Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two of our series about the disappearance of Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up when we talked about in our previous episode.
Well, Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia were a couple who had been living together for several years out of loft in Manhattan. Because Michael had moved in there during the nineteen seventies. It was much cheaper than usual because I think he was only being charged like three hundred dollars per month, and since there was rent control, he was paying far less than the other tenants in the building. This was nineteen ninety seven November, and Michael and Camden
at some point went missing. No one can really pinpoint the exact moment they went missing. We know that they rented a movie at a video store brought it back to their apartment, but at some point they left their apartment again and just vanished without a trace. So at first no one really knew what to make of this, But it turned out that on the same day they went missing, they had been confronting their building's landlord, Robert Rodriguez,
because he had been very neglectful. He had not been implementing heat in the apartment and it was a very cold winter, so they presented a letter informing him that they were not going to pay any more rent until
he fixed the problem. But it was right after that when Michael and Camden vanished without a trace, and when police wanted to bring Rodriguez to the station to question him, he just decided to disappear for several days without even telling his own family where he was going before he resurfaced.
But by that point he had hired an attorney and would not cooperate with the investigation, so they began to suspect that he might have been involved in that Perhaps he wanted Michael and Camden out of the loft so he could rent it out again at it much higher prices, And when they looked into Rodriguez's background, they found out that another man named David King, who was one of his former co workers in business Associates, had also went
missing back in nineteen ninety. At first, they just kind of thought that King disappeared on his own, but since so many people connected to Rodriguez seemed to be going missing under his watch, they began to wonder if he might have had something to do with King's disappearance as well. Puerto Riguz eventually got indicted on several charges of fraud because he was suffering from financial problems and doing chicane rey to try to cover it up, so he served
some time in prison before he was released. But at one point he could have attained early parole if he had readed to a request to turn over some guns he owned, but he said he no longer had them, and as retribution, he was forced to finish serving his full sentence, which has created speculation that these guns may
have played a role in Michael and Camden's disappearance. Rob Rodriguez was eventually released, and they have never found any the victim's bodies or any evidence of foul play, so it remains up in the air what actually happened to
Michael and Camden. So this is an unsolved mystery which seems to be based around a very identifiable situation, as I'm sure that many of us have been through a situation where we've had a dispute with a landlord, but it's not often that these situations escalate to the point where they potentially lead to murder, even though this case does have a very promising potential suspect in Robert Rodriguez, law enforcement is never officially named of as a suspect
and the disappearances of Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia, and there's a very good reason for that. Well, Rodriguez definitely displayed some suspicious behavior. There is no evidence here that a crime has even been committed, let alone that Rodriguez harmed these two missing individuals. If he was responsible for this, he did a very thorough job at covering his tracks.
We do know that on the day that Michael and Camdo went missing, Rodriguez have been presented with a signed letter in which the couple and a number of the other tenants announced their intention to go on a red strike unless he provided them with adequate heating for their apartments. But I'd hardly call that a strong motive to commit murder, as it sounds like this issue popped up every single year since Rodriguez was known for taking his sweet time to heat up the building at the start of the
winter season. Even if you're a major penny pincher trying to save money by any means possible, it seems like quite an overreaction to decide you're going to kill two people rather than simply turn on the furnace. But if you put aside the why for Rodriguez committing this crime, the how, when, and where are still complete head scratchers. Theoretically, let's just say that there was some sort of confrontation
which escalated into murder. If this took place inside the apartment building, not only would Rodriguez have to kill two people, but he would have to do so in a fashion which he didn't attract the attention of any of the other tenants, as I don't believe they ever reported seeing or hearing anything unusual all that day. He would then somehow have to get their bodies out of the building
and dispose of them. But it's very difficult to be inconspicuous about doing something like that in downtown Manhattan.
Right, and it's such a populated area. There's you know, I'm sure there's not much sound proofing and things like that in these older apartment buildings, and so it would be very difficult to murder two people. You have a man and a woman. You have to think about the way that he would have to approach and defend himself against two people who would react to him coming into
their space or confronting them. When you do back up though, and you think about the idea that he was charging these people three hundred and some odd dollars for rent because of rent control, but in you know, then now he would have been able to collect three thousand and some odd dollars a month if a new tenant were to move in in that rent control was no longer honored, and so there is a significant financial reason for him to need these two people gone, in addition to the
fact that they were causing social issues and possibly legal issues for him as well. But like you said, if we can understand, okay, he has the motive to do it, how when and where did he do it? I'm just as clueless as you.
I think when it comes to the why. If we are to believe that he's killed before, it just seems like whenever he has a problem, his go to solution is I'm going to eliminate that problem. But then there is a problem with the how, because if it was in the apartment, how do you subdue to people. Perhaps he had a firearm or something like that, and he was able to keep them quiet, But then if you murdered them in the apartment, what do you do, like in the movies, roll them into a rug and put
them in a truck. Do you have a vehicle for transport? Or did you hold a gun to their head and take them into a van or something and then take them, you know, to New Jersey or something like that where there might be somewhere you could easily dispose of the bodies. There's a lot of questions surrounding how you could do that with two individuals. Like with one individual, I would say, yeah, it would be a lot easier, especially if it was
a woman who was just Camden. But when you've got two people, it's just the degree of difficulty goes up exponentially.
Is there any way that he could have asked them to meet with him, saying, Hey, I'm going to talk to you about this issue. I don't want this to have to go to a legal place. I don't want you guys to have to go on a rent strike. Can you meet me? But if he did that, it's not just Camden and Michael who are involved in this issue. There's multiple tenants who are supporting them and behind them.
