WEBVTT - Chapter 3 | Full Tilt Bozo 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:05.200 This series includes sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including sexual 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:26.069 assault and abuse involving children. Listener discretion is advised. As 0:00:26.110 --> 0:00:29.610 a kid from Waco, Texas, who busted Broncos in his teens, 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.900 Ralph Jones had an appetite for danger. He joined the 0:00:33.940 --> 0:00:37.860 service young and crushed their aptitude tests, then shouldered his 0:00:37.900 --> 0:00:41.340 way into the Navy, where he became a demolitions diver. 0:00:42.460 --> 0:00:45.059 In the early aughts, he retired from the service and 0:00:45.150 --> 0:00:47.769 set up in the northern exurb of New York City. 0:00:49.070 --> 0:00:51.750 About that time is when all my injuries from the 0:00:51.810 --> 0:00:54.910 service of all the helicopter jumps and all the other 0:00:54.950 --> 0:00:57.110 stuff I put my body through came home to rest. 0:00:57.190 --> 0:00:59.510 And I was like, what am I going to do? 0:00:59.590 --> 0:01:02.100 And And a friend of mine, it was like, you know, 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.399 you'd make a great surveillance guy. 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:09.240 Living in Putnam County, not far from the town of Carmel, 0:01:09.740 --> 0:01:11.960 he hung a shingle as a private detective. 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.289 And then it evolved from doing surveillances to actually tracking 0:01:17.330 --> 0:01:21.209 down witnesses. And I had an act for getting the people. 0:01:20.950 --> 0:01:25.830 To talk to me. One day, he got a call 0:01:25.870 --> 0:01:27.220 from a town councilman. 0:01:27.850 --> 0:01:30.230 Would Ralph be willing to look at an unsolved case? 0:01:31.430 --> 0:01:35.020 Putnam Valley is a very small town. Everybody knows everybody. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.720 Everybody knew my background. So this guy goes, I put 0:01:38.740 --> 0:01:42.840 together this whole file on the Robin Murphy case. Maybe 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:44.920 you can get somewhere with it, because I can't get 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:45.669 anywhere with it. 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.620 And I was like, sure. He looked through the box 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.330 of documents but didn't get far. The case required an 0:01:52.410 --> 0:01:55.490 all-points dig, and no one was willing to expense that. 0:01:56.210 --> 0:01:57.930 So he handed the box back and got on to 0:01:58.010 --> 0:02:02.130 paying work. But he never forgot Robin, or who saw 0:02:02.170 --> 0:02:02.910 her last. 0:02:04.150 --> 0:02:07.170 I find it interesting that the last person she was 0:02:07.230 --> 0:02:10.230 seen with is Howard Gombert, but nothing ever came of that. 0:02:11.790 --> 0:02:14.450 And then, in the nutty way life happens to Ralph, 0:02:14.970 --> 0:02:18.430 the case came back to him a decade later. He 0:02:18.470 --> 0:02:21.110 was hired by Anthony DePippo to help him fight his 0:02:21.169 --> 0:02:25.150 false murder conviction, when a familiar name popped up. 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.419 And then, lo and behold, here we go, 2013, and 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.740 Gombert's name come back up. But I was like, oh, shit, 0:02:34.780 --> 0:02:38.710 this is something I want to do. In particular, there 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.550 was a detail that Ralph couldn't shake. Gombert tried to 0:02:42.570 --> 0:02:48.030 commit suicide. Yes, six days after Robin disappeared, Gombert tried 0:02:48.050 --> 0:02:52.209 to kill himself. Ralph saw that act as a tacit admission. 0:02:52.230 --> 0:02:57.310 An admission that, A, Gombert killed her, And B, the 0:02:57.350 --> 0:02:58.810 walls were closing in on him. 0:03:01.250 --> 0:03:03.070 It freaked him out that he was going to get caught. 0:03:04.070 --> 0:03:09.980 And so that's why he attempted a suicide attempt. Because 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:19.290 he knew. He was like, I'm going to get caught. 