Speaker 1: Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may
Speaker 1: not be suitable for all listeners. Search for Robert Fisher
Speaker 1: and you're liable to find blue collars. There's his resume.
Speaker 1: Aviation fuel handler, firefighter, medical technician. He sees himself as
Speaker 1: gritty and masculine, and that's how he wants others to
Speaker 1: see him too. A hunter, a fisherman, country music, a
Speaker 1: pickup truck. He's a man, blue collar, dammit, and proud
Speaker 1: of it. As he leaves work. On April ninth, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, Fisher wears a blue shirt from a
Speaker 1: fire department. That night, at ten forty two pm, an
Speaker 1: ATM camera captures footage of him wearing an RC COLA shirt.
Speaker 1: The footage is black and white, but the logo used
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety eight to two thousand and nine was
Speaker 1: set against a blue background. The shirt is likely blue.
Speaker 1: Ten hours later, Fisher's home explodes. Police photograph a burned
Speaker 1: blue shirt, a patch with the charred head of a
Speaker 1: yellow ram, says Bregos, Spring's fire department, Fisher's former em lawyer,
Speaker 1: A blue collar career, a blue collar PERSONA a blue
Speaker 1: collar as he leaves work on April ninth, A blue
Speaker 1: collar the last time we see him, A literal burned
Speaker 1: blue collar in the rubble of his home. This is
Speaker 1: the life of Robert Fisher from iHeartRadio and neon thirty three.
Speaker 1: I'm John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona, the
Speaker 1: story of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing his
Speaker 1: wife and kids, blowing up their suburban home, and escaping
Speaker 1: into the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm hunting Robert Fisher,
Speaker 1: and I need your help. Let me get this out
Speaker 1: of the way. There is no forensic evidence proving Robert
Speaker 1: Fisher killed his family and blew up their house. It
Speaker 1: might seem reckless to report this. What if there's a trial,
Speaker 1: I'd argue, A, you have to catch him first. You
Speaker 1: can't prosecute a ghost and be any half co competent
Speaker 1: defense attorney will hammer this in court. No forensic proof.
Speaker 1: If anything, I hope it encourages Robert to come forward
Speaker 1: to tell his side of the story. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we'll answer two key questions. What does the forensic evidence
Speaker 1: tell us about the case and are there any viable
Speaker 1: suspects other than Robert Fisher? Chapter one Pathology they were
Speaker 1: asleep in bed when the killer struck. Firefighters find Bobby first,
Speaker 1: then Brittany, then Mary. None have soot or burn marks
Speaker 1: in their windpipes, indicating they died before the fire began.
Speaker 1: The killers slit their throats, cutting into their spines. Mary
Speaker 1: has a wedding ring on her finger and a bullet
Speaker 1: in her brain. For an expert opinion, I.
Speaker 2: Consult doctor Todd Lukissevik.
Speaker 1: A forensic pathologist and assistant medical examiner in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: I had the opportunity to review three autops reports, three
Speaker 2: toxicology reports, ballistic reports, and some typed up notes from
Speaker 2: law enforcement. The reports told the story that the dead
Speaker 2: cannot tell. The adult female had a gunshot wound to
Speaker 2: the back of her head. Three lead bullet fragments were
Speaker 2: recovered from that gunshot wound to the head, and she
Speaker 2: also had an in size wound to the left side
Speaker 2: of her neck, which caused lethal injury to the main
Speaker 2: vessels of the neck, the jugular vein and the crowded artery.
Speaker 2: So her cause of death is a combination of the
Speaker 2: gunshot wound to the head and the insize wind of
Speaker 2: the neck. There's no way to tell which came first,
Speaker 2: which came second in and of themselves, they are both
Speaker 2: lethal injuries. The young female victim had a insize wound
Speaker 2: to the left side of the neck. Again, it caused
Speaker 2: lethal injury to the great vessels of the neck, which
Speaker 2: would be the left crowded artery and the left jugular vein.
Speaker 2: No other injuries were documented. All three of these victims
Speaker 2: were severely charred because they were recovered from a house fire,
Speaker 2: so if there was any bruising or anything like that,
Speaker 2: that would be all covered up by this fire because
Speaker 2: most of the skin, subcutaneous tissues, and muscles were consumed
Speaker 2: by the fire. And finally, the young male victim had
Speaker 2: a insize wound to the right side of his neck
Speaker 2: that caused lethal injury to the grade vessels of the
Speaker 2: right side of the neck and also cause injury to
Speaker 2: the TRACHEA. Trachia is your windpipe. The injuries to the
Speaker 2: vessels were again the right crowded artery in the right
Speaker 2: regular vein.
Speaker 3: When you say in size wound, can.
Speaker 4: You elaborate on that?
Speaker 2: Yes? In size wound by definition is a wound from
Speaker 2: a sharp implement that is longer on the skin. Then
Speaker 2: it goes deep whereas a stab wound. The definition of
Speaker 2: a stab woond is a sharp injury where the depth
Speaker 2: inside the body is greater than the length on the skin.
Speaker 3: Can you discuss the degree of force that was used
Speaker 3: to cause the injuries to the three vectims?
Speaker 2: Well, I would have to ask you the type of knife,
Speaker 2: the sharpness of the knife, things like that.
Speaker 1: This is an important and honest point. It's easy to
Speaker 1: sensationalize the murders. The killer must have been in a
Speaker 1: crazy rage, cutting deep into the spines.
Speaker 2: However, it would not take much force if you have
Speaker 2: a sharp knife. Remember two of these victims were children,
Speaker 2: so it wouldn't take much to get to the bony column.
Speaker 2: And the adult female was pretty thin, probably smaller than
Speaker 2: average build, so it wouldn't take too much to get
Speaker 2: to the bone. Is it common to see injuries to
Speaker 2: the bone. It's not uncommon, but it's not real common either.
Speaker 2: I would say probably less than a quarter of the cases.
Speaker 2: Twenty percent of the cases. Would you see a mark
Speaker 2: on the bone from an in size one?
Speaker 3: But you can't tell definitively the degree of force, For example,
Speaker 3: in la person's term, no, you cannot.
Speaker 1: How are their throats cut.
Speaker 2: For the young male, I would assume that it started
Speaker 2: at the midline and goes latterly behind the right ear.
Speaker 2: For the two females, I would assume it started laterally
Speaker 2: and commence to the midline. Most people think that all
Speaker 2: the vessels are midline neck. They're actually on the lateral
Speaker 2: sides of the neck. So someone that would do something
Speaker 2: like this, they know they have to go to the lateral,
Speaker 2: not so much midline, so they have to go behind
Speaker 2: the ear kind of drop down from the ear. That's
Speaker 2: where your vessels are. That's where you're going to take
Speaker 2: your pulse. So if you're cutting here, you're not doing much.
Speaker 2: If you're cutting midle, you're not doing much. But if
Speaker 2: you cut more lateral, that's where the vessels are. When
Speaker 2: you take your pulse, it's kind of below your angle demandible,
Speaker 2: which is your jaw line. That's where the vital area is.
Speaker 2: So this person, can I say he knew what he
Speaker 2: was doing. Yes, he knew what he was doing because
Speaker 2: he got to the vessels and he made sure he
Speaker 2: was deep enough because he got to the spinal column itself.
Speaker 3: In your opinion, with the neck wound, is that knowledge
Speaker 3: that someone who is a hunter would have or would
Speaker 3: you need more specific knowledge on human anatomy.
Speaker 2: Now, I think hunter military just someone that if someone's
Speaker 2: watched a TV show on anatomy or autopsy procedure or
Speaker 2: something like that. I don't want to say it's common knowledge,
Speaker 2: but it almost is, because when you take physical ed
Speaker 2: as a grade school child, you're taught to fill your
Speaker 2: pulse on the lateral side of your neck.
Speaker 1: So what makes this case stand out?
Speaker 2: What was unique is one in size wound on each victim,
Speaker 2: very unique. Usually when a knife's involved, there's a fight,
Speaker 2: there's other marks, there's other stab wound, there's other size wounds,
Speaker 2: there's contusions. But remember these people were in the fire
Speaker 2: and most of their skin was gone due to the fire,
Speaker 2: so a small in size wound or a small stab
Speaker 2: wound could be absent because of the fire consumed it.
Speaker 2: So the uniqueness is the fact that there's just one wound.
Speaker 3: The general understanding that law enforcement has is that the
Speaker 3: victims were all likely individually caught off guard and killed
Speaker 3: in their beds, and none of them heard any of
Speaker 3: the other victims being killed. It was a very small
Speaker 3: house and the rooms were pretty close together, so it
Speaker 3: would take someone going into each room and doing this
Speaker 3: and having one shot not to wake everybody else up.
Speaker 3: And it just seems very precise. Do you see anything
Speaker 3: to contradict that.
