Steven Koecher Pt. One

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome back to the Pathway Chili.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Robin, I'm Jules.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
And I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
December thirteenth, two thousand and nine, Henderson, Nevada. A security
camera captures thirty year old Stephen Kocher arriving in a
residential neighborhood, where he parks his car and is seen
walking down the sidewalk before he vanishes without a trace.
Earlier that day, Stephen had made one hundred and thirty
five mile trip to Henderson from his hometown of Saint George, Utah,

(01:03):
but never told anyone why. Since Stephen was struggling financially,
it is theorized that he might have traveled to that
area in order to seek employment or earn some money,
but there is no conclusive evidence of what happened to him,
and Stephen is never found.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
After that the path went Chiley. So this week we're
going to be exploring one of the more baffling missing
persons cases of the modern era, the two thousand and
nine disappearance of Stephen Kocher. At the time Stephen Coacher
went missing, he was residing in Saint George, Utah, and
decided to make an unexplained trip to Henderson, Nevada, where
he parked his car in an affluent retirement community and

(01:43):
was captured walking away by a security camera before he
inexplicably seemed to vanish into thin air. What makes this
story even stranger is that in the days prior to
his disappearance, Stephen would make some other unexplained road trips
through Utah and Nevada before he returned home, and one
of the trips was nearly eleven hundred miles long. Since

(02:03):
Stevo was experiencing financial problems and had trouble securing full
time employment due largely to the recession which was taking
place in the United States at that time, there have
been two primary theories pushed forward to explain his actions.
Either Stephen was feeling depressed or suicidal over his situation
and this caused him to experience some sort of mental
breakdown which prompted him to disappear voluntarily or take his

(02:26):
own life. Or he became so desperate for money or
employment that Stephen was roped into doing something which compelled
him to make these lengthy trips and he wound up
becoming the victim of foul play. For the longest time,
I found myself completely perplexed by this case. But in
recent years, two forms of media have been produced that
revealed previously undisclosed information which seemed to shed some more

(02:49):
light on what might have happened. One of them is
a YouTuber named Aaron Stoner who has done a deep,
multi episode dive into the disappearance on his channel, and
the other is a long force podcast titled Eyes on Justice,
which came out in twenty twenty one and was produced
by a team of private investigators who were hired by
Stevens family, and they have done extensive work on this case.

(03:12):
I learned all this new information when I covered the
case on an episode of The Trail Went Cold nearly
three years ago, and it caused me to look at
things in a different light. In fact, there's so much
to talk about here that our series of episodes on
The Path Went Chile is going to be a three parter.
Well start off by sharing the primary details about this case,
which you'll find in most mainstream sources, before we discussed

(03:34):
these new revelations that have come out in recent years.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Okay, this is incredibly interesting. I remember when we had
this incredible depression going on in the United States, where
finances were up in the air, where people's retirement accounts
were completely wiped out, where stocks had crashed, And so
I remember the stress, especially that my parents were in
at the time, of scrambling to figure out how do
we make ends meet and how do we make up

(04:00):
in this moment what we were losing so rapidly, And
so to think about Steve and think about the idea
that perhaps he had gotten incredibly depressed. That makes sense.
You saw incredible rises in things like family annihilations, where
the main breadwinner would come home and kill their entire
family and then complete suicide to spare them of the

(04:22):
financial distress. You saw suicide rates go incredibly high. But
this is interesting because this is not the only trip
that Steven takes. He's starting to make these really bizarre
trips on a pretty regular basis, where he's traveling at
this day one hundred and thirty five miles, but another
time eleven hundred miles on these just unexplained trips. I'm

(04:43):
almost leaning towards the idea that he had gotten caught
up in something or there was a group of people
that he was involved with for some reason that he
was making these these long haul destination trips for no
one around him seemed to know what was going on.
So I'm really excited to know more.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah. I was first introduced to this case when I
saw it on an episode of Disappeared many years ago,
and I was initially completely perplexed by it and didn't
know what to make of it. But I will say
that some of the new information that has come out
within the past couple years has put some of the
pieces of the puzzle together at trying to figure out
what happened. But of course Stephen is still missing, and
there are still a lot of unanswered questions, so it's

(05:23):
still a big baffling mystery.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Our story begins in two thousand and nine, and our
central figure is thirty year old Stephen Coacher. Stephen was
born in Amarillo, Texas to parents Ralph and Dianne Cocher,
and as the second of their five children. The Coacher
family are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter day Saints aka the LDS Church, and Stephen is

(05:48):
very devoted to Mormonism. Following his graduation from high school,
Stephen would travel to Brazil to perform missionary work, and
he eventually earned a degree in communications from the Universe
City of Utah. By this point, the Coachers have relocated
to Utah, and Ralph and Dianne live in the town
of Bountiful, just outside Salt Lake City, where Ralph works

(06:11):
as the editor for the Davis County Clipper newspaper. Stephen
wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and publish some
freelance stories in the Clipper before he took a position
with the Salt Lake City Tribune's digital advertising division. While
Stephen liked the job itself, he did not like the
fact that it required him to work overnight hours, so

