Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3: Our colleague Noel is on a sensitive operation for IGU.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined with our guest super producer,
Speaker 3: Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. Now, Matt, as we're rolling into this,
Speaker 3: we got to say it's a something a little different
Speaker 3: for this evening, because this one is for fans of
Speaker 3: not just true not just investigations, but mysteries.
Speaker 2: Right oh yeah, The whole story we're getting into today
Speaker 2: is a mystery. Every aspect of it is a mystery.
Speaker 2: And we're gonna be speaking with somebody who has created
Speaker 2: It's the third season of a show, Ben that I'm
Speaker 2: gonna call you out. You work on and I think
Speaker 2: it's a fantastic show. This specific season deals with the case.
Speaker 2: The details are so fine. I've been lost now, I've
Speaker 2: been immersed in it for the past forty eight hours.
Speaker 2: I can't escape, and I think I know how our
Speaker 2: guest feels now after diving into it so deeply.
Speaker 3: Right, we are speaking with the world expert on a
Speaker 3: case that remains unsolved in this modern evening. So that's
Speaker 3: our cold open, and we're gonna have a quick word
Speaker 3: from our sponsors. And we can't wait for you to
Speaker 3: meet this guy. And we've returned. We are joined with
Speaker 3: the world class investigative journalist, a man who never met
Speaker 3: a rabbit hole that he would not go down. Friends, neighbors,
Speaker 3: conspiracy realist, lend us your ears and help us. Welcome
Speaker 3: the one and only John Wallzac.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 5: Guys, Yeah, joining you from the depths of madness with
Speaker 5: my postit notes and my strings and my maps, so
Speaker 5: an undisclosed location. Glad to be with you, guys.
Speaker 2: Well, right behind John, I'm seeing a picture of a
Speaker 2: certain wanted individual. I believe that individual's name is Robert Fisher,
Speaker 2: who is the subject of this season of missing titled
Speaker 2: Missing in Arizona. Go check it out right now while
Speaker 2: you're well, wait until you're done with this and then
Speaker 2: go subscribe, like do that. But John, can you can
Speaker 2: you tell us who is Robert Fisher. Why are you
Speaker 2: focusing on this individual for a whole season of missing?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so missing in Alaska season one was a plane
Speaker 5: that disappeared, missing on nine to eleven, a doctor that
Speaker 5: vanished in New York the night before nine to eleven,
Speaker 5: and season three is missing in Arizona about Robert Fisher.
Speaker 5: So Robert Fisher killed his family, blew up their house,
Speaker 5: and then escaped into the wilderness in Arizona. He abandoned
Speaker 5: his wife's SSUV in the remote forest in the mountains,
Speaker 5: and for ten days they didn't know where he was.
Speaker 5: There was this man hunt. They found the wife's SUV,
Speaker 5: the Forerunner, near caves near an Indian reservation. So the
Speaker 5: big question is did Robert Fisher die in the wilderness?
Speaker 4: Did he escape?
Speaker 5: Their clues everywhere, And I think what makes it really
Speaker 5: fascinating to me personally is obviously it's an unsolved mystery.
Speaker 5: Part of it is the landscape of the American West,
Speaker 5: So it's an adventure to go into the mountains, to
Speaker 5: go hunting for a hermit's cabin, to go splunking in
Speaker 5: underground caves, which we do in next week's episode. And
Speaker 5: I think that that's part of the appeal. The other
Speaker 5: thing is because it happened in April two thousand and one,
Speaker 5: it was right before nine to eleven. It was before
Speaker 5: social media, it was before smartphones. And so one of
Speaker 5: the things that we talk about is we really lack
Speaker 5: what I call these mono mysteries, these great mysteries that
Speaker 5: unite us, and there's so few of them these days.
Speaker 5: That we look to the past and it was almost
Speaker 5: like you can look at two thousand and one in
Speaker 5: the early two thousands, that's kind of the end of
Speaker 5: these mysteries. So this is one of the great final
Speaker 5: mysteries of the pre digital age.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh well. Put Also, we've got to point out
Speaker 3: there is something you said that really really resonates, at
Speaker 3: least with me, the idea of mono mystery and the
Speaker 3: idea of the Great West, because, as we say so
Speaker 3: often on this show, a lot of times people forget
Speaker 3: just how wide and wild the interior of the United
Speaker 3: States is before we dive in. I do want to
Speaker 3: point out that you've worked on this show in concert
Speaker 3: with our comrade Paul Mission Control decand when you all
Speaker 3: are exploring this stuff, you're not just you know, on
Speaker 3: a browser on an Internet you guys are out there
Speaker 3: pounding sand, you're out there actually exploring caverns. Could you
Speaker 3: tell us maybe One of the first questions here is
Speaker 3: the following, was it easier for people to disappear in
Speaker 3: this time in April of two thousand and one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So that's one of the big questions, is, well,
Speaker 5: if Robert Fisher did escape, I think he's alive, clear
Speaker 5: about that, And I've spoken with most of the investigators.
Speaker 5: They also think he's alive. So our goal is to
Speaker 5: find Robert Fisher with this show. And you know, some
Speaker 5: of the pushback that we get is, well, how could
Speaker 5: he remain hidden for twenty three years? I think if
Speaker 5: he disappeared in twenty twenty four or maybe not, but
Speaker 5: in April two thousand and one, it was just a
Speaker 5: different time. And so I mean, I was, I was twelve,
Speaker 5: so I'm rapidly aging, but I was. I have a
Speaker 5: little bit of memory of.
Speaker 4: That that pre nine to eleven world.
Speaker 5: And you know, I think especially for like gen z To,
Speaker 5: they have never lived in a world where you could
Speaker 5: walk up to it a gated an airport, for example.
Speaker 5: So one of the things with this show that I've
Speaker 5: found really fascinating. I have a book sitting right behind
Speaker 5: me called Hide Your Assets and Disappear, Hide Your Assets
Speaker 5: and Disappear, and it was it was a best selling book,
Speaker 5: and I think nineteen ninety nine, two thousand, So you know,
Speaker 5: I think it was possible that Robert Fisher got out.
Speaker 4: In the nick of time.
Speaker 5: I call it kind of the fugitive sweet spot, the
Speaker 5: fugitive donut hole where he got lucky and he escaped
Speaker 5: right before Facebook, right before the iPhone, right before nine
Speaker 5: to eleven, and is still on the lamb.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: One of the things we talked about in this show
Speaker 2: a lot is that someone is presumed innocent until they're
Speaker 2: found guilty. Right when you've got a missing person like
Speaker 2: this and there's a stack of evidence against you, that's
Speaker 2: a weird gray area for me cognitively, right, because unless
Speaker 2: it's proven in a court of law that he's guilty,
Speaker 2: then I kind of have to personally at least keep
Speaker 2: an open mind to like, did he actually do this?
Speaker 2: One of the things you do is you look at
Speaker 2: that stack of evidence and you go through it with
Speaker 2: a fine toothed comb in your mind. What are the
Speaker 2: biggest pieces of evidence that say Robert definitely killed his
Speaker 2: family and escaped.
Speaker 4: So yeah.
Speaker 5: So one of the things that I do is I'm
Speaker 5: like you guys, I am a truth based person. It's
Speaker 5: fun to look at these things, and sometimes conspiracies play out,
Speaker 5: and sometimes the police are law enforcement, they kind of
Speaker 5: want to minimize information because they want to stick to
Speaker 5: a simple narrative.
Speaker 4: So I just go wherever the narrative leads me.
Speaker 5: And as far as Robert Fisher, I think, for example,
Speaker 5: the police have said for years that there were poor
Speaker 5: patterns indicating that he used a liquid accelerant to help
Speaker 5: burn down his house. And one of the things that
Speaker 5: we looked at is poor patterns, as junk science say,
Speaker 5: it doesn't actually prove anything.
Speaker 3: Oh and just for all of us tonight, what is
Speaker 3: a poor pattern? Defined as PO you are?
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, po you are pattern?
Speaker 5: So it basically, if you're looking if I were to
Speaker 5: burn down the house I'm in right now, and you're
Speaker 5: looking at the rubble, and you see patterns where it
Speaker 5: looks like I dumped a gasoline and then walked walked
Speaker 5: backward out of the door, it would look like I
Speaker 5: had dumped a liquid accelerant. And in this instance, because
Speaker 5: it was something that happened in a weekday, late at night.
