Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia Pt. One

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and I'm Ashley.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Let's dive right into this week's case.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
November seventh, nineteen ninety seven, New York City, New York,
fifty four year old Michael Sullivan and his thirty six
year old girlfriend, Camden Sylvia vanished without explanation from their
loft in Manhattan and are reported missing six days later.
Suspicion falls upon the couple's landlord, Robert Rodriguez, who was

(00:55):
involved in a dispute with them prior to their disappearances
and refuses to co operate with the investigation. It turns
out that Rodriguez is connected to the unsolved disappearance of
another man, which took place six years earlier, and even
though he eventually serves time in prison on fraud charges,
there are no answers about what happened to Michael and

(01:15):
Camden after that.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
The path went Chiley. So this week we're going to
be exploring a bizarre missing person's case about a couple
from New York City. The nineteen ninety seven disappearances of
Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia. Michael and Camden were living
together in a loft in Manhattan until they seemingly vanished
in the thin air. But on the same day they
went missing, they presented a letter to their landlord, Robert Rodriguez,

(01:41):
where they announced their intention to go on a rent
strike unless he provided adequate heating in their building. Well,
when police started investigating Rodriguez, he would suddenly disappear himself,
but by the time he resurfaced ten days later, he
had hired an attorney and would no longer cooperate with
the investigation. Rodriguez would eventually go to prison on unrelated charges,

(02:02):
and it turned out that a former business associate of
his named David King, vanished with that explanation years earlier,
and he has also never been found. Now, while it's
easy to assume the worst about Rodriguez, there is zero
evidence that foul play took place where that he could
have been responsible for the disappearances of Michael and Camden.
There are just so many unanswered questions about the last

(02:24):
time the couple was confirmed to be alive, potential motives
for their disappearance, and what the logistics would have been
for getting rid of their bodies. It's a very puzzling case,
but we're going to explore all the different angles on
this series of episodes.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
So things don't look very good for Rodriguez. Like you said,
while there's zero evidence that foul play took place, when
you actually look back, Rodriguez is tied to issues surrounding
finances and or the risk of losing finances. So this
person who went missing was his business partner. And then
the couple who went missing is also through to, let's say,

(03:01):
withhold rent and or force him to expend money to
make their loft better to fix the air there. And
then now he's serving time in prison for fraud. So
every time you look at Rodriguez, if there's a risk
to his finances or he has the ability to save
or make money, even if it's in an illegal way,
he takes it. And so it's very easy to see

(03:22):
why when they disappear and they've just served their landlord
this letter threatening a financial loss to him, that he's
tied to this crime.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Now.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
I'd love to hear more about it, but there's no
doubt why this looks very suspicious. There's an mo here
where if money's at play, Rodriguez is definitely going to
try anything he can do to make more and spend.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Less, especially if he got away with murder one time before.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yes, like, it's very easy to be suspicious of Rodriguez
because he's had so many people associated with him go missing,
and that just seems like too much of a coincidence.
But at the same time, when you heard the details
about what happened, you're thinking, well, if he murdered Michael
and Camden, how exactly did he do it? And there's
also the possibility that the reason he didn't want to
cooperate with the investigation is because he was doing a

(04:10):
lot of other illegal thing involving fraud. So even if
he had nothing to do with the couple's disappearances, I
can understand his strange behavior.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Our story begins in New York City in nineteen ninety seven.
Our central figures are fifty four year old Michael Sullivan
and his thirty six year old girlfriend, Camden Sylvia, who
both share a fourteen hundred square foot loft on the
top floor of a five story apartment building located at
seventy six Pearl Street in Manhattan Well. Michael is a

(04:39):
native New Yorker who's lived in this apartment since nineteen
seventy six. Camden originally hails from the village of Hyannas
in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts. After making the
move to New York, Camden got a job at a
Manhattan real estate office, which has been a place of
employment for the past fourteen years. She also works as
a pain on the side. Michael's primary occupation is an

