Introducing — There and Gone: South Street Ep 1

Hi, It's Andrea, host of Betrayal, and I want to share my new podcast called Therein Gone South Street. I spent the last three years investigating the disappearance of two adults who vanished without a trace on one of the busiest streets in Philadelphia, the city I grew up in. It's been almost twenty years since Richard Patron and Danielle Embo went missing. It's become a Philadelphia urban legend, a

You know that I'm a huge crime podcast buff.

That's that's how we met.

And of course I wouldn't miss you, know, any of your projects that you've been working on. I was in my car on like a break listening and I was crying and it was so hot outside. I was like, it is so hot and I have the fucking chills.

So what part gave you the chills? What resonated it?

It did resonate with me. Richard and Danielle. They have children, they have established lives, they have loving families. But another thing that really hit me was that it's been nineteen years, because there has to be somebody that knows something, like somebody has heard something, or somebody slipped when they'd been drinking, or you know, friends of a friend, or you know what I mean, somebody knows something. Why isn't anybody coming forward.

I love this city deeply, and anyone from Philadelphia there's just this love that runs so deep and the pride that we have, but I've learned to also, at the same time, fear the city in a way I didn't realize just how pervasive and how dark and how scary this city could be.

Wow.

I think those that have listened and really heard my story on Betreal season two will be compelled to listen to There and Gone South Street because of what you do. I see how much of you you put into your work, because I know it's so genuine and authentic. You don't just work this, You've lived.

I really appreciate your words. Ash, Thank you. I want nothing more than for our work to bring those who harmed Richard and Danielle to justice. So, listeners, I want to share with you a special ad free presentation of episode one of There and Gone South Street. Please take a moment to listen, and if you're enjoying the show, just know new episodes drop every Monday on the iHeartRadio app,

Throughout this entire time Danielle's been missing. Trying to find literally consumed me. Some psychic called my mother in law and said Danielle was dying in a box car. So in the middle of the night, I went down to Philadelphia and searched the train tracks under the bridge with a flashlight. Here I am scaling this fence at midnight with a flashlight looking in box cars. I got in

That's Johonna Tobray. His sister Danielle went missing in February of two thousand and five, but she wasn't alone. Kanielle and her friend Richard left a bar and simply vanished. Nineteen years later, they still have yet to be found.

She was my sister, she was my friend, she was my blood. I would do anything for her throughout all these years. Speaking with the FBI, I know my sister died that night, but to this day, I still don't know, I can't stop my mind from wandering to the darker things. She alone? Was she scared? Was she calling out for someone?

Was?

For all I know? They have all this information, the FBI.

So what does the FBI say?

We have several working theories. We've done a number of searches in different areas.

We have a lot of folks that we've talked to.

We have statements, phone records. I probably have the silver bullet and all of that stuff. I need somebody to tie it together. This needs to get solved.

I'm Andrea Gunning and this is therein Gone South Street, Episode one, Ghosts.

All that I know.

Is I say you in that dream, reached out on the dog for you fe lost to me. I'll never give up, no matter how long I open my eyes define you Gone.

A Note that the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are so those of the individuals participating. This podcast contains subject matter which may not be suitable for everyone. Discretion is advised. For fifteen years, Danielle and Richard were strangers to me. Ghosts that loomed over I ninety five South. It's the stretch of highway that connects Philadelphia to New York City. Each side is lined with billboards. Most are ads for ambulance chasers or beer, but one shows two

Inbo and Patron were last seen leaving a South Street bar in the late evening of February nineteenth, two thousand and five.

I knew their faces, I knew their names.

Investigators have turned up a few promising leads, but have not found the couple or the car.

South Street is one of the busiest and most popular places for nightlife in Philadelphia, at least it was in two thousand and five. Think Bourbon Street, but without the balconies and beats. It's not exactly the same, but you get the idea. No shortage of places to grab a drink and have a good time. It's not a place where two people just vanish, and it's certainly a spot where you'd have plenty of eyewitnesses.

