WEBVTT - Season 09 Episode 25: Desert Rain (Pt. 2 of 2) 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.880 Hello. I'm hugely excited to reveal that Unexplained will be 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:05.840 coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August. The year 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.280 is nineteen hundred three. Lighthouse keepers stand watch on a 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:13.200 desolate island far from home, until one day they completely 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.680 vanish from the face of the earth. Unexplained Life brings 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.919 the haunting Flannanal's mystery to the stage in a gripping 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:24.079 immersive performance that plunges audiences into one of history's most 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.639 chilling and enduring unsolved disappearances. I'll be performing at the 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:31.680 Space at Surgeons Hall at ten oh five pm every 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.720 night from August seventh to the twenty ninth, excluding the 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.280 sixteenth and twenty third. Please go to Unexplained podcast dot 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.199 com Forward Slash Events for more information, or you can 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.520 purchase tickets direct by going to the Space UK dot 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.520 com Forward Slash Shows, Forward Slash twenty twenty six, Forward 0:00:48.520 --> 0:01:05.880 Slash Unexplained hyphen Life. I look forward to seeing you there. Hello, 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.720 and welcome to Unexplained with me your host Richard mclin smith, 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.800 where each week we explore another true tale of high strangeness. 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.200 If you're new here and atmospheric and expertly told stories 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.399 of the strange and unexplained are you'll think then please 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.880 consider subscribing to the show. This is the second and 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.400 final part of season nine, episode twenty five, Desert Rain, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:41.720 the Daniel Robinson Story. Detective Larry Biffin from the Buckeye 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.800 Police Department stood in the ravine next to Daniel Robinson's 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.760 crash cheap as the desert sun bared down upon him. 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.440 He thought back to the last text that Daniel had 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.600 sent Caitlin, I'll either see you again or never see 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.800 you again. Everything about his behavior and food prior to 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.840 his disappearance suggested the high possibility that he had meant 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:09.760 to go missing, maybe even to kill himself. But Biffin's 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:14.160 head was flooded with questions. Howse his vehicle not seen 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.160 during the numerous searches of the area in the month 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.440 since the young geologist had disappeared, Why had Daniel left 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.760 all his clothes at the crash site, but most of all, 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:29.560 where was the young man? The detective began by climbing 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.440 the low hill to the east. From there, he could 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.040 just about make out the jeeps faint vehicle tracks showing 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.240 it had driven in from an easterly direction, just as 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:42.040 you might expect if Daniel had driven it there straight 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.440 after the meeting with his colleague Ken Elliot on June 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:50.800 twenty third, almost four weeks ago. Up above, a drone 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.120 buzzed as it scanned the area, taking detailed pictures of 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:58.880 the site. Later, when Biffin examined the photographs, they seemed 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.720 to show that Daniel's jep had left the dirt road 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.720 south of the job site where he'd met Ken, then 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:09.320 driven up onto a hillside before hurtling down into the ravine. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.200 It had driven over several bushes in the process that 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.720 were still visibly damaged. The gearbox of the overturned vehicle 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.200 was still in drive when it was found. As the 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.120 day progressed, officers moved in to document the scene, while 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.400 search and rescue teams arrived to search the surrounding area. 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.280 A helicopter was also dispatched to help, along with a 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.560 pack of cadaver docks, but there was no trace of Daniel. 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.560 As some of the search team inspected an area by 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:42.840 the Hesseampa River, they soon discovered that they were not alone. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.400 A mountain lion had crested a rise and was cautiously 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.240 studying them. Perhaps a lion had taken Daniel. Some of 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.720 them wandered. The only other information they had to go 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.280 on was the data from the jeep's black box. It 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.880 showed that the vehicle was moving it around thirty miles 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:02.360 when it hit the dirt at the bottom of the 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:06.720 ravine and the air bags deployed. The driver's seat belt 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.880 was buckled when the crash occurred, and the ignition was 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:14.040 cycled forty four times after the crash event. It suggested 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.119 that Daniel had most likely deliberately driven off the dirt 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.239 road in a failed attempt to drive through the ravine 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:31.159 and up the other side. The jeeps mileage and examinations 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:36.440 of Daniel's recovered phone revealed more information. There were two 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.280 photos taken of work related logs and equipment at around 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.040 ten past seven that morning, with GPS coordinates showing they 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.679 were taken at a work site near Varado Road, south 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.400 of Interstate ten in the Buckeye area, just west of Phoenix. 