Speaker 2: No, I don't. It seems precise and calculated. And if
Speaker 2: you're gonna cause them in size wound to someone's throats,
Speaker 2: slit somebody's throat after you do that, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to hold their head down because they have seconds to
Speaker 2: live to fight back. It's not an incapacitating wound. You're
Speaker 2: still gonna be able to move fight back from that.
Speaker 2: So they would splice or throat hold their head down
Speaker 2: to the pillow. That would be the only way I
Speaker 2: could see that without someone making a scream or yell
Speaker 2: or cry for help, unless they were gagged or had
Speaker 2: something covering their mouth.
Speaker 3: Can you discuss what you were able to determine about
Speaker 3: bullet six? What were you able to tell from the records?
Speaker 2: So the autopsy pathologist was able to recover three lead
Speaker 2: bullet fragments that were severely deformed from the skull and
Speaker 2: brain of the adult female. They were described as being led.
Speaker 2: They were described as being small fragments. There is no
Speaker 2: description of any exit wound or anything else that is collected.
Speaker 2: From the ballistic report from the crime lab, it does
Speaker 2: not describe how many fragments were collected, and it says
Speaker 2: the fragments are consistent with a twenty five caliber bullet.
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure how that conclusion was made given
Speaker 2: the report I have, because there's no weight, there's no description,
Speaker 2: there's no photography, there's no description of the lands or grooves,
Speaker 2: there's no description if it's jacketed or unjacketed, if it's lead,
Speaker 2: fit's coppered. So I would believe that we're missing some
Speaker 2: of the report because I could not come to that
Speaker 2: conclusion with three small fragments that it's coming from any
Speaker 2: sort of caliber let alone a twenty five caliber, which
Speaker 2: is a weird and unique round. It's around with the
Speaker 2: least amount of velocity and a least amount of energy
Speaker 2: out of all center fire handgun rounds. It's a round
Speaker 2: that most people would not use or shoot or even have,
Speaker 2: because it's really not good for anything. Gunshot wind to
Speaker 2: the head is good for, but nothing else. If you
Speaker 2: shoot someone in a body that has a hoodie on
Speaker 2: or a jacket, it's not going to penetrate deep enough
Speaker 2: to get to where it needs to get.
Speaker 3: I won't ask you to turn into a firearms expert, but.
Speaker 2: I kind of am. But going okay, well, I mean
Speaker 2: I'm not the expert like Lease, but we.
Speaker 3: Generally what would a twenty five use.
Speaker 2: For it's a small pocket gun. It's a part they
Speaker 2: call it. They used to call them in a ninety
Speaker 2: Saturday Night specials. It's a small pocket gun. You usually
Speaker 2: can buy them for fifty dollars. The bullets, the rounds
Speaker 2: themselves are usually full metal jacket rounds for a twenty five.
Speaker 2: These are described by the autopsy pathologists as lead bullet fragments,
Speaker 2: not full metal jacket rounds. What can you tell about lead?
Speaker 2: Tells me that there was no jacket. Recovered bullets are
Speaker 2: composed of lead, and they usually have a jacket. That
Speaker 2: jacket's in metal. It's usually copper copper jacketed bullet. So
Speaker 2: you either have a lead bullet or you have a
Speaker 2: some kind of jacketed bullet, which is a lead bullet
Speaker 2: covered by a jacket. There's no description of any.
Speaker 3: Jacket here, and there was no exit wound.
Speaker 2: So there's no exit wound described in the autopsy report.
Speaker 3: So presumably whatever bullet was used was.
Speaker 2: Not jacketed, That would be a good presumption.
Speaker 3: Yes, would that be consistent with a twenty two or
Speaker 3: thirty eight?
Speaker 2: Could definitely be consistent with a twenty two because twenty
Speaker 2: twos are not jacketed, twenty two room fires are never jacketed,
Speaker 2: and for a thirty eight thirty eight sometimes they're all lead.
Speaker 3: Is there anything to tell from the lack of an
Speaker 3: exit wound about the caliber?
Speaker 2: I have my opinions after doing thousands of gunshot wounds.
Speaker 2: But typically if it's a lead bullet under thirty eight
Speaker 2: caliber nine caliber usually stays in the body, as usually
Speaker 2: stays in the head. If it's a full metal jacket
Speaker 2: anything thirty eight or above, it usually goes through and through,
Speaker 2: it goes in, and it exits.
Speaker 3: So if it was a thirty eight that was all
Speaker 3: led a ZAC consystem with does.
Speaker 2: Yes, it could stay in. Yes, interesting, But I would
Speaker 2: like to see those fragments because if those fragments are
Speaker 2: super tiny, it's not a thirty eight. That's why seeing
Speaker 2: the fragments, weighing those fragments, measuring those fragments being more
Speaker 2: descriptive with the fragments that were retained, would tell me
Speaker 2: almost immediately if we're in a thirty eight class, are
Speaker 2: we in the twenty two class? Because there's a big
Speaker 2: difference point three to eight of an inch versus point
Speaker 2: two two of an inch.
Speaker 1: What about fire? How effectively does it destroy bodies?
Speaker 2: You're never going to consume a whole body, but if
Speaker 2: you read the autopsy report, there's a lot of limbs missing.
Speaker 2: Most of the skin was missing, most of the muscle
Speaker 2: was consumed by the fire.
Speaker 1: Conclusions the killer slit Mary, Brittany and Bobby's throats with
Speaker 1: a sharp instrument, likely a knife. We can't determine the
Speaker 1: degree of force he used. Police and the media have
Speaker 1: repeatedly painted a portrait of a crazed killer nearly beheading
Speaker 1: his victims in a fit of rage, a narrative not
Speaker 1: supported by the evidence. A sharp knife used on small
Speaker 1: victims can cause spinal injuries without extreme force. This might
Speaker 1: seem pedantic, but it's not only about Robert Fisher. It's
Speaker 1: about reality itself. The road to greater truths is not
Speaker 1: paved with cloudy distortions. We should resist the urge to
Speaker 1: soothe ourselves by morphing complex humans into cartoon demons. The
Speaker 1: suburban dad who kills his kids is bad enough, no
Speaker 1: need to pump him full of steroids to lionize him.
Speaker 1: Another fact stated repeatedly that Mary was shot in the
Speaker 1: head with a thirty eight, but a police document I
Speaker 1: obtained says bullet fragments in her brain were consistent with
Speaker 1: a twenty five, not a thirty eight. Why does this matter? Well,
Speaker 1: at least one of Robert's guns, a thirty eight Revolver,
Speaker 1: was missing from the house. Pointing out that bullet fragments
Speaker 1: don't necessarily match the caliber of the missing gun complicates
Speaker 1: an otherwise simple narrative that Robert fled with a murder weapon.
Speaker 1: But I'm here to complicate simple narratives because what's true
Speaker 1: is true, and this is an exercise in digging up fact,
Speaker 1: not crafting fiction. If Mary was indeed shot with a
Speaker 1: twenty five, that's bizarre. It's a tiny, weak, little pistol.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it belonged to Mary, not Robert, if
Speaker 1: she bought it for protection Scott Steel Detective T. J.
Speaker 1: Juran calls the gun shot the fuck you shot, and
Speaker 1: what better fu than to shoot someone with their own gun. Separately,
Speaker 1: investigators find a black metal hammer in the rubble of
Speaker 1: the master bedroom. Why is it there? Robert was a
Speaker 1: neat freak who demanded everything be in its place. Mary's
Speaker 1: mom said that if the kids left anything lying around,
Speaker 1: Robert would throw it in the trash. So what's a
Speaker 1: random hammer doing in the bedroom the night of the murders?
Speaker 1: Did Mary stash it there as a defensive weapon? This
Speaker 1: is speculation, but I'm curious. Chapter two fingerprints. A key
Speaker 1: mystery of this case is why, when located in the forest,
Speaker 1: Mary's suv is quote wiped clean. You would expect to
Speaker 1: find Robert's fingerprints in his wife's suv. It proves nothing,
Speaker 1: so why would he wipe it down? Does this point
Speaker 1: to the involvement of an accomplice or even a different
Speaker 1: killer if the suv was wiped clean, I'd say yes,
Speaker 1: But this mystery is in fact a myth. Police recover
Speaker 1: at least seven fingerprints, six from interior windows and one
Speaker 1: from an exterior window. For an expert opinion, I consult
Speaker 1: Matthew Steiner. Matt recently retired from the NYPD after processing
Speaker 1: more than two thousand crime scenes during a twenty five
Speaker 1: year career in which he also consulted for the FBI
Speaker 1: and State department. He now works for a company called
Speaker 1: TriTech Forensics. Generally, is it unusual not to recover prints
Speaker 1: from a car wipe the Samana SUV.