They had left a bar at Fourth and South, headed to his pickup truck and simply vanished, not a trace.

Two adults in their mid thirties walk out of a bar and into oblivion. How is that even possible. I live within walking distance to South Street. I've been to those bars, and I've walked those same streets. I know how busy they are, so this has often haunted me. The story of Richard Patrone and daniel Embou became an anecdote, a Philadelphia urban legend. If my team was ever going to produce a missing persons podcast, this was the one.

This case was different because it was two people. They were adults that were just out having fun, and now they disappear with you know, no information about where they could be.

That's Jerry Williams. She was an FBI agent and the spokesperson for the Philadelphia Bureau when Danielle and Richard went missing.

I don't think anybody had heard of a case like this ever before. Vita would come into my office and keep me updated.

Vito special Agent Vito Rosselli. He has been working on this case since the very beginning.

I could tell that it was more than just another investigation for him.

Agent Rosselli had spent almost two decades tracking down every lead in this case but came up short.

There are so many times over the past few years that I thought Vito was close in solving this and then nothing.

I needed to talk to Vito.

Hey, Andrea, I really appreciate your effort on this huge hen.

Special Agent Vito Rosselli looks and sounds like someone in a TV show who's playing an FBI agent. He's a stocky guy, muscular with dark skin, and seems like someone you'd want to grab a beer with.

My dad was an old hover guy. He was an old FBI agent, so I grew up around that. I got in Philly in February of ninety seven, and I've been in Philly pretty much my whole career.

Vito is a warm and welcoming guy, but I could tell that he carries pieces of this investigation around with him, and that clearly rests heavily on his heart. I don't know how else to explain it, but there's a heaviness to that.

It wasn't just an accident driving off a bridge, a truck, and two people just don't disappear. What I do know is that the people who are involved had to have the means to get rid of two bodies and a truck in a very quick amount of time. That means that they did it before or they had access to those circles.

So I don't have the truck and they don't have the bodies.

Just think about that. Not only are Danielle and Richard missing, but so is the Dodge Dakota pickup truck they were driving. And after nineteen years of searching, Fido still has no physical evidence to work with. He's been trying to figure out who wanted to kill either Danielle and Richard without a fingerprint, a tire mark, or a single drop of blood. But maybe what's stranger than any of that is the why. Because on paper, neither of these two seem to have a target on their back.

What I did on covers that both were good people. A lot of people cared for him. Danielle was very close to her mom and her brother, and rich was very close to both his parents and all his siblings and had a child that he was raising.

Both families are still extremely destrought.

It's very emotional for him, as emotional today as it was when I first met them.

Vito has a lot writing on this investigation. Obviously, he felt for Danielle and Richard's families. It's been on his plate since two thousand and five. And all investigators will tell you they always feel like they're racing against time, but Vito had a different clock. You see in the FBI there's a mandatory retirement age of fifty seven, and Vido's fifty seventh birthday was fast.

Every investigator, every detective, has.

That white whale that hangs over the head, and in this particular case, where you don't get an answer, that just crushes people's souls and it's tough. So the case is very much open, and hopefully we make it arrested.

I've met with Vito a few times now. After those conversations, it's become clear what Veto is missing testimony, someone who heard something or saw something, or remembers anything, anything about what happened on the night of February nineteenth, two thousand and five. He just needs someone to come forward.

Everybody that's working on this case and everybody that has worked on this case wants this to get out in the public and wants people to call in.

And that's why I'm very thankful for you guys.

This case was a big deal in Philadelphia, and to be fair, it did get national attention, but that interest lasted for like two months because in May of two thousand and five, I'm an American teenager went missing in Aruba, Natalie Holloway, and the nation turned their attention to her. Slowly, Danielle and Richard faded from public consciousness, but Philadelphia hasn't forgotten. For a big metropolitan city, there is a small town feel here and it's that close knit community that keeps

I've gotten confessions from folks because it was chewing them up on the inside.

