Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may
not be suitable for all listeners. Search for Robert Fisher
and you're liable to find blue collars. There's his resume.
Aviation fuel handler, firefighter, medical technician. He sees himself as
gritty and masculine, and that's how he wants others to
see him too. A hunter, a fisherman, country music, a
(00:23):
pickup truck. He's a man, blue collar, dammit, and proud
of it. As he leaves work. On April ninth, two
thousand and one, Fisher wears a blue shirt from a
fire department. That night, at ten forty two pm, an
ATM camera captures footage of him wearing an RC COLA shirt.
The footage is black and white, but the logo used
from nineteen ninety eight to two thousand and nine was
(00:44):
set against a blue background. The shirt is likely blue.
Ten hours later, Fisher's home explodes. Police photograph a burned
blue shirt, a patch with the charred head of a
yellow ram, says Bregos, Spring's fire department, Fisher's former em lawyer,
A blue collar career, a blue collar PERSONA a blue
collar as he leaves work on April ninth, A blue
(01:06):
collar the last time we see him, A literal burned
blue collar in the rubble of his home. This is
the life of Robert Fisher from iHeartRadio and neon thirty three.
I'm John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona, the
story of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing his
(01:28):
wife and kids, blowing up their suburban home, and escaping
into the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm hunting Robert Fisher,
and I need your help. Let me get this out
of the way. There is no forensic evidence proving Robert
Fisher killed his family and blew up their house. It
(01:50):
might seem reckless to report this. What if there's a trial,
I'd argue, A, you have to catch him first. You
can't prosecute a ghost and be any half co competent
defense attorney will hammer this in court. No forensic proof.
If anything, I hope it encourages Robert to come forward
to tell his side of the story. In this episode,
(02:11):
we'll answer two key questions. What does the forensic evidence
tell us about the case and are there any viable
suspects other than Robert Fisher? Chapter one Pathology they were
asleep in bed when the killer struck. Firefighters find Bobby first,
then Brittany, then Mary. None have soot or burn marks
(02:32):
in their windpipes, indicating they died before the fire began.
The killers slit their throats, cutting into their spines. Mary
has a wedding ring on her finger and a bullet
in her brain. For an expert opinion, I.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Consult doctor Todd Lukissevik.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
A forensic pathologist and assistant medical examiner in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I had the opportunity to review three autops reports, three
toxicology reports, ballistic reports, and some typed up notes from
law enforcement. The reports told the story that the dead
cannot tell. The adult female had a gunshot wound to
the back of her head. Three lead bullet fragments were
recovered from that gunshot wound to the head, and she
also had an in size wound to the left side
(03:12):
of her neck, which caused lethal injury to the main
vessels of the neck, the jugular vein and the crowded artery.
So her cause of death is a combination of the
gunshot wound to the head and the insize wind of
the neck. There's no way to tell which came first,
which came second in and of themselves, they are both
lethal injuries. The young female victim had a insize wound
(03:34):
to the left side of the neck. Again, it caused
lethal injury to the great vessels of the neck, which
would be the left crowded artery and the left jugular vein.
No other injuries were documented. All three of these victims
were severely charred because they were recovered from a house fire,
so if there was any bruising or anything like that,
that would be all covered up by this fire because
most of the skin, subcutaneous tissues, and muscles were consumed
(03:57):
by the fire. And finally, the young male victim had
a insize wound to the right side of his neck
that caused lethal injury to the grade vessels of the
right side of the neck and also cause injury to
the TRACHEA. Trachia is your windpipe. The injuries to the
vessels were again the right crowded artery in the right
regular vein.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
When you say in size wound, can.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
You elaborate on that?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yes? In size wound by definition is a wound from
a sharp implement that is longer on the skin. Then
it goes deep whereas a stab wound. The definition of
a stab woond is a sharp injury where the depth
inside the body is greater than the length on the skin.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Can you discuss the degree of force that was used
to cause the injuries to the three vectims?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Well, I would have to ask you the type of knife,
the sharpness of the knife, things like that.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
This is an important and honest point. It's easy to
sensationalize the murders. The killer must have been in a
crazy rage, cutting deep into the spines.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
However, it would not take much force if you have
a sharp knife. Remember two of these victims were children,
so it wouldn't take much to get to the bony column.
And the adult female was pretty thin, probably smaller than
average build, so it wouldn't take too much to get
to the bone. Is it common to see injuries to
the bone. It's not uncommon, but it's not real common either.
(05:12):
I would say probably less than a quarter of the cases.
Twenty percent of the cases. Would you see a mark
on the bone from an in size one?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
But you can't tell definitively the degree of force, For example,
in la person's term, no, you cannot.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
How are their throats cut.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
For the young male, I would assume that it started
at the midline and goes latterly behind the right ear.
For the two females, I would assume it started laterally
and commence to the midline. Most people think that all
the vessels are midline neck. They're actually on the lateral
sides of the neck. So someone that would do something
like this, they know they have to go to the lateral,
(05:49):
not so much midline, so they have to go behind
the ear kind of drop down from the ear. That's
where your vessels are. That's where you're going to take
your pulse. So if you're cutting here, you're not doing much.
If you're cutting midle, you're not doing much. But if
you cut more lateral, that's where the vessels are. When
you take your pulse, it's kind of below your angle demandible,
which is your jaw line. That's where the vital area is.
(06:10):
So this person, can I say he knew what he
was doing. Yes, he knew what he was doing because
he got to the vessels and he made sure he
was deep enough because he got to the spinal column itself.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
In your opinion, with the neck wound, is that knowledge
that someone who is a hunter would have or would
you need more specific knowledge on human anatomy.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Now, I think hunter military just someone that if someone's
watched a TV show on anatomy or autopsy procedure or
something like that. I don't want to say it's common knowledge,
but it almost is, because when you take physical ed
as a grade school child, you're taught to fill your
pulse on the lateral side of your neck.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So what makes this case stand out?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
What was unique is one in size wound on each victim,
very unique. Usually when a knife's involved, there's a fight,
there's other marks, there's other stab wound, there's other size wounds,
there's contusions. But remember these people were in the fire
and most of their skin was gone due to the fire,
so a small in size wound or a small stab
(07:10):
wound could be absent because of the fire consumed it.
So the uniqueness is the fact that there's just one wound.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
The general understanding that law enforcement has is that the
victims were all likely individually caught off guard and killed
in their beds, and none of them heard any of
the other victims being killed. It was a very small
house and the rooms were pretty close together, so it
would take someone going into each room and doing this
and having one shot not to wake everybody else up.
(07:37):
And it just seems very precise. Do you see anything
to contradict that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
No, I don't. It seems precise and calculated. And if
you're gonna cause them in size wound to someone's throats,
slit somebody's throat after you do that, you're gonna have
to hold their head down because they have seconds to
live to fight back. It's not an incapacitating wound. You're
still gonna be able to move fight back from that.