0:03:19.550 --> 0:03:35.850 Do you hear my madman? my fears. Sorrow's depths are endless. 0:03:36.090 --> 0:03:43.280 This valley of tears. I'm Paul Solitarov, and this. 0:03:56.870 --> 0:03:59.510 Is season two of The Devil's Quarry. 0:04:08.650 --> 0:04:10.560 Do you mind introducing yourself to me? 0:04:11.900 --> 0:04:17.660 Hi, I'm Jay Murphy. I'm Robin's brother. 0:04:19.820 --> 0:04:23.059 Jay Murphy is a thick-set, affable man with a pair 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:27.120 of the saddest eyes you'll ever see. At 52, he's 0:04:27.170 --> 0:04:30.870 the oldest of Robin's siblings and still stoops a bit 0:04:30.930 --> 0:04:34.530 under the weight of her laws, which he's carried for 0:04:34.529 --> 0:04:42.450 30 years. Life's hardships are never distributed fairly, but Jay's 0:04:42.529 --> 0:04:47.390 portion seems especially fraught. As he explained to her reporter, 0:04:47.529 --> 0:04:51.250 Kathleen Horan, he lost a chunk of his life to grief. 0:04:52.250 --> 0:04:54.570 It took his years of calling the Murphys to set 0:04:54.650 --> 0:04:58.680 this meeting with Jay And even now, he seems uneasy 0:04:58.740 --> 0:05:03.140 about it. On a gorgeous day this past September, he 0:05:03.180 --> 0:05:07.620 sat down with Kathleen in Brooklyn. He recently learned something 0:05:07.660 --> 0:05:12.200 that brought him forward. Howard Gomber will walk out of 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.140 prison just after New Year's. 0:05:15.940 --> 0:05:17.969 I had no idea that Howard was getting out soon. 0:05:20.050 --> 0:05:22.770 So it was a big surprise, you know, and it 0:05:22.830 --> 0:05:24.450 opened a lot of wounds again, too. 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:30.750 Yes, Gombert will leave prison years early, getting time off 0:05:30.810 --> 0:05:35.110 for good behavior. As Jay sat with Kathleen in the 0:05:35.190 --> 0:05:38.969 sunny apartment, he thought back on his history with Gombert. 0:05:39.870 --> 0:05:43.180 Before Robin vanished, he'd seen him only in passing at 0:05:43.210 --> 0:05:44.859 the laundromat in Carmel. 0:05:46.140 --> 0:05:48.520 Me and my mother went there, and her friend used 0:05:48.540 --> 0:05:51.620 to come in like, oh, he's cute. Like, little do 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:52.220 you know, right? 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.000 But Gombert hadn't popped on his radar yet. Not till 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.210 after his sister vanished and Jay took part in the 0:06:00.290 --> 0:06:03.450 search for her. He flashed back to the worst night 0:06:03.490 --> 0:06:09.229 of his life, April 10th, 1995. By that point, Robin 0:06:09.250 --> 0:06:12.810 had been missing 24 hours, and all her friends were 0:06:12.850 --> 0:06:14.350 gathered at the Murphy house. 0:06:15.450 --> 0:06:16.990 So everyone's there and she's not. 0:06:18.430 --> 0:06:21.349 They'd assembled there in the hopes that she'd magically show up. 0:06:22.310 --> 0:06:24.800 After all, they had a show to go to. The 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.860 Ramones were playing Poughkeepsie that night, but Robin never walked 0:06:28.900 --> 0:06:29.720 through that door. 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:32.570 You don't just blow up a concert when you're a kid. 0:06:33.250 --> 0:06:35.910 I suspected foul play right away because why would she 0:06:35.930 --> 0:06:38.229 not come home to go to a concert? And all 0:06:38.250 --> 0:06:40.950 her friends were there at the house, so where else 0:06:41.050 --> 0:06:41.630 is she going to be? 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:45.640 A few days later, he helped the Carmel cops do 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.040 a grid search behind the shopper. He was there when 0:06:49.060 --> 0:06:52.600 they found his sister's keychain, he says, which is when 0:06:52.740 --> 0:06:56.040 Gombert's name first came up. The cop he was with 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:57.940 recognized the name immediately. 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.370 I said, Howard, he said, in the laundromat. 