It's almost like something that the community bonds over so if they were going to go try to argue on behalf of the other tenants or their building or something like that, in a meeting with him, I feel like they would have disclosed that to somebody.
I think there's a dam in being like, let's set a meeting. I think if he did do it, it had to have been spontaneous, like he showed up at their door. Maybe he convinced them to go somewhere with him, and then he was able to get the jump on them. But it almost seems like there would have to be somebody else involved because if it was like, Hey, we're going to go somewhere and he's driving, how do you get the jump on them? Do you have a firearm somewhere?
And then you pull into like this undisclosed location. But I feel like there'd be a lot of questions that would be being asked, and because there's two of them, I think that they would have been able to overpower the drivers. So I don't know, Robin, what's your take.
Well, he did have a locksmith shop that he ran on the ground floor of his apartment, which I think function is his office, and I know that on the day that Camden and Michael went missing. That's where they met him to present him with the letter about the
rent strike. So it's reasonable to assume that if he asked the two of them to meet him somewhere, that they would do so at the locksmith shop, which is still in the building and is still going to attract a lot of time if you shoot them there or something, and it would be difficult to smuggle their bodies out
because it's in the middle of a crowded neighborhood. And I'd like to think that if he told them, oh, why don't you meet us off site somewhere, like at a different place, They're probably going to get really suspicious and wonder why is our landlord asking us to meet him elsewhere instead of at his locksmith shop. So yeah,
it's really hard to figure out. It just seems that if he killed them in the apartment building, it would have been very difficult to do it without attracting attention from someone.
Here's a question for you. Did he have a van because oftentimes if there's a locksmith shop, you're going to get calls to apartments where people have locked themselves out, So you would have to have some kind of transportation, and oftentimes you would see a locksmith getting around in a van or a car of some sort with maybe like the logo for their locksmith shop emblazoned on the side.
I don't have that information if he had a van, but it would make sense to me. I know that he had a car that he used when he disappeared for a few days when he did want to talk to the police, But maybe he had a separate van for business purposes that he would use on the job. And like you said, that would be much easier to use to dispose of two bodies.
So I think another issue with figuring out what happened here is that it's really hard to pin down the last time that Michael and Camden were confirmed to be alive. Some sources, like the victim's profile pages at the Charlie Project, make it sound like they left their apartment to go jogging, which is something they frequently did. If they managed to exit the building and jog somewhere, then they could have crossed paths with an unknown third party besides Rodriguez, who
proceeded to abduct and murder them. But from what we've read in most of the news articles about this case, it was only theorized that they went jogging because their running shoes were missing from the apartment. As far as I can tell, I don't believe there were any eyewitnesses that could actually confirm having seen them out jogging that day, which would mean that the last verified sighting of the couple was when they rented the movie Addicted to Love
from the video store. Since the video was found inside the apartment, they obviously returned there at some point, and given that one set of keys and Michael's wallet were also left behind, it seems likely that the couple left together but weren't planning to be out all that long. So the big question is did they cross paths with Rodriguez and have some sort of confrontation with him before
they exited the building. Well, searches of the building failed to turn up any evidence of foul play, but the problem is that it was six days before the couple were actually reported missing, so Rodriguez would have had ample time to cover his tracks. Now, according to Camden's mother, Laurie Sylvia, when she first met Rodriguez, he couldn't have been any nicer, as he gave Laurie a new set of keys for the apartment and said, quote, let me
know if there's anything else I can do to help. So, at the very least, this suggests Rodriguez was not too concerned about Laurie finding anything incriminating inside the laft. It sounds like Rodriguez was very cooperative during the early stages of the investigation until police ask him to come in for a formal interview, which led to him suddenly taking
off and disappearing for ten days. However, did Rodriguez do this because he was involved in Michael Incambenen's disappearances or was he paranoid that the police might find some other skeletons in his closet?
Okay, exactly when you look at this, there's a couple of things that I want to ask you about. One, I don't have a pair of quote running shoes. Judge me if you will. Shoes are not my thing. I have a pair of sneakers, and I have dress shoes, and I have boots. So if I am not going to want to wear dress shoes or my boots, I'm wearing my quote sneakers and that's if I'm running or working. It doesn't matter. So is it possible that these two simply wore their quote jogging shoes as every day wear.
I'm a fashion girl, Like I love fashion, and you go and look at street style, and like the streets of Paris or New York. Today, everybody's wearing runners with everything. But at that time, I don't know if it was as much the fashion. But I think it is possible that somebody might have just one pair of runners, and like you call them runners, but like really they're just sneakers and you could wear them for a multitude of
different occasions. It doesn't have to be just for the express purpose of exercise.
Right, So when people are like, Okay, well they're jogging shoes are missing, I'm like, God bless them. I don't exercise. So if my running shoes are missing, don't think I went running because I did not. Okay, so note that down. But so that was one of the things, you know, this is a idea of should we be looking for
a jogging route or something. I think I wouldn't put my sneakers on to go rent the movie, and maybe when I came home I didn't take them off yet, And so I'm not sure that that's even a lead. But when we go down to the other idea, Rodriguez, and the idea that initially he's very cooperative and then all of a sudden he becomes very elusive and goes on the run and becomes really shut off to police.
When Robin and Jules describe his background to me, I'm sitting there thinking, wait a minute, is he so friendly and nice at first because he has nothing to do with it? And then when he realizes this is not just going to be these two people that wandered off and aren't home yet, this is going to be a criminal investigation. They want to keep talking to me. If they start to run my name, they're going to find all of these things I'm wanted for issues I'm having,
or you know, these scams I'm running. And could he have simply panicked and shut down and said I cannot cooperate or else so much of my life is at stake.
