WEBVTT - 6. Ashley 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.240 Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:08.479 not be suitable for all listeners. Ashley Zarski initially seems 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.200 like someone Robert Fisher would dislike. He's a conservative, gun 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.720 toting hunter in a pickup truck. She's a liberal leaning woman, 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.000 unafraid to speak her mind. They're not a natural match, 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.200 so it may surprise you that of everyone I interview, 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.720 Ashley gives me the best insight into Robert when we 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.160 meet in Sedona. All I know is that she worked 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.760 with him years ago. I have no idea she was 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.280 also one of his closest friends. Our conversation is emotional 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.960 and revealing. We talk of affairs and violent threats and caves. 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.400 What strikes me most, though, is how Ashley is still 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.000 struggling twenty three years later to reconcile the man she 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.760 knew with the brutal acts he's accused of committing. Ashley 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.920 is perhaps the bravest person I interview for this show. 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.000 It would be so easy for her to disown Robert 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.760 or at least remain silent. Instead, she's up for him. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.640 To be clear, she abhors the murders she knew and 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.200 loved Mary and the kids, but she refuses to paint 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.080 Robert as a two dimensional evil cartoon. She resists the 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.760 urge to pile on to erase years of happy memories. 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.000 Long after the church and hunting Buddies throw Robert under 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.920 the bus. Understandable given the circumstances. I'm not judging them, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.960 Ashley recounts to me in her first public interview, the deepest, 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.200 most honest, most complex narrative of who Robert really was. 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.280 Think of the bravery that takes if tomorrow the world 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.679 hates you, viscerally despises you. You are evil incarnate, a 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.479 throat slashing child killer who will speak on your behalf, 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.679 who will resist the urge to distill you down to 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.240 your worst instincts, who will refuse to feed the hungry 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.960 media beast and the ravenous public it serves the reductive 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:58.200 archetypal villain they crave. This is not about making Robert 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.400 Fisher look good. It's about trying to understand and find him. 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.840 It's also about integrity. Courage is more than violence. Courage 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.679 can be calm. Courage can be telling a stranger about 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.760 a friend you loved, the truth, good and bad, even 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.079 when your friend is accused of heinous crimes. To find 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.440 Robert Fisher, we need to understand him. To understand him, 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.600 we need nuance. Nuance is truth, and truth is integrity, 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:31.200 and integrity still matters, at least on this show from 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:35.079 iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three. I'm John Walzac and this 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.320 is Missing in Arizona, the story of a man who 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.840 disappeared after allegedly killing his wife and kids, blowing up 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.520 their suburban home and escaping into the wilderness. Twenty three 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.960 years later, I'm hunting Robert Fisher, and I need your help. 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:55.560 Tell me what you do for a look. 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.000 I'm a respiratory therapist. I give breathing treatments to people. 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.520 I do diagnostic testing, and the book my job as 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.600 I take care of people on life sports systems. 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.720 I imagine the last few years with COVID were kind 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:09.519 of tough for you. 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.040 The last three years have been really hard, demoralizing in 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.120 a lot of ways. I think the hardest part for 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.280 me was that our own government was lying to us. Oh, 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.640 in this spring, when it gets warmed this, I'll just 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.560 go away, don't, won't. I know? I didn't. When Phoenix 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.760 was still shut down, they had this huge protest to 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.800 the Capitol. So we did a counter protest. It showed 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.600 up in scrubs in ninety five across across the chest 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:39.120 and he said nothing, and people just were horrible. They 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.960 threw shapes and sodas out of us. They called us actors. 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.480 I'm like, come work one shift in my ICU. You'll 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.280 feel differently at my hospital. In the eleven months that 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:53.600 I was there, and I had one thousand and eighty 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.920 nine COVID patients on events, and seventeen of them lived 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:57.960 to leave the hospital. 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.440 So what year did you begin your career? What year 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:02.360 did you first work as a therapist? 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.280 Nineteen ninety and is that when you met Robert Fresher. Yep, 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:08.960 he went vipe up. Nice guy. He was funny, but 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.520 he was super quiet, so he would surprise you with 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.240 his sense of humor. I'll give you this one story. 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.520 We had a cardiac of russ come into the ear. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.440 He had gotten up to ICU and kind of have 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.520 a twit for a nurse. So the intensivist comes up 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.160 and he wants to see her notes, and she's all 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.800 flustered because they're not complete. So she starts telling them 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:31.840 Doctor Hammond, I had to do this and this and 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.680 this and this, and finally he's like, Evlin, I'm not 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.839 grating your notes, and she goes back into her spiel 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:39.840 of hell, they're not complete, but it's not our fault. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.560 So doctor Hammond says, you know, Everylin, you would get 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:46.279 a lot further with me if just periodically you compliment me, 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.280 like doctor Hammond, you dashing young thing here, please look 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.800 at my nursing notes. I'm in there, and Pob's in 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.520 there that this conversation's too good, So neither one of 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.200 us is leaving this room. Finally, doctor Hammond sees the 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:00.160 notes and he gets what he needs and he starts 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.760 to leave the room, and Bob lookes up and says, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.560 doctor Hammond, you handsome hunk of steel, where are you going? 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.280 And so that became my name for doctor Hammon for 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.080 the rest of the time I worked there. 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.680 Humor bonds them tightly and helps them cope with blood 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:17.080 and gore and stress. 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.280 Healthcare workers become more warped the more pressure there is, 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:26.200 so the jokes become a little bit less appropriate. For instance, 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.919 every single stinky year, Memorial Day weekend, and Labor Day weekend, 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:34.159 every trauma center in this state is going to get 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.919 hit with vote propeller versus swimmer or a jet scare. 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.960 And let's just say that propeller always wins. The patients 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:49.160 that come in. We used to name SEVICI. I'm telling you, 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:54.159 we go darkly under pressure. That's where we went. I 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.800 got Sevichi. Are you going to bag and drag this one? 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.640 I can remember working a level one track that was 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.520 pedestrian versus train. The train never loses, and it was 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.280 a blood path, and about every five seconds or so, 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.680 Bob would have to take an alcohol wipe across the 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:14.159 goggles because I didn't just being covered and what he 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.120 was good at seeing needs and filling those for people, 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.760 And he didn't do it with a lot of fanfare, 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:21.480 but he did it really consistently. 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.880 Beyond jokes and moments of kindness. Robert was also a prankster. 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.120 Ashley tells me about a coworker with whom Robert had 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:30.240 a friendly competition. 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.839 He and Bob used to tease each other and pull 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:35.840 pranks on each other all the time. What kind of 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:40.359 thanks if you left the little bottles of say, Jurgen's 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.960 hand lotion on the courtroom table when you came in 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.479 in the morning, it was very likely to have been 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:52.280 replaced with the mayonnaise from the cafeteria instead, so you 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.440 smelled like the condiment aisle for any of the next 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.280 twelve hours. There was this magic shop that sold all 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.880 sorts of pranks gifts, kind of like a Spencer's gifts 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.080 but better. And it had these little glass files of 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.359 the most foul smelling stuff you could imagine. And it 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.400 was a pretty common gag that we would take one 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.280 of these glass files, this nasty smell of stuff, tape 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.600 it into the doorframe, I mean ky the inside door knobs. 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.800 So now you've closed the door, break the glass. You're 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.600 just being attacked with like chemical warfare, and now you 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.440 can't even turn the door knob. Take it off. I 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.760 was stupid, kind of juvenile things, but they were just fun. 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.400 Bob and a few of us might have stolen one 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.000 of the golf carts from security and driven it through 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.040 the air once. The things that you could get by 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.600 word for so much more fun. Healthcare was a lot 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.000 more fun in the mid nineties. 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.520 So if you would partake in these pranks. 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.160 Oh yeah, he drummed them up half the time. The 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.440 golf cart was totally hissitia, Oh, they won't do anything. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.040 I'm like, I like living indoors and eating food. I 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.320 don't want to forge myself. I'll hunt you something. I 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.200 don't want raccoon. You know, we just had a banter. 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.640 We made more jokes than anything about like the Clinton 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.280 Monica Lewinski thing. We more or less laughed at these 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.560 poor people. It wasn't nice, but it didn't affect us either. 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.920 Jokes aside. Robert wasn't very political. With one exception, A. 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.480 Lot of people in our department were really excited about 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.960 Ross parole when he was initially starting to round in 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.199 ninety two. You know, the economy stunk and they were 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.000 looking for something different. So he was kind of in 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.880 that vein. We had probably fifty people in our department 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.959 in about ten or twelve, like, we're doing parole. If 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.199 this is the best the two party system can give us, 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.360 We're ing parole. And he was kind of into that. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:52.520 Do you remember any reaction of his Oklahoma City or 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.120 Waco or the Clinton years, oj any of the seminal 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:57.160 comments of the nunties. 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.720 I can't remember us watching the Oja high speech. Chase 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.199 I had all of thirty miles an hour through the 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.320 streets of LA with the rest of the country and 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:11.760 laughing at it. I don't remember him expressing a view 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.480 whether he had done it or not, but we were like, yeah, 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.760 that's exactly how I'd be trying to ditch the La cops. 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.079 I'd be driving thirty miles an hour down the four 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:20.600 or five. 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.360 What about religion? Did Ashley ever see Robert reading a Bible? 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:26.880 Did he talk about God? 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.120 No? No, that was a family thing, and we would 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.880 get into some philosophical discussions once in a while, but 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.160 he certainly wasn't one of these it was going to say, yeah, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.760 the second current dance unless you're Trump and two current 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:45.360 Dans or whatever. He wasn't going to throw his religion 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.040 down anybody else's throat. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.760 The way that he's been portrayed in the media is 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.000 as I don't know how to say this nicely, like 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:54.920 a kind of conservative runneck. Is that fair? 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.640 I think that's inaccurate. I mean, yeah, he liked to 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.640 wear overalls with or without T shirt, leaves the T 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.160 shirt off, Bobby work out a lot, is a nice field. Again, 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.800 I told you all roads lie data, but he wasn't 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.520 a redneck at all. And I mean, well, I grew 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.520 up in Atlanta. I can tell you a few things 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.880 about Redinck and he certainly didn't fit that mold at all. 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.000 And I won't even necessarily calm, super concernedive, just quiet. 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.280 Do you remember what foods he liked to drink? 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:27.200 This is going to make him sound like the redneck. 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:31.120 I remember being big on beef jerky, huge on beef jerky, 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.600 taking in there the overalls. We always ate dinner together 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.560 in those days. Most of us were doing either like 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.320 chicken on fries or burger fries. He was the one 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.880 who told me to eat fries with ranch dressing, which 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.640 the first time I saw that, it's awesome. 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:50.320 What else was he into? 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:54.600 He was really into hunting and fishing. I hate guns. No, 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:56.560 I'm not asking to take you away years there, just 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.240 not for me. He was really into his fitness. He 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.840 used to bent pressed the eight cylinders. They're heavy, until 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:04.320 he got caught and they were like, no, no, you 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.320 can't do that because if you drop it, you're going 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.840 to kill us all. And then he would do bicep 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.679 curls with the east cylinders. They're still a good fifteen 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:13.840 twenty pounds. And then when he got busted with that, 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.960 he would just pick a small stuff number he'd been 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:17.640 pressed through. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.920 Can you describe Bob physically to me? Like, if he 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:22.200 walk in this room, what is he? 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.079 Sometimes he would shave his head real close. Other times 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.000 he had kind of a short blonde haircut, about six 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.160 foot two, probably went two and a quarter two thirty. 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.360 He was pretty solid. It wasn't heavy set at all. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.559 He was just solid. Thus the bench pressing these tanks 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.600 weighed well over one hundred pounds, about nothing of it. 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:43.880 What about his back pain? 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.280 It would bother him periodically. I can remember a time 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.319 that he took a week or two weeks off because 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.800 he was just bed balanced. But they were preparing for 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.560 their first child and he was helping Mary set up 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.400 the nurser, but doing all sorts of home renovations too, 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.680 and had just aggravated it. But day to day he 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.960 didn't really complain about it that much. Everybody kind of 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.920 knew that he had had it, and it's why when 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.680 he would do crazy things like bench press the h 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:15.040 cylinders or his co workers, we were like, you're going 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:16.480 to kill your back. No, I got this. 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.240 As the nineties progressed, Robert's back pain got more severe, 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.520 but even as he deteriorated, he still went on adventures 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:29.240 with coworkers, hiking, fishing, biking. One trip in particular stands out. 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.560 And some of the air Ducks and some of the 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.320 other artists had gone on a mountain bike trip out 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.080 by Bartlett Lake and John Hatfield buried a wheel in 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.040 the sand. So he was biking in the buried the 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.880 front wheel and went over the handoffers smash everything. 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.520 He John Hatfield. 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.120 Fractured essentially every bone in his face, ended up requiring 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.920 an emergency trait. They had to take him in the field. 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.640 You know the bs things you see on television where 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.839 they track somebody with a big ballpoint pen. That's how 0:12:58.880 --> 0:12:59.800 he came into the ear. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:01.839 Did Bob perform the trade. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.600 No one of the er docs did, but Bob helped 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.520 secure kept John comb. Somehow they allow Bob to fly 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.000 in with John. Had an identical twin. Bob was one 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.480 who got in touch with Peter and took care of 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:20.960 notifying people and organizing things like a blood drive, organizing 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.560 things like people donating vacation hours to John because he 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:25.360 was going to need it. 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.559 Hello, John, I reached John Hatfield by phone. 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.040 Robert Fisher was working as a restory therapist as I 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.360 was working in the same department at the time. In 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:37.959 the late. 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.600 Eighties, Robert started as a respiratory therapist, then was promoted 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.000 to cardiovascular tech, a role which had. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.600 Him responding to the level one trauma center to help 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.160 put in central lines and chest tubes inside the trauma 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.560 room in the er. The kind of work that you 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.880 guys did, that's a high stress environment. There's zero margin 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.720 for error. Can you talk about what kind of person 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.400 drives in that environment? Anybody with a paramedic kind of 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.600 a background, or even rest for a therapist that work 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.640 in intensive care to have a low anxiety level When 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.080 things need to get done, you just kind of know 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.760 what you're going to do because you're trained, you're educated, 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.199 you know what the process is. So it's almost reflexive. 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:19.520 If you will, you don't have to think about it. 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.480 You just can do it. It's almost like they're stepping 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.400 back and even if though people may be on the 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:25.800 verge of death, you know that you're doing what you 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.600 need to do to prevent it. It's just through training, 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:30.560 the anxiety level is just not there. 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.040 What was Robert like as a person. 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.200 He was driven on exercise and fan off bills and 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.680 making sure his family was taken care of. He was 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.640 very traditional kind of a person in a sense of 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.360 family hierarchy. It was very much man goes out, works, 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.440 makes the money, brings it home. A woman stays home, 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.080 takes care of the kids. I can members two kids 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.040 being born. His wife delivered. There are two children right 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:56.440 there at the same campus where we worked. So I 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.200 remember both his daughter and Bobby Junior both being born, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.080 and he's just being a big proud dad. 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.160 Of course, my boy, smile, you're on candy camera. 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.400 Boy, the keys there you go. 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.680 When he had his kids was probably the happiest that 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.480 I'd ever seen them. In fact, before I went back 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.720 to Resttory School, I had worked as a professional photographer. Well, 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.760 his wife had taken both kids when Bobby would have 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.120 been like three or four months old to sears, and 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.920 three times they had to be reshoots for whatever reason. 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.640 Film was destroyed, eyes were closed and I still had 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.200 access to the studio. So I'll do family pictures. I'll 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.000 do the kids together to the kids lull. In those days, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.480 it was still film, so we sent out film. When 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.520 they got developed. I took the main shot from each 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.320 of those groupings as an alumn by fourteen, put them 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.440 in frames and hung on both the patient rooms and 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.840 I see you just to watch his reaction, and he 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.760 was awesome with that. I think knowing that side of 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.640 him is what has made it the hardest for me 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.000 to accept did he really do this? For the first 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.760 ten years I would have scept not a chance. Twenty 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.360 years now I have to say the FBI probably knows 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.840 more than I do, even if I knew the guy better. 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:13.040 So that's been hard. 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.120 The Robert Ashley remembers was kind, empathetic. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.520 And super generous. Like I got hit by a drunk 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.160 driver end of ninety one and just broke everything. It 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.520 was twenty five surgeries from one car accident, and Bob 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.520 gave me, you could donate your PTO time. He gave 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.360 me like a couple hundred hours of PTO time. Fairly generous, 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:35.320 but he was just quite so. He wasn't going to 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:37.120 make a big deal of doing it. He wasn't going 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.720 to tell forty nine of his closest friends that he 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:41.800 was doing it. But he would just do things like 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:42.600 that t help y'all. 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:08.480 Outside of work. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.399 Ashley, Robert and their families went to baseball games, water parks, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.800 and concerts. Robert was a huge Garth Brooks family. 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:17.400 And when Pink Floyd came to town. 