So they would splice or throat hold their head down
to the pillow. That would be the only way I
(08:03):
could see that without someone making a scream or yell
or cry for help, unless they were gagged or had
something covering their mouth.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Can you discuss what you were able to determine about
bullet six? What were you able to tell from the records?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So the autopsy pathologist was able to recover three lead
bullet fragments that were severely deformed from the skull and
brain of the adult female. They were described as being led.
They were described as being small fragments. There is no
description of any exit wound or anything else that is collected.
From the ballistic report from the crime lab, it does
(08:37):
not describe how many fragments were collected, and it says
the fragments are consistent with a twenty five caliber bullet.
And I'm not sure how that conclusion was made given
the report I have, because there's no weight, there's no description,
there's no photography, there's no description of the lands or grooves,
there's no description if it's jacketed or unjacketed, if it's lead,
(09:00):
fit's coppered. So I would believe that we're missing some
of the report because I could not come to that
conclusion with three small fragments that it's coming from any
sort of caliber let alone a twenty five caliber, which
is a weird and unique round. It's around with the
least amount of velocity and a least amount of energy
out of all center fire handgun rounds. It's a round
(09:22):
that most people would not use or shoot or even have,
because it's really not good for anything. Gunshot wind to
the head is good for, but nothing else. If you
shoot someone in a body that has a hoodie on
or a jacket, it's not going to penetrate deep enough
to get to where it needs to get.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
I won't ask you to turn into a firearms expert, but.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I kind of am. But going okay, well, I mean
I'm not the expert like Lease, but we.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Generally what would a twenty five use.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
For it's a small pocket gun. It's a part they
call it. They used to call them in a ninety
Saturday Night specials. It's a small pocket gun. You usually
can buy them for fifty dollars. The bullets, the rounds
themselves are usually full metal jacket rounds for a twenty five.
These are described by the autopsy pathologists as lead bullet fragments,
not full metal jacket rounds. What can you tell about lead?
(10:11):
Tells me that there was no jacket. Recovered bullets are
composed of lead, and they usually have a jacket. That
jacket's in metal. It's usually copper copper jacketed bullet. So
you either have a lead bullet or you have a
some kind of jacketed bullet, which is a lead bullet
covered by a jacket. There's no description of any.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Jacket here, and there was no exit wound.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So there's no exit wound described in the autopsy report.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So presumably whatever bullet was used was.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Not jacketed, That would be a good presumption.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yes, would that be consistent with a twenty two or
thirty eight?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Could definitely be consistent with a twenty two because twenty
twos are not jacketed, twenty two room fires are never jacketed,
and for a thirty eight thirty eight sometimes they're all lead.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Is there anything to tell from the lack of an
exit wound about the caliber?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I have my opinions after doing thousands of gunshot wounds.
But typically if it's a lead bullet under thirty eight
caliber nine caliber usually stays in the body, as usually
stays in the head. If it's a full metal jacket
anything thirty eight or above, it usually goes through and through,
it goes in, and it exits.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
So if it was a thirty eight that was all
led a ZAC consystem with does.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yes, it could stay in. Yes, interesting, But I would
like to see those fragments because if those fragments are
super tiny, it's not a thirty eight. That's why seeing
the fragments, weighing those fragments, measuring those fragments being more
descriptive with the fragments that were retained, would tell me
almost immediately if we're in a thirty eight class, are
we in the twenty two class? Because there's a big
(11:36):
difference point three to eight of an inch versus point
two two of an inch.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
What about fire? How effectively does it destroy bodies?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
You're never going to consume a whole body, but if
you read the autopsy report, there's a lot of limbs missing.
Most of the skin was missing, most of the muscle
was consumed by the fire.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Conclusions the killer slit Mary, Brittany and Bobby's throats with
a sharp instrument, likely a knife. We can't determine the
degree of force he used. Police and the media have
repeatedly painted a portrait of a crazed killer nearly beheading
his victims in a fit of rage, a narrative not
supported by the evidence. A sharp knife used on small
(12:14):
victims can cause spinal injuries without extreme force. This might
seem pedantic, but it's not only about Robert Fisher. It's
about reality itself. The road to greater truths is not
paved with cloudy distortions. We should resist the urge to
soothe ourselves by morphing complex humans into cartoon demons. The
suburban dad who kills his kids is bad enough, no
(12:37):
need to pump him full of steroids to lionize him.
Another fact stated repeatedly that Mary was shot in the
head with a thirty eight, but a police document I
obtained says bullet fragments in her brain were consistent with
a twenty five, not a thirty eight. Why does this matter? Well,
at least one of Robert's guns, a thirty eight Revolver,
(12:57):
was missing from the house. Pointing out that bullet fragments
don't necessarily match the caliber of the missing gun complicates
an otherwise simple narrative that Robert fled with a murder weapon.
But I'm here to complicate simple narratives because what's true
is true, and this is an exercise in digging up fact,
not crafting fiction. If Mary was indeed shot with a
(13:19):
twenty five, that's bizarre. It's a tiny, weak, little pistol.
I wonder if it belonged to Mary, not Robert, if
she bought it for protection Scott Steel Detective T. J.
Juran calls the gun shot the fuck you shot, and
what better fu than to shoot someone with their own gun. Separately,
investigators find a black metal hammer in the rubble of
(13:40):
the master bedroom. Why is it there? Robert was a
neat freak who demanded everything be in its place. Mary's
mom said that if the kids left anything lying around,
Robert would throw it in the trash. So what's a
random hammer doing in the bedroom the night of the murders?
Did Mary stash it there as a defensive weapon? This
is speculation, but I'm curious. Chapter two fingerprints. A key
(14:05):
mystery of this case is why, when located in the forest,
Mary's suv is quote wiped clean. You would expect to
find Robert's fingerprints in his wife's suv. It proves nothing,
so why would he wipe it down? Does this point
to the involvement of an accomplice or even a different
killer if the suv was wiped clean, I'd say yes,
(14:26):
But this mystery is in fact a myth. Police recover
at least seven fingerprints, six from interior windows and one
from an exterior window. For an expert opinion, I consult
Matthew Steiner. Matt recently retired from the NYPD after processing
more than two thousand crime scenes during a twenty five
year career in which he also consulted for the FBI
(14:48):
and State department. He now works for a company called
TriTech Forensics. Generally, is it unusual not to recover prints
from a car wipe the Samana SUV.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
I spent so many times in my career having to
explain this to other investigators, to bosses, and the most importantly,
to jury's. Your fingerprints are not absolute though. If you
watch CSI every single damn episode, they'll be dusting feathers
and other ridiculous things and getting fingerprints, and then in
that show they'll be like, oh, there isn't fingerprints on
(15:19):
this object that we know the suspect handled because it
was wiped down, or the suspect was wearing gloves. Those
are possibilities, that's not always the case. There's so many
variables to why you would or wouldn't leave a fingerprint.
First off, the surface is dirty and you touch it,
you may be picking up that dust. That dust, that
dirt is filling into the furrows or your friction ridges,
(15:39):
and though you could physically see the impression, there's no
detail there to be recovered. There's no minutia in that impression.