Well, not only was he committing fraud at that point, but we also have the disappearance of David King, which took place years earlier, and that would be the wildest twist. I don't know if that's what happened. If he was completely innocent and Michael and Cambden's just disappearance, but was
guilty of the disappearance of David King. So he doesn't cooperate in this case because he figures, well, if they delve into my background, this whole thing with David King is going to pop up again and they might find some incriminating against evidence against me in that case. I mean, I don't think that's a likely scenario, but it could be an alternate explanation for why he was acting so dodgy.
Here refreshed my memory, Robin. We spoke about this in our last episode. But wasn't there a bag of Camden's that was missing as well? And wasn't it like a large bag that could have been like a briefcase size, or like a very large purse that would have been able to carry documents or something of the sort.
Yeah, the only details about it were that was a bag that Camden normally carried when she took work home from the office and it happened to be missing, And obviously that's not something she would ordinarily take out if she was simply going for a jog.
No, I'm not going to go jogging, I think I said in the first episode with a giant purse. For one, if you're a jogger, even if you bring any kind of purse that isn't strapped to you, it will bang up against your butt, so and if you're you're not gonna hold it in your hand. So like if you've got a cross body purse or whatever, it's going to hit your body with every stride that you take is going to be so uncomfortable. So it's inexplicable that they could have just gone out for a jog and then
taken that bag with them. I mean, I guess you could say that they went out for a jog, something happened and then the bag got stolen, But like that seems entirely improbable.
So she would take that big bag, but he wouldn't take his wallet.
I mean, if it's a thing where they had documentation, like theoretically they're going downstairs to present Rodriguez with some paperwork while he's in his locksmith shop, that would make sense why they would take the bag but not Michael's wallet.
And maybe just because they were going downstairs, Like I don't know how you guys are when you get home, Like as soon as I get home in like a comfy space, I put on like my sweats and I get into my comfy clothes. So maybe because it was sort of informal with Rodriguez, they if they were going downstairs to the locksmith's shop, maybe they were just in their sweats at home and they were like, well, obviously I'm not gonna put on dress shoes. I'm just gonna
put on whatever sneakers i've got kicking around. Doesn't mean they're going for a jog. But maybe they're just going downstairs to talk to Rodriguez and they bring the bag and they're also wearing their sneakers. That would be the only scenario that would make sense to me.
I think so because I think one of the sticking points with the sneakers it was early November, a lot colder than usual, So I think that's why people thought, well, if they were going outside to do something besides jogging, there shouldn't be any logical reason for them to wear their sneakers. It would make more sense for them to wear heavier footwear. But if they were just going downstairs in the apartment and not going outside, then yes, it makes sense they would put their sneakers on.
Was there any snow or rain or anything.
I don't think so. No, but they just described that it was a colder than usual November and that's why they were so anxious to get the heating turned on. So one ironic detail about Rodriguez is that he kept a newspaper article about himself on the wall of his office because in nineteen eighty four there was an incident where he returned a loss nine hundred thousand dollars checked to its rightful owner and was hailed as a hero
by the press. But it seems like Rodriguez might have been over compensating a little bit, considering the numerous acts of fraud he committed over the years. I think it says something that Rodriguez originally bought the building with insurance money he received from his house burning down. Yes, I guess they technically never proved that he committed our sin.
But when you're the type of person who uses the identity of a dead guy to obtain credit cards, I think it's safe to say that there's no limit to the type of scamshi'll pull. And of course there's the fact that another person connected to him, David King, happened to go missing while they were both embroiled in a
civil lawsuit. We'll talk more about David King in a little while, But regardless of whether or not Rodriguez was involved in his disappearance, the fact that he was allegedly using King to provide him with confidential information from a rio I have a fire alarm company really says a lot about his character.
Okay, let's back up a little bit. He has this newspaper article that he returns a lost nine hundred thousand dollars check to its rightful owner. What are you going to do with a nine hundred thousand dollars check written out to somebody else, Because it's not like it's a forty dollars check, and you might be able to run to the bank and try to cash it. And if they said, hey, I need your idea to make sure this is you, you'd be like, oh, I forgot my idea.
I'm so sorry. I'll be back, and you don't get your forty dollars. Or because it's a small check, they just cash it. Because you know, I'll pull into a bank here and I don't think they know me. And if I try to cash a small amount, they cash it. If it's a larger amount, they need proof of identification. He was never going to be able to do anything
with that nine hundred thousand dollars check. So the idea that I just said, hey, I found this check written too, you know, Robin, And I'm like, hey, Robin, I found this check of yours? Is that really heroic?
Probably not? No, Like he if he had been able to figure out a way to use the money for himself, I'm sure he probably could have. But like you said, you're not going to cash a nine hundred thousand dollars check under someone else's name unless you have a fake ID or something like that, or concoct an elaborate scheme.
Right. I guess it was nice he returned it, but I mean, it just it doesn't seem like a heroic thing that a newspaper would write something up about. But I guess it is. I don't know.
I think that we can bet that he went through every possible scenario to see if he could get away with keeping that money. It's not like his first impulse was like, oh, I better return the money. I think that was just the last resort when he realized, shoot, I'm going to get caught here if I try to deposit this into my account, or if I try to like fake this in some way, So why don't I come out looking like, you know, smelling like roses and look like the hero. But I agree, it's not really heroic.
It's like the only option.