(06:31):
he wound up taking a new advertising position with the
website match bin dot com. Stephen was also not too
fond of the cold winter weather of Salt Lake City,
so in April of two thousand and nine, he decided
to move to Saint George, which was located three hundred
miles away in the southernmost section of Utah near the
Nevada and Arizona borders. He would rent a room at

(06:54):
a house which he shared with another tenant named Jordan Zirkle,
but the two roommates couldn't have had more opposite personalities.
While Stephen was very devoted to his church and faith,
Jordan liked to drink and smoke weed and had a
prior conviction on his record for possession of a controlled substance.
But while they did not become close friends, they were

(07:14):
still able to maintain an amicable relationship. Upon his arrival
in Saint George, Stephen became a member of the Bloomington
Hills Seventh Ward, a local singles ward. While Stephen's siblings
had gotten married and had children by this point, he
continued to remain single and once broke off a serious
relationship with a woman who did not hold the same

(07:36):
interest in the LDS church that he did. Unfortunately for Stephen,
one month after he moved to Saint George, he would
be laid off from his job at matchbin dot com.
Since the United States was in the midst of the
Great Recession and the job market in Saint George was scarce,
Stephen had trouble finding steady employment, though he did manage

(07:57):
to get a part time job handing out flyers for
a business called Travis's Window and Blind Cleaning. However, this
job did not provide Stephen with enough income to pay
his bills, and by the end of November Jordan Circle
had moved out of their house and he was now
three months and fifteen hundred dollars behind in his rent.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
This that's an interesting layer to the case when you
look at his devotion to the LDS Church to not
be a married man at that point and to not
be able to, you know, live up to what's expected
very quickly. A lot of people in the LDS Church,
they're you know, introduced to people in hopes of a marriage. It's,

(08:37):
you know, the whole goal. You want family to be
the heart of who you are. And so he's thirty,
which is you see him join this local singles ward,
but I guarantee you most of the people and there
were not thirty year olds, and so I guarantee you
there's that pressure on his shoulders as well, that he
has been in relationships where quote he would have been

(09:00):
doing the right thing or he would be close to
the goal of having the family that is expected, and
then he calls it off. He's looking for other people
who might be interested in the same kind of things
in the local singles ward. But then he gets exposed
to this roommate who's not very much like him. And
eventually the roommate moves out and he's behind in his rent.

(09:21):
So he has got a lot of pressure on his shoulders,
losing his job, not being the ideal Mormon young man
that he was quote supposed to be, and then having
these financial struggles. And so when you describe that the
options become turned to something that'll get you money quick.
Very that's very that's very possible when you look at

(09:44):
this case. And then also when you say, well, wait,
what if he made this trip and he went to
complete suicide. But again, I think because this was not
the only time you saw this kind of trip, that
makes me less inclined to think that suicide was the
goal at the at the front.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, I've seen interviews with Steven's family, and they do
seem like genuinely nice people, and I think they supported
him no matter what, and that even though he probably
felt he did not live up to their expectations because
he was still single, he couldn't find steady employment, I
think he might have felt like a failure in their eyes,
even though they loved him no matter what. And I
think that would shed a lot of light on many

(10:24):
of his decisions, Like you said, either he traveled to
a far away location because he thought suicide was the
only option, or it became so desperate that he could
have been roped into doing something that he ordinarily wouldn't
have done just for the chance to earn money or
steady employment.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
I remember when I first watched this, I too, watched
this on Disappeared for the first time, and there's just
something about it that just is so so sad, because,
like you said, Steven's family they seemed to be very successful,
and they were living their lives in a certain manner.
They were getting married, and they all seem to have jobs.
And then poor Steven, just the timing of everything just

(11:01):
didn't seem to align for him, and he wasn't able
to keep the employment, and he was too proud to
ask his family for help. So he's stuck in this
situation where Jordan moves out and now he doesn't have
a roommate and all the rent is on his shoulders.
I can't imagine how he felt. It would have opened
him up to the possibility that if somebody had some

(11:24):
kind of illegal work that would have been cash in
hand quickly, then potentially he would have taken it because
I'm sure a lot of people in that time period
when they needed work would be open to doing things
that they wouldn't normally do just because they needed the money.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yes. In spite of his financial difficulty, Stephen was reluctant
to accept assistance from his family, as a check was
sent to him by his grandmother which was never cashed.
On December ninth, Rolf Kosher received a phone call from
Brett Bishop, who was Stephen's landlord. Bishop said that he
had been unable to get a hold of Stephen and
was calling Rolph because he was listed as a reference
on his rental agreement. Bischof let Rolf know that Stephen

(12:03):
was way behind with paying his rent, which prompted Rolf
to call him on a cell phone while he was
out grocery shopping. Rolf told his son that he was
willing to offer financial support, but Stephen seemed defended by
the suggestion and abruptly hung up. The following day, Steven
sent his father a text which read quote, Hi Dad,
I'm okay. At six fifty six pm Mountain time, Stephen

(12:24):
received a call on a cell phone from his mother, Dianne,
and told her that he was planning to come home
to visit their family and Bountiful for Christmas and would
likely be arriving on December the twenty third. To assist
him with his financial issues, Diane also transferred some money
to her son's bank account, but it was never touched.
That same day, Stephen also received a phone call from

