Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for our conclusion of our three part series about the disappearance of Stephen Kosher, Robin, do you want to catch everyone up? And what we talked about in our previous episode, well.
In our last two episodes we talked about the known facts of the case that have been shared for over a decade. Stephen Kosher was thirty years old, came from a tight knit Mormon family in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he reached the age of thirty and surprisingly was not married yet and did not have children, even though all of his siblings did. But he still seemed to
be very close to his family. He was not a strange for them or anything, but he was going through a number of personal struggles because he had relocated to the town of Saint George, Utah, which was three hundred miles away. But the Great Recession of two thousand and eight hit and he left himself very underemployed, couldn't hold down a full time job, he was broken behind in his rent, and he seemed unwilling to accept any assistance
from his family. And then in December of two thousand and nine, Stephen would go missing under very strange circumstances. In the days prior to his disappearance, he made two unexplained road trips through various locations throughout Utah and Nevada, where one day he drove around eleven hundred miles, but nobody really knows why, particularly since traveling that distance and spending money on gas is not something you would or
nearly do when you're struggling financially. And then, finally, on December the thirteenth, he decided to make an unexplained trip to Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas. He went to an affluent neighborhood where all the residents were seniors over the age of fifty five, and one of the neighbors had a camera outside his residence which showed Stephen parking his car, climbing out while caring what appeared to be a folder in his hand, and after he walked out
a frame in the camera. He vanished without a trace. They picked up some pings on his cell phone in the days after his disappearance, and somebody even checked his voicemail, but we don't exactly know who did it, and Stephen has sadly not been seen since. There's been a lot of speculation that maybe because he was falling on hard times, that maybe his disappearance was a suicide, or he walked
out into the Nevada desert and died of exposure. But on this episode, we're finally going to talk about a theory which suggests that Stephen may have been the victim of foul play and did not leave that neighborhood in Henderson alive. Well, now we're finally going to discuss the new information about this case which has been unearthed in recent years, and will start off by discussing Stephen's landlord,
Brett Bishop. Even though Stephen was renting a house in Saint George, Brett Bishop and his wife Tina lived in Aura, Utah, which is located about two hundred and sixty five miles northwest.
Brett is actually quite a sketchy character, as he had an extensive arrest record, and in August of two thousand and nine, the authorities performed a raid of his residence in Orum, where they turned up a cache of guns, some marijuana, a number of prescription pills and prescription bottles with other people's names on them, and a Porsche which
had been stolen from a dealership in Arizona. Years earlier, Brett had previously been employed by a closed door pharmacy business, which would deliver prescription medications to exclusive clients such as rest homes and troubled youth centers. The reason the pharmacy let Brett go was because they received an anonymous email alleging that he might have been ripping them off in
order to sell these pills on the side. I mentioned in our first episode that a YouTuber named Aaron Stoner ironic name given what we're talking about right now, has produced a thorough multi episode series about this case, and one of the episodes focused on online posts that Tina Bishop has made at sites like the web Slues Forum in the year's following Stephen's disappearance. During her posts, Tina has cast a lot of suspicion on Jordan's circle, Steven's
former roommate at the house in Saint George. We mentioned in our first episode that Stephen and Jordan had polar opposite personalities, as Stephen was a straight laced religious person who was very devoted to his faith, while Jordan seemed to be more of a partier who had a prior drug possession. Conviction on his record. In spite of this, it sounds like the two roommates got along well enough and did not have any serious conflict, even though I'm
not sure if Tina ever met Jordan. It almost seems like she's trying to betray him as this major drug dealer who could have gotten Stephen involved in something illegal. But the problem is that Jordan moved out of the house a month before Stephen went missing, and there's nothing to indicate that the two former roommates were still keeping in touch. Jordan even agreed to do a phone interview on one of Aaron Stoner's YouTube episodes, and he honestly
sounds like he has nothing to hide. Jordan was very cooperative when he was interviewed by law enforcement during the original in investigation, and it does not sound like they ever considered him to be a possible suspect.
