Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may not be suitable for all listeners. This episode also discusses suicide. You can reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at nine.
To eighty eight.
A quick note, this episode is packed with so much detail we're splitting it into two parts from iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three. I'm John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona, the story of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing his wife and kids, blowing up their suburban home and escaping into the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm Hunting Robert Fisher and I Need your Help, Part one. By April two thousand and one, the demons of Chaos
are tightening their grip around Robert Fisher's neck. Try as he might, he's unable to pry free their fingers. They start choking him slowly. In nineteen eighty, when he injures his back, for the next sixteen years, he's in pain. By two thousand and one, he needs spinal surgery, but he's terrified it'll paralyze him. He also hurts his knee. He's losing control of his body. He almost loses control of his family too. In nineteen ninety nine, he goes
to a massage parlor seeking pain relief. Instead, he finds temptation. He cheats on Mary with a masseuse. Then he confesses and threatens suicide if Mary leaves him. They patch up their marriage, but the demons of lust loom just out of view, and apparently once again they seduce him. Anew, this man so intent on controlling others is unable to
control himself. If in the lead up to the murders, Robert cheats again and Mary finds out this could be the spark that triggers his nihilistic demons to light the fire of total annihilation. But does Robert actually have another fling or an affair? Circumstantial evidence says yes. He tells a friend that things are quote clicking between him and a coworker. He doesn't say anything else except that she's in his unit. He tells a colleague, a cardiologist, that
he's having marital trouble. Several times it seems like he's going to say more confess, but he backs off. The final two months, he appears nervous, anxious. The cardiologist thinks Robert had an affair, just not with a coworker that would be tough to hide. He says. Hospitals are chit chatty, tight knit places. People notice things, people talk. On April tenth, the day the house explodes, Scottsdale Detective TJ. Juran interviews Robert's boss at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. For
privacy's sake, let's call her Dolly. From a police report quote.
I asked Dolly if it was possible Fisher was having an affair with a female from work or outside of work. At first, Dolly denied any knowledge of an alleged affair, but within a few moments should began to cry. Dolly then advised me that approximately six to seven weeks prior, Fisher confided in her. Dolly related to Fisher appeared depressed, so she had a talk with him after work. Dolly
also knew that Fisher had a urinary tract infection. During December two thousand, Fisher related that he was having a very hard time with the situation involving another female. Fisher went on to tell Dolly that he had gone to a massage therapist because of his back. Fisher said he obtained the infection from the therapist. During the session, Fisher related that he did not have sex with the therapist, but that things did begin to get out of hand.
Fisher backed off from the therapist and left because he was concerned about his wife, Mary finding out. Fisher did not know whether he should tell Mary or his pastor about the situation with the therapist. Fisher also felt that coworkers in the calf Lab had been talking about him behind his back. Dolly related that Fisher never told her the name of the therapist.
Let's break this down first, Robert appears to admit to a new affair. He questions whether he should confess to his pastor and Mary, both of whom already know about his previous infidelity in nineteen ninety nine, so he can only be refered ring to something new. He reveals this to Dolly only six to seven weeks before the murders, roughly the end of February two thousand and one. He says he's quote having a very hard time with the situation involving another female, which sounds more like a full
blown affair and less like a one time fling. He claims the woman is a messuse. This later leads to confusion with many people, including police, mixing up his nineteen ninety nine infidelity with a different affair in two thousand or two thousand and one. I suspect that Robert is confessing the big truth he cheated again while hiding details like the woman's identity using his ninety nine infidelity as cover, or that Dolly's lying she's the woman. But that's for
another episode. For now, don't focus on who, focus on the binary. Does Robert cheat again after nineteen ninety nine? The answer appears to be yes, and his mystery ailment from December two thousand appears not to be a urinary tract infect uti, not prostatitis, not a kidney infection, but an STI or sexually transmitted infection. Robert tells a coworker he's never been so sick. He's scared. He visits a doctor and has an MRI. The co worker is suspicious.
Quote I've never known anybody that got a urinary tract infection that was so sick, unless they were like septic, and then they'd be in a hospital. Robert tells another coworker, the cardiologist, that a masseuse gave him the infection, but quote it was not from a sexual affair. Robert is paranoid that coworkers are looking at his medical records, and he thinks people at church know that he cheated again,
which begs the question why how could they? Unless he confesses maybe to his pastor, and worries the pastor will say something. One Sunday night in December two thousand, Robert is called into work late around eleven PM. He's quiet, doesn't say anything, doesn't look good. The next day, he calls in sick. First tells police quote, it's really unlike Bob to call in sick unless he's really really sick.