Not all folks that do illegal activity are evil folks.

A lot of them have consciences and kids and families of their own, and eventually it wears on them.

By the time this podcast launches, we'll approach the opening of that final window. Maybe after two decades, perhaps someone's own mortality will change their view and come forward with information. I approached my team about taking this on and knew my producing partner Ben would be interested because, like me, he grew up in Philadelphia too. He knew this story as well as I did. But there was something I didn't expect. When discussing it with my colleague Carrie, she

Was so likable. He just had such a huge heart.

Jimmy Hartman grew up across the street from Richard, and the two immediately became fast friends.

We'd like to play hockey. We would get the guys together, and we became friends from there. And I knew Danielle also because I graduated high school for with her.

Like I said, everybody knows everybody.

She was always nice. I just never got to know her that well, but I knew her and.

She knew me.

So Jimmy not only knew Danielle and Richard, but was even close with Richard's parents, Richard Senior and Marge Patron.

You couldn't go to the house without eating, just to poopole Italian family, and there's just pasta and food and bread and wine and everything everywhere.

Jimmy said. It's been tough to watch the Patron suffer all these years.

You could see the pain, especially in Marge's eyes. You could just see how much it hurts her, you know, And when you have somebody taken from me like this, it's just really hard to say goodbye.

At first, he said that patrons were dreading that phone call from police, the call that would confirm that Richard was dead. But now any information would be welcomed information.

I would hate for either one of them to leave the earth without having closure. I mean, they have not let up on trying to get this mystery solved.

We had the FBI on our side, but we understood that to move forward we would need both families to participate. It's a painful process, but also an opportunity. The more you talk about a missing person, the more likely it is that someone who knows something will say something. But approaching these families, I knew I would be asking them to relive so much. It's tough. Since Jimmy knew the Patrons from childhood, he made an introduction, so we started

You want to sit like somewhere comfortable.

Or what do you want to do?

And much to my surprise and relief, Marge welcomed us with a warm, friendly smile, and just like I was told, she immediately wanted to feed us something. Marge is a grandmother as well as a mother of three, so hosting us seemed like old hat for March, like we'd been over for dinner many times before, even though this was a first for all of us. And that day Marge invited us for Sunday dinner. I know this isn't just a meal that happens to fall on Sunday. It's actually

You know it's funny because I love soap, a Opwards and all that.

Marge explained that she always watched All My Children and how one year for Christmas, Richard surprised her with this Susan Lucci doll.

For a guy, he was the best gift giver and just very thoughtful and did it all himself, Like he didn't just go to the mall and buy anything. He knew what you were into.

I could tell Richard is Marge's first born. She lights up at every mention of his name, like how he played hockey from the time he was seven until the day he went missing, And how she still holds onto Richard's Bobby Clark jersey. That's when her voice trailed off. And as the firstborn, you could say Richard got special treatment. When Richard had a sore throat, I would run him to the doctors.

That Christine always would say, if I said I had a store throat, you'd say, spray your throat. You're right.

So Christine and Elisa are Margin's daughters. Christine was also best friends with Daniel Imbo. She was supposed to join us for dinner, but Christine backed out at the last minute. Her sister Elisa gave us a clue as to why.

I think this whole thing was really hard for christinecause it's her best friend and her brother Richard and Christine rolling your difference. And she doesn't really say anything too much about that night.

Alisa is well into her thirties now, but was just a teenager when her brother Richard disappeared.

We have no idea what happened to them or how this happened, and we just lived with that, and it's an awful feeling.

There was a row of stockings in the living room that hung across their mantle, just above the fireplace. I couldn't help but wonder if Richard's stocking was one of them. Okay, we all moved to the kitchen table as Marge arrived with a giant bowl of stuff, mannicotti and homemade meatballs. It was enough to feed a small army.

Everything's to be is happy and sad.