Speaker 5: If there were a liquid accel aren't used, it would
Speaker 5: indicate premeditation, and that kind of starts to give us
Speaker 5: clues about who actually pulled off this crime. That it
Speaker 5: wasn't some random person walking by the home. In this case,
Speaker 5: it's actually junk science. So I looked very critically at
Speaker 5: I believe Robert Fisher committed these crimes, but there were
Speaker 5: people that should have been looked at more closely that weren't. So,
Speaker 5: for example, I look at the neighbors. When I ask
Speaker 5: everybody who was feuding with the Fishers, everybody said the neighbors.
Speaker 5: The neighbors were kind of strange, and they said things
Speaker 5: that the police don't believe. They said things that the
Speaker 5: police lean on. I also, I spoke to this episode
Speaker 5: we just ran this week a co worker of Roberts
Speaker 5: who was a very close female friend of his, who
Speaker 5: told me that there was a heavy rumor he was
Speaker 5: having an affair with a certain coworker in the nineties
Speaker 5: and that her husband at the time would call and
Speaker 5: leave threatening messages. And I don't think law enforcement ever
Speaker 5: looked at him. So while I think Robert Fischer committed
Speaker 5: these crimes. I always keep an open mind and run
Speaker 5: it down and then you know, one of the great
Speaker 5: hopes is that people hear that and then come forward
Speaker 5: with other information.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Oh man, Ben, I don't want to jump the gun,
Speaker 2: and John, I don't want to jump the gun. But
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about Ashley and her story of
Speaker 2: the affair because yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 4: Burning in my mind.
Speaker 2: I just listened to episode six and it is one
Speaker 2: of those it's an idea that I think is infectious.
Speaker 2: So it went into my mind. Okay, maybe he was
Speaker 2: having an affair. Maybe was there was a jealous husband
Speaker 2: out there that wanted, you know, bad things to happen
Speaker 2: to him, And that would be a pretty big suspect
Speaker 2: in my mind. If you wanted to destroy Robert's life,
Speaker 2: fully you do what happened, right.
Speaker 3: And this is something Matt and I were talking about offline.
Speaker 3: This was the this was the oh snap moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, just because I didn't I didn't know that
Speaker 2: there was someone out there like that, right, like a
Speaker 2: potential nemesis for Robert Fisher, and it just we haven't
Speaker 2: even really like gotten into the details. You do in
Speaker 2: great depth in your show. But just how horrifying these
Speaker 2: deaths were. Maybe just a quick trigger warning, Can we
Speaker 2: just let people understand what occurred inside the house even
Speaker 2: before the fire?
Speaker 3: Great? Yeah, great point, So trigger warning disclaimer everyone. The
Speaker 3: following conversation will include graphic and accurate descriptions of horrific events.
Speaker 3: This is your warning. Three two one over to you, John.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, eight forty two am April tenth, two.
Speaker 5: Thousand and one. The house explodes. Is this little ranch
Speaker 5: in Scottsdale, Arizona. It is a fireball into the sky.
Speaker 5: Obviously nobody's expecting it. Please show up and they find
Speaker 5: three bodies in the wreckage of the house, a wife
Speaker 5: and two kids, and all.
Speaker 4: Three three of them had their throats cut and.
Speaker 5: Mary, the wife, also was shot in the head one
Speaker 5: single time with a bullet. So and then whoever killed them,
Speaker 5: whoever set the house to blow up, They basically left
Speaker 5: the natural gas going from the furnace, set some kind
Speaker 5: of trigger which we think probably was a candle, and
Speaker 5: then maybe a few hours later, the house exploded. So
Speaker 5: the cops and the firefighters show up. They find these
Speaker 5: charred bodies, but they realized immediately that something's wrong. Because
Speaker 5: they're mostly in like fetal positions, like they're sleeping, and
Speaker 5: in other cases like this, obviously if there's a fire,
Speaker 5: you're going to at least try to escape. You're not
Speaker 5: going to be found in bed. So they immediately know
Speaker 5: that they're dealing with a triple homicide, and their initial
Speaker 5: strategy is to not name Robert Fisher's suspect, to kind
Speaker 5: of hope that he just shows up and says, hey, guys,
Speaker 5: like I was out camping, what happened? And he doesn't
Speaker 5: show up. So that strategy was controversial and failed, but
Speaker 5: I understand.
Speaker 4: Why they they went with it.
Speaker 5: But you know, one of the fascinating things about this case,
Speaker 5: and we go into detail, is there is no forensic
Speaker 5: evidence proving that Robert Fisher committed these crimes. There is
Speaker 5: a lot of circumstantial evidence, and so you ask, well,
Speaker 5: why do.
Speaker 4: I think he did it?
Speaker 5: Well, one of the key small details, and this is
Speaker 5: why I get so much so into the weeds, but
Speaker 5: I also like to give all these details to the
Speaker 5: audience and let let them kind of come to their
Speaker 5: own conclusions. But one of the small details that really
Speaker 5: matters is where Mary Fisher's SUV was abandoned. It was
Speaker 5: a spot in the forest that Robert Fisher and his
Speaker 5: family were supposed to go camping several days later. It
Speaker 5: was a spot that.
Speaker 4: He knew well.
Speaker 5: And so you have to ask yourself, well, let's say
Speaker 5: it was an external party, they would have had to
Speaker 5: know somehow that he knew this exact spot, so you
Speaker 5: could you could start getting into theories about, oh, maybe
Speaker 5: somebody took him at gunpoint, and it doesn't make as
Speaker 5: much sense to me as that he just did it.
Speaker 5: But I've heard from from everybody, including people that really
Speaker 5: knew that Fisher as well, and including from law enforcement
Speaker 5: that they've they've you know Ashley for example, who we
Speaker 5: just spoke to in this last episode, she gave us
Speaker 5: some important new information she she spoke to me about
Speaker 5: like the idea.
Speaker 4: Of a cartel.
Speaker 5: So you know it is it is a spectacle, like
Speaker 5: I say it in the show. But you have three
Speaker 5: throats cut, you have a suburban home that explodes, you
Speaker 5: have a fugitive who vanishes in the wilderness near a
Speaker 5: cave caves. It's it's really I see it and came
Speaker 5: to see it as this classic Western sort of this
Speaker 5: like neo Gothic Western story that takes place in two
Speaker 5: thousand and one in Arizona against this very like harsh landscape,
Speaker 5: not of the desert, but of the high country in
Speaker 5: the mountains of Arizona.
Speaker 2: And with that, we're gonna take a quick break, but
Speaker 2: we'll be right back for more with John.
Speaker 3: And we've returned with this. There's something that I think
Speaker 3: is on a lot of people's minds with cases like this,
Speaker 3: right that occur in how did you put it, the
Speaker 3: donut hole, right of the possibility of disappearance. One of
Speaker 3: the one of the things that continually stands out in
Speaker 3: cases like this is always going to be the function
Speaker 3: of law enforcement, which I know is a sensitive topic. However,
Speaker 3: given the resources available at the time for the investigators,
Speaker 3: do you think it is possible that they have they
Speaker 3: maybe missed some aspects of the investigation to Matt's earlier point,
Speaker 3: for instance, about people worth looking at.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, and I know that for a fact because
Speaker 5: we found those people. So that is I love the investment,
Speaker 5: the negative part of this that is really my passion.
Speaker 5: The writing can be painful, and the audio and the
Speaker 5: storytelling are fun, but I love investigating and I really,
Speaker 5: really really get heavily into the investigation, and so does
Speaker 5: our team. Ben's been involved in that, and then Paul
Speaker 5: Deckett was involved in that as well. And yeah, so
Speaker 5: for example, we find two new witnesses who changed the
Speaker 5: timeline of the case, who see Mary Fisher's SUV after
Speaker 5: what we've been told for twenty three years is the
Speaker 5: final sighting. That really matters because it means there was
Speaker 5: a much shorter window during which Robert Fisher could have disappeared.
