WEBVTT - 5. Sightings 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.280 Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:07.680 not be suitable for all listeners. Summer twenty twenty three, 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:10.200 I'm in Phoenix when I get a text from a 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:11.480 law enforcement source. 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:14.160 I received some photos of a hideout about one to 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.960 two miles from where Fisher's dog was found. I'm sending 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.800 them to you. The GPS coordinates are with the photos. 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.000 This kind of lead makes me salivate, an excuse to 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.000 leave the city, go to the mountains, hike in a forest, 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.920 and search for a mysterious shack. Yes please, I open 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.440 Google Maps, put in the coordinates, and soon we are 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.760 sixteen miles north of where Mary Fisher's forerunner was found. 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.440 Not as close as my source said, but still It's 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.680 better than boiling in a concrete metropolis with one point 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.120 seven million people during the hottest month in any American 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.840 city in history. Our producer Chris, and I drive ninety 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.360 miles north to paysin a mountain town of seventeen thousand. 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.760 I need caffeine and sugar, so we stop at my 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.480 favorite Arizona cafe, Common Grounds Coffee. I get an iced 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.280 coffee and one of the best cinnamon rolls I've ever 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.000 had passing paysin. We bump our way down dirt roads 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.680 until my phone tells me we're close to the cryptic 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:15.440 cabin about a mile away. Jittery with anticipation and from caffeine, 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.640 we park exit and hike into the woods. We're in 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:23.119 a Ponderosa pine forest, is partly cloudy and kaisobany's low eighties, 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.880 very breezy and pretty. We're probably ten eleven twelve miles 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.280 off any kind of paved road, and we're about to 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:30.640 hike a mile to the coordinates that we have for 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.000 this little shack or cabin that somebody found. There's all 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:36.880 this equipment and old stuff in there, so I mean, 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.399 what are the odds Robert Fisher was there? It's slow, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.520 but who knows? If I find a pistol with the 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.240 right cereal number, some old winter green chewing tobacco tens, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.480 maybe we'll pay more attention to it. I don't think 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.560 this will take as long as it seems. Famous last words, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.400 well wait, tutorial on the bear spray. So Chris and 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.840 I went to Swarnego's story yesterday and bought Frontiersman Bear 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.160 attack deterrent. Bare attacks on humans are rare, but in 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.360 June twenty twenty three, right before our hike, a black 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.400 bear killed a man as he drank coffee near Prescott, Arizona, 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.800 dragging him seventy five feet down an embankment. And this 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.320 isn't even the first time we've had to worry about bears. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.600 In season one, Missing in Alaska, while on a boat 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:18.880 off the coast of a remote island searching for a 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.200 missing plane, we spotted a brown bear on a nearby beach. 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.520 So yeah, I take bear seriously. Oh my god, Chris, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:31.639 it's a bear. Just kidding. So we're kind of switched 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.000 backing down this very steep embankment what looks like a 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.560 dried out creek bed. It's getting thicker the woods, pine 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.160 needles everywhere. It's pretty cloudy. Now it's cool, it's breezy, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:42.880 a little rock outcroppings. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:44.320 Okay, what we're doing. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.200 It's eleven fifty one am on a Tuesday, and we're 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:54.440 looking for some mysterious shock in the woods in Arizona. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:58.320 From iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three. I'm John Walzac and 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.560 this is Missing in Arizona, the story of a man 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.160 who disappeared after allegedly killing his wife and kids, blowing 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.840 up their suburban home and escaping into the wilderness. Twenty 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.040 three years later, I'm hunting Robert Fisher and I need 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:21.320 your help. Robert Fisher is nowhere, everywhere, all at once. 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:24.679 There are so many leads and sightings of him. They 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:29.000 require their own episode. Some are intriguing, some are absurd. 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.360 I want to lay them all out and let you 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.360 decide what to make of them. So join me on 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.200 a tour of the world, from a bunker in Scottsdale 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:42.440 to a Walmart in Payson, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Australia, even 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:46.160 a siting at FBI headquarters, until we find Fisher. He 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.600 is every lead. He is the wilderness cabin burglar, the 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.160 gold panning hermit, the mysterious man in the canyon. As 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.760 you listen, think of how exhausting this has been for 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:01.000 law enforcement. Thousands of leads, few investigators, strode in, fugitive, 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:02.560 alive and dead. 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:05.040 The nosy neighbor. 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.120 The nosy neighbor is the woman who heard Robert and 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.960 Mary fighting the night of April ninth, two thousand and one. 