Marge pointed to where Richard sat for thirty five years, and then to the empty chair where her husband used to sit for forty years. Marge and her husband, Richard, owned and operated a Swedish bakery called Viking Pastries in the suburbs of Philly. That's where Richard and his father worked side by side. The two were very close. Richard Senior suffered multiple strokes and hasn't been home for a while now.

He's just never been here since Richard disappeared, left face it. He's never been the safe no, no, never. He's the shell of the person he used to but he's not at.

All who he was with them. You know.

I don't want to say that life hasn't gone on for the patron since Richard disappeared, because it has, but I got the feeling that Marge in particular has been sort of treading water ever since that day. The void Richard left was on full display that Sunday.

I had to keep going, which I still am doing, even though it's like yesterday for me.

Back on February twentieth, two thousand and five, Richard didn't make it home for Sunday dinner.

I remember Christine calling me. She said, Mom, Richard's missing. I said missing, What do you mean. He's home. There's a nice car today. You would never leave the house. He's home.

Marge said she was out running errands with her husband that afternoon, and she was certain Richard was home. It was the day of the Daytona five hundred, and Richard had been looking forward to it all week.

She's not home, mom.

Christine called Marge from the salon where she worked. She was concerned about Danielle. Yeah, the same Danielle who was with Richard the night before.

And she said, Danielle didn't show up for an appointment today and she never does that, and he's not home. He's missing.

Marge and her son Richard were close. They usually talked multiple times a day, but that Sunday, she hadn't heard from him.

And so my coldest phone a million time time, and I just went right to voicemail. He would never not answer his phone to me.

Never.

One thing to keep in mind. Back in early two thousand and five, most of us had flip phones and texting wasn't common yet, so when our phones rang, we'd actually answer them. The fact that Richard wasn't answering his phone immediately concerned March.

And Christine said the same thing with Danielle. It's just going right to voicemail.

Now.

I call my sister and I said to her, you've got to go in his apartment.

Marge's sister lived down the street from Richard, so she had a spare key and headed over to the apartment. She didn't see Richard's truck parked out front, so she unlocked the door and went inside.

She said, no, nobody came back here, and the book's barking.

Richard's dog, Bismarck was in distress and needed to go out. His food bowl was empty, and it was clear Richard had not been home for hours. From everything I've learned today, he's a reliable guy, not one to be out of touch. Leaving his family in the dark like this. It was out of character.

He would never go anywhere without telling me. I know immediately immediately, I like, so, oh my god, this could not be happening. But I lost my son today. Oh my god, there's Thine said, we're never going to see them again, are we?

Mom?

I said, no, we're not, We're not.

Christine and Marge feared the worst, but Richard's father wasn't about to jump to conclusions. Richard was a strong Italian father. He's as much braun as he is brains, and what his wife was telling him it wasn't registering.

He said, what are you saying. I'm saying that something terrible happened to your son.

While the fear was hitting the Patron family, John and Tobray, Danielle's brother, was also realizing Danielle didn't make it home that night.

I woke up Sunday morning early and I took a ride to her house to fix the curtain. I sold her car out front. I knock on the door. She's not answering on a cor her cell phone. It goes right to voicemail. So I called my mother and I said, Mom, I'm outside at Danielle's I see her car here, but she's not answering. I have her key. I don't want to just walk in with if she's in the shower or something. I don't want her to get scared, and she said maybe she slept at Richard's.

At the time, John had been trying to support Danielle as much as possible. See in the last twelve months, Danielle's life had gotten complicated. Danielle had recently separated from her husband, Joe Imbo. To make matters more challenging, Danielle and Joe welcomed their son together just two years prior. In February of two thousand and five, Danielle was in uncharted waters. She was a single parent, navigating custody of their twenty month old child, and deep in the throes

It was a typical ugly separation, you know, it was headed towards divorce, so I didn't think anything of it. Like hung the curtains up and I left zobbious.