And if he was some major drug dealer, there definitely would have been bigger implications and complications here. It sounds like a person who's a kid who's a little lost and doing whatever feels good at the time. And what's interesting and what I think is quite charming, is that Stephen lived alongside this kid, and he had his own life. Jordan had his own life, and the two boys seem
to kind of coexist seamlessly. One of the cool things is that, I guarantee you one of Steven's ideas was that I can model my faith and share my faith with a roommate who doesn't have the same lifestyle, and who knows, maybe I actually influenced him in a good way. So I can see that being a very you know, I don't know, healthy might be the wrong word, but kind of charming dynamic that you have these two roommates
at polar opposite ends. And was Jordan really that far out polar opposite ends or is it a young kid who uses drugs and is a party right, I don't think he was a major drug dealer, or you would have seen the police look a lot deeper into that. And it sounds more like the wife is trying to throw the scent off of she and her husband.
Yeah, exactly. The whole scenario sounds like a wacky sitcom where you have a devout Mormon and a stoner being roommates, but in spite of their differences, they get along very well. And that's exactly what it sounded like that even though they probably would not be close friends if they were not living in the same house together, it does not sound like they add any conflicts. And even though Jordan liked smoke his marijuana every now and then, he was
not someone who dealt drugs. And I do agree that it sounds like Tina Bishop is using a lot of projection considering that Jordan all he had in his record was a drug possession charge, whereas her husband, Brett, he got busted turning up a cash of guns and a stolen car and a whole bunch of different drugs in his house. So it's like she shouldn't be the one casting stones.
So as Ashley just said, Ed Robin just reiterated, it's been theorized that Tina and may have been pointing the finger at Jordan in order to deflect suspicion away from her husband Brett. One interesting detail Jordan's chered during his interview is that whenever Brett visited the residence in Saint George, he was always carrying a toiletry bag which made noises whenever it moved, to indicate that it likely contained pill bottles.
Now here's where things get weird. At the time he went missing, Stephen was three months and fifteen hundred dollars behind in his rent, but when Brett was interviewed by police following his disappearance, he said that he had no plans to evict Stephen from the house since he was
confident that the money would eventually be paid. During her online post, Tina stated that a few days before Stephen went missing, Brett spoke to him and they quote worked something out which would ensure that the rent would be
all paid up by January. But the problem is that Stephen's phone records were checked and while it shows that Brett texted him a few times on December seventh and eighth, there's no record of any communication between them until December thirteenth, as Brett called Stephen's phone at four thirty six pm that afternoon. This was four and a half hours after Stephen was last seen in sun City, Anthem, and would explain why his phone pinged off a tower located ten
miles away. Let's also not forget that Brett made a phone call to Ralph Klosher on December ninth to inform him about the rent situation, as Stephen had listed him as a contact in the rental agreement. Brett told Ralph that he was calling him because he was unable to reach Stephen. But it still strikes me as odd that he would phone the father of a thirty year old man about the situation, as this feels similar to a teacher calling the parents of his student who's having trouble
in school. If Stephen and Brett had already quote worked something out, why would he feel the need to call Ralph to begin with. So according to Rolf, Stephen acted pretty hostile when he called him to inquire about the situation, So it sounds like Stephen was none too please that Brett got in touch with his father.
Yeah, and also think about this. If he's actually communicating with him December seventh and eighth, and I'm assuming he gets a response from Stephen, why does he feel this need to have a concern one day later and call the dad. You had been in communication with him, right, he had been texting him?
Uh? Yeah, like on the seventh and the eighth. And when you look at the whole thing about how Brett and Steven had supposedly worked something out, you would have to assume that they work something out on the seventh or the eighth, because the next time that Brett called
Stephen was on the thirteenth, after Steven went missing. So it just seems weird that if they had quote unquote work something out, that Brett would suddenly decide to call Stephen's father unsolicited on his phone to inform him about his problems with their late rent. And what day does he actually go missing the thirteenth? The thirteenth.
Yeah, so this doesn't make any sense. Either he didn't say they were going to work something out, or there was some kind of deal made and Stephen wasn't following.
Through with it.