0:07:00.390 --> 0:07:01.090 He said, Gompert? 0:07:01.230 --> 0:07:02.590 He said, bad news, let's go. 0:07:03.550 --> 0:07:05.610 At that point, says Jay, he and the cop went 0:07:05.650 --> 0:07:10.310 to the laundromat. There they found Gompert, who immediately raised 0:07:10.370 --> 0:07:11.310 their suspicions. 0:07:12.650 --> 0:07:14.690 We went over there and we spoke to him. And 0:07:14.770 --> 0:07:17.850 he was whining about his girlfriend and fight, and she 0:07:17.890 --> 0:07:20.890 scratched him, and he's showing us. And he lifted up 0:07:20.930 --> 0:07:23.360 his shirt, white T-shirt, and showed us a couple of scratches. 0:07:23.420 --> 0:07:24.270 He said, see, she. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.440 She fought with me. She attacked me. And we found 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.920 that kind of strange. What did the scratches look like? 0:07:32.690 --> 0:07:34.530 Like claws. Yeah. 0:07:35.770 --> 0:07:36.010 Yeah. 0:07:38.110 --> 0:07:39.810 I got that picture in my head right now, yeah. 0:07:41.810 --> 0:07:45.950 Just his whole act he was putting on. You know, like, 0:07:46.090 --> 0:07:49.070 poor me, you know? Yeah, yeah, with a big crybaby 0:07:49.110 --> 0:07:50.450 face and all my scratches. 0:07:52.900 --> 0:07:56.179 Strangely, there's no mention of those scratches in the case file, 0:07:56.860 --> 0:07:59.520 which makes us wonder what else isn't in that file. 0:08:00.540 --> 0:08:03.920 But we checked with Anne-Marie about her so-called fight with Gombert. 0:08:04.740 --> 0:08:08.910 She texted back fast to call bullshit. Did I mention 0:08:08.950 --> 0:08:12.550 Howard's a pathological liar, she wrote? I broke up with 0:08:12.610 --> 0:08:16.990 him March 15th, so no. If that was after Robin disappeared, 0:08:17.330 --> 0:08:21.850 those scratches would not have been for me. Years later, 0:08:21.930 --> 0:08:25.050 Ralph Jones said he heard about scratches from a different 0:08:25.130 --> 0:08:29.880 cop in Putnam. Ralph, you recall, was Anthony DePippo's investigator 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:30.780 into Gombert. 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:35.179 Gombert had scratches all over his back. 0:08:36.420 --> 0:08:39.540 Ralph has a theory of how Gombert came by those scratches. 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.930 It happened right there at that strip mall on the hillside. 0:08:45.410 --> 0:08:47.350 If you look at the hillside, there's a tent there. 0:08:47.429 --> 0:08:51.750 There's brambles everywhere. The woods, we know he's a woodsman. 0:08:52.210 --> 0:08:55.689 He's very familiar with the woods. I think it's simple. 0:08:56.490 --> 0:08:58.990 He snuffed a rat down the hillside. They had a struggle. 0:08:59.010 --> 0:09:03.750 There's brambles everywhere. And he just carried the body down. 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.059 Why is Ralph so sure that Gombert killed Robin? Because 0:09:11.100 --> 0:09:14.160 of his suicide bin on his father's lawn days after 0:09:14.260 --> 0:09:20.830 Robin went missing. That attempt, which rendered Gombert parapsychotic, constituted 0:09:20.870 --> 0:09:24.530 a confession, or so Ralph thinks. To put that in 0:09:24.750 --> 0:09:30.650 legal terms, it's consciousness of guilt. Meanwhile, back in Carmel, 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.839 the cops came after Jay Murphy, of all people. Asked 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:36.959 him ugly questions about Gombert. 0:09:38.100 --> 0:09:40.239 I mean, I'm not stupid, so I picked up on 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.360 it right away. And I was like, what are you 0:09:42.420 --> 0:09:47.130 getting at? And they told me. They thought that I 0:09:47.170 --> 0:09:49.480 had put them in the coma. So they were like 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.800 questioning me about it in an indirect way until I 0:09:52.860 --> 0:09:54.730 realized what was going on. I said, what are you 0:09:54.780 --> 0:09:55.530 talking about here? 0:09:55.550 --> 0:09:59.470 Those cops, he says, accused him of hurting Gombert on 0:09:59.550 --> 0:10:03.329 account of robbing. But Gombert himself set them straight the 0:10:03.410 --> 0:10:05.929 next day when they interviewed him in the hospital. 