Speaker 5: We find forensic experts that haven't spoken before, at least
Speaker 5: the press. We found witnesses and family friends and co
Speaker 5: workers who haven't spoken to even law enforcement. So I
Speaker 5: find it fascinating about these cases. This is a high
Speaker 5: profile case. Robert Fisher was on the FBI's ten most
Speaker 5: wanted list for nineteen years. When I come onto a
Speaker 5: case like this, I wonder what we Why am I
Speaker 5: doing this? Why am I investigating this? Obviously you know
Speaker 5: the FBI and the police must have found everything. Right, Well,
Speaker 5: the answer is no, and that is why I love
Speaker 5: doing this, because it's exhausting. But then the one out
Speaker 5: of ninety nine people, they actually have new information that
Speaker 5: you've never heard before. So we speak to those people
Speaker 5: throughout the show and even as we work toward an
Speaker 5: ending for the show, and I'm clear we haven't found
Speaker 5: Robert Fisher yet. I really want to find him, and
Speaker 5: that is a big hope of mine with the audience
Speaker 5: that we're getting, that we find Robert Fisher. But throughout
Speaker 5: the show, you're going to hear from new people. And
Speaker 5: I know law enforcement is listening to the show as well,
Speaker 5: and they are learning about people because I'm in contact
Speaker 5: with the spokes and they've never spoken to the cops
Speaker 5: or the FBI before. So my hope is I have
Speaker 5: an interesting relationship with law enforcement. I really really respect
Speaker 5: some of them. Some of these guys really care about
Speaker 5: this case. Bob Caldwell, FBI, Hugh Lockerby Scottsdale, TJ. Jurand Scottsdale,
Speaker 5: very smart, capable guys who care. And then I also
Speaker 5: am clear, like I get to just focus on this
Speaker 5: full time. But if they really want to solve this,
Speaker 5: and I believe they do, there are certain things that
Speaker 5: I think they can do.
Speaker 4: That I kind of want to light a fire to
Speaker 4: push them to do.
Speaker 5: So I lay out, well what can be done forensically,
Speaker 5: So for example, as of last summer, they had not
Speaker 5: used like open source like jed match, like DNA databases
Speaker 5: to say, well, one thing that I speak to experts
Speaker 5: on familicide and domestic violence, they say, if Fisher did escape,
Speaker 5: he could have another family. At this point, he could
Speaker 5: have adult children. So what if one of their adult
Speaker 5: kids uploaded their DNA and wanted to learn about their ancestry.
Speaker 5: And then it's like, okay, well, you know, that seems
Speaker 5: kind of far fetched. But one of the things that
Speaker 5: I talked to the law enforcement about that as of
Speaker 5: last summer they had not done, is to look at
Speaker 5: open source DNA databases like jed match, to say, well,
Speaker 5: Robert Fisher could have a new family, and if he does,
Speaker 5: maybe he has a kid who uploaded their DNA and
Speaker 5: wants to learn about their ancestry. And then it's like, okay,
Speaker 5: well this is a little weird. I didn't know I
Speaker 5: had family members in Arizona. So I think, you know,
Speaker 5: twenty three years later, it is still possible to solve
Speaker 5: this case. There are forensic things that law enforcement can do.
Speaker 5: I wish I could do them. Sometimes I try to
Speaker 5: do them, and I fail occasionally, But you know, one
Speaker 5: of my goals is to kind of walk this line
Speaker 5: with law enforcement of respect for the work that they've done,
Speaker 5: but also to kind of light a fire and say,
Speaker 5: you know, my allegiance are to the people involved in
Speaker 5: this case first and foremost, and they really want to
Speaker 5: get this thing solved. So I you know, people say, well,
Speaker 5: is this realistic? Like this guy's been gone for twenty
Speaker 5: three years, you know, like, let's be real, You're not
Speaker 5: going to find him.
Speaker 4: TJ.
Speaker 5: Juran is one of the detectives of the case. He
Speaker 5: calls this the John List of our generation, and I
Speaker 5: agree with him. And John List was somebody who killed
Speaker 5: his family in New Jersey in the early seventies, was
Speaker 5: on the land for eighteen years, was featured on America's
Speaker 5: Most Wanted, and then he was living a new life.
Speaker 5: He had remarried, his wife obviously didn't know who he was.
Speaker 5: And I think that there are also just other forensic
Speaker 5: and tech sides of things that we can do to
Speaker 5: move the case forward. And I know, you guys, we'll
Speaker 5: probably get into that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. This brings us three paths that are mission critical
Speaker 3: to the show. The technology piece that I think we
Speaker 3: I think we have to get into that at some point.
Speaker 3: But to your point about the forensic aspects here, one
Speaker 3: of the questions that I know a lot of people
Speaker 3: are having are going to be immediately concerned with the car, right,
Speaker 3: isn't a car traceable to some extent? I mean, Matt,
Speaker 3: what do you think it through there?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, the suv was recovered. I just listened to
Speaker 2: the whole segment where it was the veterinary technicians who
Speaker 2: are the vets who like helped capture Blue, which was
Speaker 2: the family dog, and using donuts by the way, which
Speaker 2: we're mentioned already in the show. But I've been pretty
Speaker 2: in my mind have been a little focused on the
Speaker 2: suv because I just listened to episode two again where
Speaker 2: you discuss the vehicle shuffle where there are two vehicles involved.
Speaker 2: There's a pickup truck which is owned by Robert and
Speaker 2: then an suv which is owned by Mary, his wife
Speaker 2: or that it's their cars, right, And on the night
Speaker 2: that everything went down, there's a witness who or several
Speaker 2: witnesses they like saw those vehicles being moved in and
Speaker 2: out of the carport right or out toward the street
Speaker 2: because they lived in a cul de sac where if
Speaker 2: you've got you know, you've got neighbors around a cul
Speaker 2: de sac, they noticed that kind of thing sometimes. What
Speaker 2: my big question about suv was, well, they're a couple.
Speaker 2: But the first one is did any witnesses actually see
Speaker 2: Robert in the suv leaving the house ever, or on
Speaker 2: the road or once it got to where it ended up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5: So there are some alleged sightings and there are some
Speaker 5: that I kind of buy in many that I don't.
Speaker 5: It's as difficult to evaluate them. There's nobody confirmed who
Speaker 5: saw Robert in the suv leaving the house, on the
Speaker 5: road or in the woods. So I mean that's as
Speaker 5: an excellent question. And getting to what you were talking
Speaker 5: about shuffling the vehicles around is why this kind of
Speaker 5: investigative work matters, because the two new witnesses that we found,
Speaker 5: that's the only reason that we know this now because
Speaker 5: previously the final sighting of Robert Fisher or Mary Fisher's
Speaker 5: suv was on atm footage at ten forty two pm.
Speaker 4: On the night of April ninth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 5: And then we pushed the timeline back like seven hours
Speaker 5: I think. And so you know, one of the things
Speaker 5: we say is that night there was this game of
Speaker 5: I call it musical cars, And the question is why
Speaker 5: it's You'll listen to the show, but it's like in out,
Speaker 5: in out, driveway in, street in driveway out, and it's like,
Speaker 5: this was a little bizarre and why.
Speaker 4: Was this going on?
Speaker 5: And also one of the things that I really heavily
Speaker 5: am going to focus on as the show goes on
Speaker 5: is whether somebody helped Robert Fisher, and if instead of
Speaker 5: only focusing on Robert Fisher, if we start to focus
Speaker 5: on suspected accomplices who helped him before, during, or after,
Speaker 5: if we can help bring this case so close.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: So I'll just tell you where my mind went because
Speaker 2: I listened in a weird order. I listened through one
Speaker 2: through six in order, and then I went back and
Speaker 2: after hearing episode six, Ashley, Now in my mind, I'm
Speaker 2: almost reevaluating everything in the mind of well, what if
Speaker 2: there was somebody, like a third party that was not
Speaker 2: a part of the family at all, that was maybe
Speaker 2: an enemy of Robert. What if that person was doing
Speaker 2: all these actions that we're seeing we have witnesses seeing
Speaker 2: things and evidence of and in my mind, I went
Speaker 2: through this whole list of if I just and this
Speaker 2: is horrible to say this out loud, but I am
Speaker 2: thinking this way, if I just murdered this family of
Speaker 2: this guy I hate and him, I murdered him as well,
Speaker 2: Like somewhere at some point in that time, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: take a pickup truck because with an open bed with
Speaker 2: a body in it or something, I would put evidence
Speaker 2: and everything that I had in this suv that's covered
Speaker 2: that police officers wouldn't see, and the chance that I
Speaker 2: passed one, and I would try and make it look
Speaker 2: like that suv got driven to a place where this
Speaker 2: guy would have gone, and now he's just missing, and
Speaker 2: now he gets blamed for everything and his whole life
Speaker 2: is destroyed. And I just keep thinking about all these
Speaker 2: little pieces of evidence, and I know it's conspiratorial, John,
Speaker 2: That's it's like, WHA could you out there? And I
Speaker 2: don't mean to introduce that necessarily other than the all
Speaker 2: the information that you're finding is like painting kind of
Speaker 2: a weird picture in my mind.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I don't think there's anything wrong with looking
Speaker 5: at the conspiracies like that's. I love looking at the
Speaker 5: conspiracies like I like your guys's approach because you look
Speaker 5: at the conspiracies, but you also look at facts, and
Speaker 5: I think that there's like there's there's this blindness on
Speaker 5: the part of people who are only logic, like you
Speaker 5: need to look outside the box. Like a huge theme
Speaker 5: that we've had in all three seasons is Aukham's Razor,
Speaker 5: which is there's a reason that we're spending years on
Speaker 5: these particular cases because yeah, Okham's razor ninety nine percent
Speaker 5: of the time, but there are times where.