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.640 She didn't respond to my email's calls, text the letters, 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:16.840 and didn't answer the door when I showed up at 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.360 her house in episode three, I shared emails her son 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.760 sent me. I bleeped certain things and said I'd reveal 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.880 them later. This is the first reveal a fascinating new lead. 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.359 Here's what her son said. Day after the Fisher house 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.120 blew up, she saw him, Robert Fisher, driving his wife's 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.839 vehicle down Miller towards McDowell near the Fisher house. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.679 And turn east, which he never drove till that event. 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.240 Robert rarely drove Mary's Forerunner. 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.680 And told the cops about him and where he was heading, 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:48.880 and was ignored. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.760 This is a bombshell claim. According to her son, the 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:56.599 nosy neighbors saw Robert Fisher in Scottsdale a day after 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.320 the murders. Unfortunately, I can't verify or to tunk it 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.960 without speaking to her, and she doesn't want to talk. 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:04.800 The bunker. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.680 On the morning of April twelfth, two thousand and one, 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.080 two days after the house explodes, an employee of the Mesa, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.960 Arizona Fire Department finds an anonymous, handwritten letter left overnight 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.800 between the locked doors of Station Number one. 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.599 Robert Fisher, where the three family died in the fire. 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.560 McDowell and Scottsdale Road. He has a trapdoor bomb shelter 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.599 under his house. He may be over under his house. 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.440 Look for three y three door under carpet. 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.360 Good luck, police find no sign of a bunker under 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:40.640 Fisher's house. Rye bar Let me introduce you now to 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:44.320 Brianna Whitney, the true Crime Queen of Arizona. Brianna is 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.159 a reporter for Arizona's Family, a group of three TV 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.440 stations in Phoenix, and host of the popular podcast True 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.839 Crime Arizona. In twenty twenty two, she made a documentary 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.520 called Finding Robert Fisher. Brianna is skilled and tireless. Unlike 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.600 so many people in this industry, each he does original research. 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.320 We meet in Phoenix and hit it off. In your 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.479 career covering crime in Arizona. Is there one case that 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.120 sticks out as the greatest unsolved case in state history? 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:12.000 Is it Robert Fisher? 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.239 It's Robert Fisher. I can say that without a doubt. 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.479 It is Robert Fisher. It is probably the most well 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.640 known true crime case in Arizona. It just sticks with people. 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:22.960 And I think for that reason that for one thing, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:30.039 people arizonans investigators, detectives, people involved. Nobody can agree on 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.840 whether they believe he's dead or alive right now, Yes, 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.840 no doubt, one hundred percent. This is the most notable, 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:43.240 most intriguing, high profile missing person case that Arizona has. 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.440 So there are five leads that you investigated that I 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.920 just thought, well, Brianna did such a good job. I'm 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.279 not going to duplicate her work, thank you. Let's start 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.840 with the Rye bar lead, the infamous Rye bar lead. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.159 I didn't even know what Rye was when I started 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.400 this investigation, because you could drive down the highway and 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:01.400 you've already gone through it. 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.600 Ray is a tiny town of thirty one people, an 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.360 hour north of Scottsdale, just south of Payson. On April tenth, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.240 two thousand and one, the day the Fisher House explodes, 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.200 a man and woman enter a bar in Rye around 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:19.040 six forty five pm. It's cold outside, nasty. The woman 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:23.040 appears upset. She goes to the bathroom. The man orders 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.280 a shot of Johnny Walker red whiskey. He pays cash 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.120 about five dollars plus a one dollar tip. When the 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.240 bartender realizes she forgot her cell phone in the bathroom, 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.840 she goes to get it and sees the man's companion 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.200 vomiting in a stall. The bartender snags her phone and 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.920 returns to the bar. Moments later, the man's companion exits 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.800 the bathroom. The man speaks to her briefly, then gets 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.400 her club soda. The woman takes a tiny sip, then 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.360 they leave. They're only in the bar for about ten minutes. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.680 The man is thirty eight or thirty nine, the bartender says, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.960 six feet tall, one hundred and ninety to two hundred pounds, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.640 with crew cut hair, wearing a brown fedora style hat. 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.840 The woman is twenty eight or twenty nine five two, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.560 one hundred and twenty five to one hundred and thirty pounds, 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.800 with brown eyes and long, straight black hair, in black 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.840 pants and a black jacket. When the bartender sees a 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.080 photo of Robert Fisher, she says, quote, that's the guy 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.520 I saw. This is perhaps the most famous of all 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.800 the Fisher case. Leads I don't buy it. The idea 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.360 that Fisher successfully pulls off a triple murder, sets his 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.280 home to explode, then just pops into a bar on 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:35.840 the way out of town in a fedora is frankly absurd. Also, 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.480 there's a part of this story that's never been reported. 