Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: In the winter of twenty eleven, something was very wrong
Speaker 2: with fifty seven year old Robert Wayne Cox. Robert had
Speaker 2: always been healthy and athletic. According to his sister Lydia,
Speaker 2: Robert was basically happiest when he was at home. He
Speaker 2: lived on a thirty five acre plot of land in Havan, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: a tiny town where the population hovers between three and
Speaker 2: four hundred people.
Speaker 1: Robert was a homebody.
Speaker 2: He loved hanging out with his family and also, according
Speaker 2: to his sister, he loved messing around with old cars,
Speaker 2: restoring them and doing construction projects. He actually helped build
Speaker 2: the log cabin that was on his property. He was
Speaker 2: very proud of that accomplishment. Robert was happily married. He
Speaker 2: had been with his wife, Vicki for over twenty years.
Speaker 2: She had two children. Robert also had a son named
Speaker 2: Brian from a previous marriage. Robert's father, Jean, lived in
Speaker 2: a home he had built on the property back in
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, and his sister Lydia lived just
Speaker 2: down the road. For a long time, Robert Cox had
Speaker 2: a very happy and settled life. But in twenty ten,
Speaker 2: something started happening to Robert Cox. There was a very
Speaker 2: rapid physical deterioration, and by the fall of twenty ten,
Speaker 2: Robert couldn't really walk. His chin dropped down to his chest.
Speaker 2: He became completely nonverbal. His sister, Lydia, was terrified by
Speaker 2: what was happening to her brother. She took him to
Speaker 2: doctor after doctor trying to find answers. Then, on February nineteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, Robert Wayne Cox disappeared without a trace. He
Speaker 2: has never been seen again. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. If you have a case you'd
Speaker 2: like me and my team to look into, you can
Speaker 2: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line
Speaker 2: at six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four
Speaker 2: or five. When we asked for people to reach out
Speaker 2: and to leave voicemails about unsald murders, I knew that
Speaker 2: we would get a big response. I didn't quite understand
Speaker 2: how tremendous the response would be. I got seven voicemails
Speaker 2: about Robert Cox's case. Seven different people reached out to me,
Speaker 2: either on our murder line or on my personal number
Speaker 2: or via Facebook to tell me about this missing person's case.
Speaker 2: There are so many people in Arkansas and everywhere around
Speaker 2: the country who cared deeply about this case. One of
Speaker 2: those calls came from Robert Cox's sister, Lydia Cox Carter.
Speaker 3: Hello, my name is Lydia Cox Carter. My brother has
Speaker 3: been missing, possibly murdered for the last twelve and a
Speaker 3: half years. I have struggled with law enforcement like nobody's business. Uh,
Speaker 3: there has never been a proper investigation done. I believe
Speaker 3: there is family involvement, the wife, his own son, and
Speaker 3: step kids. He was on hospice at the time of
Speaker 3: his supposed disappearance. We are in Havana, Arkansas, which is
Speaker 3: Yale County, and the new sheriff that we have now
Speaker 3: that come into office this year, he has opened up
Speaker 3: my brother's case to outside agencies.
Speaker 2: Over the years, Lydia has been her brother's biggest champion,
Speaker 2: and she has fought ever since the day he disappeared
Speaker 2: to get answers and to figure out what happened to
Speaker 2: her brother. Robert Wayne Cox was born and raised in California.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, he moved to Arkansas.
Speaker 2: He went to work for the county Road Department and
Speaker 2: became a road foreman, a job he would have for
Speaker 2: the next fifteen years. Robert married and he and his
Speaker 2: first wife had a son named Brian. Eventually, the couple divorced,
Speaker 2: and apparently it was acrimonious.
Speaker 1: In fact, according to Lydia, Robert's.
Speaker 2: Ex wife hated him after the divorce, but Lydia said
Speaker 2: that Robert always maintained a close relationship with his son Brian.
Speaker 2: After the road form and job, Robert started working for
Speaker 2: a close friend of his. This involved working with heavy equipment,
Speaker 2: helping with cattle, and doing rural projects clearing trees for logging,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. This suited Robert because he loved
Speaker 2: working outdoors. In the early nineties, Robert married again to Vicki.
Speaker 2: Lydia moved back to the area in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: and she and Vicki became close friends.
Speaker 4: Here's Lydia, Me and Herber liked best friends from the
Speaker 4: get go. Yeah she was funny, she had a great
Speaker 4: sense of humor. She fit in with our family. She
Speaker 4: thought the sun rose and said on Robert Cox. She
Speaker 4: was always with him every opportunity at that time. And yeah,
Speaker 4: we used to go grocery shopping together. Yard sailing. We
Speaker 4: drive to Kentucky to go see her daughter and her
Speaker 4: little granddaughter. I mean we did everything together.
Speaker 2: Vicki had two kids. Lydia said that they were all close.
Speaker 2: The two sons went to high school together. They were
Speaker 2: tight even after the boys grew up and moved out
Speaker 2: of the house. Vicky worked as a supervisor for Levi.
Speaker 2: Later she began working as a hairdresser. In two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, Robert helped his father, Jean, build a home
Speaker 2: on the property. For a long time, Robert's life was great.
Speaker 2: He had a happy marriage, a happy, blended family, and
Speaker 2: he was able to work outside doing what he loved.
Speaker 1: But things started to change.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, there was a global recession,
Speaker 2: so Robert's friend had to let Robert go. By now
Speaker 2: Robert was in his mid fifties. He found himself out
Speaker 2: of work and at a loose end. This hit Robert
Speaker 2: hard Lydia said this was the beginning of his depression.