(12:44):
his sister, and both she and Dianne would describe Stephen
as sounding like he was in an upbeat mood, but
at the time they were both completely unaware that Stephen
had taken both calls in the midst of a lengthy
road trip. Before we start talking about this trip, I
just just wanted to clarify that the locations will be
discussing in Utah our mountain time, and locations in Nevada

(13:06):
our Pacific time, so we'll try to differentiate between them.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Oh, this is so sad. So the family's aware that
he's struggling, in fact, they're trying to help him. I honestly,
you know, my late husband's family is LDS and they're
phenomenal human beings, and the church as a whole really
does take care of the people that are in their
wards and in their church, and so I can only

(13:30):
imagine the way this family operated. They're saying, hey, son,
you're struggling, it's okay, Hey Grandma sent you a check. Hey,
Dad just wants to make sure you're okay. Mom's checking
in with him, and he's sounding upbeat and excited, and
he's even making plans that he's going to be home
for Christmas. And so to detail those kinds of plans,

(13:52):
if you knew that you were going to complete suicide,
I wonder if you would continue to play along with
those or if maybe his mind would change at some
point after he had confirmed those plans. But when you
see people who have a purpose and they have people
who care about them and who plan and expect them
to be home, that's always a good sign. When you're

(14:14):
talking about, hey, where's his mental health? That he's communicating,
he's making plans, he's seeming like he's upbeat with his family.
Now again, people who are having mental health crises often
can hide those things. But right now, you know, from
this phone call, the family seems to think we have issues.
He's struggling, but not to a point where we were
concerned to this extent right that he was going to

(14:36):
go missing or that something would have happened to him.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, And I've always used that as the biggest argument
against the idea of suicide. It just seems kind of
cruel to tell your family I'm going to be home
for Christmas when you already know you're going to end
your own life. And as we're going to talk about momentarily,
he would later buy a couple of Christmas gifts for
his brother and his nephew, and it just seems like
he would have no reason to do that if he
knew he is never going to see them at Christmas.

(15:02):
So I do think that possibly the reason he sounded
upbeat is because he may have been making this road
trip for other reasons that he felt we're going to
solve his problems, which is why he was in a
much better mood. But I don't think anyone expected that
within a few days he would go missing.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Just an idea to play devil's advocate. And I'm not
saying that this is true because I'm more inclined to
think what you just said is correct, Robin. But people sometimes,
and it's been studied that they can be in a
really bad mood, they can be doing horribly, but once
they make that decision to end their life. It can

(15:39):
completely turn around their moods and they can seem really
upbeat and more relaxed and happier. So I don't think
it cancels out that possibility. I think it's not very probable.
And also, like we discussed before, the literature supports that
people make that decision typically in a very short period
of time, based on those people who've survived attempts. So

(16:04):
to think that like somebody has to plan it way
in advance, that doesn't seem to be true according to
the studies. So it could be a situation where there
was maybe the intention to do that, but then that
intention changed in a split second. But again it's just
to play devil's advocate. I don't think that, But I
just think that there's always that possibility.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
Oh, very true. And I think you can have, you know,
suicidal ideations or have that depression that feels like would
I be better off if I wasn't here, and that
can quickly change into action plans when you know, you
think you're fine, and then all of a sudden, a
plan can come, like you said, in minutes, So definitely possible.
And like you said, what if he's what if he's saying, oh,

(16:48):
I'm at peace. You know, I don't want my family
to worry, and so I'll tell them this upbeat story.
But then again, like Robin said, my gut wants to
think he's on this mission because he's excited. I'm going
to get to go home for Christmas and I'm going
to get to tell my family that some of these
issues are resolved. And maybe he was doing something a
little nefarious that gets him into trouble, but he thinks, hey,

(17:11):
I have a solution. Remember, there are not. In that time,
it was a really really difficult time financially in the
United States. This is people are getting laid off and droves.
People's accounts are just completely wiped out. People's you know,
resources are completely dried up. People aren't hiring, and so
it was a really desperate time for a lot of people.

(17:33):
And so I could see someone who would normally not
be inclined to do something that's you know, illegal or shady,
to say, hey, it's so it's a way to make
a buck right now, and I'm desperate.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
At some point on the evening of December ninth or
the early morning hours of December tenth, Stephen left Saint
George in his white two thousand and three Chevrolet Cavalier,
and debit card records would later show that he traveled
three hundred miles to Salt Lake City and purchased gas
there at six forty five am Mountain time. He soon

(18:05):
crossed the state line into Nevada and proceeded to purchase
gas in the town of West Wendover one hundred and
twenty five miles away. After that, Stephen traveled another one
hundred and fifteen miles to the unincorporated community of Ruby Valley,
where at eleven am Pacific time, he stopped at a
ranch owned by a couple named John and Cathy Nef.

(18:28):
Years earlier, when Stephen was a member of Salt Lake
City's LDS Singles Ward, he became acquainted with their daughter,
Anne Marie Nef, and while they dated for a brief period,
they never developed a serious relationship. Stephen wanted to see
Anne Marie, and even though she was not there at
the time, her parents still invited him inside for lunch.