It could be that direct exposure sunlight is evaporating the
fingerprint and most of your fingerprint is ninety five to
ninety nine percent water, depending on this person and a
lot of other variables. So if that's in direct exposure
(16:00):
to the sun, which in this case it was, that could
also destroy fingerprints. It's too hot, the person is sweating,
they're touching areas, they're leaving just pools of moisture behind
that they're not leaving readable fingerprints. It's too cold, you're
not perspiring at all. You're touching things and there's not
much transfer there. Wiping things down hand coverings are certainly possibility,
(16:21):
but just the act of touching something that's been touched
over and over again, then you have superimposed fingerprints, so
the door, handles of the car, the steering wheel, it's
another option. You know, you're touching areas that you touch
over and over again. You don't have readable fingerprints because
you have all this overlapping. And then most importantly is
you got to think what are the conducive surfaces that
are being touched. Is the surface good for fingerprints? You know,
(16:43):
so something that's smooth and shiny, non porous is your
best option. So on the vehicle, sure, the body, the glass,
those are great, but inside the fabric materials, the texture
to something. If it's not smooth, you touch something and
it has like a surface that isn't smooth, there's nowhere
for those fingerprints to go flat onto and you don't
(17:05):
have wheedled fingerprints.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
In many cases, we go process.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
A suspects car or a victim's car and it happens
where you just don't get fingerprints, and someone who doesn't
understand how it works can misinterpret that as being wiped down.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
In this case, though police do recover prints, seven of
them from windows. Whoever abandoned the suv in the woods
left all five windows down, exposing the interior to wind
and snow, but inadvertently protecting fingerprints on glass. Quick note,
the Forerunner is surprisingly clean, no caked mud, no paw prints,
a minimal amount of dirt, just some pine needles. It's
(17:41):
parked in a tight cluster of trees, protected in part
by towering Ponderosa pines. Police have to call in two
trucks to extricate it. Snow starts falling as drivers load
it onto a flatbed. On the trip back to Scottsdale,
wind rips apart a protective tarp. Crime scene technical find
shredded pieces of it in the suv, but apparently remove
(18:04):
them before photographing it. No tart pieces are visible in
official images. Conclusions the Forerunner is not wiped clean. Given
the circumstances, it's not at all surprising that crime scene
technicians didn't recover more fingerprints. In fact, it's impressive they
recovered even seven. Who do these seven belong to? I
(18:26):
don't know, but if any belonged to Robert, police would
be able to id them. His prints are on file
from his time in the Navy. Chapter three blood investigators
find no confirmed trace of blood in the Forerunner, remarkable
considering the violent nature of the murders. The killer cleaned
up perfectly before escaping. They do, however, get a single,
(18:49):
inconclusive luminol reaction on the front passenger floor mat. Luminol
is a chemical that glows blue in the presence of blood.
To decipher this, I call Karen elliet It. Karen is
a bloodstain expert formerly with the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services.
She's now a private consultant and volunteer for the nonprofit
Cold Case Foundation. The problem with luminol and bluestar, another
(19:13):
chemical reagent, is.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
That they both react sometimes to things other.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Than blood, including copper, cobalt, iron, and some chemicals like bleach.
Would luminol react to animal blood? Yes, so Scott Steele
gets a luminol reaction on the floor mat, but that
doesn't tell us much. I send a photo of the
reaction to Karen.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
It has very defined lines, and that leads me to
believe that if it were in fact blood, that it
might have been transferred from potentially a weapon or some
kind of an item that was transferred. The lines are
very very defined. It does not look like a drop
of blood. It looks like almost like a transfer. But
(19:55):
in addition, it could be just some kind of a
metal shaving or something that transfer off of a piece
of metal that would have caused that kind of a
defined line there or defined shape.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
If the match still exists today, Karen says there.
Speaker 6 (20:11):
Might be a potential for DNA conclusion.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
We don't know what caused the aluminal reaction human blood,
animal blood, metal, bleach, but modern testing could tell us more.
Chapter four DNA, a hat, a cigarette, butt, a shoe.
Investigators recover DNA from all three. The hat, specifically the
(20:36):
Oakland Raiders ball cap, Robert Fisher wore the night of
April ninth, two thousand and one. Police find it in
Mary's for runner. They pull from it a partial DNA
profile that appears to match Robert the cigarette butt. Robert
doesn't smoke cigarettes. He chews tobacco. I don't know where
police find the cigarette butt, but they recover from it
(20:57):
a complete DNA profile that belongs to an unknown male.
The shoe Police retrieve a pair of white rebox sneakers
from Roberts worklocker at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix.
They collect DNA from a heel and a blood stain.
The heel DNA is a mix from an unknown female
and an unknown male. It doesn't tell us anything. It
(21:20):
could have come from anyone doctors, nurses, patients. The blood stain, though,
is intriguing. I decide to fly to New York City
to consult Lisa Desire. You might recognize the name Desire
in season two Missing on nine to eleven. We interviewed
Mark Desire with the New York City Office of the
Chief Medical Examiner or OCME. Lisa Desire Mark Desire. I
(21:43):
know people are going to wonder, are you guys related.
Speaker 7 (21:45):
Yeah, he's my brother, lies my much older brother.
Speaker 8 (21:51):
I no, we are married.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
The desires are perhaps America's most dynamic DNA duo. A
brilliant wife, a brilliant husband, kind, empathetic, hilarious, somewhat make
a sitcom. Weird things come out of our mouth where
it's like blood seam and saliva just roll right off
of our tongue, which is bizarre for other people, and
often it happens at dinner, So try not to in
front of the kids.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
But that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Lisa used to work for the OCME. She now runs
a company called Prime Suspect. I asked her to review
Fisher case files, including DNA records. Here's what's weird about
the blood stain on the shoe.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Whoever left this?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
If this is from a single female, looks like that
single female could be a close relative of Jan Howell's.
Jan Howell is Robert Fisher's mom. Conclusions One, the ballcap
DNA tells us nothing. It likely belongs to Robert. Two
the cigarette DNA gives us a complete profile of an
unknown male, which could theoretically be run through CODIS, the
(22:51):
National DNA database. Three blood on a sneaker in Robert's
worklocker apparently belongs to a close female relative, someone related
to his mom, but not his dad. I don't know
what to make of this. Maybe it's important, maybe not.
It could be something as simple as a lab error.
If accurate, though, why did Robert have a shoe with
(23:12):
a relative's blood in his locker? I raise the issue
with law enforcement, but they don't seem to think it's relevant. However,
one investigator tells me that police were highly suspicious that
someone went into Robert's worklocker after the murders, but before
they obtained a search warrant. Chapter five Feces and a tissue.
A scott Stale detective sees a pile of excrement and
(23:34):
a piece of tissue in the woods just west of
Mary's forerunner. It's unclear if either is collected for testing.