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.440 This tallied with the mileage and a credit card purchase 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.440 Daniel made at a shell station around seven a m 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.080 just over a mile from the Verado job site. With 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:07.120 so much about the crash seeming off, Biffin was beginning 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.440 to wander something. Was it possible that Daniel wasn't even 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.839 driving the car when it crashed? Had the whole thing 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:19.240 been simply made to look like a crash? Now with 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.000 multiple possible angles to work with, Detective Biffin got in 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.880 touch with some accident reconstruction experts and asked them to 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.799 review the vehicle's data and the crash site. In the meantime, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.520 he turned his focus to Daniel's phone records. What he 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.680 found looked, for all the world, like a young man 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.880 going through a mental health crisis. After the exchange of 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:45.400 text messages between Daniel and Caitlin, which ended with her 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.680 telling him that she didn't want to see him again, 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.280 on the afternoon before he went missing, Daniel had texted 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:55.240 his sister Davisha at four twenty one with the words 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.719 it's an emergency. His sister called him and they spoke 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.440 for over a minute. Then Daniel hung up and replied 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.239 to no further messages from his sister, other family members, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.880 or friends who tried to call that evening. Next the 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.960 detective found what Daniel had been googling that night. Search 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:21.360 terms included should I call her? Love is patience? Love 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.080 is something you can't explain? I'm okay to do things 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:33.040 I hate delete Instagram account explosion. Daniel's phone also contained 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.560 recordings of driving directions that he'd been following the day 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.040 of his disappearance. They showed that he did not go 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.520 directly to meet Ken, but where he had gone exactly 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:48.640 was a mystery. Meanwhile, private investigator Jeffrey McGrath, who'd been 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.159 hired by Daniel's father David to also work on the case, 0:06:52.520 --> 0:07:02.720 had been making a few discoveries of his own. Daniel's 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.240 family had given McGrath access to his apartment in Tempe, 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.880 and it looked to the investigator that someone had ransacked 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.160 Daniel's closet and accessed his laptop before the police made 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:19.080 their official search there. After much pleading, David Robinson convinced 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.080 the Tempe Police Department to do some forensics work on 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:27.680 Daniel's electronics, including his personal laptop and gaming system. Incredibly, 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.840 they found that someone had indeed looked up Daniel's search 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.280 history and been fooling around on the computer. As they 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:38.280 put it, McGrath was also troubled by the downloaded data 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.800 from Daniel's jeep. He claimed to find traces of red 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.920 paint from a different vehicle at one of the areas 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.680 of damage on the jeep. Even more suspicious was the 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.480 vehicle lock, which appeared to show that the jeep had 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:56.600 traveled some eleven miles after an initial crash event. McGrath 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.000 concluded that not all of the jeep's damage was consider 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.480 distant with the crash scene, but rather pointed to the 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:08.760 crash having been staged. Police Detective Biffin, on the other hand, 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.240 was adamant they needed to wait for the results of 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:15.840 the forensic examination from crash reconstruction experts before coming to 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.680 any conclusions, but he did follow up on another of 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.280 the pi's suggestions that he interview a friend of Daniels 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:27.720 called Roger, who also worked at Matrix New World. As 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.400 Detective Biffin interviewed Roger, it appeared that he knew Daniel 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.360 well and had been a good friend to him. As 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.600 Roger explained, the geologist had stayed with him for about 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.800 a month when he first moved to Phoenix. They had 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.479 a mutual interest in computer gaming and both loved basketball, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.240 often meeting up to watch games together. During the week 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:52.120 before Daniel disappeared, Roger's father had died and he'd been 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.640 absent from work for a few days. When