No one was home, so John packed up his tools and went about his day like he would any other. That was until I got a.

Phone call around three o'clock. It was my mother and she said, Danielle never came home last night. I'm at her condo now I need you to come here. And my mother is in full blown panic. She said, Joe's getting ready to drop the baby off in the next hour and she's not here, and no one can get in touch with either one of them. I knew right there something was wrong. I just knew it.

The divorce was nasty. Danielle's mom knew how bad it would look for her daughter if Joe dropped off her son, only to find out Danielle never came home that night. It was currently Mia. You see, over the past few months, Danielle had been dating Richard Patron, and Joe knew that. She didn't want to give her soon to be ex son in law any ammunition.

My mother said, don't tell him what's going on. I don't want him to know because I don't want him to say, well, I'll keep the baby until she comes home. I said, Mom, don't worry about it.

It was three o'clock that afternoon when Joe arrived to drop off their son. That was the agreed upon time for Joe to end his weekend with a baby, and.

He kind of walked in look confused, and he said worth Danielle and my mother said, oh, she went to dinner with Christine, And then he said something like he mumbled under his breath, I guess telling a lie is better than telling the truth. Then he left, like saying what we were saying was bullshit.

It was always our intention to start our own investigation, but we had to ask ourselves, where do you start on a case when two people go missing. We started by retracing their last steps. We wanted to understand exactly where Richard Patron and Danielle Imbo were the night of February nineteenth, two thousand and five.

We're all altogether. That right went to Chicky and Pete.

Marge and her two daughters, Christine and Alisa had dinner with Danielle Imbo and Danielle's mother at Chicky and Pete's, which is a popular Philadelphia restaurant. Think chicken sandwiches, she stakes crabfries, and beer. It's a sports bar with games on TVs everywhere, a good place to blow off steam after a long week. Here's a Lisa, Richard's sister.

It was just a girl's night out. I wanted to tag along anywhere my sister and my mom were going, so I was there.

Toward the end of dinner, Richard called Danielle to see if she wanted to join him for the evening. Initially Danielle wasn't sure, but eventually agreed she was open to making the most for child free Saturday night.

And then my sister drove Danielle to meet Richard.

Christine agreed to drop her off since Danielle's car was back at her condo in Jersey.

That was really like a spark of the moment thing. I don't think he even knew that she was going to actually go with.

Him, And that's an important detail from Marge and something to remember. This was a spontaneous meetup between Danielle and Richard.

Richard was at another tap room having dinner and told Christine to drop her role she would go with Richard that night.

As for Danielle, her brother John got the story of what happened from his mother.

She said, well, last night, Danielle and I and Margie Christine went to Chicken and Pete's, and Richard called and said, Hey, I'm at this bar, Abilene's on Sale Street. Why don't you come. Danielle said, she'll meet you as long as you can get her home at a reasonable time.

Danielle had an appointment at a salon the next morning. It was the same salon that Christine Patron worked at. So it's our understanding that from Chicky and Pete, Christine drives Danielle to meet up with Richard, and Richard and Danielle drive to abilene'es on sou Street together.

South Street had this huge strip of bars, Abilene's. One of them.

Journalists, Steve Vogue, covered the story for Philadelphia Magazine and explained what happened next.

I remember that they were having a good time, that they were enjoying themselves. They sat close together, they shared a kiss at some point, they were laughing a lot. You know, they had a nice evening together.

We heard Danielle and Richard spent a couple hours at the bar that Saturday night listening to a band.

They leave before midnight. He was going to drive her back to her home in Mount Laurel, and that's where the trail ends.

No one has seen Danielle or Richard since.

Not just them, but a truck disappeared into the ether from one of the most frequented spots in the whole city. It was stunning. I just wish that the families could have an answer, and whatever the answer was, to sort through it and deal with it.

I'm a father, I'm a brother, I'm a husband, I'm a son. It is very hard not to see the human side, the human impact on the two families.

It keeps me motivated.