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.120 It supports my opinion. I found it in a police file. 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.920 Around ten pm that night, three hours after the couple 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:48.360 leaves the bar, the woman shows up at a house 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.080 across the street, where a friend of the bartender lives. 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.400 The woman asks to use a phone to call her 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.320 brother in Payson. She says her boyfriend left her and 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.520 drove away instead of her brother. She calls the Kila 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.520 County sh Sheriff's office trying to get a ride home. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.040 It's unclear what they tell her. The woman departs on 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.199 foot down a road carrying a blanket. The bartender's friend 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.280 describes her as thirty five five two to five four, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.320 one hundred pounds, brown hair, brown eyes, in a black suit, 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.840 jacket and black pants. If you believe this lead, you 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.800 have to believe that a fedora wearing Robert Fisher left 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.640 his girlfriend and Rye and she later called the police 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.880 asking for a ride, but was never identified. 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:31.840 The grocery stores. 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.280 The problem with trying to find Robert Fisher is everyone 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:40.280 looks like Robert Fisher. He's generic, no crazy tattoos, no eyepatch, 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:44.200 a vanilla everyman. Right after the murders, a witness claims 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.280 to see Fisher at a Walmart in Paysin. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.760 I went to Walmart and went through about ten hours 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:51.360 of tape. 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:53.800 Kila County Detective Brian Hay. 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.160 After doing that, found out that their clocks were screwed 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.440 up on their security cameras and that they hadn't place 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.439 a tape. So I watched all that for nothing. 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:08.120 Almost immediately another lead comes in. Scottsdale Police tell three 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:09.120 TV that there. 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:13.000 Has been an unconfirmed sighting of Fisher reportedly seen at 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:14.360 this grocery store in. 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:19.160 Patient Bashes, an Arizona grocery chain. Hevey goes to Bashes 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.360 and watches security tapes. He sees a man who could 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.240 be Fisher. Interestingly, the man is with someone. 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.520 But whatever videos I saw were so miserable that they 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:30.840 were basically useless. 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:32.640 How detail so. 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.480 Grainy that you couldn't make out any details whatsoever. 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:38.760 So I mean, you could have had Robert Fisher on 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:40.800 film and it's so low quality. 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.000 Or we could have had Deputy Rodney Kronk, who was 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.760 identified as Robert Fisher on multiple occasions driving his Dodge 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.720 truck or a County vehicle. 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:51.679 It was almost a spot on match. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.400 Really, Yeah, and he was with Healer County. Yeah, what 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:56.480 was that like for him? Well, we tease him quite 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.720 a bit about it. The only thing he lacked was 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.520 a gold tooth. Other he looked just like Robert Fisher. 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:04.400 The tow truck driver. 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.760 I got information that a tow truck driver possibly pulled 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:11.000 Fisher out of a ditch. 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.120 Scottsdale Detective TJ. Duran. 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.600 The reason why he believed it was Fisher because it's 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.079 the same truck that we eventually found, and he had 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.320 a dog with him, So we believed that he was 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.120 up on a rim area, probably driving around trying to 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:25.920 stay out of sight. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:27.960 Do you remember specifically where that was. 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.760 I believe it was up near Blue Ridge Reservoir, which 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.320 is directly north of Payson. 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.120 In twenty sixteen, the Arizona Republic says this lead is 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:41.800 quote the last known confirmed sighting of Fisher. That's not true. 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.080 It's never been confirmed. All we know is that a 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.080 tow truck driver claims he pulled a man matching Fisher's 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.360 description with a dog matching blue in an suv matching 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.600 Mary's out of a ditch. What makes you think that 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.400 lead in particular is a reliable lead? Since it came 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.679 after all the publicity and the driver didn't speak up beforehand. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:01.960 I don't know if he just saw it at the 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.480 time and was like whatever, But I mean he described 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:06.600 Robert the dog the fore Runner. 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.079 Former FBI agent Bob Caldwell. 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:11.680 I mean, he didn't do a toe slip, so he 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.480 didn't take notes and write down the vehicle and all 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:16.320 he did was give him cash or thanking him for 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:17.040 pulling him out. 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.760 The tow truck driver claims this happened a few days 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.600 after the murders, but he doesn't report it until after 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:24.839 the fore Runner is located a week later. 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.760 It is a long ways of ways from where Young 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.120 and the car was found to where he was pulled. 