By this point, Robert's in pain, scared of surgery, disability, paralysis, sick with the possible STI, paranoid that Mary will find out. He's losing control quickly. What's the spark though? What finally detonates the House of Fisher Remember On Friday March thirtieth, eleven days before the murders, Robert and Mary spend the day together alone into wilderness on Robert's ATV. They seem fine. The next day they attend a wedding in Sedona. Again,
they seem fine, but something changes. Between April first and April fourth. On April fourth, Robert shows up at church looking for Mary and the kids. Mary seems afraid of him. They've had generic marital trouble for months. It's likely not enough to trigger the murders. So what is If Robert's loss of control is the accelerant, what lights it a flame? While reporting this story, I learned something new, something critical. Right before the murders. Mary finds out that she has syphilis.
I would never report this based on rumor. I'm only doing so because I learn about it from a reliable source. This is the spark I think. By all accounts, Mary is faithful to Robert, so she could only get syphilis
from him. When does she find out? Obviously I don't have access to her medical records, but I'm curious whether or not she had a doctor's appointment between Monday, April second and Wednesday, April fourth, because she learns about it right before the murders, and there's no way she'd be out on March thirtieth writing around with Robert on an ATV having a jolly good time. If she knew not only that he cheated again, but that he gave her syphilis,
she would be done and Robert would know it. Remember, the number one cause of familicide is family breakdown. This would be the snapping point, the moment Robert loses control of everything that matters his health, his family, the spark. Knowing that Mary had syphilis, which has never been reported, what can we learn from it? For an expert opinion, I turned to doctor.
Joseph cherbe An, an infectious diseases physician at Washington University in Saint Louis.
The first thing to note is that Robert's UTI style symptoms are a better fit for other STIs not syphilis.
In sexually active individuals of that age. Gonnery and chlamydia are at the top of my list, especially if they are having signs of pain, with your nation, frequent yourination, anything that people would say is a sign of a UTI.
So Robert possibly has gonnerihea or chlamydia.
But you have to.
Remember that sti's travel I packs, so if an individual has syphilis, they are more likely to acquire chlamydia, gonneria.
HIV, GONERIEA. Symptoms typically manifest within one to three weeks of exposure. For chlamydia, it's one to three months. So if EBERTSI alleged Uti is in fact gonerhea or chlamydia, he would have been exposed, meaning he cheated again sometime between September and December two thousand, which lines up with when his back pain intensifies and his personality starts changing around October two thousand. Maybe he goes to a massage parlor for pain relief and is offered sex again, or
maybe he's having an affair with a coworker. Whatever the truth, he hides it from Mary, the cheating, the STI. She knows he's sick, but not with gonerrhea or chlamydia. Thankfully he doesn't transmit it to her. What about syphilis, though, which at some point he does. How is it transmitted? What's the timeline?
The most common means in which individuals contract syphilis is actually through direct contact with a lesion, typically wet lesions, or sexual contact with an individual who has underlying syphil as.
Within three to six weeks, a person exposed to the bacterium that causes syphilis develop helps a raised lesion called a shanker. This is stage one primary syphilis, and then that shanker resolves.
Most people may not notice the shanker, especially if it's a part of the body that you are unable to see. So if that shanker develops, for example, within the folds of the vulva or within the rectum if you are having anal sex, then it is difficult for people to
see the shanker and most people won't notice it. The other issue with the shanker is oftentimes it is painless and it goes away on its own, So most people may think that they have some ulceration, they rub their skin the wrong way, or there's maybe an allergic reaction, they self treat, it goes away and they don't think anything of it. That is why most people will present with secondary syphilis that develops at around three months after inoculation.
You develop most typically a rash. That rash can appear like any other rash. In the textbooks, they describe it as being on the palms and soles of the feet, But I have seen people who look like they're having a massive allergic reaction have a maculum popular eruption on their chest, on their face. Some people get alopecia's well where they could get hair loss. This is where most people will present because they feel swollen lymph nodes they feel a key, they have a rash.
So they seek medical treatment. Thankfully, if caught early, syphilis is highly treatable with penicillin, but many people don't catch it in the primary stage, when they have a shanker a painless lesion, they may not even be able to see. This is often when they transmit it to sex partners. Robert apparently passes it to Mary sometime in the six months before the murders, dating back again to October two thousand. Mary apparently finds out in April two thousand and one.