(05:03):
admissions clerk at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, though
he also works as an actor, dancer, and choreographer. After
Camden became involved in a relationship with Michael, she decided
to move in with him, and they've lived together in
his lof for five years. The official date of the
couple's disappearance was Friday, November seventh, and while there were

(05:24):
contradictory details about when they were last seen, it sounds
like the final confirmed sighting of them took place at
four twenty pm, when they stopped by a video store
near City Hall to rent a VHS tape of the
romantic comedy Addicted to Love. Over the course of the weekend,
some of Michael's friends and relatives attempted to phone Michael
and Camden at their apartment, but could not reach them

(05:47):
and did not hear anything back. Camden never returned to
work at a real estate office, and by Tuesday, November eleventh,
one of her co workers had become concerned that Camden
had not at least attempted to call to her messages.
The coworkers started contacting Camden's family in Cape Cod to
see if they had heard from her, and word eventually

(06:08):
reached Camden's mother, Laurie Sylvia, who was in Washington, d C.
On a business trip. Once Laurie heard about what was
going on, she decided to travel to Manhattan and stopped
by her daughter's apartment building on Thursday, November thirteen. Camden
and Michael were not there, but most of their clothing
and personal belongings had been left behind in the loft,

(06:29):
including both of their passports and Michael's wallet. The VHS
tape for the movie Addicted to Love was found inside
the apartment, along with a time stamped receipt, which indicated
that the couple had returned home after renting it. While
one set of the couple's apartment keys was missing, the
other set was still there, so it seemed likely that

(06:49):
Camden and Michael had left together at some point. The
only other items that appeared to be missing were a
bag that Camden normally carried which took work home from
the office, as well the two pairs of running shoes,
which led to speculation that they might have gone out jogging.
This compelled Laurie to contact the New York Police Department
to officially report Camden and Michael missing. A search of

(07:11):
the couple's financial records showed that their credit cards had
not been used since November seventh, and there was no
pay per trayl for them since that date.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Okay, so a couple things that are interesting here is
that Camden and Michael are stable, but it doesn't seem
like they have these insanely profitable jobs. I wonder if
Michael came from money or if Camden came from money.
But Michael had been living in this fourteen hundred square
foot loft on a top floor in Manhattan, and even
in the seventies, rent was incredibly high in Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
What about rent control?

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, okay, that's true too, because he had been there
for several years. I know that early seventies to late
seventies the finances went through the roof. So you're right,
if f rent control was in place, maybe that's a benefit,
But that's one thing that stood out to me. Is
anything else going on where they could be getting money?
And when you look at this idea that they had

(08:06):
maybe gone on a jog. Remember New York City, while
of course it's a big city, so it still has crime.
The seventies were rampant for murder, assault, drugs, lawlessness, those
kinds of things. And so is it completely out of
the realm that they got attacked or that something happened
to them when they, like you said, maybe did go
on a jog. So those are the two things that

(08:28):
stood out to me here. They just seemed to disappear
out of thin air. Nobody hears from them. And was
anything going on or was he from a family of
prestige And if that's true or they had some kind
of money, does that cause any kind of complication in
his relationships with people?

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, you just mentioned rent control, and we're going to
talk more about that in depth later on, because Michael
had got the apartment at a good price during the
nineteen seventies, so he was living there for much cheaper
rent than any of the other tenants because of rent control.
And as we're going to talk about Robert Rodriguez was
not too happy about that because he wanted to have
other tenants in there who could pay a lot more

(09:06):
in rent, So that's why he was able to get
such a good price on such a large apartment. And
you mentioned that could something have happened to them while
they went out for a jog, And that's kind of
the main issue with this case is that, as we're
going to talk about, there are a lot of reasons
to be suspicious of Robert Rodriguez. We technically can't prove
that something didn't happen to them by crossing paths with