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.439 Out Scott Stale Lieutenant Hugh Lockerby, I. 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.600 Can't discount it. He was documented early on in the 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.400 investigation by you know, we had a deputy sheriff by 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.960 the name of Gil Marino follow up on it for TJ. 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.440 And that was documented in the report and the guy 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.200 described a silver fore Runner at the dog in it 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.200 and the guy said he's from the valley. Well, what 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.720 doesn't make sense is when you look at what he 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.560 told the sheriff deputy and then TJ. And TJ's report 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.920 was after he pulled them out, comes out to eighty seven. 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.360 The tow truck driver goes left, which would be back 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:03.920 south on eighty seven, and the four un remixser right 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.200 and goes north on eighty seven. Well, that's in the 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.800 mountain areas up there. You don't get too young by 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.240 just getting out a separate road. You'd have to take 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:14.480 like I don't even know how you get there through 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:16.880 forest roads. So if you take a right, you have 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:18.880 to go all the way up to the forty to 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.280 Winslow or Holebrook or whatever, and then come all the 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.440 way back down the backside of the Mogian rint Tuesday. 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.120 It would be so far around it take you hours 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.480 and hours. Or you would have to have gone right 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.400 like he did, like he described, and then after a 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.360 little bit time you turn and come back down south 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.320 because that's the quickest route. It just doesn't make any 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.000 sense or why he went all the way up there 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.120 and gets pulled out. Did he get like he doesn't 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:42.960 want to get exposed? 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:43.240 Now? 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:44.760 Did that really even happen? 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.160 I don't think it did. Neither does HeLa County detective 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:48.800 buying Haby. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.920 I've been to Blue Ridge hundreds of times. There's so 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.280 many people in and out of Blue Ridge Reservoir Road 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.920 that I suspect it if Robert was stuck in a 0:13:57.960 --> 0:13:59.720 ditch there or somebody else would have pulled him out 0:13:59.720 --> 0:13:59.840 of that. 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:02.200 Day inside of a touch talk. Yeah, toe trucks are 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:03.600 not going to go there without a call. 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.360 They're not just going to be driving around. Did he 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.640 tell you anything that wasn't public the tow truck driver. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:11.480 I don't think so. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:12.200 No. 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.160 I'd love to speak to the driver to gauge his trustworthiness, 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:44.960 but unfortunately guys dead. August twenty twenty three. Okay, so 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:46.640 just to give you an idea, we're kind of on 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.040 the side of a very steep embankment that goes down 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.200 maybe what do you think that is? Like five hundred 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:55.800 feet very slippery slope, very steep, lots of fallen trees, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.600 burn trees, rocks everywhere, very slippery. We have boots and 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.680 not very safe hiking to the mystery cabin. We realized 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.360 the terrain is much more severe than it appears on 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.200 topo maps. This is at least a forty five degree anglia. 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:13.280 I think more. Start to feel it on my old 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.800 decrepit op it goes in rock. It's also getting darker 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.320 and cloudier. It almost feels like a good storm. This 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.680 area has a colorful history. In nineteen twenty seven, a 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.840 plane carrying a lion crashed in a canyon twenty miles 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:31.840 south of here. Yes, a lion, specifically Leo the Lion, 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:33.680 the famous MGM mascot. 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.760 There's still parts of the plane out. 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.800 There, HeLa County detective Brian Havy. 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.200 Anybody that's been in this area as long as I 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:42.960 have have been to the side of the crash, let's 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.360 left parts of the air plane that they never hauled 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.360 out of there. I had a piece of a rear 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.360 tail rudder for years and years and finally had disappeared 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:53.560 or I gave it to somebody. 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.320 Both Leo and the pilot survived. The pilot hiked out 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.920 to get help. A week later, a group from pace 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.400 and made it to the wrecked plane. Leo was still 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:11.360 in his cage. They fed him a slaughtered calf. Do 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.040 you remember from the topo map there's this and then 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.920 over there it goes into a longer canyon, and I 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.400 think it's like right where this hits that longer canyon. 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:20.840 So I do think if we just cut kind of 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.520 diagonal down. I think we should let me just put 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:25.160 my phone away and let's just cut down. 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:29.120 And then we're so close the baby blue truck. 