Speaker 5: I spent so many times in my career having to
Speaker 5: explain this to other investigators, to bosses, and the most importantly,
Speaker 5: to jury's. Your fingerprints are not absolute though. If you
Speaker 5: watch CSI every single damn episode, they'll be dusting feathers
Speaker 5: and other ridiculous things and getting fingerprints, and then in
Speaker 5: that show they'll be like, oh, there isn't fingerprints on
Speaker 5: this object that we know the suspect handled because it
Speaker 5: was wiped down, or the suspect was wearing gloves. Those
Speaker 5: are possibilities, that's not always the case. There's so many
Speaker 5: variables to why you would or wouldn't leave a fingerprint.
Speaker 5: First off, the surface is dirty and you touch it,
Speaker 5: you may be picking up that dust. That dust, that
Speaker 5: dirt is filling into the furrows or your friction ridges,
Speaker 5: and though you could physically see the impression, there's no
Speaker 5: detail there to be recovered. There's no minutia in that impression.
Speaker 5: It could be that direct exposure sunlight is evaporating the
Speaker 5: fingerprint and most of your fingerprint is ninety five to
Speaker 5: ninety nine percent water, depending on this person and a
Speaker 5: lot of other variables. So if that's in direct exposure
Speaker 5: to the sun, which in this case it was, that could
Speaker 5: also destroy fingerprints. It's too hot, the person is sweating,
Speaker 5: they're touching areas, they're leaving just pools of moisture behind
Speaker 5: that they're not leaving readable fingerprints. It's too cold, you're
Speaker 5: not perspiring at all. You're touching things and there's not
Speaker 5: much transfer there. Wiping things down hand coverings are certainly possibility,
Speaker 5: but just the act of touching something that's been touched
Speaker 5: over and over again, then you have superimposed fingerprints, so
Speaker 5: the door, handles of the car, the steering wheel, it's
Speaker 5: another option. You know, you're touching areas that you touch
Speaker 5: over and over again. You don't have readable fingerprints because
Speaker 5: you have all this overlapping. And then most importantly is
Speaker 5: you got to think what are the conducive surfaces that
Speaker 5: are being touched. Is the surface good for fingerprints? You know,
Speaker 5: so something that's smooth and shiny, non porous is your
Speaker 5: best option. So on the vehicle, sure, the body, the glass,
Speaker 5: those are great, but inside the fabric materials, the texture
Speaker 5: to something. If it's not smooth, you touch something and
Speaker 5: it has like a surface that isn't smooth, there's nowhere
Speaker 5: for those fingerprints to go flat onto and you don't
Speaker 5: have wheedled fingerprints.
Speaker 1: In many cases, we go process.
Speaker 5: A suspects car or a victim's car and it happens
Speaker 5: where you just don't get fingerprints, and someone who doesn't
Speaker 5: understand how it works can misinterpret that as being wiped down.
Speaker 1: In this case, though police do recover prints, seven of
Speaker 1: them from windows. Whoever abandoned the suv in the woods
Speaker 1: left all five windows down, exposing the interior to wind
Speaker 1: and snow, but inadvertently protecting fingerprints on glass. Quick note,
Speaker 1: the Forerunner is surprisingly clean, no caked mud, no paw prints,
Speaker 1: a minimal amount of dirt, just some pine needles. It's
Speaker 1: parked in a tight cluster of trees, protected in part
Speaker 1: by towering Ponderosa pines. Police have to call in two
Speaker 1: trucks to extricate it. Snow starts falling as drivers load
Speaker 1: it onto a flatbed. On the trip back to Scottsdale,
Speaker 1: wind rips apart a protective tarp. Crime scene technical find
Speaker 1: shredded pieces of it in the suv, but apparently remove
Speaker 1: them before photographing it. No tart pieces are visible in
Speaker 1: official images. Conclusions the Forerunner is not wiped clean. Given
Speaker 1: the circumstances, it's not at all surprising that crime scene
Speaker 1: technicians didn't recover more fingerprints. In fact, it's impressive they
Speaker 1: recovered even seven. Who do these seven belong to? I
Speaker 1: don't know, but if any belonged to Robert, police would
Speaker 1: be able to id them. His prints are on file
Speaker 1: from his time in the Navy. Chapter three blood investigators
Speaker 1: find no confirmed trace of blood in the Forerunner, remarkable
Speaker 1: considering the violent nature of the murders. The killer cleaned
Speaker 1: up perfectly before escaping. They do, however, get a single,
Speaker 1: inconclusive luminol reaction on the front passenger floor mat. Luminol
Speaker 1: is a chemical that glows blue in the presence of blood.
Speaker 1: To decipher this, I call Karen elliet It. Karen is
Speaker 1: a bloodstain expert formerly with the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services.
Speaker 1: She's now a private consultant and volunteer for the nonprofit
Speaker 1: Cold Case Foundation. The problem with luminol and bluestar, another
Speaker 1: chemical reagent, is.
Speaker 6: That they both react sometimes to things other.
Speaker 1: Than blood, including copper, cobalt, iron, and some chemicals like bleach.
Speaker 1: Would luminol react to animal blood? Yes, so Scott Steele
Speaker 1: gets a luminol reaction on the floor mat, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't tell us much. I send a photo of the
Speaker 1: reaction to Karen.
Speaker 6: It has very defined lines, and that leads me to
Speaker 6: believe that if it were in fact blood, that it
Speaker 6: might have been transferred from potentially a weapon or some
Speaker 6: kind of an item that was transferred. The lines are
Speaker 6: very very defined. It does not look like a drop
Speaker 6: of blood. It looks like almost like a transfer. But
Speaker 6: in addition, it could be just some kind of a
Speaker 6: metal shaving or something that transfer off of a piece
Speaker 6: of metal that would have caused that kind of a
Speaker 6: defined line there or defined shape.
Speaker 1: If the match still exists today, Karen says there.
Speaker 6: Might be a potential for DNA conclusion.
Speaker 1: We don't know what caused the aluminal reaction human blood,
Speaker 1: animal blood, metal, bleach, but modern testing could tell us more.
Speaker 1: Chapter four DNA, a hat, a cigarette, butt, a shoe.
Speaker 1: Investigators recover DNA from all three. The hat, specifically the
Speaker 1: Oakland Raiders ball cap, Robert Fisher wore the night of
Speaker 1: April ninth, two thousand and one. Police find it in
Speaker 1: Mary's for runner. They pull from it a partial DNA
Speaker 1: profile that appears to match Robert the cigarette butt. Robert
Speaker 1: doesn't smoke cigarettes. He chews tobacco. I don't know where
Speaker 1: police find the cigarette butt, but they recover from it
Speaker 1: a complete DNA profile that belongs to an unknown male.
Speaker 1: The shoe Police retrieve a pair of white rebox sneakers
Speaker 1: from Roberts worklocker at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix.
Speaker 1: They collect DNA from a heel and a blood stain.
Speaker 1: The heel DNA is a mix from an unknown female
Speaker 1: and an unknown male. It doesn't tell us anything. It
Speaker 1: could have come from anyone doctors, nurses, patients. The blood stain, though,
Speaker 1: is intriguing. I decide to fly to New York City
Speaker 1: to consult Lisa Desire. You might recognize the name Desire
Speaker 1: in season two Missing on nine to eleven. We interviewed
Speaker 1: Mark Desire with the New York City Office of the
Speaker 1: Chief Medical Examiner or OCME. Lisa Desire Mark Desire. I
Speaker 1: know people are going to wonder, are you guys related.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's my brother, lies my much older brother.
Speaker 8: I no, we are married.
Speaker 1: The desires are perhaps America's most dynamic DNA duo. A
Speaker 1: brilliant wife, a brilliant husband, kind, empathetic, hilarious, somewhat make
Speaker 1: a sitcom. Weird things come out of our mouth where
Speaker 1: it's like blood seam and saliva just roll right off
Speaker 1: of our tongue, which is bizarre for other people, and
Speaker 1: often it happens at dinner, So try not to in
Speaker 1: front of the kids.
Speaker 8: But that's a different story.
Speaker 1: Lisa used to work for the OCME. She now runs
Speaker 1: a company called Prime Suspect. I asked her to review
Speaker 1: Fisher case files, including DNA records. Here's what's weird about
Speaker 1: the blood stain on the shoe.
Speaker 3: Whoever left this?
Speaker 1: If this is from a single female, looks like that
Speaker 1: single female could be a close relative of Jan Howell's.
Speaker 1: Jan Howell is Robert Fisher's mom. Conclusions One, the ballcap
Speaker 1: DNA tells us nothing. It likely belongs to Robert. Two
Speaker 1: the cigarette DNA gives us a complete profile of an
Speaker 1: unknown male, which could theoretically be run through CODIS, the
Speaker 1: National DNA database. Three blood on a sneaker in Robert's
Speaker 1: worklocker apparently belongs to a close female relative, someone related
Speaker 1: to his mom, but not his dad. I don't know
Speaker 1: what to make of this. Maybe it's important, maybe not.
Speaker 1: It could be something as simple as a lab error.