0:10:06.890 --> 0:10:10.620 And then he woke up and admitted, oh, yeah, you know, 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:12.840 I took some pills and fell out because I was 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.040 distraught about my girlfriend. So it had nothing to do 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:17.340 with me. 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:24.050 In truth, Gombert had been spinning out well before Robin vanished. Anne-Marie, 0:10:24.070 --> 0:10:27.770 his battered girlfriend of three years, had just charged him 0:10:27.809 --> 0:10:31.309 with rape and sodomy. She'd run to a shelter with 0:10:31.370 --> 0:10:34.910 her three-year-old daughter, then hit him with a restraining order. 0:10:36.790 --> 0:10:39.380 In his letters to her that followed, and there were 0:10:39.500 --> 0:10:45.219 lots of letters, long ones, he openly threatened to kill himself. Hell, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.800 in one of those letters, he attached his last will. 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.260 and directions on what to do with his few possessions. 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:56.360 As mentioned above, the cops questioned Gombert after his suicide bit. 0:10:57.220 --> 0:11:01.350 Carmel detectives Randy Tompkins and Walter Galbraith tried to pin 0:11:01.380 --> 0:11:04.830 down his story. They found him more or less lucid 0:11:04.870 --> 0:11:08.910 by then, willing to speak on the record. He told 0:11:08.929 --> 0:11:11.790 them again that he'd seen Robin just before she vanished, 0:11:12.330 --> 0:11:15.939 saying they'd talked for ten minutes in his car. Then 0:11:15.980 --> 0:11:18.980 he said she went walking toward Burger King while he 0:11:19.020 --> 0:11:22.760 drove off to fetch his dirty laundry. But his story 0:11:22.820 --> 0:11:27.500 left an hour unaccounted for. Actually, closer to 90 minutes 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.660 per his own timeline. The cops asked him if he'd 0:11:30.700 --> 0:11:34.120 take a polygraph test. He said, yeah, he probably would. 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.540 But the very next day, he lawyered up and stopped 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:42.260 speaking to the cops altogether. Instead, he talked to the media. 0:11:44.650 --> 0:11:46.690 From his hospital bed, he told the New York Times 0:11:46.730 --> 0:11:50.460 about his chat with Robin, saying, quote, I thought you 0:11:50.500 --> 0:11:54.240 could talk to my girlfriend for me, unquote. Then he 0:11:54.340 --> 0:11:57.720 whined to a Putnam paper about missing his toddler daughter, 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:04.620 describing the girl as, quote, my whole world, unquote. By contrast, 0:12:04.820 --> 0:12:08.580 the cops told the media next to nothing. Two Carmel 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.450 girls had been snatched in six months, Josette Wright and 0:12:12.540 --> 0:12:15.980 Robin Murphy. But all the cops would tell the papers 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:21.260 was that Robin's disappearance was suspicious. Quote, We have nothing 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.080 that leads us to foul play or that leads us 0:12:24.140 --> 0:12:28.500 away from foul play. It's certainly not your ordinary runaway. 0:12:29.179 --> 0:12:34.809 End quote. Really? No sign of foul play? Like, say, 0:12:35.010 --> 0:12:38.350 Robin's personal effects scattered on the hill behind Shop, right? 0:12:39.410 --> 0:12:42.929 The piece added, Quote, The police have questioned Mr. 0:12:42.990 --> 0:12:43.490 Gombert. 0:12:44.030 --> 0:12:48.820 But he is not considered a suspect, end quote. And so, 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:53.700 just like that, Gombert stopped speaking to the cops. All 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.580 it took to run them off was one little note 0:12:56.620 --> 0:13:00.349 from his legal aid lawyer. Instead, they took a run 0:13:00.380 --> 0:13:04.530 at other people. People close to Robin. A couple of 0:13:04.630 --> 0:13:09.890 Carmel teens to start with. One in particular piqued their interest. 