Bobby Bizup Pt. Two

So you're wondering, hm, is he paranoid that he's going to be prosecuted for murder or something like that, and that's why he's making up this story completely at a left field.

saying is genuine. And I think that's a little bit of what we're seeing here. It's like, see, I'm truthful. I'm an honest person. I'm telling you these horrible things that I've done. Why else would I do that except for that I'm now transparent and I feel contrite about this.

But in actuality, it's like I think he's giving that information because sure, on some level he might feel bad, But I also think that it is a type of deflection where it's like, look over here, and I'll confess this, but like it's a bridge too far when we talk about murder, because he could truly be held accountable for that, and if he really felt that bad and was really contrite, I would think that he would be fine with whatever punishment came his way.

have been present to find his remains. I'm willing to think that if Hughitt had not said those very suspicious words, then nobody would have looked any further into Bobby's death, and nobody would have attempted a new investigation, but because he revealed too much information and looked like he was over confiscating this case when in a completely different direction. So, of course, after hearing those weird remarks, Kevin Bond decided

to take a fresh look at Bobby's case. But most of the original documentation was gone, including the police files and the autopsy report, so all that he could find was a single report which had been written by the Rocky Mountain National Park Superintendent about the discovery of Bobby's remains.

But still Bond noticed a very weird discrepancy in the report because even though he would had claimed that he found bobby scapula and a scrap of clothing on July the third, nineteen fifty one, and then brought it back to the camp's director, Reverend Richard Heaster, according to this report from the Rocky Mountain National Park Superintendent, a Reverend Heaster did not actually report these findings until Monday, July third, three days after the fact, and that's when they started

the search efforts. And they're thinking, okay, like, why would you wait three whole days to talk about to report the discovery of a bone or clothing, especially if you believe that it's connected to a child who went missing from your camp one year earlier. So this makes alarm bells GoF on my head, saying, are they fabricating a

cover story here? Like are they maybe thinking we're going to sprinkle some remains in this area for the searchers to find, and then when they find them, they'll just fay say that Bobby's dad closed the investigation and no one will be suspicious of us. But of course nobody found this suspicious back in nineteen fifty nine because everyone's thinking, oh, it's a priest who runs a summer camp for kids.

There's no way he would do anything nefarious. But of course all these years have passed and they know about cover ups by the Catholic Church. So Kevin Bond is now looking at this report with a major suspicion.

was like, Okay, well this is where they are. I honestly feel as though they were closing ranks during those few days though, because there had to even talks about how are we going to play this, how are we going to put this out there, how will this be perceived, and what kind of pr can we do to get behind this because at the time people weren't looking and

assuming that something bad would have happened to him. But when you're the ones who are doing bad things, I think it's pretty easy to assume that all eyes are going to be looking at you.

more innocent time. And if this wasn't a strategy, it technically did work because no one found anything weird about their discovery of Bobby's remains for over sixty years, So you can understand why they might have been compelled to do this, so obviously, Kevin Vaughn wanted to interview Reverend Richard Heister, but he had passed away sometime during the

nineteen nineties. But he was able to track down his nephew, who was also named Richard, and he had been eleven years old at the time and also attending Camp Saint

Malo at the time Bobby went missing. And to make things even more weird, Richard recalled an incident which took place on the day Bobby went missing, where he was in a gathering hall with a group of other campers when a boy suddenly pushed Richard out of the way and ran past him, and Richard said that he recalled the boy seemed very upset and was saying a bunch

of unintelligible stuff before he headed outside. And because we know that Bobby was hearing impaired and had difficulties speaking, Richard believed that the boy might have been him and that this took place right before he went missing. And of course, since over sixty years had passed, it's possible

he wasn't remembering things correctly. But Vaughn was able to track down a man named Roger Contour, who had been a subdistrict ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park at the time and was involved in the recovery of Bobby's remains, and he said that he had been told by other people from the camp that Bobby seemed extremely upset about

something right before he went missing. And this is the first time anyone ever heard this story, because, like I mentioned earlier, the official story back in nineteen fifty eight is that Bobby had been fishing by the creek. Everything looked completely normal, and he was asked to come back to the mess hall for suffer before he suddenly disappeared. But now we're getting another different story about the circumstances of how he went missing.

start digging deeper into this. And I know some people could question Richard Heaster's story because he was only eleven years old at the time, in sixty years had passed. But one thing I find refreshing about Richard is his openness and honesty because he knows this does not paint his uncle in a very promising light, because obviously, if Bobby was being abused at the camp and his uncle helped cover it up, then that looks really bad for him.