(18:48):
During their conversation, Stephen mentioned that he was planning to
visit friends or family members in Sacramento, California, but he
wasn't sure if he would continue in that direction because
of the bad weather. This remark would later strike Stephen's
loved ones as odd because, as far as they knew,
Stephen did not know anyone in Sacramento. After leaving the ranch,

(19:09):
Stephen headed back into Utah and deba transaction showed that
he purchased food at a convenience store in Salt Lake City,
fuel in Springville, in food in Nephi. During the afternoon
and early evenings, Stephen received the aforementioned phone calls on
his cell phone from his sister and mother, but never
mentioned that he was driving through the state at that time.

(19:32):
By the time he arrived back in Saint George, Stephen
had driven nearly one thousand miles.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
And this is a different trip than the one hundred
and thirty five miles that he traveled before his disappearance.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yes, like this is a couple days beforehand, Like, he
hasn't even made the trip to Henderson, so he's making
this unexplained road trip which no one has been able
to figure out to this day, and people have wondered, like,
what connection did this have to his trip to Henderson
A couple days later? It only adds an extra level
intrigue to this whole mystery.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah, and it's really interesting because remember, this is a
gentleman who's behind fifteen hundred dollars on his rent. He's
making a thousand mile road trip. That's a lot of
gas and food and needs that you're on the road.
Is he staying over night in hotels or motels? And
so this is not a cheap thing to do to
hop in your car and to travel for hours and

(20:27):
hours and to make a trip like that.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
And it's always been to explain why he suddenly decided
to see John and Kathy Neff, the parents of a
girl he had not dated in a long time. I mean,
it seems very unlikely that he would decide to like
just travel to this location and maybe rekindle the relationship.
And if he wanted to do that, why would he
call first to say he was coming. So it's always
been a big question. Did he go there for the

(20:51):
express purpose of seeing them, or did he go to
the area for another reason and then just decided to
visit them because he happened to be there.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
And did they allude to anything else other than that
trip to California?

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Not really, No, he didn't provide any explanation for why
he was in the area, and the only reason we
know where he was is because of his debit transaction
showing him purchasing food and getting fuel, But we just
don't know why he was at these specific locations. So
on December the eleventh, Stephen spent the day handing out
some more flyers for the window washing business, and he

(21:24):
also had a meeting with the Bishop of the Bloomington
Hills seventh Ward, who promised that he would help him
find a job by the new year, and would later
say that Steven seemed to be in a positive mood.
On December the twelfth, Stephen left Saint George on another
unexplained road trip to Nevada, and at eight nineteen am
Pacific time, his cell phone would ping off a tower
near Overton, about eighty miles away. Nearly eight hours later,

(21:47):
Stephen used his debit card to purchase gas and Mesquite, Nevada,
which is located at the approximate halfway point between Overton
and Saint George. Shortly before apm Mountain time, Stephen stopped
at a kmart just outside Saint George, where he purchased
a baby's bib, little ornaments, and decorated cookies, which were
likely going to be Christmas presents for his older brother

(22:07):
Matthew and his newborn baby he had drawn their names
and the family's annual Christmas gift exchange. One of Steven's
neighbors would report that he saw Steven's car parked outside
his house at around ten pm Mountain time bo When
he looked back a half hour later, the car was gone,
and it's unclear if Stephen ever returned after that and
spent the night there.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Very interesting, you know, I mean, I know we've talked
about it takes a split second to change your mental
state or to make different plans. But this idea that
he draws his brother and the newborn their little names
for their Christmas family exchange, and he is early shopping.
He is doing a really good job getting out there
and getting these presents. He has a plan for making

(22:51):
sure that his secret Sama is provided for on Christmas Day.
And there's this new baby that he's clearly thinking of
and prioritizing life. So it shows in importance of family
to him. It shows that desire and expectation that he's
going to be able to make that delivery, and very interesting.
You know that the neighbor says, hey, the car was

(23:13):
parked outside, but then later in the evening I saw
it gone again and I can't recall if it ever
came back. Fascinating because we know at some point he
is seen in his car again in parking in that
retirement community. So tell me more about what happens to
Stephen after this Christmas shopping spree.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Just one more thing, Ash, you brought up that he's
going on this long road trip for you know, hundreds
or thousands of miles, like almost a thousand miles, and
that would require X amount of gas and you've got
to stop and get food along the way. And then
again he's buying presents. And we know that he has
access to that check from his grandmother, but he hasn't

(23:54):
cashed that and he could ask his parents for money
if he needed it. So where is he getting this
cash in hand?

Speaker 3 (24:01):
And let me tell you this. The LDS Church, like
I said, does an incredible job. I knew a family
that went to church with my late husband's family, and
they had room and board, provided, they had food provided.
It was a temporary assistance, but they needed help in
the church that absolutely, we have a fund for that.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
We have a.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Kitchen for that where you can come and shop for
food and those kinds of things, and it was very
important to the church. A lot of their tidying went
to saying, we're making a fund to protect the individuals
in this church when they hit unexpected life struggles. So
that's a good point, Jules. He has family that would
help him, he has a church that would help him
most likely, and he is doing things that actually cost money.