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.800 We have great seats on the field. It was a 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:24.000 huge crowd passing beach balls around stuff. That was as 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.120 I was getting to know him better and he had 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.800 seen kind of quiet and reserve. But he asked me, 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.440 if I was getting tickets, would I mind getting tickets 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:32.880 for he married to Joinette. 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.359 Another time, Robert and Ashley attended a charity consultor in 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.159 Sedona organized to raise money for a Native American scholarship fund. 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.920 So it was Jackson Brown, Bonnie Ray, the Indigo Girls. 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.520 He had never heard the Indigo Girls, but he really 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.399 liked because nobody harmonizes like them and let me go 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.520 back to like Simon and Garfunkel or something. He went 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.600 with the year that Melissa Ethrich was there, which was 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.800 funny because I never saw but other friends who were 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.000 probably's such a homophobe. I never had him say anything 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.120 or act in any way that made me believe that, 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.639 And considering that particular concert, looks see between the Indigo 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:14.399 Girls Melissa Etheridge, if he was as big a homophobe 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.919 as people in their own minds made them out to be. 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.320 You sure wouldn't have known it that day. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.200 This brings me to an interesting point, Robert Fisher's sexuality. 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.280 It comes up unexpectedly. When I interviewed former FBI agent 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:28.760 Bob Caldwell. 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.400 There was a point that they thought maybe he might 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.760 be Someone had mentioned that he might be homosexual, and 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:34.720 maybe it was his homosexual. 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.760 Lover who helped him escape after he killed his family. 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:38.640 Do you remember who speculator that he was gay. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.000 I believe that was his pastor, friend that he grew 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.960 up with in high school that was counseling him and Mary. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.720 I believe he was the first one to mention that 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.080 he might have been gay. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:52.879 You're talking about Ken. Yeah. 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.439 Ken Hodgson was one of Robert's closest friends in Confidants. 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.399 They grew up together. Ken later became a pastor and 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.800 for many year Robert attended his church. If Robert told 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.879 anyone he was gay, it would have been Ken. I 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.439 try reaching Ken, but he never responds. Now, let me 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.080 paint a picture of two men. One is a gun 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.159 toting hunter and fisherman who drives a pickup, loves country 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.399 music and allegedly has affairs with women. The other is 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.400 a fitness obsessed wanna be nurse who likes tight shirts, 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:24.919 was in the Navy and jams out to the Indigo girls. 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.399 They're both Robert Fisher. This is not about his sexuality. 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:35.480 It's about stereotypes, good, evil, gay, straight, and integrity and storytelling. 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.480 I have all the power here. Either version of the 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.879 truth I choose is technically true? 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:42.439 What is truth? 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:42.840 Though? 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:43.800 What is real? 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.960 These are perhaps the defining questions of our era, which 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.680 is why I want to illustrate, briefly, in a tiny way, 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:55.280 how storytellers, reporters, entertainers, dictators can warp what you think. 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.720 It's possible to lie by telling the truth, by cherry 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.200 picking narrow truths that fit your chosen narrative. As far 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.159 as Robert's sexuality. 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:04.320 Who knows. 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.240 Maybe he was gay, maybe he was straight, maybe he 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.800 was bisexual. No one can answer that except Robert himself 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.320 or maybe his pastor friend Ken Ken or Robert I'm here, 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:16.359 call me. 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.240 I'm not into conspiracy theories. Think those people are idiots. 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:25.199 Creator honestly Ashley again, But I bought into Lue a 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.880 persistent rumor that Robert had an affair. 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:29.800 With one of the icee and nurses that we both 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.400 worked with. Sure she went through a negliative force in 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.879 her hospit of the time, would call the hospital and 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.240 leave threatening messages for Bob. 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:39.880 This is a big deal. 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.120 Neither the alleged affair nor the threats have ever been 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.399 reported publicly to my knowledge. They'll be new even to 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.800 law enforcement. Ashley doesn't know for sure whether or not 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.040 Robert and the nurse had an affair. Robert never confirmed it, 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.040 but he does know that the nurse's husband thought the 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.040 affair was ongoing for years. 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.920 You said that her husband would call on Friday messages 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:01.480 for Robert. 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.240 Oh yeah, oh yeah, that was like not even a secret. 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.600 And was this in the mid nineties, late nineties. 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.080 That would have been mid nineties kind of all when 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:15.040 oj thing was happening, Probably ninety five ish did it started, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.440