But I just have to step back and think, Okay, I owe my landlord. I have never I've been like, I've had a person who's kind to me. But if it came down to I did or did not pay you that check, you don't care about me. You care about your money. And so I find it interesting that this guy's kind of flippant about his rent and that I will just figure it out later. I never met a landlord like that, and then to have him so concerned about this money that he has to reach out
to the data day after talking to Steven. It seems like he has some kind of erratic issue going on, not Steven.
Well, it's pretty incongruous. His actions and his words aren't matching up.
I mean, I can understand it if Brett and Steve Ben had already been close friends and they known each other for a long time, and he's thinking, oh, it's okay, bro, you can pay me whenever you want. I trust you. But like we mentioned, Brett lived one hundred miles away. These were not close friends, so it seems weird that he would be willing to cut Steven, a guy he'd know all that well, all this slack.
It's just so weird that he said, oh, yeah, like we had something worked out, but then you felt the need to call his father, So it feels like you really didn't have something worked out, or why would you feel the need to call the father of a thirty year old match exactly.
But here's the interesting part. During his lengthy road trip on December tenth, Stephen stopped to get gas in Springville, Utah, at five twenty five pm Mountain time, which would have been on his route between Salt Lake City and Saint George. Well, we previously revealed that Brett and Tina Bishop lived in Orum and it just happens to be located fourteen miles outside Springville. So could Steven have paid a visit to the bishops that day? And this is where they quote
unquote worked something out. If Brett was involved in drug trafficking, could he of course Stephen into making some deliveries for him in exchange for wiping out the debt of Stephen's back rent. Give it Stephen's high moral character, I don't want to accuse him of getting involved in something illegal without evidence, But it's also possible that Brett asked Stephen to do some favors for him without revealing the full
extent of what it was. We mentioned earlier that it made no sense for Stephen to drive northeast through Utah towards Salt Lake City before he went to visit the Nefts and Ruby Valley, since it would have been a much quicker route for him to drive northwest through Nevada. However, if Stephen needed to pay a visit to the bishops in Orum, that would explain his detour, and for all we know, they could have given him some cash to help cover his expenses, such as his stops to pay
for gas. This may also account for Stephen's road trip through Nevada on December the twelfth, where he passed through over Tin and Mesquite, as he may have been asked
to make deliveries there. If Brett wrote Stephen into doing something for him, I have to wonder if his call to Rolf was a psychological ploy of some sort, because now that Stephen knew his parents were aware of his serious financial problems, he might have felt desperate enough to help Brett out in order to make his unpaid rent issues go away.
Yeah, it's very possible. It's possible that he's saying, Okay, I don't want to take help from my parents. Brett has this favor I can do for him, or says that if I'll just, you know, quickly do these things for him, he'll give me the cash or he'll cover my rent for me. I could see him getting tied up in something, especially when you talk about Jordan's a
drug user. So what does he have to risk or why would he make up that this other guy comes into his house and has pills and things like that that make him a little suspicious or make his ears perk, thinking, Hey, this guy might be doing something drug related. That information comes from a kid who could have gotten himself in trouble by talking to the police, and instead he still disclosed those kinds of details. And so I'm quite suspicious of Brett right this second.
And don't you guys think it's a little bit odd to point out the fact that there's a toiletry bag and it made it sound like there's pills. I take a bazillion supplements and those make this exact same sound as prescription drugs. I don't take a single prescription drug.
Well. Also, though, you got to think, why would you need to carry those into the house while you're meeting with two of your tenants, even if you're on the road traveling. Why does your twiletry bag need to be in your hand unless you're considering making an offer to them to buy the drugs from you, or you're dropping some off or something. Why would you have your supplements
in your hand? Illegal pills, prescription pills? Why would those be on your persons while you're meeting with two of your tenants.
And it's all the more significant since we just revealed that Brett used to be involved in a closed door pharmacy business, which involved making deliveries of pills, so that could be another reason why he's bringing them into his rental house. Like maybe he's delivering these pills to someone else who lives in the area and it's just something he carries around all the time.
So you think he just doesn't want to leave it in his car because it just seems like such an odd thing to bring into your rental property unless you have tenants who are buying those pills from you.
That's what I'm thinking, was he offer the boys' pills?