By this point she likely has secondary syphilis, which if untreated, can progress to stage three latent syphilis and later stage four tertiary syphilis, which can be much more severe, causing aneurysms, meningitis, and other formidable symptoms neurological symptoms. I knew this, but what I didn't know is that.
Neurologic manifestations of syphilis can occur at any stage of syphilis, whether it's primary, secondary, tertiary. You can get involvement of the guys in which you can have vision changes. You can get hearing loss. Most commonly, people report ringing in their ears or muffled hearing, and you can get meninjo, vascular disease or meningitis, unrelenting headaches, next stiffness, altered mental status.
Altered mental status which can present.
As irritability, memory, loss of personality changes, insomnia, and later compaired judgment and emotional liability.
Severe mood swings.
Given the nature of the story, I have to ask you, is psychosis a possibility, propensity for violence, any other serious mental health concerns.
With respect to neurosyphilis, we have had some individuals who have developed altered mental status, including hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations. There have been individuals who have developed illusions and psychiatric manifestations.
It's tough to measure the frequency of neurological symptoms in patients with primary or secondary syphilis, in part because they can be tough to diagnose. Syphilis is known as the great imitator. It mimics other conditions, and that's.
Why syphilis is such a humbling disease. It does present in fifty million different ways. It's one of the oldest and most historic diseases, and it's why it's my favorite bacteria by far, by far, the best bacteria you could fight me. It is the best bacteria because it alludes us to this day.
In summary, Robert likely cheats on Mary again. In late two thousand. He apparently catches gonorrhea or chlamydia and syphilis, which he transmits to Mary, who learns about it right before the murders, likely triggering them. Also, neurological symptoms can manifest during any stage of syphilis, meaning they could have affected Robert in the lead up to, even during the murders. I'm not saying this is my theory, but it.
Is possible, especially if left untreated, that this progress over time to a state in which there was altered mental status. There is a irritability, and that could possibly be a manifestation of neurosophas.
I'm now going to lay out five scenarios of what could have happened to Robert Fisher his fate in order of least to most likely in my opinion, which is the key phrase, my opinion. I don't expect you to necessarily agree. In fact, I encourage dissent. Battle it out on Reddit number five Grizzly Adams theory. Robert Fisher is living off the land twenty three years later, surviving in the wild. Verdict no way. This is so ridiculous. I'm
not going to spend too much time on it. What about Eric Rudolph, you say the Olympic Park bomber Well. Rudolph survived for five years, not twenty three, in a more hospitable environment, the mountains of western North Carolina. He didn't have a bad back, and as Detective TJ. Juran wisely notes, he had help. He was a right wing ideologue, a folk.
Hero, extremeist living in the area helped him, so that was to his benefit.
Nobody here is.
Going to help Robert Fisher after a man just annihilate his family.
Number four died in the wild not by suicide, theory, Robert Fisher fled into the wilderness and died from something other than suicide, a snake bite, drowning, tumbling down a ravine, a rock hitting his head, starvation, a heart attack, water borne disease, anything but suicide. Verdict possible but unlikely. None of Fisher's remains or belongings were ever located. Maybe that seems unsurprising. It is, after all, a huge expanse of land.
Fair but not locating something is abnormal, not impossible, just not as rare as you might think. People die and disappear in the wilderness all the time, including in places much more remote than Arizona. They are usually found at some point. For example, in nineteen seventy six, a man named Gary Sutherden vanished in an isolated part of Alaska above the Arctic Circle. In nineteen ninety seven, a hunter found his skull, though it wasn't matched to him until
twenty twenty two. Also in ninety seven, rock climbers in rural Nevada found a body buried beneath rocks. In twenty twenty three, it was matched to a missing woman named Lorena Moseley. In nineteen seventy seven, a nineteen year old named Douglas Muller was abducted in Scottsdale. There were multiple ransom demands which his parents tried to pay, but no one picked up the money. Muller was never heard from again.
In two thousand and seven, a hiker found of femur at twenty three nine ninety three North seventy fourth Place in Scottsdale. If that sounds familiar, it's because the Fishers lived on the same road North seventy fourth Place. The Femur case fell to a detective named Hugh Lockerbee. Lockerbye was proactive. With the help of Arizona's crime lab, he
matched the femur to Muller. It seems to have been dug up in the early two thousands, likely by animals rummaging through a clandestin burial spot in a rugged part of North Scottsdale. The homicide remains unsolved now. Of course, thousands of people disappear in the wilderness and are never found, but this seems not to be a major issue. In the area around which Robert abandoned Mary's Forerunner, many people have died there, but few remain missing.