Speaker 4: It doesn't work.
Speaker 5: It doesn't always work, and you know, so this is
Speaker 5: a case too where no, it's really smart to look
Speaker 5: at the alternative answers.
Speaker 4: And I think that.
Speaker 5: The media and law enforcement in this case had blinders on.
Speaker 5: And even if you come to the conclusion that you
Speaker 5: still think Robert Fisher did it, there certainly were other
Speaker 5: people that they should have looked at that in different
Speaker 5: circumstances they did not look look at very closely. The neighbors,
Speaker 5: for example, I cite them in the show, the aggrieved
Speaker 5: husband of somebody who Robert Fisher was allegedly having an
Speaker 5: affair with. To my knowledge of law enforcement wasn't even
Speaker 5: aware of that until our show, So you know, Yeah,
Speaker 5: you go through that, you look at it, you say
Speaker 5: there is doubt, Like, let's not just paper it over
Speaker 5: for a convenient narrative for the cops and for the media,
Speaker 5: and let's let's look at that stuff. And at the
Speaker 5: end of the day, if we still think Fisher did it, great,
Speaker 5: but it's absolutely worth looking at.
Speaker 3: Absolutely And that's that's one thing here. There's not a
Speaker 3: stone unturned, not a cavern unexplored.
Speaker 2: Right, well, just the cavern's in this thing if you
Speaker 2: want to hide a body.
Speaker 3: Also, So with this I completely agree with you, guys,
Speaker 3: the concept of the exploration, right again, the idea that
Speaker 3: no lead, no information, regardless of how potentially tenuous, should
Speaker 3: be in that realm of binders or blinders.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So you have this wide scope and then you narrow
Speaker 3: into these specifics and you have again been on the
Speaker 3: ground and under the ground looking for these things that
Speaker 3: law enforcement does appear to have missed for one reason
Speaker 3: or another. Quite possibly, if we're being honest, resources and
Speaker 3: the need to move with other cases in Scottsdale and abroad.
Speaker 3: One axiom though, that stands out in this exploration is
Speaker 3: that through your research, John, you have become increasingly convinced
Speaker 3: that Robert Fisher successfully committed what we call pseudo side
Speaker 3: perhaps or on the edge of pseudo side has disappeared,
Speaker 3: and you believe the man is alive, and we see
Speaker 3: this in the show from the jump. So could you
Speaker 3: tell us just a little bit about why you know, Like, Matt,
Speaker 3: you gave this I think very well thought out what
Speaker 3: if on this one, and it's one that a lot
Speaker 3: of our audience and a lot of the audience missing
Speaker 3: is immediately going to understand because it is possible. So
Speaker 3: what to you just in a general way, like, was
Speaker 3: there a moment when you were looking in this case
Speaker 3: and you said, no, this guy is alive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So just to circle back to the fore Runner, Matt,
Speaker 5: the interesting thing about the Forerunner is how clean it was.
Speaker 5: So they found it in the forest, all the windows
Speaker 5: were rolled down. It was so clean, like no mud
Speaker 5: or dirt. A little bit of dirt, you know, but
Speaker 5: not a ton. I've been up there in dry weather
Speaker 5: and definitely in wet weather. Your car is filthy.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 5: It was so incredibly clean. And then they processed the
Speaker 5: car and they did find some evidence. It's been erroneously
Speaker 5: reported that they did not find any So, for example,
Speaker 5: they found fingerprints, and those fingerprints I actually speak to
Speaker 5: a person of interest later in the show, and I
Speaker 5: would really like law enforcement to check that person's fingerprints.
Speaker 5: But you know, and then and then, so basically getting
Speaker 5: now to Ben's question, why do I think Robert Fisher
Speaker 5: is alive?
Speaker 3: Well, also, could you talk about the dog? I hate
Speaker 3: to be a sucker, Yeah, such a fan of animals.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, Ben, Ben knows this. But in season two
Speaker 5: miscou nine to eleven, the person whose disappearance we were
Speaker 5: investigating her cats were in her apartment when the World
Speaker 5: Trade Center fell, and the number one question I got
Speaker 5: the entire show, which I didn't even think about at first,
Speaker 5: was like, are the cats okay? So I learned to
Speaker 5: like definitely tell people what happened with the pets. So
Speaker 5: that's kind of a fun, colorful, happy, little, very brief
Speaker 5: moments of happiness in this show.
Speaker 4: Not many, but we take them. So when they.
Speaker 5: Found the Forerunner abandoned in the woods, they found the
Speaker 5: Fisher's dog, Blue, Australian cattle dog. And one of the
Speaker 5: big questions is if Robert Fisher went into the wilderness
Speaker 5: and died by suicide. For example, why would Blues stay
Speaker 5: with the vehicle and not follow Robert and I speak
Speaker 5: to the veterinarian they called in and she was just
Speaker 5: like a normal mourning at her little office and they
Speaker 5: sent her into the woods alone with like.
Speaker 4: Some donuts to capture this dog.
Speaker 5: And she and her friend Patty Blackmore and Samantha Right,
Speaker 5: they're hilarious, hilarious, wonderful people.
Speaker 4: But yeah, the.
Speaker 5: Dog was rescued, but no blood on the dog. Where
Speaker 5: was the dog during the murders? And the dog was
Speaker 5: missing its collar and spoiler alert.
Speaker 4: Close your ears if you're listening to the show.
Speaker 5: But we believe that we tracked down the dog's collar
Speaker 5: and we flagged that to law enforcement. So even twenty
Speaker 5: three years later, there's a possibility that because of our show,
Speaker 5: that they have a new piece of forensic evidence that
Speaker 5: they can process for things like blood stains or DNA.
Speaker 5: As to why I think Robert Fisher escaped, that is,
Speaker 5: I don't have a succinct answer. Is something that I'm
Speaker 5: going to make in multiple episodes, but overall, this is
Speaker 5: what I think. I think Robert Fisher was a smart guy.
Speaker 4: He was not stupid.
Speaker 5: He had experience, He was in the Navy, worked with
Speaker 5: aviation fuel, he was a firefighter and EMT. He worked
Speaker 5: in hospitals. He was good under pressure. In my personal opinion,
Speaker 5: it is something I've discussed privately with law enforcement. He
Speaker 5: basically had this plan where his family was starting to crumble,
Speaker 5: his wife seemed like she was about to leave him,
Speaker 5: and he basically plotted out how to escape. So he
Speaker 5: went to an ATM. It's the final time that we
Speaker 5: thought that we saw him, though we know that's not
Speaker 5: true now, and he was wearing, for example, a black
Speaker 5: ball cap. I mean, even in two thousand and one,
Speaker 5: you know if you're going to the ATM, you're going
Speaker 5: to be on camera. When they found the suv abandoned
Speaker 5: in the woods, they found none of the belongings he
Speaker 5: took from his home, none of the camping gear, not
Speaker 5: his gun, absolutely nothing. The only two things they found
Speaker 5: the dog and the hat, the hat that he was.
Speaker 4: Wearing in the ATM footage.
Speaker 5: I spoke to the cop who was the very first
Speaker 5: person to reach the suv. It was carefully placed on
Speaker 5: the side of the passenger seat, so to me it
Speaker 5: was almost like a calling card of I was here
Speaker 5: and then where he abandoned the suv is also fascinating.
Speaker 5: We have a brilliant researcher on our team who was
Speaker 5: originally a fan of Missigan, Alaska, Paul Gemperline, who we
Speaker 5: brought on as a member of our team this season,
Speaker 5: and with his help, we pinpointed down to the exact
Speaker 5: spot in the woods where the Forerunner was abandoned. So
Speaker 5: I've stood up against the actual tree in the woods
Speaker 5: in Arizona where the Suv was abandoned. One thing we
Speaker 5: did with that as we metal detected around that area.