Yes, and if it was nine hundred thousand dollars cash and you returned it hero here, Yes, Okay, this is a check written as somebody else, Like you don't just walk up to the bank and like cash this baby for me, you know, No, No, we're gonna go ahead and need some some proof of identification. So I don't know. I think it kind of shows this narcissism that he has this newspaper article framed about himself while he's actively
committed fraud. Is it something that almost provides him this illogical comfort of I'm a good person, I do good things, and he has a frame to look at because honestly, in his everyday life, he's not able to do that consistently.
Baby, it's an entitlement thing saying I heroically returned nine hundred thousand dollars, so therefore I deserve to make nine hundred thousand dollars through other means. So what I'm doing is not illegal.
Yeah, So by the time Rodriguez resurface after disappearing for ten days, he hired himself the services of an attorney named Michael Rosen, and this was a very prominent, high priced guy, as Rosen once represented Thomas Gambino of the infamous Gambino crime family. Since Rodriguez lied to his family about going in for a police interview before he took off, this suggests that he was incredibly paranoid about something. But was it because he had knowledge or involvement in the
disappearances of Michael and Camden Well. It's easy to take his actions as a sign of guilt, but Rodriguez had spent the past several years committing numerous acts of fraud, so even if he was completely innocent of any role in the disappearances, he might have feared that if the police started interviewing him and investigating him, they were going to turn up his other financial indiscretions, which is why
he panicked and got himself a lawyer. If this was Rodriguez's intention all along, then it didn't really do him any good, since it only provided further motivation for authorities to look into his background and that's when they uncovered enough evidence to arrest him on all those other charges and send him to prison. Well, it's undeniable that Rodriguez is a criminal. Does this necessarily mean that he's a murderer?
If Michael and Camden had somehow uncovered evidence of Rodriguez's history of fraud, that might have given him a motive to kill them, But there's nothing to indicate that they knew about it.
Also, when you think about the idea that these two people were murdered, and you know, we had this knowledge that they went to the video store and run in a video, we have knowledge that he left his wallet there. If they voluntarily left their apartment and were victims of some kind of random act, do most random double murders
result in someone hiding two bodies so well? Or would it be more like, Hey, if I was robbing these two, or I was trying to confront these two, wouldn't you have just found their body in the park or wherever they had just been attacked? So I don't know. I just keep thinking like, was this a targeted killing? But how did they get them out of their apartment for a temporary moment when everything inside their apartment shows that they were going to be coming back and spending the evening there.
Yeah, I agree. Like if they went out and were the victims of random mugging, I think whoever killed them would just leave them there rather than going to the trouble of transferring their bodies and getting rid of them, which is why it seems likely that they were murdered by someone they knew who had a lot to hide, And of course Rodriguez seems like the most logical suspect to do that. But once again, the logistics of him pulling off are the part that we just can't figure out.
What do we know about his associates? Did he have any other criminal friends that he hung out with, because if this happened, it seems likely to me that there could have, or maybe potentially was a second person who was assisting Rodriguez.
I mean, that's what I'm thinking. I haven't heard about him having any associates who helped him with his criminal activities. As far as I know, he worked alone, and I don't know if he had anyone else closer to him who would have helped him dispose of two bodies. I guess is that another possibility as he could have gotten members of his family to help out, because they were described as not being very cooperative with the police whence
Rodriguez went missing. But that depends like, do you want to protect a family member that you think who has committed fraud. I'm sure they would be willing to do that, But would they go to that length to help protect him if they knew that he had committed two murders. So another potential motive which has been pushed forward, is that Rodriguez wanted the couple out of the way so we could finally rent out their loft to someone for
a much larger sum of money. I mean, even in nineteen ninety seven, paying a monthly rent of only three hundred and four dollars for a fourteen hundred square foot loft in Manhattan is a pretty mind blowing deal. Even if there were issues with the heating or Rodriguez in general. I can definitely understand why Michael and Candon would have
wanted to hold onto this place. At the time, New York City had very strict rent control and stabilization, and since Michael had originally rented the place over twenty years earlier, he did not have to worry too much about him. We know that Rodriguez was suffering from financial problems and over thousands of dollars in back taxes on the building, so yes, it would have been in his best interest to have Michael and Camden out of the loft so that he could rent it to a new tenant at
three thousand dollars per month. That might seem like a compelling motive, but the problem is that Rodriguez really didn't gain anything from the couple's absence in the long run. I know that until Rodriguez's arrest, there was a dispute between him and Camden's mother, Laurie Sylvia, because she wanted to pay the three hundred and four dollars monthly rent to hold on to the loft, but he refused to
accept the money. Rodriguez's attorney did make a public statement that he had no intention of renting out the loft while Michael and Camden were missing, but it's possible that Rodriguez was advised to do this for pr purposes in order to make himself look less suspicious. But the ironic thing is that the publicity surrounding the disappearances actually drew interest in the loft from a number of curiosity seekers
who wanted to rent it. Rodriguez could have made himself a good chunk of money if he let this happen, but he never did, and the loft did not go on the market again until after Rodriguez was arrested and sold the building to new owners. So yes, Campden and Michael's disappearances did not financially benefit Rodriguez in any way
until Rodriguez's arrest. I cannot imagine how awkward it must have been for the other residents of that building to be living with a landlord who was under suspicion for potentially causing the disappearances of two tenants, even if they didn't believe he was guilty. How weird would it have felt to bring an issue to this guy's attention. I wonder if anyone ever complained about the heat again?
