent you know maybe was I too strict
01:04:16
you know were we pushing him too hard was there a bunch of pressure on him that we we weren't aware of uh so I
01:04:23
think they just did it you know you know just in case yeah I think so all right Captain we are almost at an hour here
01:04:28
we're running out of time today I think that let's talk about the more likely possibilities of what could have
01:04:33
happened to Young Jesse Ross on a part two episode [Music] so until then check us out on Instagram
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01:04:53
untapped as well cheers to you Colonel and to everybody out there all over the world be good be kind and don't litter
01:05:04
foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]