Speaker 5: I won't spoil that, but we went into the caves.
Speaker 5: But that spot, if you wanted to pick a spot
Speaker 5: that was frustrating for law enforcement, it was let like
Speaker 5: nine hundred feet from an Indian reservation. And the importance
Speaker 5: of that is because there's tribal land outside, law enforcement
Speaker 5: can't just go on. It creates a jurisdiction issue. He
Speaker 5: put it one hundred and fifty feet from the closest
Speaker 5: cave I've been into that cave. When you're standing in
Speaker 5: the entrance, you can see.
Speaker 4: Where the car was parked.
Speaker 5: We parked our super cross track kind of close to
Speaker 5: the size of what they were driving. So if you
Speaker 5: wanted to make this as frustrating and annoying and difficult
Speaker 5: as possible for law enforcement. That's what you would do.
Speaker 5: Something else we look at Robert Fisher had very serious
Speaker 5: back pain, enough so that at points it was crippling.
Speaker 5: He seemed to be addicted to opioids. So there's just
Speaker 5: this issue of people think maybe he went into a cave. Well,
Speaker 5: did he go into a cave with severe back problems,
Speaker 5: a possible opiod addiction, carrying hundreds of pounds of equipment,
Speaker 5: and no sign of his remains or belongings have ever
Speaker 5: been found. It starts to seem a little fishy to me,
Speaker 5: and then that circles back to do we think somebody
Speaker 5: helps Robert Fisher?
Speaker 4: I think somebody helped him.
Speaker 5: So then you're looking at well, did he have any
Speaker 5: connections to the drug world? Was he having an affair?
Speaker 5: Did he have any kind of shady friends? And I
Speaker 5: think those are questions that we look at later in
Speaker 5: the show. But long story short, Yeah, I think Fisher
Speaker 5: is alive and I really really want to find him.
Speaker 3: We're going to pause for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 3: and then we'll return with more from John Walsey, and we're.
Speaker 2: Back let's get into it. So I'm trying to imagine,
Speaker 2: Let's say you take that suv to that place where
Speaker 2: it's found. Right, it's pretty much clean, but we know
Speaker 2: it was filled with stuff because stuff was missing from
Speaker 2: the house. Right. Where do we think that stuff went?
Speaker 2: Just was it enough stuff that he could carry on
Speaker 2: his person or was it one of those things where
Speaker 2: there needed to be another vehicle where it got loaded
Speaker 2: into or you know, I don't know. Just what do
Speaker 2: you think there?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I think that that's a really important clue because
Speaker 5: the two main theories are that Robert Fischer died by
Speaker 5: suicide in the wild, or that somebody helped him escape
Speaker 5: and maybe throwing a suicide trigger warning here.
Speaker 4: But if you're going.
Speaker 5: To die by suicide in the wild, it's a beautiful
Speaker 5: area out there. It's unfortunately not uncommon in that general area.
Speaker 5: It's something that law enforcement told me.
Speaker 4: But you're not.
Speaker 5: Necessarily going to take all of your hundreds of pounds
Speaker 5: or one hundred two hundred pounds of equipment. You might
Speaker 5: just walk up to a hill. So I think that
Speaker 5: he left the cap that he was wearing in the
Speaker 5: ATM footage as Yes, this was me. You have me
Speaker 5: on camera. Now this cap which has my DNA on
Speaker 5: it is in the car. Nothing else is here, and
Speaker 5: now I'm going to park the vehicle in a very
Speaker 5: difficult spot where you're going to have to navigate Cave's
Speaker 5: tribal land the wilderness. And so I think that that
Speaker 5: is that is a big clue. Personally, I think he
Speaker 5: took his stuff with him, wow, just like picked.
Speaker 2: It up and went somewhere well real quick.
Speaker 5: I mean also that could still be something that helps
Speaker 5: us solve this today because one thing I found, for example,
Speaker 5: is he took a thirty eight revolver and we know
Speaker 5: the serial number of that thirty eight. So that's something
Speaker 5: I say in the show, if you have a snubnose
Speaker 5: thirty eight, please look at the serial number. So kind
Speaker 5: of like the kind of like the dB Cooper cash,
Speaker 5: like you'd all think it's ever going to be found,
Speaker 5: And as a little kid is digging on a sandbank,
Speaker 5: like we can, we can hope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the idea of the wilderness here. One thing that
Speaker 3: maybe a lot of us listening this evening are not
Speaker 3: experientially aware of is the fact that there are people
Speaker 3: who do successfully live off the proverbial grid. There are
Speaker 3: folks who are simply nomadic in a forest or have
Speaker 3: you know, some kind of hobo jungle or a camp. John,
Speaker 3: Is that something that exists in the area of the
Speaker 3: wilds of Arizona.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 5: I don't think Robert Fisher is still living in the
Speaker 5: wilderness twenty three years later, but there's definitely a chance
Speaker 5: that he did for a time. And I think, you know,
Speaker 5: one of the things that we look at, we will.
Speaker 4: Get other cases. Right.
Speaker 5: So Eric Rudolph is the most prominent case, the Olympic
Speaker 5: Park bomber who in the late nineties and early two thousands,
Speaker 5: I mean, he hid out in the mountains of western
Speaker 5: North Carolina, my home state, for five years, and he
Speaker 5: managed to evade a massive, massive man hunt. Something that
Speaker 5: I also just find interesting is getting away from crime.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, there are people that do this all over the country.
Speaker 5: Is something I heard examples of in Alaska. It's something
Speaker 5: I heard about in Arizona, where, even though I'm looking
Speaker 5: specifically at the Fisher case, that's something that personally fascinates me. So,
Speaker 5: for example, I spoke with members of law enforcement who
Speaker 5: work in these very rural It is one of those
Speaker 5: counties on the map that's like a quarter of the
Speaker 5: country long. And they they told me true examples and
Speaker 5: names of people that is recently is the last few years,
Speaker 5: are are living off the grid on public land and
Speaker 5: in the forest in Arizona. So one of the things
Speaker 5: that we do in the show is we got to
Speaker 5: lead about a possible hermit's cabin not that far from
Speaker 5: where Robert Fisher disappeared, and so we tried to hike
Speaker 5: to that cabin. It got very rough, rough, but so
Speaker 5: we know certain things, for example, that would it maybe
Speaker 5: prove something, but would give us an indication of let's
Speaker 5: look at this more closely, like this type of gun.
Speaker 5: He was very into winter green Copenhagen chewing tobacco. So
Speaker 5: if I found a little shanty in the woods and
Speaker 5: it was like these dusty old winter green tobacco tins,
Speaker 5: it would kind of raise my blood pressure. But the
Speaker 5: hermit aspect is really fascinating, and I think that for me.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, missing in Alaska in particular, and
Speaker 5: now missing in Arizona, there's this strong wilderness angle where
Speaker 5: there are few mysteries that are new. There are few
Speaker 5: spots on the map that are unexplored that's what we think.
Speaker 5: But then go go put some GPS coordinates into your
Speaker 5: phone like like we did, and you'll see it's pretty
Speaker 5: rugged and roughen And you know, I reference that, I say,
Speaker 5: in a violent nature.
Speaker 4: Like the film.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Hey, by the way, when you're finished listening
Speaker 2: to Missing an Arizona, which you need to go listen
Speaker 2: to right now, do subscribe to Flashpoint, which is a
Speaker 2: whole season that we're making with Tenderfoot on Eric Rudolph
Speaker 2: and just the points you're making about him and how
Speaker 2: he was able to just vanish for so long in
Speaker 2: the wilderness, and he was protected somewhat by individuals that
Speaker 2: maybe sympathized a bit with him and what they perceived
Speaker 2: as his cause, which is something to think about here.
Speaker 2: I don't think that Robert Fisher had a cause, at
Speaker 2: least that I'm aware of. It doesn't seem like there
Speaker 2: was any kind of religious or political or any kind
Speaker 2: of motivations for the actions that were potentially taken there,
Speaker 2: is that correct, That's what I'm getting from the show
Speaker 2: at least.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So Robert Fisher, I mean, kind of a right leaning guy,
Speaker 5: but this was definitely not motivated by politics. And then
Speaker 5: you touched on something really important. They were talking again
Speaker 5: about Eric Rudolph, which is, you know, Rudolph had far
Speaker 5: right ideologues who supported him, so he had help over
Speaker 5: the years and people that could have turned them in.