Speaker 1: If accurate, though, why did Robert have a shoe with
Speaker 1: a relative's blood in his locker? I raise the issue
Speaker 1: with law enforcement, but they don't seem to think it's relevant. However,
Speaker 1: one investigator tells me that police were highly suspicious that
Speaker 1: someone went into Robert's worklocker after the murders, but before
Speaker 1: they obtained a search warrant. Chapter five Feces and a tissue.
Speaker 1: A scott Stale detective sees a pile of excrement and
Speaker 1: a piece of tissue in the woods just west of
Speaker 1: Mary's forerunner. It's unclear if either is collected for testing.
Speaker 1: Chapter six unknown fibers. Police locate numerous dark fibers in
Speaker 1: the forerunner. It's unclear what they are or where they
Speaker 1: came from. They still haven't been identified. Chapter seven the
Speaker 1: keys In the rubble of the house, investigators find two
Speaker 1: keys to a safety deposit box. It's unclear if the
Speaker 1: Fishers had a safety deposit box at the time of
Speaker 1: the murders, and if they did, whether or not it
Speaker 1: was searched. Chapter eight security footage tracing the Fisher's final steps.
Speaker 1: There are no security cameras at Supi Middle School, Scottsdale
Speaker 1: Baptist Church, or popular outdoor outfitters. No neighbors have them either.
Speaker 1: The Mayo Clinic does, but police apparently never obtained the footage.
Speaker 1: Chapter nine. The cell phone and the pager. At least
Speaker 1: one of the Fishers has a cell phone, probably Robert.
Speaker 1: It powers down at one thirty am on April tenth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, around the time of the murders,
Speaker 1: and never turns back on. It isn't found at the house,
Speaker 1: though the fire could have destroyed it. Quest Cellular, a
Speaker 1: now defunct company, can't tell police where it last pinged
Speaker 1: at the time that information was stored for only twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. Robert also apparently has a work pager. That's
Speaker 1: all I know. Chapter ten electronic mail. Sometime between the
Speaker 1: late nineties and two thousand and one, the Fishers bought
Speaker 1: a computer. They apparently shared one personal email address, az
Speaker 1: Fischer four at aol dot com. Mary and Brittany used it,
Speaker 1: but Bobby didn't, and neither did Robert. Police find nothing
Speaker 1: of note on the AOL account on Robert's work account,
Speaker 1: though they find emails between Robert and quote previously unknown females.
Speaker 1: I don't know if these names panned out into any
Speaker 1: actionable leads. Chapter eleven, the fire. I'm going to divide
Speaker 1: this into four segments. The accelerant, the trigger, the timeline,
Speaker 1: and the gunshots. The official story is that someone disconnected
Speaker 1: a gas line from a furnace Dow's the house and
Speaker 1: liquid accelerant, set a delayed trigger, and a few hours
Speaker 1: later boom. In search of a fire guru, I turned.
Speaker 7: To Matthew Reaganton.
Speaker 1: Matt had a twenty two year career with ATF, mostly
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh, but also on the bureau's National Response Team.
Speaker 7: I began my career as an ATF agent on August
Speaker 7: the twenty seventh, two thousand and one, two weeks before
Speaker 7: nine to eleven. When nine to eleven happened, I was
Speaker 7: here in Pittsburgh and my office was tasked with going
Speaker 7: to the crash site in Shanksville to assist the FBI
Speaker 7: and the scene investigation.
Speaker 1: He's now an assistant professor with Duquane University's Forensic Science
Speaker 1: and Law Master's program. I give him Fisher case files
Speaker 1: and ask for his opinion.
Speaker 7: One of the compelling pieces of evidence was that gasline.
Speaker 7: You had evidence of an intentionally disconnected gas line, and
Speaker 7: you had an explosion, and you had a large fire.
Speaker 7: Those are data points you can't ignore when you start
Speaker 7: considering other accidental causes.
Speaker 9: To the fire.
Speaker 1: Matt's saying, this was clearly a deliberate act, not a
Speaker 1: freak accident. But still it's good to triple check everything
Speaker 1: to doubt yourself.
Speaker 7: If you really organize your investigation and your hypothesis testing
Speaker 7: around disproving your own hypothesis. I have three dead bodies
Speaker 7: with their throats cut, I have an intentionally disconnected gas line.
Speaker 7: I have an explosion. Wow, there's all this really overwhelming
Speaker 7: data to show that a crime happened here. You're on
Speaker 7: solid ground if you do everything you can to disprove that,
Speaker 7: to find an accidental cause, to give the benefit of
Speaker 7: the doubt to the other side.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. If there are holes in the narrative,
Speaker 1: you want to find them now, not at trial. In
Speaker 1: this case, no one disputes that the gas line was
Speaker 1: purposely disconnected and the fire intentionally triggered still bill, it's
Speaker 1: vital to dig deeper the accelerant. This is the most
Speaker 1: critical and contentious detail. Police and the media have said
Speaker 1: repeatedly that there were quote poor patterns pour patterns in
Speaker 1: the Fisher house, that someone spread liquid accelerant to help
Speaker 1: fuel the fire. When you look at photos of charred
Speaker 1: floors and diagrams of damage, this makes intuitive sense. If true,
Speaker 1: it would be a key piece of evidence indicating advanced planning.
Speaker 1: The poor patterns cover almost half the interior of the house.
Speaker 1: That's a ton of accelerant. But arsen dogs and lab
Speaker 1: testing fail to find any evidence of hydrocarbon fuels like gasoline. Instead,
Speaker 1: investigators speculate that Fisher used clean burning alcohol he stole
Speaker 1: from work, proving premeditation. The problem is they're basing this
Speaker 1: again on poor patterns, outdated junk science. Many things can
Speaker 1: cause burn or poor patterns on floors.
Speaker 7: One example, we're in a room right now with carpet
Speaker 7: and fairly new carpet. But let's say this carpet had
Speaker 7: been installed for the last twenty years, and the area
Speaker 7: where people walked most often were right in the middle
Speaker 7: of this area to the door and back to the
Speaker 7: couch and back and wear patterns, so you have differences
Speaker 7: in the carpeting and the padding below it. Wear patterns
Speaker 7: in a fire might cause patterns that could be mistaken
Speaker 7: for poor patterns.
Speaker 1: What about the theory that Fisher used alcohol as an accelerant.
Speaker 7: If you've ever put any sort of rubbing alcohol in
Speaker 7: a different area and try to light it, it burns
Speaker 7: off really quickly. The thing about petroleum based fuels is
Speaker 7: that they have sustained burning, and that's important for the
Speaker 7: development of a fire because it gets other fuels involved,
Speaker 7: it continues to burn, and then there's a certain point
Speaker 7: in the development of a fire where it doesn't matter
Speaker 7: that there is or was accelerant there, because all the
Speaker 7: fuels in the room, the couches, the clothes, the desks,
Speaker 7: anything that's plastic is now fully going and that's what's
Speaker 7: driving the fire.
Speaker 1: For a second opinion, I tracked down David Smith. Not
Speaker 1: only is David a Certified Fire Investigator or CFI, but
Speaker 1: he's the CFI who investigated the Fisher fire on site
Speaker 1: for both the gas company and the Scottsdale Police Department. David,
Speaker 1: did you see any indication liquid accelerant was used?
Speaker 4: I saw zero evidence of that.
Speaker 1: What about quote poor patterns?
Speaker 4: The poor patterns were caused by vent elesh. These patternsers
Speaker 4: sitting on the floor are natural and result from air
Speaker 4: movement carrying hot gases and not from something on the floor. Often,
Speaker 4: more inexperienced fire investigators find poor patterns in quotes at
Speaker 4: doorways and under windows and things like this. And at
Speaker 4: the doorways they were always talking about, well, obviously they
Speaker 4: were pouring gasoline and walked out of the door backwards,
Speaker 4: lge ended around and aluminum threshold is melted, so only
Speaker 4: a gasoline can do that. So what happens is we
Speaker 4: have a well involved fire taking place, and we all
Speaker 4: know that heat rises and heat will typically hit an
Speaker 4: obstruction called a ceiling, and that obstruction then causes that
Speaker 4: flame and heat to move laterally and then it finds
Speaker 4: a place to escape, and that's a window or a doorway,
Speaker 4: and so that hot gases escaping. Well, when that hot
Speaker 4: gas is escaping, what does that fire need at that
Speaker 4: particular point for growth, And that's oxygen. So it's pulling
Speaker 4: oxygen in at the lower levels. So we're having air
Speaker 4: movements and we're having hot gases that are circulating and
Speaker 4: so that's where we're getting these patterns. Now, you mentioned
Speaker 4: walking and things like that. Absolutely, I had numerous examples
Speaker 4: of that. I had a very large fire in a
Speaker 4: tower type building in law offices, and there were poor
Speaker 4: patterns down all the hallways, and it was quite disturbing
Speaker 4: because they knew, under the circumstances we did not have
Speaker 4: a nite of a liquid, but we have well defined
Speaker 4: in quotes or patterns down those hallways and so forth.