I mean, we haven't heard any confirmation from Jordan that specifically sold him any pills. He just talked about hearing like the sound of him the pills jaggling around when he was carrying them. But it makes me wonder though, maybe if Jordan, even if he had nothing to do with Stephen's disappearance, if he bought drugs from Brett, that might be one of those things he's reluctant to talk about openly.
And that could be exactly why he's inferring that Jordan has some kind of pills or he's got something illegal, because he doesn't want to outright say, yeah, I bought them from him, So he's just going to infer the
Jordan has them now. Tina says that on December thirteenth, she and Brett traveled to the house in Saint George and discovered Stephen wasn't there, who had noticed his personal possessions were still inside the residence, But in separate online posts made years apart, she told two completely different stories.
At first, Tina wrote that she and Brett took a routine trip to Saint George and decided to stay at the house in order to money for a hotel since there was an unused bedroom which was always kept locked when they weren't there. However, in her second post, Tina claimed that Brett was worried that Stephen might have decided to skip out without paying his rent, so they traveled to the house, but since Stephen's personal belongings were still there,
this quelled their concern that he had taken off. But once again, phone records show that Brett made no attempt to call or text Stephen's cell phone between eight twenty three am on December eighth and four thirty six pm on December thirteen. If you were so concerned that Stephen was going to take off without paying his rent. Why wouldn't you try calling him rather than drive three and
a half hours from Oran to Saint George. And when Brett was interviewed by police, he said he was confident that Stephen would pay him everything he owed rather than taking off. It just strikes me as an odd coincidence that Brett and Tina would decide to make this impromptu trip to Stephen's house on the same afternoon he went missing. In addition, the last Brett called Stephen Celthoam was on December fourteenth at six oh four am, which is right around the same time the phone was used to check
his voicemail, which seems like another odd coincidence. All that being said, these suspicions about the Bishop are based entirely on Tiffany's online posts. At no point have law enforcement ever named Brett as a suspect or person of interest. These suspicions about the Bishop are based entirely on Tina's online posts, and at no point have law enforcement ever named Brett as a suspect or person of interest.
He again, though his words aren't matching his actions. You are concerned that he's not going to pay you. You had to travel to the house or the apartment to look and see if he was there, and when his belongings are there, then you're not so worried. You don't just think he could have taken off and left his belongings. And you were concerned when you called his dad and said he wasn't going to pay. So it's really interesting because you have these messages to so many different people
that don't line up. Hey, I talked to him. We work something out. Hey, Dad, I'm concerned Stephen is not going to pay his rent. Oh, don't worry, police, I have no worries that he wasn't going to pay his rent.
Oh.
Hey, by the way, we actually traveled and went there to make sure that he was still residing in this dwelling. But don't worry. We aren't worried about him paying his rent. None of that lines.
Up, and we're not going to try to call him either to like see where he is, even though we're worried that he's going to take off without paying any rent. But let's operate under the assumption that Brett asked Stephen to drive to Henderson and make a delivery in the sun City Anthem neighborhood. If that is what happened. It would not surprise me if Brett provided Steven with a burner phone, which would explain how the two men communicated with each other without a bunch of calls and texts
showing up on Steven's cell phone. For what I can tell, parking on the side of the street in that neighborhood was not permitted for outside residence, so I can see Stephen being given instructions to park in the cul de sac at the end of the road in order to avoid attracting attention. When he walked past the security camera, Stephen appeared to be carrying something like a file folder or portfolio, so this very well could have been an
item that he was attempting to deliver. We just shared a story from Jordan's Zirkle about how Bread liked to carry around a toilet tree bag which likely contained bottles of pills. And since Brett had previously worked for a closed door pharmacy and had a lot of prescription medication at his residence when police raided it, I think it's reasonable to assume that Brett may have been stealing pills
and selling them on the side. I know that police had a sniffer dog go over Stephen's car and have found no sign that any drugs had ever been inside the vehicle. But even though sniffer dogs are trained to detect hard drugs like cocaine and heroin, would they really give off much of a reaction if a small bag of prescription medication had been there. It's possible that since Brett had worked for a pharmacy, Stephen may have believed that the deliveries he was making were legit and had
no idea he was doing anything legal. Of course, Sun City, Anthem would not seem like the most likely location to make a dangerous drug drop, as it's an affluent retirement community where you have to be a minimum age of fifty five in order to live there. I know that Brett's closed door pharmacy delivered medication to rest homes, but how did things escalate to the point that Stephen made a delivery in Sun City Anthem which put his life at risk.