Yeah you know, I mean for me when you look at this idea, would it have benefited him to get rid of them? I think in the long run, yes, short term no, because again he denies that he's willing to take payment for the rent. But remember he's only getting three hundred dollars a month. When is three thousand a month. So is he really going to be made or broken because of the three hundred dollars a month
he's missing? Probably not. It almost makes me wonder does he not fix things in the building hoping that these people who have been there for a long time get fed up and they want to leave. But I think when you're being held at a three hundred and four dollars a month rent, I would put up with a heck of a lot, and I would fuss and fight,
but I would have zero intention of leaving. But I wonder if he thinks in his head, if I can just hold out long enough, they'll get so miserable that they'll want out, and then he could start running those other loss out for the three thousand dollars a month. Does he think he's gonna go by and kill every single one of the residents that's paying three hundred and
seven dollars a month? No? Probably not. But like we talked about earlier, is it possible that a confrontation went sour even when it wasn't intended to result in their deaths and that's what happened? Or is this just simultaneously existing with a really bad guy being their landlord and they also go missing because of nothing he did. I don't like Rodriguez. He has so many arrows and neon
signs pointing to him. But again, I'm trying to figure out how and how did he hide it so good, And the police did really explore and examine his life and they didn't find any evidence or anything to link him to Michael and Camden. So I'm just torn.
And it's like, if a crime had taken place in the apartment building, and if any of the other tenants like heard or saw anything unusual, I don't think they keep their mouth shuts about it because they disliked Rodriguez too. It would have been more than happy to see him removed his landlord if he was a suspect and a murder. But the fact that they didn't report anything suspicious just seems so odd to me and makes me wonder if murders took place they took if they occurred at another location.
Now we mentioned earlier that we cannot possible the pinpoint the last time Michael and Camden were confirmed to be alive, and we can't even be one hundred percent certain that they interacted with Rodriguez. According to their neighbor Check Delaney, He did see Camden in the building that morning and she told him she was heading to Rodriguez's locksmith shop to present him with a signed letter about the rent strip.
We know this letter did wind up in the office, but it's unclear if Camden just dropped it off there or if she interacted with Rodriguez. Since Rodriguez declined to discuss the case publicly, he never did confirm or deny
if he spoke with her. The transaction at the video store confirmed that Camden did visit other locations that day, and the primary theory, which has been presented by her mother, Laurie, is that after renting the video, Camden returned to the apartment and both she and Michael decided to go out and confront Rodriguez together. This is when things could have
gone horribly wrong and they both wound up dead. But again, if Rodriguez committed murder inside the building, how did he manage to do so without attracting attention and how did he dispose of the two bodies?
And remember, police do start to explore and examine Rodriguez as someone who's a person of interest, So do we know if they ever investigated or went in and explored the locksmith shop. Did they go in and look at vehicles of his and do any kind of luminol testing or look for evidence or find anything of theirs. I don't think they did. But remember it's weeks later that we're starting to get all this information about Rodriguez, So
I I don't know. I sit there and I think, well, if police had immediately known, could he have maybe not been able to dispose of something that would have linked him. But once they identified him, did they go and start to investigate and explore spaces that he could have possibly done something to them?
I think they did. They did use cadab or sniffing dogs and tore up the flooring in Rodriguez's locksmith shop, but this didn't take place until I think over a year after the fact, when Rodriguez was arrested on the fraud charges. So they didn't get to do it immediately. So if there was any evidence there a foul play, he would have had ample time to dispose of it and cover it up.
Oh the two people being killed and the blood that could have resulted from that, there's a lot of cases that years later they go and they pull flooring up, and while the surface might be clean and you might not be able to get information, there is DNA and there is biological evidence that's on the undersides or through
the cracks of the floor. So it's kind of fascinating to me that there was nothing if they went to that extent to tear the floors up, I would assume it did not take place in the locksmith shop.
But that's the assumption that the way that they were killed was a way that drew blood. True could have been blunt force trauma, could have been strangulation. There could have been different ways in which they were killed, especially if there was two people in They wouldn't necessarily have to be a gun because you're right in the middle of the city center, and if it's right by all of these units, then you run the risk of somebody hearing that gunfire unless you have a silencer or you
you make like a homemade silencer. Seems like it's very risky to use a gun, and even if it is a head injury, like you can't guarantee there won't be blood because often there is. But I think there are different scenarios where he could have carried this out at the locksmith's shop, and there might not have been very much biological evidence that at the time they would have been able to maybe gather, whereas today if they would have gone in and assessed it, it might have been a different story.
Very true. And if there was blood, who's to say they weren't on some area rug or something like that. That or but if he grabbed him and broke one of their necks, and you know who knows. You're right, there's many many causes of death that would not have resulted in a substantial amount of blood. You're right. I was thinking stabbing or shooting. But there's a million options
that could have happened. And like you said, especially two people, there wouldn't have had to be such a violent struggle or movement of the bodies to incapacitate them or to kill them.
So now we have to go back and explore the second unsolved missing person's case in this story, and that's the disappearance of David King. This case has gotten nowhere near as much publicity as the disappearances of Michael and Camden,
and there's even less evidence to suggest what happened. All we know is that King left his house in January of nineteen ninety one to go to work and subsequently disappeared, but no one even attempted to file a missing person's report until July the seventeenth of that year, when King's mother, Emma Toppin, learned from his wife and children that they
had not seen him in nearly six months. Back in nineteen ninety one, the New York Police Department had a policy that unless there was strong evidence that foul play had taken place where the victim had a serious medical or mental condition, they cannot accept missing persons reports for
anyone between the ages of seventeen and sixty five. This policy has since changed, but I think it was likely in place because New York City had an insanely high crime rate in nineteen ninety one, so the police just did not have the resources to search for every missing person.