Speaker 4: And so I got the building people, because they were
Speaker 4: very cooperative as one could imagine, I got them to
Speaker 4: go to the next suite on the next floor down
Speaker 4: and pull up the carpet, and there they were the
Speaker 4: same identical patterns were already on that floor from the
Speaker 4: foam rubber cut foam rubber pad that had been breaking
Speaker 4: away and that tiny particles being pushed down into the concrete,
Speaker 4: which is quite porous. We don't think of it that way,
Speaker 4: but it's quite porous. And so when we then had
Speaker 4: that and then fire, those particles burn up and cause
Speaker 4: those patterns. And so the four patterns are typically right
Speaker 4: down the center where people walk and.
Speaker 8: Not on the sides.
Speaker 1: So you didn't see any indication that there was a
Speaker 1: liquid accelerant used in the Fisher fire.
Speaker 4: No, and they did bring a dog in and that
Speaker 4: dog failed to alert.
Speaker 1: David conveys his findings to law enforcement.
Speaker 4: I never argued with Scottsdale about this because that wasn't
Speaker 4: my place. But there was no reason to suspect ignitable
Speaker 4: liquids in this home.
Speaker 1: David is the most qualified person on the planet to
Speaker 1: comment on the Fisher fire. Not only did he investigate
Speaker 1: it on site for the gas company and the police,
Speaker 1: but he also helped write NFPA nine twenty one, the
Speaker 1: Fire Investigation Bible. He's even a former cop who began
Speaker 1: his career in Tucson in nineteen sixty eight. If you
Speaker 1: listen to season one, Missican Alaska, you might be muttering
Speaker 1: Tucson nineteen sixty eight. Jerry Paisley.
Speaker 4: Jerry Paisley is a person that I had arrested for hamsaid,
Speaker 4: you arrested Paisley. Yeah, and Paisley was convicted of on side.
Speaker 9: Wow.
Speaker 1: So David has direct ties to two of our three seasons. David,
Speaker 1: I'm granting you honored status in the Missing Cinematic Universe.
Speaker 1: The Trigger investigators never determined definitively what triggered the explosion,
Speaker 1: but the likeliest culprit is a candle or candles. They
Speaker 1: find the remains of at least three in the house,
Speaker 1: one in Britney's bedroom and two in the hall. They
Speaker 1: also find a burnt firecracker in the master bedroom. This
Speaker 1: is abnormal because again Robert was a neat freak. Even
Speaker 1: more bizarre, they locate some kind of quote device in
Speaker 1: a metal trash can in Britney's room, a battery attached
Speaker 1: to wire and metal foil. The timeline April ninth, ten
Speaker 1: forty two pm. Roberts at the atm April tenth, eight
Speaker 1: forty two am. The house explodes, so Robert flees sometime
Speaker 1: in the intervening ten hours. That's the old narrative, but
Speaker 1: we located two new witnesses, Peter, the neighbor and Bud Wolf,
Speaker 1: the newspaper delivery man who tightened the t timeline dramatically.
Speaker 1: Peter sees both fisher vehicles at three thirty AM. Bud
Speaker 1: sees both vehicles at five thirty but Mary's suv is
Speaker 1: gone by seven thirty. Civil Twilight begins at five thirty seven,
Speaker 1: meaning there's light in the sky and the sun rises
Speaker 1: at six zh three. So my best guess is that
Speaker 1: Robert flees between five thirty and six am. What can
Speaker 1: forensics tell us about the timeline? Can we estimate, for example,
Speaker 1: how long it takes gas to fill the house before
Speaker 1: it explodes? Here again is David Smith.
Speaker 4: My best recollection is three hours.
Speaker 1: David's estimate based on science, fits my theory based on
Speaker 1: witness statements, the rising sun and common sense. The gunshots
Speaker 1: the morning of the fire. Two men who live near
Speaker 1: the Fishers, but on different streets a short distance away.
Speaker 1: Here's something that remains unexplained to this day. Their names
Speaker 1: are Timothy Kinney and Michael Kakuza. They speak to a
Speaker 1: Scottsdale police officer less than twelve hours after the housees.
Speaker 1: Here's the recreation of a police memo I obtained.
Speaker 9: Between zero eight thirty and zero nine hundred hours. This morning,
Speaker 9: he Timothy Kenney, was sitting on his back porch, which
Speaker 9: faces south, when he heard two gunshots coming from southeast
Speaker 9: of his residence. There were approximately two to three seconds
Speaker 9: apart from each other, and they sounded like a nine
Speaker 9: millimeter or three fifty seven magnum. Kenny knows weapons, as
Speaker 9: he is a former Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy. Approximately ten
Speaker 9: minutes later, he heard a loud explosion coming from the
Speaker 9: same area. The explosion was loud enough to shake the
Speaker 9: ground and vibrate the windows. He looked to the southeast
Speaker 9: and saw smoke and a helicopter was hovering in the area.
Speaker 9: He cannot narrow the time of the gunshots down any further,
Speaker 9: and he did not call the police this morning because
Speaker 9: he heard sirens and figure that neighbors would have already called.
Speaker 9: It was not until he saw the news coverage this
Speaker 9: afternoon that he decided to call the police.
Speaker 1: Next Michael Cakuza.
Speaker 9: At zero eight fifteen hours this morning, his clock chimed,
Speaker 9: indicating that it was a quarter past the hour. He
Speaker 9: realized he was late for work, so he walked out
Speaker 9: outside to his car. He then heard two gunshots, approximately
Speaker 9: three to four seconds apart from each other. He was
Speaker 9: standing under his car port, so he is not sure
Speaker 9: which direction they came from, but they sounded like a
Speaker 9: very large caliber weapon, such as a forty four magnum
Speaker 9: or a shotgun. He then got into his car and
Speaker 9: went to work. He did not hear anything after that.
Speaker 9: He called the police after seeing the evening news about
Speaker 9: the explosion.
Speaker 1: Kenny lives three hundred and sixty feet from the Fishers,
Speaker 1: one street over. Kakuza lives five hundred and thirty feet
Speaker 1: from the Fishers, on a different street in a different direction.
Speaker 1: Both men hear two loud gunshots, Kenny around eight Thirtykkuza
Speaker 1: sometime after eight fifteen. Both say the gunshots came from
Speaker 1: the direction of the Fisher House about ten to twenty
Speaker 1: minutes before the explosion. Both speak to police less than
Speaker 1: twelve hours after the house blew up. Their memories are fresh,
Speaker 1: their stories consistent. So what's the deal here? This was
Speaker 1: a quiet Tuesday morning in a safe suburb. Gunshots were,
Speaker 1: to say the least, unusual. There were no other crimes
Speaker 1: reported in the area at that time. It's unlikely a
Speaker 1: neighbor was firing in the air and no one was hunting.
Speaker 1: Maybe they heard not gunshots, but I don't know, firecrackers.
Speaker 1: It's possible, I guess, But Kinny is a former cop,
Speaker 1: not a novice, so gunshots. Maybe a fire was already
Speaker 1: burning at the Fisher House and set off exactly two bullets.
Speaker 1: I doubt it. The explosion and fire were instantaneous. As
Speaker 1: soon as something ignited, the gas boomed. Finally, if you're
Speaker 1: wondering whether or not they heard someone shoot Mary, that's
Speaker 1: also unlikely. Mary was shot only once with a quieter,
Speaker 1: smaller caliber bullet. Robert was already gone, and by all indications,
Speaker 1: Mary had been dead for hours. Conclusions One, someone disconnected
Speaker 1: a gas line and set up something, likely a candle,
Speaker 1: to trigger an explosion. Two, there's no proof liquid accelerant
Speaker 1: was used. Three. David Smith, the fire investigator, estimates that
Speaker 1: the Fisher house filled with gas for about three hours
Speaker 1: before it exploded, meaning someone disconnected the gas line around
Speaker 1: five forty two am, which lines up with my separate
Speaker 1: estimate that Fisher fled between five thirty and six am.
Speaker 2: Four.
Speaker 1: The gunshots remain unexplained, as does the battery device in
Speaker 1: Brittany's trash can and the burnt firecracker in the master bedroom.
Speaker 1: Now there's one final question, why, if you're Robert Fisher,
Speaker 1: why rig the house to explode? Police say Fisher wanted
Speaker 1: to destroy evidence, but evidence of what. Look at his
Speaker 1: job history, He handled fuel for the US Navy, was
Speaker 1: a firefighter and EMT, and worked as a medical technician
Speaker 1: for the Mayo Clinic hospital in Phoenix. I doubt he
Speaker 1: was stupid enough to believe the fire would erase all
Speaker 1: evidence of the murders, so he could just waltzon later
Speaker 1: and say, by golly g what happened here. Also, had
Speaker 1: the house not exploded, he could have bought himself more time,
Speaker 1: maybe four to twelve hours, a bigger leap on law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So why blow it up? You could say, well, maybe
Speaker 1: he wasn't thinking rationally. Perhaps, but that would mean he
Speaker 1: pulled off a near perfect crime in the throes of irrationality.