he returned, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.000 he was shocked at the change that he saw in 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.520 his friend. Not only had he cut his hair very short, 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.560 but instead of his normally friendly, chatty manner, Daniel was 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.679 curt and irritable with him. At one point, Roger suggested 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.280 they go and get some food together. Over breakfast, Daniel 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.080 let slip that there was a problem with a girl 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.640 who didn't know he existed, as Roger put it. He 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.160 then asked Roger if he believed in miracles, and also 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.080 said something about getting rid of his ego, because ego 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.800 is bad, he said. When Roger reassured his friend that 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.520 he was just confident, not egotistical, Daniel replied oddly that 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.400 he had to get rid of his story. This confused Roger, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.560 since previously Daniel had been proud of who he was 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.600 and where he came from. Back at work, a short 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:58.880 time later, Daniel left the office without saying goodbye. The 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.560 following day, Roger and Daniel went to breakfast again. Daniel 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.440 asked Roger straight out, what if there was a girl 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:10.160 you liked but you couldn't have her. Roger said They 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.560 talked about the issue some more, but he got the 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.920 feeling that Daniel wasn't being wholly honest with him. He 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.640 seemed to believe that he had to completely change himself 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.280 to get the girl again. Once back at the office, 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:28.520 but thoroughly preoccupied, Daniel left without saying another word. After 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:33.160 speaking to Roger, Detective Biffin remembered that Caitlin had recommended 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.840 a podcast to Daniel shortly before he disappeared. Looking back 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.280 into Daniel's phone records, he eventually located the link that 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.600 Caitlyn had sent him for it. It took him to 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.640 a podcast by the famous spiritual teacher Eckhart Toll and 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.720 an episode titled Transcending Our Stories. In it, Toll says 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.520 we all have a tendency to manufacture stories about ourselves 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.800 and others, often fueled by a desperate need to be 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:05.480 right and to make others wrong. Toll advises that we 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.720 can learn to shift our inner narrative and release the 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.199 ego in order to better align ourselves with the peace 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.559 of the present moment. It was clear that the message 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.920 in the podcast aligned closely with things Daniel had said 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.319 to both Roger and his sister. But if Daniel had 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.880 indeed intended to commit suicide, surely that couldn't have been 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.960 enough to drive him to do it. As September twenty 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:33.559 twenty one, rolled by police and volunteer groups led by 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.120 Daniel's father continued to search for any sign of Daniel 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.760 out in the desert beyond the White Tank Mountains just 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.160 west of Phoenix. On the twenty eighth of September, another 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.280 pack of cadaver dogs were out working by the Hessiampa 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.760 River when one of them suddenly became interested in one 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.520 of the large bushes close to the riverbank. It appeared 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:57.800 to pick up a scent that led it toward the 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.400 middle of the dry river bed, then frustratingly lost it 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:06.439 soon after. On hearing the news, Detective Biffin wondered if 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:10.040 Daniel's body was somewhere out in the desert where its 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.840 scent could not be detected. As it happened, there were 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.600 two mine shafts about eight miles away for where Daniels 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.600 crashed cheap had been found. Both were thoroughly searched for 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.760 any sign of the missing man, but again the search 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.760 teams came up empty handed. Around the same time, a 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.600 search volunteer was inspecting an area of desert just west 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.160 of where the jeep crashed when they saw an odd 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.960 looking stone partially buried in the dry earth. Moving closer, 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.920 they realized with a jolt that it was in fact 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:48.400 a human skull, along with some other bone fragments. However, 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.760 when analyzed, they were found to belong to two other 0:12:51.800 --> 0:13:02.240 people who'd been missing for even longer than Daniel. In 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:06.320 mid October two thousand and one, Detective Larry Biffin received 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.720 what he'd been waiting for from the accident investigator, a 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.800 detailed record from Daniel's jeep in its final moments. It 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.480 revealed that the jeep had made a series of small 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.840 turns just before it drove into the ravine. Half a 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:25.040 second before the crash. The report continued, the driver increased 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.720 the accelerator pedal right before impact, which could indicate the 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.280 attempt to drive up the other side of the ravine. 