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C store or ashley.com for [Music] [Applause] details [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:01:46
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that likes
00:01:51
his reuben sandwich just like Matthew MCC on r on r on R here is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's it's
00:01:59
good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:02:04
a friend this evening we are drinking Mo guava By the Fantastic people at Paradise Brewing Company in Clearwater
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Florida garage grade 4 and A2 bottle caps out of five and how could it not get four and a half bottle caps I love
00:02:21
ipas I love guava so a win-win mava is an IPA perfect for summertime brewed with mosaic hops it's hoppy it's iCal
00:02:30
it's sweet you know what they say captain Mo Money Mo guava I don't think that's what they say
00:02:36
and mo guava is brought To Us by Ivonne from Fort Atkinson Wisconsin that's Badger country oh and here's another
00:02:44
Badger we have Cynthia from jansville Wisconsin do you feel that Captain that's the Wisconsin love well I guess
00:02:50
they're big 10 so uh go big 10 and go Bucks next up we have a shout out from Mark and Aberdine UK and a big shout out
00:02:59
from from Texas I wonder if that's Lance Harbor the old Coyote football team next
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business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music]
00:03:52
crime in November of 2006 19-year-old University of Missouri Kansas City student Jesse Ross was participating in
00:04:01
a university field trip he along with 13 other University students and a faculty
00:04:06
sponsor drove over 500 miles to Chicago Illinois this is for a Model United Nations conference this event drove over
00:04:16
a, college students from all over the country now around 2:30 a.m. this would be early Tuesday morning on November
00:04:25
21st this is about 12 hours after Jesse last called his mother he got up from his chair he was at this emergency
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meeting that they were doing for this un conference and he got up from his chair
00:04:38
and he walked out of the meeting room for about a 30 minute break the surveillance camera in the hotel lobby
00:04:43
caught His image of of Jesse in the area of the exits of the building and this was the last Trace ever of 19-year-old
00:04:52
Jesse Ross the last part we talked about did he commit suicide or possibly did he
00:04:57
try to walk away from his life and start a new life yeah and we both agreed we didn't like either of these as being
00:05:04
high probability uh for what could have happened to Jesse so continuing on the path here let's get into what others
00:05:12
have considered more likely scenarios the first one we want to get into is the possibility that Jesse could have fallen
00:05:19
into the river well this would have been the Chicago River um and this as the captain had said yesterday the river
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empties into Lake Michigan and this is this is late November it's icy it's cold you know the police say that this is
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what they find to be the most likely scenario we have his parents saying we disagree with that we think he would
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have head head back to his own hotel which would have actually taken him in the opposite direction of this River
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well there's a scenic route behind the hotel where this un conference was taking place they're scheduled for this
00:05:56
30-minute break he's seen heading towards the exits what are you what are your feelings here
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Captain regarding falling into the river well I think we have to take a look at this surveillance footage and I can't
00:06:09
find it online as as as far as that goes I mean I can I have a picture and then we have the description now there's two
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description and I think this is coming from find uh helpf find jesse.com uh do you know what that website is off the
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top of your head um it's the one the parents uh parents is it find Jess ross.com that's what it is so what they
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claim is that the surveillance picked up the fact that he had a white T-shirt on
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jeans had a green warm-up jacket uh and he was walking towards the main door the
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thing that I thought was interesting here was that he they also claimed that he had a gatorade bottle now so gatorade
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bottle not so weird right you're going to a meeting but this is also after we know that we have eyewitnesses that saw
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him drinking mhm so my question would be what what is in that gatorade bottle and
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if that was let's say a mixed drink I mean especially when you're 18 19 years old uh you drink some kind of silly
00:07:11
stuff you know uh I I here I'm going to laugh captain and and I don't mean to get you off track and we'll go right
00:07:19
back to you here drinking some silly stuff you know one drink that I like this is going to be considered one of
00:07:25
those 18 19 year old drinks I like to I get some vodka you turned me onto the Tios vodka yeah Tios is good very good
00:07:33
vodka I get some of that and I do about a half and half job with that very light
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the diet Gatorade you know I like the purple the purple kind I drink some of that it's very funny looking people
00:07:44
usually make fun of me when they see me having a little glass of that but I like
00:07:48
drinking it because I get I get that vodka feeling that I love without the hangover in the morning because I'm
00:07:53
hydrating with the Gatorade at the same time but what you're saying here is he likes to call that drink purple drink he
00:07:59
could have come up with he could have made some kind of concoction and put it in this Gatorade bottle and carried it
00:08:05
around with him for the remainder of the evening like you said he's in these parties but this quote unquote emergency
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meeting was actually a scheduled emergency meeting um so he knew he was going to be attending this did he did he
00:08:19
create some kind of drink for himself some purple drink like the Nick likes and and bring it to the emergency