Speaker 1: If you like this show, please download our first two seasons,
Speaker 1: Missing in Alaska and Missing on nine to eleven. For updates,
Speaker 1: visit meon thirty three dot com or follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at John waalzac Jo n Wa l Czak. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Chapter twelve. Alternate Suspects. Working on this story,
Speaker 1: I heard wild theories about who could have killed the Fishers,
Speaker 1: if not Robert, the most prevalent is perhaps a drug cartel.
Speaker 1: I get why this makes sense slit throats and explosion.
Speaker 1: It's dramatic, something out of Breaking Bad. But Robert is
Speaker 1: no Walter White. He seems to have been addicted to painkillers,
Speaker 1: but otherwise, there's no evidence he used or sold illegal drugs.
Speaker 1: I promise you I did seriously consider other suspects, but
Speaker 1: I immediately rolled them out with one exception, the nosy neighbor,
Speaker 1: her husband and their adult son. When I ask everyone
Speaker 1: if the Fishers had enemies, they all say the same thing, no,
Speaker 1: except the next door neighbors. The nosy neighbor is the
Speaker 1: woman who heard Robert and Mary fighting the Knight of
Speaker 1: the murders. She and Robert had a long running feud.
Speaker 1: To give you an idea of their dynamic, one time,
Speaker 1: while spraying his house with a hose, he got water
Speaker 1: on her house and she called the police. She and
Speaker 1: her family hated Robert and he them. They saw him
Speaker 1: as an arrogant jerk, and to their credit, he was
Speaker 1: By the way, why am I using the nosy neighbor nickname? One,
Speaker 1: I'm hiding her identity. Two she said she read personal
Speaker 1: notes and diaries found in the Fisher's trash. Here's why
Speaker 1: the nosy neighbor, her husband, and their adult son raised
Speaker 1: red flags. One motive there was bad blood. Two opportunity
Speaker 1: they lived next door. Three the husband's profession. He was
Speaker 1: an electrical engineer. In an online memorial after he died
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, a friend wrote that on a trip
Speaker 1: they took years earlier, the electrical engineer quote brought a
Speaker 1: home built battery operated device that made me feel like
Speaker 1: James Bond. Reading this, I thought of the Fisher fire
Speaker 1: and the battery device found in Britney's trash can. The
Speaker 1: electrical engineer even filed a patent for a disconnect unit
Speaker 1: for mechanical and electrical systems, so he was clearly smart.
Speaker 1: He was home when the Fisher house exploded, and he
Speaker 1: immediately told police that Robert probably died by suicide, an
Speaker 1: odd thing to say when the likely explanation at that
Speaker 1: moment before the bodies were found would have been an
Speaker 1: accidental gas explosion. For the odd son, the nosy neighbor's
Speaker 1: son was in his early thirties, and two thousand and
Speaker 1: one years later he played a key role in the case.
Speaker 1: He traveled to Canada to help idea man police thought
Speaker 1: might be Robert Fisher. He swore it was Fisher. Police
Speaker 1: took the man's fingerprints it was not Fisher. So yes,
Speaker 1: these three, the nosy neighbor, the electrical engineer, and the
Speaker 1: odd son raised red flags. I tried to interview the
Speaker 1: nosy neighbor, but she never responded to letters, emails, or
Speaker 1: phone calls, and she didn't answer the door when I
Speaker 1: twice visited her house. I also tried to interview the
Speaker 1: odd son. He sent me three emails with some bombshell information.
Speaker 1: You're going to hear them now, with occasional bleeps. I'm
Speaker 1: redacting personal information and a few things I don't want
Speaker 1: to share just yet, but I will in later episodes.
Speaker 1: Email number one, I ask the odds Son for an interview.
Speaker 1: His response, I.
Speaker 10: Am not interested in speaking about.
Speaker 1: Him, Robert Fisher, or even.
Speaker 10: Giving any future mental bandwidth to him. I prefer to
Speaker 10: move on from anything related to that. Good luck.
Speaker 1: Email number two, I ask the odds son if he
Speaker 1: was at his parents' house on April ninth or April tenth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one.
Speaker 10: His response, not sure what you want to know. I
Speaker 10: worked and lived nearby and saw my folks a lot,
Speaker 10: especially when that went down. They the Fishers, more specifically,
Speaker 10: she screamed at him daily. He never really yelled. What
Speaker 10: many consider a one off relationship fight was their day
Speaker 10: to day. That crap went on for like fourteen years.
Speaker 10: Never once did you see their kids smile or be kids.
Speaker 10: The day they moved in, I met him first. I
Speaker 10: actually told mom and dad we needed to move. He
Speaker 10: was crazy and would explode. Someday. Mom and dad saw
Speaker 10: more than they stopped live next door. Dad died in
Speaker 10: twenty sixteen. Mom is, we don't really speak much these days.
Speaker 10: Hearing things they saw secondhand not ideal. I would rather
Speaker 10: not think about that guy all the.
Speaker 1: Best Email number three, I respond quote when you say
Speaker 1: they screamed at him, who do you mean by they
Speaker 1: Mary screaming at Robert? Who else screamed at Robert? What
Speaker 1: made you think from day one, literally the first day,
Speaker 1: that Robert was crazy and would explode? Were you at
Speaker 1: your parents' house on April ninth, two thousand and one
Speaker 1: and the morning of April tenth, two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: The only people anyone cited the Fishers as feuding with
Speaker 1: was your family.
Speaker 4: Why.
Speaker 1: I'd very much like to interview your mom, I reached out.
Speaker 1: Do you think she'd speak to me? Thanks?
Speaker 10: John, I will not respond again after this email. Mary
Speaker 10: screamed at Robert. You could hear it clearly in the
Speaker 10: house's next door and outside, calling him worthless, saying she
Speaker 10: could have done better over a decade of that crowd,
Speaker 10: and the kids heard it their entire life growing up
Speaker 10: like top of your lungs, screamed, he was slow, Our
Speaker 10: interactions were bizarre. He was what today I would easily
Speaker 10: call a trumper type. I was washing my car, listening
Speaker 10: to the sex pistols. His first words to me were, boy,
Speaker 10: that ain't country music. I responded, no, it's not. It
Speaker 10: just got weirder from there. Who the fuck calls a
Speaker 10: stranger boy, some redneck psycho, That's who. I don't remember much.
Speaker 10: The day before it was a day like any other
Speaker 10: to me. The day of and many days after that
Speaker 10: neighborhood was a fucking media and curiosity seeker circus. It
Speaker 10: was a pain in the ass to even get there
Speaker 10: to see my parents. You had to show id that
Speaker 10: you lived there to even access the cul de sac.
Speaker 10: The cops had little control and were idiots to residents
Speaker 10: and not listening to what they were telling the officers
Speaker 10: and detectives. Ask my mom. She worked both days, came
Speaker 10: home the night before and saw and Fisher fiddling with
Speaker 10: the gas line into the house, heard the gun shot
Speaker 10: that killed Mary. She was not home. The next day
Speaker 10: at around eight am when the house blew up and
Speaker 10: caught fire. Dad was home alone. Then day after she
Speaker 10: saw there's much more talk to her if she will speak.
Speaker 10: She planned on writing a book about it now that
Speaker 10: she's retired. I don't know. We do not speak anymore
Speaker 10: since Dad passed away, and the bullshit, criminals and thefts
Speaker 10: and other stuff. Post his death, he Robert Fisher fucking
Speaker 10: terrified pretty much everyone in that cul de sac save
Speaker 10: his best friend down the street, the idiot. He speaks
Speaker 10: to no one anymore. I don't know if he's still alive.
Speaker 10: Fisher shot guns in his backyard until the police got involved.
Speaker 10: In his early years, he shot guns with children down
Speaker 10: the street. When the guy shot and waved around his
Speaker 10: guns a lot. The cops were called on that house
Speaker 10: many many times due to the fight over the years.
Speaker 10: It wasn't the first time he made the local news.
Speaker 10: Redneck motherfucker, mister America type whose go to method was
Speaker 10: intimidation and guns in people's faces. He pulled guns on
Speaker 10: neighbors and waved them in their face when people tried
Speaker 10: to resolve problems with them. As a neighbor. The people
Speaker 10: who lived there at the time were of a different generation.
Speaker 10: They don't talk shit about crazy folk they live with,
Speaker 10: when he may have crazy friends and family too. They
Speaker 10: back then, unlike today, and people with their echo chambers,
Speaker 10: had to learn how to live together and get along.
Speaker 10: Everyone in that cul de sac and nearby knew one
Speaker 10: another well. It was a community that saw him as
Speaker 10: whoa crazy. Most were concerned and very outraged by the
Speaker 10: media mess and lies and bullshit from the parents and
Speaker 10: reports on TV attempting to make up some other narrative
Speaker 10: than the truth. Didn't want to get involved with that crap.