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.200 The Carmel cops had a list of Robin's friends. The 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.440 first kid under their lens was her boyfriend, Matt Esposito. 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.910 This hit vicious to her Nancy Spungen. Now, if you're 0:13:41.929 --> 0:13:45.230 going by the data, at least, it's the boyfriend that's 0:13:45.330 --> 0:13:50.440 often the killer. Matt and Robin had an intense teen romance. 0:13:51.140 --> 0:13:55.480 You could even call it obsessive. Their mutual friend James 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.040 certainly thought of it as such. 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.360 I was trying to keep them together because whenever they 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.080 were apart, this is going to sound really selfish, they 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:10.839 were annoying. They talked more about each other when they 0:14:10.860 --> 0:14:14.480 were apart than they ever did when they were seeing 0:14:14.540 --> 0:14:14.920 each other. 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.280 They worked across the parking lot from one another, and 0:14:19.350 --> 0:14:22.270 each would visit the other at work. Matt was on 0:14:22.310 --> 0:14:24.950 a shift at Burger King the night that Robin vanished. 0:14:25.930 --> 0:14:28.940 That shift was supposed to start at 4 p.m., But 0:14:28.980 --> 0:14:31.540 when she dropped by to see him, then he wasn't there. 0:14:32.420 --> 0:14:35.760 His former coworker, Sharon, picks up the story from there. 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.730 Robin had walked from her apartment and come in to 0:14:41.790 --> 0:14:45.330 see Matt. She came in and she asked the manager 0:14:45.350 --> 0:14:49.050 at the time where Matt was. And he goes, that's 0:14:49.090 --> 0:14:51.590 a good question. He's late. So Robin went out to 0:14:51.610 --> 0:14:55.500 the vestibule, called Matt, must have gotten him up. And 0:14:55.660 --> 0:15:00.390 he quickly rushed down and ended up coming to work, 0:15:00.450 --> 0:15:01.970 but he was only 15 minutes late. 0:15:02.990 --> 0:15:06.590 Tardy though he was, Matt worked until midnight and didn't 0:15:06.650 --> 0:15:09.910 wander off for a shift break. In the weeks that followed, 0:15:09.950 --> 0:15:13.790 he cooperated with the cops. It confirmed his alibi for 0:15:13.810 --> 0:15:18.040 the night Robin vanished. But within hours of her going missing, 0:15:18.140 --> 0:15:22.020 Matt plunged into a hole. If you'd called him and 0:15:22.100 --> 0:15:24.480 missed him back then, you'd have heard this message on 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:29.480 his machine. Quote, I'm drowning right now. Leave me a 0:15:29.540 --> 0:15:32.140 message and I'll get back to you when I resurface. 0:15:32.780 --> 0:15:38.070 End quote. Now, Matt was a bright kid with a 0:15:38.110 --> 0:15:42.190 barbed sense of humor. But that wasn't him being clever. 0:15:43.670 --> 0:15:47.330 We spoke to his close friend, Kevin Gloyd. Kevin was 0:15:47.390 --> 0:15:49.570 one of the dozen or so teens who joined the 0:15:49.630 --> 0:15:54.250 ShopRite search. He said Matt was struggling badly that summer. 0:15:55.610 --> 0:15:59.410 When Robin disappeared, he got high, cut his arms open 0:15:59.770 --> 0:16:02.550 with razor blades. His father found him in a puddle 0:16:02.590 --> 0:16:06.530 of blood in the driveway. I think either in his 0:16:06.790 --> 0:16:11.340 mind it was a suicide attempt or he was just 0:16:11.380 --> 0:16:13.540 crying for help. I'm not sure which. 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:19.540 Matt was bereft after Robin vanished. The friend James remembers 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.000 Matt wearing long sleeves that summer to cover up the 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.620 fact that he was cutting himself and shooting up. 