Ooh, this is a much more probable story than what we've been hearing. You have a man who presents himself as someone who works for a pharmaceutical company, and so if he is a pharmaceutical rep or he's working for a pharmacy and delivering quote prescriptions. If he did say, Hey, Brett or hey Stephen, if you could make this run for me, I'll knock five hundred bucks off your rent. Hey buddy, you know, hey, my company needs me to make these runs, but my wife and I have plans.
You think you could do these couple drop offs for me? He might truly believe, like you said earlier in the podcast, that he is doing something noble or legal and he's just helping a friend. Maybe he doesn't know that Brett had gotten in trouble for for his you know, maybe stealing medication and things like that. Now you ask can
drug dogs smell prescription pills? They can, they'd have to be particularly trained, and not just be a dog trained for those heavier drugs, but opioids and opiates those are things that a drug dog can be trained to smell. Again, there's a ton of factors that go into that. You know, were they what were they housed in, and how many
were there and that kind of things. But I mean, it's it's possible that the drug dogs that they put on that car were trained on a host of different types of medications and drugs, Well.
How much would the quantity have to be, Like, if there was just like a bottle or two, would that be large enough for the dogs to detect its scent after the pills were already removed. Do you have much idea about that.
I don't know about that, And I know too, you got to think about what they were, what they were contained in, and so someone who's into diligent obviously could come up with things that would minimize smell. Even dispensary bags and things like that have the ability to kind of minimize the kind of transfer smells, but they're not full proof, right, There's still smells that are detectable, So
I don't know. I think obviously the larger the dosage, the easier they'd be to smell, And depending on what they were housed in, would also make a big difference as well.
Yeah, like if they're vacupatd plastic, right, it's a lot harder. But I also think that sniffer dogs, if they're trained, if there's even just one or two bottles, they should be able to detect that. But it does there's a lot of variable to go into that, like the dog and the handler and what type of training that they had.
How long since the drugs had been there.
They don't know how much stronger dogs noses are than humans, but they know they're at least five thousand times better and possibly millions of times better than ours. So I'm sure that even if there was one pill, if you have a dog that's trained properly, they could smell it. It turned out that back in two thousand and nine, there was one slightly younger resident living in Sun City,
Anthem who was crashing at his parents' property. Going back to the Aaron Stoner YouTube series, he was able to get a hold of the original police reports for this case and posted them on his channel, and they provided some insight into the early stages of the investigation. The police did a door to door canvas of all the residents of Sun City, Anthem, and one of these residents said that someone appeared to be moving out of the house on the Evening Light Street on the same afternoon
Stephen went missing. If that wasn't enough, Stephen just happened to be heading in that direction when he was last seen well. An elderly couple named Severio and Maria DiMaggio had been living in the house but moved to another residence in Henderson in November of two thousand and nine.
That would explain why the house on Evening Light Street seemed to be empty and devoid of furniture whenever the police attempted to check it out, but it does an account for why someone would have been moving out there. On December thirteenth, however, Severio and Maria's son, Mark Demaggio, who was forty one years old at the time, had been living in a separate guest house on the property, and as far as anyone knew, he was still residing
there in December. The police paid multiple visits to the residents and left their business cards, but no one was ever home, and they did not actually track down Mark Demaggio and interview him until February twenty ten. You might recall that we made reference to this back in our first episode, and yes, Demaggio was the individual we mentioned who appeared to be nervous when he was questioned about the case and claimed not to recognize Stephen in any
of the photos the police showed him. Demaggio did acknowledge that he moved out of the residence in sun City, Anthem on December thirteenth, but for whatever reason, he became very evasive when asked where he was currently living and made remarks about how he didn't like to give out his address because he had no friends in town end quote, did not trust anyone due to the drug lifestyle that
people tend to have end quote. All he did was provide a PO box number in the town of Perump, located over sixty miles west, and investigators later learned that DiMaggio owned four properties out there, two of which were vacant lots. Not surprisingly, this has led to speculation from online salutes that Stevens remains might be buried on one of those properties.