But Richard has said that even though I admired my uncle, that this is not the type of man I remembered that if he was involved in something bad, then I only want the truth to come out. So that's why I find his account of Bobby seeing very upset and running away to be credible, that it's something he may have remembered vividly all these years, but now that all this new information about sexual abuse cover up has come out, he's now looking at this incident in a totally different light.

being that. I'm sure there was pressure from family members, because typically there is in these type of situations. People don't want their names sullied, and so to speak out like that is a really courageous thing to do. And I don't think that he would be getting any reward for speaking out, you know what I mean, Like his family isn't going to be like, good for you, you're looking for the truth. I mean maybe, but I think there's a strong likelihood that he could feel pressure to just say.

people in his family who he cares about. But even so, like the more Kevin Vaughan looked into this, the more it seemed odd that Bobby would have died of exposure on that mountain side where his remains were found, because when he looked closer into it, he realized that from that mountain, Bobby would have had a clear view of Cant Saint Malo in the distance, so if he had gotten lost, he probably would have been able to find his way back because the mountain was also near Cabin Creek,

where Bobby had supposedly been fishing before he disappeared, so he easily could have just followed the creek back to the camp. So that doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't dive of exposure, like maybe he didn't get lost, but he was so scared of the counselors that he was hiding from in the mountain, and then that's when he

succumbed to the elements and died. But because of these discrepancies, the National Parks Are his investigative services branch announced that they were going to open up a new investigation into Bobby's case over sixty years after the fact. So they created a profile page to the cold case section on their website, and while they didn't have enough evidence to label his death a homicide, they did label his case as a suspicious deaths which is pretty remarkable because how

many other cases where people died. Are they going to reopen a new investigation sixty years after the fact.

at night, he got dehydrated. You know, we can't go a long time without water or food. Well food, we can go a long time without, but not water. So he could have become dehydrated and confused. He could have

fallen and like I said earlier, hit his head. He could have injured his leg like we saw with Chris Kramer's and Leanne Frum right, looks like the most likely scenario there was, not that they were murdered, was that one of them I can't remember which one was injured, and that they both stayed together and both ended up succumbing to the elements.

But one thing I wanted to mention is that the official story of Bobby going missing while he was fishing at the creek that was provided by another councilor named Terry Cowan. He has never been accused of any wrongdoing or sexual abuse, so I don't know if he's lying

or fabricating the story about Bobby disappearing. But still, when you hear like the account of Bobby looking upset and the whole story from Hewitt about Bobby going to the snack bar and getting upset that he couldn't get candy, it makes you wonder if that whole story about Bobby

fishing by the creek actually happened. And I mentioned earlier that his fishing pole and his carton of worms were found in the woods like half a mile away, But it now makes me wonder would Bobby have really taken these items and then just drop them, or were these items planted in order to make it look like Bobby ran off into the forest and got lost.

Maybe he was told to change the time in which he saw Bobby. Maybe he saw him at like eleven o'clock, and then it's like, okay, well, let's just say that it was a little bit later, and then somebody else planted those there. But there's any number of scenarios that could have happened. Like you said, somebody could have abducted him, taken him elsewhere, and then when Hewitt finds the remains, it's like, this is the agreed upon location that they've

been planted. And there's even the possibility that he genuinely could have just found him for the first time, even though I don't think that's very likely. There's just so many things that are in play here.

so I have to follow what they say. But of course, years in retrospect, hearing that other counselors have been sexually abusing children there, I could see him wanting to open up if he didn't do anything wrong on his own, Maybe he's looking at everything in a different light and now thinks that a lot of the stuff he witnessed back then is a lot more suspicious in retrospect. Yeah.

quote unquote like direct line to God. So I would think that it would be very easy to look at one of these seminary students and they would be malleable, They would be very impressionable, and more likely than not to go along with what you're saying as literal gospel.