Chapter six unknown fibers. Police locate numerous dark fibers in
the forerunner. It's unclear what they are or where they
came from. They still haven't been identified. Chapter seven the
(23:56):
keys In the rubble of the house, investigators find two
keys to a safety deposit box. It's unclear if the
Fishers had a safety deposit box at the time of
the murders, and if they did, whether or not it
was searched. Chapter eight security footage tracing the Fisher's final steps.
There are no security cameras at Supi Middle School, Scottsdale
(24:19):
Baptist Church, or popular outdoor outfitters. No neighbors have them either.
The Mayo Clinic does, but police apparently never obtained the footage.
Chapter nine. The cell phone and the pager. At least
one of the Fishers has a cell phone, probably Robert.
It powers down at one thirty am on April tenth,
two thousand and one, around the time of the murders,
(24:41):
and never turns back on. It isn't found at the house,
though the fire could have destroyed it. Quest Cellular, a
now defunct company, can't tell police where it last pinged
at the time that information was stored for only twenty
four hours. Robert also apparently has a work pager. That's
all I know. Chapter ten electronic mail. Sometime between the
(25:05):
late nineties and two thousand and one, the Fishers bought
a computer. They apparently shared one personal email address, az
Fischer four at aol dot com. Mary and Brittany used it,
but Bobby didn't, and neither did Robert. Police find nothing
of note on the AOL account on Robert's work account,
though they find emails between Robert and quote previously unknown females.
(25:29):
I don't know if these names panned out into any
actionable leads. Chapter eleven, the fire. I'm going to divide
(26:01):
this into four segments. The accelerant, the trigger, the timeline,
and the gunshots. The official story is that someone disconnected
a gas line from a furnace Dow's the house and
liquid accelerant, set a delayed trigger, and a few hours
later boom. In search of a fire guru, I turned.
Speaker 7 (26:19):
To Matthew Reaganton.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Matt had a twenty two year career with ATF, mostly
in Pittsburgh, but also on the bureau's National Response Team.
Speaker 7 (26:29):
I began my career as an ATF agent on August
the twenty seventh, two thousand and one, two weeks before
nine to eleven. When nine to eleven happened, I was
here in Pittsburgh and my office was tasked with going
to the crash site in Shanksville to assist the FBI
and the scene investigation.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
He's now an assistant professor with Duquane University's Forensic Science
and Law Master's program. I give him Fisher case files
and ask for his opinion.
Speaker 7 (26:57):
One of the compelling pieces of evidence was that gasline.
You had evidence of an intentionally disconnected gas line, and
you had an explosion, and you had a large fire.
Those are data points you can't ignore when you start
considering other accidental causes.
Speaker 9 (27:11):
To the fire.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Matt's saying, this was clearly a deliberate act, not a
freak accident. But still it's good to triple check everything
to doubt yourself.
Speaker 7 (27:21):
If you really organize your investigation and your hypothesis testing
around disproving your own hypothesis. I have three dead bodies
with their throats cut, I have an intentionally disconnected gas line.
I have an explosion. Wow, there's all this really overwhelming
data to show that a crime happened here. You're on
solid ground if you do everything you can to disprove that,
(27:43):
to find an accidental cause, to give the benefit of
the doubt to the other side.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I completely agree. If there are holes in the narrative,
you want to find them now, not at trial. In
this case, no one disputes that the gas line was
purposely disconnected and the fire intentionally triggered still bill, it's
vital to dig deeper the accelerant. This is the most
critical and contentious detail. Police and the media have said
(28:09):
repeatedly that there were quote poor patterns pour patterns in
the Fisher house, that someone spread liquid accelerant to help
fuel the fire. When you look at photos of charred
floors and diagrams of damage, this makes intuitive sense. If true,
it would be a key piece of evidence indicating advanced planning.
(28:30):
The poor patterns cover almost half the interior of the house.
That's a ton of accelerant. But arsen dogs and lab
testing fail to find any evidence of hydrocarbon fuels like gasoline. Instead,
investigators speculate that Fisher used clean burning alcohol he stole
from work, proving premeditation. The problem is they're basing this
(28:51):
again on poor patterns, outdated junk science. Many things can
cause burn or poor patterns on floors.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
One example, we're in a room right now with carpet
and fairly new carpet. But let's say this carpet had
been installed for the last twenty years, and the area
where people walked most often were right in the middle
of this area to the door and back to the
couch and back and wear patterns, so you have differences
in the carpeting and the padding below it. Wear patterns
(29:22):
in a fire might cause patterns that could be mistaken
for poor patterns.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
What about the theory that Fisher used alcohol as an accelerant.
Speaker 7 (29:32):
If you've ever put any sort of rubbing alcohol in
a different area and try to light it, it burns
off really quickly. The thing about petroleum based fuels is
that they have sustained burning, and that's important for the
development of a fire because it gets other fuels involved,
it continues to burn, and then there's a certain point
(29:52):
in the development of a fire where it doesn't matter
that there is or was accelerant there, because all the
fuels in the room, the couches, the clothes, the desks,
anything that's plastic is now fully going and that's what's
driving the fire.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
For a second opinion, I tracked down David Smith. Not
only is David a Certified Fire Investigator or CFI, but
he's the CFI who investigated the Fisher fire on site
for both the gas company and the Scottsdale Police Department. David,
did you see any indication liquid accelerant was used?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
I saw zero evidence of that.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
What about quote poor patterns?
Speaker 4 (30:30):
The poor patterns were caused by vent elesh. These patternsers
sitting on the floor are natural and result from air
movement carrying hot gases and not from something on the floor. Often,
more inexperienced fire investigators find poor patterns in quotes at
doorways and under windows and things like this. And at
(30:54):
the doorways they were always talking about, well, obviously they
were pouring gasoline and walked out of the door backwards,
lge ended around and aluminum threshold is melted, so only
a gasoline can do that. So what happens is we
have a well involved fire taking place, and we all
know that heat rises and heat will typically hit an
(31:14):
obstruction called a ceiling, and that obstruction then causes that
flame and heat to move laterally and then it finds
a place to escape, and that's a window or a doorway,
and so that hot gases escaping. Well, when that hot
gas is escaping, what does that fire need at that
particular point for growth, And that's oxygen. So it's pulling
(31:35):
oxygen in at the lower levels. So we're having air
movements and we're having hot gases that are circulating and
so that's where we're getting these patterns. Now, you mentioned
walking and things like that. Absolutely, I had numerous examples
of that. I had a very large fire in a
tower type building in law offices, and there were poor
(31:58):
patterns down all the hallways, and it was quite disturbing
because they knew, under the circumstances we did not have
a nite of a liquid, but we have well defined
in quotes or patterns down those hallways and so forth.
And so I got the building people, because they were
very cooperative as one could imagine, I got them to
(32:19):
go to the next suite on the next floor down
and pull up the carpet, and there they were the
same identical patterns were already on that floor from the
foam rubber cut foam rubber pad that had been breaking
away and that tiny particles being pushed down into the concrete,
(32:40):
which is quite porous. We don't think of it that way,
but it's quite porous. And so when we then had
that and then fire, those particles burn up and cause
those patterns. And so the four patterns are typically right
down the center where people walk and.