Speaker 4: Who did it.
Speaker 5: Nobody's supporting someone who killed their.
Speaker 4: Wife and children.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's there's not an ideology that no matter where
Speaker 5: left right, whatever, you know, political ideology, there's there's no
Speaker 5: support for that. That is he committed. You know, I
Speaker 5: think in a different case, if he had robbed a
Speaker 5: bank or something, he'd be a folk hero and to
Speaker 5: some people even Eric Rudolph was, though obviously I disagree
Speaker 5: with that, but thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just just to clarify, you guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just get in front of that one, John.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And my when I and my teens in North Carolina
Speaker 5: when he when he disappeared, I wasn't out there giving
Speaker 5: him a wheat or.
Speaker 2: Just really quick. If that show is hosted by this
Speaker 2: is a spoiler, is hosted by a child who would
Speaker 2: have been aborted by his mother if if Eric Rudolph
Speaker 2: hadn't bombed the abortion clinic the morning of the appointment,
Speaker 2: Which is a crazy conundrum that you know, in that
Speaker 2: host's mind and in all of our minds, you have
Speaker 2: to like work through anyway. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean
Speaker 2: the Rudolph case is fascinating, And I mean I grew
Speaker 2: up in North Carolina, went to college in Nashville, North Carolina,
Speaker 2: and I think he was caught Murphy maybe a year
Speaker 2: before I went to the school. So wow, that was
Speaker 2: very very like you know, I mean they got him before.
Speaker 2: But I used to go hiking and camping, and but
Speaker 2: there there's also this like dark romanticism of the wilderness
Speaker 2: a fugitive, and with Rudolph, it's a little bit more political.
Speaker 4: With Fisher.
Speaker 5: What's really interesting about this case, I think is in
Speaker 5: some ways this is an extremely rare case. It's a
Speaker 5: man who is a family annihilator who successfully escaped. And
Speaker 5: I say it in the show. We might not know
Speaker 5: his ultimate fate right now, but he did successfully escape.
Speaker 5: That is extremely rare in these cases, very few cases
Speaker 5: like this. So I think, you know, one of the
Speaker 5: things we do everything from speak to experts to go
Speaker 5: go into spider filled caverns, but we can learn from
Speaker 5: experts who study familicide and family annihilations, and so I
Speaker 5: one of the fun parts of this job, and you
Speaker 5: guys obviously know it is you get to speak to
Speaker 5: experts about fascinating topics. And so in some ways Robert
Speaker 5: Fisher is extremely rare and unique, and in other ways
Speaker 5: he's not. And what I mean by that is there
Speaker 5: are patterns that typically lead towards these types of crimes.
Speaker 5: There are different ways to classify family annihilators. And in
Speaker 5: the sense that Robert Fisher's family was breaking down and
Speaker 5: he was spiraling and losing control, I say it and
Speaker 5: verbalize it. Ben heard me say this. Control control, control, control, control,
Speaker 5: that's Robert Fisher. He started to lose control, you know.
Speaker 5: And something I tie into is I know there are
Speaker 5: people out there who are possibly dealing with abusive situations
Speaker 5: or situations.
Speaker 4: That are not safe.
Speaker 5: And one important thing about many of these men who
Speaker 5: commit family annihilations is they do not have a history
Speaker 5: or a pattern of physical domestic violence. So our idea
Speaker 5: of the stereotypical wife beater or abuser or doesn't necessarily
Speaker 5: fit these guys. Many of them are quote respectable. Robert
Speaker 5: Fisher was a church going guy who worked at the
Speaker 5: Mayo Clinic Hospital and had no known history of physical
Speaker 5: domestic violence.
Speaker 3: So there's a point here that I think you've nailed
Speaker 3: with great articulation, which is the idea. The patterns and
Speaker 3: predictive kind of analysis only take you so far, because
Speaker 3: even in the most depraved cases of criminal behavior, even
Speaker 3: when the perpetrators do not think of themselves as human,
Speaker 3: they are ultimately human and therefore beholden to certain constraints. Right,
Speaker 3: so we can get we can get a rough idea
Speaker 3: for some things, but you're to beautifully put point there.
Speaker 3: This stuff can happen somewhere else. So what makes this
Speaker 3: case rare is, without sounding emotionless, what makes this rare
Speaker 3: is not that it occurred. What makes it rare is
Speaker 3: that the suspected perpetrator has disappeared. And this brings us
Speaker 3: to something that you are able to do that has
Speaker 3: not been done in many other cases. You are this
Speaker 3: is a light spoiler for everybody listening. You are also
Speaker 3: leveraging technology in an innovative way to not only give
Speaker 3: us an idea of what Fisher may look like if
Speaker 3: alive now, but also just an exploration that I would
Speaker 3: of artificial intelligence and voice modeling that I would argue
Speaker 3: also at times goes a little past just the mission
Speaker 3: of the show. We're talking about a lot of things.
Speaker 3: Could you I know I'm throwing a lot at you there, John,
Speaker 3: Could you speak a little bit about why you and
Speaker 3: your team chose to leverage technology in this way and
Speaker 3: what inspired you to do so.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, So there are always things that we can do
Speaker 5: that are not easy or even sometimes possible for law
Speaker 5: enforcement to do. We're not constrained the way that they are,
Speaker 5: and we're not bureaucratic the way that they are. So
Speaker 5: the first thing that we did is I worked with
Speaker 5: three different forensic artists on new age progressed images of
Speaker 5: Robert Fisher. So one of the things every single person
Speaker 5: who knew Robert Fisher I asked, do you have any
Speaker 5: photos or video of him? Because people ask, well, why
Speaker 5: did he blow up the house? And the answer is
Speaker 5: always to destroy evidence. I agree with that, but not
Speaker 5: in the way people are probably thinking. The bodies were
Speaker 5: not destroyed, that evidence was there. He must have had
Speaker 5: some ideas military experience hospital that wasn't going to fully work.
Speaker 5: I think partially it could have been maybe just something
Speaker 5: an emotional outbursts, But if you're looking at evidence, it
Speaker 5: was pre smartphone and at the dawn of digital cameras,
Speaker 5: so we only have so many photos and so many
Speaker 5: videos of Robert Fisher. I worked on this for two
Speaker 5: years and I found fewer than thirty to give you
Speaker 5: an example, So I asked every single person that knew
Speaker 5: Robert Fisher, do you have photos?
Speaker 4: Do you have videos?
Speaker 5: And we got some excellent new photos of him that
Speaker 5: I purposely am not publishing because I'm using them privately
Speaker 5: for investigative reasons. They show new angles of his face,
Speaker 5: for example. And so we worked with three forensic artists
Speaker 5: at the same time without telling them it was an experiment,
Speaker 5: and we gave them the same material because I wanted
Speaker 5: to see all these three talented people, what do they
Speaker 5: come up with when given the same source material? And
Speaker 5: then what we did with that is the best one
Speaker 5: in my opinion. We put on our show art. So
Speaker 5: for people right now, if they're on their phones, if
Speaker 5: you look at the missing in Arizona's show art, that
Speaker 5: is an age progressed image of Obert Fisher done by
Speaker 5: a very talented forensic artist named Michael W. Streed, who
Speaker 5: we worked with previously. The goal being turn our show art,
Speaker 5: which is going to be the most visible part of
Speaker 5: this show visually into a mini wanted poster. So anybody
Speaker 5: who sees that and that that gets to the voice.
Speaker 5: So we were able to take home videos of Robert
Speaker 5: Fisher that survived the fire. When the house exploded, there
Speaker 5: was a fire safe and there were six tapes VHS
Speaker 5: tapes in there, Crackley audio and video from the eighties
Speaker 5: and nineties. I went through last year and indexed every
Speaker 5: single second of Robert Fisher's voice. I have like two
Speaker 5: thousand entries of like one second where you hear him speaking.
Speaker 5: This is where we get to the crazy, the carry mathison, the.
Speaker 4: Maps and stuff.
Speaker 5: But so we took that and then I think, you know,
Speaker 5: we recreated Robert Fisher's voice using artificial intelligence. We partnered
Speaker 5: with a company called alter day I out of the UK.