Speaker 10: Tended to have an attitude. If you have nothing nice
Speaker 10: to say, don't say it, as it may come back
Speaker 10: to haunt you. I will not respond again about this,
Speaker 10: and I do not give you permission to use my
Speaker 10: name in anything you may quote from me that shows
Speaker 10: up publicly. I despise talking about this or even thinking
Speaker 10: about it, and will never respond to you again about
Speaker 10: more questions.
Speaker 1: And true to his word, I never hear from him again.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack here. The fights. The odd
Speaker 1: Son said he and his parents repeatedly heard Mary and
Speaker 1: Robert fighting. Two other neighbors told me the same thing. Peter,
Speaker 1: who lived on the cul de Sac from nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight to two thousand and two, said everyone heard it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was loud. That was two houses away and.
Speaker 4: I heard it.
Speaker 1: Another neighbor, Paul, lived on the street from nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven to ninety five. When you would hear these fights,
Speaker 1: how intense were they? Were they the kind of fights
Speaker 1: that if you live, let's say in an apartment sometimes
Speaker 1: to hear your neighbors arguing or were they pretty intense?
Speaker 11: I mean at the level of the yelling. I would say, yes,
Speaker 11: you got to be pretty upset to real take your
Speaker 11: voice to that level. When they would be screaming at
Speaker 11: each other, you could kind of feel like there was
Speaker 11: some tension in the air. They were venting something, and
Speaker 11: Bob was usually the one doing most of the screaming.
Speaker 11: Mary would retort back or just kind of defend herself.
Speaker 11: But again, you know, I never really wanted to like
Speaker 11: hear about what they were talking about, but you could
Speaker 11: definitely hear that there was some angry words being exchanged.
Speaker 1: Well, at that point it's impossible to escape if you're
Speaker 1: that close.
Speaker 11: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I looked at Google maps before this and your house
Speaker 1: was a little over one hundred feet from there.
Speaker 11: And then it called a sext so it's like we're
Speaker 11: almost like facing each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean it takes a lot for that
Speaker 1: kind of yelling to carry even if the windows were open,
Speaker 1: I still think you have to project that's yeow, Like
Speaker 1: that's still one hundred hundred and thirty feet yea, the
Speaker 1: closest to get to your house.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah the police. Neighbors say police were called to the
Speaker 1: Fisher house multiple times, but the Scottscale Police Department can't
Speaker 1: locate any record of the except one, which I'll discuss
Speaker 1: in a later episode. The gunshot. The odd Son told
Speaker 1: me his mom, the nosy neighbor, heard the gunshot that
Speaker 1: killed Mary, a shocking claim. If true, why didn't she
Speaker 1: call the police? If false, why would he say that?
Speaker 1: The gas line? The odd Son said his mom saw
Speaker 1: quote Fisher fiddling with the gas line into the house.
Speaker 1: That's never been reported before. I found a similar allegation
Speaker 1: and a police record I.
Speaker 9: Obtained female resident from saw the adult male resident of
Speaker 9: twenty two to twenty three North seventy fourth Place, Robert
Speaker 9: Fisher on the afternoon of four to nine oh one,
Speaker 9: he was kneeling near the bushes on the south side
Speaker 9: of the residence and appeared to be placing a cord
Speaker 9: near the base of the house.
Speaker 1: So whether it was a gas line unlikely or a
Speaker 1: cord likely, or the nosy neighbor allegedly saw Robert fiddling
Speaker 1: with something in his yard the afternoon of April ninth.
Speaker 1: My first question is, obviously what was he doing? My
Speaker 1: second is when did she see this? Did Fisher go
Speaker 1: home on his lunch break or was it after work?
Speaker 1: When I ask investigators about the nosy neighbor, the electrical engineer,
Speaker 1: and the odd son, the response I get is more
Speaker 1: or less an eye roll and some version of they're
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. But that doesn't mean we should ignore
Speaker 1: their statements. In fact, police have repeatedly referenced one publicly
Speaker 1: that the nosy neighbor heard Mary and Robert fighting on
Speaker 1: April ninth. We either believe her or we don't. We
Speaker 1: shouldn't cherry picks statements to suit a favored narrative. If
Speaker 1: we do believe her, What the heck is going on here?
Speaker 1: I try to avoid crazy rabbit holes, but this one
Speaker 1: I had to go down. Did the odd son kill
Speaker 1: the Fishers. Did his parents cover up the murders? I
Speaker 1: know how insane this sounds, but given the facts, bad blood, opportunity,
Speaker 1: the husband's profession, the odd son, I had to at
Speaker 1: least consider it briefly. But I want to make this
Speaker 1: emphatically clear. I found no evidence these neighbors were involved
Speaker 1: in the murders or the explosion. Neither did the police.
Speaker 1: They were never considered official suspects. Let me say it again,
Speaker 1: I believe Robert Fisher killed his family. I believe his
Speaker 1: actions were premeditated. Don't mistake my open mindedness for naivete.
Speaker 1: While there's no forensic evidence proving Robert committed these crimes,
Speaker 1: there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that would likely hold up
Speaker 1: in court, and let's use common sense. The idea that
Speaker 1: someone else got into the Fisher house to kill Mary,
Speaker 1: Brittany and Bobby in their sleep is doubtful. There's no
Speaker 1: evidence anyone broke into the house, and where would Robert
Speaker 1: have been during all of this. The killer would have
Speaker 1: had to take him out first, without waking his wife
Speaker 1: and kids, because there is no way an innocent Robert
Speaker 1: would let someone murder his family without fighting back. I
Speaker 1: guess you could say a killer waited for him to leave,
Speaker 1: killed his family, then ambushed him when he got home
Speaker 1: on a tiny cul de sac. I don't think so. Also,
Speaker 1: who would leave Robert's dog Blue alive other than Robert.
Speaker 1: Robert probably put Blue in the backyard or a vehicle
Speaker 1: during the murders. Blues barking didn't wake Mary or the kids,
Speaker 1: and he had no blood on him when he was
Speaker 1: found in the woods. If someone else killed the family,
Speaker 1: Blue likely would have been in the house during the murders.
Speaker 1: So what then the killer gave him a shower? Consider too,
Speaker 1: the ball cap Robert wore it at the ATM. Police
Speaker 1: found it in the Forerunner. Finally, pay attention to where
Speaker 1: the killer abandoned the Forerunner. This was a spot Robert
Speaker 1: Fisher knew well. In fact, he was supposed to go
Speaker 1: camping there three days later. If you think anyone else
Speaker 1: committed the murders, how would they have known to dump
Speaker 1: the Forerunner at this exact spot. I could go on
Speaker 1: and on, but honestly, it's a waste of time. I
Speaker 1: report without fear or favor. If I thought anyone else
Speaker 1: committed these crimes, I'd tell you what a twist, but
Speaker 1: the likeliest culprit by far is Robert Fisher. Search for
Speaker 1: Robert Fisher and you're liable to find blues collar. So
Speaker 1: we found Mary Fisher's Forerunner. It's still on the road,
Speaker 1: it's still in Arizona, and we're about a half mile
Speaker 1: away from its current address, which we have to track
Speaker 1: down the person who owns it. Now, we're going to
Speaker 1: leave that person a letter and just basically ask if
Speaker 1: we could talk to them take a look at the Forerunner.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we really want is a
Speaker 1: copy of the key, which is kind of crazy, like, Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm a stranger, I'm a journalist.
Speaker 3: I would like a copy of your car key.
Speaker 1: But it would mean that if a key was ever
Speaker 1: found in the wilderness or with remains or something like that,
Speaker 1: that you could match it up to see if it
Speaker 1: fit the Forerunner key. Want to see if it has
Speaker 1: the original owner's manual maintenance records A long shot, but
Speaker 1: maybe there's like timestamped diagnostics data.
Speaker 3: Swored on board. So there is a purpose for this.
Speaker 1: But I cannot imagine this man getting a letter from us,
Speaker 1: Like we're kind of vague. We don't specifically say hello,
Speaker 1: you have Mary Fisher's Forerunner. But okay, so we are
Speaker 1: point one mile away, I don't see Okay, it's not here,
Speaker 1: So somebody has it out.
Speaker 8: So I've seen it on Google. Okay, So left him
Speaker 8: the letter and we're off.
Speaker 1: We wait and wait, and never hear back. We do, however,
Speaker 1: establish a full chain of ownership. One Mary Fisher, two,
Speaker 1: Mary's sister Myrna three the current owner. After technicians processed
Speaker 1: the Forerunner in two thousand and one, they gave it
Speaker 1: back to Mary's family. Her sister sold it to the
Speaker 1: current owner in twenty eighteen. We try to reach him
Speaker 1: via letter and email to no avail. Our producer Chris
Speaker 1: then dials a long list of possible numbers. At one point,
Speaker 1: an older woman answers the current owner's mother. She tells
Speaker 1: Chris that her son is friends with Mary's family. We
Speaker 1: didn't know that. We thought he was just some random guy.