And besides, since King was a co defendant and a thirteen million dollars civil lawsuit, it wasn't hard to imagine him running off on his own to escape his legal troubles, so his disappearance got zero media coverage at that time.
Of course, once Robert Rodriguez got linked to another missing person's case, six years later, King's case finally got a proper investigation, but Emma Toppin did not hesitate to publicly express or frustration that it took the disappearance of two white people for the disappearance of her African American son to finally receive any attention.
What is so sad is we've talked about this before. She is not alone in her frustration that we know families of color that missing people of color that you often do not have a media attention sometimes, you know, depending on where you are, the police attention is also very limited. And so you look at poor Emma and she's saying, okay, now you're paying attention now that these two white kids are this white couple got has also disappeared.
Now my son matters. It's very, very heartbreaking because a human being is a human being. And I do believe when you start looking at homicide investigations, homicide coverage that things like wealth, race, gender, those things significantly matter in the energy that is sometimes put forth. And it's horrific. But for Emma, she's saying, you know, at least someone's looking, but why did it take so long? Incredibly complex grief there. It makes me very very sad.
And it's also sad to think that if Rodriguez did have something to do with King's disappearance they had investigated from the start, would things have turned out differently from Michael and Canden, Like, would Rodriguez possibly have been arrested, have gone to prison before they went missing, and the course of their lives would have been completely different exactly.
And when you look at the way the media and law enforcement and the community also puts value or a lack of value on the victim, they aren't thinking that a victim also means there's an offender. And so whether you value that victim or not, when you start to look at the bigger picture of what it means to not put the energy towards, not put media coverage towards every homicide, then you also say, oh, well, this offender
maybe isn't as important. There's someone who's capable of killing. So, like you said, Robin, if there is someone who is killed and their case is not viewed as a place to place resources, then there's also a community at risk because an offender's living amongst them. So it's a very small mind reality that we live with in the criminal justice field.
The information about King's disappearance is fairly limited, but it sounds like Rodriguez had promised him a partnership in his business after luring him away from his previous employer, and this failed to materialize. The two men were reportedly seen having an argument a short time before King went missing, so it's easy to assume that Rodriguez might have been
involved in what happened. In the long run. I guess King's disappearance did benefit Rodriguez and his potential culpability in the civil lawsuit, because even though King wound up being ordered to pay ninety thousand dollars in damages, Rodriguez pretty much got off scot free by pinky swearing that he would not use any of the confidential information that King
gave him for his own personal gain. I guess technically they could not prove that Rodriguez new King was providing him with material that was stolen, But if King had been around to provide testimony, things might have turned out differently. Perhaps Rodriguez would have had more liability. So this gave Rodriguez a potential motive to make King disappear. But since no investigation was performed until after Rodriguez hired an attorney, he was never formally interviewed about his potential role in
this case. Now, there have been some confusion about an unidentified John Doe who was found in the East River in nineteen ninety one. He supposedly bore a striking resemblance to King, but it's unclear if DNA testing was ever performed. It's been reported that King's family refused to provide blood samples for DNA testing, but since his mother has always been an outspoken advocate for him, I find it hard
to imagine her not cooperating with this. The last media coverage I've seen about King is in an article from Newsday in August of two thousand and four, and since it makes no mention of the John Doe, I can only assume that he was.
Not a match.
It sounds like they were unable to determine the exact cause of death for the decedent. So even so, even if it was so, even if it was King, that doesn't necessarily mean he was murdered. For all we know, King may have been overcome by the stress of the civil lawsuit and decided to take his own life by jumping off the bridge. Into the East River. With so little information, it's tough to make a conclusive determination about what happened to King.
So this is the DNA testing that we were talking about last time, that they were hoping it would match King, but it resulted in an inconclusive result. Is that correct?
Yeah? Like, there are differing sources, one that says that the results were inconclusive, and other sources say that his family refused to provide their own blood for a comparison. But like I said, I find that hard to believe. Given how outspoken his mother was for him, I think she would have been more than happy to provide her DNA.
Yeah, no way. If she's if she's strong enough to stand there and say, hey, you didn't investigate my son's investigation or my son's disappearance until these two other people went missing, and she's willing to be vocal, she's desperate to know what happened to her son. I will move mountains, and I guarantee you everyone else in that family looked at her and said she deserved to know what happened to him, And so I cannot imagine that everyone in
his lineage would have said no way. And so it is very interesting when you look at the idea that there was a deceased individual that they thought possibly could be King, there's inconclusive evidence of who this person is, so there if that's true, and that is the ultimate outcome, there is a small percentage that he could be King, but we just don't know that. It's also possible it's not King, and that his body it has never been discovered, And so is it possibly he took his own life? Absolutely?
Is it possible he was murdyreed? Absolutely? Is it possible something else happened. Anything's possible when you don't have an answer. So while it looks like King needed to disappear, either for Rodriguez or to avoid his own criminal charges in those kinds of things, I think this is a very very difficult case to look at because we simply have zero information. There's a motive for him to disappear on his own and there's a motive to get rid of him, but we have no evidence of which way that went.
So again, for Rodriguez, looks like neon signs pointing to him, But is her responsible? Is it possible for someone to have that bad of luck that you are a criminal, but you're not a murderer. You seem to be associated with these people that go missing. It's so illogical to think that someone could have that bad of luck, But that is a possible outcome.