(09:27):
a complete stranger or something. And that is the main
issue is that we really don't know the last time
they were confirmed to be alive. We just know that
they rented a videotape, got back to the loft at
some point, and maybe went for a jog, But it
does not sound like any witnesses could confirm having seen
them gone anywhere. So that's the main issue is that
they just seemingly vanished into thin air.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Just to counter that jog theory, so it said that
Camden was missing a bag that she usually took work
home from the office with which would indicate that it
was like a larger purse or a briefcase type of bag.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
So if you're going for a.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Jog, I mean, I know I wouldn't like I might
just carry a key and an armband. If I'm going
to go for a jog, I wouldn't have a bag
with me, but definitely not a huge bag that you
would store I mean, they didn't have laptops then, but
you would store files in perhaps, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
I agree with that, And it makes me wonder maybe
they weren't going for a job, Like maybe she had
something in that bag that she wanted to present to
Robert Rodriguez or something, or maybe like some papers she
wanted to present to a lawyer or something like that,
and that's why she left the lot with them, and
then something happened to her, which is why the bag
has never been found.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
And just a quick question before we move on to
the next part. So about them having two pairs of
sneakers missing, was it atypical for them to be casual
enough to just like on their off hours, be wearing
sneakers just to go run errands or you know, go
meet up with a friend or anything to that effect.
Would it have to mean that they're going for a jog.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Unfortunately, I don't have that information. I don't really know
if it was typical for them to wear sneakers just
while doing casual activities, but it was November. I don't
know if because it was cold or weather, they might
decide to wear like boots or something when they went out,
if they were running errands, and only wear the sneakers
to go for a jog. But it is just kind
of speculation, and the fact that this is specifically mentioned

(11:24):
by the sources that they may have gone for a
jog because the sneakers were missing, makes me think that
these were a specific brand of footwear that they only
wore for the purposes of jogging. So on Saturday, November fifteenth,
investigators phoned the building's landlord, a fifty six year old
Cuban immigrant named Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez was married with three

(11:45):
children and three grandchildren, and after purchasing the building in
nineteen ninety three, he opened up his own locksmith shop
on the ground floor. At this point, he lived outside
New York City on a seven acre estate located in
Orange County in the hamlet of Slate Hill. Rodriguez was
initially very cooperative with investigators and said he had arrange

(12:05):
for someone to provide them with keys to the building
so they could perform a search. The following afternoon, investigators
phone Rodriguez's residence to ask if he would come down
to the precinct for a formal interview. To their surprise,
Rodriguez's family informed them that around midnight the previous evening,
shortly after the original phone call with him, Rodriguez left

(12:25):
the residence and his Honda passport after saying that he
needed to go meet the police for an interview. By
the time investigators called to arrange the actual interview, Rodriguez
had still not returned home, so his family filed a
missing person's report with the New York State Police. One
week later. Rodriguez Has abandoned Honda passport would be discovered
inside a parking garage in Chelsea, and the time stamp

(12:48):
ticket showed that it originally pulled in there at two
thirty seven am on November sixteenth, only a few hours
after he left his residence. During Rodriguez's absence, police wanted
to perform a search of his house and property, but
his family refused to give them permission to do so.
Police countered by flying a helicopter over the property and
using infrared devices to search for any bodies that might

(13:11):
have been married on Freshly doug Land, but they found
no evidence that could be used as probable cause to
obtain a search warrant. After being missing for ten days,
Rodriguez finally resurfaced when he suddenly showed up at his
locksmith shop at his apartment building. However, by this point
Rodriguez had hired an attorney and was no longer cooperating
with the investigation.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
So why there doesn't seem to be any explanation for
why you would initially be caught and talked to law
enforcement and pretend like nothing's happened, agree to be hospitable
to them. Hey, I'll open up the law for you.
We'll get you keys, I'll come down for an interview,
and then you flee. You disappear to the point where

(13:56):
even your family is worried about where you are, and
file a missing US report and then you show back
up with an attorney and don't cooperate. I would understand
if these people are missing and you were very respectfully
said hey, listen, I'm gonna get my attorney. This man
clearly has some money, right so he may have an
attorney friend that he knows or have one on retainer,

(14:17):
and he could say, Hey, I'm going to go ahead
and get my attorney. I have no problem trying to help.
Those are my residents, but I'm going to get my
attorney and we can go from there. That would not
have raised as many flags. This talking to them, fleeing,
disappearing to where your parents think you're actually just a
missing person, and then showing back up and refusing to
cooperate really does paint you in a totally different light

(14:40):
than just saying I'd like an attorney present when I
talk to you.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, that definitely looks like pure panic, Like the fact
that he would lie to his own family and say
that he's going to see the police for an interview
even though an interview had not even been scheduled that
at that point, and then just disappear and not tell
anyone where you are. And I don't think if they've
ever found out where exactly Rodriguez was during those ten
days he was missing because he hired an attorney and

(15:05):
wouldn't speak to the police. So makes you wonder what
was he doing. What was his original plan? Was he
just planning to hide out forever before he decided to
come back and return to his normal life. But it
just seems very bizarre that someone who wasn't even being
fingered as a suspect or person of interest at that
point just suddenly decides to take off.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Right, you made yourself a person of interest at that point.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's giving guilty conscience. It turned out that on the
morning of November seventh, hours before she disappeared, Counton had
been seen heading towards Rodriguez's locksmith shop with the intent
of presenting him with a signed letter. One of the
couple's neighbors was a photographer named Chuck Delaney, who was
the building's tenant representative on the New York City Laft Board.

(15:51):
According to Delaney, ever since Rodriguez purchased the building, there
were always issues with him not turning up the heat
at the beginning of the winter season. Can Did and
Michael lived in a drafty, uninsulated loft on the top floor,
so the issue affected them more than any of the
other tenants, and since this particular year had a much
colder November than usual, they decided to take action. The

(16:14):
couple put together a letter for Rodriguez, signed by themselves
and some of the other tenants, in which they announced
their intention to go on a rent strike and seek
enforcement from the New York City Heat Complaint Bureau and
New York City Lapboard unless Rodriguez ensured that the building
was properly heated. Canden also had a second letter containing
a demand for Rodriguez to install a thermostat in her apartment.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
I mean, these are reasonable requests when you look at this.
I just want to be healthy and safe and warm
in a place that I pay for. So to me,
anytime you're talking about water, heating and air, those kinds
of things that are heat specifically when you're looking at
that can be a health issue. You can't have your

(16:59):
tenants literally freezing. And so I completely agree and understand
where the tenants are coming from. And it wasn't just
this couple. Yes, they had it worse, but they got
other people to sign and there was a history that
this was already a problem.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, you can definitely tell that Rodriguez is a shady
character who's not providing adequate conditions for his tenants. And
it does seem like quite a coincidence that Camden Michael
would just happen to go missing on the very same
day that they were intending to present Rodriguez with his letter.
But at the same time, it doesn't really sound like
extreme demands, So you're thinking to yourself, if Rodriguez is guilty,

(17:35):
how would something like this escalate into murder and lead
to him killing two people. So there was additional tension
over the fact that the building was rent controlled and
Michael had lived in the law for twenty one years.
As a result, the couple's rent was only three hundred
and four dollars per month, but if they were to
leave and a new tenant moved into the building, Rodriguez

(17:56):
would be able to charge them ten times that amount,
as the market rate for renting a fourteen hundred square
foot loft in Manhattan during that time period was around
three thousand dollars per month. While Camden and Michael were missing,
Laurie Sylvia held frequent candlelight vigils for the missing couple
at the building alongside their friends and fellow tenants, to

(18:17):
prevent Rodriguez from renting out the loft in their absence.
Laurie sent him a money order for three hundred and
four dollars to pay the rent on their behalf. In response,
Rodriguez's attorney stated that he would not be accepting payments
from anyone besides the original tenants, though he offered his
assurances that he would not rent out the loft until
there were conclusive answers about what happened to them. Over

(18:39):
the course of the next few years, police would perform
numerous searches of bodies of water in the area, including
the Hudson River, but never found any trace of the couple.
Sometimes a body or a severed body part such as
the foot, would surface in these waters, but DNA testing
would always rule out the possibility that they belonged to
Michael or Camden.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Okay, I'm really frustrated because poor Laurie Sylvia. She is
sending money to the landlord and he says, nope, sorry,
won't accept it. But we don't worry. We'll hold the
apartment until we figure out what happened. Here's what's stupid.
There were many things he could have done with his
attorney's help, such as I will accept your payment to

(19:22):
hold the loft. However, no one but the original tenants
are able to occupy the space while they are not here.
I reserve the right as usual to enter the dwelling
when I want, right that I have free ability to
come and go, because usually that's a landlord's right anyway,
and to monitor to make sure no one else is

(19:42):
residing in this apartment. So while I will accept payment
to hold their spot, no one else can actually occupy
the loft. I could understand that for a million reasons,
insurance reasons, things like that your tenants need to be
the ones living there. But this is so ridiculous. It's
like a slap in his face where he's like, I
don't want your money, but we'll hold it. Why not
just take the lady's money. You're clearly greedy and won't

(20:06):
do things that cost money. Use the three hundred and
four dollars to put a thermostad in there, right, Like,
I understand that the rent could have been ten times
as much. That's what I was thinking when I was looking.
I know, a high rent back in the seventies would
have been like seven hundred dollars, and they're paying three fifty,
So that was even a low rent in the seventies.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
So I think it's kind of weird that he's not
going to take the money. But I wonder if by
not taking the money, it's almost like subterfuge, like, oh,
I'm not greedy and I don't need the money. Therefore
I would never kill them to get them out of
this apartment, because if I were to take that money,
it would say like, I need the money, but I'm
not doing that, so I must be innocent of whatever

(20:45):
happened to them.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Okay, that's an incredibly good point, Jewels. See, this is
why we have multiple people on this podcast. That's a
good point, because if I'm desperate for this three hundred
and four dollars from this poor couple that's missing, it
does look a little shady because again, that's not very
significant when it's going towards what rent could be. So
I could see that aspect as well.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, and he learned about his personality, that would make
sense that he's just trying to look like the concerned
landlord and trying to say, oh, I'm not only in
this for the money. I really do care what happens
to these tenants, so I'm going to do what I
can to support their families, even though I can tell
it's probably driving him crazy that he has this large
loft that he could potentially get three thousand dollars per
month for and he still isn't able to rent it

(21:25):
out well.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Believe it or not, this was not the only unsolved
missing person's case from New York City which Rodriguez was
connected to. On January twenty second, nineteen ninety one, David King,
a thirty one year old African American man who lived
with his wife and two children in the Flatbush neighborhood
of Brooklyn, was last seen leaving his residence to head
to his job at the fire Safe Alarm Systems in

(21:50):
Lower Manhattan, but he never returned home and was subsequently
reported missing months later. While the owner of the fire
Safe Alarm Systems was none other than Robert Rodriguez, and
it had originally been a lock and security business before
Rodriguez decided to expand his operations by servicing fire alarms,

(22:10):
one of Rodriguez's employees was David King, who had previously
worked as a fire alarm technician for a competing company
called Multiplex Electrical Services AKAMES. While at the time King
went missing, he Rodriguez and another FORMERMES employee named Derek
Brickhouse were listed as co defendants in a thirteen million

(22:31):
dollar civil lawsuit Frommes, who alleged that the defendants had
conspired to loot computer software, business records, and customer information
from their company. With Brickhouse's assistants, King had supposedly spent
the better part of six months supplying Rodriguez with confidential
materials from MAS while he was employed there. When the

(22:53):
company fired King in January of nineteen ninety, Rodriguez hired
him to work at fire Safe Alarm Systems and was
apparently planning to make him his business partner. However, it
does not sound like this arrangement ever came to fruition,
and shortly before he vanished, King had reportedly been seen
having an argument with Rodriguez about the situation. At this point,

(23:15):
Mis's lawsuit was cutting towards litigation, but King's disappearance delayed
the proceedings until a judgment was eventually issued against King
and he was ordered to pay over ninety one thousand
dollars in damages to MIS. The company agreed to drop
the lawsuit against Rodriguez and Derek Brickhouse in exchange. Who
a guarantee that Rodriguez would return all the software and

(23:37):
confidential information King had provided to him and not perform
work in any buildings which use mis fire alarm systems.
For years, police never performed any sort of investigation into
King's disappearance, as they figured that he might have run
away to avoid his legal troubles. But the disappearances of
Michael in Camden prompted them to give King's case a

(23:58):
second look.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah. Absolutely, And remember here King is originally someone who
you'd think, well, that's an ally for Rodriguez, he's helping him.
But then when they get caught, now King might be
a liability as well, and who knows what deals could
have been made, or if he could have turned on
Rodriguez or whatnot. So I could see when you first
started describing it, I thought, well, King's on his side,

(24:22):
why would Rodriguez want him gone? But as it progresses
into litigation and there's these issues where they're taking legal
action and it's not as simple as it was in
the onset, I could actually see where someone like Rodriguez says,
I need to eliminate some of the risk. And again,
like we said, it's not until Camden and Michael actually
go missing that anyone even looked at him for that,

(24:44):
And so again, why did Rodriguez run, Why did he
draw attention to himself? Why did he go missing and
then re emerge in the Camden and Michael case, Because
then he gets himself where not only is he being
a targeted investigation on him for their disappearance, but now
King becomes another issue that's relevant again when he was

(25:06):
never on the radar for that.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, back in nineteen ninety one, Rodriguez was never looked
at as a suspect or person of interest because law
enforcement just figured King ran away. And when you look
at the situation, he pretty much became a convenience scapegoat
for Rodriguez because since King disappeared, he was on the
hook to pay all the damages from the lawsuit, while
Rodriguez and his other partner, brick House, didn't have to

(25:30):
pay anything. And at the time, nobody found that suspicious.
But then people are seeing a pattern here saying that
whenever someone causes an inconvenience in Rodriguez's life, it just
seems they happened to go missing, And you couple with
the fact that they had a dispute over King not
being made a business partner like Rodriguez had promised him,
and you can see why he might have had a

(25:51):
motive to try to make him disappear as well. So
in December of nineteen ninety seven, investigators announced that they
were planning to exuom an unidentified by John Doe who
had been buried in the city's Potter's Field on Hart Island.
After searching through hundreds of missing persons cases and medical
examiners files, they came across a report for an African
American male who had washed ashore from the East River

(26:14):
on March the eighth, nineteen ninety one, less than two
months after David King originally went missing. His cause of
death was determined to be drowning, and he apparently bore
a striking resemblance to King in his Morge photographs, but
no dental records or X rays could be found for
King to compare them to the John Doe. I know
that some sources state that investigators wanted to perform DNA testing,

(26:37):
but members of King's family refused to provide a sample
of their blood for the testing to take place. But
I have also read another article from The New York
Times in January of nineteen ninety nine, which states that
the DNA testing did occur and the results were inconclusive
either way. It does not look like it was ever
conclusively proven that King was the John Doe, and he

(26:57):
is still listed as missing to this day. Of course,
Rodriguez was looked at as a potential suspect in King's disappearance,
but no evidence was ever found implicate them.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Okay, so that's interesting that you have conflicting reports that
there there was nothing to compare to, and then there
was to me. Wouldn't you have first actually made sure
you had something to compare to before you exhumed a
body that seems really invasive and something that's incredibly personal,
that this body's going to be dug up and investigated again,

(27:30):
I would think that they would say, listen, we have
DINAL records for this man. We have family members who
have agreed to provide DNA. Let's go ahead and exhume
the body and perform these tests. So, perhaps the New
York Times article is accurate and the other one.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Is not, possibly because it does seem weird to be
that King's family would refuse to provide a sample and
if they did it, it could be a thing where
maybe they initially promised to you, but then after the
body was exhumed, they changed their mind. But I am
inclined to believe that the New York Times article is
probably accurate, that maybe they did do the DNA and
the results just didn't prove anything. So you can't really

(28:05):
rule out the possibility that this Jen Doe could have
been King. You just don't really have any way to
prove it. But that's interesting though, because DNA testing has
advanced so much since nineteen ninety nine. So I would
like them to see him, maybe give it another shot,
like maybe do genetic genealogy or something on the unidentified
deceeeded and see if he matches anyone from King's family

(28:27):
or anyone else from that matter, But I don't know
if that's a top priority right now.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
However, Rodriguez's connection to the disappearance of Michael Sullivan in Counden, Sylvia,
prompted investigators to perform a deep dive into his background
in the Manhattan District Attorney's office, and a federal grand
jury would eventually subpoena financial records from his locksmith shop.
It turned out that Rodriguez had purchased the apartment building

(28:54):
with insurance money he'd been awarded when the original house
on his property in Orange County down. While investigators concluded
that the fire was likely arson, they were never able
to figure out who started it. At the time Michael
and Camden went missing, Rodriguez was suffering from a number
of financial problems, as he owed over thirty two thousand

(29:15):
dollars in back taxes on the apartment building, and his
locksmith's shop seemed to be the only thing which was
keeping the building afloat. While the investigation into Rodriguez's financial
history turned up a ton of a legal activity, because
in January of nineteen ninety nine, he was arrested on
state and federal charges for such crimes as larceny, tax fraud,

(29:37):
and credit card fraud. One of his scams involved using
the social security number and birth date of a deceased
man named Alan Rodriguez, who was of no relation to him,
in order to open up credit card accounts and purchased
a number of items which he never paid for. Rodriguez
had also spent years laundering around one point three million
dollars in income from his locksmith's shop and side security

(29:59):
business in in order to avoid paying taxes on them.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
He seems incredibly bold that he I mean, he owns
acres of land where he lives, he has this apartment complex,
he has the locksmith's shop that he's running, and then
he's also doing all of these these financial fraud crimes.
And so for me, when I start to think about
the idea that Rodriguez is that bold and that aggressive

(30:26):
in the way that he operates his businesses, his personal finances,
and he doesn't think that he'll get caught, or that
he operates like he's above any kind of punishment or
even being found out. So then to say, does he
carry that into violent crimes as well? It's very possible
he operates like he's above the law, that he's almost
a god complex where I can take this man's identity,

(30:49):
I can charge things I know I can't pay for.
I will have the best of what I want, and
I will kind of live life the way I want,
even if that's with the legal activity. And so how
much of a jump is it to say, hey, there's
a significant financial benefit while I'm already in financial trouble
to making sure that I could get three thousand dollars
a month instead of three hundred dollars a month. Is

(31:10):
it crazy to think he could take those two out? No,
so again, Rodriguez has gone himself into incredibly hot water
by just being erratic and thinking that he can do
whatever he wants and avoid any kind of consequence.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
It can be interpreted in a number of different ways,
because obviously, when you see all the crimes he's committed,
it's easy to believe he's capable of murder. But at
the same time, if he had nothing to do with
Michael and Camden's disappearance, this could also provide a potential
alternate explanation for why he decided to run away when
the police were starting to question him, because maybe he thought, Ooh,
I've done all this other illegal stuff, and if I

(31:47):
start being investigated, they're going to discover it. I'm going
to get into a lot of trouble. And I guess
that is technically true, because if he had not become
a person of interest in this case, they probably wouldn't
never have uncovered all this other illegal stuff he was doing,
and he never would have been arrested. So I guess
it depends on how you interpreted Was he running away
because he had committed a double murder? Or was he

(32:08):
running away because he was trying to hide all this
other illegal stuff that he've been doing so. Following Rodriguez's arrest,
the police finally decided to perform a search of his
house and property in Orange County, but found nothing, and
Rodriguez's wife would subsequently divorce him and sell their house.
Rodriguez decided to sell his apartment building, and the new

(32:28):
owners finally gave permission for police to search it. They
used kida or sniffing dogs and tore up the flooring
in Rodriguez's locksmithshop, or were unable to find any evidence
which shed light on what happened to Michael and Camden.
Following the building's acquisition, the new owner served Laurie Sylvia
with an eviction notice for her daughter's loft. Even though

(32:49):
Laurie attempted to fight this in court, the ruling was
that since Camden and Michael were presumed dead, they were
no longer protected by rent stabilization, so their lof could
be rented out to a new tenant at the current
market rate. In October of nineteen ninety nine, Rodriguez pled
guilty to tax and credit card fraud, and as part
of a plea agreement, he would receive a prison sentence

(33:11):
of two to six years. Less than two years later,
Rodriguez managed to attain parole and he was scheduled to
be a release from prison on August the thirtieth, two
thousand and two. But this decision was met with backlash
from law enforcement officials and the families of Michael and Camden,
as their disappearances were not mentioned at all during Rodriguez's
parole hearing. In response, the New York State Parole Board

(33:34):
decided to reinterview Rodriguez asked him about a cash of
licensed guns he owned. One of the conditions of his
early release would be for him to turn in these guns,
but Rodriguez claimed he could not account for them, and
the Parole Board described him as being quote unquote evasive
and intentionally deceitful at his answers, as he even invoked
his Fifth Amendment privilege at one point and declined to

(33:57):
answer any questions to avoid self and crime. Nation This
prompted the board to reverse their decision about Rodriguez's early parole,
and he would be forced to serve out his full
sentence before he was finally released in August of two
thousand and four. Rodriguez subsequently moved to East Harlem, and
as far as we can tell, he is still alive

(34:17):
today at the age of eighty four. Rodriguez has continued
to deny any involvement in the disappearances of Michael Sullivan
and Canden Sylvia, but after twenty eight years, they both
continue to remain missing persons. So I guess you could
say the path went chili.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Oh, that's fascinating. When the parole board's talking to him,
it's again this man who's sitting there like, you know what,
I don't have to tell these people what they're asking.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to get parole. He just
kind of operates above what's normal. Right that I could
be transparent. I could give these guns to them. You
can't account for them. They're your licensed guns, so it's

(34:55):
not even like their illegal guns. And he could say, oh,
I never had that or right, they're license to him,
and so why not just turn those over? And he
probably would have walked home.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, this is the only case I've seen where someone
is invoked their Fifth Amendment while speaking in front of
a parole board. Like people you don't usually do that
unless they're speaking with the police or they're on trial
on the witness stand. And he's got an opportunity here
to be released from prison, and he pretty much decides
to blow that by pleading the fifth which gives me
the impression that he really didn't want anyone looking into

(35:25):
these guns, and that makes you start thinking, hmm, could
these have been murder weapons? So I think that about
brings an end to Part one. Join us next week
as we present part two of our series about the
disappearances of Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia Robin, do you.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Want to tell us a little bit about the Trail
Went Cold Patreon?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
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

(36:06):
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 Unsaved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in

(36:29):
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.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
So I want to let you know a little bit
about the Jeweles and n Ashy patreons. So there's early
ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got
our Path Went Chili minis, which are always over an hour,
so they're not very many, 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 will link
them in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
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 Pathwink. So
until next time, be sure to bundle up because cold
trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy

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