00:08:26
meeting with him to to sip on uh as the night grew longer and longer yeah and I I would also claim that I probably puked
00:08:33
more from uh 16 to 20 than I have 20 to 30 yeah you know what I mean so well maybe not 20 to 30 but definitely from
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uh 30 to where I'm at now but so that would be my question was he continuing drinking and if he was you know why
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would he leave now I've heard some speculation you know some people uh smoke when they drink I I don't think
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there was any evidence of him being a smoker so I'm just going to kind of rule that out so then why would you want to
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go outside uh that that's the big question here why is he leaving this area now was
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it to go back to his room or was he looking for a bathroom or I mean because look that's a big thing with guys more
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so than with females is I mean we we pee anywhere you know so sometimes you know
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you're at a party and you're going man there's people in the bathroom and then you just take off and go around the side
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of the house right write your name uh I normally like to write Nick's name because then if I'm if they if they see
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the P you know it's plus it's a lot easier to write than than the captain mhm but uh was he going out to pee you
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know to take a pee or was he going to get sick and sometimes when you go to get sick you're looking for a bathroom
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but if you can't find one if you can get outside that's better than puking in the
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hotel lobby MH and you touched upon something that we have talked about before on the show because we covered
00:10:07
some other disappearances drinking we've yeah we've covered the Joey labut disappearance uh he was ultimately found
00:10:14
in the river we co we covered Brian schaer um and that always brings up the thought of this uh what is it the happy
00:10:21
face or smiley face killer that's going all over the country and and killing these young college men and uh their
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bodies are ultimately found in the river eventually and and we mentioned on those
00:10:33
shows when we've brought when we've brought that up that we find it more likely that the person that had fallen
00:10:39
into the river was probably an intoxicated young male that had hit his limit way earlier in the night and
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decided to urinate alongside the river or in the river and inadvertently fell in and met their demise that way well
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but yeah the the tough thing about the smiley pH killer theory is I'm probably one of the only uh True Crime dorks out
00:11:03
there that is you know kind of likes this Theory uh not in this case but the the theory overall and what I've I've
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stated and the funny thing was I brought up at at crime con when I was talking to
00:11:16
Devon from uh thinking sideways you know I I brought it up and she said smiley face killer and she started laughing uh
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because a lot of people find this Theory to be laughable now I I feel like they they made a mistake stake in their
00:11:30
Theory these and for people that don't know the theory it's this simple these retire these retired detectives were uh
00:11:37
studying some cases they found that there was some graffiti by the bridges or alongside the riversides that that
00:11:43
these bodies were found and it was a smiley face now a smiley face is probably the most common graffiti in all
00:11:49
of mankind right M along with some words that you say right you say those words too I know but uh but you're prune on
00:11:58
the shelves so but the thing is is uh so if you if you iay the graffiti right from the smiley face killer I don't
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think it's it's that farfetched to to think that there is a killer or a possible a ring of killers that that are
00:12:17
rounding up these individuals and not necessarily to just be found in in a body of water there's a lot um you know
00:12:27
Jesse Ross is one of them a college age student that went missing and has never been seen again and has
00:12:34
been se you know last seen drinking or partying with people now now Jesse wasn't last seen drinking with people he
00:12:42
was at an emergency meeting but if there was an emergency meeting Jesse would have been last seen drinking with people
00:12:49
right and the thing is this is the Chicago police's Theory and that what they state is that you know it's you
00:12:57
know people don't fall into this River every day but they're stating that it does it's more common than one would
00:13:03
think and and if you want to Google it uh the what was interesting to me is a lot of times when one person fall Falls
00:13:11
in that multiple people that they're with fall in cuz they're trying to save them or yeah I mean there was this case
00:13:19
where I I believe one individual died but three people fell into the river and they were trying to retrieve a cell
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phone so one of the beliefs that the police you know the thing is is why he's going down to the river one maybe maybe
00:13:32
drank too much he's going to get sick maybe he needs to empty out his bladder right M maybe he wanted to take a
00:13:38
picture right well who knows so maybe his cell phone drops in or maybe he's peeing and and falls in um maybe he just
00:13:47
goes out to catch a breath of fresh air decides to stand by the scenic side of of this hotel and take a look at the
00:13:54
river something catches his eye and draws him near he starts walking close to the the river the thing here is it's
00:14:00
extremely it would be cold out that night and I think you had some of those numbers for us uh but but there's a
00:14:06
potential of ice of an ice situation maybe he didn't simply fall maybe he slipped and fell into the river possible
00:14:15
yeah so the the police this is their Theory it seems I hate to say this Captain it seems likely to me um it's
00:14:24
also yeah it's it's the A to B Theory mhm just because this is the nearest point that would present a danger to
00:14:32