(24:44):
He knows he doesn't have a job, he knows that
he's behind in rent, yet he seems to be pretty
confident in going to get presents, going to do gas,
going on this trip. Is he getting another stream of
income and maybe rent just wasn't his priority, or he
has this plan, Hey, I'll just do this lump sum
payment later and take care of that. But maybe he
does have access to money we don't know about.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Do we know if he had any credit cards that
were maxed out or anything, Robin.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
That hasn't been reported unfortunately, So that would make sense
because a lot of people when they are having trouble
paying rent and they don't have much money, will sometimes
max out their credit cards, and that could be like
how he paid for these items, because I know that
his secret sand items were pretty cheap. But obviously he
needed something to pay for all that gas that he

(25:32):
was getting in his food during his road trips. So
it would not surprise me if he might have had
some credit cards.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Doesn't it just seem a little bit odd that, Okay,
so priority would be putting a roof over your head,
You would think that would be number one priority, and
then you're going to secure food and all those things
if you have room on your credit card to be
paying for all this gas. Months later we find out
he's months behind in rent. Wouldn't you put that on
your credit card?

Speaker 1 (26:00):
How many places take rent on your credit card? Because
I know that when I lived in an apartment, my
rent was always direct deposit, like they would only take
it from a bank account. The do some places still
allow you to pay for rent on credit cards?

Speaker 2 (26:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
I had to pay with a check, so that was
old school though, the credit check.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, either way, if he
had money on his credit card, you'd pay out you know,
the wazoo in in fees if you took money out
of your account like off your credit card. You actually
took cash out to do it, which I think if
somebody is really behind the landlord is likely going to
be as flexible as possible because they just want to

(26:40):
get paid.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yes, you can do cash advances as need be, so
as possible. He could have been doing that to make
some periodic payments.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
The next confirmed sighting of Stephen took place at seven
fifty two am Pacific time on the morning of December thirteenth,
which was a Sunday. Stephen received phone call on his
cell phone from Greg Webb, who was the president of
his LDS Singles Ward, and told Stephen he was driving
back to Saint George from Las Vegas and would be

(27:10):
performing that morning service. The service was scheduled to begin
at eleven am Mountain time, but Webb wasn't sure if
he would make it back in time and asked Stephen
if he would take over in his absence. To Webb's surprise,
Stephen said that he was currently in the Las Vegas area,
and while he said he was willing to head back
to Saint George to do the service, Webb told him

(27:32):
not to worry about it. At nine fifty three am
Pacific time, Stephen received another call on his cell phone
from a member of his ward who also heard Stephen
say that he was in Las Vegas. Neither caller noticed
anything unusual about Stephen during their conversations, but he never
told either of them why he decided to travel to Vegas,

(27:53):
and it was uncommon for him to miss Sunday services.
For the next four days, no one heard from Stephen,
but on December seventeenth, Dianne received a surprising voicemail from
the parking authority for the homeowner's association called Sun City Anthem,
an affluent retirement community located in Henderson, Nevada, just outside

(28:15):
Las Vegas, even though Henderson is over one hundred and
thirty miles away from Saint George. Diane learned that Stephen's
abandoned Chevrolet Cavalier had been found in the cul de
sac of a residential neighborhood in Sun City Anthem. The
Homeowner's association noticed that the vehicle had been parked there
for days, and when they looked in through the window,

(28:36):
they saw a flyer for Travis's window and blind cleaning,
so they called the phone number on it. This led
to them receiving Stephen's cell phone number, and they proceeded
to leave a voicemail about his car, but when they
were unable to get in touch with him, they decided
to call Dianne. Diane soon learned no one else had
spoken to or heard from Stephen for days, so she

(28:58):
became concerned enough to contact at the Saint George Police
Department and file a missing person's report for him.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Here's what worries me most about this scenario is that
Dianne says she learned that no one else had spoken
to or heard from Stephen for days. But remember, even
on these trips, he's making purposeful stops. He's stopping to
see people you wouldn't actually really think he'd stop to see,
like the parents of an ex girlfriend or a girl
he used to date. He's making phone calls to check

(29:28):
in with his sister, to check in with his dad,
to check in with mom, and so he seems to
be a pretty good communicator, and he seems to be
a very social person who has purpose and makes stops
to see individuals. So when Diane learns that no one
else has spoken to or heard from Stephen for days,
you know that her gut just completely turns upside down

(29:49):
and she's thinking, Okay, something's not right, something's happened to him.
We know the last time he's seen right is when
we see him leaving his vehicle here. But if if
he had a mission and he was going to do
other things, or he had met with people, that would
help us establish that maybe that's not the last time,
right that he leaves that vehicle. That's not the last

(30:11):
time that we know that he's alive. But from the
sounds of it, he didn't live much longer after that,
because I think he still would have kept in communication
with people, even if he was doing something actively in
that city. He still would have been responsive to people.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
And it makes no sense for him to abandon his
car for four days in this retirement community, which, as
far as anyone could tell, he had never traveled to
before in his life. So it is literally like a
case where he climbs out of his car, the camera
captures them walking away, and then he just vanishes into
thin air. So you can understand the concern and just
the fact that he was willing to miss Sunday services