hundred and twelve children. And one of the new priests who got accused was a guy named Gerald Roppola. A man had come forward and said that Roppola had sexually abused him, only he was a teenager in nineteen sixty seven. Much like these other priests, he had been a Ropola had been transferred around a lot and was actually removed from the ministry in nineteen seventy in order to participate in professional counseling, and he was on one year leave of absence before he died of cancer in March of

nineteen seventy one. But what's particularly interesting is that it turned out that Ropola had also been a seminary student at Camp Saint Malo during the summer of nineteen fifty eight, So, along with Neil Hewitt and Harold Robert White, this was no less than three different priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children who are counselors at the camp at that time. So there's just a number of predators there all there simultaneously who could have potentially demise Bobby.

predating on children. It's really convoluted and confusing, and they've done studies on this where the priesthood within the Catholic Church where you can't marry, that those who wouldn't necessarily

be pedophiles would engage in pedophilic behavior. So I don't know what the stats are exactly and what they would be for seminary students, but I'm wondering if it's like the Boy Scouts where we saw such a huge number of young boys who were accused by their Boy Scout leaders and You've got to think the same with the seminary students. Are you going into this because you know there's guaranteed access to kids?

get away with it. But it makes me wonder if word had spread saying that if you are attracted to children and you want to abuse them and get away with it, then this is the camp to go because they will cover up for you.

they would be easy you're to victimize. But you've got to wonder in nineteen fifty eight, how would one who has that type of a predilection gain information on what would be a good place for them to predate on children. I don't know how you would get that information back then.

victims when they were put into a position of power. So, after these new allegations came out about Gerald, repol nine News in Denver aired a new twenty minute documentary titled Mystery of Mount Meeker, which revealed all the new details about this sexual abuse scandal and also the new details that have been dug up in Bobby Bisop's case and in May of twenty twenty one, that's when the most shocking announcement was made in this case, when the media

revealed that a Denver based doctor named Tom McCloskey had come forward after watching the documentary and presented the authorities with a human skull that belonged to a child. And the issue with this is that even though Tom McCloskey has allowed the media to share the details of his story, he has never agreed to be formally interviewed. So there are a lot of questions I have of the circumstances of how this takes place, but unfortunately he has not

been around to answer them. But the story that has been reported is that Tom's father, Joseph McCloskey, had also worked as a doctor, and when Joseph passed away in nineteen eighty, his son took possession of this skull, and while Tom said he could not remember too many details, he said that his father had told him that the skull may have belonged to a boy who had disappeared

from a camp and for years. Tom said that he tried to identify the skull by checking through old news articles about the disappearances of young boys, but had no luck finding a match, so he just decided to spend the next four decades keeping the skull inside a paper

sack in his basement. But then when he watched the documentary Mystery amount Meeker and learned about the disappearance of Bobby Bisop, he started to wonder if maybe the skull belonged to Bobby, And that's when he decided to come forward. And I know you're gonna have the obvious question here, why did he keep the skull for four decades without saying anything? But unfortunately, since Tom has never been interviewed, we don't know the answers to those questions.

do I protect my dad's legacy? It looks on the surface, very very odd. But I think that there is his relationship to his father and their family named to consider, and I guess at the very least we can be thankful for the fact that he came forward at the end and turned over the skull and gave some information, But without a formal interview, there's so many questions left unanswered.

his father was a serial killer or anything. Back in nineteen eighty when he passed away, he probably thought, well, maybe he got this skull from his work or something like that, and it belonged to a deceased child whose family had allowed him to take the remains for medical research or something.

You might recall an episode we did several months ago about the disappearances of a couple named Glenn and Bessie Hyde who went missing in the Grand Canyon on a rafting trip in nineteen twenty eight, And you also might recall a weird detail about this case where they stopped to see a local photographer named Emery Colb, and then like nearly fifty years later, cole fasts away and then his grandson found some human remains but a gunshot wound in his boat house and people are thinking, oh my god,

Emory Colb is a murderer. Maybe he killed Glenn Hyde and the remains belonged to him. But then the full story came out that the remains belonged to an unidentified John Doe who had shot himself in the Grand Canyon sometime during the nineteen thirties, and that Emory Colb had been on the corner's jury. And because this young man was never identified and no one came forward to claim his remains, Coleb decided to take the remains home put them in his boat house on the off chance that

this man's family would come forward to claim them. But he just kind of forgot about them for four decades, and then people discover the remains after he died in nineteen seventy six, and his grandson is given a complete shock, But it turned out he had the remains for completely harmless reasons. So maybe a similar thing happened with Joseph McCloskey, or maybe that's what Tom thought.