I mean, that's the thing. I mean, he looks awfully suspicious, but they just don't have any hard evidence of foul play. And well, it seems unlikely that three separate people at different time periods could go missing under his wall. They've just never been able to prove that he actually was personally involved. All that being said, it still seems like quite a coincidence that Rodriguez would be linked to otherwise
completely unrelated missing persons cases. I think the key difference between them is that we know for a fact that Rodriguez and King colluded together to do unethical things, so King might have known some incriminating information which put his life in danger. And what we also know for a fact that Rodriguez was doing a ton of illegal things at the time Michael and Camden went missing. We don't
know if they knew anything about that. But if the couple did learn something incriminating and Rodriguez decided to get rid of them, how would these events have unfolded? Well, One detail about this case which I've always found interesting is this cash of licensed guns, which Rodriguez supposedly owned
and could not be accounted for. As you recall, Rodriguez was originally going to be paroled two years before his scheduled release date, but the parole Board changed their minds when the question Rodriguez about these guns, and he was unable to provide conclusive answers about what happened to them. In fact, it's been reported that Rodriguez could have received a lighter sense than two to six years if he had turned in these guns at the time he pled guilty,
but he never did. Now, I think the only reason this questioning even took place was because the Board's decision to parole Rodriguez was met with considerable backlash, and they probably were looking for any loophole they could find to
reverse their decision without admitting me had screwed up. Given that a number of years had passed, I guess it's possible that Rodriguez legitimately had no idea where the guns were, but he was apparently quite a vasive with his answers, and to me, the biggest red flag is that he invoked his fifth Amendment privilege to avoid self incrimination. I mean, pleading the fifth can be a necessary tactic when you're
questioned under oath in a courtroom. But this is honestly the first time I've ever heard of anyone pleading the fifth at a parole hearing. Parole boards expect inmates to be on honest and take accountability for their actions. But if you decline to answer questions on the grounds of self incrimination, that comes across like you have something to add and pretty much guarantees you're not getting out of prison.
Absolutely. This is why when we talk about cases of wrongful convictions and there's people who are in prison who are here, I didn't do it, I didn't do it, and they are up for parole and they say, guys, I didn't do this, like I need my name cleared because I didn't do it. A parole board says, if you can't take accountability for why you're here, then clearly
you're not remorseful, and clearly you can't be released. So then not only do you have an offender sitting there saying you know, I didn't do this, or well that's not how it happened. No, this man is saying I will not answer your questions because I might incriminate myself. If you're worried about incriminating yourself, you clearly have other issues going on and you need to stay behind bars.
Very very fascinating that this person would have a collection of guns, cannot account for them, cannot provide information about them, and there's a possibility that three people are missing as a result of your actions. Very very interesting. I've never heard, like you said, I've never heard of a parole board interviewing someone that they're planning to release back into the community who says, ah, I can't answer your questions, I
plead the fifth. Normally, you're begging for them to see you as a human, to see you as someone who's thoughtful, who's going to be an excellent, contributing member of society, who is no longer a risk. He again is making horrific decisions as far as drawing attention to the type of man that he is.
So this makes me wonder why did Rodriguez want to avoid talking about this cash of guns. So in spite of his financial crimes, it doesn't sound like he had any known history of violence in his background, So could one of these guns have been used as a murder weapon.
If he shot someone and disposed of the gun, then it would be very difficult for him to explain what happened to it and could account for why he elected to plead the fifth Even if this ruined his chance as a parole and meant that he would have to serve two more years in prison for fraud, that's still preferable to spending the rest of your life in prison
for murder. But I must provide a disclaimer about this detail about the guns, that it is nothing more than speculation on Robin's part when he initially did his trail and Cold episode. And we both still have issues with the idea that Rodriguez could have shot Michael and Camden inside the apartment building without anybody hearing anything. So we know that all of Rodriguez's financial crimes were eventually uncovered
because he got himself in way over his head. So that's why you have to wonder if he was capable of getting away with the perfect murder without leaving any incriminating evidence behind. Anyway, as far as we can tell, Robert Rodriguez is still alive today at the age of eighty four, so if he really was responsible for these crimes, then the clock is ticking to uncover evidence against him.
There's my chance. Rodriguez's main motivation for not cooperating with the investigation into Michael and Camden's disappearances was because he was afraid of his financial crimes being uncovered. Well, that wound up happening anyway, and he served his time in prison. If he truly has nothing left to hide, then I wish that he would finally cooperate and speak to the
police about what he knows. But then again, even if he's innocent in this case, there may still be things about the disappearance of David King which he does not want to discuss absolutely.
And what's really interesting is how would they prove otherwise if you said, you know, I honestly wasn't the most responsible gun owner. Yes, I have a collection of guns. Because I have a collection of guns, I don't really keep track of where they are and what I'm doing with them. So I remember that I have a couple that are in a safe, I have a couple that are under the bed. But for some reason I remember that there's several that I just can't account for. And
I was your responsible. I mean, like, they already know you have them and where are they? So what if you were just you know, oh, I recognized a couple of them were missing. I used to loan him out to friends, and I have zero idea who borrowed that weapon from me? I lost them. I don't know, Like, why would you plead the fifth? Why not just make up a story? How could they disprove that?
Yeah, that is just what's so weird to me that he didn't even attempt to make up a lie or just say that he lost him or he had no idea. He flat up pleads the fifth, which is the most suspicious looking thing you could do, which kind of indicates to me that there's some sort of desperation at play there and he really really doesn't want anyone finding out
where those guns could be. So. As for Laurie Sylvia, at the time her daughter went missing, she was an advocate for the disabled and would pretty much become the official advocate for Camden and Michael. This is not the only family tragedy that Laurie has experienced, as two of her uncles vanished and were lost at sea during the nineteen fifties and in January of twenty fourteen, she lost her forty eight year old son, Matthew, when he passed
away after a long battle with pancreatis. While Laurie is still with us today, she is also in her mid eighties, so it would be nice if she finally received some answers about what happened to her daughter. So, if you happen to have any information on the disappearances of Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia, as well as the unsolved disappearance of David King, please call the New York Police Department at six four six six one zero six nine one four.