(30:49):
and travel to Las Vegas or near Las Vegas, and
he never explained to anyone why he was going there
is one of the big mysteries of this case. So
Rolf Kocher and two of Stephen's brothers traveled to Saint
George to check his house and discovered that most of
his clothing and personal possessions were still there. He had
also left behind his laptop, cell phone charger, and passport,

(31:12):
and since there were recently purchased groceries at the residents
nothing suggested that Stephen had planned to take off voluntarily.
A search of Stephen's laptop and email account would not
turn up anything unusual or shed any light on why
he decided to travel to Henderson. However, it's worth noting
that since Stephen's residence did not have an Internet connection,
he often used computers at the Washington County Library in

(31:35):
order to go online. While their system required Stephen to
sign in using his library card, it did not keep
track of any websites that Stephen visited. Ralph and his
sons traveled to Henderson to pick up Stephen's car and
discovered that it was in good working order and add
half a tank of gas. Items left in the car
included Stephen's shaving kit, coats, pillows, a blanket, receipts, flyers

(31:59):
for the window washing business, copies of job applications, and
the Christmas gifts that Stephen had purchased from the kmart
near Saint George. Stephen's cell phone, wallet, and driver's license
were never found, and there would be no further activity
on his debit or credit cards. It turns out that
one of the residents in Sun City, Anthem had a
home security camera outside his home, and when investigators checked

(32:21):
the footage, they saw Stephen's Cavalier driving west through the
neighborhood down Savannah Springs Avenue in the direction of the
cul de Sac at eleven fifty four am on December
of the thirteenth. Six minutes later, a man could be
seen walking down the sidewalk past the camera in the
opposite direction. Even though the footage was shot from a distance,
it was not particularly clear the man was believed to

(32:43):
be Stephen, who was dressed in a white shirt and
white slacks and appeared to be carrying something which may
have been a file folder or portfolio. It's also worth
noting that before Stephen walked past the camera, a white
suv could be seen driving down the street and after
Stephen disappeared from the frame, the suv suddenly reappeared and
pulled up to the curb next to a house. However,

(33:06):
the driver of the suv turned out to be a
realtor who was ruled out as having any connection to
Stephen's case. It's also been reported that another security camera
mounted on a garage on the adjacent Evening Light Street
captured a reflection of Stephen in the windows of a
park minivan, and he could be seen crossing the street
and disappearing out of frame.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Well, I originally I was thinking, Okay, I wonder if
he was doing something like for his faith or something.
But he's not dressed correctly. Right, if you're in the
LDS and you're spreading your faith, you're in your white
shirt and your black pants with a tie in your
name tag. And so he's clearly not prophesying at this point, right,
He's not in the right attire. He's carrying a folder
or a portfolio. I'm wondering if he's hunting for a job.

(33:51):
Maybe he's out trying to I don't know, secure a position.
He's surely not doing his own work, because he wouldn't
be shit caaring flyers about the window washing company over
in this city. It has no relationship to where he lives. Oh,
I don't know. I just feel sick to my stomach
knowing that you see him park, you see him walk

(34:12):
with purpose. There's something that he's going to do, and
it seems more business related in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, yeah, I do think that the filefolder or portfolio
he was carrying is the key to the case, because
I think it was somehow connected to the reason he
traveled to Henderson, because whatever he was carrying was never found.
But of course what's frustrating is that there were no
calls on Stephen's cell phone to indicate that he had
an appointment in Henderson that day, And of course, because

(34:41):
he did all of his Internet activity in the library,
they were unable to turn up any correspondence or information
to shed any light on why he made the trip there.
So if he was going for some sort of job
interview or something related to employment, where's the paper trail
for it.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
No one could figure out why Steven would have traveled
to Henderson to begin with, and if he went there
seeking some sort of employment opportunity, there was no evidence
to indicate this. It was speculated that due to his
financial difficulties, Stephen may be desperate enough to perform a
legal activities such as trafficking drugs, but police performed a

(35:18):
thorough search of Stephen's car with the drug sniffing dog,
which did not turn up any hits and seemed to
rule out the possibility that drugs were ever in the vehicle.
When investigators checked Stephen's phone records, they did not provide
any additional insights into why he went to Henderson, as
everyone he spoke to during his incoming and outgoing calls

(35:39):
was accounted for. However, it turned out that at four
thirty six pm on December thirteenth, over four and a
half hours after Stephen parked his car in Sun City, Anthem,
his cell phone pinged off a tower at the intersection
of a Royal Grand Boulevard an American Pacific dry a
spot which was located over ten miles northeast. Just over

(36:02):
two hours later, it pinged off another tower two miles
north of that, near Whitney Ranch subdivision. Early that next morning,
there was another ping off a cell phone tower at
the interchange between Interstate five point fifteen and Russell Road,
which was an additional two miles from the previous ping,
Stephen's phone pinged off a tower near that same location

(36:24):
at six or four am, and most curiously, the phone
was then used to check Stephen's voicemail, though it's unclear
if Stephen himself did this as far as anyone could tell,
The phone remained in that vicinity for the next two
days before its signal was lost, likely because its battery
went dead. While an extensive search effort was performed of