We've seen hundreds of people come to the Rim country just to be and God's country when they met their demise.
Former Helix County detective Brian Havy.
We found people hanging out in the woods that were from the valley, all over the place up here. And why they come up here to kill themselves, I don't know. Being God's country, I guess really hundreds of people, yes, literally, we found him on top of four peaks. We found
him up here in the woods around Payson. We had one guy that dropped his van off at top of the rim on two sixty and hiked five miles down in towards Cold Courts, sat down with a case of beer and started drinking, and hung himself from a low
hanging juniper bush. And we didn't find him till two years later when a couple of nurses were hiking in the woods and found some bones that they could positively identify as human bones, and we went out and I found the skull on that probably two one hundred and fifty yards from the tree that he hung himself on.
So what you most commonly see in terms of suicides in that area death bite, guns, hanging.
I've seen it all different mannerisms. Hanging seems to be a popular one. I've seen guys hang themselves with the cable that they'd used to hold their dog. I've seen people hang themselves with shoer bootlaces. Really doesn't take that much.
And these are people that are just hanging in the woods on trees.
Yeah, yeah, I've seen one. Lady wanted to be found, so she dropped her daughter off at Payton Police Department with a note pinned to her chest and said go in there. And she had written across the note a little pad about six by six about ten different ways where she would be, and we had to really work our way through that little piece of paper and figure out directions. As we pulled into her campsite, she looked right at us and put a nine milimeter to her
head and shot herself. She didn't want the animals to eat, or she wanted to be found.
In terms of missing people, if you got to report that somebody was up in that area and was suicidal, can you remember cases where you were not to locate their remains? Sometimes it would take a year or two. Do any cases come to mind that you weren't able to find a body.
Not that I recall. Eventually, just like the guy that parked on top of the rim, we had no direction to travel or anything like that until those nurses stumbled upon human bones, and fortunately if all of my instincts and walked right to the skull some two hundred and fifty yards away up a little canyon where the coyotes had drug it. When they hang themselves, that's the first thing that rots un falls off, and if you're on a slope, it's going to roll downhill, So it makes sense.
It's like a bowling ball. It's going to roll and then the wildlife will take it someplace where they're not going to be seen, and that's exactly what they did.
How often have unidentified remains been located that you guys thought this might be Robert Fisher?
None that I know of that we thought was absolutely Robert Fasher. And the remains that we have found, I don't think we have any unsolved currently. We've been aeople to identify most all of the remains that we found in Heila County to recap.
In his twenty seven year career, Haviy and his colleagues found hundreds of bodies in remote parts of HeLa County. He can't recall any case in which someone was missing and or suicidal and wasn't found at some point. He's unaware of any still unidentified remains that could match Robert Fisher. However, if Fisher died, his remains were likely scattered by wild animals or not. HeLa County supervisor would he Klein tells me an interesting story.
One time we had a couple that was south a young and they were down on one of those little roads. It was a man and a woman. They had a camp sitting there. They had a dog too. She shot him and then shot herself. It was late in the fall when they figured when she killed him. We didn't find him until the late in the spring. The bears that actually came out and they ate her and he was still intact.
I'm assuming you don't know the answer to this, but do you have any idea why the bear did not eat one of them?
No, there's nothing but bones scattered around there, and obviously the dog had been eaten on it too, because the dog was there still alive.
A bear eats one body, not the other. One body reduced to bones, scattered, the other intact. Chaos. I decide to drive to Tucson to meet up with Bruce Anderson, a forensic anthropologist with the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office, which for many years handled cases out of nearby HeLa County in that.
Area around young If Robert Fischer died in the woods, if he died in a cave, can you walk me through.
I want to say, the decomposition and.
Calendar, but can you give me an idea within twelve hour, twenty four hours a week, a month, a year, twenty years?
So he disappeared in April. So it'll be no snow. There might be some residual snow, but it's not going to have snow, so the temperatures might even in April up there, they might be close to freezing. So if he did die, the night to be cold, but today is would warm up and by the middle of the summer.
Looking at closer triple digit. It's if he died on the surface, I believe animals would have found him, and they would have started with the easy parts, the fingers and toes, in the face, and even if you're wearing leather boots, they'll eventually chew through the leather and get to your feet. Denim is not an issue for coyotes. They'll rip right through it. Any kind of leather jacket, they'll rip through it, eat all the soft tissue, and then while they're doing that, probably eat a little bit
of bone. And then if they revisit the site, if the body goes undetected for weeks or months, they'll.