the skull, or the remains haven't been found. I don't know how you would word that and how it wouldn't come off as super sucks and that the doctor wouldn't then go to the Maybe it was hard to procure a child's skull, so it was like they'll take it, even though it seems to be tinged with like some major nefarious activity. I don't know any scenario where you would accept that.

the camp's former director, Reverend Heaster. And even though law enforcement hasn't commented on this officially, Reverend Heaster's nephew, Richard, has claimed that federal authorities told him that they believed that his uncle had been in possession of the skull and for whatever reason, decided to give it to Joseph McCloskey, and then when Joseph passed away, he passed it along

to his son. That only brings up the question why would Reverend he Easter have this skull in his possession in the first place.

as the hearing aid, but maybe again they did. But then the question is, Okay, so they wanted Bobby to be discovered, They wanted his remains to be known, so that's why they if they did sprinkle the remains there, they put his hearing aid there. But then the question is why not his skull? Then if you're just trying to get the heat off, why keep the skull? Was this some kind of serial killer like moment toe type thing where it's like, well, I'm going to keep a souvenir.

wounds or trauma or blunt force trauma. So if that's what I'm thinking, if Bobby truly did go into the elements and die of exposure, why would they hold onto the skull. But another theory that has been pushed forward is that even if Reverend Heaster was not personally complicit in Bobby's death, he may have felt some sort of subconscious guilt where if Heaster wasn't abusing children, he was

still covering up for the counselors who did. So, he decided to keep the skull as a memento, and then, for whatever reason, years later, decided to give it to Joseph McCloskey because if he was one of his more friends.

But if he told any secrets to Joseph, Joseph obviously did not pass them on to his son, because Tom has not shed any light on why his father had this skull, but there are any number of scenarios about why they would he would have had the skull in this possession, And unfortunately, because most of the people with the direct knowledge are now deceased, we can only speculate.

this is acceptable behavior. So I could see a scenario like you said, where he might not have been directly responsible for Bobby's death, but he felt responsible because he created the culture that allowed that to happen.

abused by Reverend Heaster. So this is the first allegation against Heaster that has come out. He hasn't been accused of abusing anyone at Camp Saint Malo yet because this took place years after the fact. But once you learn this, you could realize that even though he might have some subconscious guilt about his counselors doing it. It's also possible that he was doing it himself and that, for reasons unknown, he decided to hold on to Bobby's skull.

we're missing out on so much information. And I think the same goes for these victims of religious sexual abuse, because it's very difficult to come forward and we're only literally getting the tip of the iceberg.

his childhood. That I think he had just completely blocked out for a long time, which is why he did not file his lawsuit until twenty twenty four. But makes me wonder if there are other like survivors just like him who have been abused and have just completely blocked it out and it may not even come back until sometime many years after the fact.

when that's going to pop back up. And I hope that he was able to process that and integrate what happened and talk to somebody who specializes in sexual abuse, a therapist that really could help him, because to have that realization so many years after the fact, to be a full grown adult with a family, and to then be re traumatized all over again, and to not just have one sexual abuser, but to have several, that.

be telling the truth. So, as you might recall, in twenty twenty one, when this whole story about the skull came out, the true crime community went nuts, like this was posted everywhere on social media, just because it was such an unusual story, and I covered it on the trail went cold a couple years later in twenty twenty three.

But when all this stuff was coming to light, there was a great quote made by A. Rich Ormond, the senior deputy district attorney from Colorado's eighteenth Judicial District, who said quote, it's appalling, it's astounding, and to me, it shows a guilty mind. I don't think you do something like this to a family without a guilty mind. It staggers the imagination that a religious organization like the Catholic Church or a portion of the Catholic Church would act

in such a fashion. You just don't hide that unless you have something to hide. End quote.

Back in twenty twenty one, it was announced that plans were being made to exhume Bobby's remains for the purposes of DNA testing in order to confirm that the skull did belong to him. But I haven't heard anything since then, And I do know that Bobby does have surviving relatives, so I don't know if any attempts have been made to extract their DNA in order to make a comparison.