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.720 Around five pm on April nineteenth, two thousand and one, 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.360 a tipster calls the police saying Robert Fisher is driving 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:40.280 a baby blue Ford truck south towards Payson. Officers speed 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.360 north but can't find it. They get a report that 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.240 it exited onto a side road. An hour later, they 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.240 call off the search. By chance, this is almost the 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.120 exact moment that Greg the camper finds Mary's SUV in 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.400 the woods, forty miles east of Payson. This lead was 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.760 first reported by the Payson round up the Hitchhike. Four 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.359 days later, after a hectic weekend in the wilderness, Detective T. J. 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.720 Jurand returns to his desk in Scottsdale. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.280 When I came into work, I got a call and 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.719 a woman and her husband. It was either two days 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.640 or the day before we found that truck. They're driving 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.520 south on Young Road from two sixty A top the rint. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.480 You go south on this forest road and that's your 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.159 Young Road, and you start heading south towards Young. She 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.359 says her and her husband were driving down the road 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.240 and a guy is walking. Now she's in the passenger seat, 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:34.240 so the guy's on the outside. 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:34.280 Of the road. 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.239 As they're driving down the road, this guy walks by 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.520 him and you can't drive fast on that road because 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:43.240 you'll slide everywhere. And her and her husband said, that's 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.320 Robert Fisher. And I believe they saw him. I think 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:47.560 he walked out of there. 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:48.840 Did they say one that. 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.119 Was I can't remember if they told me it was 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:55.040 two days before, five days before. But when they saw 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.240 the news and saw that the truck had been found, now, 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.800 of course I was upset, thinking, why didn't you call 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.040 us that day? Now that happens in everything you know, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:06.560 they might not have thought it was him. 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:07.560 Was it him? 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:09.800 How do you filter out people though that are just 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:10.960 looking for attention? 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.320 Just by talking to her on the phone, and I 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.399 knew she was telling the truth. It was instinct. I 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:17.680 could hear it in the inflection in her voice. 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.679 Wouldn't Fisher have tried to stay off the road to 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.840 the side, I mean, he got away to that point. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.560 It doesn't make a lot of sense to me that 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.000 he would be just strolling on the side of the road. 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.000 After the crimes, knowing people are probably looking for him, right. 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.520 Right, But you're up north, you're in the country. You're 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.040 thinking that most people you see up there on the 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.080 Rim area camping, how long they been camping? Had they 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.399 even seen the news, had they even read a newspaper? 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:44.439 So he still has some time. 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.760 I respect Detective Duran, but we disagree on this lead. 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:49.560 I'm very skeptical of it. 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:51.880 The pawn shop. 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.200 April twenty fifth, twelve twenty five PM. A man who 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.280 looks like Robert Fisher enters a Phoenix pawn shop wearing 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:02.440 green camo pants, a strike shirt, and military style boots 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:06.040 that are scuffed but not muddy. He's scruffy and unshaven 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.760 and appears to have been sleeping in his clothes. He 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:12.560 browses the gun section, says nothing, then exits quickly after 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.520 seeing a sign requiring photo ID. He drives east in 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:20.840 a Toyota pickup truck plate two nine five FLb. The 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.000 manager is eighty to ninety percent sure the guy was Fisher. Unfortunately, 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.200 the shop security camera was off. Police check the bar 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.880 next door. They find footage of the truck, but the 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.160 angle is bad. They can't see the driver. 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:35.480 The old Ford. 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.159 Two days later, a friend of the Fisher sees a 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.760 Robert lookalike driving an older Ford pickup truck in Scottsdale. 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.000 She tells her husband, who calls the cops. I speak 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.320 to him by phone. He doesn't want his name used. 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.199 He and his wife knew the Fishers for sixteen years. 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.920 They lived in the same apartment complex in Phoenix in 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.920 the eighties. The wife gets a partial plate for sh 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.240 Police find one hundred and seventy nine possible, none of 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:02.280 the names ring a bell. 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:04.600 Malicious Gap. 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.480 On April twenty ninth, two people turkey hunting near Malicious 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.560 Gap in the Tonto National Forest are sitting in camp 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.240 taking a break reading when a man calls out from 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.320 the woods. He emerges, bearded and dirty and tattered and 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.160 torn camo clothes, carrying a sawed off shotgun. He asks 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.080 for directions to Malicious Gap, where he claims he's meeting 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.840 his brother. When he hears an ATV approaching, he gets nervous, 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:32.400 says goodbye, and runs into the woods. The next day, 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.560 the couple returns home to Montana. They don't report the 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.920