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.600 Doing so with the wheels turned to the right could 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.040 be a factor in causing the jeep to roll over 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.120 to the left. The jeep shows no evidence of having 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.199 been involved in another collision. The apparent anomaly of eleven 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.400 miles between the car's computer and the miley's display is 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.240 not unusual. Such a discrepancy has been found in other 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:56.080 crash reconstructions and is not significant in this case. Based 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.160 on the available evidence, it is my opinion the jeep 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.880 had been in only one recorded event. That event is 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.880 the crash at the bottom of the ravine. There is 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.520 insufficient evidence to connect the jeep to another crash, will 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.360 support a theory that the jeep crash was staged. The 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.560 driver of the jeep drove it into the ravine, rolled 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.520 and being unable to proceed further, abandoned the jeep as 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:26.120 it lay. The report appeared to discredit private investigator Jeffrey 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.880 McGrath's theory that the jeep had been involved in two 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.960 crashes that day, making it unlikely that the crash was faked. 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.040 Daniel's phone had stopped tracking at ten oh five that morning. 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.520 Its last recorded position was in the ravine, exactly where 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:46.320 the jeep and phone were found. Then, in November, a 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:52.240 new lead emerged. Private investigator McGrath told Detective Biffin that 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.400 he'd been contacted by a federal worker named Billy, who 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.400 claimed to have encountered Daniel with his jeep out in 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.880 the desert on the morning that Daniel went missing. So 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:07.000 Biffin gave Billy a call. The man claimed that he 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:11.040 was an it worker for the Inter Tribal Marijuana Commission 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.480 and sometimes also worked in an official capacity on marijuana 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:20.200 enforcement operations. Billy sent the detective a map and photos 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.640 of the place where he claimed this encounter with Daniel 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.680 had occurred. When Biffin checked the coordinates, it was half 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:37.920 a mile from where daniels jeep was found. As Billy 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.320 went on to explain to Detective Biffin, he'd been driving 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.320 the dirt roads looking for a place to shoot targets 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:48.240 with his air rifle when around eleven thirty am he 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.200 claimed to come upon a jeep and a man matching 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.440 Daniel's description. Billy said he was wearing a bright reflective 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.000 shirt and boots at the time and was in the 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.800 process of moving things from his back seat to the 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.680 rear hatch. Billy said he immediately noticed that the man 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.360 was missing part of his arm and stopped to ask 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.560 if he needed help, after which they had a brief chat. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.560 Billy alleged that Daniel told him something about how he 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.320 was doing some work in the area and pointed to 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.240 the north. Around one pm, Billy claimed to be looking 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.920 through his rifle scope further southeast along a ridge line 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.560 when he saw a vehicle similar to Daniel's driving away 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.360 about three miles further southwest from where he'd last seen it. 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.200 Billy said he didn't watch a lot of the news 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.880 and had only just heard about the search for Daniel, 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.480 hence why he was getting in touch with police now. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:46.600 Billy's story was immediately suspicious. For a start, all the 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.960 available evidence pointed to Daniel's jeep having already crashed in 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.280 the ravine two hours earlier that when Billy claimed to 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:58.240 have met Daniel. Detective Biffin and a colleague drove to 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.080 the site where the encounter between Billy and Daniel supposedly happened. 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.720 They didn't find any indication that Daniel had been there, 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.440 but what they did find was a fenced gated private 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:14.440 property containing a number of abandoned trailers, RVs and other 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.840 heavy equipment within walking distance of the jeep crash site, 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.480 but there was no sign of Daniel or anything to 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:26.000 suggest that he'd ever been there. In late November, private 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.320 investigator McGrath and Detective Biffin decided to pull all their 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.520 information to see if they could finally crack the case together. 