(36:47):
the desert area surrounding Henderson, it turned up no trace
of Stephen. Since Stephen had promised his family that he
would return home to Bountiful on December twenty third in
order to spend Christmas with them, they held out hope
that he might show up that day, but he never did,
making it a very sad holiday season for them.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Absolutely, it's so sad. You think about this family who's like, no,
we talked to him, he has a plan, we know
that he's coming home. And then the reality is they
know him better than anybody else, and when they realize
there hasn't been communication, when they realize that they haven't
seen any kind of activity on his credit cards or

(37:30):
debit cards, then you know, something isn't right, and so
the idea that they're trying to be hopeful and they're saying,
you know, maybe at Christmas he would definitely come home
for Christmas. They're holding out that hope, but just imagine
when Christmas comes and he's not there. You know, I
was trying to think of what could be in that
file folder he's holding, and I was almost thinking like,

(37:52):
could he be in some kind of Ponzi scheme? Could
there be some kind of financial scheme he's trying to
get people in on. But remember this is during that
big market crash, and even incredibly wealthy people were feeling
completely gutted financially, where every account was just being drained completely,
where all the stocks had plummeted, where retirement accounts were

(38:15):
you know, just completely reversed. And so that's not possible.
And then you see that there were no drugs in
that car, that a dog had gone in and sniffed
for drugs, no hits on the vehicle. If he was
running some kind of drugs and he was actually one
of the individuals carrying the drugs, there's no way that

(38:36):
his car would have passed that. So does it mean
he couldn't be some other role in a drug scheme, No,
but it seems like someone who's a low level would
be running drugs not necessarily doing some kind of you know,
high end business things for them.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, we'll talk more about this angle involving the drugs
during our last episode. But during the early days like
that was the theory that was pushed forward. And even
though Steven's family city was a man of high character
who never would have done anything illegal no matter how
desperate he was, they also thought, well, he doesn't want
to reach out for help, so and he's way behind
in his rents, so could he as a last resort

(39:15):
relegated himself to delivering drugs? Could drugs have been inside
that folder or portfolio he was caring? But they just
never found any information at that time to support that.
The coaches would perform numerous searches through the Las Vegas
area and offered a ten thousand dollars reward for information,
which led to Stephen being found. One if Stevens's cousins

(39:36):
had a friend who worked for Anderson Dairy, and they
agreed to have Stephen's photo and personal information circulated on
their milk cartons in January of twenty ten, the coaches
responded to reports that a transient matching Steven's description had
been seen frequenting an Eye Hop restaurant on Boulder Highway
several times over the previous three weeks. The family spent

(39:58):
four nights hanging around the eye hooph hoping that this
man might stop by again, but he never did. The
coachers ultimately concluded that the man was probably not Stephen,
since he was described as being shorter than him and
displayed some unusual habits at the restaurant, such as wrapping
his seat in saran wrap before eating with plastic gloves on.
At one point, a private investigator working for the Kocher

(40:20):
family received an anonymous tip advising him to search the
desert area near Henderson Executive Airport, But even though an
organized search effort turned up an abandoned tent containing clothing
and trash and some bones, these bones actually belonged to
an animal and no trace of Stephen was found. When
the one year anniversary of Stephen's disappearance arrived, his family

(40:41):
made a vow to keep the lights on their Christmas
tree lit until Stephen returned home, and the lights remained
on until they burned out. In July of twenty eleven,
the investigation Discovery true crime series Disappeared agreed to produce
an episode about Stephen's case, and it featured interviews with
his parents rolfin but tragically, on February tenth, twenty eleven,

(41:04):
only three weeks after Roll filmed his interview, he suddenly
passed away at the age of sixty one. Prior to
his death, Rolf would suffer through a brief illness, and
he may have died as the result of toxic shock syndrome.
The Disappeared episode would air two months later on April eleventh,
and was dedicated to Rolf's memory.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
So when you look here and they think this idea
that it's it's possible that Stephen was this person at ihop,
it doesn't really seem like a very convincing kind of argument. Now,
could it be could he have wandered off and then
had some kind of mental break. Could he have had
some kind of psychosis get triggered, possibly, and then he

(41:47):
really is as transient. But remember there's no communication, there's
no movement on his cards, there's nothing that shows any
kind of access to a Stephen who's alive. And functioning.
I think even if you were you, you had a
break or you had some kind of delusions in your head.
If you're holding a cell phone or you have a

(42:07):
wallet in your back pocket and you need something, I
feel like you would still show some kind of movement
for at least a short period after you disappeared.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, I'm kind to believe that this person's scene in
the eye hoop was not Stephen and just happened to
match his description. I mean, if he had a mental breakdown,
that could explain why he's doing these unusual things that
he ordinarily wouldn't do, such as wrapping the seed in
saran wrap. But we see this all the time in
missing persons cases, where sightings pour in of someone who
looks like the victim and it turns out to be

(42:39):
a false lead.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Over the next decade, more search efforts were performed for Steven,
but they did not seem to bring the case any
closer to a resolution. However, on November twenty first, twenty
twenty two, the Las Vegas based media outlet eight news
Now produced a segment about Stephen's case containing some surprising
new information. The segment contained interviews with Kevin Wyatt, James Burke,