For Vito Rosselli, he lives with the impact of that reality every day and one of the major factors that has stopped him from solving this case is the evidence, or lack thereof. This happened in two thousand and five, when even basic equipment like security cameras were using outdated technology.

Back then, everybody was still on VCRs that they were taping over after two weeks of thirty days, street light cameras, none of that existed. Back then, you know, the iPhones weren't a thing, so it was a little different animal.

Today, we can track our friends. Everyone essentially has a GPS in their pocket. Plus there's no shortage of documenting with people recording their life for the whole world to see. But in two thousand and five, people had flip phones in MySpace. Even YouTube didn't come out until February of two thousand and five.

We have a lot more tools available to us now than we did back then.

Today, when something happened, you know, there's cell phone video, and there's video on buildings, and people are going on social media and talking about it. Well, we didn't have any of that back then.

That's former FBI agent Jerry Williams.

In my years of doing media relations for the FBI, I've never heard of a case like this ever before. I mean, people are concerned. If this happened to this couple, what could happen to me and my kids if I let them go on South Street.

The community was concerned, and law enforcement didn't have much to work with. After those initial days of the investigation, the FBI got tapped in and the lack of evidence actually started to tell a story to Vito.

Nobody checks into a hospital. Neither one of them would have left their children. They wouldn't just have run away.

The idea of Richard and Danielle getting hurt or skipping town got ruled out. Pretty quickly.

There was no activity on their credit cards on their phones. The people who did it made two people.

In a truck disappear. That's a clean cry, and it.

Could have been cleaned by accident, it could have been cleaned by luck, or it could have been clean by design. So it was clear that something bad happened pretty much off the start.

Vido and Jerry were adamant about one thing. After nineteen years of dead ends, they were out of options.

When you have a case like this, you have to figure out how to keep it in the news.

Each year at the anniversary where you put something out and without fail, we always had tips, callings and more.

Over the past few years have been pretty consistent.

So it's good it keeps it out in the public's eye.

Well.

Today marks ten years since the local couple vanished without a trace, and despite a decade since their disappearance, today their relatives made an emotional plea for new information.

Every February twentieth, without fail, the city of Philadelphia is reminded of Danielle and Richard.

It has been eleven years to the day since daniel Believe.

It or not, Today marks twelve years since Danielle IMBO and Richard Patron Junior first one message they have not.

Been seen in thirteen years, just right on.

And from nineteen years now, these segments go out and tips come in rints and.

Repeat the family.

But the MBI says they have not given up on this case.

Having lived here my whole life. I've watched the segment each February with the rest of Philadelphia. Now I have more of a context as to why. Just like that billboard I mentioned in the beginning, it's a lifeline thrown out for Richard and Danielle and their families, anything to keep hope for justice alive.

I think putting it out there to the public on a true crime podcast is a brilliant step to add to what has been done so far.

It's crazy for me to say this, but I think the FBI needs our help and your help. So do Danielle and Richard. The two left a crowded bar in a popular area of Philadelphia on a Saturday night two decades ago, and in those twenty years, we still don't know who wanted to harm them and why.

One of the important directions that law enforcement had to take to determine the history between Danielle and Richard. When you look deep into anybody's backgrounds, you gotta be digging up stuff. And we found some angles that were of interest to us.

That's when started to look like this may have been a very personal crime.

That's next time on There and Gone.

All is I say you in that dream, reached out in the dog for you felast to me. I'll never give up, no matter how I opened my eyes. Define gone a.

Hitch corner.

Lit another puss O peace, I follow the clues, looking fo the key HOLEVE give up no matter. Hello, I ope.

My o.

To find that your gone.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Danielle Imbo and Richard Patron, please call the Citizens Crime Commission tip line at two one five five four six eight four seven seven, or you can reach out to the show in our team by email at varngonpod at gmail dot com. That's There and Gone, p o d at gmail dot com. Thank you so much for listening. One way for you to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to rate and review,