Speaker 5: They worked on They typically work on projects like Hollywood projects,
Speaker 5: so for example, they recreated the voice of a young
Speaker 5: Michael Jordan and we partnered with them and we recreated
Speaker 5: Robert Fisher's voice. I think when you first hear it,
Speaker 5: it's a little jarring because it's lower quality. This was
Speaker 5: extremely tough for us to do because we're so used
Speaker 5: to it now we're we have high quality, high res
Speaker 5: versions of you know, all all of us, Matt, Ben
Speaker 5: and me our voices out there so we can make
Speaker 5: each other say whatever we want, right or my brother
Speaker 5: sends me videos of Johnny Casts singing hip hop songs
Speaker 5: or you know, that's the fun side of it. But
Speaker 5: with Robert Fisher, we have we had about ten minutes
Speaker 5: of source audio and it was horrible. It was from
Speaker 5: Crackley home videos that mostly survived in a fire safe
Speaker 5: and an exploded house. So what Alter Day I was
Speaker 5: able to do is create a custom voice model for
Speaker 5: us and we later on in the show it hasn't
Speaker 5: aired yet, I interview an AI Robert Fisher, which is
Speaker 5: a very fine ethical line to walk. Uh So that's
Speaker 5: it's tough because like I'm scripting this, like so you
Speaker 5: know in my head of man, Okay, so I got
Speaker 5: to be careful, right, like we really I've got to
Speaker 5: be careful ethically, I've got to be careful. Obviously, I
Speaker 5: still want it to be interesting.
Speaker 3: So you're upfront about it.
Speaker 4: I'm upfront about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I'm not gonna have Robert Fisher say certain
Speaker 5: things like I killed everybody, like you know, but it's
Speaker 5: because because this is this is coming edge technology. You know,
Speaker 5: we were able to take horrible sorts audio and still
Speaker 5: do this. And and the goal here is, you know,
Speaker 5: people have heard it in the trailer, only a tiny
Speaker 5: snippet of it. Right now, we haven't played the full thing.
Speaker 5: And the goal when you speak to visual forensic artists,
Speaker 5: what they tell you and what they told me is
Speaker 5: we're not trying to do a piece of art that's
Speaker 5: going to hang in somebody's house, though behind me it
Speaker 5: is actually hanging over my shoulder. What they say is,
Speaker 5: we want to do something that sparks familiarity because we're
Speaker 5: trying to capture this guy, so we don't want to
Speaker 5: say this is exactly what he looks like, because we
Speaker 5: don't know exactly what he looks like. We want you
Speaker 5: to look at this the show art, the forensic image,
Speaker 5: and say, man, that kind of looks like my neighbor,
Speaker 5: that kind of looks like my uncle or my father
Speaker 5: or god forbid, my husband. And we're starting to get
Speaker 5: those leads already, and people are sending us pictures and
Speaker 5: it's interesting because we're looking at those internally, and also
Speaker 5: I know people are contacting the FBI as well, but
Speaker 5: with the voice what's really interesting is what I want
Speaker 5: people to understand is that we're not saying this is
Speaker 5: exactly what Robert Fisher sounds like in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: We're saying, if this sparks some familiarity, if you see
Speaker 5: this image and say that kind of looks like this guy,
Speaker 5: if you hear the voice and say, okay, well kind
Speaker 5: of eighties nineties quality, but that kind of sounds like
Speaker 5: him a little bit too, then maybe you'll do a
Speaker 5: double take and look closely at people. And we are
Speaker 5: legitimately using and leveraging and trying to use this show
Speaker 5: to find this guy. So that is, if we find
Speaker 5: this guy, it's going to be because of the audience.
Speaker 5: It's the same thing that happened with John List. It
Speaker 5: was an audience member. It was a woman in Colorado
Speaker 5: in her apartment watching America's Most Wanted who said, I
Speaker 5: think that kind of looks like our neighbor, Bob. And
Speaker 5: I think her kids were like yes, Mom, like like yeah,
Speaker 5: that's that's Bob the neighbor, all right, And it was
Speaker 5: it was John Listed.
Speaker 4: This lady callde John List.
Speaker 2: That's so crazy.
Speaker 4: That's so crazy.
Speaker 2: The forensic DNA thing I think is so so great.
Speaker 2: We talked a lot about what was it the original
Speaker 2: night stalker.
Speaker 3: That got caught, and.
Speaker 2: Just a bunch of other people that we've covered on
Speaker 2: our show that ended up getting caught because officers waited
Speaker 2: for whoever to have a finished can and the trash
Speaker 2: can took it. And then now they found you. But
Speaker 2: it was through finding like a long lost cousin or
Speaker 2: a distant relative via those things like Jed match Man.
Speaker 2: What you're doing with the AI stuff is so fascinating.
Speaker 2: I remember when I first saw the cover art. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, wow, that's crazy and asked Ben about
Speaker 2: it and he's like, oh, that's actually you know, this
Speaker 2: is like what he would look like potentially.
Speaker 4: What No.
Speaker 3: I love how it sounds like. I love how it
Speaker 3: sounds like we're we're hanging out at a college door room,
Speaker 3: which is kind of like how our conversations go, like, yeah, bro,
Speaker 3: this is like what he would look like.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, we're not high in the you know, in
Speaker 2: the quad or whatever that is made at home depot.
Speaker 2: I don't know if we'll have time. Sorry to shout
Speaker 2: out to one of my favorite Wilferrel movies.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is how we talked to each other.
Speaker 2: That stuff so awesome. One thing that I really appreciate
Speaker 2: about this show is something we've talked about a couple
Speaker 2: times already. You don't just take for granted what has
Speaker 2: been written in a publication like a local newspaper states
Speaker 2: something early on in the investigation that ends up not
Speaker 2: being the truth. But a lay person or me or
Speaker 2: just whoever else that's coming to this story way after
Speaker 2: the fact might look at that and say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it says here you know, in two thousand and one
Speaker 2: that this happened, and you just take that as a fact.
Speaker 2: Speaking again about myself and anybody else who might be
Speaker 2: just a third party observer of what happened or researching
Speaker 2: for their own purposes or on the surface, I really
Speaker 2: appreciate that you dig into that, you actually go to
Speaker 2: the investigator, you actually go to the human beings that
Speaker 2: were there, and you verify stuff. Just really appreciate it,
Speaker 2: and just want to say thanks for doing what you do,
Speaker 2: and please keep doing stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I appreciate it. I think that you know,
Speaker 5: because this is an ongoing investigation, we're not just telling
Speaker 5: a story. We're trying to add to it. And solve it.
Speaker 5: And because of that, we need to have all the
Speaker 5: facts correct. So you know, quite often I say it,
Speaker 5: but their early erroneous reports that are later corrected, but
Speaker 5: they live on and these stories become myth and so
Speaker 5: you have these a lot of people sometimes even third,
Speaker 5: second or third generation law enforcement that they're getting these
Speaker 5: bits and pieces that are not accurate, and that is
Speaker 5: really hampering any movement on the case. So yeah, we
Speaker 5: dig into myths and we look at everything and reevaluate it.
Speaker 4: And make sure that you know, even for our audience like.
Speaker 5: That they have the facts so that if they want
Speaker 5: to try to help with this. And for the last
Speaker 5: three seasons we have had a lot of actually wonderful
Speaker 5: help that they have everything correct.
Speaker 4: And I know I ruffle some feathers.
Speaker 5: But truly my fidelity is to the show as to
Speaker 5: the story. And yeah, I mean that's just me. I
Speaker 5: nerd out on I nerd out on that stuff, and
Speaker 5: the truth matters to me, you know. Crediting regional and
Speaker 5: local journalist matters to me.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, it's been a saying it matters such
Speaker 2: a great deal too, And it is just sometimes difficult,
Speaker 2: I think when you're in this sea of all of
Speaker 2: these links and all of the people now who write
Speaker 2: about stuff, right, and there's so much commenting, there's so
Speaker 2: many threads on every subject. It's so difficult to sift
Speaker 2: through all that stuff to get to what is likely
Speaker 2: the closest thing to the truth. And there is a
Speaker 2: bit of faith in there every time you're like, pretty
Speaker 2: sure when that person wrote that down, that's they could
Speaker 2: verify it.