(43:07):
and Dannia Livingstone, who all worked for the Utah based
company Eyes On Private Investigations and had spent the past
few years interviewing new witnesses and combing through documents about
Stephen's disappearance at no cost to the coach or family,
and like we mentioned in the intro, the group produced
a long form podcast about the case in twenty twenty

(43:29):
one titled Eyes on Justice. During the eight News Now segment,
Kevin Wyatt stated, quote, there's not one shred of evidence
that suggests that Stephen did this to himself or that
Stephen walked away. We'll be going into more detail about
this in part two of our series, But long story short.
On the very same afternoon Stephen went missing, a resident

(43:52):
who lived on Evening Light Street in Sun City, Anthem
reported that they saw what appeared to be someone moving
out of the house across the street, and they seem
to be doing so rather quickly. Police soon went to
this house and knocked on the door, but there was
no answer, and when they looked in through the windows,
they did not see any furniture in there. It took

(44:13):
two months for investigators to finally track down and interview
the person who'd lived there, and while he appeared to
be nervous, he claimed that he did not know Stephen
and denied having any knowledge of what happened to him.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
Interesting, So the idea that they tracked this person down,
they're saying, look, yeah, he was nervous, but he doesn't
know Steven. Do you guys think that this is this
idea that I mean, do you guys really think that
this is somebody who is going to be connected to him?
I feel like they're stretching and they're looking for really
thin stories to kind of link to this case. It

(44:48):
doesn't seem again like one where I'd say that's it.
That seems like exactly what would have linked him to
this person.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
We're going to share more information about this guy on
future episodes, and when you learn more about his background,
the idea of him possibly being responsible for Stephen's disappearance
is not all that implausible. Well. According to the eight
News Now segment, shortly after Stephen parked his car in
the cul de Sac, he apparently spoke to a witness
at one of the houses on Savannah Springs Avenue and

(45:17):
may have realized he went to the wrong address. Before
he rounded the corner and headed down Evening Light Street.
The segment contained this cryptic quote about Stephen from Kevin Wyatt.
Quote he says, hey, guys, do you want some cash?
Something about money? I think he went to the home
he was supposed to go to and actually says, oh,
kind of funny. I told the guy and asked him

(45:38):
if he wanted some money. I think that's what resulted
in Stephen's disappearance. Was that error? End quote? So the
implication seems to be that due to his financial issues,
Stephen received an offer from someone to travel to Anderson
and make a delivery to an individual in Sun City, Anthem.
But because Stephen initially went to the wrong address, he
inadvertently wound up putting his life at risk, and this

(46:00):
led to his disappearance. The new segment also showcased some
photographs that the private investigators had obtained of room inside
the aforementioned house on Evening Light Street. These photos were
taken shortly after Stephen vanished and showed noticeable damage, including
several holes in the walls and doors, suggesting that a
violent struggle might have taken place there. However, it's worth

(46:22):
noting that the Henderson Police Department declined to be interviewed
for the segment, claiming that they had no updates to provide.
They have never named anyone as a suspect or person
of interest or publicly commented on this theory about Stephen
being a victim of foul play. The investigation continues to
remain at a standstill, and after nearly sixteen years, there's

(46:42):
still no conclusive answers about what actually happened to Stephen Kocher. So,
I guess you could say the path went chili, okay.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
The comment where he talks about cash and alludes to
financial situations and then the idea that there's that definitely
does raise the hair on my arms. So how would
he know that about Steven or how would he have
gotten into such a conversation where he felt like finances

(47:11):
were something he would talk about. If this is just
someone that's a passer.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
By, well, I think the implication seems to be that
the private investigator spoke to this residence who actually interacted
with Steven on the day he went missing. I don't
know if police neglected to interview this person during the
original investigation, but this person said that Steven showed up
at the door, made these remarks about cash, but then
seemed to realize that he was at the wrong address.

(47:36):
So the theory seems to be that Stephen had been
pushed into doing something illegal, but initially went to the
wrong address, and then when he went to the right address,
Stephen told this person that he had gone to the
wrong address beforehand. That person might have gotten really paranoid
and overreacted, and this ultimately caused Stephen's death. Yeah, so

(47:57):
it just could to be a thing where the key
to his disappearance is him I'm going missing because he
made a mistake and told the wrong person about it,
and this person overreacted in a huge way, and that
could be the reason they add all these signs of
violence inside that particular house. So I think that about
brings an end to Part one. During our next episode
will provide our analysis of all the information we have

(48:18):
shared thus far, and in part three we'll start discussing
the new information about this case which has been unearthed
in recent years. So join us next week as we
present part two of our three part series about the
disappearance of Steven Kocher.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
about the Trail Went Cold Patreon.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
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

(49:00):
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 UNSAWD Mysteries,
where you can download an audio file and then boot
up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in

(49:24):
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 (49:43):
So I want to let you know a little bit
about the jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
so they're not very mini, but they're just too short
to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
so we hope you'll check out those patreons.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Will link them in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
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 (50:21):
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Steven Koecher Pt. One