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:32.390 I didn't realize that at the time, Robin was keeping 0:16:32.570 --> 0:16:38.130 Matt from his then just beginning heroin addiction. When she disappeared, 0:16:38.930 --> 0:16:43.270 he no longer had that lifeline. And he went full 0:16:43.310 --> 0:16:44.390 tilt bozo. 0:16:44.570 --> 0:16:49.470 Into the stuff. Months later, Matt's dad moved the family 0:16:49.510 --> 0:16:53.250 to Vermont. Matt would battle addiction for the rest of 0:16:53.290 --> 0:17:03.470 his life and pass away young in 2013. After they 0:17:03.510 --> 0:17:07.940 cleared Matt, the cops turned to a second teen, Mark Stein, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.879 Matt's buddy and Burger King colleague. He was the short, 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.920 blonde kid who came knocking on James' window the morning 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:19.050 after Robin went missing. James told us that Robin didn't 0:17:19.150 --> 0:17:22.430 care for Mark. In fact, she called him a moocher 0:17:22.710 --> 0:17:26.250 and a weirdo. James didn't care for Mark either. 0:17:27.530 --> 0:17:29.689 I didn't really like hanging out with Mark because he 0:17:29.730 --> 0:17:30.450 was an asshole. 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:36.080 Mark, according to James, made ugly cracks about girls, including 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:40.139 cracks about Robin that pissed Matt off. And then, says James, 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.520 Mark crossed the line with him. They would park one 0:17:43.540 --> 0:17:45.880 day in front of a grocery store with Matt when. 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:51.760 Mark made a sly comment about, you know, your girlfriend's 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:57.150 tit belongs to me. We started fighting back and forth, 0:17:58.150 --> 0:18:01.149 at which point he immediately. 0:18:00.290 --> 0:18:05.450 Started choking me. A gentle kid by nature, James retaliated, 0:18:05.910 --> 0:18:07.300 grabbing Mark around the neck. 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:13.240 He kind of narrowed his eyes at me, and he 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:19.070 just started this wide... Starting as a closed mouth grin, 0:18:19.090 --> 0:18:25.030 but then there were teeth. And I said, let go. 0:18:25.050 --> 0:18:30.439 He said, you let go first. Matt told us to stop. 0:18:30.500 --> 0:18:33.179 And then he even opened up the back seat to 0:18:33.220 --> 0:18:37.859 try and pull Mark away. And then he stopped and 0:18:37.940 --> 0:18:41.040 I stopped. And Mark and I didn't really hang out 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:42.020 too much after that. 0:18:43.460 --> 0:18:47.810 James never forgot that sick grin of Mark's. Nor did 0:18:47.830 --> 0:18:51.970 he forget something else Mark had done. He recalled the 0:18:51.990 --> 0:18:56.560 three boys went looking for Robin, driving around Carmel and James' car. 0:18:57.500 --> 0:19:00.080 At some point, Mark suggested they check out the path 0:19:00.180 --> 0:19:03.880 behind Shopperite. But when they got to the strip mall, 0:19:03.940 --> 0:19:07.250 Mark told them to hang back. He'd go up alone 0:19:07.310 --> 0:19:11.750 and look around. He returned in 15 minutes, having seen 0:19:11.790 --> 0:19:14.919 no sign of her. But just three days later, the 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.520 search party kids found multiple items belonging to Robin. And 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.439 did so in the dark, no less. How, James wonders, 0:19:23.460 --> 0:19:25.310 had Mark not seen those things? 0:19:26.650 --> 0:19:29.830 And it was in broad daylight, yeah. And that's exactly 0:19:30.450 --> 0:19:33.669 what made us all think he had something to do 0:19:33.710 --> 0:19:33.929 with it. 0:19:36.540 --> 0:19:39.040 According to the case file, the cops went to Mark's 0:19:39.060 --> 0:19:42.260 house next. They spoke to his dad, who said he'd 0:19:42.340 --> 0:19:43.300 kicked Mark out. 0:19:44.100 --> 0:19:44.419 Why? 