this person that has gone missing you know we see him what has been reported as moving in the direction of the
00:14:40
exits referring to What was seen on the surveillance and just like the captain said I was unable to find the actual
00:14:48
footage of him walking in the direction of the exits but there is a there is a still photo of him in that area now I'll
00:14:56
try to find that and put that on Instagram they did state in those reports though that they never actually
00:15:01
see him exit the building but they they anticipate that that's what he was intending to do M um so yeah this is the
00:15:09
nearest point that creates a danger for Jesse and maybe a good a good explanation for what happened to him you
00:15:16
had mentioned that the Chicago River empties into Lake Michigan right but the the problem with this Theory though too
00:15:22
is it's also the lazy Theory and I really question you know we're talking about a area that's you know um you know
00:15:29
as far as tourists go we really need to have a good reputation or Chicago needs a really good reputation of this area
00:15:36
being safe and so what do they do they have a bunch of surveillance and to to claim that you don't find him on any
00:15:43
other tape MH is just so unlikely to me even you know if he heads back if he heads back to his hotel room that we're
00:15:52
talking about a path that is heavily lit heavily traveled and also heavily surveillance and if he goes to the left
00:15:59
there's still some surveillance why isn't he caught on any of these other tapes right and you would think that if
00:16:05
he fell into the river that he was either a chose to go that route for some reason uh what his destination would be
00:16:12
I don't know or B what I think would be more likely is that if he were over by the river that he was just simply
00:16:19
Milling about just kind of hanging out waiting out this break catching some fresh air maybe having a smoke I like
00:16:27
you said no evidence to point to that that um but maybe out there just Milling about having some fresh air and waiting
00:16:33
to go back in after the 30 minute break my thought is if he if he did um fall in is to me it'd be more likely
00:16:42
that he would be you know vomiting mhm and the reason why is because this whole theory that you know guys go and they
00:16:48
pee off a bridge and then they just fall in I look I've peed pretty drunk before
00:16:54
right where you know uh you're just kind of swaying but but to to fall in uh to a
00:17:01
river that would be you know I don't know less likely but if you're Heaven uh I could totally see that being
00:17:10
more likely of a scenario oh yeah because your whole body is convulsing your whole body is out of control MH and
00:17:17
sometimes your sight is blurred your you know your vision is definitely impaired
00:17:21
when you're in that situation now you and I talked about um talked about the the situation of he didn't appear to be
00:17:29
intoxicated nobody in that that group of 30 people in that meeting thought that he was intoxicated his friend that Ralph
00:17:37
Parker didn't believe that that he was that Jesse was drunk um but we're talking about first of all we're talking
00:17:44
about 2:30 a.m. right who knows how long he was drinking who knows what was in that that gatorade bottle well first of
00:17:52
all how many of those people were drinking mhm because you know I was just at this alumni event for my town
00:17:59
um and I had like maybe two beers so everybody else around me is super wasted right right I can tell this because I
00:18:07
only had two two beers um how many of these people you know because I'm sure some of the people if I said oh so and
00:18:15
so was wasted they'd say oh they weren't that bad but that's all you know normally depending on how bad off you
00:18:22
are right so I I wonder how many of these people in this emergency meeting were drinking themselves and yes so yeah
00:18:30
maybe not intoxicated during the meeting but he he was also for all we know as far as eyewitnesses go he was sitting
00:18:38
down during this meeting well yeah and you had you were telling me an interesting story on the phone the other
00:18:43
day about a bar we used to play yeah so there's this story has a bit of a double
00:18:49
whammy effect on it okay whammy it might have some insight to the state of Jesse
00:18:54
Ross I had this situation many many years ago I probably was was a year or two older than Jesse but as you had
00:19:02
mentioned earlier your your tolerance is a lot lower at that age for most people
00:19:07
I would believe uh as far as how much alcohol you consume and how much you can handle over the course of an evening or
00:19:13
an entire night and we I was at this bar that we had played at our band had played at several times but I don't
00:19:20
believe we were playing that night I think I went there to see some a friends band and I belly up to the bar as soon
00:19:26
as I get there this is like January it's very cold out that night and it's late at night it's already you know it's
00:19:33
probably 10:00 at night by the time I got to the bar when I decided to leave there it's around midnight I sat there I
00:19:40
drank draft beer all night no shots nothing crazy you know had a had a decent time but I get up to leave I felt
00:19:47
fine I felt like a million bucks as a matter of fact I walked out I walked out onto that I felt like a million bucks
00:19:55
but I looked like a 10 I walked out onto the that downtown Street captain that cold air hit me and I don't know if it
00:20:02
was the combination of walking you know sometimes when you when you were sitting
00:20:06
in you're drinking you don't realize how drunk you are until you get up to go MH
00:20:11
and I got up to go and I walked outside and the combination of that and the cold
00:20:15
air hitting me I went from sober as a judge to to drunk as hell MH you had scarecrow legs that's that's right it
00:20:26
was like a ton of bricks that hit me mhm and I had to boot man I had to run to the to the nearest trash can and I I
00:20:34
booted and then I went back inside you R and I sat at the bar and I drank a whole
00:20:39
bunch of water because I was in no shape to drive home it made me that experience
00:20:43
made me curious about Jesse you know why would he go outside if he's not a smoker
00:20:51
he and he's not going out with any other people you know he obviously he went out
00:20:55
by himself what what is his purpose of going outside it's either to just hang out wait out the break or he has a
00:21:04
destination he I think what more so points to is that he was probably attempting to leave the meeting and
00:21:12
leave that hotel because he didn't go outside with anybody with him you know if if I were just taking a break I would
00:21:18
mention to somebody in the group hey what are you going to do for the 30 minute break oh you're going to go sit