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.000 McGrath revealed that he'd been under strict instructions from Daniel's 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.960 father to not give any information that he found to 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:45.720 the police, but now McGrath was ready to share, and 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:50.200 there were two things that jumped out at Biffin. Daniel's sister, Davisha, 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.359 had told McGrath that the day before Daniel went missing, 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.600 he'd said something about how the family would have to 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.520 get used to him disappearing. McGrath had also learned that 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:05.280 Daniel wasn't just a casual marijuana smoker, but a frequent user, 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.280 and often made random drives to California to pick up weed. 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.320 McGrath wondered if the morning that Daniel had met Ken 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:28.240 at the job site, he had accidentally ingested PCP. PCP 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.960 or fen cyclidine, is a highly addictive, mind altering hallucinogen 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.880 developed in the nineteen fifties. Its use as a surgical 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.480 anesthetic was discontinued when it was found to cause severe 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:45.240 postoperative delusions. Illegally sold on the streets as a powder 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:49.639 or liquid, known variously as angel dust, rocket fuel, or 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.399 embalming fluid, it's most often applied to mint leaves or 0:18:53.480 --> 0:19:00.479 marijuana and smoked with notoriously unpredictable effects, including distorted vision, hearing, 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:05.240 and time perception. It can trigger paranoia or a false 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.000 sense of immense strength and invincibility, and it can cause 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:13.239 users to feel separated from their own bodies and their surroundings. 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.240 Taking PCP would go a long way to explaining why 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.439 Daniel had acted so strangely in the hours prior to 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.760 his disappearing, crashing his jeep then taking off his clothes 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:29.119 in the middle of the desert. McGrath concluded that he 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.600 didn't believe that Daniel was still out there chilling. He 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.240 thought that Daniel was in the desert, but that he 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.840 was no longer alive. Just a month later, on New 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:44.680 Year's Eve twenty twenty one, McGrath contacted Detective Biffin again. 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.439 He told him that he'd resigned from the case. He 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:52.200 felt that his client, David Robinson's insistence to not share 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:56.800 information with the police was counterproductive to finding Daniel. It 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.640 was one of multiple reasons for his decision, he said, 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.680 and it had one last piece of advice for Biffin 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.720 to check the background of the witness, Billy. When Biffin 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.679 did exactly that in twenty twenty two, he was startled 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.080 by what he found. It turned out that Billy had 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:19.440 participated in many of the volunteer searches that David Robinson 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.280 had organized, and that he was not all that he 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:26.119 claimed to be. It turned out the so called Billy 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:31.880 had multiple felony convictions, almost all marijuana related, and he'd 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:37.000 served time in prison. The Intertribal Marijuana Commission also revealed 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.280 that Billy was not an IT worker for them. He 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.480 was a member of their enforcement team in Nevada and Utah, 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:48.280 but not in Arizona. Next, some members of the volunteer 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:53.560 search teams told Biffin they'd found Billy's behavior suspicious while 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.440 out on searches. They'd noticed that whenever word went around 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.119 that the police were on their way, he'd always find 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.240 an excuse to suddenly leave. Detective Biffin made a note 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:15.480 to have another chat with Billy in person. In April 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:20.320 twenty twenty two, Detective Biffin asked Daniel's father, David, for 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:24.800 access to Daniel's personal laptop, which was now in David's possession, 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:29.399 but Robinson refused unless the police made the investigation a 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.159 criminal case and brought in the FBI, convinced that his 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.720 son had been the victim of foul play. However, when 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:40.720 Detective Biffin actually presented his findings to the FBI. They 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:45.159 complimented him on an extremely thorough investigation, concluding that there 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:49.560 was no reason for them to get involved. Understandably distraught 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.920 and frustrated with the lack of success in finding his son, 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.800 David Robinson offered a ten thousand dollars reward for any 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.480 information that led to Daniel being found, and, as so 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:04.399 often happens when such rewards are promised, reports of Daniel 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:11.800 being sighted suddenly began to flood in from California, Arizona, Albuquerque, 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.400 and New Mexico, you name it. But each time when 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.040 the police followed up, the person at the center of 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:22.920 the reports was very obviously