And it might be a thing where sometimes this family members of these deceased victims had issues with exuming their bodies decades after the facts, so maybe they just have not gotten formal permission from the family. But at the time of this recording, it has not been officially confirmed if this skull does belong to Bobby. But if it belongs to an entirely different a boy, then that only opens up a whole bunch of other unanswered questions.

would volunteer their DNA to be tested. At least somebody would against the DNA and the skull if they're able to extract any of the material from the teeth. So I don't know if it's an issue with their having difficulty extracting DNA from the skull, or if they are having issues with exhuming the body, which seems unnecessary when you have surviving family members.

other cases it takes years. Another example of that is the Brand and Loss in case where they found his remains in like twenty twenty two, but I don't think they announced that the DNA had identified him until last year, even though everyone was pretty convinced it was him. So sometimes there are just big delays in doing a positive

identification with DNA. And because law enforcement has been pretty tight lipped about this case since twenty twenty one, I have no idea if anything's going on behind the scenes. So the only new development that has taken place was this past September in twenty twenty five, when Neil Hewitt

finally passed away at the age of eighty nine. I think he had been in hospice care at that point, and obviously he had not said anything new to shed any light on Bobby's death, and I'm not sure if his mind was in any mental state to offer information. And it is a bittersweet feeling because obviously this guy was a monster who got away with so many horrible

crimes when Lee was alive. But at the same time, he may have been one of the last surviving people who knew the truth about what happened to Bobby or offered some insight on what happened to him. But he may have taken those secrets to his grave, So that's one last person who may could shed some light on what happened to Bobby, who is no longer with us.

of exposure. And even though this whole child sexual abuse allegation scandal still would have been going on, I don't think they would have covered Bobby's story in the media. And then I don't think Tom mcclousey would have come forward with the skull. But once that happened, that opened up a major plan of worms, which made people wonder

what happened here, like what happened to Bobby. It's like this could be like a potentially horrific truth that is now coming out over sixty years after the fact, but as it is right now, there are just so many more unanswered questions.

when that certainly wasn't the culture surrounding what was happening at the time. Even though they were up to many evil acts, they weren't accused of it, and they seemed to be able to cover it up till they couldn't. Right until all the accusations come out, until the cover up idea, the idea of bearing it is no longer viable.

So jumping right into this weird story about not selling Bobby a candy bar and him running off and how you didn't do anything to him except not sell him candy, he was just so suss and Hewitt finding the remains, it just feels like, as far as suspects go, anybody is up for grabs. But I think there's a strong likelihood that Hewitt was intimately involved in what happened to Bobby.

statute of limitations would have expired. But if it was an intentional murder and Hewitt deliberately killed him and disposed of his remains, he still could have been prosecuted, even though he was in his eighties at the time. So his weird change of tone where he goes to openly admitting his sexual abuse but then gets so flustered and starts denying things when it comes to Bobby still makes me think that he was paranoid that he could still be prosecuted for something and had a need to cover

it up. So yeah, this is a real rabbit hole, and hopefully one of these days we will at least, even if we don't find the full truth about what happened to Bobby, I hope they at least do a DNA test and confirm that the skull belongs to him. And there are just so many like Because most of the people involved in this have since passed away, we may never learn like the full story, but at least it ensures that Bobby isn't forgotten and that he can

be remembered as a victim. If he really was one because the idea that he was this hearing impaired boy who was having a great time at this camp that he seemed to really enjoy, but could have been groomed and abused by someone who knew that because of his disadvantages, he'd be an ideal target who couldn't share what happened to him. That is pretty nauseating, and so it is pretty sad that whoever did this to them will probably

never see justice in this light. But at least Bobby will be remembered as a victim, and maybe his story will maybe we'll inspire other people who have been abused by priests to come forward after many years as children, now that they are adults, and that's why it's so important for these stories to come out.

I'm not going to live with this anymore. I'm going to tell my story and to give survivors their power back. And I think in sharing these stories it does empower people and say that like, I am not what happened to me. I am who I am, and this thing was done to me, but it doesn't need to define me anymore.

be able to communicate that, especially at that time. They weren't given language around sexual abuse the way that I'm a millennial and I grew up with like, you know, stranger danger, and if somebody touches you in your you know, underwear area, then you tell your parents, and you're taught

all of these things. But I don't think that children in the nineteen fifties were taught that there was an assumption that, like you were safe with adults, particularly those who would be members of the clergy or seminary students, that should be where you are safest. So the parents trusted this camp. They trusted the counselors, and they trusted the priests who ran it, and this is what happened. And that is so.

on the disappearance and death of Bobby Biszop. Thank you so much for joining us, and happy New Year everyone, since we're recording this on the first day of twenty twenty six, so we'll see you next time for our next series of episodes from The Path Went Chile.

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