00:21:23
over there oh is there still a hotel party going on or or you want to come outside and hang out with me for a few
00:21:28
minutes M um I think him going by himself points to a situation where he may had a destination in mind and for
00:21:35
whatever reason if he did not appear to be intoxicated he could have been very intoxicated like my situation right had
00:21:43
he got outside right and the eyewitnesses at the emergency meeting claimed that he was no sign of him being
00:21:50
intoxicated then Chicago PD comes out and they say well there's no sign of him being intoxicated as far as their
00:21:57
surveillance either mhm but we're talking about a very small room that they would have footage of him in and
00:22:03
for him to walk a straight line or or to not look intoxicated I mean look also if
00:22:08
he was a man on the on a mission again you know when you're getting to the point where you might get sick sometimes
00:22:16
you start getting the sweats right you know and so you're going I'm going to get outside get some cool air you know
00:22:23
and then if I do get sick I'm at least outside I'm not puking in the hotel lobby like I said before well your
00:22:29
adrenaline can take over and can carry you a certain amount of distance um the thing here is that the river was as we
00:22:37
said it was it empties into Lake Michigan which can be hundreds of miles long you know it's a great lake it's
00:22:43
huge it's not like some Lake that you go visit somewhere it's it's a huge body of
00:22:48
water it is a lake that you go visit somewhere it's not a man-made lake is probably what you're trying to get at
00:22:54
divers they didn't find divers and search groups did did search the river itself on several occasions and despite
00:23:02
several searches they did not find uh any of Jesse's remains or evidence that would lead you to think that he had
00:23:09
fallen into the river right but there's several bodies that end up you know watching a Shore or or coming to the
00:23:16
surface once they get to Lake Michigan mhm and over the years these bodies have appeared and unfortunately you know
00:23:24
every time this happens we have Jesse's parents who are there wondering if that's Jesse that has surfaced well and
00:23:32
I think initially when the first part of the investigation came out that his parents didn't want to believe it was
00:23:37
something as simple as an accident right so then it became or or possibly that he
00:23:43
was also somewhat responsible for that uh accident if he was very intoxicated M so you know um I don't think they wanted
00:23:52
to believe it at first but now that we're 11 years out every time a body comes up and the or is found in Lake
00:24:00
Michigan they're somewhat hopeful that they at least will find his remains so therefore they would get some closure
00:24:08
yeah and that sounds crazy to say that they're somewhat hopeful but you're exactly right Captain they've already
00:24:13
reserved themselves to the thought that so much time has passed that he he must have passed on himself yeah and this
00:24:21
idea too A lot of people talk about that oh well he probably went downtown right uh there was a
00:24:29
speculation that he wanted to pass out these records to different record companies um and that he would do this
00:24:36
at 2:30 in the morning mhm it doesn't make a lot of logical sense to me yeah yeah there's two stories and these were
00:24:43
presented by people in the group within the group that he traveled with uh one being that he wanted to get these CDs to
00:24:50
different radio stations of course the radio stations can be you know most of them are open 24/7 you know they're oper
00:24:57
operating 24/7 um I don't know that anybody's going to answer the door if you come knocking at 2:33 in the morning
00:25:05
it seems like an odd time to be dropping them off um you would think he he may have some connections that he may have
00:25:12
he knows the business a little bit he may know the appropriate time and people to drop these things off to without
00:25:18
doing it at 3: in the morning um the other thing uh the thought was that the band remember we mentioned the band he
00:25:25
was still at this time in his life he was still promoting a band now I don't know if it's the same band that we
00:25:31
mentioned the dead giveaway um but he he had brought Flyers with him that he wanted to pass out at a bar if there was
00:25:39
an opportunity now this was just something that he mentioned to somebody that he was traveling with there's
00:25:44
nobody has any proof that that he ever did this at any point on this trip right it seems again seems strange to me that
00:25:52
he would choose 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning to do this this was his last night there so so maybe he felt this was
00:25:58
his last opportunity I heard that some of the bars in Chicago will stay open till about 4:00 a.m. um so this there
00:26:06
was an opportunity to to do this but again I think the timing seems unlikely 30 eyewitnesses that never said that he
00:26:14
had anything a flyer or anything you'd think if he had a stack of flyer that 30 eyewitnesses would at least one of them
00:26:21
would said hey we saw him with this stack of flyers and from the still photo that we saw from the surveillance camera
00:26:29
the only thing that appears to be in his hands is that gatorade bottle let's get
00:26:32
back to this and more theories right after this quick purple drink [Music] break this show is sponsored by better
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when you Angie that all right we're back all right Captain I tell you what I think the the fall in the river scenario
00:29:01
I think we got to put that more towards the higher possibility end of the spectrum would you agree yeah I mean I
00:29:08
think it's most logical mhm that leads us right next to right into the next Theory um that he was attempting to
00:29:17
return to the hotel or as you had stated and I had stated was that he was attempting to go to a bar or someplace
00:29:24
downtown and he was met with Foul Play along the way right so I mean again where's the evidence right um and and
00:29:35
the thing here is we have you know we have Jesse's mother um you know his father's name is Donald and her name is
00:29:42
Donna um so we have Donna and Don uh Ross but Donna says you know the police cannot prove to us that he even left
00:29:52
that hotel building you know so and and like you said with with the River thing possibly being a lazy Theory um by the
00:30:02
police my my argument if I'm the parents and maybe they've done this would be okay if you can't prove to me that that
00:30:11
he even left the hotel room prove to me that or the hotel building prove to me that he did not leave the hotel building