not Daniel. On the tenth 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.520 of June twenty twenty two, almost a year after Daniel 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:31.240 went missing, Detective Biffin finally spoke with Billy again, this 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.400 time in person at Billy's home in Surprise, a suburb 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:39.840 on the western edge of Phoenix. Once again, Billy repeated 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.720 the details of his story from the previous year, but 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.440 Biffin questioned him on it, since neither his alleged midday 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:50.520 timing of the encounter or the location tallied with police evidence, 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:55.960 but Billy stood by his story. The detective asked Billy 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:58.439 if he might have been motivated to make up his 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:02.760 account for the potential ward money, but Billy deflected the question. 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.280 Then Biffin asked if Billy had hurt Daniel or had 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:09.919 anything to do with him going missing or his vehicle, 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:15.320 but Billy said no. Biffin also asked Billy if he'd 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.520 ever met Daniel before his first supposed encounter with him, 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:22.199 or whether he'd sold him weed or smoked it with him, 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:26.840 but again Billy said no. After a while, he seemed 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:30.359 to backtrack on his original statement, suggesting he might have 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:34.119 misremembered it slightly, but insisted that he wasn't trying to 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.240 make it up. He even offered to take a lie 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:42.000 detective test to prove it. Later that day, after Biffin 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.199 had left his home, Billy emailed the detective of a 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:48.639 trail map showing the route he'd taken that fateful morning 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.920 and the alleged location where he met Daniel. No part 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:56.080 of Billy's route came closer than half a mile to 0:23:56.200 --> 0:24:00.639 any location where Daniel's jeep had been recorded. When the 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:04.080 option to take a polygraph test came up in the end, 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:14.959 Billy refused to do it, as the investigation into Daniel 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:19.600 Robinson's whereabouts dragged into a second year. Detective Biffin and 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:23.600 the Buckeye Police Department continued to follow up reported sightings 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:27.720 of Daniel, but all were to no avail. But Biffin 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:31.360 couldn't let go of the thought that Billy was hiding something, 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:35.760 and so on the twenty second of May twenty twenty three, 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:40.720 perhaps sensing something dangerous about the man, Detective Biffin arranged 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:44.439 to meet Billy again for another round of questioning, this 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:47.840 time in a Fry's gas station parking lot in surprise 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:52.480 for added security. Biffin also didn't go alone, but was 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:56.000 joined by his colleague, Detective Favella, who was parked in 0:24:56.040 --> 0:24:59.639 an unmarked vehicle nearby to maintain a visual on Billy 0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:04.040 at all times. It was pushing one hundred degrees when 0:25:04.080 --> 0:25:07.720 Billy slid into the passenger seat of Detective Biffin's truck. 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:14.199 Biffin immediately sensed that the man's demeanor was apologetic. Strangely, 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:16.560 as soon as he got into the truck, he gave 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:20.040 the detective a mobile Wi Fi hotspot and a charger 0:25:20.400 --> 0:25:22.520 in case it might be of some use to him, 0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:26.119 perhaps looking to make some kind of amends for refusing 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:30.359 the lie detector test. This time, when Biffin asked him 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:35.000 again to describe his alleged encounter with Daniel, everything had changed. 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:40.520 Having initially described an up close, extended exchange, Billy now 0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:43.439 said that he'd only had a brief, passing encounter with 0:25:43.520 --> 0:25:46.400 the young man, who'd been about thirty feet away from 0:25:46.480 --> 0:25:50.760 him the whole time. Which story is true, demanded Biffin 0:25:50.880 --> 0:25:55.640 with obvious frustration. Why have you inserted yourself into my investigation? 0:25:56.680 --> 0:26:00.399 But Billy was either unwilling or unable to answer the question. 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:05.320 All he could say was that, however, or whenever it happened, 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:08.720 he had seen Daniel out in the desert that day. 0:26:10.359 --> 0:26:14.000 For Detective Biffin, it was an agonizing dead end that 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:18.560 only became more irritating the more he interrogated it. Why 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:22.240 on earth, as he later pondered in his report, would 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:28.840 Billy lie about talking to Daniel that day. Since Daniel 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:32.800 Robinson went missing in June twenty twenty one, his devastated 0:26:32.840 --> 0:26:35.760 father has been consumed with the search for his son. 0:26:36.720 --> 0:26:42.760 He's traveled repeatedly to Arizona, organized desert searches, distributed flyers, 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:46.400 and gone seventy thousand dollars into debt in the process, 0:26:47.280 --> 0:26:50.159 all in the hope of finding a concrete answer to 0:26:50.240 --> 0:26:56.199 Daniel's whereabouts. There are still so many unanswered questions, and 0:26:56.320 --> 0:26:59.679 so far, to this day, what exactly happened to Daniel 0:26:59.720 --> 0:27:06.480 Robinson remains unexplained. If you have any evidence related to 0:27:06.520 --> 0:27:11.119 this case, please contact Buckeye Police Department on USA area 0:27:11.200 --> 0:27:15.040 code six two three three four nine six' four double, 0:27:15.080 --> 0:27:25.280