Do you guys think that he had mental health issues going on that made him seem evasive and nervous and jumpy. I mean, he's living in a guest house behind his parents, but supposedly does have his own properties and owns other properties. He sounds like he could be someone of suspicion and or he could be someone who seems a little bit unstable as well.
Well, we're going to talk about this later on, but he has always said that he had a serious injury in like a car accident, like at some point and was on a lot of medication at that times, which he is tried to use as a justification for why he was acting so evasive when he was speaking to police.
But there's been a lot of uncorroborated gossip about Mark demagu online, and it sounds like he is kind of a troubled individual who has probably had drug issues at various points in his life, though I'm not entirely sure what kind of situation he was in back in late
two thousand and nine early twenty ten. Another odd detail is that in the months following Steven's disappearance, the police got a number of tips from a woman calling herself Angela, who said there was a guy hanging around Las Vegas Boulevard who resembled Stephen Kosher and was claiming that he was the missing man whose face was being plastered on milk carts at that time. Investigators looked into this lead, but they never found this man or confirmed that he
actually existed. And if that wasn't strange enough, one of the original police reports also mentions a tip from an Angela Demagio, even though there was no one from the Demagio family named Angela. This particular tip advised the police to search a particular area of the desert, but nothing
was found. I don't believe they ever uncovered Angela's true identity, but it's been suspected that she may have attempted to mislead the investigation and send the police on a wild goose chase in order to give off the false impression
that Stephen was still alive somewhere. It's also worth mentioning that Demago agreed to speak with the producers of the aforementioned Eyes on Justice podcast, and he told them that sometime before Stephen went missing, he had suffered a serious back injury in a car accident and was taking a lot of pain pills, so for this reason, he couldn't
remember much about what happened during that time period. Well, if true, a person in that condition sounds like someone who might have been inclined to buy prescription medication on the black market, but Demaggio denied ever knowing Stephen Kosher or Brett Bishop.
Super interesting. Yeah, it would make sense that he might be one of the people that they'd be dropping off pain pills to. But this Angela Demaggio, is that supposedly or was she presenting as if she was part of the elderly family, and is she presenting as if she's the daughter or niece or something of the elderly couple in Mark Demaggio as well.
That part is confusing because this information about Angela Demaggio is only from the police reports that the private investigators hired by the Kosher family managed to obtain. But the Henderson police have never publicly commented on this lead, so they have not revealed where they got the name Angela Demaggio. But all the private investigators have confirmed is that there is no one from the immediate family named Angela, that Mark does not have a sister named Angela, that he
doesn't have a niece or anything like that. So we don't know like if maybe he had a girlfriend or someone who was phoning in all these false tips about Stephen possibly being alive and wandering around Las Vegas Boulevard because she was trying to protect Mark and give off the false impression that Stephen was still alive somewhere.
We should reiterate that law enforcement has never publicly commented on Demaggio or named him as a suspect or person of interest, and no conclusive link has ever been established to prove that Demashio and Bishop even knew each other, and if Demaggio really had a debilitating back injury at that time and was constantly hopped up on paign meds, I question if he would have had the wherewithal to commit a murder and effectively dispose of Stephen's body without
leaving any evidence behind. But we have to harke him back to this segment produced by eight News Now in November of twenty twenty two, which we referenced in Part one of our series. As you might recall, it features interviews with the Eyes On Private Investigations team, who seemed pretty certain that Stephen was the victim of foul play and something happened to him shortly after he walked past
the security camera. It sounds like it's been established that Stephen went to the house and briefly spoke to one of the neighborhood's residents about money before he realized that he was at the wrong address. So the primary theory is that when Stephen finally went to the right address, he joked about how he'd gone to the wrong place and spoken to the wrong person, and for whatever reason, this seemed to sign his debt warrant, possibly because the
perpetrator was paranoid that Stephen had revealed too much. This person may have concluded that Stephen was a liability and they had to make him disappear in order to ensure that there was no connections between them. There are photographs of extensive damage to walls and doors inside the Demagio residence, and this might indicate that Stephen was the victim of
a violent struggle in there. But even though the Eyes On Private Investigations team have always been quite open about expressing their personal opinion about what they believe happened to Stephen, the Henderson Police Department have never commented on the situation, and in the aforementioned segment by eight News Now, they simply stated that there was no new updates to provide.