That's six four six six one zero six nine one four, Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in this case.
Disappearances and missing people are some of the most interesting and heartbreaking cases to me because it's as if someone just disappeared into thin air and no one knows what happened to them. And yet you can't just have a body evaporate that those three people, at some point their body should surface, should be found, they somebody should know what happened to them. Right. It just doesn't really cognitively make sense to me that David King up had disappeared
never to be seen again. Camden and Michael up A disappeared, never to be seen again. So in these cases, it's this constant prayer of mine that like, Okay, one day,
remains are going to be discovered. These families are going to get answers, and while they might not ever know who the perpetrator was, they would at least have their loved one's remains back to kind of close the idea that my loved one matters and I want to know that they are now safely in a single location and I know where they are, like that just peace of mind. Are these likely to be solved and prosecuted. Probably not.
But again, if there was just this ability to have the remains back where people like Glory and these families would say, my baby is is, I know where she is now. I have control over the location of her body and I don't have to wonder what else is happening. I have her back to me as a mother. That's something that would be incredibly important. That the idea of her just disappearing into thin air is one of the most harmful possibilities. I just need her back, no matter
what form that's in. And so again, how does a body just disappear. It can happen. I mean, there are methods to make a body disintegrate and disappear, but is that likely, Like we said, to what extent in the middle of Manhattan can you just get rid of things? How easy is it to eliminate one, two, or maybe even three people and no one knows, there's no evidence,
there's no trail left behind. So missing persons just so tragic, and I'm my prayer would be at the minimum that these families would be able to one day have their loved ones and have the control over their remains.
I totally agree, and I personally think that Rodriguez holds the key to where where the bodies are. And I think that this is like the case of a hidden variable homicide, and that there's so many variables that we just aren't aware of, Like was there another person? It could have been a family member, because like Robin said, the family members weren't cooperative, and so you've got to wonder why when you've got two missing people and they're
not trying to help. It's like either they know that he's doing all the fraud stuff and they're just trying not to get involved, or they are scared of him in some capacity, or they're complicit in some way. And I think that because Manhattan is this, you know, small island, and it's so populated, everybody's basically on top of each other, that it's so hard to envision how somebody could carry
this out. But if there was a second person, and if he did have a van from his locksmith's shop, there would And Ashley had mentioned like what if there was an area rug on the ground, what if he put their bodies in this van, had the help of somebody, and he drove them to New Jersey. I just think of Rex Hureman, the Long Island serial killer, and how long the bodies of those women are. All those individuals
were there. They were only discovered because of Shannon Gilbert's disappearance and her call to nine one one, which was very troubling, and so that kicked off a search which then those bodies were discovered. So it is my hope that Michael and Camden will be discovered at some point and King as well, and that perhaps there is a dumping ground or an area where Rodriguez is disposed of these bodies, because in my gut, I truly believe that he's the one that holds the key to the answers
that the families deserve at this point. And the fact that he's like eighty five, now that is so wild to me, because he's gone his whole life with as far as we know, not confessing to anybody, or at least nobody that would come forward, and so we're running out a time. I'm here, this is like a Tommy Zeger thing, not in that he's innocent, just in that he's at an advanced age, and so if we want a resolution, it's going to need to be soon.
Yeah. I actually talked about these missing persons cases in which it seems like the victim has just vanished into thin air, and this is definitely an example of one of them. And it's particularly frustrating in the cases where you have a very compelling suspect, but you just don't have any evidence of foul play or any indication what
happened to the victims at all. I mean, it would be one thing if Michael and Cannon were last seen going to a meeting with Robert Rodriguez and then they just disappeared, But we don't even have a real pinpoint moment of the last time they were seen to be alive. We know they return to their apartment left at some point, but they don't know where they were going or what happened to them. And no one reported seeing or hearing anything unusual, no gunshots, no suspicious actions of like Rodriguez
carrying something into a vehicle. So even though it is compelling to think that Rodriguez killed them because of this dispute, there's just no hard evidence that, and under normal circumstances, I might have been willing to give Rodriguez a break and think that, well, maybe he's acting this way because he was committing fraud on the side, that he had nothing to do with what happened to Michael and Camden.
But then you learn the background with David King and how he conveniently went missing in the middle of a dispute, and you're thinking, Wow, I don't think anyone is that unlucky, Like, it's be quite a coincidence if three people connected to this guy all happened to go missing under unrelated circumstances. So he asked to be involved somehow. But if he was,
he covered his tracks very well. And like we talked about how does he get rid of two people in downtown Manhattan from an apartment building in the middle of the day without attracting any attention. And this is why it's easy to believe that he might have had accomplices, maybe business associates or family members who helped him dispose of the crime. And like you mentioned, he's now in
his eighties, he doesn't have much time left. So I really hope that if he did do something, they can finally uncover some evidence and maybe finally find the victims' bodies and finally get a conclusive resolution, because, like we talked about, Lori, Sylvia has gone without answers for far too long.
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which are not featured on The Trail Went Cold's original feed. So they're exclusive to Patreon and if you join our highest tier, Tier three,
the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsawved Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.
So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jewels and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those. So we hope you'll check out those patreons.
We'll link them in the show notes.
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Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy