What You Didn't Know About Bobby Bizup

What You Didn't Know About Bobby Bizup

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello friends, Steve Stalkton here with you. Welcome to our
latest video. Today we're going to look into the strange,
strange case of Bobby Bisop. The truth about Bobby Bisop.
This case has been covered many times. I'm sure most
of you are aware of it, but are you aware

(00:22):
of everything in the case. We don't think so. There's
some pertinent information that's been left out. Join us for
this sad, strange case. Bobby Bizop was the only child
born to Master Sergeant Joseph and Constance Busip on July fourth,
nineteen forty eight. Joseph was a member of the US

(00:42):
Air Force and Constance was a homemaker. Bobby was born
almost completely deaf, and despite making use of the best
technology and hearing aids that they had available in the
late nineteen forties, he could still hardly hear anything. He
relied mostly on sign language and lipreading, but almost no
one other than his parents could understand him. He shrugged

(01:03):
it off when he was teased by their children, which
he was a lot. One of Bobby's favorite things to
do was to go away to camp in the summertime,
and even at camp, despite being almost deaf, Bobby was
always not just participating, but smiling. And this is despite
the intense and constant bullying that he had to endure

(01:24):
daily at these camps. Everyone knows that children can be
so cruel sometimes. Unfortunately, it was one of these camps
that would be the center focus of the investigation into
what happened to this little boy who was only ten
years old at the time of his strange and mysterious disappearance.
We just want to let you know that this isn't
easy to hear. There's some things here that you probably

(01:47):
haven't heard anywhere else regarding Bobby and his disappearance, and
it's somewhat shocking. You may even realize that your most
trusted source for information on missing persons purposely left out
some of the important deeds tales. Why well, that we
don't know what we do know, and Ken promises that
we pride ourselves on not sugarcoating or purposely omitting information.

(02:12):
We believe that the entire story should be told, even
if it's extremely dark like this one. Here's the real story,
the whole story, and the true story of what happened
to little Bobby Bisop. Let's start at the beginning. Bobby
was an only child, and as we said, he was

(02:32):
bullied relentlessly by the other children because of his hearing impairment.
He was different at a time when unfortunately it wasn't
okay to be different. Despite everything he faced, every single day,
you wouldn't ever find Bobby without his crooked and somewhat
gap to smile. You wouldn't find him on the bench
during the camp softball games, or sitting to the side

(02:54):
when it was time for fishing. There he would be
every time front and center and waiting to be a
part of the other groups of children, despite how they
bullied and treated him. In August of nineteen fifty eight,
Bobby was at one of these summer camps. It was
no different than all the other times he had to
interact with other children his own age. August tenth, nineteen

(03:15):
fifty eight, was the day that everything would change forever.
Bobby would disappear and it would become a very long
standing mystery as to what exactly happened to him. There
have been recent developments in this case that we will
get to later on in this video, but first let's
go over what was originally said about what happened to

(03:36):
this little boy on this particular day, Bobby was fishing
by a place called Cabin Creek while attending a summer
camp by the Catholic church called Saint Malow's Retreat. Right
around six pm, a camp counselor approached Bobby told him
it was time for dinner. Bobby followed the councilor down

(03:56):
the hill towards where they ate their meals. It's important
to note here that later on this councilor was adamant
that Bobby was right behind him. When he turned to
walk down that hill. He said he was absolutely certain
that this little ten year old boy was following him. However,
when he reached the camp and turned around, Bobby was
nowhere in sight. Now, Mountain Meeker's Barren Summit looms to

(04:21):
the west of Colorado Highway seven between Allen's Park and
Estes Park. High on the eastern face of the thirteen
nine hundred and eleven foot peak. Tiny Cabin Creek starts
far above the tree line, cleaving a slash in the
mountain as it tumbles down before meandering through the trees
as the earth flattens out on the eastern edge of
the Rocky Mountain National Park. There, the crystal clear water

(04:44):
trickles through gently rolling forest land before finally slipping past
Saint Catherine of Santa Chapel, the iconic church on the rock.
Then the creek ducks under Colorado Highway seven and bends south.
The land from the edge of the Rocky boundary to
the chapel is the home to the Catholic Church's camp,

(05:05):
Saint Malo, and it's hard to imagine a more beautiful
and Bucolic place. A headline in the Denver Catholic Register
in nineteen fifty seven termed at God's Country, and it's
easy to see why. Mountain peaks that seem to reach
the heavens themselves for us, you may otherwise only find
in a dream babbling brooks and quiet streams where you

(05:26):
can relax and fill it one with nature and depending
on what you believe, God himself or whoever your higher
power is, generations of schoolboys spent summer after summer at
this very spot. They would swim and shoot, hike and
camp fish and have fun. The boys will be boys

(05:47):
mentality was never more fitting than those summers these young
men and boys spent at this particular camp. At least,
that's what everyone thought was happening at this place, just
a wholesome good time and a place where young boys
can let loose, make friends, learn about the church, and
be themselves. Summer Camp closed in the early nineteen eighties

(06:08):
and the property was converted to Catholic Retreat, a place
visited by Pope John Paul Second himself during a break
from World Youth Day. Now, the landscape and buildings have
changed dramatically since the days of the Summer Camp where
Bobby Bisib disappeared, but remained very clear in the minds
of most of the thousands of boys who have come
and gone from its cabins and woods. While most of

(06:30):
the members of the long forgotten Camp have nothing but
fond memories and happy thoughts, when Camp Saint Malo comes
to mind, there's a deep, dark secret that was exposed
by some of the boys, all men now who have
the complete opposite reaction when being shown pictures of or
even at the mention of those Summer camp days. In
order to understand the history, and also perhaps to understand

(06:53):
why Bobby's disappearance was never thoroughly investigated, we have to
start at the beginning and understand just how this camp
came into existence. Beginning in nineteen fifteen, the Reverend Joseph
Bassetti began taking members of the Cathedral High School choir
and some of the Altar boys on camping trips that
land east to Mount Meeker. He was inspired by the

(07:15):
Biblical phrase upon this Rock I will build my church,
and that church was built, later donated to the Archdiocese
of Denver. In nineteen thirty four, a scattering of buildings
had been erected, and Camp Saint Malo was born, a
chapel that greeted visitors. The famous Church on the Rock
went up the following year, and by the nineteen fifties

(07:37):
the camp was an extremely popular destination for Catholic boys
in Colorado. Back in those days, there wasn't much oversight
in regards to what actually went on at a place
like this, no mandates or yearly check ins with the
people funding or running it, and no safety guidelines for
activities or background checks for workers. A boy could almost

(07:57):
literally do anything he wanted. Hiking and Camping program met
twice a week to trick the high peaks and visit
the glaciers in Rocky Mountain National Park. The almost always
freezing swimming hole offered an exhilarating break from the excruciating
summer heat. There was basketball, handball, tennis, and bad mitton courts,
as well as archery and rifle ranges, and even a

(08:19):
craft shop where boys could construct model airplanes or take
on other projects. Cabin Creek and the beaver ponds in
the immediate area back and the boys and their fishing rods.
Over the years, a routine was eventually established, and things seemed,
at least from the outside looking in, to be running
quite smoothly. Camp Saint Malo was an absolute success, or

(08:41):
was it. The Denver Catholic Register hyped the camp incessantly
with endless stories about the wholesome fun that awaited boys there.
One story even reported that quote, big tasty hamburgers are
a welcome site to any growing boy. But when they're
cooked outdoors over a big fire, where cool mountain breezes
could add more flavor to the burghers, there is no

(09:02):
holding them back in The quote sounds wonderful, doesn't it now?
Back in nineteen fifty eight, the feet to attend the
camp was thirty eight dollars per week. Doesn't seem like
much now, but that's about three hundred and sixty six
dollars in today's money, quite a lot back then, and
if you wanted your son to be able to get
some horseback riding in it was just a few dollars more.

(09:25):
Reverend Richard Heister took over as the camp's director sometime
in the fifties after Reverend but said he was no
longer able to hold the title. His nephew shared some
fond memories of his experiences at the camp. He went
every year as a boy, and practically gushed as he
recounted these memories. Later on, when the camp's wholesomeness came
under scrutiny, he said things like, it was freezing cold.

(09:49):
We'd be really cold, we hadn't eaten yet. We would
have hiked all night because we would leave it too
in the morning. So I remember that ritual, and I
remember being there a number of times for those two
and sisters hikes. He talked about high his nose and
bled profusely. After he tried boxing, which is also one
of the many sports offered and taught by the camp.

(10:09):
Reverend Heister would say Mass as the sun rose every morning. Most,
if not all, the counselors at this camp were the seminarians,
who were studying for the priesthood. As the younger Richard
Heister shared his fondest memories with a smile and laugh,
there was one memory that stuck out for him above
all the rest, a memory which made the smile slip

(10:30):
right off his face and the laugh made from his voice.
It was the memory of a boy named Bobby Bisum,
who was visiting camp for the second time that year.
As it was only a week at a time for
most of the boys to do, the price being a
lot back in those days, Bobby had visited three times
that year alone. Bobby Bissom, the only son of Master

(10:51):
Sergeant Joseph Bissop, who disappeared seemingly into thin air and
without a trace, who everyone thought was perhaps swallowed up
by the mountains themselves. The search for Bobby extended across
four days, with an estimated three hundred people searching over
sixteen square miles. The search included airmen from Denver's Lowry
Air Force Base, where Bobby's father was stationed. Bloodhound searched

(11:14):
the woods, and divers even searched the heavier ponds. The
search extended up Mount Meeker to approximately eleven thousand feet
and four miles in each direction. There was just no
sign of him, only his bait box found about a
mile from the creek where he was said to have
been last seen by his counselor. The camp director made

(11:35):
multiple statements, always proclaiming how sure he was that Bobby
was just hiding and that he would eventually emerge when
everything settled down. He thought that perhaps all the attention
and authorities around may have scared the boy, who maybe
had been plowing a game of hide and seek to
try and scare his counselor, and now that the game
had gone too far and the police were involved and

(11:56):
other agencies were trapsing about trying to find him, perhaps
he was just scaredy would get into trouble, or at
least the director made it clear that's what he thought.
A vacationing physician claimed to have seen Bobby walking the
streets in Estes Park, fifteen miles north of Saint Malo's.
Clerk's in a Nastaspark hardware store also reported seeing a

(12:17):
young boy resembling Bobby and even tried ask him questions,
but he failed to respond, pointing to his mouth and ears,
sounds kind of like Bobby, but he quickly left what approached.
It was until almost a year later, on June sixth,
nineteen fifty nine, that any additional clues were found. Three

(12:37):
camp councilors from Saint Malos, including one who helped lead
the original search for Bobby, came across part of his
hearing aid some scraps of clothing and a few bones,
all later confirmed to be Bobby's. Right around that same time,
more of his remains are found in a ravine's heavy
underbrush just below the timberline on Mount Meeker. The ravine

(12:58):
and area surrounding it had all been part of the
original search. The question that seemed to be on most
people's minds, however, is how did Bobby get there and
why wasn't he found during the original search. Bobby Bizup
allegedly disappeared while heading downhill to dinner, very close on
the heels of a councilor the whole time. Yet his

(13:18):
remains were found almost a year later, three to three
and a half miles away from the camp and twenty
five hundred feet up Mount Meeker. And even for the
people that claimed to have seen him in EST's Park
fifteen miles south of Mount Malo. How would he have
gotten there. It's true that a ten year old boy
can be resourceful, but this particular boy was hard of hearing,

(13:39):
as we said, and didn't speak much. He was said
to be very hunger when the counselor approached him for dinner,
and rushing right behind to get to the food. Yet
he disappeared without a trace within a couple of minutes
it took him to make it down the hill to
the chow haw. How had the counselor not seen or
heard anything? How could he possibly not have noticed what

(13:59):
happened to Bobby, what happened to the rest of him?
His body? It hadn't been that long, after all, even
if eaten by wildlife in the Rocky Mountains. It's the
opinion of many experts involved in investigating the case that
there should have been more of him left behind. Let's
fast forward now, as we know that while some of

(14:19):
Bobby's remains were found, there is still so much mystery
surrounding this case. The rest of this story is rather
hard to tell. It's an extremely delicate topic, and in fact,
some of your most trusted sources for information on the
missing purposely left all of this out. We genuinely hope
that it wasn't left out to try and make the

(14:40):
case seem more mysterious than it was and exploit poor
Bobby or his family, but simply because the reason has
just stated, that being the delicateness of it all. In
twenty nineteen, the Colorado Attorney General reached an unprecedented agreement
with the Archdiocese of Denver, the Diocese of Colorado Springs,
and Diocees of Pueblo that allowed a former US attorney

(15:03):
to examine seven decades of church records and publicly exposed
priests who had been credibly accused of abusing children. The
resulting report was unflinching, including highly detailed reports on no
fewer than forty three Colorado priests who abused at least
one hundred and sixty six children between nineteen fifty and

(15:24):
twenty nineteen. It documented the systemic failures in the church
over the decades, from willingly covering up reports of abuse
to repeatedly failing to follow a state law requiring that
those allegations be reported to police. The report even stained
the once glowing reputation of Camp Saint Malo, finding that

(15:44):
its founder, Joseph Bassetti, a revered figure in the Archdiocese
of Denver, repeatedly abused a teenage boy back in nineteen
forty nine and fifty. It left open the possibility that
there were others, noting that the victim had come forward
in two thousand two, but that his report was not
contained in Joseph Bassetti's file. As a result, the port

(16:07):
reads quoting here, we are therefore not confident that there
was no other abuse by Bussetti, or that the Denver
Archdiocese did not know about it before Bassetti abused the
teen end quote. But it wasn't just the camp's founder
who was accused. That same report exposed abuse on the
grounds of Camp Saint Mallow in the nineteen fifties and

(16:29):
nineteen sixties. This abuse that was exposed was committed by
two priests with long ties to the camp, men who
served as counselors there for years while they were studying
for the priesthood. One of these was later called the
most prolific known clergy abuser in Colorado history, a man
with at least sixty three known victims. His name father

(16:52):
Harold Robert White. It's alleged and claimed that the Denver
archdiocese knew from the outset of Harold White's career that
he was abuse yuh in this way, they did nothing
to stop him, and in fact, if this report is true,
they handed him thousands of boys to do these things. Too.
They gave him free reign, essentially Allegedly, this makes him

(17:14):
one of two seminarians who were counselors at Camp Saint
Malow that summer that Bobby disappeared who have since had
accusations of abuse sustained after a twenty two month examination
of church records by investigators working for the Colorado Attorney
General's Office. The other priest allegedly exposed as this kind
of abuser while counseling at the camp the day Bobby

(17:34):
went missing. His name was Neil Hewitt. Neil was accused
of abusing at least eighteen children in this way during
his priesthood. While Harold White died in two thousand and
six and Neil Hewitt left the priesthood in nineteen eighty
and married, he did acknowledge that he was among the
last to see Bobby and was the one who found
his remains in a gully several miles west of the camp. However,

(17:57):
during a talk with the reporter in twenty nineteen outside
his Arizona home and again on the phone in November,
Hewitt said he quote did not do anything end quote
to Bobby. Mark Has, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Denver,
which owned and operated Camp Saint Mellow, said there are
no records that could help explain to what happened to
Bobby Bisum. Quoting here, he says, this tragic situation occurred

(18:21):
sixty two years ago, and no one currently working for
the archdiocese has any direct knowledge of it. He went
on to state, we are not in a position to
respond to speculation about something that happened six decades ago.
Bobby's disappearance was simply treated as a case of a
youngster who got lost, and a corner even classified his
death as likely being the result of exhaustion and exposure

(18:43):
and termed in an accident. It is of note that
the Vatican defrocked Neil Hewitt in twenty eighteen. In May
of twenty twenty one, though everything changed dramatically more than
sixty years after his disappearance, Bobby's was turned over to
the FBI by a man named Tom mccrowskey. Doctor mccrowsky

(19:06):
stated that the skull had originally been in the possession
of his father, doctor Joseph mccrowskey, a prominent member of
the Catholic Church and a close friend of the priest
who was running Camp Saint Mallow when the little boy vanished.
He went on to say that his father passed away
all the way back in nineteen eighty, but not before
giving it to him and telling that it could possibly

(19:26):
be the skull of a little boy who disappeared from
the camp. Nobody knows much else, and as far as
doctor mccrowsky is stating, he doesn't know anything else either.
There are obvious questions though, if he was given the
skull in nineteen eighty and told that it could belong
to a missing boy, and why did he only hand
it over all these years later. He claims that throughout

(19:48):
the years he figured out that the boy was more
than likely Bobby Bisop, and that he searched for articles
in further information regarding the boy in the case. He
also claims he couldn't find anything in all that time
until twenty twenty one, when he finally came forward to
the FBI. He'd kept the skull stored in a paper
bag in his basement, almost the entire time since his

(20:08):
father had given it to him all those years ago,
back in nineteen eighty. Nowadays, if you visit Mountain Meeker,
you won't hear the laughing of a bunch of school
aged boys playing around in the nearby waters and woods.
You won't run into them as you go down to
fish in one of the streams. There's no sign at
all that way back when there was a summer camp

(20:29):
here run by Catholic priests. There will only be the
majesty of the mountains themselves, and the beautiful silence you
can only find on the mountain and deepen the woods
surrounding them. There is another silence we want you to consider, though,
the silence of the Catholic Church, as it's alleged they
kept those priests in seminary and secrets throughout all these years.

(20:51):
The silence of the doctor who, though he had the
knowledge of a little boy who allegedly went missing without
a trace, on his way to get some dinner, chose
or at least it seems to keep that seecert to
himself for many years as well, maybe too, the silence
of some of those aforementioned trusted sources for information on disappearance,
possibly in the selfish interest of making certain vanishings and

(21:13):
death seem more mysterious and strange. We won't be silent, though, folks.
Here are the facts and allegations as they've been presented,
raw and sad and shameful on so many different levels.
If we've come to know them. Our heart goes out
to any victims of any crime or any kind of injustice,
to the families who have no answers despite someone out

(21:36):
there somewhere always knowing what really happened, And to Bobby
Bisop and his family with a terrible and incredible justice
he and they were done and had to endure for
all these years. It's absolutely unimaginable. It seems there may
be hope for an answer soon as the case has
been reopened since the FBI obtained what they believed to

(21:59):
be Bobby skull. Let's just hope and pray it's not
too late for justice to be served and for the
spirit of little Bobby Bisop to finally be able to
rest in peace. I look forward to your comments, but
please keep it friendly and respectful. Be good to yourselves

(22:19):
and each other Stay safe out there. If you see something,
say something Somewhere. Someone knows the truth in a lot
of these cases we cover. And I'll see just a
little farther on down the trail, I'm Steve Stockton, and
I'll talk to you next time.