00:30:19
because no what I'm what are you saying what I'm saying is when they say to when
00:30:24
they say to us I we don't know what happened to your son because we can't prove that he even left that hotel
00:30:29
building I'm saying back well prove to me that he did not leave that hotel building meaning there's surveillance
00:30:35
cameras yeah start there along along his route back to his hotel I think it's easy for all of us to agree that that
00:30:43
would be that seems like the most likely destination at 2:30 in the morning for a
00:30:48
guy that has a 10-minute walk to get back to where his bed is um and his belongings are where he needs to be in
00:30:56
the morning time for when when they leave I think this seems like the most likely scenario that he might have
00:31:02
attempted to leave but if I'm the parents I want proof that he was not on that route you know and if you tell me
00:31:08
that you've seen surveillance and he's not on any of those pictures let me see it with my eyes let me look at the at
00:31:14
the time that it lasts from 2:30 until about 3:30 or 4 in the morning so that I can say you know what that person right
00:31:22
there is not my son that person you see walking is not my son that person is not my son well that's my big
00:31:29
question in this whole case itself is the collection of these different surveillance tapes and and was he
00:31:36
actually seen in the hotel lobby or somewhere else in that hotel again that's what makes it so confusing one
00:31:43
like I said from the beginning I think it's irresponsible yeah they're 18 19 maybe even 20 year old students but to
00:31:50
have a emergency meeting so late at night it doesn't matter if it was 2 a.m. or if it was 1:00 a.m. that's still too
00:31:57
late especially when the when the two um buildings are not connected and when we're at crime con for example uh a lot
00:32:05
of the podcasters let's say Bob Ruff from truth and Justice and Generation Y uh crawl space guys a a bunch of people
00:32:13
white wine True Crime um we're all just looking for a place to meet up and drink
00:32:19
sideways and everybody all the names that we just mentioned all those famous you know Wonderful podcasts out there of
00:32:25
names we just dropped you owe us round for next year's crime Cod okay yeah you guys owe it how about two rounds they
00:32:33
owe us two rounds no but one of the things that we talked about when I was like oh well let's meet up for a drink
00:32:38
and let's have a meet up with uh listeners and and and friends and at first the the kind of conversation was
00:32:45
okay well what's good in Indianapolis MH well my question then was well how are these individuals are going to get there
00:32:53
and if it's in walking distance then are we putting people at risk by getting drunk drunk and then having to walk you
00:32:58
know even if it's 10 minutes away I love the captain thinking like a man that's talked about too many horrible crimes
00:33:05
and accidents that have happened to people yeah well I think some of these people were just looking for uh you know
00:33:11
more um content for their show I I I wasn't really I I actually really didn't give a [ __ ] about anybody's um safety it
00:33:19
was more my safety like if I'm going to drink uh I want to get hammered I want to get it to the point where you know uh
00:33:26
I become this small you know a little aliceon Wonderland and I'm and all I have to do is crawl my way back up to my
00:33:32
room so again I like I said with this case I think it's irresponsible um that that they had this
00:33:41
uh emergency meeting so late 10 minutes walking away and and you know it's dark in a city that people these students are
00:33:52
not familiar with and that you know that there's a dance but you probably knew that there was drinking going on as well
00:33:59
well and you know that on the flip side people are going to argue with you and they're going to say you know what
00:34:04
Captain well these are adults and they are kids you know we're having this emergency meeting so we want to give
00:34:12
them the feel and the taste of a real emergency meeting so we're going to hold it at An Inconvenient time I'm with you
00:34:19
I'm with you I think it's irresponsible on behalf of the people in charge of organizing the event to hold something
00:34:26
so late at night we're going have a fictitious emergency meeting for a fictitious un you know right you could
00:34:33
hold an emergency meeting at any time right right but the thing is they hold all these fictitious uh you know
00:34:39
horeshit when when the but the uh but the threat is still real right you know the danger is still real so I just think
00:34:49
it's irresponsible yeah I mean if you want to hold it at An Inconvenient time you can interrupt their breakfast you
00:34:54
can interrupt their lunch or another scheduled event um so I get it that you're trying to create an atmosphere
00:35:03
amongst that group I just think it's irresponsible like you said it's 2:30 in the morning some of these people are
00:35:08
staying at a hotel that's a 10-minute walk and we all know you know you don't have to be in an Einstein or a Sherlock
00:35:15
Holmes to understand that the Chicago crime rate and murder rate are significantly higher than many other
00:35:22
cities in the rest of this country well again like I said okay so I have a issue
00:35:27
with was there enough um work put in to get the surveillance tapes um because I think look I think again like we said
00:35:36
this is a couple days before Thanksgiving I think some of these cops thought you know what this guy's a kid
00:35:42
seems like a smart kid seems like a good kid he's going to turn up I don't think
00:35:46
initially they're just like well he fell into the river and that's what happened no but it's like they I don't
00:35:51
think they did their work and then with the eyewitness accounts you can't tell me if the meeting started at 1 a.m. or 2
00:35:58
a.m. right it's like there's so many contradictory stories there and then it then it becomes well how much
00:36:04
surveillance footage do you need do you need the time where he walked in and then the time that he walked out and
00:36:09
maybe there's another time or how did you here here's my other question for the uh Chicago PD do they have the video
00:36:17
footage of him walking from his hotel to this emergency meeting cuz I'd like to see that and then from that point to the
00:36:25
until 3:00 a.m. 4:00 a.m. I want to see all that footage and I don't think they pulled that and I think they got lazy
00:36:32
and like I said I think you know I think they just assumed that this kid is going
00:36:37
to come up it's you know this is big trip 1,200 students he's just going to show up and I think this was the
00:36:43