Revisit and they'll keep doing that.
There's wolves or bears, it's possible a body could be consumed. Now, if he was in a cave, it's going to be cooler. I've been in caves in their flagstaff. For the temperature is the same all year round, and it's dark except for bats.
I don't know who lives down there.
So in a cave situation, if there's no large carnivores and I don't know fruit bats or insect bats would bother their body. I've never heard anything along those lines. But lacking any large animals, then I'd expect there's going to be decomposition.
The body's going to bloat because of the autolysis.
The cells are going to start secreting chemicals, and you get gas built up. But eventually that gas is going to cause either bursting of the skin or some kind of a GI track expulsion, and then the body's going to collapse a little bit. And if there's no critters to smell that income eat, there still might be flies and other insects that smell it, and then it could
be kind of akin to somebody who dies indoors. The doors are locked and the windows are locked, but somehow flies and mosquitoes get in and beetles, and then over weeks or months, in that scenario, the flies and the beetles would eat everything butt bone, So you could conceivably have a complete skeleton devoid of any or most soft tissue after several years.
The idea that Robert Fisher's skeleton could be sitting in a cave untouched is cinematic in a macabre way, But in the past twenty three years, all the caves in which he could have died have been searched repeatedly by recreational cavers and occasionally law enforcement. No one ever found his remains or belongings in a cave. It's possible he's in one, ossified in a cravas or something, but unlikely. What about outside in a forest or canyon.
In that case, you're not going to find a skeleton that's complete.
It's not going to happen. Right.
Even if for some reason the animals, the carnivores or birds didn't.
Find him, the bugs would skeletonize them.
That domestic beetles would finish cleaning the bones off, but raccoon or something would come and disturb the skeleton.
Plus the whole skeleton laying out in the desert.
Not twenty years later, there's hunters, there's people on ATVs. So if he did die up here, it's almost if his body had to be hidden.
It's strange nothing was ever found. That's in stark contrast with the majority of people who vanished in Kila County, nearly all of whom are located in whole or part I asked Bruce to check NamUs, the National Database of Missing People and Unidentified Remains. Are there any remains that could belong to Fisher?
As of today, there's thirty possible matches to him within one hundred miles of where he disappeared.
Which sounds intriguing, but you can immediately rule out the majority of them. Only eleven have ever warranted further examination. For eleven different ups unidentified persons.
Somebody thought we got to make sure this isn't Fisher. Apparently it's not.
If you like this show, please download our first two seasons, Missing in Alaska and Missing on nine to eleven. For updates, visit meon thirty three dot com or follow me on Twitter at John waalzac j O n Wa l Czak. Thanks for listening. Scottsdale Police and the FBI keep a close eye on any remains found in or near Heila County. When remains are located, it's possible to determine quickly whether
or not they could belong to Fisher. Experts can tell whether the person is male or female, estimate the person's height, look for dental fillings like the infamous gold tooth, and look for signs that the person had back surgery. All that before lab testing as far as DNA, even twenty three years later, Even in Arizona, even without a skull or teeth, most skeletal remains will still yield DNA. Meaning if you find any human bone in HeLa County, turn it in, it could be Fisher.
The larger, thicker bones are better. But even a rib, let's say he was.
Devoured by animals and there's just scraps left, a few ribs, maybe a piece of clavicle or something, maybe a piece of mandible.
That could yield.
Even after two decades, it could yield because sunlight is a very strong inhibitor for DNA preservation, and we have a lot more of it down here in the Sonoran Desert, and they do up on the rim or near the rim. And still given that we have submitted samples from bleached white bone, bone has been laying after a decade or more, Yeah, when we cut into it, it's still yallow. In the middle, that yellow part of the bone may still have some viable DNA in it.
Any DNA can be run through COTIS, the national DNA database, to see if it matches Robert. His parents submitted samples of their DNA to police, who uploaded them to COTIS. If investigators run DNA through COTIS and it's Robert, it'll ping bam we found him. Sadly that hasn't happened. What about his belongings, his pistol, camping gear, driver's license, credit cards, car keys, tobacco tens. They could still be out there.