Speaker 1: She says. Her son even visited the Fisher's cul de
Speaker 1: sac the day the house blew up to comfort grieving
Speaker 1: loved ones. The address we drove by where we left
Speaker 1: the letter is her house, she says, not his. The
Speaker 1: Forerunner is now in Tucson, not Scottsdale. She tells Chris
Speaker 1: she'll speak to her son and if he wants to call,
Speaker 1: he will. He never does. She also says, quote, the
Speaker 1: Lord's not done with Robert Fisher, and then she says
Speaker 1: this a few years ago, while changing tires on the Forerunner,
Speaker 1: her son and his wife found quote the dog's collar.
Speaker 1: They gave it to Mary's sister, Myrna, the dog's collar.
Speaker 1: There's no way I can confirm this yet, since we
Speaker 1: didn't hear back from the current owner or Mary's sister.
Speaker 1: But I believe they found blues collar. If true, that's
Speaker 1: a big deal. It means the police missed the caller
Speaker 1: while processing the Forerunner. It also means that all these
Speaker 1: years later, we might have found a new piece of
Speaker 1: physical evidence. Let's say that someone located a new piece
Speaker 1: of physical evidence in the car twenty two years later.
Speaker 1: Could it be tested at this point?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Matt Steiner, the NYPD crime scene expert.
Speaker 5: In my career, there are tons of cases where we
Speaker 5: look back at old scenes and are still able to
Speaker 5: collect evidence.
Speaker 2: It's valuable.
Speaker 5: I had a case with my partner. We had a
Speaker 5: clandestine grave in a backyard discovered forty years later and
Speaker 5: still there was enough evidence there forty years later to
Speaker 5: solve that case. The company that created blue Star did
Speaker 5: a cool test where they went to Gettysburg and there's
Speaker 5: a I guess it's a house there, and in the
Speaker 5: attic of this house there's like a famous battle where
Speaker 5: sniper is killed in this attic, And they processed that
Speaker 5: area with blue Star hundreds of years later and still
Speaker 5: got a reaction. So it's powerful stuff. The variables are,
Speaker 5: what's the condition that's evidence been living in. Has it
Speaker 5: been stored properly? Has it been in direct exposure to
Speaker 5: sunlight and UV which would destroy DNA and fingerprints and
Speaker 5: everything else. Depends on the condition that it's been its
Speaker 5: location and the environment's been in for the last twenty years,
Speaker 5: But certainly possible.
Speaker 1: Let's say that this isn't theoretical. Let's say that I
Speaker 1: tracked down the forerunner and the current owners found the
Speaker 1: dog's collar hidden kind of in a wheel well for
Speaker 1: the last twenty years. What do you think you could
Speaker 1: recover from that?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So, I mean, if it's been stored properly, you're talking
Speaker 5: DNA simply just from skin cells from whoever was handling
Speaker 5: it from the dog, plus hair and fiber evidence from
Speaker 5: things that touch the collar the dog, and other things
Speaker 5: that might have been contact with that collar. So yeah,
Speaker 5: that would be good. You know, if the tags are
Speaker 5: on it, maybe fingerprints on it. If it's a smooth,
Speaker 5: non porous surface, would be a good one for fingerprints.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of stuff you could do with it.
Speaker 1: For a second opinion, I turn again to Karen Elliott.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at a dog collar that fell off
Speaker 1: eye into a wheel well or something, or where the
Speaker 1: spare tire is and almost twenty years later it's recovered,
Speaker 1: what kind of testing could be done? What could we
Speaker 1: in theory learn from that because it would have been
Speaker 1: pretty protected. Could we test for blood for DNA? What
Speaker 1: else could we do with that collar?
Speaker 6: Yes to all of that DNA for sure. I think
Speaker 6: that would be a really good surface because there's nooks
Speaker 6: and cranies on a collar, and especially with someone who
Speaker 6: is under the probably the kind of stress that Robert
Speaker 6: would have been under at the time probably left a
Speaker 6: ton of DNA on that collar. If he touched the
Speaker 6: dog during that time. His DNA on that collar wouldn't
Speaker 6: mean a whole lot because it's his dog. Her blood
Speaker 6: on the collar would be huge. And yes, since it's
Speaker 6: been out of the element, since it's been protected, there's
Speaker 6: a really good possibility that you could find blood on that.
Speaker 1: The question that I have, and I know anyone listening
Speaker 1: to this is going to have, is even twenty plus
Speaker 1: years later.
Speaker 6: Yes, I've worked cases that were fifty years old that
Speaker 6: we actually used a blood enhancement chemical on and were
Speaker 6: able to recover bloodstains that were that old.
Speaker 1: Finding Robert or Mary's DNA would mean nothing. Blue was
Speaker 1: their dog, but finding Robert or Mary's blood or DNA
Speaker 1: from say an accomplice, could be critical evidence. We covered
Speaker 1: a lot in this episode. Here's the bottom line. There's
Speaker 1: no forensic evidence proving Robert Fisher committed these crimes, but
Speaker 1: he is by far the likeliest suspect. Here are the
Speaker 1: myths we busted. That the killer used extreme force when
Speaker 1: slitting Mary, Brittany and Bobby's throats, that Mary's fore runner
Speaker 1: was wiped clean, that the killer used liquid accelerant to
Speaker 1: help burn down the house. And here are the key
Speaker 1: questions we raised. Which caliber bullet was used to shoot
Speaker 1: Mary A twenty five as indicated in a police report
Speaker 1: or a thirty eight, matching Robert's missing revolver. Who do
Speaker 1: the seven fingerprints found in the fore Run belong to?
Speaker 1: If they're still unidentified, law enforcement should run them again.
Speaker 1: What caused the luminol reaction on the Forerunner floor mat
Speaker 1: Police should re examine it. If they find blood, they
Speaker 1: should try to recover a DNA profile, then run it
Speaker 1: through codis. Where was the cigarette butt found and whose
Speaker 1: DNA is on it? Police should run it through codis.
Speaker 1: Whose blood is on the sneaker found in Robert's war clocker.
Speaker 1: If it belongs to a close female relative, who exactly
Speaker 1: and why is it there? Did police recover the feces
Speaker 1: and tissue near the Forerunner? If so, they should examine
Speaker 1: both for clues like DNA. What are the unknown dark
Speaker 1: fibers recovered from the Forerunner? Police should consult outside experts
Speaker 1: and reanalyze them using new technology. Did the Fishers have
Speaker 1: a safety deposit box? If so, did the police search it?
Speaker 1: If not, what happened to it? Do police still have
Speaker 1: the Fisher's computer? If so, what shape is it in?
Speaker 1: Can they reanalyze the hard drive using new technology? What's
Speaker 1: the deal with the burnt firecracker in the master bedroom
Speaker 1: and the battery device in Britney's trash can. What were
Speaker 1: the quote gunshots two neighbors heard ten to twenty minutes
Speaker 1: before the house exploded. Police should consult outside experts. What
Speaker 1: did the nosy neighbors see the afternoon of April ninth
Speaker 1: when she spotted Robert fiddling with something in front of
Speaker 1: his house. Did the nosy neighbor actually hear the gunshot
Speaker 1: that killed Mary? If so, why didn't she call police?
Speaker 1: If not, why did her son say that? Finally, did
Speaker 1: the current owner of the Forerunner find blues collar? If so,
Speaker 1: law enforcement should retrieve and test it immediately. Next time,
Speaker 1: I'm missing in Arizona.
Speaker 7: He is alive.
Speaker 1: We know he was seen yesterday morning at eleven by
Speaker 1: the witness and that he's on the move. You can
Speaker 1: reach us by phone at one eight three three new
Speaker 1: tips that's one eight three three six three nine eight
Speaker 1: four seven seven, by email at tips at iHeartMedia dot com,
Speaker 1: tips at iHeartMedia dot com, online at neon thirty three
Speaker 1: dot com, or on Twitter at John wallzac j O
Speaker 1: n w A. L Czak. Paul Duckan is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Chris Brown is our supervising producer. Hannah Rose Snyder is
Speaker 1: our producer, Paul Gemperlin is our researcher, Ben Bollen is
Speaker 1: a consulting producer, and I'm Your host and executive producer
Speaker 1: John Wallzac Recreation is voiced by Ben Bollen and Rob Lamb.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Dave Wilkins. Cover art by Pam Peacock,
Speaker 1: Neon thirty three logo designed by Derek Rudy. Our intro
Speaker 1: song is Utopia by Ruby Cube. Please download the first
Speaker 1: two seasons of our show, Missing in Alaska and Missing
Speaker 1: on nine to eleven, and if you're so inclined, give
Speaker 1: us a five star rating. Missing in Arizona is a
Speaker 1: co production of iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three