frustration that the Ross family had from the get-go you know and then once they didn't collect this evidence and
00:36:51
once they didn't talk to all the people that they should have talked to yeah I think it haunts this guy but I think it
00:36:56
haunts him because they know they didn't try hard enough and so then we'll go okay well what was the logical thing
00:37:02
well the logical thing is he fell into the river yeah yeah and you're right that wasn't their initial thought that
00:37:09
was not like they they showed up to the hotel they took a quick look around and they were like oh guy fell into a river
00:37:15
seen it a 100,000 times no it was like you said it was after a couple days that they kind of come to that conclusion um
00:37:23
I think they were looking for leads obviously I think they were trying to track down some leads but I'm with you
00:37:28
it's like my understanding was that they that he would have been in this specific
00:37:33
Hotel building for a decent amount of time you know that this was there was the scheduled dance there was some
00:37:39
events there there were people hosting hotel room parties and then there's this emergency meeting he would have been
00:37:46
there for a considerable amount of time before he left or fell into the river at
00:37:52
2:30 in the morning um so I regarding the surveillance footage of him arriving to the hotel could be difficult
00:38:03
depending on the group that the amount of people walking in and out but but I'm with you I I where is all this footage I
00:38:10
again I go back to the parents say so you're going to tell me that these 30 students walked hand inand together uh
00:38:17
and so it makes it hard to have the footage going in but then this one Lone Wolf just walked out by himself again
00:38:23
this also kind of you know hints to me a little bit like Lisa lamb right mhm we have all this video footage but then all
00:38:29
of a sudden we have nothing like you know the big thing about her and the and um the elevator is that we don't have
00:38:36
the lobby footage and if we had the lobby footage that would change some things but remember there was some you
00:38:42
know technical difficulties with them and so that's why we don't have them so was there technical difficulties with
00:38:47
these these trail cams or other surveillance footage from that area mhm you know well and the thought here too
00:38:55
is regard guarding the hotel that Jesse's staying at um Ralph Parker went back there at some point he went back
00:39:02
there after he thought Jesse had returned to that hotel now can you show me law enforcement can you show me that
00:39:10
you were able to decipher who Ralph Parker was according to the surveillance footage at that hotel when he walked
00:39:17
into the building because we've seen these security cameras we've seen some of the footage that they that they
00:39:25
record sometimes you can't decipher you can tell it's a person you you might be able to you might be able to it's a
00:39:32
person right you might be able to judge if they're 3 foot tall or six foot tall you might be able to judge if they're
00:39:37
light-skinned or dark skinned but you might not be able to know anything other than the guy had on a a purple ball cap
00:39:44
or he had on a uh green ball cap you know you might not be able to to tell me that that's not Jesse Ross walking there
00:39:51
you might not be able to tell me that it's Ralph Parker walking into the hotel unless you have written down from his
00:39:59
account of that evening exactly what time that he walked into that hotel yeah I'd like to know where his whereabouts
00:40:05
were I mean I don't I don't find his story to be that fishy though I me it's it's very logical to think that somebody
00:40:11
opens up their hotel room uh it's dark you see a pile on the bed you know you you just assume that it's Jesse and then
00:40:18
you fall asleep uh some people are not going to turn on that light he might have been intoxicated himself and just
00:40:24
again like U like I said earlier uh just pulling this you know I got to crawl to
00:40:29
my bed you know that's all maybe that's all he was worried about the Ser you know that's the thing when you're
00:40:35
drinking you get be you become a survivalist I just need to get to my bed at some point um especially when uh I'm
00:40:44
drinking some liquor but um so I think his story is logical then he wakes up in the morning and Jesse's not there well
00:40:51
is it that far-fetched to think oh this guy got up and got going maybe he had something to do do maybe he was hungry
00:40:58
you know mhm so I I don't find his story illogical but at the same point show me
00:41:05
him on surveillance footage right show him walking back to his hotel show him walking into the lobby of his hotel well
00:41:13
right and and I've seen parks and wreck so I'm no dummy right I've seen parks and wreck and and what do you what you
00:41:19
what do we know line of dummy people that people that have not seen parks and wreck you're you're a dummy people that
00:41:25
have you are literally no but I've seen it and the and the funny thing is you know I
00:41:32
you know I don't want to make a big joke about this but the idea that there are these heated debates and these even
00:41:38
though it's a fictitious you know it's this Mock You in thing um there are some heated debates and some people take this
00:41:44
stuff very seriously so again that would um some crazy loon student uh I think uh
00:41:53
Jesse was in charge of uh zier H so did was zier stepping on somebody's toes and was some nefarious act taking
00:42:02
place because of a debate um so we have video footage of him Jesse possibly leaving I want the video footage of all
00:42:12
the other students right where's their whereabouts because those 30 students in that in that room they are suspects High
00:42:22
suspects you know because they would have more contact with them than the other 1200 mhm and they would have been
00:42:29
you know um we can assume some of the last people to see Jesse live right and and why aren't these people questioned
00:42:38
more and did all of them return to the meeting after the break or remain seated during the break right or who went back
00:42:45
to the hotel M who left who went for a smoke break you know who went to get some more booze and that's what I keep
00:42:53
going back to Captain that if if he did in fact leave the hotel building to me it points more that he had a destination
00:43:01
in mind because he left by himself um right but to me that to me look if you're at a party you
00:43:10
normally don't make an announcement or want somebody to come hold your hand while you go Yak right so to me that
00:43:17
would be the motivation there now the thing here is you've walked us well into the other theories um and I think that
00:43:24