In twenty fourteen, an archaeologist in Nevada found a one hundred and thirty two year old rifle propped up against a juniper tree. It's now known as the Forgotten Winchester. It apparently lay there untouched for at least a century. Two years later, a wildfire burned through the area. This teaches us two important lessons. One yes, stop can survive outside in the arid Southwest for a long time, and two, wildfires can easily destroy it, which is pertinent to the
fissure case. Since two thousand and one, two fires have ravaged the area around the fore runner spot. The Rodeo Chetta Sky fire in two thousand and two and the Poco Fire in twenty twelve. The Rodeo Chetta sky fire burned from the east, the Poco fire from the west. What's incredible is that while both came extremely close to
the fore Runners spot, neither reached it. By examining maps, our researcher, Paul Gemberline, determine there's a tiny strip of land between the fires, three quarters of a mile wide that didn't burn. Amazingly, it includes the four Runners spot. Furthermore, while maps show us fire perimeters, they can't tell us
how intensely the fires burned. Paul said, quote. There can be patches within a perimeter that are less burned, not burned at all, or burned to a crisp meaning there might still be evidence in places marked as burned that didn't burn, separate from physical evidence bones, guns, keys. Let's dial back to common sense. How likely is it that a man who spent his entire life outside died at a critical moment from something other than suicide, a snake bite,
a falling rock disease, something random. Sure, anything is possible in a violent nature, and Fisher would have been in a rush, making him more prone to fatal error, But is it likely that he died of natural causes or a random act of God and none of his remains or belongings were ever located. Moving on number three, escaped then died theory Robert Fisher escaped and lived as a fugitive, but sometime in the past twenty three years he died.
No one ever connected his body to him, either because he lived under a false identity or because his remains are sitting somewhere unidentified. Verdict possible, but unlikely. According to the Social Security Administration, Fisher had a life expectancy at birth of seventy five years, meaning if he didn't die by suicide, he's probably alive. If alive age sixty three, If he made it this far, he'd still have about
twenty years left to live. That's because as you get older, as you survive the perils of youth and middle age, your life expectancy increases. The government would now expect him to die around January twenty forty five. For argument's sake, though, let's say he did escape and die. He could have been buried or cremated under a false name. But if his remains were unidentified, a mysterious John Doe. They likely would have been fingerprinted and maybe even tested for DNA.
His fingerprints are on file in a national database, so too are DNA samples from his parents. So there's next to zero chance his remains have been located and checked against databases without being connected to him. Now, maybe he died somewhere with a lazy corner. Anything's possible, I guess. But again, is it likely number two died in the wild by suicide? There are only two theories that make
sense to me, and this is one of them. Everything I said though about option number four, that Robert died in the wild not by suicide, still applies here. It's strange that none of his remains or belongings have ever been found. The Forerunner spot is rugged and remote, but not that remote. It's only two hours and twenty minutes from the fifth largest city in America. People head up there all the time to hike, hunt camp cave. It's
been twenty three years. Still nothing. However, there's a possible explanation for this. If he died, I think he died on tribal land.
Is that a fence that is offense?
Police find Mary's suv near the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.
This is the boundary.
Tribal land is sovereign territory over which state and local law enforcement have limited influence. Tribal police assist in the initial hunt for Fisher, but in the years that follow, the one point seven million acre reservation population fifteen thousand is never searched as thoroughly as the federal land next to it, the Tonto National Forest. The tribal border is marked by a barbed wire fence and no trespassing signs. Yes, people violate them, but still the national forest is much
easier to visit and access. Therefore, it's likelier that any undiscovered remains are on tribal land. Now moving on, eighty to eighty five percent of family annihilators die by suicide, but fifteen to twenty percent don't. A minority, sure, but a sizeable one. How can someone live with themselves after killing their family? I don't know, but fifteen to twenty percent of annihilators do, including some prominent ones like John List. Furthermore,
Robert had strong religious beliefs against suicide. Obviously they also prohibit murder, but to many Christians, suicide is the cardinal sin, the one you can't come back from the one, in their view for which there's no redemption, the one that sent you to hell. Now, many people who knew Robert believe he died by suicide, in part because he threatened it previously in nineteen ninety nine, when he confessed to
cheating on Mary. I discussed this with Fisher family friends, including John Rodin and his wife Mary Beth.
He had said in that letter that if she wasn't going to take him back, he was going to kill himself.
So that's why at first we figured, yeah, he's dead. I know this is a tough question.
But what would indicate that he was serious about killing himself versus it being a ploy for attention to Mary.
Yeah, that's true. That's a good point.
I didn't thought about that.
Robert told Mary he was going to a cabin in the wild for thirty days. He conveyed that she could leave him, but if she did, he'd kill himself. He told her how to reach him. Mary ignored him. Only three to four days later he came home. In this context, it seems like Robert's threat was insincere, just one more blunt instrument to manipulate and control Mary.
End of Part one, Please continue to Part two.
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