So are they remaining silent in order to protect the integrity of the investigation or do they just not put much credence into the private investigator's theory.
Well, one of the things I wonder is that there's evidence that's been shared in the file about this Angela DiMaggio where the parents ever questioned about why there might have been damage to the house, or like what if Mark had outburst and was violent anyway, or what if there had been a break in in the house at some other point and someone had vandalized the home. Is there information from the parents of the condition of that house.
Is there anything where the police say that they even explored the house for DNA or kind of evidence in the violent struggle that seems to be presented there.
Unfortunately, just don't have that information just because the police are acting so secretive. I know it's been established that Mark's parents were no longer living at the residence. They had moved into a new place a couple of weeks before Stephen went missing, and it sounds like Mark was
the sole resident living in the guest house. So it's unclear how if law enforcement went to the trouble of interviewing the parents, because it took them a couple months just to even track down Mark and interview him, And even if he raised red legs with his behavior, it does not sound like they have ever really named them as a suspector person of interest, And it's unclear to me if they actually performed a full forensic search of that house to see if there was any evidence of
foul play or that Steven had been there. It's possible they have already done that stuff, but in order to protect the integrity of the investigation, they're just staying silent about it. So this begs the question, did Brett Beship convince Stephen to travel to Henderson to make some sort
of delivery to Mark Demaggio which led to him being killed. Well, it's an intriguing theory, but I have to hammer on the point that law enforcement has never publicly commented on Bishop or Demaggio, and no link has ever been established between the two men. And even if you believe this theory,
there are still a ton of unanswered questions. If the purpose of Stephen's road trip on December the tenth was to visit the bishops in Orum, why did he travel hundreds of more miles to visit the Nefts in Ruby Valley? Why did he tell the Nefts he was planning to visit people in Sacramento. If Stephen had something important planned in Henderson, why did he tell Greg Webb that he was willing to drive back to Saint George to perform
the morning service. If he was making a delivery to someone in Henderson, how did they communicate with each other. If Stephen was killed on the same day he went missing, why was someone checking his voicemail two days later? I get the sense that a number of people associated with this case now have a pretty good idea of what happened to Stephen, but without a body or any hard evidence that a crime even took place, law enforcement is powerless to file any charges or make any arrests.
And it's really hard because there's multiple players here. If this is really what happened, if Brett set him up to go deliver these pills and Mark killed him, you have multiple people who are involved here. You have Brett, who needs to be deeply investigated, you have Mark, and then again, like you said, where is the evidence of
communication between the two. So you can have a theory and an idea that's pretty airtight, but without any kind of supporting evidence and without any ability to prove that theory, the police could be at a standstill.
So if Stephen was murdered because he was roped into doing something illegal, either knowingly or unknowingly, then you have to feel immense sympathy for him because it sounds like he was a good man from a fine family who found himself in a desperate financial situation because of a lot of different factors, and he seemed to have so much pride that he felt that he should get out
of it on his own. It's possible that there are people out there who might have important information about what happened to Stephen, and the big break in this case, and the big break this case means is for the right person to come forward.
So if you happen to have any information about the unsolved disappearance of Stephen Kosher, you can contact the Saint George Police Department, the Las Vegas met for Politan Police Department, or the Henderson Police Department, as they have all worked on this investigation. Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in this case?
This one is one where I actually think there's a potential for it to be solved and for someone to be held accountable. You do have multiple players in this scenario, though we've presented recently where you have maybe Brett set him up for something. Perhaps Mark is the one who
intercepts him and injures him or kills him. And so it's this idea that as time goes on and they feel more and more confident that they got away with it, as relationships change, as people's lifestyles changed, there's an ability that maybe someone says something, maybe someone no longer has loyalties to protect the people involved, and maybe it's not Breton Mark, but same situation that over time, because this is a more recent case, there's potential that circumstances may
change in a way that people feel the freedom to now come forward and not be scared of the retribution that would come. I'm praying so deeply for that, because you already have a beautiful family who's been ripped apart by the disappearance of their son and brother, and then you have a you know, the father passed away, but you have this beautiful element of faith and struggle that so many of us can relate to. He was a young man with his whole life in front of him.