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.670 Because Mark had assaulted his disabled mom. The dad took 0:19:49.690 --> 0:19:53.250 an order of protection against his son, meaning Mark couldn't 0:19:53.270 --> 0:19:56.830 be in the house without his dad present. For several weeks, 0:19:56.869 --> 0:20:01.190 he said Mark had been sleeping rough, overnighting in lean-tos 0:20:01.290 --> 0:20:08.030 in the woods. Sharon worked with Mark at the Burger 0:20:08.070 --> 0:20:11.460 King then. She remembers hearing that he was homeless when 0:20:11.540 --> 0:20:15.580 Robin disappeared and that the manager of the store took 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:16.379 pity on him. 0:20:17.500 --> 0:20:19.380 She didn't want him sleeping out in the elements because 0:20:19.420 --> 0:20:21.940 it still wasn't warm. It was, you know, end of March, 0:20:21.980 --> 0:20:24.720 beginning of April. So she let him sleep. We had 0:20:24.940 --> 0:20:27.679 a shed that we stored like extra tables, refrigerators in. 0:20:28.140 --> 0:20:29.570 So she let him sleep in there at night. 0:20:30.890 --> 0:20:34.389 The cops spoke to Mark's co-workers about the night Robin vanished. 0:20:35.130 --> 0:20:37.950 That Sunday, Mark was to work the late shift with Matt. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.639 The manager of that shift was a kid named Jeremy. 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.000 The next day, speaking to the cops, I brought up, hey, 0:20:46.420 --> 0:20:49.659 the other two guys were late. And that kind of 0:20:49.700 --> 0:20:52.430 bothered me that, you know, Mark was four hours late. 0:20:52.470 --> 0:20:55.850 That's not very common for him. Like, he was four 0:20:55.869 --> 0:20:57.450 hours late, so I didn't want him to work. I 0:20:57.490 --> 0:20:59.550 wanted to, like, send him home. But at some point, 0:21:00.090 --> 0:21:01.510 I changed my mind and said, you have to come 0:21:01.570 --> 0:21:03.390 in because I don't have anybody else. 0:21:04.410 --> 0:21:07.840 Police check Mark's time card. It said he'd punched in 0:21:07.900 --> 0:21:12.220 at 6.18 p.m., making him two hours late, not four. 0:21:13.020 --> 0:21:16.600 He worked till the restaurant closed after midnight. But his 0:21:16.700 --> 0:21:20.690 co-workers noticed a troubling thing. On at least one of 0:21:20.730 --> 0:21:24.170 his breaks, Mark huddled with Gombert near the drive-thru window. 0:21:24.770 --> 0:21:27.790 They were seen out there whispering and laughing. 0:21:29.150 --> 0:21:33.490 By the next day, he said that, you know, she's dead. 0:21:35.070 --> 0:21:40.100 I don't know why everybody's fussing, she's dead, man. And 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:45.419 he made sure to not say that around Matt, but 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:49.479 he did say it around me and Kevin. And we 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.160 all gave him this stare that just made him shut 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:53.080 up for a little while. 0:21:54.580 --> 0:21:57.800 Mark also called his girlfriend at the time, a young 0:21:57.880 --> 0:21:59.340 woman we're calling Diane. 0:22:00.820 --> 0:22:04.110 He was actually one of the people to call me 0:22:04.390 --> 0:22:08.410 and say, hey, Robin disappeared. Nobody knows where she is. 0:22:09.190 --> 0:22:10.909 And at the time, it was only a day or 0:22:10.970 --> 0:22:13.930 two after she had disappeared, and they were getting ready 0:22:13.990 --> 0:22:17.170 to do search parties. And he had made the statement 0:22:17.230 --> 0:22:21.389 to me about, well, I don't think she's ever coming back. 0:22:23.130 --> 0:22:26.359 As the days went by, rumors flew around Burger King. 0:22:26.380 --> 0:22:29.260 There was a story in the papers about a body 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.650 found the next town over. A couple of the teenage 0:22:32.690 --> 0:22:36.490 staffers thought it might be Robin, but Sharon, who worked there, 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.159 described Mark's response. 0:22:39.300 --> 0:22:41.560 He said, there's no way. There's no way. It's not her. 0:22:41.740 --> 0:22:42.060 No way. 0:22:42.220 --> 0:22:42.459 No way. 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:42.840 It's not her. 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:49.970 Mark was definitely, after Robin had disappeared, he definitely was troubled. 0:22:49.990 --> 0:22:52.109 He took it harder than the rest of us. 0:22:53.850 --> 0:22:58.090 Diane, Mark's then-girlfriend, confirmed his strange behavior. 0:22:59.250 --> 0:23:02.670 I definitely started paying more attention to some of those 0:23:02.770 --> 0:23:04.800 red flags that were kind of popping up. 0:23:06.060 --> 0:23:08.040 So much so that she broke up with him while 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:09.300 she was away at college. 0:23:10.460 --> 0:23:12.680 I was back from one of the breaks and he 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.960 did come into the diner and I was very uncomfortable 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:21.960 with it. Like he did kind of start yelling because 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:23.699 he wanted to be able to talk to me and 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:25.879 I didn't want to talk to him. And even I 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:29.070 had friends that were kind of Like, dude, she doesn't 0:23:29.090 --> 0:23:29.790 want to talk to you. 0:23:29.810 --> 0:23:30.750 Just back off. 0:23:31.869 --> 0:23:35.330 From then on, she was afraid of Mark. She actively 0:23:35.390 --> 0:23:38.550 avoided him when she was home from school and steered 0:23:38.630 --> 0:23:40.370 clear of the places she might see him. 0:23:41.750 --> 0:23:45.570 And at the time, I even used to keep a 0:23:45.690 --> 0:23:49.530 note under my mattress that said, God forbid anything happens 0:23:49.670 --> 0:23:56.110 to me, please look at Mark as a possible person involved. 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:04.159 Mark's friends and co-workers were freaked out by him, too. 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:07.580 They wondered what he and Gomber whispered about when Gomber 0:24:07.619 --> 0:24:11.280 came by that night. And why had Mark found nothing 0:24:11.340 --> 0:24:19.330 behind Shoprite when Robin's things were scattered near the path? Meanwhile, 0:24:19.350 --> 0:24:23.609 the cops kept searching the woods behind Shoprite. Sharon watched 0:24:23.650 --> 0:24:25.369 them through the Burger King window. 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:31.209 There was police searches everywhere. Constantly detectives coming in, interviewing 0:24:31.300 --> 0:24:33.460 all of us, seeing what we saw, if any of 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:34.300 us saw anything. 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:39.940 And then one day, Sharon made a discovery of her own. 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:42.840 I had to go into the shed for a party 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:47.480 to get a spare table out. And I found a notebook, 0:24:47.940 --> 0:24:51.570 and it had pages ripped out. And it had, like, 0:24:51.770 --> 0:24:55.030 lists of suspects. And it had Howard, Matt, and Mark 0:24:55.150 --> 0:24:56.810 listed on it. And this was in the shed. 0:24:57.980 --> 0:25:01.020 That's right. In the shed where Mark slept, there was 0:25:01.060 --> 0:25:04.659 a list of suspects. But there was another piece of 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:06.360 evidence that Sharon found. 0:25:07.480 --> 0:25:11.180 And there was a blue blanket, and I saw long 0:25:11.220 --> 0:25:11.810 black hair on it. 0:25:13.000 --> 0:25:15.760 Who did she know with long black hair? None other 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:16.940 than Robin Murphy. 0:25:18.260 --> 0:25:20.500 Mark had short, blonde hair at the time. It was 0:25:20.540 --> 0:25:24.350 enough to say, you know what? I'm not going. 0:25:24.200 --> 0:25:24.939 To keep quiet. 0:25:27.880 --> 0:25:30.560 Detective Galbraith raced over to the store and brought a 0:25:30.619 --> 0:25:34.400 forensics cop with him. They took those things into evidence, 0:25:34.660 --> 0:25:38.959 including the notebook Sharon found. It was partially burned and 0:25:38.980 --> 0:25:41.920 had pages torn out. We don't know if the hair 0:25:42.010 --> 0:25:43.270 was sent for testing. 0:25:44.590 --> 0:25:48.229 I was standing there showing what I found in the shed, 0:25:48.250 --> 0:25:52.130