Speaker 2: His mental health started to deteriorate. Now around this time,
Speaker 2: Robert also started to fixate more on Vicki. He began
Speaker 2: to suspect that Vicky was being unfaithful. At first, Lydia
Speaker 2: said she thought Robert was being paranoid. She could not
Speaker 2: imagine Vicky betraying her brother.
Speaker 4: Toward the end of two thousand and nine, he started
Speaker 4: in saying, telling me, you know that he felt like
Speaker 4: Vicky was messing around Donnie. He'd been following her and stuff.
Speaker 4: And I said, you're crazy. She ain't miss her hound,
Speaker 4: don you And He's like, yes, she is, Yes she is.
Speaker 4: At that point in time, I just never believed that
Speaker 4: she was doing something like that. Now, whether she was
Speaker 4: or not, I don't know.
Speaker 2: When Vicky took a cruise with her family, Robert's extreme
Speaker 2: anxiety increased. Vicky would leave the house, Robert would wonder
Speaker 2: where she was and who she was with. Sometimes Robert
Speaker 2: would get into his truck and follow Vicky. Throughout twenty ten,
Speaker 2: things kept getting worse.
Speaker 4: He got very I guess you could say, kind of
Speaker 4: clingy with her. And then he started driving back and forth. See,
Speaker 4: we live almost thirty miles from here to Russellville where
Speaker 4: she was working, and he'd drive over there, sometimes two, three,
Speaker 4: four times a day just to make sure she was
Speaker 4: at work because he just knew that she was messing
Speaker 4: around on him. So there was also something, you know,
Speaker 4: I guess mental going on, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Later in twenty ten, as things were continuing to escalate,
Speaker 2: that's when the physical symptoms started. Lyddy and her dad
Speaker 2: drove Robert to different doctors. They put him on several
Speaker 2: different medications, Zoloft first and then some other drugs, but
Speaker 2: he was experiencing some negative side effects from the medication.
Speaker 4: I believe it was zoloft, and when he was on that,
Speaker 4: he started hallucinating. He'd look out into the field and
Speaker 4: he'd say, you see that bear or that lying down
Speaker 4: there or something like that. And then at one point
Speaker 4: he got to where they had him on a psychiatric drug,
Speaker 4: and he would think that he would see my mom
Speaker 4: or our mom's deceased and our oldest brother is deceased.
Speaker 4: He would think that he would see them down in
Speaker 4: my dad's vehicles, sitting in the vehicle. So he would
Speaker 4: take like a blanket or a jacket, or a bowl
Speaker 4: of soup or something down there because he thought he
Speaker 4: was seeing them sitting in there.
Speaker 2: The doctors took him off the drugs and his hallucinations
Speaker 2: went away, but his paranoia remained. Lydia was frustrated. She
Speaker 2: thought that Vicki didn't seem to be worried enough about
Speaker 2: Robert's rapid physical and mental deterioration. Lydia said she wanted
Speaker 2: her brother to go to the doctor to be tested
Speaker 2: for dementia. He did see a couple of different doctors.
Speaker 2: One doctor said it was possible that Robert could have
Speaker 2: frontal lobe damage, but the doctor said they needed to
Speaker 2: get a pet scan in order to get a more
Speaker 2: definite diagnosis.
Speaker 1: But there was a hitch.
Speaker 2: Robert didn't have health insurance because he had been out
Speaker 2: of work for so long, and that pet scan would
Speaker 2: cost four thousand dollars. Jean, Robert's father, said that he
Speaker 2: would pay for the treatment, but Vicky refused, even when
Speaker 2: Lydia claimed she told her sister in law that Vicky
Speaker 2: would not have to pay Gene back. She claims that
Speaker 2: Vicky just said no. Testing for dementia was scheduled, but
Speaker 2: Robert never made it to the appointment. At this point,
Speaker 2: Robert was also experiencing a lot of physical problems. I
Speaker 2: saw a home video that Lydia is shared with a
Speaker 2: local news station, and it really gives an idea of
Speaker 2: how difficult it was for Robert to move around. We're
Speaker 2: going to provide a link to that video in our
Speaker 2: episode notes, and I really recommend that you check it
Speaker 2: out because within a few months this man went from
Speaker 2: being a vital, fifty something active guy who was in
Speaker 2: shape to literally shuffling, barely moving forward. He looked like
Speaker 2: a ninety year old man walking around. The difference is
Speaker 2: extremely dramatic.
Speaker 4: The last time that he was actually verbal was on
Speaker 4: his birthday, which is September twenty eighth to twenty ten.
Speaker 4: After that it was just downhill. After that, he was
Speaker 4: having trouble swallowing, like eating whole foods and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: So I started making his food purade. My dad went
Speaker 4: and lotch you know, insurance stuff, and by Thanksgiving of
Speaker 4: twenty ten, the head was dropping and by Christmas of
Speaker 4: twenty ten, his chin was resting on his chest.
Speaker 2: By December of twenty ten, ten were continuing to mount
Speaker 2: between Vicky and Lydia. Then one day, Lydia got a
Speaker 2: Facebook message that she said stopped her cold.
Speaker 4: One night toward the end of December, Vicky sent me
Speaker 4: a Facebook message told me that you know that she
Speaker 4: had talked to the kids, and Brian's wife, Rebecca sent
Speaker 4: Vicky a Facebook message and then Vicky shared it with me,
Speaker 4: and Rebecca said, will go along with whatever y'all want
Speaker 4: to do. But Robert told Brian that if he ever
Speaker 4: got sick like his mom, he'd want Brian to kill him.
Speaker 4: So I immediately printed that off. I don't know why
Speaker 4: I did, but thank God that I did. And I'd
Speaker 4: come back at Vicky and I said, who would even
Speaker 4: talk or be thinking about that in a time like this,
Speaker 4: And She's like, I know, She said, I don't know
Speaker 4: what I would do without you if I didn't have
Speaker 4: you help in me, because you know, Brian, once his
Speaker 4: dad started getting sick, he just quit coming around as
Speaker 4: much and stuff, and him and his dad was pretty tired.
Speaker 4: And then after when all this took place, Brian come
Speaker 4: out and he seen him a couple of times out
Speaker 4: in a pasture across the road from his dad's house,
Speaker 4: and then after that him and his wife just kind
Speaker 4: of disappeared, and everybody was asking me, my husband and
Speaker 4: other neighbors, like, where's Brian, Where's Brian? Why ain't Brian
Speaker 4: out here? Because nobody's seen Brian.
Speaker 2: Again, we're coming up to the day when Robert Cox
Speaker 2: went missing in February of twenty eleven. But first I
Speaker 2: want to take a step back here and talk about
Speaker 2: this property that Robert and Vickie lived on, because understanding
Speaker 2: that terrain is crucial to figuring out what happened to
Speaker 2: Robert Cox. Robert and Bickie's home was on a thirty
Speaker 2: five acre piece of land. Robert's father, Jean, had a
Speaker 2: small house on that property on a three acre plot.
Speaker 2: Lydia lived just about a mile away. There were a
Speaker 2: couple of neighbors between them. The entire area around Robert
Speaker 2: Cox's house was bordered with something called clearcut.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you know what a clearcut is,
Speaker 4: but they'll plant like a pine thicket and they let
Speaker 4: them trees grow to about for about fifteen twenty years,
Speaker 4: and then they'll come in and they'll clear cut it
Speaker 4: and they take the biggest part of the tree and
Speaker 4: then they delimit. So when a clearcut is done being cut,
Speaker 4: it is very very rough ground and there is tree tops, branches,
Speaker 4: you know, big holes where they pull the trees out
Speaker 4: of the ground and all that stuff. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: just a big mess.
Speaker 2: In his week in state, Lydia explained there was no
Speaker 2: way that Robert could have navigated that property by himself
Speaker 2: because he would be in danger of falling. Also, Lydia said,
Speaker 2: by the time her brother disappeared, he was not going
Speaker 2: out by himself. Going out by himself would have been
Speaker 2: completely out of character.
Speaker 1: It would have been very dangerous for him.
Speaker 2: The last time that Lydia saw her brother was on
Speaker 2: Wednesday night, February sixteenth. On that evening, Vicky brought Robert
Speaker 2: by Lydia's house. Lydia said the next couple of days
Speaker 2: were pretty busy. Her dad Jean saw Robert, but she
Speaker 2: didn't see him on Thursday or Friday. She and her
Speaker 2: husband were getting ready to have company, and so she
Speaker 2: was getting the house ready and just taking care of
Speaker 2: a lot of things. So now we come to that
Speaker 2: fateful day, Saturday, February nineteenth, twenty eleven, the day that
Speaker 2: Robert went missing. Lydia took us through her memories of
Speaker 2: that day, a day she says she relives over and over.
Speaker 2: Her day started at around eight thirty. She called her dad,
Speaker 2: Jean to ask if he had breakfast yet. Jean told
Speaker 2: her that he was planning on driving to chalk taw At,
Speaker 2: nearby town. He was taking a drive to pick up
Speaker 2: some wagon wheels that he had left there to be repaired.
Speaker 2: This was Lydia's regular routine. By the way, she often
Speaker 2: went to her brother's house at least once a day,
Speaker 2: sometimes multiple times, in order to check on her elderly
Speaker 2: father and her brother. Lydia told Jean he needed to
Speaker 2: have something to eat, so at around eight thirty, her
Speaker 2: dad stopped at her house to have a quick breakfast.
Speaker 2: Then he left to run his errand Lydia spent the
Speaker 2: rest of the morning cleaning her house, taking care of chores.
Speaker 2: She was getting ready to have company. Then at twelve thirty,
Speaker 2: Lydia said she realized that she hadn't checked in on
Speaker 2: her brother yet, so she called her brother's house and
Speaker 2: Vickie answered the phone.
Speaker 4: So it was exactly twelve thirty two pm when I
Speaker 4: made the call up there. She answered the phone, and
Speaker 4: I said, what are y'all doing? She said, well, Angie's
Speaker 4: painting my toe nails and doing laundry. And she said Shelby,
Speaker 4: the granddaughter, was doing something. She may have been outside
Speaker 4: riding before will or something, I don't know, I don't remember.
Speaker 4: And then I said, well, what's brother doing? She said, well,
Speaker 4: I don't know. She said, he was in here pulling
Speaker 4: on my arm. But he's been gone for about ten minutes.
Speaker 4: And I said, well, don't you think you need to
Speaker 4: send somebody outside to make sure he's okay? Because I
Speaker 4: wasn't worried about him wandering off because he was very homebody.
Speaker 4: He was either in and out of his house or
Speaker 4: walking from his house to my dad's house. And so
Speaker 4: she told Shelby, the granddaughter, she said, go outside and
Speaker 4: see if you see or papaw. When I heard her
Speaker 4: go out the door, heard her stand on the porch,
Speaker 4: called Papa, pappaw a few times. Come back in. She said, no,
Speaker 4: I don't see him. Vicky said, well, when my toenails dry,
Speaker 4: she said, I'll slip my shoes on and I'll go
Speaker 4: outside and see where he's at. And I said, no,
Speaker 4: you get off your ass now and you go outside
Speaker 4: and see where he's at. She said, okay, okay, and
Speaker 4: I said, keep me on the phone. They supposedly went outside,
Speaker 4: looked around the yard. She's like, I don't see him anywhere.
Speaker 4: I'm telling her places to look, and I said, make
Speaker 4: sure he's not in the garage, make sure he's not
Speaker 4: in the storage shed, and then next to his garage
Speaker 4: there was a gap, and I said, well, go in
Speaker 4: that gap and make sure he's not behind one of
Speaker 4: those buildings. She supposedly did that, and she said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I see him. He's almost to the road. I'm going
Speaker 4: to go get my keys and get my car out
Speaker 4: of the garage and go up on the road and
Speaker 4: pick him up. So we hung up. I went running
Speaker 4: out to the shop where my husband was working, told
Speaker 4: him what was going on. And I told him, I said,
Speaker 4: I swear to God, she's going to wind up killing
Speaker 4: my brother or losing him. And I said, I'm fixing
Speaker 4: to whip out that power of attorney and take him
Speaker 4: away from her and bring him down here. And he's like, well,
Speaker 4: whatever you want to do, we'll do it. So I
Speaker 4: come back in the house. I start doing my chores
Speaker 4: again because I'm thinking everything's okay. So about thirty minutes later,
Speaker 4: I hear my cell phone telling me I had a voicemail.
Speaker 4: So I pick up the voicemail. She says, well, we
Speaker 4: can't find Rob and hung up. That's all she said.
Speaker 4: So I go running out back out to the shop.
Speaker 4: I told my husband. I said apparently they've lost him.
Speaker 4: Get on your quad head that way. I'm going to
Speaker 4: get my horse. I'll be there as quick as I can.
Speaker 2: Lydia jumped on her horse and rode toward Robert's house
Speaker 2: as fast as she could. Her husband jumped on his
Speaker 2: squad bike. It had rained recently in the area, so
Speaker 2: that ground was saturated. Lydia said that her horse was
Speaker 2: getting bogged down in that mud, so the area, which
Speaker 2: was tough to navigate on the best of days, became
Speaker 2: almost impossible. Lydia saw a neighbor, Bob, approaching from the
Speaker 2: north side of the clearcut. Lydia talked to Bob and
Speaker 2: found out that Vicky had been to Bob's house. Now
Speaker 2: it's unclear whether she actually talked to Bob, Lydia says
Speaker 2: she believes that Vicky went to the house, didn't see him,
Speaker 2: and then called and left him a message. Anyway, somehow
Speaker 2: Bob got the message, so by the time Lydia got
Speaker 2: to Robert's house, several people were already there looking for him. Bob,
Speaker 2: another neighbor named Don Angela, her daughter, Shelby, and Vicky,
Speaker 2: plus the local mail carrier. By that night, there were
Speaker 2: over one hundred volunteers scouring the woods looking for Robert,
Speaker 2: literally more than a third of the town. A friend
Speaker 2: who had a private plane went up in the air
Speaker 2: and flew around all afternoon. He found no sign of Robert.
Speaker 2: Lydia said law enforcement showed up, and from the beginning
Speaker 2: her relationship with the Yale County Sheriff's Department was pretty strained.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 2: The local sheriff's department was really unprepared for a missing
Speaker 2: person's case like this. Lydia admits she was frustrated by
Speaker 2: some of their decisions, like the fact that they set
Speaker 2: up their command post a quarter of a mile away.
Speaker 2: Lydia wanted to know why they weren't setting it up
Speaker 2: closer to home, and why they weren't questioning Robert's family
Speaker 2: members already. Lydia was questioning aspects of Vicky's story. First
Speaker 2: of all, she wondered, how could her brother, who had
Speaker 2: difficulty walking a few steps, somehow walk hundreds of yards
Speaker 2: to the edge of that clear cut and disappear within
Speaker 2: just a few minutes. Secondly, Lydia thought it was strange
Speaker 2: that Vicky went to see a neighbor, but that it
Speaker 2: was it's the neighbor's son who actually called the police.
Speaker 2: Her brother was vulnerable, why hadn't Vicky called nine to
Speaker 2: one one? Then Lydia noticed something else. When she was
Speaker 2: talking to their neighbor Don Don, was describing his attempt
Speaker 2: to recreate the scene with Vicky. Don asked Vicky exactly
Speaker 2: where she was standing when she was talking to Lyddy
Speaker 2: on the phone and where Robert was standing. Lydia said
Speaker 2: that from where Vicky said she was talking on the phone,
Speaker 2: she could not have seen Robert through the dense brush.
Speaker 4: So when my neighbor Don first got up there, he
Speaker 4: was the first one there and he asked her, He said,
Speaker 4: show me exactly where you last seen Rob. And she
Speaker 4: took him down there and showed him and said right here.
Speaker 4: And he said when he got down there, there were
Speaker 4: no footprints whatsoever. And then when my neighbor Bob come
Speaker 4: riding up on his horse, he come right along that
Speaker 4: edge there next to my brother's property where she claimed
Speaker 4: she had seen him. And Bob yelled from in the
Speaker 4: clearcut up to the road. Who's got stars on the
Speaker 4: bottom of their shoes? She says, I do. She had
Speaker 4: on a pair of shoes that apparently had stars on
Speaker 4: the bottom of them.
Speaker 2: Remember, it had rain recently, which means that anyone walking
Speaker 2: out there would presumably leave fairly deep footprints. Yet the
Speaker 2: only footprints the neighbor found in that area, according to Lydia,
Speaker 2: were Vickie's. I asked Lydia if law enforcement took pictures
Speaker 2: of those footprints. Her response was telling.
Speaker 4: Who law enforcements? Yeah, they done nothing. No, man, they
Speaker 4: did not.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I don't even know if law enforcement was even in
Speaker 4: that clearcut.
Speaker 2: The Yale County Sheriff's Department kept searching. The state police
Speaker 2: came in at around ten pm that night. They brought
Speaker 2: bloodhounds and volunteers and they did search everywhere. They went
Speaker 2: through fields, barns, cars, abandoned wells, sinkholes, and anywhere else
Speaker 2: they could think of.
Speaker 1: But they found no trace of Robert. But the dogs
Speaker 1: did alert on the property.
Speaker 4: Dog handler come in and she said, well, my dog
Speaker 4: trackeding north along the edge of the clear cut and
Speaker 4: then out east part way across the clear cut. I
Speaker 4: told her, I said, there ain't no way. Then she
Speaker 4: said they tracked him, you know, out in the yard
Speaker 4: and then up the driveway to the end of the
Speaker 4: driveway and then the dog lost sin. So then that's
Speaker 4: when the theory come in. Well, somebody must have drove
Speaker 4: by and picked him up.
Speaker 2: This seemed far fetched to Lydia. Lydia said that a
Speaker 2: strange car going unnoticed would have been very strange in
Speaker 2: their neighborhood. This was a place where everyone knew everyone.
Speaker 2: They knew when the trash truck came in and when
Speaker 2: it left, So the idea that someone could have driven
Speaker 2: by and picked Robert up at that exact time of
Speaker 2: day during a five minute period is very implausible. Also,
Speaker 2: if they did, what would their motive have been? When
Speaker 2: he disappeared. Robert had nothing on him, no wallet, no medication.
Speaker 2: What would their motive be for picking up and kidnapping
Speaker 2: an elderly man in the middle of the afternoon. Lydia
Speaker 2: said that at some point someone told her that the
Speaker 2: first search dogs had been tired, so she called the
Speaker 2: sheriff at the time. Sheriff guilty. She said she would
Speaker 2: like to get fresher search dogs out there, and she
Speaker 2: said he cussed her out, but the sheriff did relent
Speaker 2: and agreed to send more dogs. When the second group
Speaker 2: of dogs came to the area, they alerted in only
Speaker 2: one place, the front door. Vicki told law enforcement that
Speaker 2: when Robert left the house that day, he was wearing
Speaker 2: gray tennis shoes, gray sweatpants, and a navy blue hoodie.
Speaker 2: To Lydia, the clothing description was also a bit strange.
Speaker 4: My brother dressed western boots, jeans, flannel shirts, T shirts,
Speaker 4: you know, very simple in plain.
Speaker 1: So a hoodie would have been a little out of character.
Speaker 4: Very much out of character. I mean I never seen
Speaker 4: him wear a hoodie, even when he was, you know, sick.
Speaker 4: I mean, she was still putting his T shirts on
Speaker 4: and then putting a flannel on, you know, over the
Speaker 4: T shirts, like he always did. I don't know where
Speaker 4: the blue hoodie come from.
Speaker 2: Could someone else have been walking around a hoodie, someone
Speaker 2: who wanted to create the description that way in case
Speaker 2: they were spotted from a distance. Lydia's mind came up
Speaker 2: with many possibilities, but all of them, in her imagination,
Speaker 2: ended with someone doing something unspeakable to her brother.
Speaker 4: I got to the point to where I was following vultures,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd see him circling out in the pasture,
Speaker 4: and I'd follow him, and I'd get out and I'd
Speaker 4: go look just to make sure, because you don't know.
Speaker 4: At that point, it was hard for me to wrap
Speaker 4: my mind around that somebody and my family could hurt
Speaker 4: my brother. But it was kind of looking pretty iffy
Speaker 4: that somebody very well could have done something to him.
Speaker 2: But her conversations with law enforcement continue to be frustrating, since,
Speaker 2: according to her, they did not seem to consider the
Speaker 2: possibility of Robert being the victim of foul play.
Speaker 4: Why ain't just setting up in his yard and questioning family, well,
Speaker 4: because that's the last ones that supposedly seen him, But
Speaker 4: they didn't. And they just kept coming up to me
Speaker 4: and asking me different questions and about my brother. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, you don't understand. I said, he ain't able
Speaker 4: to navigate this. The man's chin was resting on his chest.
Speaker 4: He was on hospice, and you know where's he gonna go.
Speaker 4: He walked with a shuffled gate to disappear in five minutes,
Speaker 4: and that's what she said. The timeline at was five minutes.
Speaker 2: Lyndia was also wondering where her brother's son Brian was,
Speaker 2: why he wasn't on social media posting why he wasn't
Speaker 2: in her opinion, helping more with the search. Eventually, she
Speaker 2: admits she suspected multiple people in the family may have
Speaker 2: been aware, at least of what was going on. She
Speaker 2: said that she really noticed that Vicky did not appear
Speaker 2: to be that concerned about Robert.
Speaker 4: She was out there talking and laughing with them and
Speaker 4: carrying on. I don't know who it was. Could have
Speaker 4: been somebody in her family, I don't know, because a
Speaker 4: bunch of her family come home started flowing in after that.
Speaker 4: Another person told me that she was outside in the
Speaker 4: yard and there was people up there, you know, looking
Speaker 4: all around the yard and around the house and everything,
Speaker 4: and she's like, there's plenty of food and drink in here.
Speaker 4: If you guys get hungry, thirsty, come on in, get
Speaker 4: you whatever you want and whatever and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: and just you know, nobody were seeing. The woman shed
Speaker 4: a tear. I never seen her shed it here.
Speaker 2: Also on Sunday, Lydia got another shock when she went
Speaker 2: to her brother's house. She found hospice nurses there taking
Speaker 2: her brother's things away. Robert had been missing less than
Speaker 2: twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: Sunday morning, she had Hospice out there and had them
Speaker 4: come and pick up everything, the hospital bed, the bedside,
Speaker 4: come ode, you know, just whatever they brought out, because
Speaker 4: she said he wasn't coming back.
Speaker 2: After Lydia saw the nurses taking Robert's things out of
Speaker 2: his home only twenty four hours after he had gone missing,
Speaker 2: she said the relationship between her and Vickie deteriorated fast.
Speaker 2: Lydia had thought of Vicky as a sister, but Lydia
Speaker 2: says they have not spoken since March of twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: just a few weeks after her brother went missing. Lydia
Speaker 2: also wondered about her suspicion started on Saturday night when
Speaker 2: she asked Vicki about why Brian and his wife were
Speaker 2: not out late searching for Robert.
Speaker 4: I've seen her about ten o'clock and she said, well,
Speaker 4: I finally heard from Brian. And I said, and she said, well,
Speaker 4: they got wet and tired, so they went home and
Speaker 4: took a shower and went to bed. And I said,
Speaker 4: so your dad is missing, and he's a sick human being,
Speaker 4: and you're wet and tired and you're going to go
Speaker 4: to bed.
Speaker 2: Lydia could not wrap her head around this. She had
Speaker 2: always known Brian and her brother Robert to have a
Speaker 2: very close relationship. She couldn't understand why, in her opinion,
Speaker 2: Brian didn't seem to be more proactive about searching for
Speaker 2: his father. However, as time went on, she kept thinking
Speaker 2: back to that weird Facebook message, the one about a
Speaker 2: mercy killing. She wondered, could Brian have known something about
Speaker 2: what happened? Lydia says that after that, her relationship with
Speaker 2: Brian also completely fell apart.
Speaker 4: That following Monday, Brian was off work that day, so
Speaker 4: I had gone that to Vicki's to my brother's house
Speaker 4: to take care of the dogs. She had some goats
Speaker 4: at that time and some chickens, so I went up
Speaker 4: there to take care of them chores for her. And
Speaker 4: when I come back around the front of the house,
Speaker 4: Brian and his wife was there, and Brian had my
Speaker 4: brother's quad in the yard and he was bent over
Speaker 4: working on it, and I was talking to Becca. I
Speaker 4: don't remember what we were saying, but anyways, I'm sure
Speaker 4: something about what was going on. Brian never turned around
Speaker 4: and looked at me, and I told him, I said, Brian,
Speaker 4: I said, you know there's something wrong with this story, right,
Speaker 4: I said, you know there is no way your dad
Speaker 4: could have walked out in that clear cut and disappeared.
Speaker 4: He said, well, we gotta go, he says, I got
Speaker 4: to go to my friends. I don't remember why, but
Speaker 4: they loaded up and left and night laid eyes on
Speaker 4: that kid.
Speaker 2: Since Later, her father Jean, went to Dan Bell where
Speaker 2: Brian was working as a mechanic, and tried to talk
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 1: He also got the silent treatment.
Speaker 4: After this all happened, my dad started going down there
Speaker 4: trying to talk to Brian because my dad had a
Speaker 4: good relationship with Brian too, and Brian wouldn't look at
Speaker 4: my dad. He wouldn't talk to my dad. He would
Speaker 4: just look through him, or look beside him, or drop
Speaker 4: his head and just turn and walk away. So one
Speaker 4: day he cornered him down there and he said, Brian,
Speaker 4: he said, I don't know who did it, he said,
Speaker 4: but somebody hurt my boy. And he says, and I'm
Speaker 4: going to find out who it is.
Speaker 2: Then, Lydia said, Vicky started replacing furniture in the back
Speaker 2: bedroom where her brother had been sleeping.
Speaker 4: That weekend after this whole mysterious disappearance thing. Vicky's replacing
Speaker 4: bedroom furniture in the back bedroom. She even called me
Speaker 4: down there and told me to come look at it.
Speaker 4: After they got done with it. She said, oh, come
Speaker 4: and look at the furniture I got from my brother.
Speaker 4: And I'm thinking to myself, I'm not saying anything, but
Speaker 4: I'm thinking to myself, why are you worried about changing
Speaker 4: out furniture when your husband's missing? And then there was
Speaker 4: some stuff back there. I don't know what they was burning.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's furniture or what. So, I
Speaker 4: don't know. Just too many red flags for me. And
Speaker 4: you know, law enforcement didn't seem to think that some
Speaker 4: of that stuff wasn't pertinent. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Lydia began to believe that her brother never made it
Speaker 2: past the front door and that something had happened to
Speaker 2: him inside the house. After a few days, the searches stopped,
Speaker 2: the case went cold, and it became just part of
Speaker 2: local legend the guy who lived there but disappeared one day,
Speaker 2: but Lydia and her father could not forget a few
Speaker 2: months after Robert's disappearance, they hired a private investigator named Donnie.
Speaker 2: Donnie eventually built up a huge case file, and one
Speaker 2: of the first mysteries that Donnie helped solve was why
Speaker 2: he believes the search dogs alerted out near the clear cut.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of things I wouldn't know if it
Speaker 4: hadn't have been for the private investigator that come in
Speaker 4: in June of twenty eleven. What I found out about
Speaker 4: the dogs the state police dogs saying they tracked him,
Speaker 4: you know, along the edge of the clearcutting out east.
Speaker 4: And the reason they tracked him along the outside edge
Speaker 4: of the yard next to the county road and out
Speaker 4: to the driveway is because that night when this all
Speaker 4: took place, or that day when this all took place,
Speaker 4: Angela was wearing my brother's house shoes and the granddaughter
Speaker 4: had on my brother's muck boots. So that's why the
Speaker 4: dogs tracked where they tracked, because those kids had my
Speaker 4: brother's shoes.
Speaker 2: Un this would seem to be a major discovery because
Speaker 2: presumably the police based their theory that Robert could have
Speaker 2: been picked up at that road edge largely on where
Speaker 2: those first dogs alerted.
Speaker 1: Did he talk to them? Did he talk to Angela
Speaker 1: and the granddaughter?
Speaker 4: Yes? And there's conflicting statements with Angie and Vicky, because
Speaker 4: Angie's statement says there's no way Robert could have been
Speaker 4: in that clear cut, and there's no way he could
Speaker 4: have made it out of the clear cut up onto
Speaker 4: the county road. And she's correct because it was wet,
Speaker 4: muddy and slick, and it's a four foot incline from
Speaker 4: coming out of the clearcut up to the county road.
Speaker 4: But yet her mother says he was in the clearcut,
Speaker 4: appeared within five minutes, and there's nowhere to go.
Speaker 2: Donnie, the PI discovered something else, something else, he says,
Speaker 2: the police missed. He said the police never asked Vicky
Speaker 2: about insurance policies that she had on her husband. Lyddy
Speaker 2: explained that Vicky had a life insurance policy on Robert
Speaker 2: and that she found out later Vicky had made some
Speaker 2: changes as a little.
Speaker 4: Bit of time goes on. He asked her, he said,
Speaker 4: did the police, state police, or the sheriff ever ask
Speaker 4: you if you had any kind of life insurance policies,
Speaker 4: burial policies or anything like that. She said no. He said, well,
Speaker 4: he said, do you have any insurance policies and she said, yeah,
Speaker 4: I have a burial policy in an accident policy. And
Speaker 4: he said, well, I'll need copies of those. He said,
Speaker 4: that way, if something comes up, I'll be able to
Speaker 4: help you out with it. She said, well, I kind
Speaker 4: of might have messed up. He said, what do you mean.
Speaker 4: She said, well, that accident policy, she said, I increased
Speaker 4: it after Robert disappeared. So what it was is it
Speaker 4: was a accident policy like you get from banks if
Speaker 4: you lose a limb or eye or something, or you
Speaker 4: get accidentally killed. So what she did was is it
Speaker 4: was that fifty thousand, and she increased it to two
Speaker 4: hundred or two hundred and fifty thousand, and then she
Speaker 4: made her son Carl the beneficiary on that policy. Bran, yes,
Speaker 4: her son, not Brian, her son. So that's a big
Speaker 4: red flag. Why would you increase a policy after your
Speaker 4: husband disappears.
Speaker 2: In August of twenty eleven, Lydia said Vicky got rid
Speaker 2: of the rest of her brother's clothes. That was also
Speaker 2: around the time when Vicky took off her wedding ring.
Speaker 2: The following year, Vicky was moving on, Vicky met George Keith.
Speaker 2: Vicky and George started dating. They wanted to get married,
Speaker 2: but there was one problem. Robert had not been legally
Speaker 2: declared dead, and Lydia still had her brother's power of attorney,
Speaker 2: which he had given her in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: In July twenty twelve, Vicki petitioned the court to have
Speaker 2: Robert declared dead, which they did. After Robert was legally
Speaker 2: declared dead in twenty thirteen, Vicky and George were married.
Speaker 2: I want to point out, and this is really important.
Speaker 2: Over the years, Lydia and Vicki have obviously clashed. At
Speaker 2: one point, Lydia was talking to local reporters and went
Speaker 2: to the property.
Speaker 1: Vicki told the reporters to get off her property.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm sure that Vicky has a completely different story
Speaker 2: to tell. I'm sure there's a whole other side of
Speaker 2: that story. I have reached out to her for comment
Speaker 2: and she's not replied. I've also reached out to Ryan.
Speaker 2: I would love to talk to them because I really
Speaker 2: do believe that it's only by piecing everything together we're
Speaker 2: going to be able to find out what happened to
Speaker 2: Robert Cox. Vicky has never been named as a suspect.
Speaker 2: She did pass a lie detector test, She's never been
Speaker 2: charged with anything and never to my knowledge, been a
Speaker 2: suspect in her husband's appearance. Over the years, Lydia and
Speaker 2: Vicky went to court several times. The judge mainly sided
Speaker 2: with Vicky. Vicky ended up with Robert's property, but Robert's father, Gene,
Speaker 2: was allowed to live in his house for the rest
Speaker 2: of his life. Now, I can only imagine the tension
Speaker 2: that must have been present at that property, because can
Speaker 2: you imagine living on the property with your former father
Speaker 2: in law, the father in law who suspects that you
Speaker 2: have killed his son, and having to see him every day.
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine what that must have been like for
Speaker 2: any of those people. Over the years, Lydia reached out
Speaker 2: to everyone she could think of. She called the Attorney General,
Speaker 2: she posted on social media. She called the FBI and
Speaker 2: true crime shows, including Nancy Grace, anyone who could help
Speaker 2: her get answers.
Speaker 4: And I said, and believe me, I am not here
Speaker 4: to make enemies with you guys. But it's not your
Speaker 4: loved one. It's not in your backyard, I said, it's mine.
Speaker 4: I said. When you lay your head on your pillow
Speaker 4: at night, you know where your people are. You know
Speaker 4: where your family is. I said, I know where most
Speaker 4: of mine are, living or dead. I know where they are,
Speaker 4: I said, But Robert Cox, I have no clue, and
Speaker 4: I said in Robert Cox, you got five suspects that
Speaker 4: are just running them up, and not one person has
Speaker 4: ever ever brought them in and investigated, interrogated, I said nothing.
Speaker 2: In twenty fifteen, Lydia talked to a local Fox News.
Speaker 2: This time it was a two part special. The reporter
Speaker 2: went out to the property and climbed through the clear
Speaker 2: cut and you can really see what hard and rough
Speaker 2: terrain that is and how hard it would have been
Speaker 2: for an elderly man byll these physical challenges to navigate it.
Speaker 2: At the time, Robert's father, Jean, told the reporter he
Speaker 2: thought of his missing son every single day. He said, quote,
Speaker 2: I get up at night and I go out and
Speaker 2: look he comes to me in my dreams end quote. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Lydia got a meeting with the prosecutor. She said she
Speaker 2: was underwhelmed by his response. When I was talking to
Speaker 2: Lydia about her meeting with the prosecutor, I had to
Speaker 2: ask her about something I heard her say to another
Speaker 2: media outlet. She said the prosecutor told her that unless
Speaker 2: they had a body and a confession, that they couldn't prosecute.
Speaker 2: I thought, I misheard or maybe she misspoke, because to
Speaker 2: me that was unbelievable, but she said that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 4: So we just sat there and we started asking questions
Speaker 4: of the private detective was there, and I had my
Speaker 4: state rep and then an attorney from the Attorney General's
Speaker 4: office there, and then he's like, well, there's nothing I
Speaker 4: can do for you. He says, you'll have to go
Speaker 4: over to the sheriff's office and hash it out with them.
Speaker 2: At that point, law enforcement did take action. They took
Speaker 2: Lydia and her dad in and they separately questioned them.
Speaker 2: They gave Lydia a lit detector test, which she passed. Again,
Speaker 2: I should mention Vicky did eventually take a polygraph test.
Speaker 2: Lydia said that she talked to VICKI after Vicky took
Speaker 2: the test, and that Vicky was talking about taking xanax.
Speaker 2: So Lydia believes that the xanacts that Vicky took could
Speaker 2: have influenced the test, But it's important to mention that
Speaker 2: she did pass the polygraph. The police department considers this
Speaker 2: an open investigation, so they aren't revealing any details. In
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, a new sheriff took over, he said
Speaker 2: he was going to have an open door policy. Lydia
Speaker 2: said she has a good relationship with the new sheriff
Speaker 2: and that the new sheriff has said that he would
Speaker 2: open the case back up and be open to outside help.
Speaker 2: And I just want to say to the Yale County
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department and to the Arkansas State Police, if you
Speaker 2: do want my help in any way, I would be
Speaker 2: more than happy to put time and work into this
Speaker 2: case if you're willing to share any part of the
Speaker 2: case file. Eventually, Vicky sold the house where she had
Speaker 2: been living with Robert, the one that he built with
Speaker 2: his bare hands. She and her new husband moved to Russellville.
Speaker 2: For years, Robert's former house sat there empty. The house
Speaker 2: was sold to someone in another state, and now it's
Speaker 2: rented out as an airbnb. Jean passed away and tragically
Speaker 2: he died, never knowing what happened to his son. After
Speaker 2: he died, Vicky's daughter, Angela and her husband moved into
Speaker 2: Jean's former home, and meanwhile, Lydia still lives in the
Speaker 2: same house near her brother's property, so she has to
Speaker 2: drive by the place where her brother disappeared and look
Speaker 2: at some of the people who she believes may have
Speaker 2: had a pardon it, or at least know what happened
Speaker 2: every single day. According to the Yale County Sheriff's Department,
Speaker 2: the case is still active. They told Fox News back
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen. Quote we wish that we could share
Speaker 2: more information, but since this is a complex, active investigation
Speaker 2: into an incident which occurred under suspicious circumstances, we have
Speaker 2: to consider all possibilities and maintain the integrity of the
Speaker 2: investigation end quote.
Speaker 1: So what really happened to Robert Cox? I agree with Lydia.
Speaker 2: I think it's incredibly unlikely, if not impossible, that he
Speaker 2: was out walking randomly by himself and was kidnapped in
Speaker 2: broad daylight completely disappeared in a five minute space of time.
Speaker 2: Over the years, Lydia's mind has gone to dark places.
Speaker 2: She's had to consider every single possibility. She's wondered about
Speaker 2: Robert's physical deterioration, how fast it all happened. She wondered
Speaker 2: if that was a coincidence, or could her brother have
Speaker 2: been poisoned. Lydia told The Missing Podcast she did wonder
Speaker 2: at one point about Vicky's habit of giving her brother
Speaker 2: in sheer milkshakes, and when Vicky gave him the shakes,
Speaker 2: Lydia said she would put a lot of extra chocolate syrup.
Speaker 1: In the drinks.
Speaker 2: She said when she made Robert shakes, he never needed
Speaker 2: that extra chocolate, so she kind of wondered why Vicky
Speaker 2: did that. Then again, Lydia was the one making a
Speaker 2: lot of Robert's food, and even before the physical deterioration,
Speaker 2: he was clearly having issues physical and psychological. There's one
Speaker 2: more area that Lydia believes needs to be searched more thoroughly.
Speaker 2: When Vicky sold the property, she kept the three acre
Speaker 2: patch of land with Jean's house on it in the family.
Speaker 2: Lydia wonders if her brother is somewhere on that property,
Speaker 2: somewhere close to home. To this day, she believes he
Speaker 2: never made it off of that property alive.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben sale And this
Speaker 2: episode was scored and mixed by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers
Speaker 2: are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C.
Speaker 1: Crowley. If you have a case you'd.
Speaker 2: Like me and my team to look into, you can
Speaker 2: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line
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