It wasn't going easy. He was in the recession and in this kind of financial crash that so many of us suffered with, and he just wanted goodness for his life. And so whether he knew or didn't know what he was getting involved in, it breaks my heart that something that seemed so innocent to him or short term for him, could have ended up costing him his life. I'm praying that someone has the ability to come forward because it would be incredible to see someone held accountable for this crime.
This case is so sad. I think it's just so many people who loved Steven. There's all of the people at the LDS church, there's all of his family members, and they're left with so many questions wondering what happened to their son. Did he meet with foul play? Like the private investigator's thought, was it something where Stephen wandered off,
which I don't believe. I think the fact that you know, as she had brought up that he had bought these gifts for his nephew that had been born and isn't newborn, and although it wasn't expensive gifts, it showed the intention that he wanted to be there at Christmas with his family. And I do think that was and intention that he
was going to try to follow through with. And it does sound like he may have got embroiled in something potentially illegal, and that running into DiMaggio might have been the worst thing that could have ever happened to him, because it sounds like if Demaggio was indeed on pain pills, the way he spoke to police about not wanting to give out his address because of the drug lifestyle that most people lead, which seems like a really odd thing to say if you're assuming that everybody is living this
drug lifestyle, and or the police, I'm not sure, but either way, this man had multiple properties. He seemed like he was potentially on drugs, and if Steven did indeed knock on a neighbor's door and then went and told DiMaggio that he did that, it seems like he could have been paranoid and may have taken an extreme step.
And that's why we've never found out what happened to Steven, because he had access to multiple different properties, and the police obviously don't have enough information in order to get a search warrant, and like, even if they did, which property would you start with if he owns four Yeah.
I got introduced to this case when I saw it on Disappeared several years ago, and obviously it's one of the saddest episodes they produced because it contained an interview with Steven's father, Rolf, who passed way just a few weeks after his interview was filmed without him getting to have any answers about what happened to his son, And for the longest time, I was pretty baffle what happened here.
I cannot think of any snare that made sense. Even though I didn't really believe it was a suicide or an intentional walkaway, I wasn't willing to completely discount it because it amazed me that the investigation had not turned up any evidence that shed any light on why Stephen would have driven to such a faraway location and why he was spending those two days just making these lengthy road trips through Utah and Nevada. So it was a major head scratcher, and I remember when I covered this
on the Trail went Cold. At the end of twenty twenty two, I started researching it and figured I was just going to cover the same ground which has been shared for the past decade about this case. But then I saw Aaron Stoner's YouTube channel. I saw a lot of this information shared on the Crime Weekly YouTube series, and I heard all this new information about Brett Bishop and Mark Demaggio, and a light bulb went off over my head, thinking, wow, wow, this scenario actually makes a
lot of sense. It would account for why Stephen made these long road trips, possibly to visit Brett and his wife in orum would also explain why Brett was acting so suspiciously and why Stephen would be desperate enough to make possible deliveries of drugs just because he was many months behind in his rent. And it's possible that Brett was going to give him a break on this if he did this favor. But unfortunately, it sounds like Stephen
cross passed with the wrong guy. And if this theory is true, that Stephen just went to the wrong house my mistake and then joked about it with Devaggio and he was so paranoid that he killed Stephen over it.
It is such a senseless strategy. But once again I should reiterate that law enforcement has not commented on this angle, so it may not be one hundred percent true, But I happen to think that there sounds like there is some validity to it and that Stephen sadly probably was the victim of foul play, and that there are some people out there who knew the truth about what happened, but the beliefs just lacked the evidence to make an arrest.
So that this information is being made public, hopefully one of these days, they can find now one piece of evidence that breaks this case wide open and Steven's family can finally get answers.
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 Unsoalved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my audio commentary play 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.
So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share us on social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing.
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Colors Comedy