you can kind of lump these together in a way so I'll kind of just mention them both and we'll talk about them uh as
00:43:31
they pertain to his story and maybe possibly one another but so the other thought is um and this was presented you
00:43:39
know by other people but I heard his mother State this in an interview Donna said you know how do we know that they
00:43:45
he didn't go back to a hotel room within that hotel building that he never left that hotel building during the break
00:43:53
that he went to a hotel room either to continue to party to talk to somebody that he had spoken to earlier that night
00:44:00
or simply just to go somewhere to hang out for the 30-minute break you know she says you can't prove to me that he left
00:44:06
that building and she says how do we know there wasn't some kind of accident in one of these hotel rooms and somebody
00:44:12
decided to cover it up this would be pointing toward uh that situation but also pointing towards somebody in the
00:44:19
group in that group of 1200 students well I've always thought the idea of a student or a person o seeing and then
00:44:26
people dumping the body somewhere or covering up was complete just Malarkey mhm uh until I've been reading about it
00:44:35
non-stop like it's been happening a lot uh I think there was three girl or four girls charged uh from Ohio State because
00:44:42
they they they literally dump the body uh at the hospital they just the girl ODed wait so they they pull up in a car
00:44:53
and just roll the body out of the car and dump it at footstep of the of the uh Hospital dead yeah and they're going to
00:45:00
be charged and there's multiple cases if you're going to do that why not just call the ambulance I don't because for
00:45:06
whatever reason again you know they're not adults you know it's not the 40s 50s 60s maybe even 70s anymore I would argue
00:45:15
that those people might not have been adults back then as well but yeah but you're right different time though and I
00:45:21
I think people expected people to be more mature at a younger age and I think people expected people to grow up a lot
00:45:29
faster than we do today um and I think we kind of coddle people and put people into these little safe spaces so it it's
00:45:37
not out of the realm of possibility that he was partying with some people and and
00:45:43
and something bad happened again like the mother says prove to me that he left MH you know and I I think it's real
00:45:49
possibility but again it's questioning those 30 some people so I'm interested to see because
00:45:56
supposedly there's a documentary coming out about this uh the the little trailer
00:46:01
I saw of it was absolutely horrible uh as far as a a film standpoint but I'm interested on what they were able to
00:46:10
uncover because the other problem too about this is there's a lot of podcasts that then go in and investigate just one
00:46:17
case spend their whole time on that you know I think we met uh pay from uh up and vanish and very cool thing this is a
00:46:25
cas that would be almost impossible to do because you got 1,200 students at this event m i mean you can start with
00:46:32
the 30 but this this would be a a monster undertaking yeah there yeah there is a documentary coming out at
00:46:39
some point um and it's U done by a guy that's from his hometown or from his area from Jesse Ross's area uh I don't
00:46:47
know the date of when that's to be released other than the article I read was stating that it was due to be out
00:46:53
later this year um Captain says it looks terrible i've not seen just the trailer
00:46:58
looks terrible but what I'm hoping is that this individual was able to um uncover some things that that we can't
00:47:06
find I've not seen the trailer myself um Captain the thing here is though you know fall in the river I put that at a
00:47:14
high probability um a hotel accident a hotel room accident the only thing that there there's one thing that points me
00:47:22
to that and again that's they cannot prove that he actually walked outside the four walls of that hotel right um
00:47:29
the other problem with that though is you you again you know it's like with the suicide thing well where's Jesse
00:47:37
where's the body where's um you think that you might see depending on what type of accident it could have been you
00:47:44
would think there would have been some kind of evidence of such that took place in some kind of hotel room and obviously
00:47:51
he would have had to have been his body would have had to been removed from that
00:47:55
hotel at some point um but again you're up against this situation like the police said where you get to an area you
00:48:04
get to you there's a a report filed we go out to investigate there's no crime scene there's no crime scene for us to
00:48:10
go something happened here and furthermore you you're hearing about something who knows he could have
00:48:17
actually disappeared at 2:30 in the morning there could there could have been nobody that seen him after 2:30 in
00:48:23
the morning until it's reported at approximately 400 p.m. the next day and many people have left this hotel rooms
00:48:31
have been cleaned people you know people have been in and out of these rooms yeah
00:48:35
and I and I know I I sound like I'm throwing the police under the bus and saying that they didn't do their due
00:48:40
diligence one first of all they're underst staffed they're underand they're they're underfunded uh under resources
00:48:47
this is also weirdly happening it's it's an adult so I think it becomes less of a
00:48:53
urgent situation um and again it's it's a bunch of people at this you know he seems like a good kid he's probably
00:49:00
going to show up and then you got Thanksgiving a couple days beforehand I think that factors into things a little
00:49:06
bit um so I I don't want to make it seem like I'm completely faulting them like if they would have done everything
00:49:13
they're supposed to do we would have we' have a closure for his family I I I don't believe that I think you know I
00:49:21
think they ran into some brick walls here yeah there are certainly incidences when we have seen plenty of times before
00:49:28
where there just appears to be no answers there there doesn't there's no arrows pointing the police and
00:49:34
investigators in any type of direction to come to any conclusions at all um now one thing the the parents have as you
00:49:42
said you know they don't they're they seem to be unhappy with the police they unhappy with the investigative efforts
00:49:50
as far as when it comes to Jesse now he you it's under understandable I mean they're not getting the results that
00:49:58
they want so you're going to be you're going to be upset you're going to be unhappy that doesn't mean that they
00:50:04
didn't do everything they could do now one thing that uh don Ross has brought up there was a strange incident uh
00:50:12
regarding the Chicago Police Department where his so Jesse Ross is on the National Database for missing persons
00:50:21
this is on the U ncic um and for whatever reason I don't know if it was a glitch in the system
00:50:28
but he his name was removed and his father was discovered this I don't know if somebody told him about it or
00:50:36
whatever but he called the Chicago Police Department and he told the investigators involved he
00:50:42
said look my son's name is no longer on this database for missing persons did you find him of course is the first
00:50:50
thing he wants to know and then second of all he wants to know well why would his name be removed
00:50:56
I don't know the specifics of why it was taken off but the problem that Don Ross
00:51:01
has with the investigation and that I would have with this investigation as well is that he alerted them of this and
00:51:09
they seem to drag their feet about putting him back onto that database so the way the database works is that
00:51:16
information has to be uploaded uploaded and inputed by somebody by one of the investigators involved in the case so
00:51:25
that database didn't do anything wrong they sit around waiting for somebody to give them the information unless it was
00:51:30
a glitch right um regardless though Captain yeah but here's how it works you file a missing person report right then
00:51:38
you go looking for the person if the police find the person they have no legal responsibility to tell the family
00:51:46
that we found this person and that he is okay they have no legal responsibility to do so right and and that's that's on
00:51:54
them now they might might let's say Jesse went missing on his own cord and they go Jesse do you want us to tell
00:52:02
your family no they don't have any responsibility to tell the family oh we found him he's okay they have a
00:52:10
responsibility to the city and the taxpayers to close the case mhm so I wonder if on some level it was one of
00:52:18
these things where they closed the case and then they said uh somebody found out
00:52:25
about it and then they end up putting him back on the thing so they don't have to have the odd conversation with the
00:52:30
family that oh we found him he just doesn't want anything to do with you that's certainly a possibility which
00:52:34
would lead to the odd speculation of you know if there was something you know look look for all we know his family was
00:52:42
super religious and he had some different way of life he wanted to live and that was not kosher to them mhm so I
00:52:49
I don't know yeah we don't know the Dynamics of of his family one thing I will will say though that kind of to to
00:52:57
keep their son's case alive um and to keep it in the minds of the Chicago Police dep department and their
00:53:04
investigators um they have asked friends and loved ones and anybody that visits find Jessi ross.com to on Jesse's
00:53:12
birthday send a birthday card to the Chicago Police Department um well I I commend them and I I feel sorry for them
00:53:21
but also they you know they they haven't really uncovered much else I mean that's
00:53:25
the problem with this case and probably at this point you know we got to start moving on from this case because there
00:53:31
is so many holes there's so many wh ifs you know but I mean we could speculate on it for 10 hours if we wanted to well
00:53:39
and the other thing though I do want to throw this in because some people find it extremely defiant that the Ross
00:53:46
family would would send birthday cards to the Chicago Police Department I I think they're just trying to keep their
00:53:53
son's case alive and well um and and keep hope that they will get some answers at some point so I I don't think
00:54:02
that it's defiant and I also do want to include that according to Donald Ross's bio um I don't know how long he this was
00:54:10
a career choice for him but according to his bio he did work as a police officer
00:54:15
uh at one time he did hold many jobs over the course of his his years so um it could have just been a short-lived
00:54:22
career but so he does have some ties and some knowledge of police work yeah I I I
00:54:28
think with all these cases when there's a missing uh child uh we all tend to judge their their families and their
00:54:36
parents on what they're doing but at the end of the day none of us know how we would react to this situation if you
00:54:43
want to dive more into this case check out that website that we've mentioned the other thing too is one thing that
00:54:48
was glaring to me as I watched interviews with his parents I do believe the parents when they state that you
00:54:56
know he was close to us that he was close to he he called us he checked in with us we always had a close
00:55:01
relationship and the other thing that I saw too you know it's it's it's quite common that you see a son you know his
00:55:11
hero may be his father that that's a common thing to see now I see this situation the way that Don Ross speaks
00:55:18
about Jesse Ross his son it almost comes off to me that that his son was his hero
00:55:25
know he talks about Jesse being very outgoing being Fearless being somebody that liked to play jokes on people that
00:55:32
he loved and cared about and it seemed that he admired his son for these traits so uh truly a heartbreaking story we're
00:55:40
not going to give up on you Jesse uh we think that there's some hope out there and hopefully one day the parents and
00:55:46
his brother will get the answers that they need and deserve I have a handful of cases that I have on the list and
00:55:53
I'll just random do a random Google search and this is one that I'll head back to and hopefully there's more
00:55:59
information that comes out [Music] soon this week's recommended reading is where's Opie vanished in Chicago by
00:56:14
Donald Ross Jesse's father where's Opie allows the reader to ride along with the
00:56:20
family of Jesse Opie Ross and learn details of his disappearance in Chicago learn what it's like day-to-day living
00:56:27
with the reality of a missing son and brother and finding the courage to go on learn how such an event affects a family
00:56:34
friends and law enforcement remember this could happen to any of us Donald Ross has two books on the subject the
00:56:41
first to come out was published in 2011 so please check out where's Opie and you
00:56:47
can do that by going to our website truecar.com check out the recommended page and use our Amazon Banner for all
00:56:54
of your purchases all right thank you Colonel thank you Captain and we'll see everybody back here next week same
00:57:00
garage Time same garage Channel until then be good be kind and don't [Music] [Applause]
00:57:23
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