Speaker 8 (32:54):
Not on the sides.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
So you didn't see any indication that there was a
liquid accelerant used in the Fisher fire.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
No, and they did bring a dog in and that
dog failed to alert.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
David conveys his findings to law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
I never argued with Scottsdale about this because that wasn't
my place. But there was no reason to suspect ignitable
liquids in this home.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
David is the most qualified person on the planet to
comment on the Fisher fire. Not only did he investigate
it on site for the gas company and the police,
but he also helped write NFPA nine twenty one, the
Fire Investigation Bible. He's even a former cop who began
his career in Tucson in nineteen sixty eight. If you
(33:39):
listen to season one, Missican Alaska, you might be muttering
Tucson nineteen sixty eight. Jerry Paisley.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Jerry Paisley is a person that I had arrested for hamsaid,
you arrested Paisley. Yeah, and Paisley was convicted of on side.
Speaker 9 (33:55):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
So David has direct ties to two of our three seasons. David,
I'm granting you honored status in the Missing Cinematic Universe.
The Trigger investigators never determined definitively what triggered the explosion,
but the likeliest culprit is a candle or candles. They
find the remains of at least three in the house,
(34:17):
one in Britney's bedroom and two in the hall. They
also find a burnt firecracker in the master bedroom. This
is abnormal because again Robert was a neat freak. Even
more bizarre, they locate some kind of quote device in
a metal trash can in Britney's room, a battery attached
to wire and metal foil. The timeline April ninth, ten
(34:39):
forty two pm. Roberts at the atm April tenth, eight
forty two am. The house explodes, so Robert flees sometime
in the intervening ten hours. That's the old narrative, but
we located two new witnesses, Peter, the neighbor and Bud Wolf,
the newspaper delivery man who tightened the t timeline dramatically.
(35:01):
Peter sees both fisher vehicles at three thirty AM. Bud
sees both vehicles at five thirty but Mary's suv is
gone by seven thirty. Civil Twilight begins at five thirty seven,
meaning there's light in the sky and the sun rises
at six zh three. So my best guess is that
Robert flees between five thirty and six am. What can
(35:22):
forensics tell us about the timeline? Can we estimate, for example,
how long it takes gas to fill the house before
it explodes? Here again is David Smith.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
My best recollection is three hours.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
David's estimate based on science, fits my theory based on
witness statements, the rising sun and common sense. The gunshots
the morning of the fire. Two men who live near
the Fishers, but on different streets a short distance away.
Here's something that remains unexplained to this day. Their names
are Timothy Kinney and Michael Kakuza. They speak to a
(35:56):
Scottsdale police officer less than twelve hours after the housees.
Here's the recreation of a police memo I obtained.
Speaker 9 (36:04):
Between zero eight thirty and zero nine hundred hours. This morning,
he Timothy Kenney, was sitting on his back porch, which
faces south, when he heard two gunshots coming from southeast
of his residence. There were approximately two to three seconds
apart from each other, and they sounded like a nine
millimeter or three fifty seven magnum. Kenny knows weapons, as
he is a former Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy. Approximately ten
(36:26):
minutes later, he heard a loud explosion coming from the
same area. The explosion was loud enough to shake the
ground and vibrate the windows. He looked to the southeast
and saw smoke and a helicopter was hovering in the area.
He cannot narrow the time of the gunshots down any further,
and he did not call the police this morning because
he heard sirens and figure that neighbors would have already called.
It was not until he saw the news coverage this
(36:47):
afternoon that he decided to call the police.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Next Michael Cakuza.
Speaker 9 (36:52):
At zero eight fifteen hours this morning, his clock chimed,
indicating that it was a quarter past the hour. He
realized he was late for work, so he walked out
outside to his car. He then heard two gunshots, approximately
three to four seconds apart from each other. He was
standing under his car port, so he is not sure
which direction they came from, but they sounded like a
very large caliber weapon, such as a forty four magnum
(37:13):
or a shotgun. He then got into his car and
went to work. He did not hear anything after that.
He called the police after seeing the evening news about
the explosion.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Kenny lives three hundred and sixty feet from the Fishers,
one street over. Kakuza lives five hundred and thirty feet
from the Fishers, on a different street in a different direction.
Both men hear two loud gunshots, Kenny around eight Thirtykkuza
sometime after eight fifteen. Both say the gunshots came from
the direction of the Fisher House about ten to twenty
(37:43):
minutes before the explosion. Both speak to police less than
twelve hours after the house blew up. Their memories are fresh,
their stories consistent. So what's the deal here? This was
a quiet Tuesday morning in a safe suburb. Gunshots were,
to say the least, unusual. There were no other crimes
reported in the area at that time. It's unlikely a
(38:06):
neighbor was firing in the air and no one was hunting.
Maybe they heard not gunshots, but I don't know, firecrackers.
It's possible, I guess, But Kinny is a former cop,
not a novice, so gunshots. Maybe a fire was already
burning at the Fisher House and set off exactly two bullets.
I doubt it. The explosion and fire were instantaneous. As
(38:30):
soon as something ignited, the gas boomed. Finally, if you're
wondering whether or not they heard someone shoot Mary, that's
also unlikely. Mary was shot only once with a quieter,
smaller caliber bullet. Robert was already gone, and by all indications,
Mary had been dead for hours. Conclusions One, someone disconnected
(38:52):
a gas line and set up something, likely a candle,
to trigger an explosion. Two, there's no proof liquid accelerant
was used. Three. David Smith, the fire investigator, estimates that
the Fisher house filled with gas for about three hours
before it exploded, meaning someone disconnected the gas line around
five forty two am, which lines up with my separate
(39:14):
estimate that Fisher fled between five thirty and six am.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Four.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
The gunshots remain unexplained, as does the battery device in
Brittany's trash can and the burnt firecracker in the master bedroom.
Now there's one final question, why, if you're Robert Fisher,
why rig the house to explode? Police say Fisher wanted
to destroy evidence, but evidence of what. Look at his
(39:39):
job history, He handled fuel for the US Navy, was
a firefighter and EMT, and worked as a medical technician
for the Mayo Clinic hospital in Phoenix. I doubt he
was stupid enough to believe the fire would erase all
evidence of the murders, so he could just waltzon later
and say, by golly g what happened here. Also, had
the house not exploded, he could have bought himself more time,
(40:03):
maybe four to twelve hours, a bigger leap on law enforcement.
So why blow it up? You could say, well, maybe
he wasn't thinking rationally. Perhaps, but that would mean he
pulled off a near perfect crime in the throes of irrationality.