Speaker 4: I hope. It's tough.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, for sure, it's definitely tough. And I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, you look at the press reports and sometimes
Speaker 5: they're even conflicting reports, like in the same publication. So
Speaker 5: I think a lot of it is just being able
Speaker 5: to evaluate information kind of to use your best judgment
Speaker 5: to determine what's accurate, and if there's anything that's really
Speaker 5: important or sensitive, to follow up on it and dig
Speaker 5: in on it, especially when, for example, one thing that
Speaker 5: we mentioned is the idea that there were footprints leading
Speaker 5: to the cave and no return tracks. So if you
Speaker 5: hear that, and it's something that's been repeated for the
Speaker 5: last twenty three years, you're understandably going to think, well,
Speaker 5: Robert Fisher died in a cave because they found footprints
Speaker 5: going to the cave, and why are we even bothering
Speaker 5: with this show or this investigation? Why am I looking
Speaker 5: for him? He's clearly dead in a cave, guys. But
Speaker 5: then when you dig into it and you say, okay,
Speaker 5: well that seems like such a small detail, right, like
Speaker 5: some footprints. But there's so many people I've talked to
Speaker 5: who say something like that, and then you look at
Speaker 5: it and you say that's actually not true. Then that
Speaker 5: removes that idea from people's head. And I say it
Speaker 5: in the show, but it opens up their mind to
Speaker 5: other possibilities, or that they're not shutting down the idea
Speaker 5: that he escaped immediately, and that people kind of get
Speaker 5: reinvigorated to help find him.
Speaker 3: And I really appreciate that point, John, That's something on
Speaker 3: a personal level I run into a lot with research myself,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure Matt feels the same way. This is
Speaker 3: indicative or illustrative of a great truth that people ignore history,
Speaker 3: hinges on what may appear to be very small things,
Speaker 3: and so we must triangulate, we must look into that.
Speaker 3: And that's something that I think makes our mad endeavor
Speaker 3: here a kindred spirit with missing and speaking of following up,
Speaker 3: one thing we have to say before we go. This
Speaker 3: is again an active investigation. John is cooking live. There
Speaker 3: is a possibility to figure out what actually happened to
Speaker 3: Robert Fisher and John. You have constructed a way for
Speaker 3: people to contact you directly about this case. I believe
Speaker 3: you are still very much open to any new leads
Speaker 3: or possibilities.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, so.
Speaker 5: I tell everybody, look at every single man in your
Speaker 5: life who wasn't in your life prior to April two
Speaker 5: thousand and one. Look at them in real life, look
Speaker 5: at them on Facebook, look at them.
Speaker 3: On the street, and wait, when did we meet?
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 1: Six?
Speaker 3: Okay, oh all right.
Speaker 5: And and look at our show art. And now I'm
Speaker 5: looking kind of closely at this Ben Bowling character.
Speaker 4: All right, this was over.
Speaker 2: How old would he be right now?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I don't want to age Ben, so he
Speaker 5: would Robert Fisher would be sixty three.
Speaker 4: Ben is much younger than that, but unless he just
Speaker 4: aged very well.
Speaker 5: But yeah, so, yeah, So I truly want everybody to
Speaker 5: look at everybody in their lives and we I will say,
Speaker 5: we're getting leads, We're getting emails. I personally funded a
Speaker 5: ten thousand dollars reward to help find Fisher, because when
Speaker 5: he came off the FBI's ten most wanted list in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one, there was I was shocked to learn
Speaker 5: zero available for his captures. So we are doing everything
Speaker 5: in our power to find him, and I'd encourage people
Speaker 5: to the contact infos in the show, but the quickest
Speaker 5: way to reach us is to go to neon thirty
Speaker 5: three dot com. There's a way you can submit information
Speaker 5: to us. We take your ananimity very seriously and Ben
Speaker 5: has seen this. But one thing that I've found we're
Speaker 5: getting leads live is a certain photo of someone taken
Speaker 5: in the earlier mid two thousands who, to me personally
Speaker 5: we've discussed this internally strongly resembles Robert Fisher.
Speaker 4: So we are this is.
Speaker 5: An active investigation and people people can help just by
Speaker 5: looking at other people and looking at the age progressed
Speaker 5: image of him. And we absolutely want people's help. And
Speaker 5: like I said about the older lady in Colorado with
Speaker 5: John List, if this is solved, we might bring attention
Speaker 5: to it, but it's going to be solved by somebody
Speaker 5: who's out there listening or watching.
Speaker 2: You have a number for tips as well right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So if people want to call in, they can
Speaker 5: call one eight three to three new tips. That's any
Speaker 5: w tips, So it's one eight three three six three
Speaker 5: nine eight four seven seven. They can email us at
Speaker 5: tips at iHeartMedia dot com, tips at iHeartMedia dot com,
Speaker 5: or they can go to our site at neon thirty
Speaker 5: three dot com. And if they go to our site,
Speaker 5: one of the things they'll be able to see as
Speaker 5: a new wanted poster we did with a high resolution
Speaker 5: ACE progress image of Fisher.
Speaker 3: And with this we want to thank you John Waalzac,
Speaker 3: investigative host, creator of the Missing series. You can check
Speaker 3: out Missing in Arizona right now. It is in media rests,
Speaker 3: which is just the fancy way of saying we're in
Speaker 3: the thick of it right now, in the trenches. As
Speaker 3: John said, we want your help and while you're at it,
Speaker 3: while you're up, do also check out Missing in Alaska
Speaker 3: and Missing on nine eleven. John, We can't thank you
Speaker 3: enough for your time here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you guys so much.
Speaker 5: And if you like the show, if you give us
Speaker 5: five stars on Apple, I would be humbly appreciative.
Speaker 4: But I hope we find Fisher.
Speaker 5: I hope the next time I talk to you, it's
Speaker 5: so with a picture of him and handcoffs or you know,
Speaker 5: my dream is he says, I'm not speaking to anybody
Speaker 5: but John and Ben and I get to go to
Speaker 5: go to the jail in Arizona and speak to him.
Speaker 2: So whoa what if he contacts you and wants you
Speaker 2: to go to the woods somewhere.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 4: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Let's just let's bring a crew. Matt, what are what
Speaker 3: are you doing?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 5: You know, Matt, Matt is your idea, So you're going
Speaker 5: to be the sacrificial lamb.
Speaker 2: All right, John, I'm coming.
Speaker 4: Let's hang out.
Speaker 3: Okay, thanks guys, And that is our conversation with Missing
Speaker 3: An Arizona creator John waalzac H. Matt, I feel like
Speaker 3: we went to a lot of places and we still
Speaker 3: have more to figure out.
Speaker 2: Well, now, I want to dive into the case with
Speaker 2: you guys, because I have so many questions and I've
Speaker 2: got my own pet theories that I kind of want
Speaker 2: to disprove that I currently cannot. But I'm just going
Speaker 2: to keep listening because they're way more episodes than six right.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, there are more episodes on the way we
Speaker 3: can't wait for you to hear them. And one thing
Speaker 3: that John said that I think really resonates with all
Speaker 3: of us is that it will be you, specifically you,
Speaker 3: who helps solve this mystery. So reach out to John,
Speaker 3: tell us your thoughts as well about this case any
Speaker 3: similar cases that you may have knowledge of. We try
Speaker 3: to be easy to find online. We're talking YouTube, the instagrams,
Speaker 3: the social meds. You can find us as some derivation
Speaker 3: of conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show at basically any
Speaker 3: place that hasn't act in the front of their handles.
Speaker 3: And if you don't want to do that, if you
Speaker 3: prefer to go a little more analogue, which we're always
Speaker 3: fans of, we have a telephone number as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, our number is kind of like John's one eight
Speaker 2: three three STDWYTK. When you call in, it is voicemail
Speaker 2: system and you only get three minutes, and within that
Speaker 2: three minutes you need to give yourself a cool nickname.
Speaker 2: We don't care what it is. We're excited to hear
Speaker 2: it and let us know if you give us permission
Speaker 2: to use your name and voice in one of our
Speaker 2: listener mail episodes. And hey, if you've got more to
Speaker 2: say they can fit in a message, why not instead
Speaker 2: send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
Speaker 3: we receive. I don't want to lose the point about
Speaker 3: listener mail segments and our strange news segments, because they
Speaker 3: do inform episodes. You don't have to feel like you're
Speaker 3: responding to something that was already on air. If you
Speaker 3: want to give us a lead, if something crazy is
Speaker 3: happening in your neck of the global woods, we want
Speaker 3: to hear it.
Speaker 2: Or if you just want to call and just say
Speaker 2: something silly to us.
Speaker 3: Or if you just want to call and say something
Speaker 3: silly to us. We love the emails. We love the
Speaker 3: phone calls. Join us over here in the dark Conspiracy
Speaker 3: at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,