(40:26):
If you like this show, please download our first two seasons,
Missing in Alaska and Missing on nine to eleven. For updates,
visit meon thirty three dot com or follow me on
Twitter at John waalzac Jo n Wa l Czak. Thanks
for listening. Chapter twelve. Alternate Suspects. Working on this story,
(41:02):
I heard wild theories about who could have killed the Fishers,
if not Robert, the most prevalent is perhaps a drug cartel.
I get why this makes sense slit throats and explosion.
It's dramatic, something out of Breaking Bad. But Robert is
no Walter White. He seems to have been addicted to painkillers,
but otherwise, there's no evidence he used or sold illegal drugs.
(41:24):
I promise you I did seriously consider other suspects, but
I immediately rolled them out with one exception, the nosy neighbor,
her husband and their adult son. When I ask everyone
if the Fishers had enemies, they all say the same thing, no,
except the next door neighbors. The nosy neighbor is the
woman who heard Robert and Mary fighting the Knight of
(41:46):
the murders. She and Robert had a long running feud.
To give you an idea of their dynamic, one time,
while spraying his house with a hose, he got water
on her house and she called the police. She and
her family hated Robert and he them. They saw him
as an arrogant jerk, and to their credit, he was
By the way, why am I using the nosy neighbor nickname? One,
(42:09):
I'm hiding her identity. Two she said she read personal
notes and diaries found in the Fisher's trash. Here's why
the nosy neighbor, her husband, and their adult son raised
red flags. One motive there was bad blood. Two opportunity
they lived next door. Three the husband's profession. He was
(42:29):
an electrical engineer. In an online memorial after he died
in twenty sixteen, a friend wrote that on a trip
they took years earlier, the electrical engineer quote brought a
home built battery operated device that made me feel like
James Bond. Reading this, I thought of the Fisher fire
and the battery device found in Britney's trash can. The
electrical engineer even filed a patent for a disconnect unit
(42:52):
for mechanical and electrical systems, so he was clearly smart.
He was home when the Fisher house exploded, and he
immediately told police that Robert probably died by suicide, an
odd thing to say when the likely explanation at that
moment before the bodies were found would have been an
accidental gas explosion. For the odd son, the nosy neighbor's
(43:13):
son was in his early thirties, and two thousand and
one years later he played a key role in the case.
He traveled to Canada to help idea man police thought
might be Robert Fisher. He swore it was Fisher. Police
took the man's fingerprints it was not Fisher. So yes,
these three, the nosy neighbor, the electrical engineer, and the
odd son raised red flags. I tried to interview the
(43:36):
nosy neighbor, but she never responded to letters, emails, or
phone calls, and she didn't answer the door when I
twice visited her house. I also tried to interview the
odd son. He sent me three emails with some bombshell information.
You're going to hear them now, with occasional bleeps. I'm
redacting personal information and a few things I don't want
to share just yet, but I will in later episodes.
(43:59):
Email number one, I ask the odds Son for an interview.
His response, I.
Speaker 10 (44:04):
Am not interested in speaking about.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Him, Robert Fisher, or even.
Speaker 10 (44:08):
Giving any future mental bandwidth to him. I prefer to
move on from anything related to that. Good luck.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Email number two, I ask the odds son if he
was at his parents' house on April ninth or April tenth,
two thousand and one.
Speaker 10 (44:23):
His response, not sure what you want to know. I
worked and lived nearby and saw my folks a lot,
especially when that went down. They the Fishers, more specifically,
she screamed at him daily. He never really yelled. What
many consider a one off relationship fight was their day
to day. That crap went on for like fourteen years.
(44:46):
Never once did you see their kids smile or be kids.
The day they moved in, I met him first. I
actually told mom and dad we needed to move. He
was crazy and would explode. Someday. Mom and dad saw
more than they stopped live next door. Dad died in
twenty sixteen. Mom is, we don't really speak much these days.
(45:07):
Hearing things they saw secondhand not ideal. I would rather
not think about that guy all the.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Best Email number three, I respond quote when you say
they screamed at him, who do you mean by they
Mary screaming at Robert? Who else screamed at Robert? What
made you think from day one, literally the first day,
that Robert was crazy and would explode? Were you at
your parents' house on April ninth, two thousand and one
and the morning of April tenth, two thousand and one,
(45:35):
The only people anyone cited the Fishers as feuding with
was your family.
Speaker 4 (45:40):
Why.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I'd very much like to interview your mom, I reached out.
Do you think she'd speak to me? Thanks?
Speaker 10 (45:46):
John, I will not respond again after this email. Mary
screamed at Robert. You could hear it clearly in the
house's next door and outside, calling him worthless, saying she
could have done better over a decade of that crowd,
and the kids heard it their entire life growing up
like top of your lungs, screamed, he was slow, Our
(46:07):
interactions were bizarre. He was what today I would easily
call a trumper type. I was washing my car, listening
to the sex pistols. His first words to me were, boy,
that ain't country music. I responded, no, it's not. It
just got weirder from there. Who the fuck calls a
stranger boy, some redneck psycho, That's who. I don't remember much.
(46:31):
The day before it was a day like any other
to me. The day of and many days after that
neighborhood was a fucking media and curiosity seeker circus. It
was a pain in the ass to even get there
to see my parents. You had to show id that
you lived there to even access the cul de sac.
The cops had little control and were idiots to residents
(46:52):
and not listening to what they were telling the officers
and detectives. Ask my mom. She worked both days, came
home the night before and saw and Fisher fiddling with
the gas line into the house, heard the gun shot
that killed Mary. She was not home. The next day
at around eight am when the house blew up and
caught fire. Dad was home alone. Then day after she
(47:14):
saw there's much more talk to her if she will speak.
She planned on writing a book about it now that
she's retired. I don't know. We do not speak anymore
since Dad passed away, and the bullshit, criminals and thefts
and other stuff. Post his death, he Robert Fisher fucking
terrified pretty much everyone in that cul de sac save
(47:36):
his best friend down the street, the idiot. He speaks
to no one anymore. I don't know if he's still alive.
Fisher shot guns in his backyard until the police got involved.
In his early years, he shot guns with children down
the street. When the guy shot and waved around his
guns a lot. The cops were called on that house
(47:57):
many many times due to the fight over the years.
It wasn't the first time he made the local news.
Redneck motherfucker, mister America type whose go to method was
intimidation and guns in people's faces. He pulled guns on
neighbors and waved them in their face when people tried
to resolve problems with them. As a neighbor. The people
(48:19):
who lived there at the time were of a different generation.
They don't talk shit about crazy folk they live with,
when he may have crazy friends and family too. They
back then, unlike today, and people with their echo chambers,
had to learn how to live together and get along.
Everyone in that cul de sac and nearby knew one
another well. It was a community that saw him as
(48:41):
whoa crazy. Most were concerned and very outraged by the
media mess and lies and bullshit from the parents and
reports on TV attempting to make up some other narrative
than the truth. Didn't want to get involved with that crap.
Tended to have an attitude. If you have nothing nice
to say, don't say it, as it may come back
to haunt you. I will not respond again about this,
(49:04):
and I do not give you permission to use my
name in anything you may quote from me that shows
up publicly. I despise talking about this or even thinking
about it, and will never respond to you again about
more questions.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
And true to his word, I never hear from him again.
There's a lot to unpack here. The fights. The odd
Son said he and his parents repeatedly heard Mary and
Robert fighting. Two other neighbors told me the same thing. Peter,
who lived on the cul de Sac from nineteen ninety
eight to two thousand and two, said everyone heard it.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
Yeah, it was loud. That was two houses away and.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
I heard it.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Another neighbor, Paul, lived on the street from nineteen eighty
seven to ninety five. When you would hear these fights,
how intense were they? Were they the kind of fights
that if you live, let's say in an apartment sometimes
to hear your neighbors arguing or were they pretty intense?
Speaker 11 (49:55):
I mean at the level of the yelling. I would say, yes,
you got to be pretty upset to real take your
voice to that level. When they would be screaming at
each other, you could kind of feel like there was
some tension in the air. They were venting something, and
Bob was usually the one doing most of the screaming.
Mary would retort back or just kind of defend herself.
But again, you know, I never really wanted to like
(50:17):
hear about what they were talking about, but you could
definitely hear that there was some angry words being exchanged.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
Well, at that point it's impossible to escape if you're
that close.
Speaker 11 (50:27):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
I looked at Google maps before this and your house
was a little over one hundred feet from there.
Speaker 11 (50:34):
And then it called a sext so it's like we're
almost like facing each other.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
Yeah, And I mean it takes a lot for that
kind of yelling to carry even if the windows were open,
I still think you have to project that's yeow, Like
that's still one hundred hundred and thirty feet yea, the
closest to get to your house.
Speaker 11 (50:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Yeah the police. Neighbors say police were called to the
Fisher house multiple times, but the Scottscale Police Department can't
locate any record of the except one, which I'll discuss
in a later episode. The gunshot. The odd Son told
me his mom, the nosy neighbor, heard the gunshot that
killed Mary, a shocking claim. If true, why didn't she
(51:13):
call the police? If false, why would he say that?
The gas line? The odd Son said his mom saw
quote Fisher fiddling with the gas line into the house.
That's never been reported before. I found a similar allegation
and a police record I.
Speaker 9 (51:29):
Obtained female resident from saw the adult male resident of
twenty two to twenty three North seventy fourth Place, Robert
Fisher on the afternoon of four to nine oh one,
he was kneeling near the bushes on the south side
of the residence and appeared to be placing a cord
near the base of the house.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
So whether it was a gas line unlikely or a
cord likely, or the nosy neighbor allegedly saw Robert fiddling
with something in his yard the afternoon of April ninth.
My first question is, obviously what was he doing? My
second is when did she see this? Did Fisher go
home on his lunch break or was it after work?
(52:08):
When I ask investigators about the nosy neighbor, the electrical engineer,
and the odd son, the response I get is more
or less an eye roll and some version of they're
kind of crazy. But that doesn't mean we should ignore
their statements. In fact, police have repeatedly referenced one publicly
that the nosy neighbor heard Mary and Robert fighting on
April ninth. We either believe her or we don't. We
(52:30):
shouldn't cherry picks statements to suit a favored narrative. If
we do believe her, What the heck is going on here?
I try to avoid crazy rabbit holes, but this one
I had to go down. Did the odd son kill
the Fishers. Did his parents cover up the murders? I
know how insane this sounds, but given the facts, bad blood, opportunity,
(52:51):
the husband's profession, the odd son, I had to at
least consider it briefly. But I want to make this
emphatically clear. I found no evidence these neighbors were involved
in the murders or the explosion. Neither did the police.
They were never considered official suspects. Let me say it again,
I believe Robert Fisher killed his family. I believe his
(53:13):
actions were premeditated. Don't mistake my open mindedness for naivete.
While there's no forensic evidence proving Robert committed these crimes,
there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that would likely hold up
in court, and let's use common sense. The idea that
someone else got into the Fisher house to kill Mary,
Brittany and Bobby in their sleep is doubtful. There's no
(53:34):
evidence anyone broke into the house, and where would Robert
have been during all of this. The killer would have
had to take him out first, without waking his wife
and kids, because there is no way an innocent Robert
would let someone murder his family without fighting back. I
guess you could say a killer waited for him to leave,
killed his family, then ambushed him when he got home
(53:54):
on a tiny cul de sac. I don't think so. Also,
who would leave Robert's dog Blue alive other than Robert.
Robert probably put Blue in the backyard or a vehicle
during the murders. Blues barking didn't wake Mary or the kids,
and he had no blood on him when he was
found in the woods. If someone else killed the family,
Blue likely would have been in the house during the murders.
(54:16):
So what then the killer gave him a shower? Consider too,
the ball cap Robert wore it at the ATM. Police
found it in the Forerunner. Finally, pay attention to where
the killer abandoned the Forerunner. This was a spot Robert
Fisher knew well. In fact, he was supposed to go
camping there three days later. If you think anyone else
committed the murders, how would they have known to dump
(54:38):
the Forerunner at this exact spot. I could go on
and on, but honestly, it's a waste of time. I
report without fear or favor. If I thought anyone else
committed these crimes, I'd tell you what a twist, but
the likeliest culprit by far is Robert Fisher. Search for
Robert Fisher and you're liable to find blues collar. So
(55:01):
we found Mary Fisher's Forerunner. It's still on the road,
it's still in Arizona, and we're about a half mile
away from its current address, which we have to track
down the person who owns it. Now, we're going to
leave that person a letter and just basically ask if
we could talk to them take a look at the Forerunner.
One of the things that we really want is a
(55:22):
copy of the key, which is kind of crazy, like, Hello,
I'm a stranger, I'm a journalist.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
I would like a copy of your car key.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
But it would mean that if a key was ever
found in the wilderness or with remains or something like that,
that you could match it up to see if it
fit the Forerunner key. Want to see if it has
the original owner's manual maintenance records A long shot, but
maybe there's like timestamped diagnostics data.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Swored on board. So there is a purpose for this.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
But I cannot imagine this man getting a letter from us,
Like we're kind of vague. We don't specifically say hello,
you have Mary Fisher's Forerunner. But okay, so we are
point one mile away, I don't see Okay, it's not here,
So somebody has it out.
Speaker 8 (56:07):
So I've seen it on Google. Okay, So left him
the letter and we're off.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
We wait and wait, and never hear back. We do, however,
establish a full chain of ownership. One Mary Fisher, two,
Mary's sister Myrna three the current owner. After technicians processed
the Forerunner in two thousand and one, they gave it
back to Mary's family. Her sister sold it to the
current owner in twenty eighteen. We try to reach him
(56:48):
via letter and email to no avail. Our producer Chris
then dials a long list of possible numbers. At one point,
an older woman answers the current owner's mother. She tells
Chris that her son is friends with Mary's family. We
didn't know that. We thought he was just some random guy.
She says. Her son even visited the Fisher's cul de
(57:09):
sac the day the house blew up to comfort grieving
loved ones. The address we drove by where we left
the letter is her house, she says, not his. The
Forerunner is now in Tucson, not Scottsdale. She tells Chris
she'll speak to her son and if he wants to call,
he will. He never does. She also says, quote, the
Lord's not done with Robert Fisher, and then she says
(57:32):
this a few years ago, while changing tires on the Forerunner,
her son and his wife found quote the dog's collar.
They gave it to Mary's sister, Myrna, the dog's collar.
There's no way I can confirm this yet, since we
didn't hear back from the current owner or Mary's sister.
But I believe they found blues collar. If true, that's
(57:54):
a big deal. It means the police missed the caller
while processing the Forerunner. It also means that all these
years later, we might have found a new piece of
physical evidence. Let's say that someone located a new piece
of physical evidence in the car twenty two years later.
Could it be tested at this point?
Speaker 10 (58:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (58:14):
Absolutely, Matt Steiner, the NYPD crime scene expert.
Speaker 5 (58:17):
In my career, there are tons of cases where we
look back at old scenes and are still able to
collect evidence.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
It's valuable.
Speaker 5 (58:24):
I had a case with my partner. We had a
clandestine grave in a backyard discovered forty years later and
still there was enough evidence there forty years later to
solve that case. The company that created blue Star did
a cool test where they went to Gettysburg and there's
a I guess it's a house there, and in the
attic of this house there's like a famous battle where
(58:48):
sniper is killed in this attic, And they processed that
area with blue Star hundreds of years later and still
got a reaction. So it's powerful stuff. The variables are,
what's the condition that's evidence been living in. Has it
been stored properly? Has it been in direct exposure to
sunlight and UV which would destroy DNA and fingerprints and
everything else. Depends on the condition that it's been its
(59:09):
location and the environment's been in for the last twenty years,
But certainly possible.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
Let's say that this isn't theoretical. Let's say that I
tracked down the forerunner and the current owners found the
dog's collar hidden kind of in a wheel well for
the last twenty years. What do you think you could
recover from that?
Speaker 10 (59:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (59:28):
So, I mean, if it's been stored properly, you're talking
DNA simply just from skin cells from whoever was handling
it from the dog, plus hair and fiber evidence from
things that touch the collar the dog, and other things
that might have been contact with that collar. So yeah,
that would be good. You know, if the tags are
on it, maybe fingerprints on it. If it's a smooth,
non porous surface, would be a good one for fingerprints.
(59:52):
So there's a lot of stuff you could do with it.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
For a second opinion, I turn again to Karen Elliott.
If you're looking at a dog collar that fell off
eye into a wheel well or something, or where the
spare tire is and almost twenty years later it's recovered,
what kind of testing could be done? What could we
in theory learn from that because it would have been
pretty protected. Could we test for blood for DNA? What
(01:00:14):
else could we do with that collar?
Speaker 6 (01:00:16):
Yes to all of that DNA for sure. I think
that would be a really good surface because there's nooks
and cranies on a collar, and especially with someone who
is under the probably the kind of stress that Robert
would have been under at the time probably left a
ton of DNA on that collar. If he touched the
dog during that time. His DNA on that collar wouldn't
(01:00:38):
mean a whole lot because it's his dog. Her blood
on the collar would be huge. And yes, since it's
been out of the element, since it's been protected, there's
a really good possibility that you could find blood on that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
The question that I have, and I know anyone listening
to this is going to have, is even twenty plus
years later.
Speaker 6 (01:01:00):
Yes, I've worked cases that were fifty years old that
we actually used a blood enhancement chemical on and were
able to recover bloodstains that were that old.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Finding Robert or Mary's DNA would mean nothing. Blue was
their dog, but finding Robert or Mary's blood or DNA
from say an accomplice, could be critical evidence. We covered
a lot in this episode. Here's the bottom line. There's
no forensic evidence proving Robert Fisher committed these crimes, but
he is by far the likeliest suspect. Here are the
(01:01:33):
myths we busted. That the killer used extreme force when
slitting Mary, Brittany and Bobby's throats, that Mary's fore runner
was wiped clean, that the killer used liquid accelerant to
help burn down the house. And here are the key
questions we raised. Which caliber bullet was used to shoot
Mary A twenty five as indicated in a police report
(01:01:54):
or a thirty eight, matching Robert's missing revolver. Who do
the seven fingerprints found in the fore Run belong to?
If they're still unidentified, law enforcement should run them again.
What caused the luminol reaction on the Forerunner floor mat
Police should re examine it. If they find blood, they
should try to recover a DNA profile, then run it
through codis. Where was the cigarette butt found and whose
(01:02:17):
DNA is on it? Police should run it through codis.
Whose blood is on the sneaker found in Robert's war clocker.
If it belongs to a close female relative, who exactly
and why is it there? Did police recover the feces
and tissue near the Forerunner? If so, they should examine
both for clues like DNA. What are the unknown dark
(01:02:38):
fibers recovered from the Forerunner? Police should consult outside experts
and reanalyze them using new technology. Did the Fishers have
a safety deposit box? If so, did the police search it?
If not, what happened to it? Do police still have
the Fisher's computer? If so, what shape is it in?
Can they reanalyze the hard drive using new technology? What's
(01:03:00):
the deal with the burnt firecracker in the master bedroom
and the battery device in Britney's trash can. What were
the quote gunshots two neighbors heard ten to twenty minutes
before the house exploded. Police should consult outside experts. What
did the nosy neighbors see the afternoon of April ninth
when she spotted Robert fiddling with something in front of
his house. Did the nosy neighbor actually hear the gunshot
(01:03:23):
that killed Mary? If so, why didn't she call police?
If not, why did her son say that? Finally, did
the current owner of the Forerunner find blues collar? If so,
law enforcement should retrieve and test it immediately. Next time,
I'm missing in Arizona.
Speaker 7 (01:03:41):
He is alive.
Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
We know he was seen yesterday morning at eleven by
the witness and that he's on the move. You can
reach us by phone at one eight three three new
tips that's one eight three three six three nine eight
four seven seven, by email at tips at iHeartMedia dot com,
tips at iHeartMedia dot com, online at neon thirty three
(01:04:05):
dot com, or on Twitter at John wallzac j O
n w A. L Czak. Paul Duckan is our executive producer.
Chris Brown is our supervising producer. Hannah Rose Snyder is
our producer, Paul Gemperlin is our researcher, Ben Bollen is
a consulting producer, and I'm Your host and executive producer
John Wallzac Recreation is voiced by Ben Bollen and Rob Lamb.
(01:04:27):
Special thanks to Dave Wilkins. Cover art by Pam Peacock,
Neon thirty three logo designed by Derek Rudy. Our intro
song is Utopia by Ruby Cube. Please download the first
two seasons of our show, Missing in Alaska and Missing
on nine to eleven, and if you're so inclined, give
us a five star rating. Missing in Arizona is a
co production of iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three